Oh my goodness, how can it possibly be February already?! January has been a busy month of creativity, baby snuggling and helping at school. Before I can fully adjust myself to thinking about February, I'm going to step back in time a little and share some photos from the end of December and January.

The photo above is from Boxing Day (I know, I really shouldn't be still talking about Christmas, it's less than 10 months until the decorations come out again), however I haven't shared it and I love it. Now I know I'm not as good as my dear friend Janine (who you should check out btw), but even I am pretty pleased with how that frosty photo came out. And here's Callum from the same walk; a boy, some snow and a stick.

At the end of December I celebrated my 36th Birthday - eek, how old? I had three wishes for my birthday; 1 - Go to Winchester, 2 - Go to the Cath Kidston shop and spend my vouchers from my lovely brother-in-law (Mike, CK vouchers is the most perfect present!), 3 - Have a coffee in Starbucks. I was granted my three wishes and came home with a lovely bag. Smart enough for outings out with the girls, big enough to fit in my D-SLR camera and in the sale to boot!

When we got home I made some cute pink frosted cupcakes (yes for myself, but that's ok because I got to use pink icing and glitter), the boys added the candles and I blew them out.

There's also been lots of visiting the baby cousins, usually I take the boys on friday straight after school. The boys love them, but it's Matthew who goes soppy eyed with them. He's already looking forward to when he's old enough to babysit them on his own, in 10 years or so!

I've been lucky to get in some extra snuggle time, like this Monday before I took my sister out for her birthday. Louisa was giving me my first smile when Mum took the photo.

As well as the December Daily project shown in my previous post, I also made George and Louisa a baby album each. This is an album into which photos are placed from newborn and every month thereafter until the baby is a year old, on the facing pages there is journaling space for notes and observations for each month. I have made these albums for a couple of years now and sell them at the craft fairs. Funnily enough, although I'm not doing any more fairs in the foreseeable future I've had a run on them and made three others for orders in December.

I have also been asked to submit three layouts for the April issue of the UK based 'Scrapbook Magazine'. I completed them last week and they are now in the hands of the magazine. I'll share them here once they've been published. Pretty exciting.

Last weekend we went for a walk along the Bournemouth beach. The 'boys' took an American football (a Christmas present from me to Jeff) for the 'boys' to throw, catch and kick - our garden is too small for such activities. I took my camera to capture 'life' and the sea.

And Callum took off. You can see him in the photo below, just behind Matthew. He knew we were heading for the pier for hot chocolate, and he thought he'd run to it. Yes, he ran the whole way and might I add was already some distance away when I realised that he wasn't going to stop and run back to us. So I had to run after him, bag over my shoulder (with their drinks etc, everything a mother has to carry), camera in hand, through the sand. I only caught up with him when he reached the pier. Not a happy Mummy.

We all then 'walked together' to the cafe at the end of the pier. The boys got their hot chocolates, as you can see from their faces. I gave them my phone to play on so that Jeff and I could have some peace. Love Callum's brows, deep in concentration. Yes, I do still love him!