Whoops! Very Late Reasons to be Cheerful

Hello friends, it is still Thursday, just about! I have to admit that I totally forget about #R2BC, es its May but it hadn't occurred to me this meant I was back on Reasons to be Cheerful watch!

Anyway better late than never. Thanks Kate for the nudge to get posting. Here are this weeks things that are making me cheery -

1.  A lovely evening walk with Miss E
The other night Miss E and I set out for a walk together, we ended up being out about an hour and took so many photos, it was so lovely to just amble along together and chat about nothing in particular. All whilst taking tons of photos.

Reasons to be Cheerful - Feeding Giraffes, Time with my Mum & Being over 40!

Happy Thursday friends.

Can you believe it is September already? This year seems to be whizzing by in a flash and I'd quite like it to slow down really! The weather also seems to have moved into Autumn and I am thinking of packing my summer clothes away.

My parents and Aunt have been to stay with us for nearly a week and it has been good to have them here. They've been babysitters for us so we could have a night away to Port Lympne Reserve and also visit the cinema to see The Shack. My kids really love their grandparents so it is always special for them all to spend time together. I love that JJ chose to spend the day with them when he had an extra inset day off school. Many near 14 year old's would just stay home instead!

Here are my hubby and I getting settled into our home for the night last Friday. Giraffe Lodge was an amazing experience and one we were so lucky to enjoy. I love how happy my husband looks in this photo.

Reasons to be Cheerful - A Wonderful Week

Hey friends, how are you?

Has it been sunny where you are? I've been loving it and even got myself a little burnt as the girls and I ended up doing a couple of hour walk as the bus didn't turn up last Thursday when their school was closed for polling.

 We stopped in the park on our long walk through Hastings and the girls had lots of fun.

A year in photos - week 20

It has been a lovely week as my parents have been here to stay and that has made us all super happy.

Last Sunday we headed out to a National Trust property, Batemans and enjoyed the fresh air as we walked around. I captured some nice pictures and I'll share them all in a Batemans post sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Monday was community day at my home. This is where we shut the conference centre to all guests and all 90 or so of us who live and work onsite came together for a full day to fun, food and fellowship. We had a blast! After school the children joined us and they had great fun playing games and decorating cupcakes!

It was lovely on the weekdays to be able to go out with just my Mum and Dad and enjoy some lunch and good conversation with them, we had a particularly nice visit to Bodiam Castle (yes I know, another National Trust property!)

On the morning of heading to Bodiam, my new macro filter kit arrived for my camera, so I was pleased to give this a try and for under £15 for 4 different filters I'm pretty pleased with my first try.

The end of the week was just about catching up and getting all sorts of bits and pieces done.

I hope you have had a fabulous week, Mich x

-----------------------------------------------------------------

If you like what you have read and want to stay up-to-date then subscribe by email for free and receive blog posts directly to your in-box - just click the link Subscribe to Mummy From The Heart... by Email or perhaps you like to keep all your blog reading in one place, if that is the case you can follow me on BlogLovin too!

Reasons to be Cheerful - The Family Edition (Week 16)

This week I am sharing just one reason to be cheerful but it is a pretty major one. I am sure I have mentioned many times before that I am completely blessed when it comes to family.

I have the most wonderful parents, I grew up in a secure and happy home with them and my younger brother. Of course there was the odd argument along the way, but they really were the exception rather than the rule. We lived a modest life in comparision to many of my friends, there were no holidays abroad or cars bought for us when we turned 17 but not ever did we want for anything. I recall being treated to new trendy clothes, having meals out and going on wonderful family holidays in the UK. I really was a happy and blessed child.

My Super Mum and Dad (June 2003)

Building Trust in your Family

Trust. It is quite a word, a big word, one with importance, not one that I use that easily I would say.  Ask me who or what I have complete trust in and I may be pushed to think of that many things:  my husband, my parents, my own abilities, some friends, some aspects of what my children do.  Maybe not about whether they will tell me fibs! I don't think they yet understand the significance of those lies for me to trust that they will not do it.

