Posts Tagged "Exciting Events"
Christmas at the Great Toy Guide
As most of you know, I deputy edit at the fab new review site ‘Great Toy Guide’, where we provide independent, honest reviews by our team of mummy and daddy bloggers on toys and games for children aged 0-8.
Last week we launched our biggest feature yet, 100 of the best Christmas Toys for under £10.
I’m really proud of this one. We’ve sourced some AMAZING toys: a great mix of familiar names and old classics as well as some toys with a difference, including some gorgeous ethical toys like this Jewellery Making Kit (my absolute fave). I really, really would encourage you to go have a look – toys are organised by age to make it easier and I guarantee you’ll find an idea you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise. I want to buy them all! Kai definitely has a few on HIS Christmas list, especially this fun bathtime toy, this giant bubble making kit, and this wonderful personalised memory game.
Personally I think we all tend to go a little overboard at Christmas: it’s so easy to fall into the habit of spending more and more each year. We’re not yet at the age where Kai is going to pressure us to buy the latest toys so we’re making the most of it and keeping it simple this year. I like that here you can get some lovely presents without spending a fortune.
As well our review feature we’re also offering THE best giveaway this Christmas. Four HUGE heaps of presents for your child, in four categories: baby, pre-schooler, girls and boys. We have some brilliant stuff, with vintage toys by Silver Cross and the best Early Learning Centre goodies, as well as your favourite character toys: Thomas and Friends, Ben 10, High School Musical, and loads more.
I am, quite frankly, gutted I can’t enter. But you can, so what are you waiting for!!
Oh, and it’s not to late to find yourself a gorgeous reusable advent calendar that you can bring out year after year as part of your family’s Christmas traditions. See our reviews for some of the best: the Pixie Advent Calendar that we got to test was especially stunning.
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On a more personal note, I am ridiculously proud of this whole thing. Can you tell? So apologies for the gushing commercial post (which I know is a bit of a change from the norm) but this was too good not promote. We all worked so hard on this and seeing it all come together was fabulous. Thanks so much to the team who contributed, and especially to Editor Sally who worked the clock round and kept us all organised xx
Read MoreWhat Josie Did
So… yesterday…
Actually, no. Back track. To last Sunday. When I finally managed to swallow a huge elephant sized chunk of pride and asked my Mother-in-Law whether she would like to have Kai over to play for a few hours every Friday afternoon. Kai adores her, they have a dog called “DEEEE” (Eddie in Kai-speak) and a back room full of toys. It was always going to be a win-win situation. I’m just not very good at asking for help… but… I did! And it felt good! (once the huge chunk of pride had worked it’s way past my windpipe anyway).
We can scoot forward again now. It’s Friday afternoon, I have waved Kai off happily sat in the back of Grandma’s car clutching his digger in one hand and a police car in the other and grinning like loon.
I have four hours. Four whole childless, peaceful hours.
What on earth do I do?!
Well for starters I have made a deal with myself that these four hours each week are NOT going to be spent doing housework. Absolutely not. I also made a deal with myself that these four hours would be spent outside, or, at least out the house.
So I packed up Clive and my notebook and my many pens and I put some gloves and a hat on and I went out. ALONE.
It was so weird. I did crazy things. I crossed the road when the red man was still showing. I carried a bag that did not contain a nappy, wipes, three toy cars or emergency raisins. I walked past people thinking “they don’t know I’m a mummy! I could be ANYONE!” and tried to look mysterious and alluring.
I bought a cheese sandwich and I sat on a bench in the middle of town with my legs on the arm and I wrote until I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.
And then I sat in Starbucks and ate the cream off my grande hot chocolate with a spoon and wrote some more. And then I went to MacDonalds and stole their free Wi-fi while rebelliously not ordering ANYTHING but setting up camp next to a rubbish covered tray in a genius undercover stake-out maneauve.
And then I went home.
It was glorious.
And I learnt the following things:
1. I absolutely, unconditionally, obsessively love PEOPLE. Not to the point where I actually want to talk to them, but just to watch them all go about their busy little lives, overhearing snippets of conversation, noticing their funny little gestures and weird clothing choices. I am addicted to them and their randomness. I could sit and watch them all fricking day. Or all afternoon anyway. I am not sure how writers ever run out of things to write about when there are six and half billion of the wonderful weirdos to write about.
2. The prices for WiFi in Starbucks are criminal. I’ve just paid nearly £3 for a drink you evil multi-national corporation. How dare you try and charge me over a fiver for 90 effing minutes. Humph.
3. Clive is heavy.He could do with loosing a few pounds.
4. I can both miss Kai and be very grateful for his temporary absence at the same time.
5. Sometimes I really, really like not having to talk to anyone for a few hours. To not say a single word. It means I can hear the words in my head a bit easier. And that makes it easier to write them down.
