The Gallery: Green…

It’s amazing this time of year when all of a sudden the weather changes from Winter coat weather, to no coat weather, and this year it seemed to do that over night! My favourite thing though is when the leaves and blossoms start appearing on the trees again. The smells in the air always bring back memories of my childhood where I grew up in a tiny hamlet, and would just get up, go outside, and play out there until I was dragged in for meals or bed, every day!

It’s no surprise that my own children love being outside too, don’t all children? This picture was taken last week, when we met up with a group of friends who all have children the same age. There were 10 under 4s in total, and we chose this location to do our Easter egg hunt. Such a fun day! Pop over to this week’s Gallery to see more green pictures!

The Gallery: Mother Love

We’re like chalk and cheese, my Mum and I. We argue like cat and dog. Despite the fact she brought me up, the worlds we live in are very different. Were we not related, I wonder if our paths would ever cross, but she’s my Mum, and I love her. That can never change and I wouldn’t want it to either!

I love my Mum because:

1. She always fought to give me the best opportunities. At one point she was working three different jobs so that I would have options available to me when I left school.
2. She taught me how to be responsible with money. I’m the only one of my friends who isn’t paying off a loan for something. I never buy something unless I can afford to pay for it.
3. She always forgives me. Even for the time I tipped my entire dinner into her handbag so I didn’t have to eat peas, and the time I told the Vicar at the kids pet service not to bless our dog because he was ‘a randy little sod!’
4. She’s honest. Sometimes it hurts, but at least I know if she tells me I look good, I know I really do!
5. She’s still here putting up with me! Apparently I was a ‘teenager from hell!’ I can remember saying some really horrible, unforgivable things to my mum in the past, but she’s still here being my mum!

So here we are, two years before I became a Mum myself, and began the most rewarding journey there is!

The Gallery: Hair

I love hair! As a child, I always wanted one of these, although I never got one:

I’d spend hours each day, doing French plaits and making my Sindy dolls look like they’d ‘just stepped out of a salon!’ When my daughter was born, I was really looking forward to being able to do those girly things for real one day. If she ever wants one of these doll’s heads she can have one, as long as she promises to share it!

My daughter has amazing hair! People stop me in the street to ask where she inherited it from. They clearly look at my uninteresting mop and presume it must be her Daddy. If we’re all out together and they see him with his poker straight hair too, I sometimes get inquisitive looks, but we honestly don’t know where the curls have come from! At the moment she loves them, (apart from when I’m brushing it through – thank you to the inventor of the Tangle Teezer for making this part of my day slightly more bearable!) although she keeps asking if she can borrow my GHDs and whether she can have pink GHDs when she’s 5, and she did get upset at swimming the other week when someone called her ‘spaghetti-head!’ I’m sure as she gets older she’s going to go through phases of not liking them so I’m making the most of it while she does!

My son hasn’t inherited the curls, but I didn’t want him to be left out if I’m talking about hair so here we go:

Pop on over to Tara‘s blog at Sticky Fingers to see the other ‘Hair’ posts!

The Gallery: Actually Trees Are Kind of Cool!

I guess Tara Cain might be very jealous of me for living so close to the heart of the New Forest. However, given this information, I’m probably running the risk of being barred from taking part in the Gallery when I confess that I’ve never been that bothered about the trees. Sure they’ve been there, but I’ve never been wowed by them, so this week’s theme really got me thinking. If someone can have a passion so strong for trees, then I must be missing out on something here, right? So over the past few days I’ve been really trying to pay them a little more attention, and I’ve been trawling through my photos looking for ones with trees in. My husband’s recently started watching programmes like Planet Earth and Wonders of the World too, so all of these things combined have forced me to start thinking about the natural world around me. This has led me to realise that actually, trees are kind of cool! So here’s some reasons why I’ve just realised that I do in fact quite like trees:

1. Walking through this arch of trees on my Wedding day was really special:

2. ‘Chees’ (and ‘Wowers’) are 2 of my son’s favourite things to look at, and will stop an impending tantrum instantly if he happens to see one. Thankfully, we have this fab picture from Next in our lounge:

3. It can’t be coincidence that both of my children’s first recognisable pictures have featured trees:

4. I say that trees have never particularly wowed me, but I remember the first time I saw these trees, and I got very excited. Every time I see palm trees they make me feel happy and relaxed as they remind me of being on holiday:

5. Being someone who only has to say the word ‘sun’ in order to burn, they help protect me when it’s hot, but can also form an excellent hiding place!

6. Our favourite family days always take us somewhere, where if you look around, has more trees than humans.

In addition to the above, I can’t forget the fact that as a child who grew up in the country, climbing trees was pretty much the only thing you’d find me doing if I had any choice. I wish I had a couple of the photos my mum has of me in the most dangerous of positions, and also, the Bramley tree in my parent’s garden keeps them and me in apple crumble all through the winter, and has done for my entire 31 years. Shame they don’t have a custard tree though!

It’s got to be said, even since I started writing this post, I’m thinking of more and more reasons why I should be giving trees a bit more thought. You’re right, Tara, trees are pretty amazing, thanks for making me think about it!

The Gallery: Simple Pleasures

When I saw this week’s theme for the Gallery was ‘Simple Pleasures’ I started thinking about photos I could use. My children love spending our money, their birthday lists are getting longer by the day, but their happiest smiles don’t come with a  receipt, so I decided to add a few photos this week. These photos all brought smiles a result of something which cost nothing:

Building a sandcastle…

Burying Daddy in the sand…

Travelling like a giraffe…

Letting everyone else do the hard work…

Bundling Mummy on a big hill…

Playing at the park…

Nothing beats the sound of a child laughing, and I don’t think it can fail to make you feel more happy when you hear it, but the ultimate stereotype when it comes to children, big presents, and simple pleasures must be this…

The Gallery: I wish I knew what you were thinking…

When I saw that this week’s Gallery theme was expressions, there was only one photo that came to my mind, and I’ve no idea why. It doesn’t have any particular sentimentality attached to it, it’s old – this little baby starts school in September, and the vest that my daughter is wearing was one of those ‘you’ve managed to secrete so many bodily fluids today from every available orifice that this is the only one we have left’ tops.

I just wish I knew what was going on in her little head, probably not much, but this photo always makes me smile!

The Gallery (My 1st Ever One!): 24 hours

I’ve never done a post for the Gallery before, but have enjoyed looking at everyone else’s posts so thought it might be time for me to join in.

When I saw the theme was 24 hours, I wondered whether this meant that photos of me looking frazzled, the children undoing any attempt I make at housework seconds afterwards, or piles of washing up and laundry were acceptable as that’s my life as a Mummy on a day to day basis.

Being unsure of the rules though, I’ve decided to modify a post I did just before Christmas, which was about probably my favourite day we’ve had since I became a parent. Quite possibly because I was supposed to be at work and it was a bonus day off, but most likely because of the fact it was just full of fun. It was the day we got snow (yes I know, most of you had weeks of the stuff, but they don’t call it ‘sunny Bournemouth’ for nothing)! You can’t beat full on family fun. This was our day:

We woke up to this…

We had to cuddle up together to keep warm…

We had rubbish photos from dodging snowballs…

We sledged first the girls…

And then they boys…

And then together…

Then we built a snowman…

1. 

Took shelter…

And finally decided it was perfect weather to have a quick bounce before…

Bath and bed!

 

So in 24 hours, we froze, the house looked like a mud bath every 5 minutes, and I probably put on a stone in weight from excessive hot chocolate consumption, but I spent the time acting like a big kid, and my children had fresh air, family time and nonstop smiles and laughter, so who cares?! For 24 hours nothing else mattered!