Meeting Santa at Hamleys

Today we got invited to See Santa at Hamleys toy shop in Cardiff.
We were greeted at the front of the store by a few energetic elves and the excitement began. Each child was given a sticker with their name on it. We were then walked to the back of the store while singing 'Rudolf the red nose reindeer'. We arrived at the back of the store and all opened the doors by shouting 'Hamleys'.

We entered the room and it was beautifully decorated with lots of attention to detail. The children had a place at the table and got cracking on decorating some Christmas biscuits that Mrs Claws had made. Shortly after this The big man himself entered who was an amazing Santa and interacted with the children really well.

The children got to sit and listen to Santa read them a story they also got to play games with Santa. I have to admit every time we have gone elsewhere to see Santa its been the serious santas....but fair play this one was messing around and making the children laugh and getting involved in the games etc which was lovely to see.

The children were then split into two groups. One group sat and wrote their Christmas list and the others got to meet Santa individually then the groups swapped. Before long it was time to say bye to Santa.
Each child was given a balloon and a bag from Santa. The bag contained a teddy with 'I met Father Christmas at Hamleys' on his tshirt, a big bar of chocolate, A book and a Xmas tree decoration. The whole experience lasted about 40 mins. 
We have only ever taken Munchkin to see school Santa and haven't ever paid out for and experience because friends have paid £7+ at local garden centres and come away with a toy from the £1 shop and all they get was 2 mins for a photo and a quick photo.

Before visiting today I probably wouldn't have paid the £19.99 but having experienced it today I would most certainly do it again. Granted if you have more than one child it can get pricey but if you are looking for a good, fun experience then this is the one. Hamleys ask that only one adult accompany each child due to the room not being very big.


You have to book your space so to do so check out the Hamleys website for more info. http://www.hamleys.com/explore-MFC.irs

We got invited to Hamleys to experience this in exchange for an honest review.
 

Organ donation, Why??

When I was about 14 I remember going onto the internet and typing in 'Organ donation' . I remember wanting to know more about it. I approached my Mum and told her that I wanted to become an organ donor, She looked at me as if I had gone crazy and said 'Ok love!' I guess she kinda just shrugged it off. As soon as I could I got on line and registered as an organ donor. My card arrived and I remember feeling quite proud and as though even just registering as an organ donor was sense of achievement!

I remember my Mum coming into my room and saying 'Love.....Is this something you are sure you want to do? I wont be doing it!' 'Yes of course' I replied. Mum then said 'Please don't let them take your heart or your eyes'. I told my Mum the same thing that I tell people today, which is this...

What good are my organs to me when I'm gone? Would it help the healing process for my family if I kept my organs? I think not! What may help the healing process is to know that my organs went to people who needed those organs to survive and continue to be able to live happy healthy lives!
Mum nodded, smiled and left my room.
A week later Mum approached me with a huge smile on her face, 'Ive got something to show you' she said. As I sat with her she placed a card in my hand, When I looked it was a donor card for herself and she had ticket the 'Donate all' box. I was amazed! She told me she had thought about my choice to become and organ donor and how I explained it to her. She said she felt as though not being an organ donor felt almost selfish.

Most people get freaked out buy organ donation and more so donating corneas (part of the eye). There is a massive shortage of cornea donation in the UK! The reason I choose to opt in to donate my corneas is the same as all my other organs....they wont be any use to me. But someone could be able to see their new born baby clearly for the first time or be able to look in to their partners eyes clearly as they say their vows on their wedding day.

Ask yourself this!
If your Partner, Child, Mother, Brother, Sister etc had an accident or became ill and needed an organ to live, Would you expect/hope for there to be an organ available? I know I would!
How would you feel sitting by your loved ones bedside just waiting for an organ to become available knowing that someone somewhere just refused to become and organ donor because they 'don't like the thought of it'?
I feel very strongly that if you expect to receive, Its only fair that you are willing to give.
If everyone in the world refused to become an organ donor or to give blood then a hell of a lot of people would be dying but yet it everyone became a donor then just think how many more lives can be changed.

Know that someone somewhere who chose to opt in just saved a little girls life, Or allowed a woman to continue her dream of living to be a dancer or a Father who can now play football with his children.
People in this country get so cross when food goes to waste 'That could have been given to the homeless man who needs it!' Same goes for organs in my opinion.

