these are the days

The laughter, the chaos, the trails of toys. The crumbs, grubby faces and sticky, jam coated fingers. The endless laundry and the tiny baby clothes hanging out on the line.

The great days and the darker days with tear stained cheeks. The mistakes and the promise of a fresh start with every new morning.

The midnight feeds, the whispers and warm embraces soothing bad dreams away. The dimpled elbows and unruly ringlets. The blanket forts where dreams are shared and mighty adventures planned. Puddle jumping, rock pool hunting, well-worn books and fairy tales.

And the love, mostly the love. The fierce, unending, gut-wrenching love at the heart of it all. These are the days I will remember at eighty two. And smile at life so vivid and tumbling, joyous and whole.

escaping

I'm currently daydreaming of a little escape. As much as I love my babies, we all need some time out every now and then. Just me and him for a day or two. Some good food, lots of rest, getting lost in a book and maybe a spot of pampering. Not on the cards in the near future but hopefully we can at least manage a dinner out instead :)

Images from Toast catalogue 2010. 

two years

Two roses to mark two years of marriage. Plus a copy of Vogue and a Galaxy chocolate bar (English chocolate is like gold dust over this end of the world). Oh yes, he knows me well. We went out for dinner, just the two of us, which pretty much never happens these days. Big thanks to our good friends for babysitting and allowing us a few hours of remembering what it's like to go to a restaurant without lugging along a changing bag and massive bag of toys, not to mention a boisterous toddler and a small baby. It was wonderful.

one year

I can hardly believe it's come around so quickly but today is our first wedding anniversary. We made it...yeah! Only kidding, overall it's been an amazing year with lots of big changes for us, namely a move to the other side of the world, and a totally new job/career for me. Though there was one big sadness which occurred for us earlier in the year, we've made it out on the other side, hopefully stronger as a family than ever.

We celebrated our anniversary yesterday and treated ourselves to a delicious brunch. Lila was absolutely delighted when she was presented with her own wine glass to drink water from, she thought it was the most grown up thing in the world! We popped in to an awesome local craft market called Kraft Bomb and picked up some goodies- hair slides, and brooches for me, a gorgeous hand made skirt for Lila and some prints for the husband. We also indulged in some cakes from our favourite cafe and then when the little one was all tucked up in bed we spent the evening at home with a movie and a bottle of champagne. Thanks for everything dear husband, looking forward to many more happy years to come.

honey moon

We're off! Just a really quick post to say we are now officially husband and wife! Part two of our wedding- the main ceremony and celebration- was absolutely wonderful and amazing. It was such a magical day and I can't wait to post pictures and tell you all about it, but at the moment we are in Bangkok airport, just about to board our flight to the paradise island of Koh Samui. I'll be posting again next week when we get back to London. Thanks so much for all your lovely and kind comments and congratulations!

i will be here

For our civil ceremony tomorrow (eeek!)- aka wedding part 1 (see previous post for details), we are keeping it all very low key. I’m not having a processional song as such but Curt and I will walk into the room together to the song ‘First Day of My Life’ by Bright Eyes. We will sign the wedding register to the song ‘Forever’ by Ben Harper and when it is all over we’ll leave to the sounds of ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Louis Amstrong. We chose this because Lila loves it and does a little dance when she hears it :)

We are just having one reading, a poem which my sister will read for us. I thought I’d share it here because it’s really beautiful.

All images in this post are by the wonderfully talented sea shanties over on flickr.



I Will Be Here
By Steven Curtis Chapman

If in the morning when you wake,
If the sun does not appear,
I will be here.
If in the dark we lose sight of love,
Hold my hand and have no fear,
I will be here.

I will be here,
When you feel like being quiet,
When you need to speak your mind I will listen.
Through the winning, losing, and trying we'll be together,
And I will be here.
If in the morning when you wake,
If the future is unclear, I will be here.
As sure as seasons were made for change,
Our lifetimes were made for years,
I will be here.

