The new year may only be a month old, but it’s off to a fast start with Allen keys, candles and cameras playing a prominent role in our family’s January. Here are this month’s highlights.

Operation ‘Bedroom Move’

We actually kicked things off straight after Christmas, but our January weekends have been dominated by the process of moving our boys into a larger bedroom that affords them more space for their growing needs.

Gratifyingly, Isaac and Toby remain happy to share a room together, and they have both been involved in the process, helping to move their stuff from one room to the other, putting up new wall decorations and even lending a hand with the flat-pack assembly.

Toby has now upgraded from his old toddler bed to the top of a new bunk bed. (The bottom bunk is vacant for sleepovers but Kara is trying to commandeer it for herself.) And, with the heavy-duty DIY now done, we’re steadily adding additional touches to complete the room. Given our usual pace with such things, we’ll be finished some time in 2017.

Next up is the pile of flat-pack furniture for Kara’s room that has been staring accusingly at me for the past two months … Maybe next week …

Five

Toby’s birthday this year fell on a Monday and he marked turning five with a three-day celebration: a small party tea with my family on Saturday, his party at a local leisure centre the following day and then his actual birthday on the Monday.

That meant three lots of presents to open on separate days. He’s particularly pleased with the Nikon compact camera we bought as our present to him (a snip at £40), which he’s been using constantly since opening it – mostly to take photos of every Citroen, Peugeot or Renault he spies. Looks like we’ve got ourselves another shutterbug.

Busy, busy, busy

Bedrooms and birthdays aside, the kids have been busy doing all those things that kids do.

Isaac reads constantly and has taken to using the email account set up for him by his school – when he isn’t off creating new worlds in Minecraft, that is.

Having cracked riding his bike late last year, Toby is growing in confidence on two wheels. He and I had a great morning together after our usually independent middle child specifically requested some one-on-one time. But give him some Lego or some paper and pens and he will still happily spend hours quietly converting all his ideas into something creative.

And Kara is just as bossy assertive as ever – and I mean that in a good way. I love the way she stands up for herself to ensure she gets what she wants, although Toby is probably less enamoured of the way she often sides with Isaac to gang up on him! Siblings, eh?

Moi

It’s been a busy month for me too. I was fortunate enough to visit Bletchley Park with work to get a glimpse of the work done by Alan Turing and the top-secret team who worked tirelessly to break the German Enigma ciphers during WWII. It was a timely visit too, as Benedict Cumberbatch’s Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Turing in The Imitation Game was announced the following day.

I’ve also been featured over on Ben Wakeling’s blog, where he’s running a weekly Q&A feature to promote dad bloggers.

Finally, after much umming and ahhing, I’ve committed to attending BritMums Live for the first time in June. Now all I need is either a sponsor or a second mortgage to help me foot the cost!

Either way, I’m looking forward to June. In the meantime I’ll be back again next month with a photo round-up of February.