It's a bit strange writing all this in the past, but I'm determined to record all this summer properly, but I was also determined to enjoy our holiday without spending all my time tied to a laptop. Day nine of our summer was one of those days which in a way seems like there's no real point in recording it. It was the day before we set off on holiday so most of it involved trying to look after over excited children whilst also trying to remember everything that we needed to take away with us, buy a few last minute bits, and trying not to let the kids unpack as fast as I could ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: The Story of Houses and Homes
So, away I came on holiday totally forgetting to schedule a Ladybird Tuesday post before I left, and also without a single Ladybird book to be able to blog whilst away. Luckily the Ladybird gods were looking after me though and thanks to the wonderful secondhand books shops that so so many National Trust properties have these days I'm now sat here with a selection of six new titles (none costing more than 60p and one from a series that I didn't previously have any books from!) to choose from. Seeing as I'm away from my home right now I'd decided to go with The Story of Houses and Homes from ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 8 – Mummy daughter day
I find it difficult sometimes ensuring that I still get one on one time with Little Miss C now that her brother's here, and especially since he naps less. I know that she misses that attention, and I've realised that some of her bad behaviour can stem from not having that time with me. During the school holidays I'm making a real point of making sure that we do something special together on the days when Master C is in nursery. This week we were busy getting ready for our holiday and trying to sort out laundry and packing, so I asked LMC what she would like to do for lunch. Her choice was to ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 7 – Shopping and Classics on the Common
I'm still playing catch up somewhat with our holiday diary, but at the same time I'm determined to make sure I don't miss a day. Day 7, Wednesday, was one of those days where we didn't do a huge amount, but when we did do things we seemed to be so involved in it that there weren't many photos. Most of the day was spent at home with the kids, save for a precious couple of hours in the afternoon when my MIL came round to look after the children for a couple of hours whilst I went to Welwyn and spent a John Lewis gift voucher that she'd bought me for my birthday. It was very strange being out ... read more
Help LMC start to fulfil her travel dreams
http://instagram.com/p/dq7bB5xIyM/?modal=true Little Miss C has a bit of an obsession with travel right now. Mr C and I went to Paris recently and she also had a rather dragged out trip to Gatwick airport to pick her daddy up after he went to The Netherlands for a wedding recently. Add to that the fact that DorkySon (who she still talks about regularly) moved to Tasmania and one of her school friends is about to emigrate to Sydney you can possibly see where her wanderlust is coming from. At Easter one of her other school friends went on a long trip to South Africa, where he has family, and ... 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
Inspiring a future generation of women #IWantToBe
It's not so long ago that I wrote about Little Miss C's varied aspirations for when she gets older. I love that fact that she thinks somewhat outside the box when it comes to this sort of thing. Just before the end of term her school had a day where children were encouraged to come to school dressed up as (or just with a suitable prop) what they want to be when they grow up. That morning the playground was full of nurses, doctors, racing drivers, builders and police officers. Stood in the middle of them was one little girl with a pair of binoculars and a RSPB bird identification book under her ... read more
Featured Post: Turning our attentions to savings
If you've been following my thrifty journey through 2014 you'll know that our attempts to have a Year of Thrift hit the buffers somewhat when we came up against the new mortgage affordability rules. The good news is that common sense has prevailed though and our building society has now agree to remortgage us - yippee! There's still a huge amount of paperwork to complete and solicitors need to do whatever solicitors do in these circumstances, but fingers crossed we're nearly there and we might actually be able to start saving again. Such a relief and it's definitely helped re-energise my ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Lost at the Fair
We're jumping about a bit between the years here on Ladybird Tuesday as we're going from the 1980s last week to a book that was first published in the 1940s - 1948 to be precise (although this is a 1970s reprint I think). Lost at the Fair is part of the Animal Rhymes series (series 401) which was a set of lovely stories, all written in verse, making them perfect to be read out loud to young children. Lost at the Fair is the story of two little dormice whose mother is woken one morning by Mr Squirrel telling her that the fair has some to town. She wakes up her chidden and as soon as they ... read more
Summer 2014: Day 5 – Fun in Luton
Yes, you did read that title correctly, and no it's not one that I ever expected to write either. When I started keeping track of what we're getting up to this summer I did realise that we couldn't go out and do an amazing day trip every day, and nor did I want to. Sometimes the simplest of things can be the most rewarding, and sometimes something that might have appeared very mundane actually turns out to be quite exciting. We started today without any real plans and the only things that we had to get done were to get some food shopping in and to buy a birthday present for a little boy ... read more