I will be here,
And you can cry on my shoulder,
When the mirror tells us we're older.
I will hold you, to watch you grow in beauty,
And tell you all the things you are to me.
We'll be together and I will be here.
I will be true to the promises I've made,
To you and to the one who gave you to me.
I will be here.

wedding: part 1

As I have no doubt mentioned before, our upcoming wedding is taking place in the grounds of my parents farm, up in the north west of England- pictures above. As neither me nor Curt are regular church goers, it didn't really feel right to opt for a church wedding. Instead we wanted an informal, outdoor ceremony in a beautiful setting (though bearing in mind the English weather, the outdoor part is by no means guaranteed!)

The gardens of my parents farm offered the perfect setting- the grotto pictured below which is on one of the front lawns is where we will hold the ceremony with a marquee for the reception and as a back up venue for the ceremony if it rains. I think my mother has actually secretly been planning to hold the weddings of my sister and I there since we moved there when I was about 8 years old!



However the first stepping stone was the staid, somewhat outdated English law that only allows non-religious wedding ceremonies to be held in in 'licensed' premises or structures. My parents didn't really relish the idea of applying for a licence for our home/gardens so that all and sundry could get married there so we've got around this problem by deciding to get 'legally' married a week before the actual event.



On Saturday our parents and a few close friends will accompany us to our local register office in London (which by chance is a beautiful old country house set in gorgeous parkland- picture above) and there we will have a short civil ceremony and say the necessary words and sign the necessary papers that will mean we are legally husband and wife. We are doing it with the minimum fuss and ceremony as of course all that is being saved for our 'actual' wedding next weekend, when we will in front of all our loved ones, family and friends say our own vows, listen to our carefully chosen reading and songs and exchange our rings. And then eat some amazing food, get tearful at the speeches and dance the night away.

Although we will legally already be married at our 'actual' wedding, the bonus of this arrangement is that we have had a total free rein with planning and writing our ceremony and are not bound by anything as far as our choice or words, structure or music are concerned. Oh and we in effect get to have two weddings which is double the fun!

On a completely unrelated note, this is my lovely dog Skye (or as Curt calls him- 'Tripod'), who lives at my parents farm. Just found this picture in a folder of pictures of the farm and it made me smile. He got hit by a car a couple of years ago and had to have one of his legs amputated but he does so well on just three legs now and is the sweetest creature I have ever met.

soon my love

In 15 days, this super dooper man will be my husband :)

I'm so unbelievably excited about the future we have ahead of us with our beautiful little girl. I can't stop smiling about it. So many places to go, things to try, people to meet, milestones to reach, dreams to be shared and it's all just beginning.

venice

I thought I'd share some pictures we took on a trip to Venice last year. I've travelled to some exotic places but I can honestly say that Venice is definitely one of the most beautiful, magical places I've ever set foot in. It will always hold special memories for me now as this was where completely unexpectedly (well for me anyway!), Curt proposed. I may have been 5 months pregnant at the time, and we both knew that we'd be getting married somewhere along the line but in my head this was to be at some point in the distant mists of time post arrival of baby, so this was an amazing and wonderful surprise. He'd organised the whole trip for the very purpose of it, and I can't think of a more romantic, perfect setting for it. Top marks to him! Obviously I said yes :)

The picture above is my very favourite (we got a little carried away with all the picturesque beauty of the old buildings, narrow streets and winding canals and took over 300 photos in 3 days!) We were lucky enough to have warm sunshine and clear skies even though we went in February, and some of the best hours were those we spent just wandering along the canals with no particular destination. Stopping every now and then for one of these...



We did the prerequiste gondola ride, which though it stung our wallets in a big way, was a fun way to see the city.



These are a few of my other favourite pictures (but oh it was hard to chose!)









This was the proposal spot (below) It was at about 10pm on the way back to our hotel after a delicious meal in a quirky little restaurant where we sat outside alongside the Grand Canal and an Italian man played the piano. Oh and if anyone was wondering, no he didn't get down on one knee! (Which I'm glad about as I think it might have been too much for me if he did!)

me & him

Think how different it would be if you never met the one person who changed everything.