Last weekend was an extra special one... we packed a couple of bags and slept somewhere other than our own bed for the first time in months! We had booked a night away at High Road House - a Soho House property in Chiswick for my Birthday at the start of the year and then Covid hit and lockdown happened. The hotel couldn't refund us but we could move our stay so once we heard that things were allowed to open up again, we emailed to get booked in. We then realised that it would be the first time we'd stayed in a hotel since we'd had Freya - our other trips had all been Airbnb's, and whilst I was SO excited to escape our house, and cooking/cleaning up for a night ha, I suddenly wondered if it would actually be very relaxing taking a one year old with us. But it was so much fun and it really was our best weekend in so long. Summer came back and the change of scene for just one night felt more like we'd had a week away somewhere, that lockdown realllly does make you appreciate everything so much more these days. Some notes below on a few things we did to make our stay with a 1 year old a bit easier, and photos from that dreamy weekend if you'd like to see.

The fastest, most incredible year of our lives. Hard at times, for sure, but also more magical than we ever could have imagined. Our sweet funny little Chopsy girl turned one at the start of this month and we couldn't love her more. 

Some photos from her party and special weekend a couple of weeks ago that I wanted to have on here and you all know by now how much I love to decorate for a Birthday... I had lots of fun choosing an animal theme with little party hats on as a nod to her favourite Elephant in her room with a crown on.

{including some photos from a gifted shoot by the talented Abbie Wyatt Photography who I couldn't recommend more, she was just so lovely with Freya and got these special photos of us with Freya that I'll treasure forever, anyone with a baby this age knows how hard it is to get photos of wriggly little bubs! - I donated to both Tommy's & Refuge, two charities that I now donate to in exchange for any gifts/PR samples}

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For Freya's Birthday we bought her an Ikea play kitchen and then hacked it to fit in with our style and make it unique.

Here's the before/how it's sold from Ikea - the Duktig which is online here - which is perfectly lovely and obviously any child would love to play with as it is. But I've loved seeing all of the hacks on blogs/instagram for some of the creative upcycling you can do with it to make it your own and fit with your decor scheme. Some people change it so that it's a mini replica of their own kitchen. We thought about doing this, and putting tiles behind the sink for example or a little peg shelf above, or maybe paint it downpipe and fit brass handles. But actually the area that this play kitchen will sit is around the corner from our kitchen, and when I was looking on instagram on the hashtag for all of the hacks and spotted a version like this which I really loved the look of and it would fit in well with our existing shelving toy unit for Freya in this little area. So before I start, this tutorial and inspiration is heavily inspired by both this kitchen tutorial by Kandis Marino Photography and this kitchen from the instagram Raisingfinnandave - thank you to those gorgeous creators! They're both based in America so this tutorial shows it from a UK perspective with what we have available here and our version of it.