Will Dig Life

This is the yearly roundup post - as I've done almost every year for 2022 ,  2021 ,  2020 ,  2019 ,  2018 ,  2017 , 2016 seems to be skipped as I got to grips with mothering two little ones, and  2015 . 2023 was, for us, a year of highlights and milestones as well as getting on with life and growing.  Milestones This year, Mr. and I were married for the third (!) time, almost exactly ten years after we first tied the knot. Some of the background (and lots more pictures) about this is here  - in short, our three weddings were firstly the Register Office legal wedding that only Mr.'s parents attended as witnesses; secondly the church wedding at City Church where we invited everyone, also in 2013; and now, finally, following the annulment of Mr's previous marriages, we made our marriage sacramental by having it convalidated in the Catholic Church. 2023 was also the year that saw N(9)'s First Holy Communion. A beautiful celebration of her now being old enough to understand

Since the kids were little, Advent has been a very special time filled with activities and traditions created intentionally. Here's what I wrote about it in 2019 and we still do all those things. My aim in choosing and creating traditions was to help the kids build anticipation over the season, focus on why we celebrate (it's Jesus' birthday!) and to try and take the focus away a bit from the receiving stuff to the idea of giving as well. Most of the things here we've been doing for years now, but this year for the first time we're doing a 'Jesse Tree' (going through the Bible leading up to the birth of Christ, one event at a time) as well. As every year, we have the obligatory chocolate advent calendars as well as an Advent Wreath with four candles on it. Every Sunday in Advent we light another one, so that we end up with four lit candles by Christmas. There's also the reuseable Advent Calendar which has an 'activity' card in it every day (pr