The end of 2015
I cannot believe that we are already at the end of the year. The time has gone by so fast and this year so much has happened, and yet it feels like hardly anything has happened as well!
We started this year with me returning to work in January after 6 months of maternity leave. I won’t pretend that it has been an easy transition and sometimes I feel like my life is one giant juggling act. I feel like I never quite give my best to either my work or my family life and everything is a bit of a compromise. I guess that is pretty normal for a working Mum to feel though!
February saw The Little Miss’ christening and the arrival of a couple of glorious Fairy Godfathers.
So much of the year has been spent enjoying The Little Mister who has, in the last year started pre-school which he absolutely adores, learned to scoot at great speed and has generally developed into a hilarious, spirited little creature who has the most spectacular strops every now and then. We love him so much and his naughtiness is more-or-less balanced out by awesomeness.
The Little Miss has gone from being a little baby to a toddler. The change in 12 months is extraordinary and she is now running and starting to talk and is also developing a fairly clear opinion of what she wants. One of the biggest pleasures in life is seeing just how much the two children love each other. The Little Mister is so proud of his sister and often announces to complete strangers when we are out and about that ‘This is my sister.’
In April we went on a family holiday with my Dad and my sister and her family. We went to Cyprus and had a fantastic time although we would have liked it a little warmer. In August we went on holiday with our friends Tom and Anne and their three boys. We stayed in a fab farmhouse in Brittany and had an amazing time relaxing, reading, drinking wine and laughing. One of the downsides of living on this little rock is not seeing friends so often.
Of course throughout the year we continued to think of Mum. So many times I wish she had been here to share an experience, especially in seeing the children growing up. We continue to grow together as a family, learning how to live life without Mum. We continue to talk of her to the children recounting things she did, what she was like and how fun she was. The children will know her through our words and stories of her.
This year my Dad and my sister went out to Burkina Faso to open the school that we’d had built in memory of her through Compassion UK. It was so wonderful to see the photos of Dad with his sponsor child Amelie and to know that we have made a difference to over three hundred children at this time and many more to come in the future.
As always the amazing Mister has continued to work hard for our family and he is an awesome husband and father. I think life would be so much harder without him. I am grateful for his calmness and kindness, even when I am being a melodramatic nightmare.
- So, what else has happened?
- My brother-in-law ran on a treadmill for 48 hours.
- I went on a choir trip to Biberach.
- The Mister took up fencing (the sport not the DIY activity)
- The inlaws came to visit several times.
- Two kittens, Betty & Eric came to live with us.
- I hit the big 40!
It has been a good year Things have changed and moved on. Babies have grown into toddlers and toddlers into little boys.
We march onwards into 2016 and who knows what that might hold for us. Happy New Year x