Sorry it’s been awhile since I wrote it’s been a busy one (as expected!)

Last weekend was Little H’s 3rd birthday,  and as it had been Mr B’s 30th birthday the week before I had organised a suprise weekend away at Butlins in Skegness. There was a total of 26 of us making our way there from all over the country.

I’m not very good at organising things so it’s a miracle that I sorted this out, and that I didn’t slip up to Mr B that we were all going. Sadly 2 weeks before we went Mr B slipped up that someone had slipped up, but at that point he thought that it was us and afew friends and their kids going.

So Friday morning my mum turned up at our house, MJ and I went in her car, Little H went in the car with Mr B & two of our friends. The load of us that left from Warrington were all going along the M62 eastbound and had all left at slightly different times.

Around midday I posted a Facebook status saying “on an eerily quiet m62. Everybody has turned off their engines! I’m unsure whether to expect walking dead style zombies or REM to appear singing everybody hurts”
I didn’t realise > this <had happened until we started to see air ambulances and lots and lots of ambulances trying to get through the standstill that was on our side. We knew something bad had happened when we realised there was no westbound traffic.
We were right by junction 32 at the time and MJ woke up right as we started moving (I think they were intermittently closing our side for the air ambulances) so mum made the call to get off the motorway and have lunch.
It was only when we got out of the car mum said have you heard from Allison? My heart went into my mouth in that moment (we’d heard from Mr B they’d stopped for lunch at junction 32 and hadn’t realised that the accident had happened so I knew they were ok)
As the phone was ringing I was pleading for her to answer when she did I breathed a massive sigh of relief!  They were almost at skegness and had missed the accident.

It was a very sad start to the weekend.  And mum and I were the last to arrive there which made it difficult to keep who was there a surprise for Mr B. but we got there eventually and one of Mr B’s friends had managed to track him down on site and surprise him, which was probably the only part of the weekend that managed to stay a surprise as once he realised my mum was coming he knew that other family members would be there.

Once everyone had room keys etc I had to go and find the check in team as we had a couple of keys that didn’t work (those card key things) so after 7 hours in the car I managed to escape for an hour and had a bit of a walk down to the perimeter to see the sea (who can resist seeing the sea?!) Before I headed to sort the keys out. This is what I saw…

Then Mark (one of the friends we were with) said look at that so Sam & I turned around and just wow!

Friday night Mr B went out for drinks and I put the boys to bed feeling a tad emotional that Little H was going to bed a 2 year old and Saturday would be 3 years since he arrived and was whisked off to Neonatal (I will be doing an entry about that seperately as I’ve been writing it in my head) I took his last picture as a 2 year old and a little video clip of him saying happy birthday to the lorry he was playing with (he would only say happy birthday lorry not to himself!) And I sat with him until he fell asleep, and then just a bit longer than I needed to just to be with him. ♡

Saturday morning was filled with grown men (& Sam) having hangovers as they managed to drink most of the cocktail menu in one of the bars. And Little H was tired so Mr B and his friend nominated me to take MJ out for a walk and they would stay with Little H and all have a nap. So I enlisted Sam and Mark to come for a walk and find MJ some lunch. Even though it was raining a little bit we ended up sitting on the beach which MJ wasn’t sure about and Sam & Mark went running off down to the shore MJ and I stayed up on the promemade bit and he tried to get used to the sand. But as he’s only really been walking for a little over a month he really wasn’t sure about the fact that it moved beneath his feet. So he ended up sitting on my lap and snuggling underneath my coat, which as he’s not a very snuggly baby I loved!

When we got back to the chalet Mr B was just leaving to take Little H swimming.  So MJ and I stayed to help mum sort out the food for the party. And my brother arrived too, he couldn’t do the whole weekend but had gotten up early and driven over from the lake district just so that he could see Little H on his birthday. Such a good uncle!

Despite my anxiety and emotions over it being 3 years since Little H arrived in the world the party went well. The cake was a success,  the lady who made the cake made Little H’s 1st and 2nd birthday cakes too, his 1st birthday cake was a Barbapapa cake which was amazing,  and his 2nd was a red London bus which was brilliant! (I’ll try and find pictures, I’ve changed phones since then)
So with this cake I set her a bit of a challenge,  it had to be big enough for 26 people and I had an idea. I wanted it to have everyone’s ages as they would be on the 27th April 2013 on it. As it was the only time this year that as a family (which to the outside we were a group of family and friends but to us we are all family as Allison says family is in your heart not your blood) we will all be together so I wanted it to be a celebration for all of us.
The cake survived the 7 hours in the car and didn’t disappoint.  I did get a bit choked carrying it out singing happy birthday to Little H.

The candles were the total age of everyone there and nearly everyone had a go at blowing the candles out. Which was ace!

Sunday morning everyone did pretty much their own thing,  the fair or shopping and at 1pm we all went to the Sun and Moon pub onsite and had a Sunday lunch. Once lunch was done we got a group photo which is a mandatory thing with Gruncle Chris & I we both love having photos for keepsakes and he takes brilliant pictures and we got one of the pub staff to take one so that Chris could be in it too. I can’t wait to see it!!

After dinner Mr B and I took the boys swimming.  Sam and Mark came too and we took Allisons kids too so she and her husband could have some time without them (naturally they were lost without them and ended up coming and watching us swimming!)
Little H is totally in love with Allisons kids they’re all older so they were great with him in the pool and once Mr B had done his daddy moment with MJ by being the first to take him in the pool they all disappeared to the slides leaving MJ and I to enjoy the part of the pool that was closed for the toddler session. He loved it, I hadn’t put armbands on him because he’s one of those independent souls who hates ‘help’ but he was happy knowing that mama was sat behind him and when he felt a bit uneasy he’d grab my arms and wrap them tight around his tummy. I love those moments, the ones that when you’re on your trying to conceive journey you think you’ll never have. When they happen my heart feels like it’s going to burst!

Most people went home on Sunday night because of kids missing school etc so Sunday evening was very relaxed and Monday morning we all came home.

As you can probably tell not much crocheting happened. I started a blanket on the way down but with the accident and stopping for lunch and having to plan an alternate route as the motorway was closed I didn’t really get past the first row. On the way home we were all a bit poorly thanks to some bug that’s been going around so I didn’t manage much then.

The blanket is a special request by a lady who only found out a couple of weeks ago that she’s pregnant but she was already quite far on and she’d ordered a blanket from someone but had been let down so she’d heard about me from the friend I made the yellow and pink shell blanket for. She sent me a picture of one that she’d seen that she liked but it wasn’t a close up so I did the doodle (did I already blog about it?!) And now it looks like this…

It’s actually a bit bigger now. And in the process of making this I did play around with it a bit and have an idea for future blankets. I nearly frogged this to do it the way I’ve come up with but as it’s halfway done Mr B pleaded with me to not as I’d just get irritated with myself. So I’ve made a note of the other way (with pictures) so hopefully I can try and write a pattern for it for you.

Right I’m going, sorry that it’s so long (I’ve been writing it on and off for the last couple of days!) If you’ve made it all the way through you deserve a medal!!

♡ Mrs. B x

Edit to add ~ an updated picture of the pastel coloured attic24 granny stripe blanket.