When this family photo project started now three years ago, I couldn't have predicted that this would be the post I would be sharing for the start of this year. Me and Mine was founded to encourage us all to take a minute to capture a moment, a snapshot of our little families whether it be a selfie in the car, a grainy Sunday morning shot all together in bed before the sun comes up, or a fancy posed shot where you've dragged your tripod to the perfect spot!

It doesn't matter about the actual photo, it's the fact that you took the photo that matters! I look back and see my babies turn to boys, and small boys turning into young men. In the last six months Sammy seems to have blossomed in every way. Big teeth, legs that have grown without us noticing until I see him in trousers on a Saturday morning and they are flapping up above his ankles (their school uniform of all-year-round shorts has hidden those lanky legs!), and he's started the countdown to his 7th birthday with endless discussions about ideas for his Horrible Histories-themed party!

Seven feels so old to us. Will it be the year he naturally slips out of calling us Mama and Dada? He's now too heavy to carry on your hip, so when a bleary and teary-eyed striped boy appears at the bottom of the stairs in the evening – upset from a bad dream or needing an extra cuddle to settle him – we get him to stand on the bottom step, lean on our back and carry him upstairs like a sack of potatoes over a greengrocer's shoulder.

And this month a new little boy came into our lives, and made our small boy seem like a teenager and our biggest boy like a gentle giant!

For me, Me and Mine isn't just about Rich and I and our two sons. When my sister had her first baby almost three years ago, I felt this rush of love for someone who wasn't technically mine but felt like mine. And I know my sister feels the same about my boys. When we are all together we just fit together – our children are interchangeable between us and we are ticking-off days on the calendar until our niece Yasmin comes to stay for her half-term mini break. She comes to stay and, quite laughably, barely gives them a second glance as she says goodbye. It's not that she won't miss them, it's just that she is happy and safe at Auntie and Uncle's house and, for those days and nights, her familiar routine moves to our house.

I don't know for sure whether my bond with her is so strong because I saw her being born, but I wouldn't change it for the world. When my sister announced that she was pregnant again last year, I didn't dare assume the same would happen again but, luckily for me, it hadn't crossed her mind that I would be anywhere else but right there in the delivery room.

I'd had a "go bag" packed for a week or so as we got closer to the due date, and then on a Saturday night just over two weeks ago, we heard a familiar sound: an incoming FaceTime call from Natalie. The conversation went a little like this, in amongst tears of laughter. "I think my waters might have broken... but it could just be a big wee!" We debated the suspect water that her husband Andrew had the pleasure of cleaning-up on the kitchen floor and then a calming and considered Rich poked his head over my shoulder and reminded her that she was just a few days shy of her due date and that it was probably best to give the hospital a quick call! Within a couple of minutes they phoned back to say the midwife wanted them to go in for a little monitoring as Natalie had been worrying she wasn't feeling the baby move as much as normal.

We put the phone down and I raced upstairs. Hurriedly grabbing my wash bits from the bathroom whilst Rich was trying to convince me to slow down and wait until we knew what was happening from the maternity ward. But I had this overwhelming sense of urgency and just wanted to get in the car as soon as humanly possible! It's a good hour and 50 minutes to get to them but that may well have been the other side of the world at that moment. 

I had one foot out of the door when they rang just before midnight after a few calls back and forwards to say she was definitely being induced. Her voice sounded so brave but wobbly. My heart felt like it was being gripped when she said I'm so frightened and all I wanted to do was be by their sides. So at 2am I met Andrew in the car park – he'd come down to pick up their bags from the car and we walked back into the hospital just as the snow started falling, laden with overnight bags and supplies from the M&S petrol station shop I had blasted into en route.

Within an hour and a half Natty was started to make the sounds. Those distinctive groaning, but not quite the mooing sounds when you know things are really getting going. The Sister on the reception desk wasn't convinced when I popped down the hall that the induction was taking effect so quickly but, after I scurried back up the corridor for a second time in 10 minutes, the lovely midwife on duty to monitor Natty came to check her over and gave a wide eyed look to Andrew and I. My phone bleeped and Andrew had sent me a text saying he didn't think we were far away from seeing the baby and we signalled with our hands, our nervous guesses of the time it would be born to each other as Natty buried herself over the side of the bedrail and into the bed as a contraction took hold.

