I was hunting for inspiration this week, and received some fab nominations from a Twitter call out – one of which reminded me of a blog I had overlooked, being under the impression I had already issued some Blog Lovin’ towards her pages. But I hadn’t (*tsk*), so this weeks Blog Love is sent billowing out to the lovely Sandy Calico at Baby Baby. In particular because she has just written the most fab post titled ‘A Day Out’ which every single mother out there will sadly be nodding along in recognition with.

So go – as always, click the daisy and enjoy.

I’ll be honest. When I first got the Astro Cradle. I was not enthused. I really thought it was all a little too much, and I was sure my little one would not give a hoot about a cradle I could attach an iPod too, or one that vibrates, or one which has flashing lights, or different tunes…. or one that did all of that and more.

But I was wrong.
She loves it.
Like proper loves it.
In fact, she finds it hilarious. She sits in it kicking her legs and getting terribly excited. If we play with her and encourage her to the pull on the hanging charactors, she stops dead and tries to work out where the new noises have come from, and you can see her face change as she discovers new things. And I love it for that.

I also love the fact the iPod can be plugged in to it; we have actually created her her very own playlist, which is a godsend as listening to the same usual baby tunes time and time again can drive you to insanity.

It’s easy to put together, easy to use, and very light … always a bonus. I did struggle turning off the vibrations, but that’s because I don’t read instructions. Apparently what you need to do is push and hold the button. Duh. My little one is at that stage where she wants to be sitting up all the time, so the cradle has not only been a source of entertainment but has also fulfilled that need. It’s far more than just your average chair, and yes I’d agree with the ‘ultimate entertainment system for little babies’ tag…

We definitely approve.

£130 from Mamas & Papas.

Reviewed for us by Goddess Claire, who lives more usually over on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

So – frankly, I was rather glad it wasn’t me having to review this thing. I mean – a cradle which plays music and flashes? Honestly?

Still, as always, we agreed to give it a proper go, and had it sent off to Intrepid Claire and baby LG to have a squizz at.

Did she hate it and leave it gathering dust in the corner? Did she do her job properly but with no enthusiasm for the monstrous noisy flashy thing? Or did it surprise us all? (How dramatic was that? Just needed a big voice over, no?) Have a look at the review to find out what she really thought…

How can you not smile at that sweet little face? Come on, you know you just felt that little bit happier simply seeing the picture, didn’t you?

Our intrepid reviewer Claire has been trying these out on the delicious LG – go and have a look , see what she says about Haba wooden baby toys.

When we finally decided that perhaps it was time for a room-shift, Pink was removed from the spare room (where her cot had been camping next to the spare bed for… erm… two years *blush*), and moved into the tiniest box room – previously Jolly’s. He, in turn, was moved to the delights of the ex-spare bedroom, which is far more suitably sized to a growing boy, and was only ever actually filled with visitors a few times a year. Needless to say he uses the space a le-e-etle bit more frequently than that.

Anyhoo, Pink inherited Jollys room colour choice too; green. REALLY green. Like full on lime green. We have reviewed thoughtfully decorated with wall stickers, but still – it’s very green. We put up an irresistably sweet fairy lampshade too, in shades of pink. Goes nicely with the green walls, as you can imagine.

So. the time has come – she will finally get a Room Fit For A Girl.

This is the conversation we had last night

We decided to admit defeat at this point.

Honestly, we have no idea where it has come from. She is surrounded by boys toys – very few girlie items have been bought for her, and she spends a lot of her time ignoring the beautiful rag dolls to have tea parties with soldiers and cars. And you would not believe how realistic she is when she’s playing snipers.

Ah well. Pink’s better than lime green, yes?

(Sadly, Willo The Wisp is no longer available, but Camberwick Green and Jonny Morris are still there!)

In true ‘Spotted!’ fashion, this is one that made my heart beat a teeny bit faster, and an actually ‘Oooh!’ escape me. At first glance, it’s not that much – just yet another page in the BBC shop, yes?

Heck, No!

