Jo gets blogging

I realised a while ago that I treat Facebook like a blog... many of the updates and photo's are probably of little interest to anyone other than me... but it certainly helps me collect my thoughts and feel proud of achievements, even the most irrelevant ones. So here I am, blogging for the first time. What am I likely to write about? Food, my children, and family life. So if you ain't interested in babies, children or families, probably best not reading anymore, as this is what makes my world tick!

I recently got married to Dylan ... after 13 years, 4 kids and a mortgage we finally got hitched this summer.

I have a growing interest in cooking (and some baking) and I create many recipes for my family, from scratch.. though I can only claim a very basic knowledge of all things food....but this is slowly increasing as I get more time as the children grow. I should point out that since September 2003, I have either been pregnant, just had a baby (within 8 months) am newly pregnant again..... etc. So it has been a roller coaster 5 years, with very little time to stop and think... but as our youngest is now 16 months old and there are no more babies coming (this is usually the point at which I give birth to the next!), then this is a changing point for us.. we are moving on from the baby days and learning our places in our family aka Jo's tribe.

I am vegetarian, with an interest in and aspirations towards a vegan lifestyle.. though I not close to making that final step just yet. Unsure if I will be.. ever. But it's not an impossibility.

I am also passionate about bringing up my children in a way that respects them, teaches them unconditional love and compassion. I realised when I had my 3rd baby that Dylan and I seem to practise 'attachment parenting' to an extent. This is not something we aimed to do, we just seemed to naturally fall into this category, once we had read and understood what it actually means.

We use cloth nappies (after becoming converts just over 12 months ago) and we carry our two youngest children in slings on a regular basis. I am quite passionate about breastfeeding too, after a long and difficult journey, but i am proud to still be breastfeeding my 16 month old.

I rarely get time to read nowadays but I do still enjoy a good book - am hoping to get more time to do this in the next 12 months as L starts to learn to sleep a bit better...

So these are most likely to be some of the things I will blog about.