He guessed 5am.

He wasn't too far off! At just after 4am the midwife gave Natty some reassurance that she was now in established labour and that they would start running the water for the birthing pool. Luckily the pool room was literally three steps across the corridor from our room and we helped Natty hobble across, after what felt like the longest time in the world to run a big bath! As we got into the room I turned to Andrew and gave him a big hug and said a sort of this is it, good luck message and as we broke the hug he said "What do you mean, you're not going anywhere are you?!" He thought I was leaving them, but really I was just trying to give him a boost of confidence and energy!

It's a very special thing to be a birthing partner, to share one of the best ever moments of someone's life and I will always be grateful that Andrew was happy to share it with me. 

I dropped all the spare towels, the phones, her drink and lip salve (the gas and air made her lips so dry) on a chair by the pool as Andrew helped her into the water. Last time round she had felt so comforted by the water but this time it didn't feel right.

She thrashed around during minute apart contractions and Andrew and I exchanged helpless glances as we each held her hands and she clenched her fists. It felt like a tsunami was building – an intense, incredibly fast build up and there were moments when I felt like I was holding my breath and my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

It's the hardest thing to watch someone you love fiercely in pain and not really do anything to help. After just a few minutes Natty was desperate to get out of the water and onto a low bed against the wall of the room. The next 10 minutes raced by, a mix of tears, excitement, exhaustion and then elation.

Natty was up over the pillow, holding the bar of the pyrex dish as I call it – the little plastic crib frame – pushing against the wall with every contraction and the midwife was firmly telling Andrew and I to hold her on the bed, taking the strain of her force to push away from the wall. I held her shoulders and the gas and air and Andrew was at her hips and together it felt as though we were this three headed (in the nicest possible way) beast, channelling all our positive energy to Natty.

Just before half past 5, the midwife exclaimed, "Natalie I can see the head, it has lots of dark hair!" and Andrew and I both glanced down, with our hands trembling, on the verge of tears and both almost chanted words of encouragement as she went through her final contractions.

She was a superstar. 

At 5.26am we saw this little red person slip onto the bed and in a haze of tears I couldn't see what it was. Andrew, in almost a state of shock and awe, said "Oh it's a boy!" and we fell into a heap of tears. 

Natty was born to have a son and all the way through this pregnancy she had been convinced she was carrying a boy. Andrew on the other hand was sure it was another pink one and the combination of the intense and incredibly quick build up to the birth and a surprise to him of a son, made the whole room burst with happiness. 

It was like a movie. Natty went from excruciating pain and helpless cries of I can't do it, to this aura of completeness. Like a wave of serenity had washed over her body. I scrambled for my phone and took the most shaky 20 seconds of video as the midwife passed him up the bed and into Natty's arms. I can't watch the footage without crying! You can hear Andrew out of breath, with tears in his voice and Natty turning to me holding the phone saying over and over, in the happiest voice I've ever heard from her "I've got a boy, we've got a boy, I can't believe it!"

Maybe it's because it is their last, or because it was all so fast, but it felt like the room had exploded with joy! In about half an hour we were back in their room, watching her feed and as the sun came up, it was so calm, so still. Like the snowy driveways we drove past when we left the hospital doors. 

My mum brought Yasmin in to meet her new brother at 9am and we all headed home with no real fanfare, like he was always meant to be in the family.

Andrew's parents headed to their house, Rich drove the boys up and we had the most wonderful morning, all on cloud nine and a little delirious from not a minutes sleep!

We drank Champagne, hung blue balloons around the room and honestly gave little Logan, a perfect home coming.

So there are an extra couple in my Me and Mine photo this month: A small girl who brings me so much joy, who I can "borrow" for a girly fix and play tea parties and decorate a teeny bedroom with pink for. And now a small blue one, who makes my heart skip a beat when I see him in the boy's baby grows. I've waited almost 5 years to pass on all the plastic boxes full of mini booties, the tiny hats, the miniature outfits, hoodies with ears on. It feels like this side of the family is complete.

