A Matter of Choice

One of the first things asked of new parents seems to always be 'Who does he/ she look like?' I always hated this question as I'm usually unable to see any likenesses in people. It's often been said that I look like my Mum, and try as I might I just don't see it myself.  Many of Aaron's family have said that that Leo looks like Aaron, and occasionally I've been told (mainly by my Mum) that he looks like me. Again, I've never really thought he looks like either of us, so I had a look through some photos, and this is what I found...

As you probably know by now, I love a good night out and most exciting are the 'posh' ones!  I'm lucky in the fact that Aaron also loves a 'Black tie' event, and constantly despairs of those not doing properly. We love an excuse to dress up and we don't care who else is... New Years' Eve in our local pub Aaron wore his tuxedo and I a cocktail dress even though most other people were in jeans! Aaron is one of the few people I know who owns his own tuxedo and he loves to have a reason to wear it so as this weekend saw the first Daxi Magazine Business Awards ceremony, and some of our friends nominated for awards we saw the perfect opportunity.  I wore a gorgeous dress, on loan from The Maternity Wardrobe. Set up by business partners Carine and Uta, The Maternity Wardrobe offers glamorous dresses to own or borrow and offers free delivery and returns all over Cyprus. With fantastic customer service - including not only beautiful packaging (I'm a sucker

Taken last night, you can find out why I had such posh nails and read about our evening here. Taken for Project 52 - a photo a week for a year

Cyprus - an island in the sun, with 340 days of sunshine a year, or so they told us!  So that means only 15 days of rain right?   I think that might be a little bit of exaggeration creeping into that sales pitch as it seems we've certainly had more than enough of this.... On Wednesday this was the view that greeted me as I opened the curtains,  I suddenly had the feeling this day was going to need a bit of effort to survive it. Leo has been suffering from a bad cough which had seemed to be on its way out but has now turned into a streaming cold.  I am amazed at the amount of snot that can be produced by one child! Because of this, Leo's not feeling his best and therefore is not he's usual happy self. A plan was needed to cheer him up....Let the activity day commence! First up...... Making biscuits, but not just any biscuits, oh no, a day like this calls for the most exciting biscuits you could imagine if you are 2..... train biscuits! There was a bit of a

There's nothing like a very productive week to leave you feeling cheerful is there, and this week has been more productive than most. After more than two years we* have now painted every wall in our house.  Leo's room was finished  earlier this year, and this week Aaron's, with a little 'assistance' from Leo been on a decorating mission.  In just three days he has painted the front room, bedroom and bathroom, and it looks great. In the process we've also had a  rearrange of furniture and a big clear out. It's a perfect Januray activity for me as it's very productive and makes you feel like you're getting somewhere! The only thing left to be done is one wall in our bedroom which will be our 'feature wall' and then we have a fully decorated house.  I have a sneaky suspicion there will be changes again early next year and more rearranging as I once again lose patience with things being pulled off low shelves and move it all high up aga

This week's Gallery prompt is 'My photography resolution'  and can be anything from learning to use a 'proper' camera (which would actually be a good one for me!) to getting yourself in photos a bit more often as opposed to just taking them.  This seems to be a common problem for Mum's as they are usually the one behind the camera all the time. My resolution for this year is an easy one, to get not just myself in the photos but the also record the progress of 'the bump'. When I was pregnant with Leo, Aaron got some lovely photos right at the end but had he have been on time we probably would have missed out on them.  I seem to have very few photos of the rest of the pregnancy, this time I'd like to make sure I get some more as I go along, and hopefully some similar photos towards the end with Leo involved as well.  

Unsurprisingly, given the fact that Aaron and I are often online, Leo is very interested in playing with our laptops these days. We use mine to look at 'the engines' on the  Thomas and friends website  and with Daddy he likes to type his name into Word.  He doesn't realise that he could also do this on mine yet! He's become very good at it in just a few days and goes around spelling his name to anyone who will listen. It seems that many toddlers are already used to todays technology, (although that could be a slightly false impression I've gained as I read a lot of blogs and bloggers are naturally going to be fans of laptops, smartphones and cameras, so by default their children will want to be!)  and sometimes I feel a bit mean by not letting Leo loose with any of our gadgets. It's not that I'm against toddlers using them, or that I think they are too young, it's just I don't trust a heavy handed 2 year old with my precious things.... I don

Slightly confused by a pair of gloves!   For other Project 52's and 366 entries head over to The Boy and Me's  weekly link up.        

