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
The New Small Person – Lauren Child
As a family who loves books it seemed natural that when I was pregnant with Master C we introduced Little Miss C to a selection of books all about there being a new baby in the family. By the time Master C was born she was pretty comfortable with the idea of a baby and had a good idea of what was going to happen with the new tiny baby. But, as we all know, babies grow up. They learn to crawl and move around. They become toddler. Suddenly the older sibling's possessions aren't safe any more and their younger brother or sister just wants to join in with everything they're doing. For us this ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 18 – Back home
After a week of days out and lots and lots of excitement it's no surprise that returning home was a bit of a shock to the system. It rained. Lots. There was loads of laundry to do. Literally. And the kids claimed to be bored. Proof it was needed that school holidays aren't just a long series of blissful days in the sunshine. Mr C wanted to crack on with decorating Master C's new bedroom, so I headed into central St Albans with the kids and took them to Waterstones where staff were doing a Julia Donaldson story time. Little Miss C enjoyed it, but after a week of running around outdoors ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 17 – Castle Drogo and the journey home
After our journey down to Cornwall we were pretty sure that the journey back wasn't going to be fast, but I don't think we realised just how long it was going to take. We said our sad farewell to Fiona and everyone else at Coombe Mill and headed east with an aim of stopping off at the National Trust's Castle Drogo. We'd seen signs for the castle on our journey down, but had run out of time then to be able to visit. Now, the thing that's slightly unique about Castle Drogo at the moment is the fact that they're in the middle of a huge piece of conservation work there whilst staying ... read more
The Boxtrolls – review by Mr C and Little Miss C
After a rather sleepless night with Master C on Saturday night Mr C and I decided that he would instead take Little Miss C into London on Sunday morning to see an advance screening of The Boxtrolls - the new animated family title from Universal instead of me. They don't often get to go somewhere just the two of them so it was a great opportunity for some quality father-daughter time. The Boxtrolls is the story of a group of box wearing trolls (much as the film's title suggests) who all live under the town of Cheesebridge. They bring up an orphaned human boy called Eggs (named after the ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Sunstart Reading Scheme – On the Beach
Do you know what one of my smartest moves ever was in collecting Ladybird books? Realising that Danny from Clouds in my Coffee goes to loads of jumble sales and the like and that he's fab at seeking out Ladybird books! When I heard he was off to a car boot sale on Sunday I cheekily reminded him to keep a look out for me and I was therefore somewhat delighted when he sent me this picture asking if there was anything I could see that I wanted. At just 30p each I'm delighted to say that several came home to me and even more delighted that I took the effort to zoom in and notice one ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 16 – Boscastle and the Beach
The penultimate day of the holidays at Coombe Mill can only mean one thing - the last feed run! The children had come to love the feed run and were sad that it was their last one, but this also meant that time was running out for Little Miss C to actually drive Farmer Nick's tractor. Luckily though she finally plucked up the nerves to do so and she now talks about it as one of the highlights of her whole summer. As if driving the tractor wasn't exciting enough, this was also the day that she actually managed to find an egg herself too. A perfect end to a week of feed ... read more
Show us your mugs! #MugTour
If you're a regular reader of Being Mrs C then you'll have realised by now that I'm rather nosey. I love the insight into other people's lives that social media gives you and it's just one of the reasons why I've become a big fan of Instagram. To me, Instagram is as the name suggests - a capture of an instant of time in someone's life. I don't really go in for the fully staged photos so much - mainly due to lack of time - and I'm far more interested to see real life in people's homes and the places they go than just stage-managed snippets. Over the last year or so Aly from Bug ... read more
Hugger Bags Holiday Review
As much as I love my husband there are just some things that men just don't seem to understand. A woman's need to have several bags is one such thing. Yes, the kids did already have perfectly adequate rucksacks, but having a new bag to try out is an exciting thing so when 1 Two Kids asked if Little Miss C and Master C would like to try out a Hugger bag each over the summer holidays the female half of the family certainly jumped with joy. With the strap line "... feels like a hug" Hugger bags are slightly different to your normal children's backpacks. Rather than being stiff in structure ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 15 – The Eden Project
I really need to play catch up a bit with my holiday diary or we'll be into the Christmas holidays before I've finished writing about the summer! But then again there are plenty of days later in the holidays where the write up will probably just say "kids watched far too much CBeebies today" and that should speed up the blogging process! For our penultimate full day at Coombe Mill we decided on a day trip to the Eden Project which is about a 40 minute drive away. Now the Eden Project is probably one of Cornwall's best known tourist attractions now and somewhere that everyone wants to go ... read more