Christmas 2015 - Blowing Away the Cobwebs...

Christmas Day for us began at 730am with Elliot running into our bedroom shouting "he's been! Father Christmas has been!". He was so excited that it was finally Christmas that he completely failed to spot the stocking on the end of his bed! My husband probably wanted to have a lie in but no chance of that on Christmas Morning ;)

Guess who got the biggest pile! 

Elliot couldn't wait to tackle the presents and it didn't take long for our floor to be covered in a sea of wrapping paper and discarded boxes! My husband did a good job of present buying this year, I got some lovely Yankee Candles, a giant Lindt ball and a voucher for Yours Clothing and some other bits and bobs. Normally he'll be one of those men rushing round Tesco the day before Christmas so I'm glad he was marginally more organised this year!

We had a lovely Christmas Dinner cooked by my hubby and then spent the afternoon with my family. More presents for Elliot, more chaos, more food! My parents gave Elliot a Clangers set, he was so pleased, he's been talking about it non-stop since we saw it in Smyths last month. It's funny because he's not that into the programme but was so taken with this little set - this will be one of his favourites for a long time I'm sure. One of his other favourite presents was a set of Darth Vader pjs, complete with mask!

The rest of the day was spent visiting family, eating party food and then finally vegging out in front of the telly once Elliot was tucked up in bed. Such a tiring day!

Unfortunately the Christmas germs descended on us on Boxing Day and apart from a quick visit to the Lush sale , we pretty much hibernated for the next few days. Aside from feeling rubbish, it was actually quite nice to spend some family time together...be it surrounded by snotty tissues and inhalers! We watched lots of films, did lots of puzzles and I even managed to find homes for most of Elliot's new toys.

By the time Tuesday rolled around, it was time for my husband to go back to work. For me it was that wierd limbo time between Christmas and New Year when not alot happens and you have no clue what day of the week is it! Desperate for a bit of fresh air after being cooped up, we headed to our local park with my Mum and Elliot couldn't have been more excited about being outside!

I've been coming to this particular park for years since I was a kid so it's nice to bring Elliot here and he loves playing on the beach. He spent ages lobbing stones into the sea! The fresh air did us the world of good and it was great to blow away the cobwebs!

With New Years Eve now upon us, I'll be taking a look back at 2015 in my next post and looking forward to 2016 and all it may bring! 

Last Minute Stocking Fillers for Kids

If like me you will be braving the high street for those last minute items, here are some ideas for stocking fillers...

1. Disney Frozen Shimmer Shaker Bubble Bath - Wilko (£5) - This will make your bath bubbles shimmer! Aimed at kids but actually I'd quite like this in my stocking!
2. Gruffalo Magnetic Game - Waterstones (£8.99) - This cute little game features 27 bright and chunky magnetic pieces and encourages children to create new stories featuring their favourite characters;
3. Dress your own Astronaut - Wilko (£3.50) - This little outfit fits over most teddies (it gets put on a duck in our house!) and matching child costumes are available!
4. Deep Sea Fun Game - ELC (£8) -Perfect for honing those fine motor skills and learning colours
5. Little Chef Set - B&M (£3.99) - Good for when your little ones are "helping" out in the kitchen, this set comes with an apron, hat and tea towel.
6. Boys Novelty Christmas Socks - Next (£6) - A new pair of novelty socks is a Christmas tradition for me, I love these festive ones from Next
7. Balloon Modelling Kit - BHS (£4) - Kids might need a bit of help from an adult but this balloon modelling kit could keep them amused for ages!
8. ChocOnChoc Festive Reindeer & Penguin Box - Boots (£6) - These chocolates are almost too cute to eat!

Have you finished your Christmas Shopping yet?!

The Christmas Countdown..

With Christmas just ONE WEEK away, we have been feeling very very festive and have been getting up to lots of exciting things! Elliot has now finished pre-school for the year so we have lots more to squeeze in before the big day arrives. But here's what we've been getting up to this week..

Mums Night Out

New dress, check! New shoes with a heel I can walk in (ie a flat one then), check! Copious bottles of wine, check! Mums that have been let out on the loose, check! 

I don't really go out much these days so it's nice to get together with my mum friends and let our hair down once in a while. We had a lovely meal followed by a bit of Mum dancing and I was tucked up in bed by midnight - perfect! There were a few fuzzy heads the next morning though ;)

We saved ourselves a second trip to the bar by buying a bottle each - forward planning! 

Meeting Father Christmas

It's a good job Elliot is still young enough not to question things but we've met Father Christmas a few times this week - each with a slightly varied beard/outfit!! 

First of all there was a Santa parade which was due to go down our road. It wasn't really a parade in the end, just Father Christmas in a sports car and a trailer with a fake reindeer but he stopped to give out sweets for the kids! 