It's cheerful time again!   This week seems to have flown by which must mean I've been feeling more cheerful than I have recently. 1. After more than 2 years we have finally decided to paint our living room and bedroom, I debated if we could afford the paint but with a little assistance from my Mum it turns out we can, and as I justified it to myself - if we had the money to get the paint Aaron wouldn't have the time to actually paint it as he'd be at work so better get it painted while we can! 2. I've discovered Pinterest , this is possibly not a good things as I didn't really need another way to waste time online but finding a lovely new site to play with is the next best thing to getting a new gadget. 3. It looks like Greek4Kids lessons will soon be coming to my area, which I'm really excited about. When they launched last year I really wanted to take Leo but it was just a bit too far to go every week. I think the lessons are a brilliant idea and h

I know it's often said that kids say the funniest things but I never expected to be rolling about in hysterical laughter as often as I am with a 2 year old. Leo comes out with some absolute classics and often has brilliant (purely coincidental) comic timing. It recently occurred to me that I'm never going to remember later the things he said that I found so funny, until I remembered I had a blog that is.... So I'll apologise now Leo, in advance but try not to look at these as embarrassing in later life, more as cute! Trying to get cough medicine into Leo has been an absolute nightmare, worked ok for a few days until he just refused until promised chocolate coin afterwards. The other morning he had the medicine and his chocolate and then five minutes later asked for more chocolate. Leo: Can I have more chocolate please Mummy? Me: No, you just had some. I told you, you only have one Leo: Oh please Mummy, I want more chocolate Me: No, you can't have more chocolate,

What would we do without the internet?   That's not a rhetorical question by the way, I actually have no idea what we'd do!  Clearly I am a big internet user, and can hardly remember a time when I wasn't but since we've lived in Cyprus it really has become an essential. It's been a god-send in helping us to find out about the area and important information on moving to a new country but most importantly for keeping in touch with friends and family back in the UK. Email and other social network sites are all very well but these days a quick 'Happy Birthday' on someone's Facebook wall does not say (to me at least) that you've remembered and care about their special day, it doesn't take a genius to realise that if you've put your date of birth on your profile then everyone gets a reminder. The best thing to do is something a bit more personal, something that shows you've actually made an effort.  The problem with being abroad from our l

My love of photos goes way back, longer than I can even remember, My Dad was a photographer before I was born and therefore we had lots and lots of photos in the house, each with the date written on the back and lovingly put into albums. (Dad was a photographer but Mum is really organised!)  As I grew up I spent many an hour looking through all the albums and between my Mum and I we have now scanned all the photos onto disc, and backed them up, and uploaded them to two different websites... well you don't want to be losing all those irreplaceable pictures now do you!    I'm so pleased that I have this lovely record to look back on and share with Leo as he gets older,  and how else could I prove that my eyes were once blue! These photos were taken in Estepona in 1983... Growing up, people often said I look like my Mum, and my Mum says she often sees glimpses of her Mum in me but as a child I definitely had my Dad's blue eyes. I'm linking up to

I have to say that since living in Cyprus I really do miss shopping, this is a little bit of a surprise to me as I was under the impression that I hated it!   Although I wasn't a fan of clothes / shoes shopping (I had no patience in finding things to fit and I don't 'do' heels which takes the fun out of shopping for shoes) it's nice to have to the option and I used to spend many an hour (pre- baby) wandering up and down the high street in the good ol'favourites, Wilkinsons, Asda, Primark, being the three I miss the most! It's probably the thing I miss the most (friends not being a 'thing') and one of the biggest topics of conversation between my friend Sam and I!  Buying stuff is just so expensive or hard to find here.... not just the clothes but the little things, Craft stuff - stickers, paint, crayons. Baby stuff..... 10 euro for one plain babygrow in Carrefour!  I could go on. Luckily not long after we arrived I was introduced to the wonders o

I'm usually quite good at finding a reason to make cakes, I mean you have the obvious birthday's, visitors coming or some other vague celebration but the other day I didn't even bother to create a reason. I was bored, hungry and really fancied something sweet, then I read that Jenny (Mummy Mishaps) had been playing with her new toy - a Cake Pop maker  and so suddenly decided I NEEDED cake. Bored of plain jam sponge cakes I dived for my new 'Cupcake recipe' book (well - it's not that new but I've only made 2 of the recipes so far!)  Unfortunately it appeared I didn't have the exact ingredients for any one of the 'different' cakes so for the first time ever I messed around with a sweet recipe (was always told you can do what you like to a savoury recipe but never mess with deserts!) That's the recipe.... and what they are supposed to look like. 125g soft tub margarine   (I used hard butter) 125g caster sugar          (I used granulate

Sometimes you just can't beat lollipops and a bit of television to give three Mum's a chance for a decent conversation!  For other Project 52's and 366 entries head over to The Boy and Me's  weekly link up.        

