And just like that, one whole year has gone by. • Happy 1st birthday Milo 💙 • Excuse me while I have a little cry. •

I get to see one of my favourite gals tomorrow 💕. We’re going for breakfast and Milo’s coming along for the ride. • We’re going to London together next weekend because she’s planned a surprise day out for me as an early birthday treat - the cutie! Oh, and then she’s coming to my birthday afternoon tea and then we’re in London together two weeks later. At this rate we might as well live together. • Every year for the last 2 years, or is it 3, we’ve made Christmas wreaths together at a workshop and this year we’re going rogue and doing it ourselves. A trip round the woods and some cuttings from the trees in my garden and we should be good to go. • Here’s a picture of us from her wedding in June. You look alright I reckon @capturingthesedays 😘😛 I just need to work out how to photoshop that vein on my forehead!•

Triple copper profile strips. • If you watched Grand Designs the other week then... “bitch stole my look!”. • We searched high and low, as did our kitchen fitter, for pictures and inspiration on putting three strips around our island and we came up with fluff all... and then Grand Designs came on and it was like they’d been in our head! 🤯 • We have smaller drawers around the top and two bigger drawers underneath. 9 drawers each side - not that the other side of this is finished yet. Oh and we still need the kick boards putting on. • The copper strips came as a secondary idea when we told the kitchen fitter we didn’t want handles. We wanted a J groove to be able to pull them and he hit back at us with this idea. • I have to say it looks flipping cool! • The colour is @farrowandball Stiffkey Blue, not that you can tell in this picture because of the light and the filter (sorry, not sorry!) and the profile strips are copper. •

This picture sums us three up nicely. Toby’s on an absolute mad one, though he’s now minus another tooth. Ted’s imagining he’s some kind of superhero, in his own little world. And me? Well I look ragged, windswept and clearly so tired that my eyes are barely making an appearance but I’m still smiling. Except not through gritted teeth in this picture for a change! • These two, along with Milo, make everyday unpredictable. Some days they’re hard work, other days they’re tonnes of fun and make me belly laugh. • Ain’t that the reality though? Some days you’d give them away, other days they’re your best little mates and listen to everything you say. • Cuties. That’s all I have to say. •

I’ve been quiet on the ole gram really. Not that I’m always on here but, y’know, it’s been a particularly quiet time. • Toby’s been back at school, Ted started last week 😭 and I’ve been trying to break down the house work with a good success rate and that’s been helping a lot with my mental load. • The kitchen still isn’t finished, there’s a lot to still be done and all these extra days just keep getting added on to the time spent doing this extension. FYI he’s gone on holiday for ten days. • It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Especially when I look at us having people round for food and when we’re sat at the table as a family eating our tea; that’s what we did it for. That’s who we did it for. And no feeling can replace it. • I’m ready and raring to go from tomorrow. We’ve got a FULL ON week and I am excited for it and tired from it in the same breath. Y’know? • Anyway. Here’s a picture of our old dining table in our new dining area. Looking a little lost, and a lot cleaner than it does right now but it just proves to me that all of this HAS been worth it! • I’ve had a couple of people ask me to do a kitchen/extension tour. I really, really want to show it all off because we’ve been doing it for so long but equally it’s not -quite- finished but I promise that, maybe by Christmas, I’ll give you a look round 😂. But I just want to get things in and faff with it all first - know what I mean? •

Paw Patrol to the lookout. • It’s not quite Paw Patrol HQ but this lookout gives us better views than they’ll ever have, in my opinion. • I was feeling so demotivated this morning and didn’t think I’d get out of the house with the kids but I need to stop kidding myself that I don’t need time outside. I didn’t quite realise just how much a big dose of fresh air I needed until we got out. • I took the kids, their bikes and all the gear off to @sandringham1870 to get amongst the trees and try to walk off the funk I was in and it worked. • I’ve had such a lovely afternoon with my boys; I’d even go as far as saying they were an absolute joy. We left Sandringham, went to see Nanny and Pop, had to nip to Asda and then we headed to the “Golden Arches” because Toby requested it and they’d been really good. We came home, played in the garden, watched a bit of Hercules and I’ve just done bed time and had fun reading them a book. • They’ve all gone to bed knackered, and I’ll be going to sleep with a smile on my face. Is there anything better than this? •

