It’s been nearly 2 years since we moved into our house. I often look out onto the garden which is amazing by anyone’s standards. We’ve built a lot of memories here in a very short time. There have been parties, picnics, braai’s and boerewors. It has been Narnia, an oasis, a lake and a the end of a trip down the rabbit hole.

The last time I blogged was 4 weeks prior to the birth of our second little girl. She was born in June last year and is now a year old toddler with amazing gusto. I once described my son as my joy, and have often referred to my first daughter as my angel. My third child is pure spirit. I’m sure I will blog more about her.

Four months after our daughter arrived, my father left. One day I will blog about that too but for now that chapter is still too raw. For now I will say that looking out on to the garden, I often see him in my minds eye walking down the garden with my first daughter. It still chokes me up and as I don’t relish blogging in tears and I’m not the bear-my-guts type of writer, I would like to leave that alone until I can think about him without sadness.

Subsequently my mom moved in with us for a few months. The kids had some amazing bonding time with their Nana, and she got to see them all grow up daily, which a lot of grandparents don’t get to experience. It was a bittersweet time as we dealt with our loss, made adjustments and ultimately learned a new way of living.

In December we were hit with the surrey floods that affected many people throughout the UK. On Christmas Eve our lovely oasis looked like a lake. If it hadn’t been for the quick thinking of my husband, we would’ve had a worse picture than this.

We eventually, after a rough and emotional day had started thinking about the possibility of making a boat and messing about on Christmas Day, but we woke up Christmas morning and wouldn’t you know it, the water had all gone. All flood and no fun.

Let’s just say I was glad to see the back of 2013.

2014 rolled past in a blur. We celebrated birthdays with Alice in Wonderland and cake smashes, theme park visits and of course some drama. I worked, hubby worked and the kids just got on with it. Hubby and I went on our first weekend away in years (Rome – it was awesome, and possibly another blog post for another day. Worth going.)

Lil Fella is no longer little. He is 15 now and taller than me, so I’ll hence forth refer to him as J1 (we decided on this a while back. All of our children’s names start with the letter J, so we have J1, J2 and J3. Simples.) There is still no end of teenage drama, but somehow we have muscled through and things are good at the moment on that front. J2 started pre school and she’s been loving it and of course we come to J3 who is becoming the energetic toddler now. It’s insane how time marches on.

And now we approach the last bit of 2014 and the emotional roller coaster shows no signs of stopping just yet. Recent events have highlighted how important it is to focus on what really matters. Money can be made or earned, stuff can be bought or replaced, and friends are made and lost but when all else fails, being a wife and a mother is all I really need.