2014

New Year Blog Post Round-Up 2014

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Last year I did a summary of posts and photos throughout the year and I thought I would do another to close this year 🙂

It means taking the first few lines of the first blog post for each month and a photo for the month:) So here is Lovely Little Life’s 2014!

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JANUARY

This year I am not making new year resolutions as such… I have found that ‘New Year Resolutions’ tend to have a kind of stigma of being unattainable or quickly forgotten about or otherwise broken long before the years end.

wristwarmers

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FEBRUARY

Well, we are pretty much one week into February (already?!) and thankfully I think we are all feeling much better for it in our neck of the woods.

emma on bridge

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MARCH

I can’t believe that it is the 1st of March already!

Happily, February did end on a good week for us and today was apparently the first day of Spring in the meteorological calendar. That is some very welcome news!

February end Collage

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APRIL

Wasn’t Tuesday just gorgeous in the south east? We popped into town for a few errands and found ourselves whiling away the hours on the seafront. Bliss.

throwing stones

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MAY

It has been one of those weeks where I feel like we haven’t really been doing much of anything and yet at the same time I’ve felt ridiculously busy.

piggy pie slice

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JUNE

A little while ago I came across a tutorial for a little dress with a crochet yoke on Mon Petit Violon. I finally got around to making a similar dress for Emma!

I used the original dress idea as inspiration but tweaked it here and there to suit and fit Emma.

summer dress holding flower

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JULY

Happy Monday! :)

I’m back again to link up with Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom. As I have managed to go a week without blogging again… One of these days I’ll get myself organised into a good routine of posting!

purple giraffe 2

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AUGUST

Happy moments… quite often involve hooky time for me and not as often as I would like include home making.

leaf-walk-large-leaf

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SEPTEMBER

Hello lovelies, I haven’t been around too much lately have I?

I just haven’t had quite as much time on my hands recently and as usual my poor blog is the first thing to slide (*ahem* if you don’t count certain aspects of housework!).

HMR-and-boats

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OCTOBER

We are so excited to announce that we are expecting a new little addition to our family! It is a huge blessing that has truly been prayed for and I am so thankful for this new little life.

PregnancyAnnouncement

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NOVEMBER

Goodness, where is this year disappearing off to?! A fortnight ago I shared our wonderful news and explained why hadn’t been around so much, but also declared I was getting back to normal and should be around a bit more….

wpid-img-20141108-wa0000.jpeg

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DECEMBER

So today is apparently the official first day of winter… and the start of Christmas judging by the number of fully decorated trees and houses in my social media feeds!

wpid-imag0632.jpg

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I have to say pulling this together was great fun, I don’t spend enough time going back to look at past blog posts and it is so lovely to remember and see all the wonderful memories we have made together over the last year. I was seriously considering whether I was going to keep this blog going next year but this little exercise has renewed some of my passion for it!

2015 is going to be an exciting year in our Lovely Little Life, some big adventures to embark on and of course the biggest adventure coming our way in April. I can’t wait!

Happy New Year lovely readers! Wishing you all the best things for coming year!

Naomi x2

A rough start….

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Ok. I’ll be honest I haven’t enjoyed the start of 2014 all that much.

I know it has only been 12 days but seriously, they’ve pretty much sucked in some way or another.

Actually to be fair days 1, 2 & 3 were not so bad and on the 4th we had a lovely family meal to go to with all my cousins and my uncle who lives in Australia but has been visiting the last 2 weeks.

That said on the 4th, Emma caught a little cold, I could feel that I had one on its way… oh and I was in a car crash, with just myself and Emma in the car (a bit a fear I’ve had ever since having her.)

Thankfully, it really was a minor accident and no one was in any way harmed but the shock and adrenalin rush that followed was less than pleasant. Happily, Emma seems to have been oblivious to the whole thing!

Over the next few days Emma’s little cold turned into what I can only term the COLD OF DEATH. Not to be over dramatic or anything…..

But seriously on Tuesday I was feeling pretty rubbish and we took Emma to the doctors because I have never heard a cough so terrible in my life. The doctor did say it’s just a cold/flu/seasonal virus that just has to run it’s course but there’s basically nothing I can do to comfort her. It’s awful, last night nearly a week on I still had to go and calm her out a coughing attack that was pushing 40 minutes at 2am.

I also now have the same cold of death and it is truly the worst cold I think I’ve ever had. I can barely hold a conversation for collapsing into coughs, I have lost all sense of taste and therefore my appetite, I don’t think anyone is getting any sleep for all the coughing going on, and my nose…… Oh. My. Word. I will spare you the details but it is NOT pleasant.

I have even lost the will to crochet. CROCHET! It’s serious people.

I had started the Crochet Mood Blanket 2014 which I was going to share with you last week but I have so little energy and motivation. I am now 4 days behind I think.

On top of that my darling husband who has been fantastic at looking after us sickies, reset his counter to 0, as we say. Vince has epilepsy and he has been on such a good long stretch seizure free. On Thursday evening he had a seizure, on Friday morning he had another seizure. In the nearly 6 years we have been together he has never had seizures in such quick succession, our doctor seems to think we have our cold of death virus to thank for this aswell. Which means any day now Vince will be as sick as us and until this thing has run it’s course we are in a heightened state of epilepsy watch. Which perhaps wouldn’t be quite so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that we have no warning and no idea when a seizure is about to happen. (Read: On edge all the time.)

Of course, while all this happens day to day life still struggles on, meaning Vince must of course work while I have sick toddler with the ‘terrible twos’, and brings all of its daily challenges that suddenly feel so much bigger when there is illness in the mix.

I know that really we are incredibly blessed to lead our lives in the way that we do and that plenty of people are far worse off than us. But for me personally, I can’t tell you how stressful we have found the beginning of 2014. So now I am just willing January to an end so I can start fresh in February.

Anyway, thats pretty much why I haven’t been around here much.

I hope your start to the year has been far better than ours!

Naomi x2

14 Goals for 2014

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This year I am not making new year resolutions as such… I have found that ‘New Year Resolutions’ tend to have a kind of stigma of being unattainable or quickly forgotten about or otherwise broken long before the years end. Perhaps it is just me that feels this way but I think that perhaps this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts.

So, no ‘resolutions’ for me this year. I do however have 14 goals for the coming year that I would like to achieve. Some are personal, others for my family or financial, and while some are short term to be achieved within weeks others are much longer and will take the year.

Personal

  • Spend less wasted/unproductive time on computers/phones/social media.
  • Spend time reading my Bible daily.
  • Make more time for general reading.
  • Write a blog post at least 2-3 times a week.

Family

  • No more late starts, everyone up no later than 8am. (Hubby works late shifts so as a family we tend to run on late nights & late mornings)
  • Consistently eat breakfast and dinner at the table as a family.
  • Eat more healthily (Particularly fruits & veggies, Emma I’m looking at you!)

Financial

  • Open two bank accounts for Emma, a junior ISA and savings account.
  • Take out life insurance policies for Vince and myself.
  • Start this years annual online savings, one for summer, one for December 2014.
  • Open a long term savings account for a rainy day fund.

Creative

  • Complete the Crochet Mood Blanket 2014 (more on this soon!)
  • Where possible make clothes for Emma and myself instead of buying new.
  • Find a direction and give more time and energy to selling my makes.

I think there are a few other little goals in my mind for the coming year really, but these are the prioritised 14. Blessedly, things such as spending quality time with my husband and daughter are things that I am already able to do daily, for which I am incredibly thankful.

I hope your new year is getting off to a happy and positive start. Do you have any goals or resolutions for 2014? I’d love to hear them 🙂

Naomi x2