I struggle a bit to put my finger on quite why, but since I became a parent I've realised just how fortunate my daughter is. I've spent many sleepless nights worrying about children here in the UK that don't have three meals a day, who don't have a safe warm house to live in and toys to play with. I want to provide my daughter with everything she wants and needs - that's a mother's instinct - and I know that the few times I can't give her something (admittedly normally something trivial) it does break my heart. I was fascinated and pleased therefore (if pleased is the right word to use here) ... read more
A nature butterfly
On Sunday afternoon we headed down to the annual family day at our local nature reserve here in St Albans. Mr C and I have been involved there for years helping to run things, but it's only now that Little Miss C is getting a bit older that we are getting involved more as members than volunteers. Whilst the bug hunt and pond dipping were of interest to her today, but she's not yet ready to properly try her hand at either. We also unfortunately missed the start of the storytelling session which was much more for her age range, but we were in time for the craft ... read more
Visiting the animals
I'm always on the look out for new places to take Little Miss C - especially ones that don't cost much. I worry that there's a lot of pressure on parents to pay to take their children to loads of expensive attractions but that need not be the case. On Friday morning we went along to one of our favourite free attractions - the local garden centre's pet department! We're lucky enough to have a short drive away a garden centre that sells chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, budgies and reptiles, as well as a selection of fish. It obviously costs nothing to visit the ... read more
Review: Canvas Print from photo-canvas.com
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only parent who takes heaps and heaps of photographs of my daughter, but then manages to do nothing with them other than post a few on Facebook and leave the rest sitting on my hard drive. I have romantic visions of going through all my photographs during the long winter evenings, printing selected ones out and creating some beautiful albums with them, but then I never quite manage to find the time to do so. Original picture taken in Norfolk - un-cropped Back when Little Miss C was only nine months old we ventured to Norfolk with her and she had her first real ... read more
Leftovers Lunch
In my eyes a good experimental recipe is one that gets eaten so quickly that you don't have chance to photograph it for a blog post first. That's exactly what happened to the lovely lunch that Mr C made us all earlier today. One thing that I am awful at is keeping food leftovers and then doing nothing at all with them. There is far too much food waste in this house and if I'm honest I'm to blame for most of it. There are some dinners (mainly pasta dishes) where I plan carefully and ensure that we have enough left over for LMC and I to have it for lunch the next day too. Where ... 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
Review: Jingle Puzzle – Old MacDonald Had A Farm
Just the day after blogging about Little Miss C's love of jigsaw puzzles I was thrilled to be asked to review a Jingle Puzzle. What freaked me out slightly was that as soon as we arrived at the local sorting office to collect the parcel LMC somehow knew that it was a jigsaw for her without either of us even opening the package. She happily carried it to the car telling everyone we walked past that it was a jigsaw for her to do. More than "just" a jigsaw Jingle Puzzles are based on well known children's nursery rhymes and songs and each box contains a floor puzzle, a CD of music (with track ... read more
Review: Miniland Lacing Buttons
I've always been a big fan of educational toys and games and I was therefore really pleased to hear about a range of educational toys that I hadn't come across before - Miniland Educational. We were sent a couple of things from the range to review and I have honestly never seen Little Miss C jump on anything as quickly as she did the Lacing Buttons. Within mere seconds of me opening the big brown box they came in LMC had them out and had spread them across the living room floor as she excitedly started threading them onto the laces provided. For half an hour she sat there ... read more
Cussons Mum & Me Bump Range: Relax and Unwind Bath Soak
With everything going on here at the moment there's no doubt that relaxing and unwinding should be top of my to do list, but finding time to do so can be a bit problematic. I was rather pleased to be asked to review the Relax and Unwind Bath Soak from Cussons Mum and Me Bump Range as I figured that I could then justify having a relaxing bubble bath as being "work related"! The thing I particularly like about this bath soak is that it does actually seem to lead to a better night's sleep if I use if just before bedtime. Made with camomile to help you relax it's not overly scented (a good thing ... read more