Wednesday 18 July 2012

Very very tiny planes, trains and automobiles

This is my post for this weeks The Gallery theme 'planes, trains, and automobiles'. This photo is of an wonderful place where we had a fantastic family day out – Bekonscot Model Village & Railway in Buckinghamshire. Here we found the tiniest railway where the trains stopped at the stations, boats that sailed round the harbour, and it's very on teeny tiny airfield. It has it all so just seemed perfect for the theme. I could barley drag Squiggle away from the station, I think she could have stood and watch the trains all day!! It's a lovely day out, and a good one to take Grandparents along to. There are lots of lovely details to look at with little jokes thrown in to keep easily amused adults like me happy!








Tuesday 17 July 2012

Things I wish I'd never started

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The adult way of doing things just doesn't really apply to toddlers does it? You do something silly, you laugh, you move on. Oh this is not the way of a little person, do it once, like it, do it over and over and over again. You learn fast as a parent and there are a lot of ideas you know you just don't want put into kid's heads. For example a friend suggested to S while playing hide and seek that her toy might be hiding in the toilet. "Nooooo" was the cry from me, I knew that could well be the start of everything I own being flushed away. I never learn though and have still have done many a thing I wish I'd never started. Here are but a few...


1. Puting a blob of Sudocrem on my nose. This happened a good way back as a clever way of turning nappy tears into giggles, I was pleased with myself. Then every nappy time came "mummy put the cream on your nose please please please!!!" I've refused but I now can't leave the stuff in reaching distance. She'll stick her whole hand in and wipe it on my face / her face / anyone in reach. It is the hardest thing in the world to just wash off by the way, has some kind of inbuilt magic water resistance!


2. Fantastical bedtime tales 
I made up a nice little story about some mice one bedtime and S loved it. It would send her to sleep nicely and myself sometimes. Then one night she begged for 'the mouse and the blue banana'. I wanted to encourage her imagination so ok I said and off I went. Ever since then she has invented wilder and sillier story titles for me to tell. My mind is boggling trying to come up with them and she is laughing and getting very over excited rather than sleepy...doh! 


3. The magic cup
She's not a great drinker so in desperation one meal time I tool a sip from her cup and pretended it turned me onto a duck. She took a sip and turned into a mouse, yes it worked I thought!!! Was it worth it? Now every mealtime I am forced to pretend to be a duck and she still only has a minuscule sip. :(


4. Laughing
This applies to a lot of things when you know it's so wrong but it's so funny. At the weekend, for example, she was scribbling on her doodle book with her wipe clean pen (thankfully) when she decided to turn her face onto that of a zebras. Oh how I tried not to laugh but I couldn't help it. And it got such a good reception the minute i had got her clean, she did it again. Bad mummy, I asked for it!


Do you have any? I bet you do! I'd love to hear them, gone on give me a laugh :) xx


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Tuesday 10 July 2012

Some creative gift ideas from 'Find Me a Gift'

Well our girly luck was in last week as we received two fantastic products from Find Me a Gift to review.

All parents know that having children brings with it the inevitable influx of children's parties and before you know it their social lives are better than yours! I love all the parties but with the invitations comes the dilemma of what gift to buy... I always want to get something useful but fun and that wont take up too much room in Mum's house, it can be a tricky one! Thanks to Find Me a Gift I now have a couple of great ideas for you.

First up is the fabulous 'Super Craft Kit for Girls'. When I was offered this product to review I just knew Squiggle would love it. She gets very over excited about pom poms and wobbly eyes and it this set had both, perfect! It is actually quite a large box when you see it which gives a great wow factor for a gift. When I pulled it out from behind my back my daughters eyes lit up immediately. "Can we do it now pleeeease mummy" she begged. She got really excited looking at the box and listing all the different things we could make.




























She quickly decided that what she really wanted to make was a caterpillar... He turned out to be a monster caterpillar which she thought was hilarious. It doesn't come with any instructions which allows creativity to flow like this and actually turned out to be a really fun positive.


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Squiggle enjoyed taking inspiration from the pictures on the box and so my only negative was that there wasn't much variety in size of the pom poms provided. This meant if you did want to copy, for example, the rabbit on the box, you didn't have all the equipment. This didn't bother my little one in the slightest though... we just improvised and he turned out pretty cute don't you think?!



























I would definitely get this as a gift for a girl's birthday, it's the kind of gift that won't matter if you have duplicates and you know it will get definitely get used. It's a sure hit with parents and kids alike and the box looks really fun and glittery and girly. At £5.99 I think it's fantastic value and it's just around the right party of stocking filler price mark for me. As parties get more and more frequent sadly you just have to reign in the budget a bit! I'm so pleased we were sent this it brought us so much fun and lots of giggles.


The next item they were kind enough to send us was a very cute Pillowhead Chubbie. I was so pleased to be sent this as I had been thinking about getting Squiggle some kind of animal cushion but hadn't seen a design I really liked. I had never seen the Chubbies before, they are really sweet! 
























I don't think his picture online (or my picture) really does him justice as he is very very lovable in real life. He is soooo soft that you really do just want to snuggle into him and it's this super softness that really wins the day. Perfect for snuggling on the sofa in the evening or on our early morning car journeys we often have to do. The ultimate cosy gift, and a fun original pressie too... oh and my daughter also seems to find it hilarious to throw him about the place due to his roundness, poor little piggy! He costs just under £10 so another great value buy!


Please note I was sent these items to review but my review is honest and all my own, I hope you have found it helpful xx

Thursday 5 July 2012

Getting my brain around nurseries

Sorry! I was getting a lot of spam on this post so I have panicked and taken it down. If you want to chat on this subject comment or drop me a tweet!!

Tuesday 3 July 2012

Labour stories

This week I've been thinking a lot about labour... it's funny how it all goes from your mind isn't it. I've just found out one of my closest friends is pregnant (yey!) so have been reliving it all. I also met another friends beautiful baby girl for the first time last week and couldn't wait to hear all about their birth – you see, I think my friend is some kind of early prototype of how women are going to evolve in 20 years time!! She also has a little boy (my gorgeous Godson) who is the same age as my daughter and she gave birth to him in 2 hours. It was actually quite scary for her and her poor husband, who was being told what to do with towels in case they didn't make it to hospital on time, but they did! They told her to be prepared with the second one and she was. After the first slight twinge she went straight to the hospital and told the midwife her situation, who didn't really quite believe her. She had to argue her way into the birthing pool and  they let her in to humour her really and said she'd need to get out again in a couple of hours. Next thing, out pops the baby's head. What a great "told you so". How amazing is this? Her labour lasted under an hour!!

Mine was 24 hours, which I don't think is too bad? A lot of it was spent at home playing Mario Kart to pass the time... how long did your labour last? I wonder what the national average is?