Trust has to be earned I feel, I would not automatically leave my children in the care of a new friend but I would with a friend that I have grown to know over a period of time and seen they are worthy of my trust.  So how strange it is it that I would leave my kids with a registered childminder, that is putting my trust in a system and believing they will have been vetted properly and have the right skill and attention to look after them.  I am pretty sure my gut/ intuition would have something to do with my willingness in that case as well. So many factors go into building a case for trust.

Reasons to be Cheerful 1,2,3 - Week 10. How grateful are you?

I am sat here watching the Comic Relief programme, Famous, Rich and in the Slums and being reminded of just how much I have to be grateful for.  We all do, even if you feel down in the dumps or that your life is tough right now you still have much to be grateful for.  I am not diminishing your problems, they are your reality but try and step outside them for a few moments is all I am saying.  It is a very powerful thing to be grateful for what you have!

For me, this week I am pleased to report that I have no problems, nothing is troubling me.  I am in a good place right now!

My reasons for being cheerful this week are -

1. Miss E being the best patient ever when she has had Chickenpox.  Some of her spots are enormous and look really sore but she is an angel, hardly complaining.  Back to school tomorrow now she is all crusty.
2. JJ has had an amazing couple of weeks at school.  His calling out in class has really improved and his teacher is so pleased with him.  JJ knows he has done well and I can see how proud of himself he is.  He is a delight to be around at the moment and we are going to enjoy a special Mummy and son trip to the cinema this Saturday early evening as a well done.
3. My abstinence. This is such a biggie for me.  You might have read my post about giving up compulsive overeating for Lent and I am pleased to report that at the moment God is holding me and helping me to refrain.
4. I am going to spend the weekend with my lovely Mum while Dad is at work.  I am so blessed to have wonderful parents who are enjoyable to spend time with.
5. I have a super evening out with my twin mummy friends last Friday and I am out with the school mums tomorrow night. Time with good friends makes such a difference

Well that was 5, rather than 3 and I could have gone on for ages.  As I said last week do not be constrained by 3 reasons, write as many or as few as you like.  Change the format for your posts if you fancy.  As long as you are happy/ cheerful/ grateful/ thankful then write your post and link up to spread a massive dose of positivity.







<center><a href="http://mdplife.blogspot.com/search/label/reasons%20to%20be%20cheerful"><img width="150" alt="Reasons to be Cheerful at Mummy From the Heart" src="http://i902.photobucket.com/albums/ac230/RebaMc/reasonstobecheerfulv2-1.jpg" height="150" /></a></center> 

There is the badge, if you want to add it to your post and don't forget to take the blog hop code from below the linky and paste this into your blog so that new readers can jump from blog...to blog... to blog and also promote your post and the link up by tweeting with the hashtag #Reasons2BCheerful

..and before you go, I must remember to point you over to Maxabella's I'm Grateful for... link up.  Join up your reasons post there and make some new Aussie friends.

Of course Jen's Blog gems is still open too. Link up every other Sunday and air your archives.

Wishing you a fabulous week, Mich x

The Gallery: My Beautiful Mummy

This weeks prompt has been my hardest yet. How can you do this to us Tara? Do you like to torture us? When you know that you have about 60-100 people that link up with you each week who all love photography and/ or photos as memorabilia and then you say 'oh just choose one and tell me why that is your favourite'.

Really, is that fair? Now if you said, choose 100 and share them with me we might be in business!

So I spent ages going through my albums and the 1000's of images on my external drive and I was just not getting anywhere. 'Ohh I love that one', 'ahh remember that dh?', 'look at my babies'. You get the picture. This was H.A.R.D.

So in the end I went for a walk around my house, which totally in contrast to Ann Maurice's (The House Doctors) advice is completely covered in personal photos and I decided that they must be my favourites as they were the ones I choose to display all the time and I do change some, so it was not as if they were just still there due to laziness (not in this house! lol).

This is the one I went for. It is not the best quality in the world and that is because this is a photo of a photo. It is not a photo I took, it was part of the professional ones taken for my wedding (yes I did buy the rights to reproduce them).