My Mum passed away suddenly in 2007 and due to having the discussion that I did with her, her organs were able to be donated in order to save lives of others.


Recently near my home town there was an tragic incident in which a Father and his young son were knocked over and sadly passed away. The wife and Mother Anna Louise Bates Made the decision to continue with her husband and sons wishes to donate their organs organs. Ive heard people discuss this 'How could she do that?' Let me tell you that woman has gone through hell and she made the selfless decision to donate her son and husbands organs in order for others to survive. It doesn't change the fact that she loved them more than anyone can know it means that she was able to create hope for others!

Anna has now gone on to set up a charity Called 'Believe' which aims to promote and support organ donation across wales and Beyond.
  Here is a link to the Believe site:- www.believe-ods.org.uk/
To Anna if you happen to be reading this I wish you all the luck in the world with the charity, your boys are so proud of you I'm sure! Try to stay strong though the hard times and know that what you are doing is saving lives.

I am not part of the Believe Charity nor do I work for any other organ donation organisation and I have not been asked by anyone to write this post. These are my own thoughts and feelings on organ donation. I feel very passionate about organ donation and even if this post encourages just one person to change their opt out decision or to be able to have the discussion with their family then I will be happy.

Organ donation Wales:- /organdonationwales.org
Organ donation NHS:- www.organdonation.nhs.uk

Blokpod block sorter review

Recently I got the chance to review a product that I knew would make my life easier!
The product is the Blokpod which is a sorting/storage device.

So this is the Blokpod. It has a transparent tub with a twist lock lid inside, There are three tier grids, each one with squares of different sizes. Each of the sections also has a twist lock so you are able to separate the four sections.
The unit its self is really sturdy, Which lets face it....its a must when kids are playing with something!

The Blokpod is ideal for blocks such as Lego. As soon as I think I can sit down with a cuppa munchkin shouts 'Mummy!?!?!?!?! where is that bit I need?'. 90% of the time the piece he wants is the tiniest itsy bitsy piece that you can guarantee will be transparent ad will take me until my tea is cold to find.


With this clever little invention I can pour all of his blocks in, Give it a shake and BAM! All of the tiny bits you currently spend all morning looking for have been sifted through the grids and are sitting neatly in the bottom compartment.
Likewise all of the larger pieces are at the top, medium in the next compartment down, then the small, then the tiny ones in the bottom! Genius!!
Not only do I find this amazing for sorting blocks its a really neat way to store the blocks!

One morning this week when munchkin was playing with his playmobil the familiar sound of 'Mummy!?!?, where is the tiny knifes and forks and flowers from my playmobil?' As my eyes roll and I place my tea down on the worktop, I remembered the Blokpod. Ooooo I wonder????
I poured in the lot, give it a shake! YES!! It works, its not just for blocks!!
This product gets a BIG thumbs up from me!
Find your Blokpod now on Amazon!

I was sent this item in exchange for an honest review. I do not work for or represent the company.

Easter craft ideas Baker Ross

So one of my favourite times of year is approaching and its hard not to realise it with all the shops fully stocked with Easter eggs, Easter bonnets and Easter decor.

Sunday is our Funday! So we thought we would crack on with these crafts.

We received our lovely Easter box from Baker Ross.

The first thing we got were the Easter foam stampers. The pack contains bunnies, chick, Egg, daffodil, butterfly, Lamb and more! These are fab quality and can be found here

Foam Easter stamps 10pk - £3.60 

The stamping pad I used is also from baker Ross but some of the Easter stampers were too large but with a wiggle and a jiggle you can get the paint on them.

Find it here...

Paint pad £3.60

The second this we got was these lovely mess free Easter decorations! There are 5 per pack and Munchkin had great fun colouring his in. 

Then peal back the sticky part on the belly, open it up so that it sticks to the other side and you have the lovely Honeycomb effect!

Find them here!

Easter honeycomb decoration £2.75 for 5pk

Munchkin is going through a phase of loving any foam peel back stickers so not only are these perfect they come in a pack of 120. They are all in spring theme.

Find them here...

