The Twelve Weeks of Christmas - Week One - Crofts Christmas Traditions

It's a bit longer than 12 weeks until Christmas but it's creeping up on us so quickly this year! With that in mind, you'll be getting a Christmas related post every Friday for the next 12 weeks!

It's really important to my husband and I that Phoebe grows up with loads of happy memories of her childhood. We both love Christmas and are incredibly excited about starting some proper family traditions with her this year. We already had a couple that we'd started when we got married which we still want to continue with but we're looking forward to adding to those this year.

Our current traditions...

A new bauble for the tree - we had a bauble given to us for our first Christmas as 'Mr & Mrs' and decided it'd be a nice idea to add a new one each year after. So, each year, usually around my birthday in September (kill two birds with one stone and all that!), we go down to London for the day and pick a new bauble (or four) from Liberty. I'm also toying with the idea of Phoebe picking one each year and then she has her own little collection for her own tree when she grows up.

Ralphie Tinsel, the Christmas Elf - Ralphie has a bit of a reputation for being naughty so he's going to have to rein it in a bit this year, he's got a serious job to do now Phoebe's here! I'm looking forward to having some fun with him and in the next few years we'll include baking Christmas biscuits, writing cards etc as part of his visit. 

Christmas Eve Box - we've had one of these for the last couple of years and made it very couple orientated. This year we're going to make it more about Phoebe and Father Christmas & Rudolph coming. I'm so excited! I'm going to do a separate post on this though as we've found some gorgeous bits to go into it for her.

Our new traditions...

Putting the tree up - I'm crazy for Christmas and the tree usually goes up as early as I can get away with. However, from now on, we're going to wait until Phoebe has gone to bed on 30th November and put it up so that it's "arrived" overnight and there when she wakes up on 1st December. I can't wait to see her little face when she sees all the sparkles and lights! We'll do this for as long as she believes in the magic of it all and then it will become something we all do together as a family.

Treats for Father Christmas & Rudolph - so we'd have probably looked a bit weird doing this before Phoebe arrived but this year I'm going all out, haha! She'll be eleven months old (yeah, I know, it upsets me) at Christmas so she'll have a bit of an idea of what's going on, there'll be reindeer food for her to scatter on the lawn, a carrot to leave out for Rudolph and a pint and a mince pie for Father Christmas...bet I draw the short straw and have to take a bite out the carrot rather than eat the mince pie!

Looking at the Christmas lights - there's a few houses near us that put up amazing displays of lights at Christmas so we thought we might wrap up warm when it starts to go dark and go for a walk to have a look at them all.
We'll continue to spend Christmas Day with the family but Christmas Eve is going to be just us and that's something we want to keep too. 

I am literally skip around the room excited for this year! K x

Where is this year going?

While I was pregnant I was constantly being told to enjoy every minute, time flies with a baby. They weren't lying! Phoebs turns 8 months old this month, some days I still look at her and can't believe she's actually here and ours to keep.

How/when did this happen?

I'm completely torn at the moment, desperately wanting her to stay little but so excited at how much she's changing, growing and learning every day. She's becoming such a little character with an amazing personality.

So, here we are, September! The start of my favourite seasons, Autumn & Winter. I'm even more excited about them this year as I get to spend them with my little family. I'm incredibly lucky to have been able to take the whole year maternity leave so there's plenty of time for fun at Halloween, Bonfire Night and the run up to Christmas. I won't lie, the planning & lists (I bloody love a list!) have already started.

I'm so looking forward to cold crisp walks in the Autumn sunshine, kicking leaves and collecting conkers (hell, I'm up for trying anything to keep those spiders away!) I can't wait to dress Phoebe up for her first Halloween and see her face at the fireworks, she loves pretty lights so I'm hoping she'll love them as much as her Daddy and I do. 

Looking forward to making some more of these this year

And then her first Christmas, there'll be a whole set of posts about our Christmas plans which I am ridiculously excited about. The husband and I are off to London in a couple of weeks for our annual tradition of a trip to Liberty for a new bauble for the tree.

Can't wait to see her little face when the tree goes up!

So, with Summer pretty much over, we're looking forward to the rest of the year and making lots more memories. K x

Where it all began...

So, the Phoebster & me. Obviously, the me is me. The Phoebster is our daughter, Phoebe, who arrived in January and completed our small but mostly perfect (everyone has their off days, right?) little family.

We waited a long time for her, four years in total, but even after all that waiting we were not prepared for the craziness of a newborn, haha! I won't lie, no matter how much you want this little person, the first few weeks are TOUGH. But you get through it with whatever works for you and yours. Seven and a bit months in and I think we're doing an ok job of it all, we even have elements of a routine to our days!

Life has changed considerably but we really wouldn't have it any other way.

As I said, we're seven and a bit months into this parenting malarky and Phoebe has her weekly routine where she happily goes off to nursery on a Friday and often spends an afternoon or day with her Grandma & Grandad. I've decided that I need to stop feeling guilty about her being with other people, it doesn't make me a bad Mummy, it makes Phoebe a better little person who loves to socialise and develop her own personality. I need to spend that time on my own finding me again.

I guess that sounds a bit dramatic but it's easy to get bogged down with nappies, washing, cleaning, tidying and making sure that small person has everything and forget about you. I'm ridiculously guilty of this, so it's time I sorted myself out, shifted that bit of baby weight and did a bit for me. Which is where I thought about a blog. I blogged our wedding and a bit about life while going through IVF but nothing regular, I'm hoping this will become my regular outlet for sharing ideas and stories.

Hope you enjoy reading. K x