Over the last week or so I've read so many blog posts, comments on blog posts and comments on Instagram photos that have made me feel even more determined to stick to my blogging mantra. As bloggers we put so much of our lives on the internet (And mostly if we are really honest the nicer bits, the pretty bits, the dare I say it, the rose tinted bits - I know I'm guilty of that! I haven't shared the photo of the ceiling falling down in the bathroom, the mould on the window cills.) and the dreaded feeling of comparison starts to creep in. We compare how we dress our children, compare the review opportunities we get, compare the houses we live in, worry about how many times we are posting, in fact, I actually said last week, with life being so hectic I feel like a blogging failure, the blogger who hardly blogs!) But most scary of all, we can feel bad about the childhood's we are giving to our children. That our children's lives don't look as fun as someone else's. 

But this is crazy!!!!! Everyone is doing their best. The internet would be a very boring place if we all lived in the Truman Show, we all had the same holidays, we all wore the same clothes, lived in identical houses, where would the inspiration be? 

Social media can seem to be ruled by numbers. The ability to compare is right there on a screen in front of you! The number of followers, the number of likes, the number of page views, your scores and rankings. As a parent who blogs it can be easy to get swept up in this wave of comparison and forget what we are all really trying to do. So for last week's #capturingcolour theme of words I shared this and was overwhelmed with all the positive comments. 

And the gallery was also full of inspiring words and beautiful quotes to remind us all to be kinder to ourselves.

Sammy was asking me about all the different teams last week, why some people had blue signs or red signs, or purple, orange or green signs and I tried to explain a little about the different things all the teams wanted if they lived in the big house with the black door and number 10 in London. One of the things I talked about was that they all wanted to give more mummies and daddies to chance to work a little more. That more children would be allowed to stay at pre school for longer so (in our case) Mama could work some more hours to pay for things like our roads and doctors. And his answer was "Well I don't like the sound of that at all! We want the mummies to work less so they can play with us more!!!!!"

He was so forthright and it almost smacked me in the face! Sometimes we can be so busy making sure we look like we are having a good time that we miss actually having a good time! I know I've been guilty of trying to document every moment at a play park, lugging my big camera around with me, when all they really wanted was for me to push them on the swings!

So this image from Rustics UK just had to be my favourite from last week. The caption was "Love, Peace and Harmony I vote for this!" 

And it made me think about doing what we love. A year ago I went to a conference in London and had the pleasure of chatting to one of the hosts Kat at dinner afterwards. It felt like a bit of a wake up call, and gave me the confidence to believe more in myself, believe in the blog I wanted to write. That I could have a blog that was a family journal and a place to share my interests and inspiration too. That you can still be a parent blogger in the community even if you don't always post about your children. 

My family is integral to my blog, even on the days when I post about pretty flower workshops or conferences in London. In fact, on those days I reply on family even more. Because Rich has had to pick the boys up from school, cook them dinner, read their stories and put them to bed. Instead of sitting together in the evening watching a film and chatting, I'm tapping away on a laptop editing photos and uploading them. Without my little family I wouldn't have a blog! So when you get nominated for awards, really they are for all of us, for Sammy and Ollie, for inspiring hundreds of posts and being gorgeous models for photos, for Rich for (just about) putting up with a house taken over by mini photo shoots, tag teaming parenting duties so I can meet up with blog friends or speak at events, for providing never ending technical support to a slightly deranged stressed blogger when our internet crashes. 

I know I have been difficult to live with sometimes...! So this week I want to recognise just important family is to my little corner of the internet. Every week I share a new theme for the #capturingcolour hashtag on Instagram. Colours, florals, themes you can style with ribbons and spoons and pieces of white card on the floor. And in amongst the pretty pictures I post I share snippets of our family life. And do you know, every time I lose followers. I share a photo of the boys, our days out as a family and watch my numbers fall by a few. And at first it bothered me, but then I realised first and foremost I am a mother. My bio leads with Mama! And it's good those people unfollow because I'm not going to stop sharing my family snaps in fear of my numbers going down!

I wouldn't have been able to have all these amazing experiences and opportunities, to apply for brand ambassadorships without the help of my boys. I wouldn't be able to photograph all the lovely products I get to style without their little hands. Really it's Capture by Lucy and Richard and Sammy and Ollie. 

So this week I want to celebrate just how much we all treasure our families. Come and share your photos of what parenthood means to you over on Instagram. This week is all about FAMILY. You can share your family photos, those pieces of "abstract art" that those cubby fingers bring home from nursery, the little things you love like tiny toes or those sleepy heads in their beds. Anything goes! 

