The story so far...

I was never one of those people who had dreams of getting married, having children and all the other usual girly ideals. I just went where life took me and made the best of it. When I first met Dean it never entered my head that he was "the one" and that we would settle down together. But here we are, 6 years later: a house, many cars (all his), two dogs, two rabbits and two children. And while I have an engagement ring, I doubt we will ever make the trip up the aisle.

So here I am, recently moved into a project house. A house that pretty soon is going to turn into a building site as all our plans start to take shape, obviously starting with the garage. The next 18-months is no doubt going to be sheer hell as we all try and negotiate our way through the absolute chaos that is sure to accompany the build of our dream house.

So lets back track a bit...

The year is 2012 and despite being occupied with two dogs and two rabbits, I still had that nagging thought in the back of my mind calling out for someone to care for with less hair and only two legs. Dean tried his best, but they just weren't enough for me. We made the decision to have a baby!! I was over the moon, he had never really expressed much enthusiasm for children, unless he was guarenteed a boy who would play football, so it came as quite a shock even to me when he was open to the idea.

We mutually decided that we would just see what happens, but after eight months, we both became anxious that nothing was happening. Admittedly me more than him. Then just when you decide the timing couldn't be more wrong - he had just quit his job to start his own business, I just accepted a new job - we find out we are having a baby!! Of course we were over the moon and on 20th October 2013 we welcomed Gracie-Mae Burden into the world.

If I remember right, I hadn't even left the delivery room and we had already decided that we would have another child. Over the following weeks as we settled into being parents we talked about it more, he said he'd like a close age gap, I was more keen to leave a bigger gap. Then in March 2014, to our absolute shock we found out we were having another baby. Elijah Michael Burden joined us on 6th November 2014 to complete our family.

With only a 12 month age gap, the first year having two children was a challenge to say the least, but we made it. The hard part is over. We now have two toddlers, two very head strong toddlers, who know their own mind and will do whatever it takes to get what they want. Actually thinking about it I think the hard part is still to come...