Spring foam stickers 120pk for £2.99

We are so excited to receive this next product! The Pack came with 10 Easter egg shapes

Found here - Easter egg sand and glitter art 10pk

Basically you peel back the yellow part to reveal a sticky part which you can pour colour sand or glitter on top of. Then go ahead and peel off another part and pour on a different colour! It works really well and gives a lovely effect when its all finished!

For this I used the colour sand.

Find it here

Colour sand - 6 tubs

Easter buddy bucket kits! These are so cute! There are 3 in a pack (Bunny, Lamb and Chick)

These are the peel off foam too!

Find them here

Easter buddy buckets £3.60 3pk

We also got these lovely chick eggs which are fab for putting chocolates inside and hiding ready for your Easter egg hunt! 

Find them here. 10pk eggs £1.99

Also we got the bouncy eggs you can see in the picture! 

Munchkin loved bouncing these around our kitchen!

Find them here

Bouncy eggs £1.65 5pk

Check our the rest of their lovely Easter Range! Get crafting with your children!

All the views in this blog post are my own. I have not been paid to write this review/post. I do not work for Baker Ross. I received this Package from the lovely people at baker Ross in exchange for and honest review.

Thanks for reading!

xXx

Disney's 'Eye found it' game review

First of all I would like to say I wasn't given this game to review it. I saw it and bought it for Munchkin. Mainly I bought it because we are very much into Disney. I'm doing the review because I think the game is fab! I love the fact that with this game you have to work as a team to win.

I bought it from Smyths toy store for £14.99 find it here

The game is quite long and works its way through Disney character lands like Mickey & co, Cars, little mermaid, Beauty and the beast. and more!

You start at the bottom of the board and work your way up to Cinderella's castle before the clock strikes 12!

The Game comes with a spinner, timer, character pieces, Rings and cards

The aim of the game is to work your way up the board spinning the spinner on your turn, if you land on a number you move that many spaces, if you land on the castle pic on the spinner you alter the hour on the clock but one or two hours depending on which castle you land on then you spin the spinner again!

Try to get ALL your players to the castle before the clock strikes 12 o clock!

Now the fun part! If you land on a Mickey head (on your spinner or on the board) you get to choose a card. Each card has something on it (the instructions have the meanings should you not know what the picture means) The card picture include things like flowers, Diamonds, Ladders and much more!

The first card we picked was the villain card (munchkin is doing his best villain eyes)

The aim is then to give each of the players the hoops and when the timer is turned over everyone tried their best to find those things on the card. When one is found a hoop is placed on it.

For example we were looking for villain's so we would put hoops around captain hook, Gaston etc

When the timer runs out everyone stops searching and counts up ALL of the hoops on the board then EVERYONE moves that amount of spaces. (E.g 5 villains found = everyone moves 5 spaces)

This game is all about working as a team so everyone has to get to the castle before 12 o clock otherwise its game over. If you are at the castle already and other players haven't you can still help search when someone has landed on a Mickey head.

The detail on this board game is Amazing and we have had many fun times playing it as a family! We only had it at Christmas and it munchkins most played game out of all that hes got!

I would recommend it 100%

Dont stress, Say yes!!

As soon as I had munchkin I couldn't wait until he could hold a paintbrush! Messy play has always an essential part of munchkins life. I happily make a jelly just so he can mush it up, Cook pasta so he can play with it and make gloop so he can explore it.

My Husband used to find this quite strange as his Mum never did any form of messy play or craft with him when he was younger. He often tells me of how his mum is so house proud and how he wasn't allowed to walk on the carpet after she had hoovered it, Once the bed was made he couldn't sit on it and as soon as anything got on his hands it was quickly washed off.

This brings me to my point....everyone wants a lovely clean and tidy home and we often stress when kids make a mess or want to do some painting we are quick to say 'No Ive just cleaned up' Our children aren't going to remember in a few years time if we didn't run the hoover around for one day or we didn't do the one load of ironing that we should have. They will however remember how fun that craft session was or how messy they got when playing with jelly. I myself often get caught up on 'but its gonna make another mess that I'm going to have to clean' but I consciously make and effort to think as long as it cleans up.....WHY NOT!!

Next time your children need something to do let them do some painting. next time they wanna do messy play....before you just jump to 'are you kidding! Ive just cleaned' take a second and say WHY NOT!

