2010 has been such a amazing year for me both with my personal life and blog life. Oli's hit the age where he can communicate and interactive. He is becoming his own little person, his personality is fantastic and I can definitely see his father in him.

I remember last year I shared my favourite posts from that year so this year I thought I would do a similar thing but with a round up of the highs and lows each month from 2010.

January saw our first snow day of the year and Oli's first snow fall which at 9 months I took him out in for some sledging fun. He also took his first steps which made our month.

I questioned myself as a parent when Oli was ill in February and asked are you a confident parent? I wrote a post with my top 10 surreal mummy moments for a mummy blogging carnival which I really enjoyed reading back over.

In March I wrote a post are you a friend or a follower? which did really well and I didn't mean it to. I wanted to write about how I see people who connect to my blog and read it more like friends then anything else. I gave a few little tips on how to get your blog out there, I think I will do a more updated version of this blog post in the new year.

Oli turned 1 in April of this year and we threw him a 1st birthday party which was a fantastic day. I'm sure it will soon be his 2nd birthday before I know it. I talked about finding the impossible that month where I was weighing up my options of finding a job, putting Oli in nursery or childcare and giving up the stay at home mum status. Well nearly a year on and I've been able to continue to stay at home with Oli which I've really enjoyed. It was a great opportunity I had to spend his first couple of years with him but I have decided that come the new year it will be time to return to work.

May saw me becoming a Huggies Mummy who sponsored me to go to CyberMummy 2010 and have since been great friends of mine and Oli's. I also wrote a open letter to my online friends to let them know how important they are to me and how much there friendship both online and offline mean to me.

Over the year I started to open up and share posts which I felt were quite personal. This one about playground bullying which I wrote in June was one of them. It was difficult to think back to and write about but once I hit that publish button and shared it with the world I felt like a weight had been lifted. It was no longer a embarrassing secret.

Come July I had a full blown Toddler on my hands and it helped to blog about those toddler issues I faced. I remember receiving so much fantastic advice when I published this post why does he hurt me? I knew I was in the right company when it came to asking for parenting advice via my blog.

Something happened to me in August which no mother should have to go through. It teared me apart so much that I had to shut myself away for the week in a different house in a different town surrounded by friends who showered me in love. These friends which took me in when I needed someone were friends I had met via blogging, Vic is my closest friend and I am so thankful that blogging bought her into my life and helped me get through the toughest week I had experienced since becoming a mother.

A rather lovely and clever woman who goes by the name of Sally Whittle came up with the MADs Awards Cermony which celebrated the very best of parent blogging. Me and my family were invited along to watch the awards and support our friends. We even got to use a rather shiny Citroen DS3 to drive there and back in.

My life turned upside down in October when I answered the phone to the other half who said he has just been in a car crash, even though he hadn't received life threatening injuries I couldn't help but to run through all the what ifs especially as me and Oli could of been in the car with him.

I got rather nostalgic in November when I wrote a post saying farewell to the cassette walkman. I made myself giggle by write a blog post about how you know you're a mother when...

The last post I wrote before I took a blogging break in December was a round up of Christmas posts from lots of different bloggers which I suitably called A Christmas feast.



So that was my 2010, It was a great year at the same time as being one of the most difficult years to date.


We hope all you have a fantastic new year and I look forward to sharing 2011 with you.

I know it sounds like a stupid question but how exactly do you decorate a room or a house?


I lack creative flair and decorations of any kind just seem so foreign for me. I never know where to put anything. Guess that explains why my house looks so simple/empty, I have a mirror on my room in the living room and that's as bout as far as it goes. I don't even have any pictures up anywhere apart from a couple on the window sill. It's all part of my epic housewife failings.


So of course when it comes to putting up Christmas decorations I feel rather lost. It's bad enough that the tree looks like the Christmas aisle in homebase has pooped on it let alone putting anything else anywhere in the house. I wondered around with a piece of tinsel for at least a hour last night whilst trying to decide where to put it, I tried it around the mirror - it looked stupid. I tried it around the snail tank - it looked stupid. It's ended up around the stairs and going up it but sat here looking at it I cant decide if I like it or not?


And what is it with Christmas lights and getting tackled whilst sat in a box for 12months doing nothing and moving nowhere? We put them away so that we can easily get to them this year but upon opening the box and getting them out, we were greeted with a tangled mess. After many tears and bad words had been shared we managed to unknot it enough to stick the bit that was kind knotted at the back of the tree and chucked the decorations on so it wasn't that obvious. I might have another go at it tonight with a fresh set of eyes and a bottle of Shiraz in tow.

When I was younger I remember my mother going overboard on the decorations,the living room would be inaccessible for most of December because the amount of tack she has managed to cram in there. That's one of the things I fear happening in my own house - it looking more tacky then Pat Butchers earrings! I like simple but our house is just looking way too plain, it needs more festive cheer added to it but I just don't know where to begin. I really don't.