Best and Worst Linky #52

Hi everyone and a huge welcome to the best and worst linky run by my lovely friend Sarah who blogs over at Run Jump Scrap and co-hosted by myself. If you're new to the linky we're delighted for you to join in, please do have a read of the rules. If you're a regular then thanks as always for the support. Sarah and I split the commenting now, it is working well doing it like that. You should have received a comment from one of us so if you are missing one please do drop us a tweet or email. We've had some great posts over the last few weeks!

Well we made it to 1 whole year of running our linky. Sarah and I love hosting, even though it is alot of hard work but we thank each and every one of you for linking up and supporting us. Check out our giveaway as a little thankyou!

This is the linky where you can tell us about the best or worst things that have happened in the last week or even the last year, this could in the form of a blog post, a photo or even a video. It can be an old post or a new post, we don't mind we just want you to share it with us. We want you to share your babies firsts, the crappy day at work you've had or a makeup disaster basically the good, the bad or the downright ugly! We want to share your excitement and tears, highs and lows no matter what it is.

Each week we will both choose our favourite posts from the week before and feature you on the next weeks Best and Worst, we will also feature you on our Twitter feed. 

My featured post from last week was from Confessions of a Crummy Mummy and how school/class parties have alot to answer from. Imagine that your child doesn't get an invite, how do you explain it, how do you get past the emotional distraught over a small child? In this post I felt so emotional reading it, please do go and have a nose.

Rules

• The linky will open at 6.30am on a Wednesday and close at 23.55pm on a Friday
• You can link up one or two posts each week
• Please comment on the 2 posts before yours and have a nosey at the host's too. We've noticed that some people have just been link dropping and not commenting on the 2 in front, please do return the favour so everyone gets some comments and linky love, thankyou.
• ***Please add the badge to the bottom of your page so everyone knows where you have linked up***
• Tweet your hosts @helsy_1983 and @RunJumpScrap once linked up so we can retweet you. When tweeting and commenting use the hashtag #bestandworst so everyone knows where you have come from

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<a href="http://www.allthebeautifulthings.co.uk" title="Best of Worst"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRNlAy79ytuqAfBSNvsLwSTMvdETy4EvfAUaU75QbHqXMx-aqv_12JN9Lm2FbBZElLZfBXpm9usEQFbBn6lPVDoBk95pCWlkYQCtsokTz5KWZuaddJXJaB7MKT6dVEW4RO9bX44aiUjd2s/s1600/bestandworstlinky.png" alt="Best of Worst" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

An InLinkz Link-up

Elarna Birth & Beyond - Update #12

It happened. My 2nd baby turned one. How can this be?! It only feels like yesterday that I was in labour and welcoming her into the world. The weeks have rolled by so quickly and it has been a truly amazing year. We've had our ups and downs, mostly ups and I've slowly become (what I hope!) is an ok Mum of 2. It's pretty amazing to look back over the last year and see how much she's changed, even since last months update she's getting much more confidence and is starting to want to explore all day long. In this update I'm going to share some photos of her 1st birthday weekend. It sounds terrible but I didn't want to make a huge fuss. When Alfie turned one it was a huge thing, we had a big party, we invited lots of people and generally it was quite stressful! We had a fab day but Alfie didn't really know what to do with himself, bless him. I decided that for Elarna we would have a quiet family day on her actual birthday and then a very small gathering with just close friends and family on Saturday. 

Bizarrely I didn't really know what to get her for, I'm so used to boys toys that buying for another gender was tricky. It was a tough job but I did get through it, ha! We now have a nice mix of some girly toys for her to play with as she grows up. I do still have quite alot of Alfie's younger toys which is good but she definitely needed some that were more girlyfied. Sorry if the sight of pink offends, I love pink and I do admit to buying her quite a bit of pink and purple gifts! As you can see for her big gift I went for a rather lovely princess cozy coupe, this was without a doubt a hit with Alfie aswell as Elarna! 

We spent Friday morning opening pressies and playing. It was really nice and chilled......apart from my husband being in some weird man mood for the best part of the morning but other than that it was great! We were originally going to head to the little zoo that's local to us but the weather was absolutely pants so that ruined that idea. My next idea was to head to a soft play over in Stamford with a lovely cafe, I'd heard lots of good things about it and it was really nice, quite small but perfect for having a coffee and being able to enjoy it while being able to make sure the children are ok. I loved that the baby area was right next to the seating area so I could pop Elarna into the ball pool while being able to sit close and watch her. We had a really nice afternoon and then finished the day off with pizza and pasta......at Alfie's request. 

Saturday I'd arranged a little tea party, I'm really pleased that I kept it small, it was probably the least stressful party so far and with only a few family and friends there it meant I got to chat to everyone. We massively over catered and had enough sandwiches to feed a small army .....needless to say I think we'll be eating ham sandwiches until they come out of our ears. 

I had some gorgeous little butterfly cupcakes made and they were so pretty. I actually bought the main cake from Tesco! I was pretty impressed with their selection and it tasted pretty good too. So if anyone is looking for a birthday cake I can definitely recommend popping to Tesco and checking out their range. 

As always forgot to take many pictures as I was busy chatting and the ones that I did to get weren't great! I wish I knew the trick to getting an almost 4 year old to smile for the camera. We only just managed to get these pictures with the bribery of being allowed a couple of sweets, this is the best of the lots, trust me!

Elarna had a great time, she was absolutely pooped when I put her to bed. Alfie on the other hand was running on haribo. We had a couple of friends stay over with their little boys so they were running riot around the house while the adults were just wanting to sit down and drink wine. Eventually at around 8:30pm our wish was granted and we were finally able to sit, have some adult conversation and enjoy some champagne. All in all a lovely end to a successful day. 

As much as I'm sad to say goodbye to the baby days at the moment I'm of course looking forward to the future and really excited to watch her meet her milestones. I think Alfie is looking forward to when she can actually play with him! We're still waiting for those first steps to be taken, she's so close but hasn't quite dared to yet.....I'm hoping that the next update I'll be able to share that she's walking but we'll see! So there is lots that awaits us and for the moment I'm just taking each day as it comes and loving my little family. Thanks for reading and I'm going to shut up now, all that remains to be said is here's to the next year!