Lets allow our children to remember us having fun with them, getting a little messy at times, jumping in puddles with clean jeans on! Don't create memories of 'mum wouldn't let me do anything when she had cleaned up'

Our hands can be washed, Tables wiped, Clothes cleaned and memories made!
xXx

Party for a toy!?!?

This is the 'turtle'!

One day I was playing with munchkin out on then patio and he was telling me that he had gone to his aunties house, I knew that he hadn't gone to his Aunties house so I asked him who his Auntie was and his reply was 'my turtle is my Auntie'. Ever since that day he refers to 'his turtle' ALL the time!

One morning he came up to me and said 'Mummy its my turtles 10th Birthday today'  my reply was 'Ahhhh lovely' (conversations regarding the 'turtle' are a norm in our house now).

I got home from work that day and picked him up from school.....the moment we walked through the door he rushed around the house then broke down in tears. Turns out he was expecting me to do a party for the turtle just like I do for him on his birthday. Not wanting to see him so upset I told him that we had arranged to have the party the next day as we would have more time.

The next day while at work I couldn't help but keep thinking of how much this party meant to him so when i finished work I went to Aldi to get some party nibbles. While waiting to pay I looked at everything on the conveyor belt and questioned as to if i was losing the plot....It kept going through my head 'you are buying food for a 10th Birthday party for a TOY!!' but hey! if it means munchkin being happy, I'm in!  I rushed home and set up the table, blew up some balloons and made a party hat for the turtle with 10 written on it!

It was safe to say that when Munchkin got home he was completely over the moon! We tucked into the food and had a lovely time!

I'm not completely sure what it is about this turtle but hes always referring to it 'oh yes my turtle likes that', 'my turtle went there', 'I did that when I went to my turtles house'.

He doesn't really bother with the toy itself bust constantly talks about it.

The turtle has recently had to come to work with me too! 

I figure that its just a funny stage that hes going through that will be fun to remind him of when he is older (sneaky Mummy!)

Yankee candle haul

I arrived home from work today and to my surprise Hubby's car was already on the drive! Before I got to our front door he was stood in the doorway and said 'come on you! we are going to check out the Yankee candle sale'

I had noticed on Facebook that our local garden centre were having a Yankee candle party. I didn't mention it to hubs because im not one for spending money on myself. He knows I love Yankee Candles and usually gets me one for my birthday or xmas etc but to my surprise he had seen it on facebook too and decided to treat me!

The had a deal on where if you spent £30 you get a free goodie bag and a 15% discount on what you buy.

My favourite Yankee candles are Back cherry, clean cotton, wedding day and black cherry blossom. Ive noticed that the scents that i usually go for are clean/fresh scents and berry scents so I'm trying to try out something some seasonal and foodie smells. The gingerbread, Cinnamon and spice ones are not for me but I loved the smell of the berry trifle, There was also another one that smelt like candy canes (it had a ginger bread house and candy cane on the front)

I got 3 large jars and they were....

Black plum blossom - one of my favs

snow in love - this is a nice seasonal one

fireside treats - YUM!  

The 3 of these Jars with the 15% discount came to £50 

I wasn't really bothered about the goody bag as I thought it may just be one or 2 tea lights and a wax tarts but when the lady handed me the bad and I felt the weight in the bag I started to get excited!

Here is what I got in my goody bag for free!!

1 x medium Jar - Lavender

1 x small jar - Black plum blossom (my fav)

1 x votive - Honey and spice

2 x wax tarts - french lavender & salted caramel

So its safe to say Im a very happy bunny with what we got and my house is going to smell yummy for a while!! I would love to know what your favourite scents are, pop them in the comments box!

speak soon 

K

Play centres my idea of hell

I was sat in a children's play centre today, obviously with my little human! slightly creepy to go along without one of my own! We were there for a friends sons birthday. She hired out the whole play centre for the party as last year they had some trouble with other parents bullies children picking on their children. This was music to my ears (the hire part....not the bully's part!)

Most people Take their children to play centres to stimulate their darling little angels in a physical and social environment to progress their development.......Who am I kidding! Its when us parents are totally out of options for the day! Play doh, Check! Colouring, Check! Ipad apps, Check! yep We have reached the point where we just need to wear the sods darlings out or maybe you just needed to entertain them while you got your sanity back emails done or maybe you just need that bloody break with a cuppa tea!

