Oh April! How are we already 4 months into our tenancy in Weston-super-Mare?!

April has rushed by in a wave of chocolate, eggs and suitcases.

We've travelled to see family and friends almost every weekend, which while wonderful, has taken it's toll on this house. There is washing everywhere! We clearly have too many clothes!

We are out of routine and out of sorts. And now we are well into party season with Yasmin's Flamingo First Birthday at the weekend and the countdown to Sammy's fishing 5th birthday at the end of May. I am still debating whether Ollie genuinely means it when he says he wants a pink party in July!

We came to a bit of a cross roads in April. That something has to change with our house situation, that we need to be settled, for Rich who is on the cusp of greatness with the launch of the tea company and me allowing my work to take over the house.

So we had to take things into our own hands, to make something happen.

Have a listen to my latest podcast. (If you don't have time to listen to the whole thing skip to about 13 minutes!)

This is why we had to take things into our own hands. A dream house.

I asked all the boys in this house to write down what they wanted from a new home.

Then I wrote down mine. 

The trouble is our dream house fits all the criteria! For everyone! So promise me you will have everything crossed for us that we have some great news to share in the coming week. We are well aware nothing is certain, but nothing ventured nothing gained. And perhaps next month instead of a photo of me and mine in front of the garage in Hutton, I will have a photo of some white gates in the background.

I'm showing you me and mine, now show me you and yours!

This family portrait project was created to inspire everyone to capture their family, just as you are. And this is us. Tired, weary, still smiling.

Link up your lovely family photos with us and make sure you head over to Lauren's blog to catch up on her adventures with her sweet boys this month! A fellow Queen of her castle!

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.dearbeautifulboy.com/2014/04/me-and-mine-april.html" title="dear beautiful" target="_blank"><img src="http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll320/looby_boo/meampmine-button_zpscc9f6437.jpg" alt="dear beautiful" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

I love being part of the contributing team of photography loving mothers over on I Heart Snapping.

And in case you've missed it, every Monday we all post a snap of our children as part of the Living Arrows series.

Weekly portraits are such a lovely memento of their little lives and what I enjoy most about this project is how it brings out everyone's creative side. That when you join in a weekly series, you don't always have to post a picture of their faces! 

It's all about what you have captured that week.

This week was week 16 and a nice point to post a quarterly review! 

I love how Wintry the early photos feel and how colour is creeping into my photos with the sunnier Spring weather.

I love that Ollie still looks small. Because he doesn't feel small. He's like a busy bruiser at the moment, even with his skinny little frame and chicken legs! He races around at a hundred miles an hour, is terribly clumsy and is streets ahead of Sammy at the same age.

We joke that Sammy was like a big baby at 2 and a half, but Ollie feels as though he's two going on 7! He loves lego and never ever puts it in his mouth, he hasn't eaten in a highchair for almost a year and today he told me off for helping him put his shoes on! He's so much more independent, which we attribute to having a bossy and strong willed older brother, but he's also so much more street wise all by himself.

He is just as contended to play on his own as with Sammy and can work his way around an iPad at a frightening speed.

I adore how Sammy acts in front of the camera. I won't lie, sometimes I do have to bribe them into a photo, to look less like crazy fools screaming cheese and making terrible grimaces and more of the natural fun loving boys we know.

I also won't lie and say I find this project easy. There have been some weeks when I have suddenly panicked that of all the hundreds of work images I have taken in a week that I haven't snapped a single one of the boys. But what I realised is that actually I take "Living Arrows" pictures all the time, just not necessarily on my DSLR.

And over the last 6 weeks or so I have grown even more fond of the camera in my pocket. 

At the end of the year I want to print a mini book of all the photos and it won't matter a jot if they are a mix of iPhone and "big camera" when they are printed small. It's easy to get into the mindset of trying to always take a perfect photo but sometimes it's the snapshots that capture all the little moments that bring back memories and sum up life as you know it.

So go forth and snap! And come and join in with us. 

I am been spoilt with work recently. Hence the lack of blog posts!

Today I have been on a nutritional journey, working (if you can really call it that - it was far too much fun) with a talented multitasker Ruth on a promotional shoot for a London based Doctor, specialising in Functional Medicine. But more on that later in the week.

I felt like I've been on a journey because I learnt more about what what eat and what is best for us in a day, than I have for a long time. Yes of course I know I need to eat more fruit and veg but the secret is to know which fruits and veg we should all really be eating!

I'll post some photos, and some behind the scenes of my organised chaos, but first I want to share some of the images I took for a seriously wonderful luxury family hotel Woolley Grange.

Can you even begin to imagine how hungry you feel after photographing a breakfast service?!

I realised on the shoot that my focus is always on the detail. A focus on the little things you might overlook or forget to appreciate at the time. And I feel it's always my job, as a photographer (yikes I am only just getting used to saying this out loud) to make sure it's those sentimental and special details that I capture.

The baby cup nestled in amongst the plastic and glass, the incredible attention to detail from the talented chef and the hotel team. Each plate carefully placed on the enormous wooden dresser with pride, the sun streaming into the orangery, lighting up the fruit bowl like an encore on a theatre stage, each table adorned with a milk bottle of flowers cut fresh from the hotel gardens.

There is something I found so enchanting about the walled gardens. Fresh home grown produce available to buy for a few pennies and served for a happy couple's wedding breakfast!

It was beyond lovely working with Kirsten aka The Little Wedding Helper and Ruth, capturing different things but working together.

I couldn't resist taking a few snaps of the wedding set up though!

It was a pleasure working at Woolley Grange, and I hope I will be able to share some more details of what it feels to stay there sometime soon.

Like a home away from home, but the nicest home you could go to!

I feel like the luckiest working girl in the world at the moment!

But tomorrow I am off to Bath for some fun, and no doubt some blog chat with a special friend :)