Well – I can’t believe it’s been three months since my last post, except of course I can believe it, because since that post we welcomed into the world little Alba June, who is now 10 weeks old and the perfect, contented little baby. Noticing last week that our once tiny baby had already grown out of all of her newborn sleepsuits and is now too long to lie snugly in her nest was just the reminder I needed to hit pause and look back through the last two months’ of photos, and I already can’t believe how much she has changed.
Gretchen Rubin once claimed – “The days are long but the years are short,” and already I’m keenly sensing this to be true; feeling the hours of a day stretch out before me knowing they will be filled with changing, feeding and napping (her, not me) and little else. But then noticing another week has flown by in the blink of an eye, and seeing her starting to babble away, play with her hanging toys, suck her thumb and grin at me when she wakes, where previously there was little feedback or activity. The desire to ‘hit pause’ and revel in this phase (well, the grins and the excited gabbling – not so much the frequent waking in the night) is something that is often present in my mind, especially turning the page of the calendar and being another month into my maternity leave, knowing that these days just the two of us won’t last forever.
For this reason, I’m determined to capture as many of these moments as possible (from both the fun days out as a family, to a more simple selfie of us lying on the sofa together), and also to do something I almost never do – to start getting photos printed, a framed photo or made into photo books. Although my phone is stuffed full of these photos, I’m finding I don’t often enough look back through them, so having something in the house I can look at whilst I’m sat feeding on the sofa, or have on a shelf to slide out and enjoy is something I’m determined to do to have a more physical reminder of these blissful newborn days (weeks, and months).
I recently ordered two framed photos from My-Picture.co.uk – I’ve noticed that often when I order prints I rarely then get round to framing them, so having them arrive beautifully mounted and with a sleek, wooden frame saves them being stuck at the back of the drawer and adding another task to my endless to do list. I’ve never found anywhere that’s so affordable for ordering framed and mounted prints (a 20cm x 20cm framed photo is less than £15!) so I was over the moon that they arrived quickly, packaged perfectly and with great quality. (There was even a personal note inside, which I thought was a lovely touch). The 20 x 20 print looks lovely on our new ladder shelf, and the larger 40 x 40 print is awaiting being hung in the lounge – it’s funny that it’s one of our first photos of the three of us and yet Alba is all snug in her carrier so you can only really see her tuft of hair poking out!
I have already selected more that I want to get printed and framed, and it’s been a useful nudge to capture special moments, knowing that I’ll be doing something with the photos now rather than letting them lie un-looked at in my phone album. I’ve already become that person insisting on group photos, especially when we have Liam’s daughter with us too.
If you’d like to get some of your special memories printed, framed (or even made into a custom face mask!) you can use the code ROSIEOUTLOOK10 for 10% off. And please do share with me what you get printed, I’d love to see what you create!
