Family life | The Williams World

During the summer months I spend my time gazing at other peoples gardens on instagram. Large sprawling gardens with an abundance of colour make me very jealous. If I could change anything about our home, it would be a larger garden. Actually I would also love an ensuite but I shan’t be greedy.

We have lived in our house for 15 years, and over that time we have added a decking area which we use to dine al fresco (which happens about twice a year with our wonderful weather). Our garden is triangular shape, so we try and make the most of the space we have. The area below used to be filled with plants, but we decided to remove them about 2 years ago as we felt it would give more space in the garden.

We covered the area with stones and at first it looked lovely. It reminded me of a little beach area when it was first done as the stones reminded me of pebbles. But over time the stones became dirty, and full of leaves and berries from nearby trees. So we decided we would add another decking area, which would make it easier to brush up the leaves. I love our new decking area but I am undecided what to put on it. I was thinking of a more comfortable seating area or maybe deckchairs ? And then do we stain it or not ? Oh decisions decisions…..

I have to thank my wonderful step dad for putting the new decking down for us whilst we were away.

I am linking up with the lovely Jess from Mummy of Boy Girl Twins and

the lovely Caro from The Twinkle Diaries

This is my first time linking up with the lovely Katie from mummydaddyme for the ‘Ordinary Moments’. Katie has an amazing talent for capturing the ordinary everyday moments. Those moments that stop you in your tracks and make you feel grateful. The simple things that make us smile. Whilst our summer has been the usual whirl of holidays and days out, I wanted to remember some of the more calmer moments. The moments which have made us all smile over the summer holidays.

Playing scrabble

When you have a teen, the only games they want to play are attached to a media device. So when we arrived at Forest Holidays to be met with a Scrabble board, I was amazed that the teen was desperate to play it. He is really competitive, just like his dad, and all he wanted to do was beat us. I was just happy to have some much needed time with him, laughing about the ‘ruder’ words we were coming up with. The board also came in handy for sending each other little notes. This one was from Katie….. bless her.

The beach

On the eve of Morgan turning 13, we spent a lovely few hours on the beach. This was one of those ‘spur of the moment’ decisions. We quickly threw some food in a bag, grabbed the bucket and spade and headed down to the private beach where we were staying. The boys played football, Katie made sandcastles, and I watched my gorgeous family. 13 years earlier I would have been in labour about to start our parenting journey. I sat on the beach that evening thinking how lucky we were.

Walking in the forest

I find the forest so calming. I think this is why we head back to Centerparcs every year, and have recently fallen in love with Forest Holidays. Usually ‘going for a walk’ means the teen runs to his room and hides in his bed for the next week. But suggest a walk through the forest, and he is up for it. We enjoyed lots of evening walks when we were staying near Sherwood Forest. We even managed a rare selfie of the 4 of us whilst sitting on a log.

Kids playing together

Now my 2 have always had a love/hate relationship. They love nothing more than winding each other up and getting the other one in trouble. But during the holidays something strange happens. They actually get on FAR better. When we went to Forest Holidays they had to share a bedroom, something I was dreading. But for 7 nights they were fantastic. One night I sat outside their room as I could hear them chattering away gone 11.30pm. They had made dens out of their beds and were whispering away to each other. I sat on the floor smiling away, and couldn’t bear to go in and tell them to go to sleep. Right infront of me was an ordinary moment. An ordinary moment where my children were having fun with each other.