Meet my Mummy. This was taken on my wedding day in July 2002.

Have you seen me blog before about what a great family I have and how lucky I am, well this lady is at the heart of that. She is the one who devoted most of her life to bringing up my brother and I. I remember that I always had a wonderful relationship with my Mum, when I was young we played together, as I got older we shopped together, when my heart was broken I cried to her and here we are a few hours before my wonderful wedding sharing some fun together. She had stayed at my house that night before with my best friend and we had a chilled girlie night. She may now just have entered her sixties but her attitude is often more youthful than mine!

When I do not see my Mum for a couple of weeks I get withdrawal symptoms and she is the same. Who is my kids favourite person in the world? If we are lucky they might say dh or I but generally especially from JJ, Nanny H will be right up there at the top of the list.

What is it that makes this lady so special? Such a wonderful Mummy? Such an ace Nanny?

I do not know, I can not put my finger on it. She just has that special ingredient that makes you want to love her and spend time with her.

Songs and Stories Meme

Another meme (I love them - are you fed up with them yet?), this one is to try and identify a song which tells a story for me, one that takes me back in time to a certain place. I was tagged by Sandy at Baby Baby for this meme which originated from Fraught Mummy. Have I mentioned Sandy's blog before? It is one of the earlier ones that I found and it is excellent, I really like her style - very honest and fully inclusive.

This was not an easy meme for me, as I mentioned the other day I am not really an objects person. Much more so that I rely on my memories and songs always form a big part of those. So when faced with choosing just one song it has taken me days to think about this - literally!

I have literally taken another walk through my life the last few days thinking of all different songs. Here is a brief summary -

• Adam and the Ants, Stand and deliver - my first record purchase
• Wham, Bad Boys - in my friend Mandy's bedroom dreaming of meeting George Michael!
• Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls, age 14 hanging out with the girls who lived in West End! lol We thought that was so cool, a song about their village!
• Sister Sledge, We are Family - with all my best girl friends at Uni
• Bon Jovi, I will always love you - the first time my heart was seriously broken
• Otis Redding, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - 1994/5 - listening to this in the dark at night, cuddling my boyfriend (now dh) after a very long hard day working in a hotel
• Tina Turner, Simply the Best - my karaoke song. I adore singing!
• Will Smith, Men in Black - a fab Holiday to Spain with dh in the early days
• Eric Clapton, You look wonderful tonight - the first song at our wedding, sang to me by dh as we danced
• John Lennon, Beautiful Boy - for my baby JJ, born 2003
• and I can not think of a tune for my girls - I will have to ponder on that

So after lots of thinking the song I decided to choose is Cliff Richard's Living Doll. This is another song played at my wedding and danced to by my Dad and I. As a small kid we always had music on a Sunday night and we danced together and this is a song that symbolises my Dad and me. I have a wonderful relationship with my parents and I am very lucky to have them. I think it goes without saying that many women have a great relationship with their Mum and are close but I am lucky enough to also be really close to my Dad. As a child I was often referred to as Doll, Doll Doll, or Dolly and now my Miss M get called the same and as she has been told it was my childhood name she also calls me Doll Doll sometimes - very cute.

It's a New Year

Stating the obvious! Can you tell I did not know what to call this entry? lol

All is pretty well for us, I have enjoyed Christmas and New Year, there has been nothing massive going on but the company of my family, dh, kids, lots of sale shopping, some relaxing, playing with the kids etc has all added up to a happy Mich.

Dh was working last night, so I spent the evening with my Mum, Dad and Brother (32) and actually had an enjoyable and sober NYE. We watched some trashy best song of the noughties program and then Mammia Mia and I sang my heart out.

Today has featured more sale shopping and it has been a successful year, I have loads of new bits, most of which were bought by my parents. I am a lucky girl! I was thrilled to be buying things in a size 20 rather than 22 as well.

I think I have put some weight on over Xmas but I am not too worried. I had a couple of abstinent days over the holidays and on others I enjoyed some treats but I can not remember binging or completely over indulging on any day.