A 9lb 4oz brute of a boy, with legs so long and feet so big he's grown out of all the newborn clothes in just a couple of weeks! A boy who had no intention of being swaddled and placed in a fruit bowl for his newborn photo shoot last Friday morning, when I drove up for breakfast with a bubba on my lap and to snap some special photos for them. We couldn't have laughed any more at his eyes which had been so tightly shut for an hour that became as wide as they'd ever been, glaring up at us like a little bug.

Now we just have to wait for a small pink one to be born in America in April. Unfortunately there's nothing to pass on from me this time which means I have the tough job of Auntie shopping for a niece. Tutus and sparkly shoes here I come. Hooray!

It's a great privilege to be a mother but being an Auntie is just as much of an honour. You have all the unconditional love with less of the responsibilities! I get to love them like your own, protect them and help nurture them into the remarkable people I know they will become.

I look at my pair of brothers and hope that they will be as close as I am with my sister and brother. I will have my "go bag" packed just the same when we hear that baby Marini is on its way on the other side of the Atlantic. Except this time, it will be a suitcase! Mum, Rich and I can't wait to fly out when we hear her happy arrival to welcome them home, just like we did with Logan.

I am soaking up all the happiness at the moment and even just writing this post makes me well up. I don't quite know what I'd do without my family, my extended family and all my friends who shared this time with us. My bestest girl friends who text and messaged knowing just what it meant to me to have a new nephew. 

Come and join us and share your Me and Mine.

Yesterday I did something quite extraordinary for me. I don't have a newborn, I didn't feel under the weather, I just felt like a little nap. And I felt marvellous afterwards!

Ok, so it helps to work from home to allow such an indulgent hour of your working day, and I am not saying this is going to become a daily or even weekly occurrence, but whilst dozing off I thought about the week just gone and how I am slowly trying to embrace a different pace.

After possibly the most hectic but strangely simultaneously restful Christmas, I've decided to start the year in a different frame of mind.

It turns out I can be just as productive, possibly more so, without running around like a headless chicken!

Instead of feeling exhausted and overwhelmed by our daily routine and to do lists, I have planned out each day, built pockets of time into a packed schedule to do nothing. Simple things like sitting down for a cup of tea. Not walking around the house with a half drunk cup, that ends up cold on a window ledge. 

For some reading this it might not be the revelation it has been to me, but it turns out it doesn't make a scrap of difference to how much I can achieve in a day to stop and slurp a hot drink! It's too easy to get caught up in busy fool syndrome. When you spend your time telling people how busy you are, rather than just getting on, slowly and steadily. I've heard myself say that, I have watched myself like I'm experiencing some sort of out of body hallucination, tearing around, flapping like Big Bird.

I am so fascinated about this idea of slow living, it has been alien to me in the past because it's felt as though it was a cool gang I just couldn't be part of. The internet can be an intimidating place and in the past I have been  overawed by the moody hues in photographs, the homes with no "stuff", the balls of knitting wool, signalling a serene approach to life. I look at those images and crave that serenity. I can't seem to master or feel remotely comfortable with wistful glances into the distance as I stand in a field. I've tried and just don't feel myself.  I can't help the big cheesy grins, that highlight those "laughter lines" that I haven't noticed have appeared and are multiplying as I head towards 35. 

Muted just doesn't fit.

But that's not what slow living is about. It's about what it means to you. It's not an aesthetic, it's a way of life. For some that naturally embodies nature and a paired back home, they genuinely live that life that you see in Kinfolk magazine, for others the brightest colours of the rainbow are at the heart of their approach to living a slow lifestyle. 

In a week where we will have scooted to Bracknell, to Poole, walked on a sandy beach, through muddy grass and planned out major renovations to the house, in amongst school runs, after school play dates, swimming club and ending the week in Bristol and Bracknell for more newborn nephew cuddles, it feels impossible to imagine that could have any association with the principle of taking life slow. 

But in every one of those days there was a slower pace. We arrived in Bracknell and I sat, and didn't move with little Logan on my chest for about 2 hours! The laptop was open to the side, emails got replied to, but I sat and just breathed him in. You know that stage when you just want to snort them, as they burrow into your neck, their velvety skin so soft and smooth with a layer of whispy fur that disappears as they twist and turn in their moses basket. 

