Last days of Summer

For me the middle of September marks Autumn no matter what the weather is like! So with that in mind we have been making most of our beautiful weather and spending lots of time outdoors.

One of our favourite things to do as a family is to take Lady (our dog) on walks around the countryside (rather than the usual around the block!). Where we live we are very blessed that we have some amazing walks just a short drive away (some virtually on our doorsteps) and so over the last week it has been something that we are keen to do now Autumn is approaching.

Yesterday, before Jamie had to go to work, we took a trip to Thornham Walks in Suffolk. Its on the beautiful Thornham estate and has 12 miles of waymarked footpaths some of which a paved and suitable for wheelchairs and pushchairs (the Quinny handles off road too so that wasn't a problem!). It also has a lovely park and various cafe's and they also hold various activities too.

Darcie loved Thornham, was perfect for her to walk around and explore!

Today was another day for walking. But this time we stayed much closer to home and went to Wortham Ling, we go here all the time and is our main spot for walking Lady.

Again another perfect spot for little explores (and big ones who took his usual pose on the tree swing) and somewhere Lady loves to roam free and meet other doggy's.

After our early morning walk we got a bit peckish and decided to go to Eye for brunch and went to Chocolatire

We opted for a cheese & bacon scone, gluten free cherry brownie and I had a chai tea and Jamie went for a snowberry smoothie! Delishes! Darcie unfortunately missed this part of the day as she was sound asleep!! So we got to have some adult chat and discuss wedding plans!!

Hope your all enjoying the last of summer, and getting ready for winter knits and warm cider... (I love Autumn!)

Mummy B xoxox

Soap & Glory's The Daily Double in Velvet Pink/Brownie - Review

A few weeks ago now I treated myself to Soap & Glory's The Double Daily lid shadow and liner stick in the shades velvet pink and brownie for the price of £8.50.

The velvet pink is an all over the lid product whilst brownie is designed to be a liner. I have found that they work amazingly well as bases for eye shadow and makes everything stay put all day! As products on their own, the liner is nice and the colour is beautiful, but I'm not a fan of velvet pink the colour just doesn't look right on its own and looks almost chalky.

Despite this, I do love these products and they are my go to bases depending on what look I am doing!!

Have any of you tried The Daily Double? Thoughts?

Mummy B xoxox

Darcie's Favourites...

So Darcie, I thought I would list all your favourites for you to look back on when your all grown up...

Favourite Food

You LOVE food. In fact there is very little you won't eat! You really enjoy your fruit though, bananas, raspberries and blueberries are your favourite. 

Favourite Word

You say Dadda a lot. Actually you shout DADDA a lot! Currently a word or phrase you keep saying constantly is "oh baby", it makes me and your daddy giggle!

Favourite Toy

Your cuddly Disney characters! Sofia and Lamby are high on the list. But to be honest you prefer to play with every day household items, like pegs the washing basket, remote control... you get the idea. Take note  Darcie if you ever have children of your own don't waste your money on fancy toys!

Favourite Book

You love your stories, you flutter between them on which ones you prefer. Some of your top ones are The Hungry Caterpillar,  Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, Pride & Prejudice (baby version!). 

Favourite Activity

Either being at the park and playing on the swings and feeding the ducks or at home helping Mummy clean! You like to wipe up and dust and sweep the floor... I hope you have kept this up!

Love you Darcie B

Mummy B xoxox

Latest happenings on Instagram

Its been a busy few weeks but here is a very tiny snippet from my latest happenings on Instagram.

Darcie finding the book just too intense; Kisses for Mummy; Kilt from her Great Grandparents; Walking her Lady; Big dmiles; Cuddles with Daddy; Washing the car in her new wellies; Cuddles with Lou; Next Blogger of the month!!!

Mummy B xoxox

Autumn is coming...

The nights are already drawing in and with our standard bank holiday weekend weather I can feel Autumn just around the corner. And I love it.

Don't get me wrong, I love the summer with the long days, warm weather and days out on the beach. But there is something about Autumn that I just love more and I can't put my finger on it! I love the colours, prefer the fashion, enjoy cosy nights in and the build up to Christmas (yes I just mentioned Christmas in August!).

So with this in mind I have been already pre-planning Darcie's Autumn/Winter gear! As usual I have been looking through Next and loving their range. As you know I am a massive fan of Next, their quality is excellent and have really lasted Darcie well.

