It's Saturday morning as I write this weeks blog and I'm in bed at the De Vere: Theobalds Park hotel in Hertfordshire, as we've got our friends Shannon and James' wedding down here today. With the weather so stunning it really feels like we're on holiday and with our Australia based friends Jody and Kon joining us in a few hours it will definitely feel like it as the last three times we've seen them it was at their UK wedding celebration (in Feb), which followed their actual wedding in Australia (last September) and before that Jody's sister, Kelly's, in Mexico (last May), so weddings abroad have become a bit of a habit! We may only be in the UK this time but the setting of this Georgian mansion house is stunning within 55 acres of parkland and with the sun shining as it is we could be anywhere! Thank you UK weather for being so fabulous over the last two months!
The past week has been very social and I feel like I've caught up with lots of people, which is always good! It started last Friday with the night out I mentioned for my friends Kerry and Hanna's birthdays. We went to Pinocchios restaurant in Norwich for a bite to eat, followed by drinks in Revolution, where I eagerly studied the cocktail and shot menu (whilst drinking a lime and soda, I must add!) deciding which I would treat myself to post birth of baby! ;-) Hanna has been away travelling in South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand for the past three months so it was especially lovely to catch up with her. Now she's in Ghana then Italy for a total of 6 weeks, living the dream!! Good on her, after all life is for living so we've got to remember to jump at any life changing opportunities like these. West Africa will be an eye opening experience, I'd love to go sometime so can't wait to hear all about it!
On Saturday I met up with a group of my old school friends (Laura, Amy, Harriet, Ailish, Morris and Anna) in Norwich for lunch, followed by coffee and cake. It's always lovely seeing these girls and having known each other since we were kids there's always guaranteed giggles and plenty of stories, whether remembering the past or chatting about what we're up to now. I'm so glad that we're still close, as so many people lose touch with their school friends as they get older but we're a group that I know will always stay in touch and I feel lucky to be part of such a close knit friendship.
Sunday was a pretty special day for us, as we had our private 4D scan. This was amazing! My brother, Karl, drove over from Suffolk to join us as I really wanted him to be a part of it and he's such an enthusiastic Uncle to be that he was over the moon to be there, in fact I'm not sure who was more excited, him or us! Having a scan is always re-assuring that everything is ok and it's lovely to see what's happening when you can feel it all going on but are never sure quite what you are feeling. It was a weird sensation to see and feel her kicks at the same time. I feel so lucky that we can make the most of modern technology in this way and have an extra opportunity to get even more thrilled about our little one. We should after all take advantage of this high-tech stuff if it makes us happy and the feelings we felt whilst having the scan were certainly that! We got a DVD as well as a CD of photos which will an amazing thing for our daughter to watch when she's a bit older, for that reason alone it was worth having it done. As a treat for my avid readers, I thought I'd put a few sneaky pics on here so that you can see what we were so excited about!
Pregnancy wise this week I have to be honest and tell you it's not been the bed of roses I've been spoilt with over the past three months. As I enter the third trimester getting sleep has been somewhat difficult. My restless legs have been causing me a fair amount of stress and I've probably only been having about 3 hours sleep most nights. It's lucky we've got quite a bit of space in our house as it's been like musical bedrooms this week with me not wanting to disturb James, after all what's the use of neither of us getting any sleep! At times it has been so awful that I've spent hours crying through the night. If you've never suffered with restless legs this probably sounds dramatic but believe me it's horrible! I've tried everything to help it, including cycling for miles on my exercise bike at 3am in the morning, meditation and relaxation techniques but none of these worked. What did though (and please don't judge me) was a pint of Guinness on Thursday night when we went out for a curry with our friends Lisa and Scott. I had read that lack of iron can make restless legs worse so Guinness seemed the obvious choice! Looks like my shopping this week will consist of a crate of Guinness, spinach and apricots!! To put a positive spin on the sleepless nights, a friend on Facebook (who suffered with the same thing) mentioned that being kept awake with restless legs is a lot worse that sleepless nights with the baby. Whilst not being able to sleep, despite feeling absolutely exhausted, I had thought about this as at least it will be a case of not sleeping because someone needs you, rather than not being able to go off because you feel the need to run miles or kick everything in site! Plus, if this continues I'll be used to not having much sleep so bring on the baby I say!!