I throw this out there and say.....I HATE going to play centres and I avoid them at all costs. 'Oh why' I hear you ask! I find play centres more stressful than anything! I would much rather be at home with 5 crazy kids nagging, running riot while I set up activities that take longer to bloody set up than the actual time the kids spend doing the damn activities!!
Walking through the doors your little human is literally bursting with excitement while ripping their shoes of the feet before you have even had chance to choke over the price of entry! 'Would you like the meal deal Madam?' why yes! let me sell my kidney scrape the content of my purse and pockets together!

So were in! lets find somewhere to sit amongst the pairs of people who choose to sit at tables for 6 people while resting their shoeless feet on the extra seats.
Before I know it I've been deserted by my little human! Gone! The panic and stress begins! I dump my crap at the nearest free table! My three year old is somewhere within this sea of children! My eyes search for him everywhere!....is he in the football area...nope, Is he in the baby area? Nope just a handful of ten year olds doing back flips into the ball pit! Is he in the Under 5's area?? Nope!......hold on! why the Hell not???? My eyes immediately rush to the over 5's area with the humongous slide while I try to contain the panic from creeping into my face. EVERYTHING goes through my head! What if hes climbing all the way up to that huge slide, what if hes too scared and gets upset! My ears pick up the sound of a child crying! holy shit! is it mine! where the hell is he!I knew it hes scared of that big slide!! I start to freak out and get up from my seat to search for my little human! I finally find him! in the under 5's area that I had already searched! That's the thing! as soon as you find them they go sodding missing again!
Back to my table I go scanning the other adults around me to see if its fairly safe to leave my stuff to go and get the cuppa that I've been waiting for! I decide to take everything with me giving up the potential ownership of our table!

Taking the sticky menu up to the till I decide to order a cuppa for me and some fuel food for my little human! As I'm waiting for my cuppa to be made I scan the room.....I am a people watcher after all. I see Grandparents that are having a break while nursing the little hairs they have managed to not pull out!
Then you have the baby club meet up mums that are pissed that their one week old babies cant go and play in the baby area due to the back flipping ten year olds.
The couple who have just had (or sometimes currently in the middle of) a domestic with swear words flying everywhere.
Then you have the 'careless cows' who children can often be found pasting shit out of other children, snatching toys, kicking, biting etc etc while their owners have no clue if their children are even in the same building any more! They will be the ones browsing Facebook the whole time they are there. If you get chance to approach these people regarding their brats childs behaviour they will claim that their darlings are just experimenting physically and socially and maybe it was your childs fault.
The heavily pregnant Mumma that just needs that break while she sits with a cuppa while hubby entertains the other child.
Then there are us worriers loitering under the daunting levels waiting and watching to see that our ikkle humans are ok and if they need our help.
Believe me you will fit in to one of these categories! And I'm sure you will see people for the other categories too!

Sat back at my seat I quickly finish my burning cuppa as Ive got 'Careless cows' Brats making grabs for it'. I begin to think I'm better off in the play area with munchkin so I grab my phone, tuck my purse somewhere I've never had to before and I surrender my shoes knowing there is a high chance that they wont be there when I get back!
'Mummy! I want to go on the big boy slide!' Oh god! there it is! the 'big slide' card! 'Ok hunny, shall Mummy come with you?' hoping he will say yes! So after squeezing through holes I thought only my head would fit through, climbing over bridges and worming my way through tunnels, 3 levels later we are finally at the top of the 'big boy slide' 'Hang on Hun!' I shout as he sits on the edge of the slide 'maybe you want to sit on Mummies lap?' in the blink of an eye he's  shouting 'wweeeeeeee' Gone! no care for me! I start my decent down the 'big slide' hoping not to go too fast and earn myself one of those damn slide burns! Instead Ive worked up that much of a sweat getting to the top that my now sticky jeans wont allow me to go down the slide anything faster than golden syrup sliding off a spoon! I finally reach the bottom and my little angel I stood there waiting for me with a beam on his face! 'Yey Mummy!.....lets go again' as he runs off towards the entrance of the tiny hole I took what felt like hours to squeeze through that starts the assent towards the 'big boy slide'. Oh god not again!