I am LOVING this mustard colour. I have some things for myself in this colour and think it is perfect for Autumn! 

Mulberry colour is another Autumn fave of mine so how could I resist the checked shirt and leggings?!

A chunky knit is always a must.

Some good warm boots for jumping through Autumn leaves and walking the dog.

What are your thoughts on my selection from Next?

Make sure you check out the rest of their girls range HERE.

Mummy B xoxox

My Dad is doing something utterly amazing for the wonderful charity EACH.

In just a few days my dear old(ish - he is 52) Dad is doing something utterly amazing for the wonderful charity EACH. He will be cycling 980 miles in 9 days from Lands End to John O'Groats. 

He has always been a lover of cycling, but I think this event would be a real test to ANYONE of ANY age, I know that I certainly would not even manage a 20 mile bike ride, sad but true. He has been training hard, fitting it around his work and busy lifestyle, all in aid of this event. He has also paid for the entire cost of this event himself so ALL money he raise will be given directly to the charity. 

As I said he is raising money for the wonderful charity of EACH (East Anglia Children's Hospice) who are local to us and provide fantastic care for children that have life-threatening conditions. My Dad has raised money for them before and visited their hospice at Quidenham, meeting staff and some of the children in their care.

I am not writing this post to badger people into sponsoring my Dad, but I am very proud of him and wanted to share with you this wonderful cause.

That being said if you would like to contribute the link that you will need is HERE and that will take you directly to his Just Giving  page.

Mummy B xoxox 

Mine & Darcie's mini getaway with the girls... plus Niall!

Me and the girls decide to have a last minuet getaway at her grandparents caravan on the Norfolk coast.

It was actually the first time Darcie has slept away from home! So me and Darcie along with my friend Lou and Chloe (who will be Darcie's Godmothers when we eventually get round to it!) and Chloe's three children went away for one night!

It was really lovely and with four under four surprisingly not that stressful! 

Here are some pictures Lou took of our trip (I got a good telling off for forgetting my camera!)

Darcie is slightly in love with Niall, kissing and hugging (though in a clumsy manner) at any opportunity!

Izzy and Jazzy enjoying the seafront at Lowestoft.

Us on Lowestoft beach

Writing in the sand.

Izzy

Jazzy at the evening entertainment!

Darcie with Lou Lou bear.

Jazzy and Mr Squirrel at Oulton Broad.

Beautiful scenery at Oulton Broad.

First time on a swing and Niall loves it!

Beautiful boy!

We had a really lovely time, I am so thankful for wonderful friends! And even more thankful that Darcie has such special people around her!

More exciting posts are coming up and two more wedding updates!

Mummy B xoxox

Next Blogger of the month

Yesterday, whilst out with friends (more on that in tomorrows post) I received a very exciting email.

It read... 

"How was your weekend? I have some good news for you..

As you may or may not know, every month we pick out a blogger who we think has done really great posts featuring Next. We wanted to nominate you as our Blogger of the Month for August as we have LOVED reading your great posts over the last few months featuring items from Next!! We are a fan of your blog and reckon you are most deserving of this accolade."

PROUD!

This blog is a tiny little piece of the web that I put ALOT of effort in to. So to get some lovely recognition like this was absolutely amazing!

Thank you to those of you that follow, read and comment on my posts, I really appreciate all the support!

Mummy B xoxox

Wedding Update - Honeymoon

I'm back with another wedding update! Well its regarding our honeymoon, so we will class it as a wedding update anyway - my blog my rules ;)!

You may remember a while back I mentioned my favourite place in the world (not that I have seen the entire world but I would say I am relativity well travelled.) was Polzeath, Cornwall (you can see that post HERE). We took a very long time coming up with some ideas that would suit a family honeymoon we decided that A two week trip to Cornwall would suit us best.

We will be staying in St. Ives which me and Jamie both loved on our last visit. There is alot more there than Polzeath and some very beautiful beaches close by. We have opted for a boutique style cottage in the centre of town and very close to the beach.

It will be the perfect little hub for our honeymoon! If you would like to find out more about this cottage or see more images you can find the website HERE.

I can not describe to you how excited I am for this trip and have already started making a list of things to do! And of course there will be a few beach  days at Polzeath for sure!!

