Well we had an early wake-up today, Forrest, you woke up before 5:00 and wanted to go downstairs to eat. Nixie, you woke up by him shouting but you didn't want to get up and wanted to snuggle me so I managed to snuggle you a bit before Forrest, you, had enough. Daddy ended up carrying you downstairs so I could snuggle Nixie but you just cried for me so I ended up coming down too and saw you just sat on the sofa crying because I hadn't carried you down so I asked if I could carry you back up and go down again and that made you happy so that's what we did! And by this time you, Nixie had come down too but daddy had gone back to sleep.

You, Forrest,  still can't really walk although last night you made the most progress since you got your cast off 1.5 weeks ago, you actually have started to practice taking a few steps without holding on to things and you get so happy when you do, exclaiming, "I'm doing it!!"

You were both very excited to open your next little bag of our solstice countdown and Nixie you are being so sweet with Forrest, giving him half of your pieces of chocolate and even sneaking marshmallows into his cereal and then putting them on little lollipop sticks. You've also been really busy making us all love letters and pictures, I just love your heart.

The first part of the morning you guys watched movies and I got some chores done. I found so many of your, Nixie, pieces of artwork which I put up in the hallway, and it looks amazing! The last couple of months you've really been on such a roll. 

Daddy got up a few hours after we did and once he was up he joined in with doing chores. What's really amazing is that today you, Forrest, are being so brave and have become so much more confident with trying to walk, yesterday we really did turn a corner! You are so incredibly sweet about it all too, and everytime you try to walk you want us all to watch and you look so proud when we cheer you on. You even managed to walk over a rolled up piece of rug, I was so incredibly impressed!!

Once me and daddy finished the chores it was time to get our love tree! I've been so looking forward to this all week! We went to New park where we got ours last year. But just as we were arriving, you, Nixie, burst into tears saying you missed Mariam and I thought it was pretty amazing because we weren't far from where we buried her which you didn't realise, it was like you could feel her. I told you she's looking out for you and how beautiful it was that you still feel connected to her. I told you I missed her too, I almost started to cry too feeling your sadness.

Once we parked you went and got a cart and brought it over to us and Forrest, you, loved sitting in it and being pushed by Nixie. We found our tree almost straight away, it was the second one we were drawn to. Once we got the tree into the roof rack we went back and went for a little walk through the woods. Forrest, you kept saying you wanted to walk and you did so well, your leg seems to have gotten even stronger since this morning!  but it still hurts you after a very short while. This marked the first time you've been properly out since sea life! I get really emotional seeing you learn to walk again. I still can’t quite believe you broke your leg and I don’t think I realised what a long healing process it would be for you.

Once we were on our way home you fell asleep within 5 minutes of being in the car. When we got home I carried you in and tried waking you up but you were sound asleep. I laid you on the sofa in hopes that you would wake up with us being noisy. We managed to get the whole tree set up with the lights while you were still asleep! Daddy was the one who did the lights this year as I did them last year and you, Nixie and I made our tree decorations for this year. Daddy is going to paint a mushroom that he carved and turn that into his ornament. We didn’t want you to miss out on decorating the tree so we all tried to wake you. Finally daddy managed and you seemed so confused when you woke up and saw the tree! You weren’t in the mood to make a tree decoration but once you were fully awake you thoroughly enjoyed hanging all of our hearts onto the tree. You even managed to stand up on the sofa and reach quite high up, you kept saying “this is fun!”. We were listening to Ziggy Marley who the both of you really love and you, Nixie were singing away and Forrest you were dancing and humming.

Once the tree was finished it was time to make the first mince pies of the season. It was a family affair and we all got involved and it was so much fun! It was my first time joining in with the mince pie tradition and it just felt so good to be together. Everything went smoothly too until it was time to put them in the oven when Forrest, you pulled on Nixie and almost made her drop all the pies!

As soon as we finished with them it was time to make dinner and while daddy sorted that out both of you were in the lounge listening to music. Nixie, you were running around doing all sorts of leaps and jumps and Forrest you were busy with finding more decorations to hang on the tree. When dinner was ready we all wrote down something we are grateful for onto little hearts and hung them in our grateful tree, usually we use twigs and branches but due to the series of events over the last month we never managed to get that part sorted so instead we are using a wooden tree I had bought randomly in the spring thinking it'll perfect for something and sure enough it actually was!

After dinner you, Forrest and I went upstairs and had a bath. You had really wanted me to join you. You only had one bath bomb left and unfortunately it was a dud and you were a bit disappointed. I asked you if you have anything on your wishlist and you said “baff bombs, please, by sum otay???” Hearing you say more and more things everyday now is just such a joy to my ears! I asked what else you wanted and all you said was "you!" While pointing at me. Oh you sure know how to melt my heart. 

At the moment you are into reading the cat in the hat learning series. It's really fun revisiting all these books that Nixie used to love with you. It took you a bit longer to get to sleep than it usually does and within 10 min nixie, you and daddy came in and you snuggled up with me in the cutest way which made me feel like we were a twizzlers: completely wrapped up in each other. It didn't take you long either to fall asleep.