6. I love Freedom Friday
Thanks Wendy x
P.S. Today, on my wanderings across the interwebs, I completely ‘accidentally’ happened across a rather cool and extremely interesting and brilliant blog. You should probably check it out… you know, if you like… Dunno who she is. But she seems pretty ace. Whoever she is…
Read MoreNew Feature – Writing Workshop!
I finally feel like I’m getting going with this blogging malarkey. I have been posting regularly now for just over three months and have been both surprised and overwhelmed with how warm and encouraging the response has been. My readership is growing in a way I never would have expected (in the month that this new domain has been active I’ve had over 6,000 visits alone!) and your comments and positive feedback have been such an incredible boost and validation to me.
Thank you. I hope you are enjoying reading, I really do. Connecting with you through here is becoming such an amazing source of inspiration and support to me. So please do keep coming back.
Now I’ve got my feet firmly under the table, with a carnival under my belt and a debut place in at number 73 on the Monthly Tots 100 Index of Top Parent Blogs and Bloggers, I feel it’s time to crank this party up a gear.
Alongside my regular post, I’ve been thinking of running a weekly feature for you all to participate in. Something fun that will get your creative juices flowing and hopefully introduce you to some new blogs too.
So here’s the deal-io. Alongside this fledgling blog, as many of you know, and partly as a result of it, has been a growing interest and passion for writing. I know I’m not the only one who enjoys writing, in fact I know that it’s a driving force behind many of the blogs I read and enjoy – people, like me, looking for a way to express themselves and in the process falling back in love with words and language. And I wanted to do something to encourage that, to help fire us all up creatively and get us blogging and writing about the things that inspire us.
Once a week I’m going to issue you with a choice of writing prompts, with inspiration taken from blogs I have read that week and any ideas suggested to me. You’ll then have a few days to think about and write your response to the prompt (or prompts) of your choice and publish it on your blog. If you like I’ll take email submissions too from all you non-blogging weirdos folk, and publish them for you. You can even do it anonymously if you prefer!
Then come back, and via a very handy little widget you’ll be able to publish the link to your post and share it with the world. You’ll be encouraged to read and respond to other entries and comment on your favourites and share perhaps if they’ve inspired you in some way, or made you think about something in a different light, or moved you, or made you laugh. Who knows. I’ll do it too of course, and post my entry along with the widget for your links.
What do you think?
Now I should point out. This isn’t an entirely original idea. In fact it’s a complete rip-off. My American blogging buddy Mama Kat has been running the same concept over at her fab blog for quite some time. But, because she’s lovely, Kat is quite happy for me to start my own UK version of her own writer’s workshop (they’ll be more tea, “bloody hell”s and stiff upper lips over here), and it’s far too good an idea not to spread about a bit. Kat has her audience in the US, and I have mine here in the UK and Europe (and beyond!) so between us I think we’ve got pretty much all of the globe covered (yep, we are that good and you know it). I’ll be running it on a different day (so you can even pop along and participate in both if you’re extra keen) and very firmly in association with her blog to give all credit where credit is due.
Prompts will be up on Monday so pop back then if you’d like to participate! And don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed if you haven’t already to make sure you’re kept up to date with both my day-to-day posts and the writing prompts as they are published. And stand by – because I am going to require some mad promotion on all of the social networks of your choice.
In the meantime here’s a handy badge link for you to copy for your blog if you’d like to take part, or to use in your workshop posts once we get started (kinda funky don’t you think?!):
Happy writing!
Read MoreTreasures from Icklebabe
A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to win a competition with Cafe Bebe for a goody box from Icklebabe.com, run by the very lovely Helen who makes all kinds of personalised and beautiful baby gifts and treasures. Helen put together a fabulous gift box for Kai including a custom-made canvas and t-shirt with some organic treats thrown in. I’ve been so delighted with them that I wanted to share some photos with you so you can all see how talented she is and rush off to buy lots of her gorgeous things in time for Christmas.
First of all his extremely cool Retro t-shirt…
I love it.
However, it was the canvas that was especially special. I had happened to win the competition just as we were planning to move Kai into his own room (in the vague hope he might sleep better in there – he hasn’t, but still… it’s no worse so that’s something!) and had been busy emptying it of laundry and all the other random bits of clutter that had accumulated there to try and make it a bit more of a special space just for Kai. Helen offered to create a custom design for Kai’s room to match his jungle theme so I gave her details of colours and favourite animals and just look what she came up with:
Just fabulous, we’re so pleased with it. The colours match perfectly and are so bold and vibrant – thank you SO much Icklebabe. Now please all go and visit her website and overload her with orders…
P.S. Can you spot the hidden crocodile? How fab is that??!
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