We borrowed the wifi at my in laws' house in Poole for the day, which meant I could get twice the amount of work done, uploading photographs in the blink of an eye, as opposed to setting them overnight, only to find our internet has dropped off and you have to start all over again in the morning. The curses of countryside internet here. I sat and rifled through my plastic storage box of newborn clothes, we had lunch together in one of our favourite bistros and did our annual life brainstorming session, looking at changes that will help our house, our health and happiness. We managed to be as productive as a day sat chained to the laptop at home as we were, driving 2 hours, having lunch and walking the dogs along the blustery, bitterly cold beach. 

It's changing your approach that makes the difference. 

We've said for the last year we must get the boys out more on a Sunday. It's too easy to let the hours pass by, lazing around in pyjamas. Don't get me wrong we all love a quiet day, we all need those days, but in a flash it can be 1pm and we wonder why they have become restless and ratty. It goes the same way, almost every time. Lovely, lovely, lovely, a little bored, a little restless, wrestling, wrestling, fighting, fighting, crying, shouting, us shouting. 

We decided to join the National Trust, being spoilt with Stourhead almost on our doorsteps. And after a little cajoling out of their slightly wiffy pyjamas, we headed out in wellies and gloves. 

We may not go every week, but I want to show the boys how much fun you can having doing nothing. Well nothing but walking and exploring. You don't need plastic toys, the tv, the iPad or one of our phones. They love reading and playing board games as much as the precious iPad and the new computer game Mr Jump, but I want them to use their imagination. 

We sauntered through the grottos, under the caves, roaring loudly, we stopped to chat to other families, it might just be me, but are all National Trust properties the friendliest places on earth?! Rich laughed at my colourful combination of a yellow rain mack and bright pillar box red wellies but no one batted an eye lid.

Slow can still be colourful. 

It's not about whether you dress in calming colours or whether you decorate your house in a muted palette. It's about how you feel, your attitude and outlook. A friend of mine Fable and Folk runs the #slowlived hashtag on Instagram and I scroll the the gallery in awe. 

Moments which inspire me to consciously build in quiet times to my day.

Appreciating little details more, feeling on top of life, is the key to embracing slow living. And in turn, in just a couple of weeks I can feel a difference in the house. Less shouting, (we still have to work on the morning getting dressed and out of the door on time for school routine that regularly ends in raised voices) more evenings off the laptop. Unbelievably, working in more normal working hours helps your home-work balance! Who knew?! 

I took a day this week to create some blog posts. A whole day of making, snapping, arranging - it was heaven. Not for a collaboration or client, just for me, and you! I took some more photos for a new monthly series Real Life vs Insta Life, building on this post from last year and I felt like I had achieved so much that day. That it's not smoke and mirrors, it's my life, just how I chose to present it is up to me.

One of the over riding feelings my sister has been talking about since they brought Logan home from hospital is calmness. They've not overwhelmed themselves with visitors, they've kept Yasmin in her routine and given themselves hours to just sit and look at him. 

It's funny how second time around you have all the benefit of hindsight, and that's how I intend to approach this year, as if I have lived it before and take time to appreciate what I might have missed. Less of a whirlwind more of a long lapping wave. Still with momentum and strength but with structure.

Are you trying to slow down this year? What are you changing to help you feel calmer? 

Happy weekend everyone, we are off to celebrate Sammy's sweetheart and her Daddy's birthdays today, sleeping over then heading to see the sweet boy and his big sister tomorrow. Bliss.

And don't forget it's the last weekend to join in the #capturingcolour competition with Rose and Grey Interiors. Show us the colours of your weekend over on Instagram to win a £100 voucher to spend on whatever you fancy! Full details here. 

35. Thirrrrrrty five?! How can this be? I can remember as clear as day playing in my primary school fields, jumping over the backs of my school friends, playing leap frog with my blue checked summer school dress blowing in the wind. 

But here I am and it feels like a bit of a milestone. The age when you start checking a new box on online forms. It makes me almost shudder. But then I think about all the amazing things we have achieved, all that has happened since my 30th (pre blog) breast-feeding on Barry beach and 35 doesn't seem so bad!

But there are things I have put off, things I have stalled on and it's time to stop dawdling and get on. Commit and focus, and there's nothing more satisfying than ticking off a list is there?! So here it is. 