Married? Where did you go on honeymoon??

Mummy B xoxox

Mess free painting fun!

So yesterday me and Darcie wanted to do a fun activity but I had literally just cleaned the house and cleaning up paint was the last thing I wanted to do. Now don't get me wrong me and Darcie love to get messy but when you have slogged away all morning cleaning your kitchen.... No I didn't want to paint.

Well not the ordinary way anyway.

So we decided to do some mess free painting. Here's what to do, get yourself a ziplock freezer bag, some suitable kid safe paint, and some tape. 

Open up the freezer bag and carefully pop some splodges of different colour paint INSIDE the bag. Then make sure you seal it. 

To make sure the paint isn't going to escape, tape all the way around. Duck tape would be ideal but all I had was parcel tape, which worked fine.

Add some extra tap to secure down to a surface and then let them enjoy mixing colours and having a good squidge, mess free!

We got even braver and stuck some to the windows to allow the light to shine through the paint, which in Darcie's words were "Pteee" (pretty if you don't speak her lingo!).

I would definitely recommend this activity for little ones if your not in the mood for mess!

Mummy B xoxox

Darcie's New Room

You may remember a while back I mentioned that we had decided to put Darcie in the bigger of our spare rooms, well this week we have near enough finished so thought I would share with you her new room!

As you will know, if you have been following this blog for some time, I had tons of ideas for her room. Now, we are on a budget, and lots of the furniture was given to us (we are very lucky in that respect!) so I did spend a little bit on accessories to bring it all together!

Next woodland bed set, £20. Next Lace Light-shade, £25. Bunting Recycled from Darcie's Birthday.

The first thing you will notice about her room is that it is missing a cot. We decided to switch her over to a bed about a week ago, I know she is fairly young and people may (and have) frown upon that, but she was showing all the signs of being ready so we tried, and so far so good! She LOVES all the space and her new duvet. To make sure she is completely safe, we put her old mattress under her new bed so at night we could pull it out just in-case of her falling out (which is probably inevitable at some point). Plus it has a guard rail and is very low to the ground! I love her bedding, its different from what I originally had chosen but I think it works quite well. She points to the different pictures and we go through what they are, making the animal noises on cue!

Ikea Hemnes chest of draws, bought a couple of years ago. Next White Toybox, £75.

The furniture that we are using in this room have been previously used in her old room, but as they are white they all work together. Now she is getting older I wonder how long they will stay white....

 Again we have recycled some of the things from Darcie's old room, including her birth stats picture I made, and her wooden bunting I also made at one of her baby groups we used to go to.

Next Play Tent, £35. Next Paper Lantern Lights, £12. Next Paper pom poms, £6.

 I went for it and got Darcie the Next Teepee style play tent! She quite likes taking her books in there, she also makes me squeeze in there too! 

So there we have it! I am very pleased with the way it has turned out, I would like to get a couple more things like a rug and perhaps some woodland wall stickers. So I will keep my eye out for those!
Also we are looking for some ways of displaying her books, rather than a bookshelf as such. She adores books so I want a nice space for her to be able to look at her books and easily get them, any ideas would be welcome!

Hope your all ok

Mummy B xoxox

Wedding Update - Photographer

Just over a month ago we found our photographer for our big day. I had searched high and low for the perfect photographer, who I thought would capture the day in a beautiful way. Little did I know the photographer who I have now booked was just down the road from my Dad's house! When I stumbled upon her website I instantly knew that she was the one. 

I then emailed her and then arranged a meeting! She came to our home to share with us her work, all her images were captured in a way that I had imagined mine would be. She came across as very professional but very friendly and warm, she was a big hit with Darcie too who constantly wanted to share her books with her!

So, let me introduce you to our wonderful photographer, Liz Bishop.

One thing that I was drawn to other than her beautiful images, was the fact that an engagement photo was included in the package. Which I think is a brilliant way for Liz to get to know me and Jamie and help us get used to being in front of the camera. 

I am so happy to have found Liz, and I am feeling very relaxed knowing that our day is going to be captured in the best possible way.

If you would like to find out more about Liz you can find her website HERE, she also has a blog with more of her wonderful work which you can find HERE.

Next on the list, flowers...

Mummy B xoxox