Halloween and Bonfire Night 2016

Every year the kids put their request in for carving the pumpkin – it is Daddy’s specialty. Over the years we’ve had everything from Mickey Mouse, to black cats. This year was Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas!   We had my best friends daughters first birthday party on the Sunday, the day before Halloween – she is a Halloween baby, so the kids got to dress up two days in a row. It was a bit of a nightmare to get them all looking for a photo and this was the best I could get haha!    …

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A weekend walk in the Wiltshire Countryside #chasingnature

One of my favourite parts of being a dog owner is that it makes us get out of the house. When the kids are tired from a week at school and preschool, it would be very easy to sit around the house on a Sunday. Our Saturdays each week are taken up with Ell playing football, so Sunday is our only day for proper family time. Tying this in with walking Harley, and getting some fresh air, and letting the kids explore the outdoors means its a triple whammy. If you know me in ‘real life’ you’ll know I am…

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An Autumn Walk at Westonbirt Arboretum #chasingnature

We are so very lucky to live 10 minutes away from Westonbirt, The National Arboretum. Having a springer spaniel that loves to walk, and three kids that love to wander, ‘the trees’ (as it is known in our house) is the perfect place for them to do just that. We are members of The Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum, which we pay a yearly fee for, and with our joint membership, the kids get to enter for free. We get very good value for money from our pass, which we use several times a month. There is a cafe, shop and…

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The Me and Mine Project – October 2016

This is our first time linking up with The Me & Mine Project. I’ve been reading the lovely Katie at Mummy Daddy Me‘s blog for a long time, and her Me and Mine posts, and always thought what a lovely idea it was to get a family photo once a month. As a family of five, photos with all of us in are rare. Either someone is asleep, or having a tantrum, or at work. Also when taking a photo of all of us, the key element is having someone to take the photo. Because I’ve decided to start blogging…

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Back to School 2016

This year both Izzie and Ollie started back to school and preschool on the same day – Monday 5th September 2016.       . Ollie was starting his new preschool. His previous one shut at the end of the summer, and we were devastated – both Izzie and Ollie loved it there, I had been on the committee for three years and it was so unfair it had to close – unfortunately, like many rural preschools, it had been running at a loss for a while and there was no way of saving it. It has been very much a…

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The Siblings Project – October 2016

This months photos were taken after a very stressful ‘session’ of trying to take some autumnal shots. We had been to our local arboretum, Westonbirt, and from the moment we arrived, the only child in a compliant mood was the littlest one. It was also a fail, as although it is October, at this point, there were hardly any leaves down – I think this year has been so much milder in September than last year. I think I took over 100 photos that morning and very few were useable.   Ollie is going through a stage at the moment…

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