Minnie and Mum

Today is Mother's Day. 

It's also the eve of Minnie's birthday. She will be seven. 

Everyday I miss my mum, we've been without her for nearly three years and although that seems like such a long time for me it must seem doubly so for the girls- for whom a year is still incredibly long and filled with endless change. 

But I refuse to dwell on the missing her. I will never stop missing her, my mama is part of who I am and that will never change. 

Instead I will take everything she taught me and showed me about parenting and loving your children and use it everyday. 

I will hug and kiss my children and tell them they are loved. I will try to let them spend as much time with all of those who also love them because they are all the richer for that love. I will try not to yell too often, to worry too much about mess and mud and things not being just so. I will try to show them their responsibilities- as part of this family, as part of the community and as how to be kind and generous like their granny. 

Mother's Day isn't a big deal here with some awesome handmade cards and breakfast in bed not a penny needed to be spent but there was love a plenty. 

So tomorrow we will have a house full of people and a house full of love because everyone wants to celebrate that my baby is one year older. And one year more wonderful, one year funnier, one year more huggable and we want wish her so many more. 

Happy Birthday Minnie, it's a joy to be your mama x

Love this girl

2015, the beginning...

Happy New Year (slightly belatedly).

How was it for you? I enjoyed it immensely. In itself that is odd, as I usually dislike New Year it feels very anti-climactic and there always feels like pressure to have a good time, ugh!

This year I was working until 2pm (a surprisingly fruitful shift in terms of work done, just had higher hopes of what I could achieve in the lull between Christmas and New Year).

We started out by picking the kids up and a trip to Nando's (Minnie declared "I've just been wishing to go to Nando's, its my favourite") but it meant no washing up- yay! I don't know what it is about that simple chicken and sides option that works so well but it does.

The girls were delighted to have it declared a "games night".

Zombie Dice was up first (though we call it Zombie Brains). Family rules mean that in our house you collect one sweet for each Brain you score... you can eat the brains at any time but you then don't count it to your score (and there are no other sweets available to eat during the game!!). My children have amazing self-control. That's why they probably win. Oh, and the fact I always push my luck.

Then it was meant to be a quick (hah!) game of Monopoly! Yeah... 4 hours later and it was getting pretty interesting.

We stopped for the bells. We were dancing and leaping around the living room listening to Jools Holland and co. And then our first selfie of the year.

Afterwards the girls called EVERYONE and screamed "Happy New Year" to them or their voicemail much to their own hilarity.

New Year's Day then held more games fun...

Finishing Monopoly (Lexie won!)

Junior Catan. Not so different from the full version but with the addition of the marketplace to make it easier (so you can choose not to play with a marketplace) and the fun of a pirate theme! Yaaaaar.

Bang! Basically a shootout in the Wild West. This time the Sheriff and his deputy took out the outlaws and then the renegade. All of which meant I lost :-(

Once the kids went to bed Chris and I played a couple more games- both Discworld based. I bought Chris the Witches game for Christmas so we had been desperate to play it! It's clear that I am a far better witch than either my husband or my brother, read into that what you will!

A couple of quick games of Ankh-Morpork rounded out the night. The joy of Ankh Morpork is trying to guess which role each of the other players are playing and accusing them of their underhanded deeds.

I think we've just found our family formula for a good New Year. How was yours?