After a few more trips down the syrup slide I decided to admit defeat and return to my seat. Thankfully my shoes are still there. While I'm sat recovering watching,  I notice my little human being pushed around by some hellish children while they use language even Jeremy kyle would think was tame!
My inner crazy bitch of a Mumma wants to brave that assault course again to give them a piece of my mind, pick up my little munchkin and whisk him away from little shits like those! but deep down I know I need to allow him to learn that not every ones behaviour is good and how he can handle himself in that situation. Needless to say I didn't quite leave it as far as allowing him to figure it out for himself! I couldn't sit back while they continued to play out their own little fighting computer game on my son!
I shouted up 'come on down hun, if they are being mean don't play with them' to which my little munchkin came straight to me. We had a little chat regarding not playing with mean children and to come and tell Mummy. I soon get tapped on shoulder by one of the 'careless cows' asking me very abruptly why I told my child not to play with her children. I explained they were being mean pushing him over and she accused me of over protecting my son too much! she then shouted up to the 3rd level 'boys! for f**ks sake, be good otherwise I'm gonna lose my B*****d s**t on you both. Oh wow! time to eat I think!

I manage to entice my little human down to have his food before the wandering 15 month olds try to pinch food from his plate! Now I start to rest and chill a little! Call me over protective but when my son is not directly in front of me I worry if he is safe, is he climbing to high, watching he doesn't hurt himself on the slides due to the 15 year olds climbing up the slides as hes coming down, running around as adults are carrying cups of tea. Thing is no parent wants their child to be hurt so its in my nature to do whatever I can to protect him from hurting himself! Ok Ok I'm not wrapping him up in cotton wool but I constantly worry!
After finishing food I manage to convince him that he cant run around now because he has a full tummy and will be sick everywhere so we finally get our shoes on and leave.....As I get into my car I take a deep breath and RELAX!!!
Please tell me that I'm not the only Parent who feels like this about play centres! Between brats of kids and parents who couldn't even give a shit I find them more stressful than what they are worth!!

6st GONE! Weight Loss Journey

These are two photos that I've kept hidden for a long time. In fact they are the only two photos that were taken of me over a period of about 2 years. Would I pose for a photo....Hell no!!! as you can tell these top two photos were taken without my knowledge! One was put on facebook by a friend and she Tagged me in it. When it popped up in my news feed I nearly passed out! I knew I had put on weight but I had no idea it was that much!
Id crept into a size 20! I wouldn't have ANY full size mirrors in our home. The only mirror I would look into each hay was one to plaster my makeup on my face to make me feel better.
I knew I had to lose weight as I wanted to be able to walk up the stairs without breaking into a sweat and I wanted to stand at the school gate without covering up with a big jumper or coat in summer just to cover up.

I went to a Wedding fayre when we first got engaged and I looked at a dress from a wedding dress stall and thought it was beautiful! The woman who was working on the stall quickly rushed over and said....'oh gosh lovely! no good looking by there!...they wont fit!...the plus size are over there!' I had never felt so embarrassed in my whole life! Inside, my heart fell to the floor and I just smiled when I really wanted to cry and I just walked away. From that moment I promised myself that I would have whatever dress I wanted and no one was gonna tell me that I couldn't have this or that! I also promised myself that I wouldn't try on a single wedding dress on until id got nearer my goal.
I Joined Weight Watchers in Sept 2013. Please don't think I'm here to harp on about Weight Watchers but if your reading this then you are probably reading to find out how I did it.
I went along to my local weight watchers meeting and weighed in! The reason I knew something like Weight Watchers would work for me is I hate to fail so I saw each weigh in as a challenge and No way was I going to stand on the scales and have a gain!
Don't get me wrong, I did have a few weigh ins that resulted in me maintaining and even gaining but then it made me push harder for the loss the next week!
I found Weight watchers to be a fantastic plan and even now I still follow the plan somewhat! I think when you have lost so much weight on a specific plan that teaches you how to change your lifestyle it will always be part of you!
I weighed in at 15st 7.5lbs and in the photos on my wedding day I was 9st 8lbs.

It is sooooo achievable! you just need to make that leap and have the determination!

There are so many foods that I loved eating that I really didn't have to give up! Its amazing and has changed me for the better!