We should celebrate our differences, the things that make our family units unique. If we are lucky enough to raise a family the best thing we can spoil them with is love and attention. Rich once said it's a funny feeling when you touch someone you love. When you really love them. That there's that overwhelming sense of belonging and protection. That complete instinct that you are connected to each other in a unique way. 

Let's inspire each other, let's support each other, give ourselves a break more! We should be proud of what we achieve every day, even if some days that's just getting the children to school in clean uniform! I am so proud of this blog, for what it means I can do with my family, places we can visit, experiences the boys wouldn't have had without all the people who read it. And I'm so proud to have been nominated in the Brilliance in Blogging awards this year. Really, the Heath men are the outstanding ones! 

Only if you want to, you can vote for your favourites on the shortlist here. Voting closes on 15th May 2015.

#capturingcolour is a weekly theme on Instagram. Tag your FAMILY photos this week. Favourites will be featured next Monday :)

Every week for nearly a year, I've been encouraging the community on Instagram to take part in the weekly hashtag #capturingcolour. It started with a group of bloggers last Summer and I loved being part of the colour loving team. Slowly it's evolved and grown, and now it feels very special for it me to host it on my own. I am amazed that the gallery has over 12,000 posts linked up and every week I am blown away by the creative talent. We all see things differently, we all capture them slightly differently. And that's what makes the gallery unique. 

I loved these beautiful images from the gallery. It's so hard to choose 9 favourites each week to share on my feed. It's even harder to choose just one to link to on my blog. There are so many that join in every week, who help spread the love, and I love highlighting lots of wonderful accounts, including the super supportive ones, in the hope that others will find and follow them and be inspired. 

My fill the frame week was dominated by florals (No surprise there right?!) but ever since I changed my phone to an iPhone 6 I have been stunned by the quality go the images you can capture. I never thought I'd say it, but my Canon is gathering a little dust on weekends! We went away this weekend and it's sat in my bag the whole time, bar one quick group selfie!

After almost a year of weekly themes I suddenly had a panic this week as to what I should announce this morning. And then scrolling through the gallery I saw this image from Lilian and I felt inspired. 

Go and check out her jaw droppingly beautiful gallery. I had the pleasure of meeting Lilian last week in London and I sat on the train home wishing we lived closer! So this week's them is WORDS. Share your letters, your note lets, your postcards, street signs, handwriting, any type of typography goes! 

It's been a big week blog wise. It may sound silly to some, but my heart leaped out of my chest twice this week. On Tuesday the annual BritMums Brilliance in Blogging Awards were announced. I've been so incredibly lucky to be shortlisted this year, I saw my Twitter notifications and then clicked straight through to the shortlist. 

I am over the moon to be shortlisted in the Photo and Outstanding categories!!!!! It is the most wonderful feeling to be recognised by your peers, the people you admire and I want to shout it from the rooftops! Thank you so so much to anyone who took the time to nominate me. Blogging awards aren't a load of old rubbish (not to me anyway), they mean the world. And every single person who was nominated should be celebrating. Blogging is hard work. It may look glamorous, it may look like you are given endless freebies, get given holidays and clothes and things for your house, but it's not for nothing. It's because we all work incredibly hard on something that blurs the line between home and work. I realised quite a while ago that everything was documented. Every weekend away became a blog post, every family outing or holiday became a photo round up. You almost feel if you buy something you should post a disclaimer saying I wasn't sent it for a blog review! But no one sees my husband tearing his hair out at yet another "natural" mini photo shoot at home, no one sees the house littered with little set ups, products, a to do list as long as your arm which has actions until 1am. I introduce myself to people as a blogger and 9 times out of ten they don't have a scooby doo what I am on about, and I almost end up justifying this "it doesn't sound like work to me" fantasy role I have poured my heart into over the last 3 years. Rich often threatens to write a guest post "What life is really like to live with a blogger" and maybe I should let him. This has never been a warts and all blog but perhaps a smack of reality would be a good thing. I've tried to not take 300 photos on a trip to the park, for the boys to enjoy having their photo taken again. To catch more real moments rather than staged ones. And Instagram has helped me do that. 

I hit an Instagram milestone this week. My friend Zoe who I met at a blogging event 2 years ago, text me on Sunday night saying I had almost hit 10,000 followers!!! I had been watching my following grow over the last week or so and something changed, people were leaving more lovely comments and then on Sunday night those little numbers pinged to 10k.

I can't really explain what Instagram means to me. 