1. Join the National Trust so that I can get closer to this beautiful island at Stourhead. And stop writing things on lists when you’ve already done them to make myself feel better. Whoops. Hooray number one done this weekend!

2. Take my beautiful antique eternity ring Rich bought me when Ollie was born to a jewellers to be repaired. I lost a diamond from it a while ago and it's sat sadly in my jewellery box ever since. 

3. Commit to a beauty regime. I hurriedly wipe my face with baby wipes every night and not the glossy grown up wipes - the Johnsons pink sensitive baby bum wipes. The ones I wipe the boys grubby mouths with after they've slurped down an ice cream on a hot summer's day, the ones I use in a state of panic to clean the bathroom sink when my in laws are about to arrive. My sister despairs. I must start looking after my face so any tips will be gratefully received! 

4. Learn to feel more comfortable in front of the camera. I have photo libraries full of pictures of the children, of Rich and the boys, of the places we have been but not so many with me in them. I don't want to miss these days and always be the one behind the lens. And if possible learn how to have my photo taken without a cheesy grin. 

I try the whole sultry side glance, the smiling at my shoes and feel like a prize wally. 

5. Host a dinner party for our new school friends. Joining a new school is always tricky, especially in Year 2. Three schools in three years has meant we haven't put down real roots at a primary school, but we are settled now, I am going to join the PTA and we have this new gang of people who make us laugh, are kind, and who we are going to watch our children grow up together with.

6. Read the magazines I buy and not just make beautiful piles on the coffee table. Sit with a cup of tea and just read.

7. Buy an old piano and have it painted, maybe not quite as bold as this beauty I spied on the Jersey Shore boardwalk, but ready and waiting for my big boy practise on. He has asked if he can take lessons this term and we couldn't be more thrilled. I wish I had kept up my piano lessons when I was 5. Music is something I have never mastered and I just can't seem to compute the notes on a page!

8. Take the boys to a country we’ve never been to before.

9. Fly to America and hold my new niece.

10. Give my boy the happiest Horrible Histories party.

11. Make a birthday cake, from scratch. No cheating.

12. Blog our trips to New York and Paris. 

13. Let them be little. I have become a terrible helicopter parent. Ushering them around the house, marching them upstairs for a shower (the baths have been broken almost since the day we moved in) with military discipline and spending dinner times talking through an endless stream of don't sit like that, don't do that, put your knife like this and that... It's exhausting for me and it must be so tiring for them! They just want to have fun. So walking upstairs is so much better riding on our backs telling us to giddy up. Making faces against the shower glass is so much more rewarding for both of us than me sitting on my phone scrolling through Instagram seeing what might have updated in the last 3 minutes. We do those things just not enough. I want them to have the childhood I had; barefoot games of forty forty in the garden, watching films under duvets on wet Sunday mornings and shows behind the living room curtain stage. I want to keep them little and let them have the freedom to make their own fun. 

14. Take the boys to watch their first musical in the West End.

15. Clear out my wardrobe. Organise summer clothes and vacuum pack them for the loft. Yes it’s a cliché but losing weight is on my list before my birthday. I’m curvy and I don’t like it. I will never be a size 10 but I need to get out of my 14s and back in the wardrobe of 12s.

16. More water less wine. Might help with number 15 ;)

17. Buy a pair of vintage ice skates. Every time I see a pair at a fair or car boot sale I kick myself that I left them behind. 

18. Learn how to take videos. My mum has hours and hours of footage from my childhood. Videos where you can hear the zoom lens creaking forward and back, birthday parties, buildings dens with blankets on a wet week in Southbourne with my cousins. I have snippets of the boys, fleeting iPhone moments, but not real stories, roundups of a special trip or an ordinary weekend. I've signed up to this fantastic MAKE FILMS course with a blogging friend of mine Xanthe Berkeley which starts tomorrow! I feel like committing to her course is a way of finally pushing myself out of my photo comfort zone.

19. Watch a sunset and sleep in a tent in the garden.

20. Watch 50 Shades of Grey and see what all the fuss was about.

21. Ride my bike once a week. 

22. Collate a book pitch. Not pitch it, just get it ready for when the time is right.

23. Make a decision on my new logo and branding from the lovely designer. The umming and aahing is going on too long.

24. Get my product site live. 2 years in the making is just embarrassing!

25. Take my boys to another festival.

26. Blog the festival we went to last Summer!

27. Practise shooting on manual. I’ve got stuck in my comfort zone and I shoot on auto pilot. Not auto but not full manual.

