A week of birthday celebrations

Mr M always laughs at me as he says I don’t have a birthday, I have a birthweek. I must admit, I do like to spread out the birthday celebrations if I can… I hope that doesn’t make me greedy?

This year, my birthday was just under three weeks before my due date, so things were kept quite low key in terms of plans, a) because I couldn’t really go out and party and b) in case Little R-M decided to make an early appearance.

So when the lovely Amanda Foreman offered to do a maternity photo shoot on the morning of my birthday, I jumped at the opportunity. The gorgeous blogger Chelle McCann had introduced me to Amanda on Twitter as she is based close to me in Hitchin, Hertfordshire and is building up an absolutely stunning maternity portfolio alongside her amazing newborn library.

So I was up early on the Sunday primping and preening before Amanda arrived. We did the shoot up at the farm where I keep my horse, which is a bit of a hidden gem and has the most beautiful views. I’ll write more about the shoot once we have all the photos, but I am delighted with the sneak peak that we have seen so far.

 

After the shoot, we met with my mum and dad who had kindly invited us out for a meal at one of my favourite local restaurants, Lussman’s. We tend to have celebrations as a whole family and there are now eight adults and three children in my immediate family, so it’s always mayhem, but it was really nice to spend a couple of hours just with my parents, for what was probably our last meal as a four before Little R-M arrives.

The food was gorgeous. I had a Gaspacho for starters and then the most gorgeous fishcake with spinach for main. Dessert was a Creme Brulee, which was divine, but I clearly ate it far too quickly as didn’t even get a picture of it!

 

I got some really lovely and thoughtful pressies from family and friends, including handbags, chocolate, mum-to-be smellies, John Lewis vouchers for the new house and much more and felt thoroughly spoilt!

And in true Katie style, I continued my birthday into Monday. I had to make a quick trip to the office in the morning to hand over to my colleague who wasn’t in the previous week, but then it was home and out with my mum, sister and niece.

My sister had organised for us to visit a local pick-your-own farm, which also has a restaurant and farm shop. So after a lovely hour picking raspberries and my niece telling me every time she had found a raspberry, we headed to the restaurant for the most gorgeous afternoon tea on the terrace in the sunshine. My sister and I have had our ups and downs throughout our lives, and have recently started to become closer again, so it was really lovely to spend some girlie time with three generations of our family.

Tuesday I didn’t have much planned during the day, so I headed out to blog with cake and coffee in Costa. I really rather enjoy my own company sometimes and love to watch the world go by while I write or read in peace and quiet.

 

In the evening I went to a friends’ flat for takeaway and a catch up and got to play with her adorable new kittens, Dudley and Darcey.

Wednesday was spent chasing estate agents, and being told to my face by one of them in the chain that I didn’t understand the role of an estate agent in the process because I was pregnant. Less said about that day the better. We then had our second parentcraft class which you can read about here.

Due to the long delay with our house move, I decided on Thursday that I needed to make a makeshift nursery in our spare room, which has become a bit of a dumping ground while we were waiting for our exchange date. All baby clothes, nappies, etc are now washed, ironed and put away and the spare room is ready in case Little R-M comes before the new house keys.

On Saturday lunchtime, I headed out to have a pedicure at a local salon, which was my birthday present from my sister. It was so nice to sit and relax and have a natter for an hour with nothing else to worry about. I can no longer reach my feet past the bump, so it’s really nice to have pretty toes again too.