January always tends to feel like such a slog, doesn’t it? I’m not a lover of the winter months - as soon as Christmas is over it feels like the dark days can really bring you down, but I have daffs and hyacinths dotted around the house to try to reinforce the spring like feeling. Which does the job until I look out of the window and see all of the snow dotted about! We’ve had a lovely weekend - we braved the snow to visit Hampton Court Palace (shown in the picture above looking rather grey!), where we managed to beat the maze (I hate mazes, the thought of being lost fills me with horror, but my husband loves them, and seems to have passed that particular gene onto Max).

>> This week I’ve noticed that Max’s speech has really come on in leaps and bounds. I’ll admit that it’s been something that has given me a lot of worry over the past few months - he didn’t babble until 10 months, and until fairly recently his only words were ‘Dada’ and ‘Guh’ (for bird, obviously!). My concerns were exacerbated by the Health Visitor, who told me at 18 months a child should have 20 words! But at 21 months, Max has finally stepped it up a gear and the words are coming thick and fast! Train, Mama, chocolate, potato, plane… I’ve felt for a long time that he’s understood so much, but it’s so reassuring to hear him finally start to voice words.

>> One thing I always tend to do in January is to book a holiday - I love to have things in the diary to look forward to. We’ve already booked our main holiday this year to Tuscany (favourite place ever!), but as I was very generously given vouchers for the Bath Thermae Spa for Christmas by my parents, we wanted to have a baby-free few days in Bath, so have booked a trip to The Pig near Bath. Our last attempted baby-free trip was marred by a very nasty ear infection, so this time I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep, as well as some walks in the countryside, some relaxing spa time, and of course visiting the Roman Baths!

>> I had a little spending splurge via Boden, courtesy of some Christmas spending money - I went through a stage after having Max where I spent very little on clothes and lost my way style-wise a bit, so it’s lovely to be excited about clothes again. I love all the bright colours and prints that Boden bring out every season - here is a selection of my latest additions 🙂

>> It’s been Max’s second week back to nursery, and the adjustment has been hard for us all. The Christmas break had seemed so long, and it had been lovely to spend so much time together as a family. But as a result, he’s been full of spontaneous hugs - we’ll be playing together on the floor and out of nowhere I’ll get his little arms flung around my neck and a full on hug! No doubt about it, one of my absolute favourite moments of being a mum!

>> For 4 months now I’ve been trying to grow out (or rather, grow in!) my eyebrows and have been visiting a beauty salon to trust the job to the professionals. My main problem was that I’m a big overplucker - I just love to fiddle - and I would probably pluck my eyebrows once a day which led to quite a lot of growth, as well as the fact that my brows were far thinner than they should be. To try to establish a more natural growth pattern I’ve been told to leave my brows alone between threading appointments which I’ve been doing (almost! One or two particularly pesky hairs may have been plucked - shh!) and it’s finally paying off! I can see that I’m having to fill in less with the pencil in the sparse areas and the shape is definitely becoming less arched and more natural.

What have you been up to lately? Are you making any travel plans at the moment?