Naps, nativities, and baby's first Christmas tree 🎄❤️✨

Hello hello hello 👋🏻 I'm currently sat in bed in the middle of the day with a sleeping baby and a purring cat for good measure, we're huddling together for warm on this cold December day (the weather app says it's 1ºC outside but we haven't ventured out to check!) It's nice and cosy here though so don't you worry, and we seem to have a baby that always feels toasty warm so he makes a good hot water bottle. Juniper's fur seems to be extra thick and fluffy in winter too. The correct weather for this season has properly arrived now and it feels unbelievable that Christmas is just around the corner when surely Jethro was only born 5 minutes ago in the height of summer?! Time be flyyying.

The low winter sun creating cool shadows against the curtains.

It may be crisp and cold outside now but a few weeks ago it was verrry rainy indeed. We got the chance to use the pushchair rain cover for the first time which was exciting, and I enjoyed many a pavement rainbow 🌈 (oh and some of our drainpipe fell down in a particularly heavy downpour but that's all fixed now!)

Jethro update: he's now 4 months old! He can sit up for short periods, he is getting to grips with the door bouncer, and he has rolled over about 10 times but we never seem to catch it on video 😆 Most of the time he is a very jolly little fellow and will smile at anyone, we've had a few giggles too which are adorable.

Another new thing is facing forwards in his carrier, we've been for a couple of walks like this and he seems to love it 😭 he's growing up so fast!

Who looks more at home on the armchair? 😆

Family photo (watching the football!) ⚽

Recently Juni started to enjoy sleeping in her carrier box, it's good timing because she's got her annual trip to the vets tomorrow so it shouldn't be a struggle to get her in there! It's the same box we brought her home in so I found this identical photo from 2 years ago and isn't it sweet seeing them side by side! 💙

❗ Warning: it's about to get rather festive over here! 🎄🎄🎄

Firstly Ed made some spontaneous gingerbread one evening which we decorated in a highly artistic manner (spot gingerbread Jethro 😂), and then a couple of days later we went to get our Christmas tree! Ed was given a long measuring stick so that we could choose one the right height:

Here's a fun little video I made about our experience:

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A post shared by Bethany 💒 (@colourfulbethany)

Once we got home we tried to get Jethro down for a nap so that we could do the decorations but he was not having it (love that 4 month sleep regression). It turned out good in the end though because he napped in the sling and so was able to be part of decorating his very first Christmas tree 😊

When the Teletubbies visited the baby Jesus.

✨🎄✨❤️✨🎄✨

I found some mushroom decor and a Juni to hang on the tree so of course they had to come home with me!

A cosy afternoon nap underneath the Christmas lights:

And some very ~ on brand ~ gift wrapping 🍄🎁 I had my first wrapping session last night whilst Ed practiced his trumpet for the upcoming carol service so it felt extra fun and festive!

In this house we now have not one but two nativities going on! This one is a knit-ivity kindly made by a lovely lady at church 😄 (both Jesuses have now been hidden in the fruit bowl until the big day as per family tradition!)

And now we have the frosty weather to match the Christmassy vibes:

✨

I'm this excited about a dusting of frost, imagine how I'll be if it actually snows here! It's looking possible this week so we're keeping hopeful ⛄ friends and family in other parts of the country have been posting lots of snow photos and we're feeling a little bit jealous!

Misty morning on the way to church.

Soggy flowers and big chunks of ice in the garden:

We've almost made it to the end of the post but I think we haven't *quite* had enough cuteness yet so here you go...Juni sharing the lap:

Going one step further and just curling up on the baby, a double decker snuggle:

The girls.

The boys.

Not sure if I'll fit in another post before Christmas but if not, MERRY CHRISTMAS! 😄❤️🎄🎉🎁

Our little elf 😍

xxx

Back again (baby on board) 🎈

Belated Happy New Year! 🎉 

I don't know where to start...here I am back after an unplanned but necessary 2 month blogging break! I was going to say that this is my first post whilst pregnant but actually when I last wrote we had just found out 4 days before so this is actually my second post, but at that stage it was too early to really have any symptoms. Soon I pretty much became a bed-bound, sickly mess for weeks on end so needless to say I didn't really have much to blog about, especially if I was going to keep the pregnancy secret for a while lol.  While we're on the topic, whoever invented the term "morning sickness" was playing a cruel joke and that name needs to be banned permanently 😅

So, here we are at the end of that nasty first trimester, still feeling sick but hopeful that the end is in sight (please Lord 😭). I thought I'd do a bit of a catch-up from recent times, the highlights anyway...

Our vibrant pineapple sage plant which sprung up in the summer and then bloomed like mad in the winter, beside the pair of socks I knitted for my grandma for Christmas (pair number 10!):

Pair number 11 which were a Christmas present for Ed's mum, although I didn't finish the second sock until New Year's Day 😆

I don't think I'll ever get bored of magical self-striping sock wool!

Throwback to our lovely Christmas tree, it certainly jollied up my sick days on the sofa (as did Juniper):

This is what my days looked like for about a month, sweet Juni was my little guardian angel who could be found sleeping on me about 90% of the time. Either she knew there was something going on in my tummy or she just really likes my snuggly dressing gown, who knows...

There were so many rainbows during that time as well! Some days going up to the window to take a photo was one of the only things that motivated me to get out of bed 🌈

Mid-December was Ed's birthday and the day before it I suddenly remembered that birthday cakes are a thing that people generally do. I wasn't up to making (or eating) cake so I decided that a jelly cake would make a fun change! 🎈

Juniper with crazy eyes whilst we watched Matilda:

Blurry siblings on swings during the traditional Christmas Eve walk to the park:

A snapshot of Christmas dinner table chaos ❤️ (spot the bubbles from the bubble blowers we got in our crackers!):

I'll remember this festive season as the one where I couldn't eat much Christmas dinner (and I definitely didn't stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve 😴)

Glitterberry J2O (another tradition)

On Boxing Day evening we had to pack our suitcases, getting ready to travel to Ed's family the next morning. As you can see, Juniper was trying her best to blend in so that we wouldn't take her to the cattery:

Deal high street 

We had a relaxing time over New Year's, walking, puzzling, and sharing the baby news with different members of the family 💛

Canterbury Cathedral

Looking for badgers in the woods...

...finding interesting fungi!

A lovely walk to Broadstairs beach...the white cliffs are still a novelty to me, also the parakeets flying around! I know they are pests to some people but I like them 😊

Back home again with Juniper, she was very happy to be here in her kingdom after a week in the cattery! No harm was done of course but the way she hissed at the kind lady who looked after her might have made you believe otherwise, we felt a bit embarrassed by her antisocial behaviour 😂 not that you'd believe it of her with all my cute photos.

Here she is helping us to complete a second *extremely difficult* puzzle (which is still unfinished a week later oops), and also playing with her current favourite toy which is a green ribbon from around a Christmas present:

Assisting me with my journalling:

And sleeping in her one of her current favourite nap spots, up on the cat tree that we recently moved to a perfect spot into the living room:

Her other favourite spot is on top of my big crochet blanket which is currently sitting in a pile on the floor (waiting for me to finally get around to finishing it!)

Whilst I'm just indulging in Juniper pics I couldn't not share this adorable ✨ glow up ✨ 

December 2020 vs January 2022 😭 

That's all for now! See you again soon xoxoxo