Today, so far I have been abstinent and I am very grateful for that. My Dad got a big tin of shortbread out of the cupboard this morning and they have been calling me ever since, I pray I can resist them tonight. I adore them but I really do not want to eat them as this abstinence is hard earned and means so much more than a 2 minute fix.

I go home tomorrow so I can avoid more of the foods that are not good for my recovery. I think I will get dh to help me clear out anything left at home that should not be there. I will do my usual trick and take it to work to fatten everyone else up!

Good Morning

Morning. Here I am blogging very early in the morning, which is unusual but quite nice. We are down at my Mum and Dad's at the moment and all the kids have decided to wake pretty early, but after a good nights sleep I can not really complain. The girls have decided that in the main afternoon naps are not for them anymore and thus have been going to bed earlier the last few nights - in fact asleep by 7pm, rather than the 8pm it had seemed to have stretched too without any effort from A or I. Of course the consequences of them being asleep by 7pm if that they are then pretty much awake by 6am.

Last night me and the girls slept in a double bed all together and it worked OK. I would of slept on the floor if I needed to but luckily I am good at sleeping on my side on the edge of the bed. As I said they slept right through and seemed happy to be close to their mummy. My original plan had been to have the girls top and tail in a single bed but that was definitely too much to expect of just 2 year olds.

The night before Miss E fell asleep in the single bed and Miss M fell asleep in the double bed, so I slept with M and she woke me numerous times! and poor little E also woke numerous times and cried out, this is really unlike her and it was only much later yesterday that I realised this is the first time E has ever slept on her own. I expect she awoke and did not hear any breathing from anyone else and wondered what was going on. I suppose it must be daunting to sleep in a room on your own if you have never done it. Having JJ I am used to one of my kids sleeping on their own and did not have second thought about it but for the girls it must be a big deal.

So now my brother is back living at home with my parents for a while, this is the future of our sleeping arrangements, me feeling bad as Mum and Dad have been kicked downstairs onto a blow up bed (although it does look very comfy). The girls and I all snuggled up together and JJ in his normal bed. It has worked far better than I thought it would. I was really looking forward to coming to see my parents but there was some anxiety about how the sleeping arrangements would work out and like everything I should of known just to trust the Lord and that it will all come good.

So no idea what the day has in store for us. May try and find a soft play somewhere so the kids can run some energy off as the weather looks pretty drab. Back to see dh tonight and JJ has his first Brigade parade tomorrow at our local church. Lets hope that is good.

I'm a lucky girl!

Well I have been missed! Had numerous people looking for me whilst I have been away at Mum and Dad's. I had no idea that so many people read this blog or that I was noticed on other Internet sites I regularly visit. It is nice to feel wanted.

My boys went camping with the cubs and scouts last Saturday, so me and the girls headed down to my parents and we just got back last night - it was 5 nights and 6 days of total pampering and it went so quick. Mostly I spent time with Mum as Dad was at work but we also got to see him each morning/ night and my brother on a few evenings. Although he quickly became aware of what it is like to have 2 small toddlers who want your attention when you have just got home form work! lol I do not think he is ready for kids yet!

I also got some jobs done whilst there, like haircuts, shopping, take backs, banking and car service and MOT. So I feel very up to date now, I unpacked last night and have done 3 washes already - the last is just drying now. Off to do the shopping in a moment and then hopefully the girls will come back for a nice long nap and I can do some ebay stuff. The boys are back at about 4pm and I am cooking us all a nice roast and then there will be a ton more muddy washing to do! it never stops...

I went to an ED meeting whilst I was away and it was good to see a different group and set up. I also did loads of resting, reading, praying, relaxing etc etc. I feel positive and in a good place at the moment, I will blog more about my eating and mind state when I get a chance, at the moment two young girls are bored with mummy being on the PC.

So thank you Mum and Dad, you really are the best parents a girl could have. I am very lucky, not only for all the love and help you gave me but also with the tons of shopping bags that came home with new clothes, jewellery, perfume and bedding. Also the money to buy my new beloved Radley messenger bag - mine is really past its sell by date.

Shopping calls, catch you all later. x