We always say when we walk around a supermarket that you can spot a newborn parent. There's a mum gently swaying with her trolley (with no baby in it) because it's become quite normal to rock back and forwards as if you are at sea. Then there's a dad at the checkout who appears to be sleeping with his eyes open, getting 20 seconds of rest whilst the kind checkout person offers to help pack the bags. You head into parenthood knowing it's going to be tiring. Everyone joked when I was waddling like a penguin at 8 months pregnant, "Get those lie-ins in while you can, kiss goodbye to those full nights of sleep!"

What we didn't expect was that, 6 years down the line, we would feel just as exhausted as those early days! Ok, so we are not up pacing the hallway, singing lullabies and squirting milk onto our forearms, leaving little splodges all over the carpet, but almost every night we hear a little cry, sometimes a whimper, sometimes a scream, followed by a thud as one or both of the boys clamber out of bed and head to us.

Our boys have never been – what I have enviously read about others' children – "good sleepers". Since we moved last September, I can probably count on one hand how many nights they have slept for a solid 8 or so hours. I worry when they stay over with grandparents that they will wake with a nightmare and Sammy is missing out on sleepovers with his friends because we just don't trust that he wouldn't need us to drive over in the middle of the night to settle him. And sleep deprivation does horrible things to you, doesn't it?! Suddenly you want to cry at the foot of the stairs when you realise you've dropped a sock from the pile of washing in your arms back up on the top step. Little things just tip you over the edge. We become a house of crocodiles all snapping at each other, Rich and I competing for the coveted title of 'Most Tired 2015'. Of course there's no prize for the winner, but still we spar back and forwards over how many times each of us got up to tuck them back in, who had one of them snuggled into us, running their cold feet up and down your calves at 3am, and who got relegated to their bed in the attic room. 

And then when I'm lying in the darkness at 4am, stroking those floppy locks and feeling my pyjamas soaked against my skin with their tears, I realise they aren't waking up on purpose. That when you have a bad dream (last night it was about caterpillars), you just need a cuddle, a human security blanket, like puppies who curl up in a pile, sharing the comfort of hearing each other's heartbeats.

Motherhood is tough, parenthood is tough. I remember sharing those grainy selfies in the middle of the night, as a cry for help, and being so thankful for the positive comments from all the other mums and dads out there going through the same. For us those times aren't just contained to when they are poorly or a handful of odd occasions, it's almost every single night. And sleep is the one thing you can't do without! We've even tried pushing their beds together to make a big double for them but they still prefer piling in with us. Ollie loves to wriggle into the curve of your body, with his head in the crook of my arm, and Sammy would quite happily sleep on my chest every night, like a newborn. And if he creeps in without me noticing, which his stealth like feet does manage on occasions, he loves to climb on my back, like a baby turtle, to be the closest he possibly can.

So I was thrilled to be asked to represent Slumberdown this year as one of their Ambassadors, alongside 2 of my favourite bloggers Katie from Mummy Daddy Me and Tara from the Sticky Fingers Blog. I need help, we need help, but we are not sure quite what to do. We keep saying, oh Sammy is still so little at 6, he won't be wanting to sleep with his mummy when he's 13, but I'm not sure that's a sustainable answer for our broken nights! When we moved we knew it was going to be another change to deal with, another unsettled time, so we raced to redecorate their attic bedroom first, a joint big boys' room, with new bits and their favourite familiar old bits. They'd had their own rooms in our last house but wanted to share a room when we finally moved in. If you fancy a nose you can see their aeroplane bedroom tour here!

Slumberdown appreciate that there are all sorts of reasons why we have trouble sleeping. As part of their commitment to helping every family to get a better night's sleep, they teamed up with Professor Jason Ellis PHD who is the Professor of Sleep Science at Northumbria University, to bring you The Sleep Clinic. Now it may seem obvious, what we need to do to get more sleep, but do we actually do them in practise. Rich and I sit up on our phones, I regularly take one more peek at my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds with the light of the screen hidden under the duvet at gone midnight. 

I'd never thought about buying us all different pillows based on the way we sleep. It hadn't crossed my mind that there are pillows specially designed for people like me who sleep on their front, or for Rich who always sleeps on his side. We use the same duvet all year round, out of habit, and it hadn't really occurred to me that changing the tog of our duvet for the changing seasons could help our tired bodies!

Over the next year we are going to be road testing the fantastic range of Slumderdown products, carrying out some family sleep challenges, I will try and keep the no make up-hair like a bird's nest first thing in the morning photos to a minimum, in the hope that we can really make a difference to our sleeping patterns. 

We use the phrase, we just can't go on like this for much longer. There's only so long we can cope with our hectic work lives, busy family weekends and the house renovations on broken sleep. We are going to test out all the advice from The Sleep Clinic, trial a week of no screens in the bedroom, (I have warned my husband this is a sleep trial, not an excuse for any funny business trial!) getting to bed earlier, ditching the mid week drinks habit we've slipped into and lots of other ideas to help settle the boys at night.

I always remember my Granny and Grandpa had feather duvets. They were so well loved, I'd notice a couple of feathers float out onto the floor every time we visited, but they just felt so sumptuous, like a luxurious cuddle from a cloud when you were tucked into bed. I love that Slumberdown have their own range of goose and duck feather quilts and pillows which, even the boys, noticed were different from their regular covers. We snapped some photos before we made up the beds and even the woofers wanted to get in the action! No no no! As much as we love you, we are not spoiling you westies with feathers in your stinky bed! Even if you are super cute. 

