Halloween Pumpkins with Bingspiration #Ad

It’s been a bit of a funny old weekend for us.  We were due to take a review trip to the coast, but Storm Brian cancelled all of the trains in that direction and we had to turn around at Waterloo Station and lug our suitcase, pram and four children back home.  We were so disappointed, especially the boys, who have been bemoaning the broken trains and the ‘stone castles’ that they were going to make ever since.  Thanks, Brian.  

We found ourselves with an unexpected, completely clear weekend at home.  I’m not a stay-at-home sort of person, particularly now that we have children; I find that they are so much easier to manage outside of the house, and bonus, our home stays tidy!  So even as we travelled back, I found myself on my iPhone, googling ways to keep them entertained this weekend.  Of course, we didn’t get back home until gone midday and then they wanted to eat the picnic that we had bought for the train and watch the little DVD player that we had bought to keep them entertained on the long journey, so we didn’t manage to get out of the house until quite a bit later.  I had dropped Josephine-dog to my mother-in-law’s house after work the day before, in preparation for our going away, so we didn’t have to worry about finding somewhere to go that is dog-friendly.  With that in mind, I suggested that we take a bus ride to Well Hall Pleasaunce, the former home of Edith Nesbit (author of The Railway Children) for a run around for the children and a chance to take some autumnal photos.

These four are just the most fun to take out at the moment.  We are so fortunate in that our ‘threenagers’ are still quite reasonable and that they tend to stay close even as they are tearing about, and that little Polly Poobum is so enamoured with her older siblings that most of her chasing is after them rather than in the opposite direction, and baby Embla is really no trouble at all.  We have just the best time taking them out on little adventures and always come home feeling so much closer and more connected for it.

This is my no-carve Bing.  We were challenged to decorate a pumpkin to look like Bing or Flop from the tv show, and as I’m notoriously lethal in the kitchen and didn’t fancy donating a finger or two to the cause, I got out the card, the sharpies and felt and created this little beauty!  In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that Kirsty had to affix those ears to the pumpkin using a hammer and a couple of screws, but it was still reasonably simple to do.  You can find more ‘Bingspiration‘ here if you’re looking for a crafting idea for Halloween.

They all seem to have grown so much recently.  The boys are losing the last of their toddler chub, slimming down and stretching up, and they suddenly look so much like children rather than toddlers that sometimes when I glance at them, my breath catches in my throat.  They turn three next weekend and I am simply aghast at how quickly the time has flown.  I wish so fiercely sometimes that I could travel back, just for a day or so, press my face into newborn Balthazar and Lysander, throw baby Balthazar and Lysander up into the air and catch them to hear them giggle just one more time, hold their hands as they wobble, Bambi-like, upright and unsteady; I wish that their early months had not been swallowed in a post-natal depressive fog, that I had loved them a little more fiercely then as I do now.

And the girls have grown too.  Olympia is our sunshine girl, she is so bright and so terribly, hilariously naughty.  And whilst we have been making the most of little Embla, we are forced to admit that there isn’t very much baby left in that little girl now.  She still has her one word, and she still would rather crawl than walk, but she is growing and she understands so much more than she can say.

Kirsty made her this little coat and the ears slay me.  I’ve realised that my biggest weakness in baby/toddler clothes is animal ears; I actually cannot cope with the cuteness.

I know it’s a little narcissistic to say, but I think we are just the loveliest family.  We are so happy and so in love with our situation in life – and I wish that those who think that families like ours are a negative thing would just follow us for a while, and see how confident and well-adjusted and loved these children are by their two mummies.

I don’t know if it would change their minds.  I would hope that it would.

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post.