Taken today in the park, on a beautiful sunny day (summer finally showed up in the UK!). Where has my baby gone??

Sophs is looking gorgeous in her party dress from Aunty Ros and Uncle Brad after a birthday pizza lunch at the Bull and Bush pub in Hampstead - we had a really lovely day, and I still don't know where a whole year went!

Happy 1st birthday to my precious little girl! It's been an incredible, amazing, wonderful journey, and I continue to feel so privileged to be a Mum to Sophia. Some days I still can't quite believe I have been blessed with the care and nurture of this beautiful, happy, cheeky, spirited, vulnerable, determined, cuddly little person; she leaves a wake of happiness and lightness of spirit wherever she goes.

So today is my second day back at work after a year away. I cancelled my first day back on Monday as Sophia's temperature was sky high and she spent the day cuddled and sleeping in my arms, wearing only her nappy to try and stay cooler as she fought a raging fever. Stu looked after her on Tuesday and I had her again on Wednesday (my day not at work). It is....difficult...to be back. My childminder texted today to say that Sophia took 5 steps. She is still learning how to walk and it's hard knowing that I am missing these milestones. Work is so full on and highly stressful what with trying to catch up on all the new systems and processes. I can't say I am enjoying it. It's great to see the people though, they were always good to work with. It's going to take a long time to settle back in to this though. My heart is heavy at the moment.

Cruising around with her new walker, which converts into the coolest little tricycle when she's a bit older - a fabulous present from Shosh, Liam and Ori!

Not only can I now open the cupboard doors, but I've also managed to work out how to open the sugar cannister - it felt so lovely being swooshed between my fingers!

Back to work tomorrow (sigh). It chucked with rain all of my last week. The forecast for tomorrow is 26. Hmph.

Price check please!

Sophia's christening and first birthday party on Saturday was such a happy occasion, though the whole day went by so quickly - 6 hours felt like about 6 seconds! The picnic in the park was great as well, everyone seemed to like the food (that was the first and last time I attempt to cater for 32 adults and 15 kids!) and the cake was magnificent (a present from Sophia's godmother Sarra)! On Sophia's actual birthday Stu and I are going to take the day off work and have a quiet little family occasion. She might be walking by then - she took two steps independently yesterday and is very adept at standing and squatting and toddling along with a hand against a wall for support. Yesterday she also picked the phone handset up and was pretending to talk into it for the first time as well, it was the cutest thing.

In the Bell family christening gown, handmande in 1901!

This incredible cake was about 40cm in diameter, it was huge and incredibly delicious - it was filled with fresh cream and strawberries, mmmmmm. Thank you Sarra! I managed to fend off the kids and salvage 2 of the 6 marzipan animals that came with it - we have the cat and the frog. The kids got the elephant, dog, pig and cat!

It's all a bit manic at the moment. Had to postpone my return to work by a week after the nanny quit to go and set up her own childminding business on the other side of London. We have somehow managed to find a childminder with a vacancy at short notice and Sophs had her first settling in half day today. She was fine, I wasn't!

My brother Andrew is in town with his girlfriend and is ready for his Godfather duties at Sophia's christening on Saturday. Typical ****ing British summer weather - we're supposed to be having a picnic, and the forecast is for heavy rain. Thanks a lot. That was plan A, we're still working on plan B... acutally who am I kidding, there is no plan B! Must come up with something quite quickly...

We had our first kiddie birthday party last weekend which Sophs had a fabulous time at, as you can see in the pic! They had an entertainer for the kids. We're having...erm, some toys on a rug! Better get on with the party prep, there's a mountain of things to do before we get rained on at the weekend!