Life Lately Christmas lights

I'm getting fully swept up in the magic of Christmas (yes in November and no I'm not ashamed). I feel like Christmas starts in October for Instagram so celebrating it late November is practically restrained!

We are still pinching ourselves that we live somewhere with so much on our doorstep. It sounds a bit odd I guess as we obviously live in the same city still but comparing where we live now with before is pretty different. One of the things I'm loving is being able to walk to places after school with Wilf, going to museums or classes or meet ups with friends. We were always that little bit too far out before to be able to get anywhere much in the time after school and it's making such a positive difference to our lives.

A few nights ago we went to watch the Christmas lights be switched on. Wilf recognised a few buddies from his school and the local shops were handing our mince pies and fizz.

Tom and I took Mabli to the Christmas markets in town (we've yet to take Wilf but planning on next week). They certainly aren't fancy but I sort of love them even more for being a bit tacky, especially the stall with the singing moose and mulled wine!

(My dress was from Ted Baker and Lauren's was from here if you are after a party dress!)

Me and my friend Lauren (that sometimes takes my pictures) went to the premier of The Crimes of Grindelwald which was such a treat! Me and Wilf are on the last few chapters of the Deathly Hallows in the Harry Potter series but I think the Fantastic Beasts trilogy is still a bit old for him. We're hoping we might be able to squeeze a trip to Hogwarts before the year is out though!

Other than that we've just been enjoying settling into our new home and new area. Making some new friends, working on some exciting projects and generally just bumbling along in life. Does anyone else get asked what they have done that day/week and struggle to think if they've done anything whilst still feeling like they have been super busy? Sometimes I have a whole morning where I'm not sat down but can't really place what I've even done. Is that just parenthood?

p.s

Told you we were fully in the Christmas spirt ;)

Our Weekend in Pictures / Frome

First of all I want to apologise yet again for the lack of posts over here. Broken record I know but when life gets busy this little space seems to be the one that gets neglected the most. I guess everyone knows people are reading blogs less and less BUT I do still love dipping in and out of my favourites and recording our lived over here. It was always from the start a place for us to capture moments and memories and so with the rise of IG and the micro blogging it sort of feels like the longer blog post is one that will happen less and less but probably in many ways be more long lasting. At least for us as a family to look back on.

Anyway totally rambling over here. I pretty much have about two months of things to catch you up on, whoops! So I'll start in no particular order, or rather the events that happened the most recently whilst they are close in my mind.

Last weekend we took a trip to Frome for the first time. It's only an hour on the train so I'm not sure why it's taken us ten years to make the trip but we fell in love hard! I don't think I've ever visited a place before that I could genuinely see ourselves living over Bristol (even with our potential move to Cardiff it never felt fully right in our hearts). We are so happy in our new house and staying in Bristol for now but maybe the country life will call us by the time we are in our mid 40's and the kids have left home. I can really see myself pottering about all the beautiful indie shops and cafes without having to worry about schools or whatever else comes with having young kids. Never say never!

We stayed in this Airbnb which is a converted Post Office which we loved.

I think every single street we walked down was an independent which was amazing

By the way if you have a child aged around Wilf's age (almost 7) then check out this IG post. I asked for book recommendations and there were so many good ones and ones I'd never heard of!

Always bringing the awkward..

One of the places we popped into was Rye Bakery which was the most beautiful bakery set in an old church, really great space for kids too as they had a children's corner so I'd defo recommend that if you visit with the fam.

Could have spent so much money in Sister's Guild. Didn't. Regret it

And that was last weekend! Bare with my whilst I recap on some other posts over the next week or so!

P.S other recommendations for Frome were The Garden Cafe. We only got a cake there but would love to go back for proper lunch as the food looked so good and as we sat outisde it was also really chilled with the kids.

We actually ate in the Lounge which I know is a sort of local chain and is often a bit mixed but we knew they would have food the kids could eat and actually we really liked this one.

I didn't get to do any vintage shopping as Mabli was being a bit wild but I defo will be back to take advantage of that sometime as there were lots of good ones.

Anyone live in Frome or have any recommendations for next time we visit? 

Three Autumnal Jumpers

Something a little different over here today! I'll link the jumpers below, I hope you like the style of this lookbook as I had a lot of fun putting it together!

Orange Fairisle Jumper - http://bit.ly/2P6Ao6X Blue embellished cardigan - http://bit.ly/2CY2FFo Pink jumper with eco thread - http://bit.ly/2CQL3vn Leave a comment on which one was your fave!(affiliate links)

Time to be a morning person - With Eve Sleep

I'm so excited to share this post with you guys for a couple of reasons, firstly I 'just' finished wallpapering the kids room and I'm dying to share how it turned out. Secondly we're working with one of our favourite brands Eve Sleep in this post. You might have seen us work with them a couple of months ago when we first moved into our new house in this post.

I have to admit my children are definitely morning people and I probably would say I was the same but argue against 5.30am being morning ;) I've slowly resided to the fact they will sleep past 6 when they are teenagers and then the tables will turn and I can wake them up.

However I think the difference in waking up early and feeling knackered and waking up early after a restful nights sleep can make the world of difference. We were so impressed with the quality of their mattresses when we had one in our own bed that it seemed only fair the kids got them too! 

For me the key to us all being happy in the morning is to acceptance. So we start the day at 6am but if we've slept well all night on comfy mattresses then we also wake up feeling refreshed and ready to start the day early. In many ways having those hours before we need to leave the house at 8.30am leaves us with a nice slow morning.

Now Wilf is at school Mabli misses him a lot during the day so them being able to play in their room when they wake up a while is perfect. Often I even get a chance to read a bit to them (or Wilf reads me his school book). We're actually getting through the last book in the Harry Potter series and I'm as eager as Wilf to know what happens next to be honest!

Tom has actually started to use the first hour of the day to go running. Our new area is so perfect for this as he can jog around the harbour which is so beautiful in the morning light. An early morning run is something he has wanted to get back into for a good while but always felt too tired for but now we're getting a more restful night he's got back into the rhythm of it. Rather him than me though in the cold to be honest ha!

Another I've learnt over the years to make the mornings a little more calm is to lay the kids clothes out the night before. Mabli is too young to dress herself quite yet (although she tries!) but its a great help for me that Wilf can do so without being aided and just makes life that bit easier when hunting for pants and socks.

Thanks so much to Eve Sleep for providing the kids (and all of us now) with these mattresses and a restful nights sleep. We're all such fans of the brand and definitely recommend if you're thinking about getting one.

Eve Sleep have also been kind enough to offer you guys £100 off non mattress products with an Eve original or hybrid purchase. Valid until the 30th of November with code MORNINGTIGERLILLY t&c's can be found here.

In partnership with Eve Sleep