The year in pictures

2013, on the whole, was a bit of a challenge. We came into it as brand spanking new parents. That was challenge enough. But then, later in the year, James detached his retina, Samuel went to A&E, I handed my notice in at work and we had bundles of issues with our flat. There were quite a lot of days when I wanted to boil my own head. But then, towards the end of the year in particular, there were a lot of days when I didn't. In fact, at some unknown point around October the default look on my face flipped from 'Help me, please God, somebody help me' to 'whatevs'. Then things got quite good. I started to remember who I was again, Samuel became infinitely more fun and I felt privileged to be able to spend my days with such a delightful little person. 

Anyway, here is my year in photographs. All the photos feature Samuel, but here's the thing I've come realise: in a baby's first year or so it can be hard to separate their life from your life. Samuel's life in 2013 was pretty much my life too. I'm sure this will change as he gets older, but right now I wouldn't have it any other way.

Right from the beginning there was an awful lot of this:

And this:

There was nowhere near enough of this:

But whenever it did happen I got very excited about it: 

There were lots of firsts like this:

And this:

And this:

And there were some special get togethers like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

There were some cracking days out like this:

And this:

And this:

But I think the moments I'll remember most from 2013 will be the little ones like this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

I'm pretty optimistic that 2014 will be a belter of a year.