On the baby front, aside from the leg issue there has been more bump growth, lots of kicks and movement and a possible fist or foot sitting in what feels like my ribs, weird sensation but having seen how cramped up she is inside me who can blame her for spreading out as much as she can!
Now it's 9am Saturday and our friends Jody and Kon will be here in about three hours so we're going to grab breakfast and leisurely get ready for what looks to be a fabulous day - congratulations in advance to Shannon and James! Nothing like a good wedding!
Just before I go . . . I'm not going to add another challenge this week as think last weeks 'Do something for Charity' deserves another week. Poor show you lot (apart from James Muir and Debs Warren), come on let us know what you're going to do for charity!! I signed James and I up for the Waterwalk and James has been training for the run since - I'm only doing the walk so luckily no training for me, thank goodness, being as it's hard enough to walk nowadays!! ;-)
Keep smiling lovely people and I'll be back in a week . . . xx
p.s. Bump photos to be added to blog once were back in Norfolk
The past week has been very social and I feel like I've caught up with lots of people, which is always good! It started last Friday with the night out I mentioned for my friends Kerry and Hanna's birthdays. We went to Pinocchios restaurant in Norwich for a bite to eat, followed by drinks in Revolution, where I eagerly studied the cocktail and shot menu (whilst drinking a lime and soda, I must add!) deciding which I would treat myself to post birth of baby! ;-) Hanna has been away travelling in South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand for the past three months so it was especially lovely to catch up with her. Now she's in Ghana then Italy for a total of 6 weeks, living the dream!! Good on her, after all life is for living so we've got to remember to jump at any life changing opportunities like these. West Africa will be an eye opening experience, I'd love to go sometime so can't wait to hear all about it!
On Saturday I met up with a group of my old school friends (Laura, Amy, Harriet, Ailish, Morris and Anna) in Norwich for lunch, followed by coffee and cake. It's always lovely seeing these girls and having known each other since we were kids there's always guaranteed giggles and plenty of stories, whether remembering the past or chatting about what we're up to now. I'm so glad that we're still close, as so many people lose touch with their school friends as they get older but we're a group that I know will always stay in touch and I feel lucky to be part of such a close knit friendship.
Sunday was a pretty special day for us, as we had our private 4D scan. This was amazing! My brother, Karl, drove over from Suffolk to join us as I really wanted him to be a part of it and he's such an enthusiastic Uncle to be that he was over the moon to be there, in fact I'm not sure who was more excited, him or us! Having a scan is always re-assuring that everything is ok and it's lovely to see what's happening when you can feel it all going on but are never sure quite what you are feeling. It was a weird sensation to see and feel her kicks at the same time. I feel so lucky that we can make the most of modern technology in this way and have an extra opportunity to get even more thrilled about our little one. We should after all take advantage of this high-tech stuff if it makes us happy and the feelings we felt whilst having the scan were certainly that! We got a DVD as well as a CD of photos which will an amazing thing for our daughter to watch when she's a bit older, for that reason alone it was worth having it done. As a treat for my avid readers, I thought I'd put a few sneaky pics on here so that you can see what we were so excited about!
