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Today as I looked at myself I realised I’m a MUM.  My white t-shirt was covered in tomato sauce (thanks to Charlie), I smelled of tomato sauce, I hadn’t done my hair all day, not a stick of make up to be seen, wearing trackies and slippers and that was just how things are… gone is the corporate girl who used to wear lovely suits or dresses (now I decide what I’m going to wear depending on if its got an elastic waistband!), gone is the girl who used to get her haircut every 6 weeks (haven’t had it cut in 3 months and recently dyed my own hair as it was easier to do that then get to the hairdressers), go to the beauticians at least once a month (haven’t been to a beauty salon in 4 months), I no longer think about my sales figures and how to keep my customers happy , now its finding the time to vacuum the house and what should I cook for dinner .. sigh how life has changed.  At times when I think about the changes, Charlie looks up at me and my heart just melts and she is worth the untidy hair and the bad wardrobe

And thank goodness Ian continue to tells me he loves me everyday regardless of how bad I look!  Bless him

Thank you for the present which arrived yesterday.  I’m not sure who was more excited me or my MUM.  The book is fab and I just love it.  Mum tells me the shoes and the top are perfect as apparently I’m running out of clothes – she keeps telling me I’m growing to quickly (not really sure what shes on about!).

Mum took the following photos so you could see I really do appreciate the present

Oh and mum says a huge Thank You for the Cramer family photo – her and dad think its a great shot of you all and we are going out today to buy a nice new frame for it

Big hugs and kisses

Missy moo Barrs

These are some random photos of the girl some taken while we were away on holiday, others just while at home ‘chilling out’ ..

Lately, when you say ‘Cheese’ to Charlie she pulls this very funny face/grin

Such a happy little cheeky monkey..

It would appear Charlie has got her dad’s curls and lots of them..

Taken while on holiday in France with me and her nanny Viv.

A Tui ad if there ever was one .. caption should read .. of course the sun will come out in France .. YEAH RIGHT!

So cute and so quiet..

Its taken me a while to get these but here are some photos of Charlie in her bathing suit .. needless to say after taking these I realised she had out grown this one and we recently bought her a new yellow one.

However, she does look like she is trying out of the Miss Universe baby building competition..

Charlie bum popsey pants, missy moo, chunky monkey, cubba wubba etc turned one on the 18 September!  Ian and I are wondering where that year went .. I can still remember many of you (Marc, Vic, J&E’s, Lizzie, Aunty Jen etc) holding her when she was only a day old

We had a quiet but lovely day although we did miss lots of friends and family – so thank you for all the emails wishing her a happy birthday.  I made her a cake and covered it in jelly babies and Megan came around to sing her sister happy birthday and enjoy a piece of her cake

Thanks for the Jeans Aunty Jen.

Thanks for the cardigan and pretty hair clips Aunty Kim

Books from mum and dad

We also got her a little  toy she could bash bash with .. who needs a hammer when a hand works perfectly well..

Here are the photos of her cake (yes i did make it all from scratch, including icing it all myself!) and the family photos with Megan.

Well Charlie has made her first foray over the edge of the bed… One minute she was siting next to Ian on the bed and while he was bending down to pick up her sock she had managed to roll to the other side of the bed and all Ian saw was her feet disappearing off the edge of the bed!

I was in the shower and all I heard was ‘thud’ and then a ‘Waaa’.  Thank goodness our bed is very low to the ground and Charlie is so long as her head was probably hitting the floor as her feet were going over the side of the bed.  She had alittle cry and alittle red mark.

Later that day .. in preparation for our trip to France I had sewed some elastic on one of Charlies hats in the hope it would help keep it on her head.  While trying to put it on her head and fighting with her about this, she grabbed the elastic and stretched it quite a way from her face and then let it go …. the resounding slap as it hit her face and the huge cry she let out was horrible.  That and the rather large red welt it left on the front of her face .. I felt like a very very bad mummy.

Thank goodness she seems to have forgiven us

One sunny day we went into Broadway and thought we would stop for a bit of lunch at a lovely outside cafe which had a lovely piece of grass for Charlie to play on.  We took up our seats outside and the couple who were sitting next to us had alittle boy who was crawling around on the grass.  We got to chatting with them to discovered their little boy and Charlie shared a birthday and were exactly the same age

He was trying to give Charlie kisses but she wasn’t haven’t none of that sort of carry on .. Ian was very pleased

We finally got around to downloading a bunch of photos, so I’ve included a few to show you what we have been up to.

Family photo at Clovelly

ian and Charlie out walking on one of our rare sunny days!

Charlie with her cheeky grin ..

Charlie and I out in the sun..

When we first arrived we had two sets of visitors within our first week.  My friend Sarah who had been living in Switzerland but has now relocated Paris arrived to spend two days with us.  That was great as we hadn’t seen her for a couple of years and she had never met Charlie.

We then had my best friends Stacey and Gary arrive for their first night of their 6 week holiday around Europe.  Again, we hadn’t seen them for a year or so and Charlie hadn’t met her Aunty Stacey and Uncle Gary!  The below photos are of  Stace and Charlie.