The story of the wedding dress 👰✨

Back in November I received an unusual email completely out of the blue. A lady was trying to track down her late mum’s wedding dress and believed that mine (currently sitting up in the loft) was it! Let me explain…back in 2019 I bought a vintage wedding dress from an online shop and planned to wear it when we married in 2020. However, covid happened and our plans were of course completely disrupted! We still got married (eventually) but it was a low-key affair with just a small number of family members and so I made the decision to not wear my dress and save it for the belated wedding reception party that we thought might happen at a later date (a decision I came to regret). Well we all know how long the restrictions lasted and all the while my dress stayed abandoned on its hanger, never seeing the light of day.

Fast forward to November 2022 and I get this email. The lady had got in touch with the dress shop who then got in touch with me to say she was hoping to buy the dress if I was willing to sell. We messaged back and forth and I knew that there was no way I could say no as it obviously meant so much to her, but at the same time it was sad that I never got to wear it and after all this time Ed still had no idea what it looked like! So we decided that we would have a photoshoot with it, to create the special dressed up photos we didn’t get to have at our wedding. My sister Ellie came along and with just a couple of phone cameras discovered her hidden talent for wedding photography 😂 seriously though she did such a good job! We were also lucky with the weather as the rain mostly held off (unlike on our actual wedding day haha) and this was literally our only free day before the courier came to pick up the dress later in the week. It was sweet to be able to include Jethro in the pictures too, and when he wasn’t being photographed he enjoyed sitting in his carseat just gazing up at the trees.

It was surprisingly fun to prance around pretending we'd just got married and to recreate some of the classic (cheesy) poses 😆 and considering we had no plan, no hair/makeup done, no fancy camera, and just stopped somewhere on Dartmoor with a baby in tow, I think it went pretty well! We were so excited about how the photos came out and wanted to share them back in November. But we decided that we would keep them a secret so that we could surprise our families at Christmas and it was definitely worth it (tears were shed!) 😭❤️ 

Speaking of Christmas, my next post will be a recap of the festive period (baby’s first Christmas!!) but I just couldn’t wait any longer so share these pics first xxxxx

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