Since (hopefully) enrolling Leo to start at pre-primary school later this year I've been thinking of what I can do to help him settle in. Although I'm trying to learn Greek and I know he will pick it up very quickly when he starts I want to do all I can to make it more comfortable for him. Obviously his English is much better than his Greek but we have always tried to teach him things we know as we've gone along. We taught him to count in both languages at the same time, for a long time he didn't separate the two,  counting 'one, ena.. two, dheio'  but now will count in whichever language you ask him to.... when he feels like it of course! He knows colours in both languages and will often pick something up and ask 'What's this colour in Greek Mummy?'  to reply with 'yes that's right Mummy, that's clever' when you reply! I've been following a great website now for a while - Greek For Kids and I'm certainly going to start

After the ultimate Reason to be Cheerful in my post last week where I announced I was pregnant I thought it was going to be quite hard to follow it, I've been joining in with the link up lately but to be honest have been struggling a little to find reasons, this is the beauty of these posts though, they make you realise you can always find something but this week I actually am feeling cheerful, it seems the  tea and sympathy  from the other day helped! Today I've been very busy and I've been in 'good wife/ mother AND daughter' mode and it's felt a bit more 'normal' to be doing stuff... not only that it's still only 2pm and I haven't even poked my hubby in the eye for not actually helping with any of those things :)    However I will now be going on strike for the rest of the day I think! 1. I went to get my blood tests done (all 7 of them!) and it was an unusually successful hospital trip. I was there at 7.30am and was out in under an hour,

My least favourite thing about living in Cyprus is the fact that I generally have no idea what I am doing most of the time when it comes to the 'official' stuff.  I realise this is partly my fault and if I could speak some useful Greek (rather than the random things I have learnt so far) then life would be much easier, but as yet my Greek is so limited I cannot hold any kind of helpful conversation and I'm constantly trying to figure out what the hell is going on! I have spent many many hours on line trying to find concise information on everything from becoming residents, getting medical cards, tax rebate and most recently how, when and where to enrol Leo into school.  Although over the last couple of years I've used many websites I have yet to find one with all the answers, this is probably due to the fact no-one knows all the answers as I have a sneaky suspicion they frequently change! Using a combination of websites and experiences of friends I managed that the

I feel like I've been very quiet on my blog lately compared to recent months, this is partly due to trying to keep the fact I am pregnant quiet, and then on the day I blogged about it I came down with the cold/ flu bug that Aaron had over Christmas, I really felt rough, and this was not helped by the fact I couldn't have any decent medicine...... by the way did you know you can't get Lemsip (or equivalent) hot lemon sachets out here, it's tablets or nothing! Now Leo's taking his turn with a cough that's keeping him up most of the night, and reminding me how rubbish it is to have interrupted sleep, hmmm forgot how bad that was. So today I'm linking up to 'Here Come the Girls' for the first time and joining in with her Tea and Sympathy link up.  I generally try to stick to talking about cheerful things on my blog, aware that I might accidentally go into a bit of a rant and scare everyone off but I'm liking the idea of a bit of tea and sym

Welcome to Project 52...... a photo a week for a year.   After deciding not to join in with the 366 photo challenge that many of my fellow bloggers are doing as I didn't want the pressure of having to do it EVERY day I realised that Project 52 would be a much more achievable goal.  It also means that I no longer have to be 'completely Silent' on Sundays! This was actually the very first photo of the year, taken just after Aaron had made a mad dash through painful hailstones to protect our glass dining table. Can you believe the size of those things!            

You may have noticed a bit less in the way of blogging from me over the last couple of weeks, although this was handily disguised by Christmas the real reason can now be revealed.... Yep..... I'm pregnant! Regular readers of my blog will possibly guess this wasn't entirely planned (or even vaguely!) but 'Que Sera sera' and all that! I found out just before Christmas and although I was fairly sure as I took the test (even though one before had been negative) it was still  huge shock to see those two lines staring back at me.  People had asked if we planned to have another and my standard response was always 'No, but never say never'  Truthfully I'd always wanted two children but finances and living space was never conducive to having a bigger family.  The timing could be MUCH better, as Aaron is still looking for work, and we are struggling, and we sold Leo's cot only in November! but as several people have told us, it will all work out in the en

It seems at the moment it's all about the photos, the blog world is full of people starting 366 projects, where they plan to take a photo each day to have a record of the year to look back on. The Boy and Me successfully completed the project last year and I did consider joining her and the others this year but as much as I love my photos I don't think I could manage to keep it up for the year.  Maybe if I was using a smartphone to take and post my photos it would be a lot easier, but the thought of using my camera, finding the lead and uploading a photo a day seems a little ambitious!  Also I didn't even take a single photo yesterday meaning I would have failed before I'd even started! Instead I think I'll be focussing more on the photo blog I started last year - Discovering Cyprus. I started with good intentions and then got a bit distracted but I will start to look back through my large collection of Cyprus photos and gradually share them with you. Talk