First Birthday in Photo's

Arm & Hammer Spinbrush

I was recently asked if I'd like to try out the new Arm & Hammer Spinbrush for children.

I think it's really for an older child, but Brandon has lots of (giant) teeth and he loves to brush them, fortunately. He's already been to the Dentist with us. I've always been a regular at the Dentist and so are my boys. My Mum has hardly and teeth left and is only in her early 60's. She's avoided dentists all her life and it's such a shame. I definitely don't want that to happen to me or the boys.

The toothbrush arrived and it has lots of stickers to decorate your brush. Brandon is a bit young, but I had fun decorating. Who doesn't love stickers? (pictures will be added of my handiwork, when I take a photo lol)

It's a nice toothbrush, and strangely Brandon loves the "spinning" motion.

Spinbrushes are available for boys or girls at the price of £5.99 from Boots, Superdrug, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and ASDA

Perfect if you have difficulty getting your children to clean their teeth.

Baby Sensory Cleanse and Protect Nappy Balm

When I was asked if I'd like to test this balm I jumped at the chance as I had read that it isn't just for use as a nappy balm. Brandon has very bad eczema and I'm always on the lookout for something that will help his poor dry skin.

Looking on the website I found this information about the balm

Natural skin care for babies and the whole family
Food for sensitive skin
Natural plant oils and beeswax
Free from SLS, preservatives, parabens, phthalates, perfume, petroleum, paraffin, mineral oil, alcohol, steroids, colours, lanolin, water and Vitamin E
Ethically aware- no animal testing
Sustainable ingredients
Recyclable and minimal packaging
Handmade in Scotland
Hypoallergenic skincare product
100% natural
Filtered, not processed
Designed exclusively for Baby Sensory

which sounds very good :)

I received the balm and immediately stuck my finger in the pot to test it out.

It's very very greasy, more than vaseline, I would say. However this is good if you do have very dry skin.

I tried it on Brandon's eczema, and a little bit goes a very very long way. It did moisturise the eczema in the short term, but unfortunately I don't think it really helped in the long term. I do think this will be good for my husband's hands in the winter when he gets really dry skin though :)

The tub costs £5.99 and isn't very big, but I do think that it will last a long time.

Overall 4/5

1st Birthday

Well the party was wonderful. I was absolutely knackered by the time the party started and my feet are still aching 3 days later, but it was all worth it.

Around 25 people attended and I spent nearly all morning in the kitchen making sandwiches and cooking the traditional party food. Fortunately Tori was here to help and also to look after Brandon when I was busy. The boys helped their Dad mowing the lawn, making the garden child friendly and putting the marquee up.

I wasn't ready when people started arriving, but that's nothing new for me really. I spend all day rushing round and then don't have time to wash my hair. I quickly got ready and my Mum helped me to carry all the food out into the marquee.

Brandon had a great time. He absolutely loves being around other children, and we don't really get to see many. There were only 8 children, but I think that was a nice number. Brandon loved running round with balloons, even though I hate them hubby persuaded me that it wouldn't be a party without them lol. Oh and I do mean running. He's definitely progressed from toddling around to an actual run now, especially if he thinks we're trying to take something off him.

Brandon also loved to just be let loose in the garden to walk up and down for miles (well maybe not miles, but we do have a very big garden lol). He's a bit restricted in the house, as we have lots of rooms and stairs, so we try and contain him in one room, so the freedom of being able to walk round the garden was wonderful to him.

I wasn't going to play party games, but we had bought little presents to make a "pass the parcel". With all the rushing around I didn't get round to putting it together, but my little niece decided that she'd wrap it up for me. I'm glad she did because the children had a whale of a time playing it. Eldest son was in control of the music and played it nice and fairly, so that all the little kiddies got a present (or two). After the parcel had been unwrapped I realised that darling hubby had bought water pistols!! Needless to say the older children loved these and went home rather wet!!