Next we had booked to see Father Christmas at a local garden centre Stewarts - it gets booked up really fast as it's so popular so we were looking forward to it. We actually bought Elliot here when he was a few weeks old so it was nice to look back at old photos and see how much he'd grown! Father Christmas was lovely again, unlike the child before us Elliot wasn't shy at all and marched on in!! He got a brilliant dinosaur present and we got a lovely photo. They even have real reindeer there which is a nice touch - we told Elliot that this is where they rest before the big night!

Today we did something a bit different - we went on a boat to meet Father Christmas! It was organised by City Cruises and it was a children's Christmas party with an entertainer, christmas music, games, and obviously a visit from the man in red. Elliot was in his Elf costume (again!!) and he had a brilliant time, I think he would have happily stayed on there all afternoon bopping away to the Christmas songs!

Christmas Carols

I've talked about my choir (Just Sing) before but it's something I absolutely love doing, I really look forward to choir night each week and our live performances are always so exciting! This week saw our annual Christmas concert - in fact this time we did two performances as it was so popular the previous year. Raising money for the Mosaic charity, a charity which helps bereaved children in Dorset, we managed to raise over £2770!!

Photo Credit - Just Sing Choir

End of Term

It was Elliot's last day at pre-school for the year on Friday so of course he wanted to wear the Elf outfit...it does get washed I promise! I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see what he got up to but he came home full of smiles and he had a big pile of homemade crafts for me. The ladies at his pre-school are so lovely and all the children had a little present to take home. I think he will really miss going over the Christmas break! 

My little Elf on his way to pre-school! 

The week leading up to Christmas Day is just as busy for us but I love the festive build up just as much as the big day itself! 

My Week in Pictures - 11th December 2015

December has been a whirlwind of activity so far and I can't believe Christmas is just two weeks away....I haven't even finished writing my cards yet!

The festive season is in full swing and we've been really busy - today was a full day at home though which was lovely and much needed. Sometimes you just need a day at home in your pjs watching films! Here's what else we've been up to...and I realise that most of these snaps include food, oops!

Top Row:
- I belong to a local choir called Just Sing and we had a Christmas gig at a cafe just a few minutes from my house. Elliot insisted on wearing the Elf costume and he loved meeting Father Christmas after our performance!
- My husband is a small business owner (The Laptop Fixers) and last Friday we took our staff out for a Christmas meal. My sister in law works for us too and we had a giggle sitting next to each other!
- Another day, another Elf outing....Elliot really loves this costume! Bet you've never seen an Elf eat a hotdog this big!

Middle Row:
- Is it just boys that jump on things ALL THE TIME?! I caught Elliot bouncing on our bed in his pants...as you do!
- We had a birthday party last weekend and the kids got to decorate cupcakes. I just managed to snap this photo before the icing was demolished!

Bottom Row:
- This is what happens when you eat a penguin bar and it melts...notice how he's stuffed the whole thing in his gob though!
- Elliot was sent a lovely Christmas stocking stuffed full of Kiddylicious goodies from their PR lady Emma, what a nice touch :)
- As we were home all day today we made some rice crispie cakes but as you can probably imagine, quite a lot of the rice crispies and chocolate never made it into the cake cases!!

Braun ThermoScan 7 Ear Thermometer - Review

As soon as you become a parent, you spend most of your time worrying about your baby and dread them feeling poorly! This time of year is terrible for coughs and colds, Elliot seems to have had a snotty nose for the past month and all kinds of germs have been going round his little group of friends.

We were recently asked to review the Braun ThermoScan 7 Ear Thermometer and I thought that it couldn't have come at a better time! Since Elliot was a baby we did have an ear thermometer but it was so cumbersome and unreliable that I didn't really use it much. So I was a bit excited to get this one of the box and try it out! ;)

I wasn't aware of this but the definition of fever changes with age and what is classed as high on a newborn could be completely fine for a toddler or older child. With this in mind, the ThermoScan 7 features unique age-adjustable fever guidance technology. You simply press the button of the crawling child on the front of the thermometer and select the age bracket you want eg 0-3 months, 3-36 months and 36 months +.

Taking the child's temperature couldn't be easier, you just place the tip in the ear (the tip is also pre-warmed enabling a more accurate reading) press the big button on the front and the thermometer will beep and light up when it has an accurate reading. All this takes 1-2 seconds which is really handy when you have a poorly child who really doesn't want anything in their ear! The thermometer will then display the temperature with green, yellow or red light letting you know if the temperature is normal or not. (Yellow means elevated whilst red obviously means high)

Other features include disposable lens filters which pop on and off really easily, memory function which stores the last 9 temp readings, and also a nightlight feature which is really useful if you're creeping in at night to take a temperature!

Thoughts

I really wish I'd had one of these when Elliot was a baby because it would have made things so much easier. I love the fact that it's so simple and fast to take a temperature and when you've got a wiggling child, time is of the essence!

I had a quick check online and you can pick up one of the thermometers for around £42.99 which does sound expensive for what it is BUT I think that it is well worth the money and is something that can be used right from newborn to adults. The age-adjustable fever guide is so so simple to understand and really takes the worry out of whether your baby has a fever.

