Amazingly we're already into March and 2014 seems to be rushing past as quickly as last year did. I had been meaning to write something about the first month of our Year of Thrift, but time's run away somewhat. Two months in though there's a fair amount to say and catch up on. What's actually been the most successful thing, but the hardest to keep up, is writing down everything that I spend. For nearly all of January I managed to do this and it really did make me think about every single purchase and question whether it was absolutely necessary or not. I was also somewhat ... read more
Olly the little white van books
I find that most of the children's books I review here on Being Mrs C are aimed at Little Miss C's age, so it was particularly nice recently to get a book review package that appealed to both kids. Olly the little white van is the star of a children's TV show where we follow Olly's adventures with his driver Stan and his other vehicle friends in Bumpton. Olly is voiced by children's TV super star Justin Fletcher (does that man ever have time to sleep???) and he's incredibly energetic - much like Justin himself. Now, we don't actually have the right channels at home ... read more
Digital Postcard from Tanzania #lastingchange #iwd2014
It's hard to believe that it's over a year since I received a digital postcard from the amazing Team Honk girls (Annie, Tanya and Penny) when they went to Ghana to see the fantastic work that Comic Relief were doing over there. This week the three of them sprang a bit of a surprise on us when they announced that they were all at Heathrow about to fly off to Tanzania to see the #lastingchange that Comic Relief were helping to put in place there for some inspirational woman. Today, Saturday 8 March, is International Women's Day 2014 and it's therefore appropriate to see how Comic ... read more
A Darker Place – Jack Higgins
Ever since Master C came along I just haven't got back into the swing of writing about all the books I've been reading here on my blog and that's actually making me surprisingly sad. I love reading and I love keeping track of all the books that I read and I've found myself regularly going back onto my blog to look up a book that I can't quite remember the title of, or to see which ones by a particular author I have read. There's even a huge pile of read books next to my bed waiting to be blogged. One of the mums at Little Miss C's school is setting up a book group ... read more
Philips SoftPal – Children’s Night Light
Sleep. It's the holy grail for many parents and at the moment Master C is certainly putting us through sleep deprivation training of the sort that I think the SAS must go through before missions. It's tough going and I therefore jumped at the chance to talk to a sleep expert in a recent BritMums Google Hangout on solving children's sleep problems. Baby sleep expert Chireal Shallow was on hand to answer our questions and she certainly gave us some good tips to help Master C. This hangout was sponsored by the new Philips SoftPal lights and following on from this we were sent a ... read more
Ladybird Tuesday: Sounds
Let's just completely ignore that fact that it's Wednesday shall we and instead let's just head back into Ladybird world for a bit? Far nicer. This week we're heading back to the Ladybird Leader series (number 737). There were a staggering 38 titles in this series in total and as I mentioned when I wrote about the water book last year, it was an incredibly wide ranging series. Sounds was book number 17 in this series and seems to touch a fair bit on things that are also covered in some of the Junior Science series and also the Your Body book from series ... read more
New Titles from The Wonderful World of Simon Abbott
The children and I are incredibly fortunate that we get to review lots of fantastic children's books together. To date though the majority of these are fiction books so I was particularly interested when TickTock (the children's imprint of Octopus Books) asked us to review some of their new non-fiction titles. The Wonderful World of Simon Abbott series is designed to put the fun back into children's non-fiction by creating a bright and colourful witty presentation of all the information they could ever want to know about their favourite subjects, aimed at 5-7 year olds. The two latest titles ... read more
A first cinema trip
What was the first film that you saw at the cinema? I've probably seen hundreds there over the years, but that first trip always sticks with you. I have absolutely no idea at all when people normally take their kids to the cinema for the first time. I remember going to the old Odeon in Rotherham with my Mum to see the Jungle Book and being strangely scared by the toilets there, but I can't remember how old I was at the time. I do remember the trip though and can still cast my mind back to the amazement I felt at how big the screen was compared to our little telly at home. Photo taken ... read more
Enjoying a Winter Little Adventure
Do you realise just how lucky we were last week? It was half term here and we actually had a day where it didn't rain. And for a little while the sun came out too! I know I do bang on a lot about how "there's no such thing as bad weather, just inappropriate clothing" but this winter has challenged even my Yorkshire optimism about the weather. I've never seen so much rain! All is well when children can just pull on a pair of wellies and head outside regardless, but it's a bit more challenging when you have a 17 month old who seems to think puddles are for sitting in ... read more
Save the Children Ending Newborn Deaths Campaign
When at the Save the Children Bloggers Conference earlier this month there was one particular star guest that I was very keen to hear from - Gemma Raby, one of the midwives from the fantastic Channel 4 series One Born Every Minute. Gemma has been working with Save the Children for a while now and as part of this work last year went out to Liberia to see the work done by midwives there and the difference that Save the Children was making for babies and their mothers. I have two children. Both born in the hospitals of my choice and both times I was given excellent care by the NHS and their ... read more