Growing Up // Filling in the Blanks on Two Years!

It's been a couple of years since I've blogged regularly, and honestly? I've really missed it... missed the record it gives me of our day to day family life, missed the opportunity for processing my thoughts, missed the community. It's been necessary through the rollercoaster of four small children at home, homeschooling, launching a business and a worldwide pandemic, but I've long known that I wasn't done. Ten years of blogging makes it pretty hard to leave altogether.

And so I'm back!

A lot has changed over the past few years. We rode the wave of lockdowns as everyone else did... a season that was intense, emotionally exhausting but such a gift to our family. Insane as it was, I think all of us leave 2020/21 behind with a sense that it was a season we will always hold as precious. I was literally exhausted for the entirety of the two lockdowns, but that time together as a family, in such formative years of our children's lives, feels like it was something we will always treasure. Homeschool morning time on the red sofa, countless memory verses memorised, the endless sunshine of the first lockdown and the endless rain of the second. Somewhere in the flurry of those 18 months, our children grew up. We entered lockdown with a toddler, and we've come out with independent kids - and we've been loving this new season!

Our Elias is now four years old - a wacky, lively, loveable character who is much loved by all. As everything began to open up again over the summer, we realised with pleasant surprise that we had left the baby days behind us without realising it, and suddenly had a freedom for adventures and family days out that we had missed for ten years of babies in tow. And so we spent the summer exploring every nook and cranny of London... drinking in gallons and gallons of information about our city, and loving our newfound freedom. Thankfully our kids are as much museum fans as their parents!

At the end of the summer, we had the wonderful surprise that we could return back to Norway for a couple of weeks. After two years of not seeing our family out there, we relished our fjordside weeks for all they were worth! And as usual I took far too many photographs...!

And now we have entered a new season... Elias is now in Reception, and for the first time in ten years, I find myself home alone, with no little people underfoot. It was a milestone I was truly dreading... having poured every ounce of energy into the children for the past ten years, the prospect of them "flying the nest" was more than a little daunting... and yet in all honesty, we are all loving this new season. We are all thriving with our newfound independence, and all the more glad to be back together again every evening. I think everything that has happened has made us all more appreciative of the freedoms we now have, and also the preciousness of time together.

And so - a few things remain from lockdown and I think now always will... gathering in the morning on the red sofa to pray together, Friday night movie nights with pizza, Holiday projects where we are all geeky and basically hold on to a little snippet of homeschool, Saturday coffee morning with our neighbours...

And yet, other things are new and exciting... Ava and Jonas have both joined football teams and are loving their matches, while Heidi has thrown herself full enthusiasm into theatre arts. The children are, for this year alone, all in the one school together, and while we dive into decisions about secondary schools for Ava, we're enjoying this last year of everyone being in one place. Moving away from the baby years feels  like a new season for us, but one which we have welcomed with open arms.  

And so there's that little update... a little fill in the gaps for you! Now please do tell me in the comments what has changed for YOU in the last two years!! We have a lot to catch up on!