Brandon had lots of lovely toys. We bought him a Smart Trike. We didn't buy him anything else and in the past I would have bought the older boys loads of toys, but these days I realise that they don't really need you to buy tons of stuff for their birthdays etc, plus the fact that they get lots off other people.

Other Presents:-

Big Brother Daniel & Laura - A tunnel and ITNG books

Big Brother Arran & Tori - Pair of "George" Pig shoes, George Pig & blow up barrel.

Tori's Mum - Hand-made Blanket

Nan & Grandad - Money

Aunty Emma & Uncle Pete - Dungaree and Hoodie Set

Aunty Sharon - Clothes

Nan & Grandad - Rocking/Ride On Winnie the Pooh & Sleeping Bag

Dawn & Col - Clothes

Great Aunty Glenda & Uncle Bob - Toy Story Telephone

Claire & Paul - Ninky Nonk

Justine & Cal - lots of "noisy" books & a zebra.

Dy & Bob - Iggle Piggle

This year has been the quickest of my life. I still can't believe he's one.

Happy Birthday my gorgeous son. We love you so much.

p.s I didn't have time to take photo's, but fortunately Tori took loads for me, so I'll be able to post some soon :)

Party Time

It's Brandon's 1st Birthday tomorrow and we're having a little party. Well I say little, but I think I've ordered enough food for a big party :)

We were going to have a BBQ, but as our English Summer is decidedly un-summery (is that a word?), we've decided to just have a buffet instead. I'm going with traditional party foods. Small sandwiches, salads, crisps etc, and not forgetting jelly and ice-cream, because you can't have a kiddies party without those. Oh, and Tori is insisting I make cheese and pineapple on sticks, stuck into half a melon covered in foil!!! Actually I told Tori she has to make that lol.

Speaking of Tori, she came up with a lovely idea for Brandon. She's made a book covered in Brandon's favourite "In the Night Garden" characters, for people to sign and leave a little message. I think it will be lovely for him to look back when he's older to see who celebrated his special day with him.

Anyway I've got lots to do.

Back with photo's tomorrow. Or possibly Monday. Maybe :)

Silent Sunday

How We Amused Ourselves in the 70's

Ah the good old days :)

I was born in the 70's when there was no Sky TV, no breakfast television and the TV actually shut down for the night. We had no computers, games consoles and not even a video player.

Poor me huh?

No way. My sister and myself found hundreds of ways to amuse ourselves, much to my Mother's dismay.

Here are just a few of them ;)

1. Flying Carpet.

We had a large rug in my bedroom and this was our "Flying Carpet". We went so many places on that rug. I was the pilot, obviously, as I was the oldest. My sister is 3 years younger than me. She couldn't be trusted !!

2. The Bread Basket Ride.

Somehow we ended up with one of those large red bread baskets in our garden (classy hey?). It was brilliant. I tied a skipping rope to it and pulled my sister around the concrete in it. Our fun was soon stopped though, when my Mother discovered the holes in my sister's clothes from rubbing through the holes in the bottom, and onto the concrete. Ooops!

3. Spinning

Yes it was literally spinning round and round the living room until we fell over. It's great fun. Really! You should try it sometime (perhaps not if you've been drinking though).

4. The Slot Machine

I was a genius child, seriously. I had the brilliant idea of making a "one armed bandit/slot machine", out of a cardboard box. I even drew the fruit and everything lol.
My Mother wasn't so thrilled when I won all my sister's money off her, so that was soon confiscated!! :(

Ok that's enough for you because I really think I should write a book on how to entertain children, and I don't want my ideas stealing.

Listography - Top 5 Children's Films

This weeks listography is one of my favourite subjects, children's films. I just love watching children's films. Always transports me back to when I was younger.

Anyhow, here are my top 5.

