January 2012 .

It's the end of January already . Once again the blog was frozen in time for a few weeks whilst life took over.

Chickenpox long gone the scars slowly fading on Heathers face , I think some will take many months even years to go , some will stay for her whole life .
Life is like that too. Something's fade with time , some scars will never heal , some leave constant reminders forever ingrained in our lives.

In 10 days time I am due to give birth to a little girl who will leave her own marks on this world . The last two months have been spent preparing ourselves ,our family and our home for her arrival .

Christmas was wonderful , exhausting but wonderful ! My brother in law had been unwell so our planned Christmas meal at my sisters was cancelled and was relocated to our house. 15 for dinner was a challenge I'd never taken on , 15 for dinner 30 odd wks pregnant and running behind on everything due to the chicken pox grounding us through December was a whole different, crazy ball game.
Thank goodness for my lovely family everyone mucked in to help and we pulled it off with smiles and much laughter through the whole of the festivities.

New year was a quiet affair this year . Friends visited for a short overnight stay and we saw the new year in in the only way I really care for . Together. Myself , my wonderful partner my beautiful children and good friends. It never really matters where you are when you have all those things does it ?

The new year got off to a rocky start for me. My middle child is struggling to come to terms with changes in her life. She's so grown up in many ways and yet still such a little girl in so many others. She is torn between two phases of growing up , two parents and many different sets of feelings towards the world in general . School has become hard for her with exam pressures and the result of all this has been somewhat explosive. She went to stay with her dad for a couple of weeks so we all had a little down time from the highly charged emotions that were flying around the house. I needed some down time too . It's been quiet without her . She came home last night and it feels so good to have us all here under one roof again. I think I slept better in the few hours I got last night than I have in the last weeks nights put together. I wanted her here to welcome her new sister to the world and it seems she feels ready to do so. The school worries not gone but not new either and we will carry on tackling them in time.

So we carry on the countdown ... Our lives are about to change again , in a very wonderful way . So much to look forward to , Dave has a long time at home with us , the children have a well timed half term to be here and adjust to their new sister. I have no doubt there will be rocky days where emotions run high and tempers are frayed by lack of sleep etc... What kind of family doesn't have those days ? Not many!

Our baby , the link between so many people I love has been so carefully grown inside me for the last 9months , i couldn't be carrying a more precious load ... I'm nervous for her birthday ... Praying that everyone involved understands just how very precious she is .