Do I want to go back to that woman on the dress stall at the wedding fayre and give her a piece of my mind....oh Hell yes! but on the other hand I'm a very strong believer in 'everything happens for a reason' and if it hadn't have been for that lady I would never have had the determination and drive to lose all of my weight!
Please don't think of this post as one that is saying everyone should lose weight. I know many over weight people that are the happiest and most confident people that I know! If your Happy, Fab! good on ya!. All i knew was that i was soooo unhappy and unhealthy and that's why I choose to lose weight.
If anyone have got any questions about Weight Watchers please feel free to ask! As Ive said I choose weight Watchers and it worked perfectly for me! I'm sure there are other plans that work well too but I've just been speaking on what worked for me!
NOTE:- Weight watchers have not asked me to do this review nor have I received any payment for this post.

Screams in the night

Over the past 3-5 months R has been having really bad nightmares and thankfully its been fairly easy to settle him by going into his room and reassuring him that its ok and that hes safe etc.

However over the last 2 months my poor little monkey keeps having a really bad dream where he litterely wakes up screaming crying so bad! He screams about bees/wasps being all over his bed/pillow and before you can get in his bedroom he's jumped out of his bed and is shaking and crying so bad!

We tried to reasure him and pop a lamp on and show him that there are no bees in his bed but the dream is so real to him that there is no reasoning with him and hes completely convinced that there are bees in his bed.

When these dreams happen the only thing that works is either Andy or myself sleeping on the floor on R's room (he usually ends up joing one of us on the floor). I know hes not attention seeking as it always happends in the middle of the night and hes genuinly sooo upset.

I really have no idea why these bad dreams about bees/wasps have come about because hes not had any bad experiences with bees or wasps yet hes had the same dream now about 5-6 times.

There is also nothing that had changed within our lives that may have upset him to cause any bad dreams.

Can anyone shine any light on this? do your little ones have many bad dreams?

Keepin em busy!

Well......the school holidays are here and our wedding is all done and dusted I figure that its time to plan some activities for munchkin while hes off school!

Its easy to get carried away within your day as a mum, cleaning, tidying, washing dishes, hanging the washing, etc etc and if your children are anything like mine they are constantly nagging... 'mummy! come and do this!' 'mummy can we play games?' 'mummy can you play with my cars' and at times I do find myself saying ' not now babe, Mummy is busy' so I'm making it my aim to do as many daily activities other than free play as I can with him. Here is what we ideas we have so far....

• Painting
• colouring
• Playing games
• Playdoh
• Music & Dance
• Cooking
• Role play (shop, house, hair dressers, picnic)
• Face painting
• Water play
• Sand play
• Gloop play
• Bubble blowing through a straw
• Making spider web around the living room
• Cutting and sticking
• Make fruit kebabs
• Fly a kite
• Feed the ducks
• Go on a treasure hunt and collect pine cones, etc
• Trip to the library

Obviously these are just some of the things we have come up with but you can find loads of activities on pintrest (yes I'm completely obsessed with pintrest).
I would love to know all of your plans with your little ones throughout the summer holidays!

Colouring isnt just for kids!

I finally gave into my temptation and bought one of the adult colouring books that I've seen around for ages! I'd seen them in Asda, wh smiths, The range and a few other places and thought it was a fab idea as I LOVE to colour and always have so as soon as R gets his colouring book out my eyes light up!

I've been having a lot of stress put on me lately with the wedding coming closer and peoples unwanted views and tantrums becoming much more frequent.

I began to realise that a lot of my day was spend in front of a screen, maybe a phone, ipad, laptop or tv so I wanted something that would de stress me and not involve me being infront of any type of screen! So I decided that I would pick up the next colouring book that I saw! 

It happened to be in Asda so I picked up some cheap colouring markers and pencils to go with it and promised myself that I wouldn't let R get his mitts on them as that's where all of my stationary seems to go lately. 

I think the colouring book was around the £6 mark which seems extremely expensive however when you see the amount of pages and the detail in some of the pictures you will understand that they take a while to complete!

Here are some that I've completed. I don't claim to be an artist. I just just colour how I want when I want and where I want.

 

As you can see by the pictures below and the one above they do contain a lot of detail.

I would highly recommend these colouring books for adults as they certainly destress me and give me enjoyment.