Make sure you follow Slumberdown on Twitter and Facebook. They have great competitions to win products for your family running all the time! 

In fact you can enter here to win new pillows and duvets for your entire family! Check the site for full terms and conditions. Good luck! I'll be hosting some fab giveaways too, so make sure you check back in soon. 

So what are your sleep problems? Do your kids sleep through? Are you one of the lucky ones?! I'd love to hear what keeps you up at night. Sometimes my head is so spinning with ideas I have to keep a pen and notepad next to me, so I don't end up with them whirring through my brain all night!

I am so happy to be part of the Slumberdown family this year, here's to hopefully finally getting our sleep issues under control! If only there were this quiet and angelic every night! 

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 :)

Forget baby lambs, sweet fluffy little chicks, the best kind of farm has to be a flower farm! I was lucky enough to discover that one of Britain's leading flower farmers lives just down the road from me! Georgie Newbury is a floral force of nature. She has lovingly tended to her 7 acre flower farm in Somerset for over 10 years and the results are simply spectacular. Her knowledge and experience, her passion and her determination just shines through every bed. 

Common Farm Flowers is a haven for flower lovers, a thriving floristry business and on Tuesday the barn was buzzing with ooh's and aah's and squeals from 6 excited ladies attending the posie and silver jewellery making workshop. 

Common Farm is situated down a country lane in a little village outside Wincanton. The house that Georgie shares with her husband and 2 children is the perfect welcome to the farmyard car park, and the country grey painted barn doors give a hint of Georgie's effortless styling. Georgie uses the barn to arrange, pack orders and host workshops for enthusiasts, hobby and aspiring flower farmers. The back wall of the barn is filled from floor to ceiling with antique vases and vessels, collections of jam jars and contemporary vases, interspersed with urns and ceramics. 

The workshop started with general loveliness, homemade sugar sprinkled biscuits, coffee in sweet china cups and an introduction from Georgie to the types of flowers we would have the chance to pick and a run through of the day. My knowledge of flowers (quite embarrassingly) stops at their colours and the varieties in my garden, but it was wonderful to be surrounded by passionate garden growers and aspiring flower farmers, and a couple of self confessed flower nerds!

We set off for the fields, following Georgie and one of her trusty wagons, with our flower buckets slopping water everywhere, as the wagon made it's way through the arches of hedgerow. 

We foraged, we fought over the first of the sweet peas, (Only kidding we shared the sweet pea stems of course!) and we formed new friendships. It's always a complete joy to be amongst people who share your loves. Who don't bat an eyelid when you gather together some "Just for today" tulips so you can photograph them by your feet. Everyone was happy, pleased to be there and it was so interesting to see how we all chose slightly different flowers for our posies. 

We went about collecting 35 or so stems, including some foliage (eek I forgot that part, I was too busy lusting after some poppies in full bloom). And the wagon got a little fuller each time we turned a corner around the fields. 

As we walked Georgie talked about how she's cultivated this incredible corner of England over 10 years, the different species that will appear, the brides she walks through the tulips and the bouquets that get sent out, straight from the field. I loved every minute of our ramble. Snapping away, up to my knees in floppy tulips, switching from phone to camera amongst the apple tree blossom and no one batted an eyelid when I snipped the heads off some open tulips, and lay them on a wooden crate, to snap a few photos for Instagram at my feet!

Georgie gathered us all together with a cheer and we headed back to the barn, cocooned in it's bare brick walls and raised rustic beams, with excited fingers ready to create our bouquets.

You could spot my bucket a mile off. Loud, bursting with the last hurrah. A posie for today. Everyone else had chosen stems that would last, mature in a jam jar, but I was completely drawn the the blowsiest, brightest heads in full bloom. 

Georgie explained with effortless ease and charm the technique for tying a posie, and within a few minutes we all were creating (albeit on my part unknowingly) that illusive spiral in our stems. Georgie has a natural talent for finding your confidence and encouraging it. She guides you, doesn't snigger at your sweaty palms, crushing the tender wild flower stems (again just me), she bonded the group together and I couldn't believe what a treat a morning at her flower farm could be. 

I adored my posie. I wanted to take a hundred photos in 5 minutes. I think I managed 99. I learnt about how to create beautiful displays at home, I've come home and been staggered at all the wild flowers I have mistaken for weeds and which will now adorn the window ledges and fireplace. 

I was so proud of my creation. It had none of the understated charm of the others, it was far too tight, my stems barely fit in the jar but I loved it. It danced above the water. Go big or go home is what I said to Georgie!

It was such  treat to be with other people who felt the same feeling of pride for what they had made. We all chose from the same patches, from the same fields, but we all had different visions. We all had 2 pairs of hands but created totally different displays.

If you are looking to learn, looking to spend time with new friends, that will feel like old friends, I recommend one of Georgie's workshops. I was so sorry to miss the second half of the day with Emma from Silver Pebble, making floral inspired silver jewellery, but I was very happy to have spent some time getting to know her better, rather than over Twitter! 

I went home feeling elated. A wonderful few hours, chatting blogging, flowers and photography. Heaven. And full. Just look at the beautiful lunch. All local, handmade and even a drop of wine from my favourite local wine merchant Divine Wines. 

A big thank you to Georgie and Emma for hosting a fantastic workshop. People travel for hundreds of miles to Common Farm and I can see why. I feel so lucky to love just 10 minutes away from Georgie's wonderful flower farm and I am sure I will be back very soon! 

You can peek at all of the workshops at Common Farm here. I would love to attend the workshop with the renowned photographer Jason Ingram! 

A wonderful way to spend a day.