There is no denying that 2017 has been good to me and to my family. From celebrating Darcie’s first birthday to falling pregnant with baby number two, there have been so many wonderful things to celebrate this year. I won’t deny that there have been tough times too, but I’m here today to focus on the good bits. The bits that made 2017 one of the best years of my life so far. Here are my highlights:
Darcie hitting her milestones
This has to be one of the biggest things for me this year. At the start of the year she was just trying to crawl and now she runs quicker than I thought possible and very rarely slows down to take a breath. She’s a million miles an hour at the moment, always on some sort of mission to trash the house or escape from wherever I’ve taken her to. She is talking so much now too, every day we get about five new words and this has definitely been one of my favourite parenting stages so far. Her little voice is so beautiful and her own unique way of pronouncing everything can make me cry with laughter. She knows she is funny too, she’ll go out of her way to make us laugh and has even perfected her fake laugh for the sole purpose of setting everyone else off. She can recognise all sorts of animals in books and loves showing off with her flashcards by naming all the fruits and random objects, that to be honest I don’t even know where she has learnt half of them from!
Mum friends
We all know Motherhood can be a lonely place and I certainly felt that to be true in 2016. However, 2017 has been the year of making mum friends. From seeing the same faces at different groups we go to, to finding my undeniable mummy soulmate; I don’t feel alone in this crazy ride anymore. I have people I can turn to when I need help, who are going through the same thing and who know exactly how I am feeling. It makes a huge difference to me as a stay at home mum to have this amazing support network around me of all different kinds of women who just happen to be mums. They give me perspective and keep me sane. Whether that be through a chance meeting with a familiar face in the supermarket, an in depth whatsapp rant, a play date, a mums night out or a conversation online, I’m thankful for them all.
Moving house
We moved house again this year. We now have a grassy garden so Darcie can play outside to her hearts content, I can send her out into the rain (she wants to go, I promise) in her little rain suit and watch over her from the comfort of the patio doors. We are also now in a position where we are saving a lot more for our own family home which hopefully isn’t too many years away. We’re likely to be here for a while and so we have set about making the house our home and making it the best place for us to raise our family.
Days out
We have had so many amazing days out this year. We went strawberry picking in the summer and pumpkin picking in the autumn, we’ve been on steam trains, to the beach and to the farm many, many times. We also got our annual passes for Paultons Park & Peppa Pig World early this year and we have certainly made the most of them. Our friends have got passes too and so we spent many a summers day traipsing round the park eating ice cream and even sometimes managing to ditch the prams and go on ‘the big rides’. I live for family days out; when the week has been tough nothing makes me happier than having a nice family day out and remembering how lucky I am to have the life that I do.
A relationship improved
Having a baby is tough and can put unimaginable strain on a relationship. I don’t think that anyone or anything can prepare you for that. I certainly was not prepared. Like most new parents we’ve had days when it’s been a success simply that we haven’t killed each other (that is an exaggeration, promise!) and days when the light at the end of the tunnel seemed pretty far away. I’d say that tiredness plays a big part in this, Darcie finally started sleeping through at about 16 months old which was only a few months ago but already things seem easier. We’re getting nights of unbroken sleep for the first time in well over a year and I know that I for one am feeling a great deal more human for it. We’ve come full circle now and our relationship is improving daily, I’m so excited for where 2018 will take us, as a team, together.
Becoming a work from home mum
This blog has grown dramatically this year. I would say I properly started putting effort into blogging in January 2017 and so I’m now one year in and the difference is phenomenal. I had a re brand in June that knocked me back initially (pretty sure that’s inevitable) but I’ve now come back stronger than ever and have begun to work with brands which I never would have thought possible at the beginning of the year. I’ve got a serious game plan for 2018 that I might save for another blogging related post, but I’m excited to see this little baby of mine develop even further. This year also saw the launch of my dream catcher shop Little Dreamers Nursery Decor, I’m loving working on all the custom orders and am hoping to carve out some time in 2018 to work on the shop some more and give it the attention that it deserves.
Baby number two!
Saving the undeniably most exciting thing till last. We’ve been talking about trying for baby number two for a while now (me, longer than Dan!) and so when those two little lines appeared in October, I was honestly the happiest girl alive. I’ve got plenty of posts all about my pregnancy so far on the way so I won’t go into all the details now but suffice it to say that we have had our first scan and everything is looking good. We’ve told all our family and friends and everyone is so happy and now we have finally shared it with the online world too. This pregnancy has been the perfect way to end the year and I’m going into 2018 surrounded with more love and happiness than I ever knew to be possible.
2017, you’ve been fantastic but I have a feeling that 2018 is going to be even better!