This week has mainly seen us counting down to halfterm (working in a school means we sometimes seem to spend all our time counting down to the next holiday!) There has been plenty to smile about as usual:

• Shugborough – yes I know I wrote about our Shugborough trip in my last Week of Smiles post but we went again on Sunday (our National Trust memberships are definitely getting good use!) This time we took Mr T’s parents with us and we all had such a lovely day together in the sunshine. We had a picnic, wandered around the mansion house and the servant’s quarters and strolled around the stunning gardens. The girls really enjoyed the freedom to run around the grounds and it’s such a relaxing way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

• Forest school – this week’s forest school session was totally different from last week’s as instead of torrential rain it was blazing sunshine and very hot (fortunately the trees provided some very welcome shade). I think Totsy was quite disappointed at the lack of puddles but she had a lovely time running around, making magic potions and mud pies and playing with the other children.

• Half term – yay for half term! I know I am really lucky because me and Mr T both work in a school so the holidays means we all get time together. This week is mainly about getting everything ready for baby and I am also on a huge mission to declutter the house, so far we have cleared Tinker’s wardrobe and our wardrobe and drawers and taken four bin bags to the charity shop!! I think I must be nesting! But hopefully we will still manage to have a few fun outings too.

• New bed – we decided to sell our old bed frame and get a new one after I spotted this one in Ikea that I loved. Fortunately, thanks to the Shpock app we managed to sell our old one no problem (for the same price as our new one!) It did mean a couple of days of sleeping on a mattress on the floor (which being heavily pregnant was maybe not ideal!) but it was worth it as I think our new bed goes so much better in our bedroom.

• We are not the only ones with a new bed, the girls have gone into bunk beds in Tinker’s room. We are still in the process of finishing off their room so I will update with some photos once it is done. Although there was no rush to move them in together as the baby will be sleeping in with us for the first few months, Tinker has been so excited about it and kept asking when they could get bunk beds. We decided to go for it this week while we are off work/school and just see what happened. After two trips to IKEA at the weekend (the second trip was necessary because we realised we had bought the wrong mattress, doh!) Mr T built them on Saturday afternoon much to Tinker’s delight. The first night they took a while to settle and were both awake until after 10pm and then got up at 6am. As Totsy is usually a 12 hours a night kind of girl and Tinker sleeps a good 10 or 11 hours we did wonder if this was going to work out after all! Fortunately last night (their second night in together) was much better. As we still have Totsy’s cot up I don’t think it has quite hit me how grown up my littlest girl is, sleeping in a big girl’s bed! These milestones are always so bittersweet, I’m so proud of her and how well she has settled in a big bed in a new bedroom but at the same time I just want to put her in her cot and keep her as my baby!

• My sister Emma, my brother in law Richard, my niece Alexa and nephew Fraser all came over yesterday which was lovely. We don’t get to see each other as often as we like, as we don’t live near to each other, so it was lovely to have a catch up. Despite the fact that our kids are different ages they get on fabulously (Tinker was literally jumping up and down with excitement when they arrived!) Though we were so busy having a nice time together that I forgot to take any photos at all.

• Potty training – ok so we are not quite there yet but we bought a potty for Totsy when we were at Ikea on Friday and on Saturday she did a wee in it for the very first time. She was very proud of herself and there was lots of over exaggerated cheering from me and Mr T! I think she is definitely ready for potty training but with a newborn on the way I think I will leave it a little while before starting properly.

Keep smiling xx