I mean, at this point I’m not even sure I can call myself a blogger... who goes to an event at a place like @urbanjunglenorfolk and doesn’t get a picture of themselves in all the plants? Oh haaaay 🙋🏼‍♀️ that’d be me then. • You may have seen my stories where I think, for the first time in my life, I had a loss of confidence (if you like) and I got really nervous about going in as I didn’t know anybody else who was going! Luckily one lovely lady spoke to me and I realised we had messaged on Insta before - so thank you for saving me @gracey.gushes 💕 • This place is so gorgeous! Everything was so lovely; from the hedgerow cordial that @thetinytippleco served on arrival (I really need them to sell that!) to the workshop by @romeoandsucculent and all that @norfolkbloggers managed to put together in between. • I love a little Norfolk gathering really. 🌵🌿🌱•

This little dude got his first pair of cruising shoes just over a week ago. He hates them , obviously, and wants to pull them off at any opportunity but as he’s now walking around it seemed the right time to get some. • I’ve always tried to avoid crib shoes, shoes for show or anything like that as he’s either in a babygrow or it’s just unnecessary for him to wear shoes, and now all of a sudden he’s turned into this little boy. • Little chubby backs of the knees at no extra cost 😍 • Off to get the bigger boys’ school shoes tomorrow. This is making it a whole lot more real that’s Toby’s going to his last year at infants and Ted starts a week tomorrow. 😭 •

I’ve just realised the last update I did on the bathroom was after the tiles were put on! • After a lot of deliberation about whether to go with copper, chrome or stainless features in the bathroom I decided to stick with the black and white theme. • We’ve got a black shower which has both a riser rail and a rainfall head. I didn’t want a rainfall shower head on its own because when you want to clean the shower it’s a PITA if you need to hose things down. I don’t think you get enough power through them to wash your hair well either, especially if it’s as thick as mine. • I kept with white sanitaryware but then opted for a black tap just to set it off. The only thing you can’t see is the black towel rail which is behind the door. • I’m going to try and get a black toilet roll holder and really want to get some cool prints so if you know of any then tag them below 👇🏼 so I can have a look. •

As if I’ve got one going into Year 2 in just under two weeks and another one starting Reception in 2.5 weeks. • Where are my babies damn it?! I’ll admit I’m finding the back to school stresses already a bit, well, stressful. Trying to work out what uniform I’ve got and what I haven’t. What I can hand down and what I can’t (cause you can bet your bottom dollar I’m not forking out on brand new uniform if I don’t have to, especially when it comes home stained with marker pen in the first week - why they don’t use washable markers I’ll never know 😫) and trying to sort out school shoes. • Poor Milo will be like the Weasleys with hand me down robes at this rate 🙌🏻 and we all know there’s nowt wrong with a Weasley. • Anyway... we’ve only got a few days left of the summer holidays so we’re going to enjoy them; starting with Toby’s birthday party tomorrow ahead of his actual birthday on Friday. In denial that he’s going to be 6. •

[AD - tap gifted] • The sink and tap probably won’t be the most exciting update for some of you, but for us it is because it means we’re one step closer to having everything we need in one room. • We’ve been using a camping stove in the utility room, which is also where the sink is. We’ve been prepping all of our food on top of the chest freezer in the pantry, which is where the microwave is. We’ve been eating at a fold up table in the hallway, which also happens to be where the toaster, tea and coffee are. • Needless to say we’ve had a very fractured kitchen for the best part of 5 months so to finally have the ovens in, the fridge freezer moved over, the hob added to the island and now the sink and tap all in and within easy distance of each other has already made our lives a whole lot easier! • I am so missing a proper dining table (more on that in another post I’m sure), and I’m still missing having all of our utensils, cutlery and whatnot in various different cupboards and drawers. I’ll be SO happy when kitchen moving day happens and we can finally fill it all up. • This is our @abode_home 3-in-1 hot tap over this rock grey @blanco_uk sink which we got from @wayfairuk 😍 I’ve had a few questions about the tap from my stories so I’ll be answering those tonight and there will be a vlog and blog all about it and why we chose to have one. • Hopefully this will be more of a feature than a function as our dishwasher is finally plumbed in too 🙌🏻 though, to be fair, my new @procookuk induction pans will be getting the washing up treatment as I daren’t put them in the dishwasher! •

Solo parenting can suck sometimes. Especially on a weekend. And especially in the school holidays of 2019 and because the weather is so unpredictable - what’s even up with that? • My friend invited us out to a maize maze and fun day at the weekend and I’m so glad we went! • I’ve never done a maize maze and it was really good fun. The kids had a blast, so did I and there was so much for them to do despite it being a relatively small place. • They had everything from a tractor ride with water guns, scarecrow targets, a bouncy cushion surrounded by sand with deckchairs, a hay bale, zip wire, go karts, pig racing, some super slides, a bouncy castle, a small happy hands trail and den building. • If you’re in Cambridgeshire then definitely make some time to visit @skylark_events - we had so much fun! • Not an ad. We paid to go ourselves. •