I'm sure we will be using the thermometer lots over the germ-filled Winter months!

Disclaimer: We received the product for the purpose of the honest review. All views are my own

Christmas Crafts with Baker Ross

We were recently sent a big box of festive goodies from Baker Ross and we had the tough job of testing them all out.....it's a hard job, someone's got to do it ;)

Baker Ross have lots and lots of seasonal items on their website and following on from the Autumn Crafts, the Christmas range is amazing. Christmas cards, stocking fillers, decorations, craft kits. stickers, paints, stampers, porcelain art....the list goes on!

Our bumper box contained Penguin Foam stickers, Christmas Ceramic Tealight holders, Christmas Stampers, Snowflake Stampers,  Festive Fingerprint Cards, Christmas Wreath Fingerprint Photoframe Kit and a 6 bottles of ready mixed paint.

We put our Christmas Tree up today so Elliot decided we would make the wreath photoframe kit, these little wreaths hang on the tree so a good option for us to do! As with lots of the Baker Ross kits, the instructions are so straight forward and even a not-very-creative person like me can make something that looks half decent! Elliot couldn't wait to get his fingers in the ink pad - lots of it ended up on the table as well as the decorations but fortunately it rubbed off ok....good old baby wipes ;)

Elliot did a great job in sticking down the ribbons on the wreath and I helped him out with the cutting - he was then able to stick the photo down onto the foam which made the back of the wreath. A bit of mummy assistance with the ribbon and he was good to go - he couldn't wait to hang them on the tree!

The next kit we tried was the festive fingerprint cards - this was very straightforward, so easy that it didn't need instructions. We just followed the pictures on the front of the packet and put our fingerprints in the right places! This was a bit hit with Elliot as he liked splodging his fingers in the inkpads! The pack contains 10 cards so plenty of spares for all your friends and family.

Elliot was overjoyed to spot the foam stickers in the box - he loves nothing more than sticking them on a bit of paper to create a scene. What's good with these stickers is that the backing paper comes off very easily making it perfect for little (and impatient) fingers! We decided to create a snowy scene with some white card - apparently the penguins were at the North Pole :)

Time to get the paints out next and we decided to give the stampers a go. I loved these, they were so Christmassy! All the stampers are nice and chunky which is perfect for little fingers and I loved the variety in the Christmas pack. The snowflakes were really pretty and Elliot enjoyed making a "frozen" themed picture with these. (no pics of these I'm afraid...was too busy stamping!)

Last but not least were the ceramic tealight holders. These can be decorated with porcelain pens or acrylic paints, both available from the Baker Ross website. We haven't decorated ours yet, but actually they look very sweet as they are, minus any paint!

This is just a very small selection of what Baker Ross has to offer and I'd definitely recommend checking out the website, especially the Christmas range! 

Disclaimer: We received the products for the purpose of the honest review. All views are my own

Baby Moo's Baby & Toddler Clothing - New Bournemouth Store!

Last weekend we were invited to the opening of a lovely new shop, Baby Moo's in Bournemouth and we were excited to go along and check them out.

Baby Moo's was launched in 2010 when new mum Anna got bored of all the blues/pinks/pastel colours in the shops for babies and longed for something different at affordable prices. She sold some of her unwanted baby items to raise some cash, imported some stock and Baby Moo's was born! Since then the website has gone from strength to strength and lots of the items are designed by Anna herself. Baby Moo's has even expanded to offer a toddler range - offering some very cool items that you just won't find on the high street!

The shop is the next step for Baby Moo's and Anna is looking forward to meeting lots of new customers in sunny Southbourne, Bournemouth.

First impressions of the shop were that all the clothing looks so eye catching and I love all the little details like the cow hooks to tie in with the moo theme! There's no insipid colours here - everything is bright and punchy and I love the different logos on the babygrows. I really wish I'd known about Baby Moo's when Elliot was little because I longed for funky outfits for him!

I'm a big fan of skull prints so the toddler section caught my eye - it's nice to see skull emblems on girls t-shirts as well as boys. My favourite top was the white t-shirt with the skull hands - this definitely appealed to Elliot's gruesome nature haha! Anna very kindly gave us this t-shirt to review and it's a really lovely top. The t-shirt is made from good, thick quality material and fits him really well. We went for a size 3-4 and I would say this is true to size. The t-shirt has been through the wash this week and hasn't lost it's shape, and the printed design looks as sharp as it did brand new.

I did try and take some nice photos of Elliot modelling the t-shirt but he wasn't really in the mood for posing haha!

Anna told me that the toddler range will be expanding soon so I will be keeping my eye on the website for more funky clothes. I just love that the prints are a bit different to what you'd find elsewhere - and anything with skull print is good with me!

For more info and to take a look at Baby Moo's fab range, check out their website www.babymoos.com or pop into the new store at :

134 Seabourne Road

Bournemouth

BH5 2HZ

Disclaimer: We received the t-shirt for the purpose of the honest review. All views are my own.