Me and Mine: January

The photo is grainy, the light bad, the angle off centre... and yet this photo captures January for us. A month of snuggling up indoors with the heating on and a good book...

Outside we have had every type of weather under the sun thrown at us (although the promised snow remains elusive! No fear... we are off back to Norway next week and will soon put that to rights!) and the girls have enjoyed trudging up and down the garden in icey winter sunshine, beavering away in their Huette while the rain pours, and braving gusty winds. We have not let it stop us getting outside, but somehow, in the evening, all you want to do is cuddle up together as darkness closes in.

Our bedtime routine remains the same all year round, and yet there is something extra special about it in these wintry months. The girls are keen to clamber into warm beds, snuggle up for their bedtime bible story, gulping down warm milk before they say their prayers. There is something of the desire to hibernate in them. And rousing Ava from her slumber in the morning for Nursery school has been no small feat.

And so this picture, with all its technical faults and flaws, captures a very real everyday moment for us. All gathered together on Ava's bed, reading a couple of stories, praying together and enjoying those last minute bedtime cuddles before lights go out and glow in the dark stars shine bright in chubby little hands. Those precious moments before Mama's lullabies are silenced and little voices call out their last good nights.

A very ordinary, yet very precious, Me and Mine in January.