Since Master C was born he's had our tiny box room as his bedroom. Whilst it was plenty big enough for his cot-bed, a chest of drawers and a chair to sit and give him his milk and stories in, it certainly wasn't big enough for him to play in it properly. Now that he's nearly two he's at that age where he wants to play with his toys more and to have some space to himself. He got into a bit of a habit of just charging into his sister's room and playing in there instead which was starting to cause a few issues between the two of them. Mr C and I therefore decided that it was time for us to ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 6 – Birthday party, upcycling and vintage sewing patterns
As I feared, time is starting to run away from me somewhat and I'm already starting to wonder what it was we did a couple of days ago. After the excitement on Luton on Monday, Tuesday was intended as a bit of a quieter day at home, punctuated by a lunchtime birthday party for both children at the kind invitation of one of Little Miss C's school friends. The party was held in a Scout hut in a part of St Albans that I'm not at all familiar with (and hence I discovered a fantastic new playground next door too), and as we were still blessed with gorgeous hot weather here it was particularly ... read more
Airing my dirty laundry
Ok, ok, I admit it. I probably got you here under false pretenses. With a post title like that you might have been hoping for a juicy bit of gossip or similar. But no, quite literally I'm going to be talking about my dirty laundry. Which I hadn't actually realised was all that dirty until I was asked to try Dr Beckmann's Colour & Dirt Collector! Now, the main aim behind Dr Beckmann's is to prevent colours running in the wash, allowing you to wash coloured clothes with whites, with no fear that you're going to end up with your husbands work shirts turning a nice shade of pink due to a ... read more
What’s on my bookcase – shelfie part 1
I'm super, super excited that later this year St Albans is going to be hosting its first Literary Festival. I'm even more excited as my good friend and fellow blogger Claire from Being a Mummy is actually in charge of the whole thing! With a very small team she's put together a programme with some great speakers for book fans of all types. I've blocked the days out in my diary already and I'm really looking forward to it. In the run up to the festival the other thing I've loved is some of the team sharing shelfie videos in which they talk you through what's on their bookcase. As someone who ... read more
A fishy update…
It's just over a month now since I wrote about setting up our new aquarium from Swell, so I thought it about time to let you know how we are getting on and tell the tale of finally getting some aquatic residents in our tank. Mr C has become the main fish keeper in the house (whilst I'm just in charge of feeding them!) so I'll let him do the story-telling this time... We took a sample of water (in a baby food jar) with us to our local trusted fish shop, where they tested it for free and declared it fit for fishy habitation. Water testing is important, and becomes more so once ... read more
Choosing and setting up a new aquarium
Over a year ago, before Master C was born, we started talking about getting an aquarium and some fish for Little Miss C. We then started looking into what was involved with the hope of having these new members of the family before Master C made his appearance. However, having discovered just how much there is to know and along with everything else that was going on in our lives at the time, it just never happened. Move forwards a year and I received an email from SwellUK saying that they were looking for family bloggers to work with. Exactly the motivation we needed to finally make ... read more
I’m dreaming of a White Company Christmas…
I have a dream. It's a dream I've had since I was about 21. In this dream I live with my family in an absolutely gorgeous house in the country. A house in which everything is just perfect. Every single thing is in the right place and is absolutely gorgeous. It's a dream. A complete fantasty. Real life isn't really that perfect. Is it? Last week though I finally stepped inside that dream house. It may have been in central London instead of the countryside, but every other detail was spot on. Inside my dream house it was Christmas Eve. Gifts were wrapped under the tree. ... read more
Three hours
I'm sure I can't be the only person who gets to the end of the day and wonders what I've actually acheived that day. When you're at home with little ones it can be quite easy to just concentrate on "surviving" and it can be easy to lose track of what has kept you busy all day. Realistically though, stay at home parents usually acheive loads, but they simply don't have the time to step back and take stock of just what they have done. This morning Mr C went out to a first aid course so I thought I'd keep track of just what I got up to in that time - admitedly, ... read more
Taking a step back
This week was supposed to be a nice little "holiday" between Mr C leaving one job and starting a new one. We acknowledged that there were likely to be some little jobs left to finish off in our new loft conversion, but the reality is that we've actually been running round like headless chickens all week trying to make decisions, but things and get everything sorted. Today we've made quite an effort to make the day a bit calmer and fun. A spot of baking - mainly prompted by the need to use up some bananas that were going very brown in the fruit bowl - a pub lunch and a wander ... read more
There!
After posting hopefully last week I'm delighted to say that we're there! The last couple of nights have been spent in our new bedroom, sleeping in our bed, not surrounded by boxes and boxes of stuff. OK so the curtains aren't yet up and there were a few problems like our chest of drawers not actually fitting up the stairs, but the fantastic news is that our new room was ready to move into before Baby C arrived - a miracle. If it's possible things seem to have got even more manic since the builders finished as we're now able to do all the jobs that we'd had ... read more