The Wizard of Oz

I watched this again the other night. I never, ever get tired of it. I thought it was so magical when Dorothy went over the rainbow and everything changed from black and white to colour. What an amazing idea.
Oh and obviously I wanted those ruby slippers ;)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

The original. Not the one with Johnny Depp. Gene Wilder is definitely Willy Wonka. This is another film I watched very recently for the umpteenth time. I really really wish there was a chocolate factory just like Willy Wonka's that I could visit. If I win the lottery I'm definitely building one.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Haven't seen this for a while, but another one that I could watch over and over and over......

Mary Poppins

Even Dick Van Dyke's terrible English accent can't ruin this film for me.

Miracle on 34th Street

Again I prefer the original black and white version. I have to watch this EVERY Christmas :)

Aww that's my five. I could keep going with this list though :)

Take a look at the other's over here "/>

Fun With the Kids

Well OK they're not really kids. But we're all big kids in the family so this suited us just fine.

While we were away this weekend we saw a sign for a craft show, and as I just love buying (and making) crafts, we decided to call in. Unfortunately it was very very disappointing. The room was only around as big as my living room and didn't really have many stalls at all. I did buy a lovely necklace for £3, but nothing else really caught my eye.

I'd blindly walked past the first stall, thinking that it was full of leaflets, but on the way out my husband called me to have a look. It was a boiling hot day and I was half out the door with the puschair, ready to breathe in some fresh air, so wasn't very thrilled at being called back ;) The man running the stall came over to talk to hubby and I was sort of half listening in a very disinterested way. I heard "treasure hunt" mentioned and "murder mystery" and then I became a bit more interested, because lets face it, who doesn't love treasure hunts and murder mysteries?? (well I do!!).

At the time I couldn't really imagine how it was going to work, but there was an offer on of 3 for £12 (usually £5 each), and I love a bargain so we chose three trails that were for the area that we have our caravan. We chose a "spy", "treasure" & "murder mystery".

On Sunday afternoon we decided to go into Aberystwyth and take our "Murder Mystery Trail" with us. The booklet informed us that it lasted around 2hrs and was 2miles in total.

We soon got into it and were roaming around the streets looking for clues. It wasn't too easy (which I was worried it would be), and it wasn't so hard that you would get bored and give up. The clues are very clever and the answers are all landmarks around the area. There is a free clue text line just in case there has been any damage etc to any of the landmarks and you can't find the answer.

The clues took us to areas that we hadn't visited before, and landmarks that we hadn't even noticed. There are a number of people named on the back of the booklet that have to be eliminated one by one, and also a number of murder weapons that have to be eliminated. At the end you should be left with the murderer and the murder weapon. When you have the answers you can then enter into a prize draw online.

We had a great afternoon working out the mystery and also learnt some new things about the place. We can't wait to get back and try out our other trails now.

If you would like to buy a trail for yourself, their website is here, and they have trails all around the country. I discovered there is even one in our little village, which I will be sending for.

If you're looking for something to entertain the children in the school holidays, this will be a fiver well spent.

This is not a sponsored post.

More Books?

Well who doesn't need more books? I always need more books (my hubby might not agree with that fact!), so I was thrilled to receive and email from the very lovely new Fairy Hobmother from Appliances Online. It's ok you can go take a look at their site, I'll still be here ;)

You're back? Don't they have some good things on there. I would quite like a range cooker (in the future, when I've won the lottery and got a new kitchen).

So where was I? Ah yes I received an e-mail from the lovely Jennifer, who told me that it was her "mission is to bring joy and happiness to the world’s bloggers by providing treats for great, hard work in the blogosphere", which was very nice :) And as she had been reading about my erm little problem of borrowing books and sometimes accidentally losing them trying to sell my sister's book at a car boot sale she thought an Amazon voucher would be appropriate, how lovely is that? So now I can buy more books to fuel my addiction to reading ;)

Isn't that lovely and thoughtful of her? Oh and guess what? She tells me that if any of my readers leave a comment on this post and make a wish, then one of you could also be visited by her.

Good luck x x