After almost seven years of Sunday mornings in our little white house overlooking the pond, this Sunday was our last one here. And I’m feeling…so many feelings about it!
Emotional that we’re about to say goodbye to the place that’s been our home for so many years, happy and excited about the move ahead of us, sad to say goodbye to the community of sweet neighbours we have all around us here, and so, SO ready to be living in our new home with a field of lovely sheep right next door and a bigger garden for the dogs and Ottie to play in and more space so we’re not all on top of each other!
The last few weeks have been crazy stressful for a myriad of reasons, and adding a move into the mix has just about sent me over the edge. But we’re so nearly there! I just have a to-do list as long as my arm to get through this week, then the packing is being done Thursday (it’s costing way less than I ever expected to have packing done, and is saving my sanity right now!!) and then on Friday we’re off!
We spent this last weekend in our first family home just enjoying some quality time, with a slow start (thank you Ottilie for sleeping in late!(ish) and then breakfast all together downstairs. Coconut porridge is my new favourite thing right now, and I can’t work out why it’s taken me more than two and a half decades of life to realise that adding desiccated coconut into your oats makes the best bowl of porridge imaginable! Topped with apple compote (made with apples scrumped by our eighty year old neighbour, thank you George!) and a dollop of peanut butter, it’s the perfect winter breakfast.
Ottie demolished her own porridge, and then some of mine, and THEN a slice of toast, because she’s completely ravenous at all times now ever since she started walking! Seeing her toddle around the house still completely blows my mind. Fellow parents, will I ever stop thinking my daughter is the most incredible being on the entire planet?! ;)
With breakfast over, and our whole family up, showered, and dressed, we rounded up the dogs and headed out for a walk. Oh, and check how grown up my baby looks in her new car seat! This is the last product we’re trialling from Graco’s range, and it’s a wonder product.
The Milestone carseat goes from newborn to age 12 (yep! 12 years of use from one single product!), and is completely adjustable to grow with your baby. The carseat has such an intuitive design, and the smooth mechanism of each lever makes so easy to alter things like the height of the straps and headrest and the recline of the seat, all of which ensure that your baby is held safely and securely as they travel.
Since Ottilie is now over 9kgs we’ve put her in the forward facing position, which she absolutely LOVES. I’ve honestly never known her so content in the car! And having her forward facing makes it so much easier for me to keep her happy on longer journeys if she does get grumpy…usually by passing back a handful of snacks to keep her busy!
These little flapjack bites were way more sugary than anything I usually allow her, but she did get a little nibble and I’m not sure she’ll ever be content with her sugar free baby oat bars ever again…
^ Doesn’t she look so snug and happy in there? We were so unhappy with the baby carseat we bought for Ottilie to have as a newborn (not a Graco one, might I add!) and so I’d already decided that we’d replace it for baby number two (not pregnant, might I ALSO add!!) but now we’ve got this one we won’t need to!
The seat reclines through a range of positions, and again is easy to adjust as your baby grows. We’ve got Ottie semi-reclined still, and it’s just far back enough that she can nap comfortable but upright enough that she can see what’s going on. ^
The light was so beautiful when we got up to the woods, golden and green-tinged as it shone through the trees. And bitterly cold too!! The weather’s snapped round here in the last couple of days, so much so that the pond outside the house was frozen in places early on Sunday morning.
But with a human hot water bottle strapped to my front keeping me toasty both with her cosy body heat and through the effort of hefting a 14 month old baby along on an hour long walk, I soon lost the chill in my fingers!
These photos of Ottilie and me might be some of my all time favourites of us. She was completely obsessed with the flip-top lid on my flask of tea, and wanted to open (‘opeeee opeee’!) it over and over again. It’s always the simple things that captivate a child, isn’t it?
This age she’s at right now is absolutely my favourite so far. Seeing her personality shine through more and more every day is just a complete joy, and her being able to communicate so well with us now makes life so much easier! She’s the cheekiest, noisiest little girl, and we just adore her. <3
This post was created as part of my ongoing partnership with Graco! Thank you for supporting the sponsored content that makes Cider with Rosie possible.
