Emma's Wedding

Also realised I never added any pictures of you being an adorable flower girl for Auntie Emma's wedding!




















With love and light xo

Dear Alice - 15/16 Months

Dear Alice,

I'm sorry I missed out your 15 month update - butttt, better late than never right?

You are now 15 months old - and an awful lot has changed round here! We've had a very busy few months and have barely had time to breathe, let alone write on this blog.



You are now walking like a champ! You started about 6 weeks ago with a few tentative steps, and from that you have launched straight into running round like a complete maniac. It took you a few weeks to find your footing (literally), but you now don't crawl at all and love to chase the cat round. Poor kitty.

Speaking of kitty, you are now talking - but only saying 4 words! We have... kitty, daddy, shoes, and nose. Obviously the important things in life ;). I'm still waiting for mummy, which we say occasionally but I think mostly by accident!


We also got married!! You were a flower girl at our wedding on the 16th June, and you were absolutely perfect. You danced and cuddled and were just lovely. Your cousin Amelia was also a flower girl and you both looked perfect. I'm so glad that we all now have the same surname and I very much love our little family.

You have also had 2 holidays in the last month - lucky duck! We took you to Center Parcs for our honeymoon and you loved the ducks, bunnies and squirrels. We took you swimming every day and we all had an amazing time. You also had your first overnight stays with grandparents which was very strange for us, but you were an absolute angel!


For the other holiday we went with your nanny, granddad, and aunty Dayna to Devon for a week. We had such an amazing time as a big family!! You went to The Big Sheep which was brilliant, and you got to stroke lambs, feed the sheep, and bet on sheep racing! We also went to Exmoor Zoo and your favourite animals were the lemurs, the meerkats, or anything remotely "kitty" related! We went swimming loads and you're really getting the hang of your arm bands. You loved having time to spend with everyone and all the attention you received!

In Devon you also developed a new love of parks - slides and swings especially. This made everyone exercise by chasing you round the dangerous park of death! But the smile on your face when you come down a slide is absolutely worth it.

You're developing so much every day - you now do the signs to songs with no prompting, and try and get dressed yourself / put your shoes on every morning. You recognise more words than you can say, as you sometimes (when you want to!) fetch the item I've asked for.


You will also play happily with people or on your own sometimes, however we have also now developed the infamous toddler tantrum. I have no idea where it came from, but we now have arched back and screaming if I ever dare to try and make you do something you don't want.

This can be anything from "stop playing with the screwdriver" to "don't walk that way". It's a cross between frustrating, annoying, embarassing, and funny. I am not looking forward to this getting worse!


But, you are one amazing little girl. You are so lovely and I love spending time with you. I can't wait to watch you grow some more.

Love you more than anything in the world.

With love and light xo

Wedding - 16 Days

So yeah, I might have forgotten to update in nearlly a month again. And completely missed out Alice’s 13 month update. I'm sure I'll get round to that at some point. Well I’m now and that’s what matters right?

In truth we’ve been really busy with what seems like a million and one things, including the fact I’m getting married in 16 days! How crazy is that? I feel completely under prepared but I’m just trying not to worry about anything – as long as we get married everything will be ok. Someone tell me this is true?!

I'm also trying not to be a complete "bridezilla". I'd never even heard the phrase before, and to be fair, it seems a little sexist. It seems to me that the groom is expected to do sweet FA while the bride frets over what colour ribbon for the bouquets, and where Aunt Gwen is going to sit. Yes I'm worried about stuff, and yes I'm nervous that everything is going to go wrong, and  yes I'm probably going to snap at someone before the end of it! But does that make me a horrible person? Or just someone planning a party with no prior knowledge of anything!

I haven’t really spoken a lot about the wedding on here, partly because it’s not that interesting to most people I’m sure. But partly out of embarrassment – what if I write about how amazing it’s going to be and then it’s rubbish? Or no-one comes? Or all my origami birds get squished? (Seriously – I wake up at 3am thinking about origami and AA batteries. Loser.)

I think part of my issue is the fact I’ve spent too much time on amazing wedding websites (apracticalwedding.com, rocknrollbride.com, offbeatbride.com) and I'm constantly comparing myself to them. I'm not indie enough, or handmade enough, or geeky enough, or beautiful enough. But then I can't compare our day to the traditional wedding websites or magazines, because I'm not traditional enough, or formal enough, or what it really comes down to - rich enough!

Our day is completely different to how I imagined it, partly because I never realised just how expensive weddings were, and are expected to be. At the beginning of planning I sat down and contacted about 30 places I wouldn't have minded getting married. And as the replies started to seep in, I remember being completely and utterly overwhelmed and shocked at the expense of it all. I kissed goodbye to my dream of a forest, or a lake, or any of the images I had in my head! I'd pictured beautiful trees and great food, with an elegant (albeit slightly LoTR) twist! But where had I got these images from?
The media portrays weddings as being a huge affair, but we just don't have the funds for this. The AVERAGE cost for a wedding in the UK is approximately £20,000 - and that is really just the average. We have gone absolutely nowhere near this cost, and still I find myself stressing about the finances behind weddings.

Plus it doesn't help that I have literally NEVER been to a wedding so I haven't got a clue about anything! 
But, we've prioritised things that are important for us. I would rather have more people there, and a simpler (cheaper!) wedding, as I can't imagine having to narrow down just who "deserved" to be there. I would rather have a simple wedding, and not be in debt, and still be able to provide lots of things for Alice. I would rather be able to move house (a story for another post!), than have a massive wedding.

And that's what I have to keep reminding myself. This was our choice. That doesn't mean I haven't had a bit of a sob about the lack of ponies dressed as unicorns and 11 year olds playing the harp while doing the trapeze, but our wedding will still be amazing. I hope.

Anyway, as long as I look awesome - what else really matters?!

With love and light xo

7 Weeks

Yesterday I took little owl to be weighed with the health visitor - the first time since she was 3 weeks old. Last time she was 8lb 7oz, and yesterday she was 10lb 10oz! That means she's spot on with her weight gain, and is still right in the middle, on the 50th percentile.

She was also measured, and is on the 95th percentile for her length - meaning she is a suuuuper long baby! We knew this anyway, but I was quite surprised at just how long she was. She fits really well in all her tops and trousers, but has nearly outgrown her 0 - 3 month sleepsuits because of her length. Luckily eBay has provided a few little bargains! And she has lots of lovely 3 - 6 month clothes from presents.

Today she's been a little fussy because of the heat - lots of tears and food, but she seems to have calmed down with the cool of this evening *fingers crossed*. Even throughout the tantrums I still catch myself thinking how beautiful she looks! But obviously I'm bound to think that.

We're also still having a few smiles - not many but a few sneaky ones throughout the day. Especially in the morning when daddy is getting ready for work! They really do make everything worthwhile.

I've been asked to make sure I keep blogging a little bit about wedding stuff, so here's a bit of an update! I haven't done anything yet - I've sent lots of emails out but still no closer to any decisions.

We're looking for a really simple, unfussy, relaxed wedding. I'm not big on formality and neither is Mitchell, so we want a simple ceremony, followed by a reception where everyone can have a lovely time and a dance! Our priorities for a venue are somewhere we can do our own catering, somewhere with a little bit of outside space hopefully, and somewhere low cost.

We toyed around with the idea of hiring a barn but haven't been able to find one we can hire yet, so if anyone has any ideas feel free to get in touch! I'm completely open to suggestions at the moment.

With love and light xo

Good news :)

A little announcement that Alice helped me make :)

With love and light xo