Mrs Mama

We're there, we're married, the day was beautiful, weather gorgeous and C-bear was as good as gold. I have tons to write about, all the little things that made the day so special and and all that I don't ever want to forget. But here in the real world, I went straight back to work and am still catching up on sleep, laundry and boring things, so I'll post more when I get a chance. For now here's my favourite pic so far, taken by my brother.

Spring is in the shops

Although the weather is still pretty cold, the shops have got their new seasons in and I got a spur-of-the-moment top. I wanted something nice to wear the morning after the wedding. There's bound to be loads of photos, and I've lost most of the baby weight now, so I treated myself to a new top. Spring-time rocks, I can't wait for the sunshine to catch up with the retailers!

C-bear benefited as well, I've got him the cutest pair of denim dungarees and stripy top to wear the day after the wedding. But that boy is so hard to photograph at the moment that you'll have to put up with a photo of me instead. C's taken against the camera, actively turning away if he sees me get it out. So although we tried the dungas on this morning, the only photo I have is of his back! I'm hoping it's just a phase, and next Saturday there will be so many cameras pointing his way that at least one of them will get a good pic!

In seven days I'll be wearing white

This was taken last week when we visited our wedding venue to finalise the details. The snow's gone now, and fingers crossed it doesn't rain, but in a week's time I'll be there again, dressed in white and getting married!

One week to go and thoughts on the honeymoon

This time next week I will be a married Mama, wow, I'm so excited, we've been planning this for ages and now it's so close. I can't believe we get to spend a day together with friends and family simply celebrating our love and relationship. It's going to be so fun.

This week we've been finalising everything. Flowers - done, Outfits - done, Venue - done, Menu - done, Drinks - done, Music for the DJ - done, Hair Cut - done. Apart from the cake (I'm making the middle layer (Madagascan Vanilla) this Wednesday, Mum has already made the (traditional fruit recipe she used for her wedding) bottom and (yummy extra chocolaty chocolate) top layers) the only thing we haven't booked yet is the honeymoon! We have decided where we're going.....

Image taken from Wikipedia

Yes, we're going to Rome!

Daddy bear and I have booked a week off in April and whilst C-bear stays with his Nana and Grandad, we're going to take 3 or 4 nights in Rome. I am so very excited, I can't believe we're going. I studied literature at Uni and two of the modules 'Italy from Abroad' and 'Italy from Within' looked at novels set in Italy by foreign authors and Italian authors. They were my favourite modules to do and ever since I've always wanted to visit Italy. We've got our eye on an amazing 5 star hotel, but can't book it just yet. We've asked our guests to put money towards our honeymoon fund rather then give us gifts (we've been together for 11 years and don't need new linen, plates etc), so are waiting until after the wedding to book.

C-bear will also join in the fun, we'll use the rest of the money to take a family holiday, somewhere hot, later in the year.

Right now though, in the blissful week of knowing everything is done for the wedding, my thoughts are turning to the honeymoon and how we'll spend our time in Rome!

Blessed

I've just watched a particularly emotional episode of One Born Every Minute, this programme is amazing (read my post on the last series), but this week especially, it made me realise how lucky I am.

I have a partner who loves me, who loves me so much that in two weeks time we're getting married! There was a 17 year old girl, whose birth partner was her Mum because her real partner was in prison. Her whole story was so sad, she'd said she didn't want children until she was 28, she wanted to live first, but had fallen pregnant by accident and wanted to do the right thing and keep the baby.

My birth was straight forward, and lasted 4 hours from start to finish. The other Mum was having her second baby, everything was going fine until the baby's shoulders got stuck. There were some agonising minutes when the whole team of midwives worked to deliver the baby. All was fine in the end but as I watched, on the edge of tears, I felt so blessed to have had such an easy labour.

A Magical Weekend

I love snow, it brings out the kid in all of us and we had a great weekend. Saturday was my hen night, I won't go into too much detail, but it involved a lot of bubbly, karaoke and a 26 inch pizza! Although it was in Bloomsbury, and I live about 10 miles away, four of us had booked in overnight at a hotel. Bliss. We left the venue in the early hours to find snow falling (when we'd gone in there had been no snow at all) and walked, in heels, the 100 yards to the hotel. It made the wonderful night even more special (though some of the other hens had to leave early to avoid train nightmares) but a nice memory, to say be able to say 'do you remember when it snowed on my hen night.'

In the morning I wasn't woken at 5.45am by a little boy wanting to get up, instead we lay in until 8.45am  and went downstairs for a full English. I then said my goodbyes and hurried home to play with my boys in the snow. Trains were a no no, so I got the bus across central London and back home, it took an hour but I got some niceish pictures, though excuse the steamed up windows and odd angles!

Snowy phone box neat Tottenham Court Road

Snowy, grey Trafalgar Square

Coming home to my boy

When I got home C-bear was sooo excited about the snow, he kept on shouting "snow snow" and "snow man". Daddy bear had already taken him to the park and we'd just decided to stay in and watch a film when our friends called round to see if we wanted to go sledging. C-bear was way too excited to nap, so we spent the afternoon in Crystal Palace park. We sledged down little hills and built ourselves up to the bigger ones, C loved all the snowmen, there were tons in the park, including a snow bunny and then we made one for him. It was huge, at times I was slightly scared that it would fall on top of him in a horrific snow-related accident, but all went well and C didn't want to leave. Even now, with most of the snow men melted he still talks about snow. And as I sit and type it's begun to snow again tonight, so maybe C's wish will come true and he'll have another snowman to play with this weekend.

Making friends with a mini snowman

Amazing snow bunny!

Our snowman

In the warm with the Duplo

Est. 1999

T and I have been going out for 12 years (13 this October), we met in the first week of uni and haven't looked back! As a fun thing for the wedding I've been looking at old pics of us over the year. There's not many as it's usually one of us behind the camera, but isn't it fun to bring back memories??

2000 - last day of term, standing outside Eliot college with helium balloons from our summer ball
2002 - one of many many school disco nights
2001 - My 21st birthday at The Olive Grove, Canterbury
2002 - T's 21st birthday at Fast Buck Freddies, Canterbury
2004 - On our way to the V-festival
2004 - The one and only time I dyed my hair, out in London for a friend of a friend's birthday
2005 - Lovely walk in Hyde park after a night out at The Clapham Grand
2006 - My 26th birthday at The Loop club, London
2008 - My 28th birthday, T took me to Paris
2008 - Fantastic Xmas meal with friends in Battersea (then onto a great house party)
2009 - On a canal boat in Devizes
2010 - First family pic with our son

Can't belive it's February already!

My past few posts have been very wedding-centric and very boring if you're not interested in all things marital (I sure was until I started the planning!). My time at the moment is shared by 3 things, C-bear, Work and Wedding Planning.That's it.

With 3 weeks to go, I have no time for myself and the time I do (say when I wake up at 3am and can't get back to sleep) is spent thinking of everything I need to be doing for C-bear (wanting to spend as much time with him as possible and worrying about how he'll cope at the wedding) , Work (totally crazy busy at the moment for no real reason) and Wedding, Wedding, Wedding. The big stuff (venue, menu, guest list, dress) were pretty easy to do, it's all the little things that are taking their time (presents for key players, printables, taxi booking, veil (OMG how hard has it been to sort a veil without spending over £100!!!). I'm really looking forward to it, but am exhausted, so sorry if my blogs are wedding crazy, I don't blog a lot about work (apart from if you count book reviews) and we've not done anything exciting with C-bear recently because all our spare time has been taken up by the wedding! Normal blogging will commence in 4 weeks time. Promise.