It's become my mini blog, a way to share my real life, feel completely connected to lovely people who follow our story. It encapsulates my motto of making the ordinary extraordinary. Our weeks are dictated by school runs, homework, a house that is beyond our DIY skills, and a working life that requires Cirque du Soleil juggling skills, but I try to see the extraordinary in those ordinary moments. I sometimes have to stop myself from sharing too may photos each day because I feel like I can share anything and everything! It's a place where it's positively encouraged to play with flowers, to rearrange your mantelpiece, to capture a tiny detail. I feel like I can be completely myself in those tiny squares. I can escape from a rainy day, from demanding children, from barking dogs, from a 2 week full washing basket and take 2 minutes to create something. 

Creativity is in all of us. You just have to find what inspires you. I am a hopeless musician, musical notes look like gobbledegook to me and I my brain just doesn't want to compute the instructions for the sewing machine, But I have a vision for a photo and I work backwards. I know the image before I've taken it. Does that make any sense at all?!!! And to know that other people enjoy those little squares makes me smile til my face aches.

Thank you.

#capturingcolour is a weekly theme on Instagram. Tag your WORDS photos this week. Favourites will be featured next Monday :)

If you feel like I deserve a place in the final of the BIBs awards this year you can vote for me in the Photo and Outstanding categories here. The categories are bursting with bloggers I adore so I am very honoured to be shortlisted amongst them. 

ps. I think there needs to be an Outstanding Partner category too ;)

SUNSHINE. That's all I think of when I look back at our April. We have basked in the British sunshine on the beach, in the garden, in fields and as a family. Everything feels better when the sun is shining. The boys lose that 'caged tiger syndrome' they get when they are cooped up in the house for too long and the grass has been littered in craft projects, cardboard rockets, summer shoes have taken over the hats and scarves basket in the hallway and there's been a smell of suncream left in the air as the boys blast off to school.

It's felt like a long and cold Winter. Living in an old house has presented some challenges! We've laughed at going to bed with cups of tea, the electric blanket on full and hoodies as though we were sleeping on a plane! The boys started creeping down to our bed and in 6 months I think I can only just about count the number of full night's sleep I have had on 2 hands. But the warmer weather has kept them in their beds a little more and the house has started to soften. The garden is becoming a rainbow full of colour, little touches like rugs and finally having photos and pictures on the walls have brought a gentle feel to the old walls. The walls may still be crumbling, desperately need filling and painting, but everything feels less urgent when the sun is shining. 

We've started to appreciate village life. It's so easy when you work from home to become terribly insular. At last our days tapping away at opposite ends of the dining table are almost over. Our offices above the garage are getting a makeover this week and I am longing for a dedicated space that will help us enforce some boundaries between work and home time! Hours can race by and before we know it we are tag teaming the school run, trying to squeeze in a few extra minutes working before chaos descends. Rich and I have attempted a few runs, (A bikini body I may not have, but by the time we head to Turkey I want to feel happier in myself.) we feel like we are getting to know a few more faces and the boys have got to play in a golden field. 

So this month's Me and Mine is bursting with sunbeams and my son beams!

Our floppy haired boys suddenly have golden streaks running over their eyes. Sammy has a gap so wide, it could almost fit 5 pound coins in it on account of the tooth fairy making a couple of visits! The sun was low in the sky, and there was no getting away from sun rays kissing their faces. 

April has been another month of new starts and opportunities. The boys has shown us just what they are made of. Confident, independent, spirited young men. As a parent all we ever want is the best for our child. And for them to do their best. It's not about whether you are the top of the class, are picked for the sports team or can perfectly colour in the lines. It's whether you appreciate and praise them for trying their best. When they do something that makes your chest want to explode because your heart is so full of love for them it could burst. 

Our expectation of our children can be so high sometimes, we share their achievements on Facebook, the certificates, the glowing parent's evenings, it's a lot to live up to! Rich and I were talking about our hopes for the boys this week and said all we really want is for them is to be a well rounded person. Someone who will have a go, love life and try their best, no matter what the result. Because when they do they blow you away! 

Come and join in with us and share your families. I love everyone's different stories, all the wonderful photos and don't forget, everyone who links up is in with a chance to wins  beautiful personalised cushion from Photobox. 

Now pop over to Alex's blog to see how her bump has grown this month. Alex has that mysterious pregnancy glow and with another little boy on the way, I cannot wait to read how her heart is going to grow when she has that tiny blue one in her arms. Queen of her castle, surrounded by boys. Psst, it's fabulous!