The big Christmas clearout!

I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas!  We've thoroughly enjoyed our quiet Christmas at home, just what was needed after such a busy year and it was so much fun seeing the twins really getting excited this year.  Other than the general excitement, one of my favourite things about Christmas Day and that weird limbo time before New Year, is sorting stuff!  Even as a child, I remember the joy in finding homes for all my new things, sorting out old stuff, having a clear out and tidying everything away.  Yep, always a nerd me.  Lots of that stuff was stationery.  Always loved some good stationery.

I actually started the big clear out before Christmas as we are finally getting some bits of the house sorted after we inherited a little money recently.  I've already managed to get a lot of the spare room sorted and after trying to give stuff away with no success (and FAR too many time wasters stressing me out and making me grumpy), we've organised a furniture collection by a local charity shop.  It's so close to being finished but I need your help on that below, we're stuck on some replacement furniture choices!

Off The Wall Entertainment - Christmas disco review

We were thrilled when Gemma from Off The Wall Entertainment invited the twins to come along to her Christmas disco on Christmas Eve eve!

Support Local pop-up in Tunbridge Wells

On Sunday we went along to our first Support Local pop-up event in Tunbridge Wells.  The pop-up was located in the lovely One Warwick Park hotel near The Pantiles.  There were so many lovely independent businesses selling a really good variation of goods.  It was lots of fun shopping with so many local makers and sellers all in one place, we bought quite a few Christmas presents, including a couple of things for us/the house!  I love discovering new local businesses, we like to shop small and find different things to those you can find on the high street.

My favourite item we bought was a really unusual vase from Five Nordic Swans who sell various Nordic goods.  It's perfect for our newly re-decorated guest room, I can't wait to share photos of the room when it's finished!

Clockwise from top left: Five Nordic Swans,  The English Beagle, Peachy Pottery

Our Christmas Tree & other decorations 2017

Every year I've planned to post about our decorations and I don't think I've managed it once since having the twins!  I struggle to keep up with everything at this time of year and end up thinking I'll take the photos and write it ready for next year!  Happened once in 2015.  So I'm surprised at myself for getting this year's decorations photographed and on the blog before Christmas!

Uckfield's Late Night Shopping event

I'm trying to catch up on posts about events we managed to attend in December and Uckfield's Late Night Shopping evening is always a highlight.  I attended this year solo with the twins so only have phone photos to share but as usual we had a lot of fun and loved the local festive atmosphere.

 Local juggler with his fire throwing show in the High Street.

Simple Toddler Christmas Craft - Potato stamping Cards/Wrapping

I meant to order cards with the photos I took of the twins in their jumpers at Ashdown Forest but it's a bit late now.  (See a mock up of the designs below though, looks like it'll be e-cards this year again!)

As we needed some physical cards for teachers at pre-school and the childminder to give with our thank you/Merry Christmas gifts, I decided we should make some.  Rather than just random painting or anything too taxing given the sleep deprivation lately (it's sadly ongoing again as Kalyan now has a cough after everything else!), I thought potato stamping would be a good bet.  I halved a potato, carved out a simple Christmas Tree on each side (to avoid arguments) and put some green paint onto a paper plate.

My Christmas song playlist

Christmas tunes, one of the best things in the run up to Christmas (as long as they don't start too early!) is hearing all of my old favourite festive songs.  I'm sure everyone has a favourite and mine is good old Mariah - All I want for Christmas.  I love the beginning in particular, it's my guilty pleasure to sing along and belt it out in secret (singing is not one of my talents I can assure you)!

The second half - photo session with Laura Aziz.

Of course I had more than 22!  So many stunning photos, I can't thank you enough lovely Laura, you've captured the heart of us in such a beautiful, real way.  Snot bubbles and all, this is us!  xx

It's that time of year again!

We had our annual family photo session with the inimitable Laura Aziz a few weeks ago (a couple of weeks after the twins' birthday again) and this time we aimed for that glorious golden hour of light.  We engineered an early nap for the twins and woke them early to make our way to Sheffield Park, TOTALLY worth it!

As always, I am utterly thrilled with our photos.  I had a mentoring session with Laura last weekend (which you'll be hearing more about soon) and we discussed my reasons for wanting to go into business as Bexphoto and I have plans to adjust my website to more clearly express those reasons but one of those reasons is this feeling, when we receive our photos and I have Laura to thank for that.  As always, I've struggled massively to narrow down my favourites for a blog post.  And will have the same issue when it comes to printing, need more frames.  And more walls.

Yet again, she's captured our every day, just our walk around Sheffield Park and yet, it is magical.  The light, the expressions, she's not only recorded this moment in time for us but she's made beautiful art of our afternoon.  All of it, Priya's cheeky looks and self-conscious tongue-sticking-out pose, Kalyan's "map reading", the tears when they fall over, the giggles, the joy and most of all - our love.

For any concerned readers, this is not how Priya travelled, I sorted her out properly when I got in the car ;)

Cable & Cotton lights - Brighton store experience

If you love colour like I do, you must visit the Cable & Cotton shop in Brighton!  I already have a set of their lights in green and grey (our wedding colours) from 2011 but now they do LED ones and after seeing their window display for Brighton Pride, I knew we needed a new set for the twins' room in rainbow colours.  When Ma asked what she could get the twins for Christmas this year, I knew just the thing!