Pregnancy wise this week I have to be honest and tell you it's not been the bed of roses I've been spoilt with over the past three months. As I enter the third trimester getting sleep has been somewhat difficult. My restless legs have been causing me a fair amount of stress and I've probably only been having about 3 hours sleep most nights. It's lucky we've got quite a bit of space in our house as it's been like musical bedrooms this week with me not wanting to disturb James, after all what's the use of neither of us getting any sleep! At times it has been so awful that I've spent hours crying through the night. If you've never suffered with restless legs this probably sounds dramatic but believe me it's horrible! I've tried everything to help it, including cycling for miles on my exercise bike at 3am in the morning, meditation and relaxation techniques but none of these worked. What did though (and please don't judge me) was a pint of Guinness on Thursday night when we went out for a curry with our friends Lisa and Scott. I had read that lack of iron can make restless legs worse so Guinness seemed the obvious choice! Looks like my shopping this week will consist of a crate of Guinness, spinach and apricots!! To put a positive spin on the sleepless nights, a friend on Facebook (who suffered with the same thing) mentioned that being kept awake with restless legs is a lot worse that sleepless nights with the baby. Whilst not being able to sleep, despite feeling absolutely exhausted, I had thought about this as at least it will be a case of not sleeping because someone needs you, rather than not being able to go off because you feel the need to run miles or kick everything in site! Plus, if this continues I'll be used to not having much sleep so bring on the baby I say!!
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| 27 weeks |
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| 27 weeks |
Back to my social week . . . Sunday night we had James' parents over for a roast dinner, which James cooked very well and then Monday was bank holiday so after a bit of dress shopping we met some of my family for dinner. A lovely evening, entertained by my cousin Amy's lovely two year old son Oscar - a little chap sure to make anyone broody! Tuesday I worked an early shift at the Council followed by a meeting with one of my friends about her working with me as a Business Development Manager for Vision Odyssey. She is super keen and I am stoked that she's getting involved as just know she will be a huge asset to my continually growing team! Wednesday I worked on my business in the morning and then a late shift at the Council until midnight, followed by no sleep until 6.30am due to the nasty restless legs! This was the point I decided some nights I'll just have to be nocturnal and luckily enough with the nature of my business this would probably work ok, not that I really want to make it a habit but if needs must . . .
Thursday was a super productive day for Vision Odyssey, followed by dinner with friends on a particularly summery evening, which really felt like we were on holiday! Did I mention how much I'm so grateful for this beautiful weather?!! Friday, I got up early to get some last minute work done and then went to the hairdressers for a much needed blonde top-up! After this James and I drove down to Hertfordshire to this lovely hotel, where my Dad came to meet us for dinner, as he only lives about half an hour away. It was great to see him and it's been almost a month since we last saw each other so he could really notice the growth of the bump!
Now it's 9am Saturday and our friends Jody and Kon will be here in about three hours so we're going to grab breakfast and leisurely get ready for what looks to be a fabulous day - congratulations in advance to Shannon and James! Nothing like a good wedding!
Just before I go . . . I'm not going to add another challenge this week as think last weeks 'Do something for Charity' deserves another week. Poor show you lot (apart from James Muir and Debs Warren), come on let us know what you're going to do for charity!! I signed James and I up for the Waterwalk and James has been training for the run since - I'm only doing the walk so luckily no training for me, thank goodness, being as it's hard enough to walk nowadays!! ;-)
Keep smiling lovely people and I'll be back in a week . . . xx
p.s. Bump photos to be added to blog once were back in Norfolk
Loving the scan pics :-) i am hoping our little monkey is going to be better behaved for ours tomorrow :-) I can also re-assure you people that if you had Oscar on a lovely typical 'terrible two' day the chances of him making people broody would slim down pretty much, hehe! But saying that, as a mummy you wouldn't change a thing...you are going to love it! It's the best feeling ever :-) Amz xx
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures of the bump thanks for sharing. Sounds like you you are still as busy as every regardless of sleep issues and carrying the little one. I don't know how you do it as, with the family sleep gene starting to appear I would be flat out and snoring at work.
ReplyDeleteWe will pop down in the next few weeks so will be good to catch up.
Take care
Dan x
Lovely pics. I'm doing my bit for charity! Back working for SSAFA & start my new job soon for a charitable organisation (I will be getting paid though!) Carolyn x
ReplyDeleteThese really are amazing pics... Can't wait to meet her in person. xx
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments everyone and Carolyn well done on your contributions to charity, it's great to hear about them x
ReplyDelete