28. Learn how to use my sewing machine and make endless bunting to line the ceiling of the conservatory that we use as a playroom.

29. Blog our house renovations. In a year we have changed so much but this year we have ambitious plans. We have a heating system and electrics to rewire through the whole house, windows to replace, a bathroom, bedroom and en-suite project to research and undertake and plans for the garden.

We've spent so many weekends away this past year and this year I want to have as many friends and family to stay. To lay out a beautiful table in the garden with fairy lights strung in the trees and wrap under blankets on a balmy October night when there's only just a hint of Autumn in the air. To light the fires next Christmas and have an open house for everyone and anyone who wants to eat, drink and be merry!

30. Really commit to improving the boys' behaviour. The boys have been pushing the boundaries over the last couple of months, finding their voices and testing us to the limits some days! We know full well that we make lots of empty threats and it doesn't help the boys know when they can and can't cross the line, or sometimes where that line is. 

We have best friends who we constantly learn from. They have 2 boys and they are so well mannered, such good company and are growing up like cousins to our boys. They are just like any other children but our friends have used great ideas to encourage good behaviour and control the bad. One thing we have started for January is the marble jar. We sat down at dinner and drew up a list of house rules. Things we would like the boys to manage better, like losing their tempers and dramatically stamping their feet, fighting with each other to the point of tears, taking some responsibility for helping in the house like clearing their plates and setting the table. We have committed to no phones at the table, no teasing, (That one is for Rich who has mercilessly been teasing Sammy about his love of the girls in his class. He's such a Romeo in the making and Rich has turned into that embarrassing dad.) no shouting (Mostly from me.) and limiting screen time, amongst other things like planning meals together. I realised that if I kept a diary of how much time they spend on a screen I would be horrified. It doesn't seem that long, but those minutes to give us a bit more of a lie in on a weekend and the time that whizzes by after school before bath time on a dark winter's night, when the TV is just on in the background, has got too long. 

For every good act of helpful, kind or thoughtful behaviour we pop a marble in the jar. And when the jar is full they can choose a treat. Ollie has already got his eye on a magazine all about the human body and every time it flashes up on the TV during his precious half an hour he exclaims "I so would like that when my jar is full!"

We just need to follow through. 

31. Spend a day on a photo walk in Cornwall with my 17 year old nephew who knows more about photography than than I do.

32. Make an annual girl's day out with my sister and mum. Last year we took her to Buckingham Palace for her 60th and we said to each other why don't we do this sort of thing ever?! Just once a year we should make a special occasion of not needing an occasion!

33. Start a collection. One to build on for the next 35 years. Any good ideas? I like the thought of something practical, things I can use, like old knives or chopping boards...

34. I have realised how little time I spend with Ollie on our own. I've blinked and my baby is a school boy. I want to make sure I make an effort to do ordinary things with him, without the distraction of his more vocal showman older brother. 

We talked about his birthday party tonight and at the moment he is obsessed with rock music, so it was no surprise that he would like a music festival in the garden! Of course the party planner in me was like woo hoo, but after we sat together and looked through a few American websites at festival party ware, balloons and themed sweets (hoorah for visiting Uncle Pat in April and bringing some US party supplies home in a spare suitcase) and they'd gone to bed, I thought about how this could be our thing. We could plan it together, maybe create a little scrapbook of ideas, go to the park just us and have party meetings on the swings! We could test out the playlist and have dancing competitions in the living room and generally just spend some extra time together. For a long time he's been a Dada's boy and I'd love to get back some of that early closeness we shared. Snuggle together and read more, play through our collection of his favourite board games like we did over Christmas. 

35. ???

So what should I put as the finale to my list? I'd love to add share more behind the scenes like this. What do you think? I have until the 5th August so as much as I'd love to put some exotic travel destination or see safari animals in the wild, I might have to save that for a 40 before I'm 40 list! What would you have on your pre-birthday list? Do you go with the flow and see what life brings or are you a planner like me?!

Bring on the birthday, bring on the next 8 months of adventures, I hope you'll come with me for the ride!