Click on that ladybird, and you’ll arrive at the Vintage Audio section of the BBC shop, that’s where. And nestled in its pages are some of the very best memories of my childhood. Johnny Morris Bedtime Stories (Gladys the Warthog has never left me y’know), Camberwick Green (I’m not going to tell you how long I have been sitting here trying to type Psshh-Cah-kerchunk… but if you know what I mean, then this disc is for you! And I dare you to leave a comment typing it any better…), The Magic Roundabout (My Mum made me an ace Dougal cake for my 5th birthday y’know) and besty-best of all, my own absolute favourite EVER – Willo The Wisp (I’ll pause there to allow your gasp of excitement).

Willo the Wisp… sigh… remember it? Narrated by Kenneth Williams, and featuring Mavis Cruet, the Fat Fairy; Arthur, the Cockney Caterpillar; Evil Edna, the Wicked Witch; Carwash, the Prissy Pussy; and The Moog, the Droopy Dog. Of course, we mustn’t forget ‘the Beast’, who is really Prince Humbert the Handsome, changed into various shapes and sizes by Evil Edna’s spells.

(There was a brief delay here for an inter-office competition of the best Kenneth Williams drawl  “oh, Ma-a-ave” “Oh, Aa-a-rthur”. Mr Laura wins it, hands down. But that’s okay, as he was so good he made me very happy).

And as if that is not all, just to topfill your day with joy (as if it could get any better) each disc is a copy of the original vinyl LPs – no, really, they actually LOOK like the vinyl LP! – and they come in vintage packaging to look like the original album cover.

*swooning*

(Thanks to @Keris for the tip off. You made me very happy. And a weeny bit poorer. )

I know, the Blog Love is late – but I was scuppered by half term, so… you’ll just have to live with it. It’s not like I didn’t know who I wanted to point you in the direction of either. This weeks Blog Love goes to a very special one, which has been a favourite read of mine for a while; but the last few posts are really so worth just five minutes of your time visiting and reading.

Simply and beautifully written, heart-wrenchingly honest, and each time it appears in my reader at the moment my heart beats a little faster as I go to read the next instalment. This link (and those that follow) takes you back a few days, so that you can start at the beginning – make sure you go from there to the following couple of posts, and add More Than Just A Mother to your reader/rss feed so you can follow her journey through her memory box, and the letters she wrote through the most terrible of times any of us could imagine.

I am aware the blog discusses with honesty and stinging emotion what is a very sensitive subject, and one which some may not wish to read about – certainly not caught unawares, and expecting a frothy giggle to make you snort into your morning coffee. So here’s her blogs own quick introduction to ‘MTJAM’ – More Than Just A Mother;

“I suffered years of infertility before being lucky enough to fall pregnant on our first attempt at IVF.  I went into labour at just 26 weeks and my twin boys were born two weeks later.  One of my sons contracted meningitis and died when he and his brother were five weeks old.  It was – and still is – indescribably awful.  My surviving son came home from hospital when he was four months old, and shortly afterwards I discovered I had fallen naturally pregnant – with twins.  My girls were born safely at term after an arduous, risky pregnancy, wracked with grief, anxiety and denial.  I was plunged into the darkness of post-natal depression, emerging a year later, finally in love with my children and just about able to deal with the loss of my son.  Having other children doesn’t make it any easier to lose one, but it does give you a reason to keep going.

Please, do visit, read and comment – just make sure you have a tissue somewhere nearby, and an uninterrupted five minutes before you start.

We have four of the gorgeous Raggy-Tag comfort blankets to give away, in Liberty prints too!

“In keeping with Raggy-Tag’s English style and heritage, our latest range of comfort blankets has been made using beautiful Liberty fabric. This pure cotton material has a very fine thread count, creating a blanket that is delightfully soft and extremely durable. Each Liberty Raggy-Tag is backed with either blue or pink velour.”

For further details and to enter click here. Good luck!

Thank you for all the concerned messages, mails and tweets regarding the loss of Mustafa, and some of the genius suggestions of places we had yet to look. Thankfully, just when we had finally given up all hope and were starting to compose begging mails to Maileg themselves for the supply of just-one-more even though they no longer make Mustafas, a gleeful shout erupted from Jolly’s bedroom yesterday afternoon.

“I’ve GOT HIM! I’ve found MUSTAFA! PI-I-I-I-I-I-INK!!! Look who’s home!!!!!”

Pink gasped, gazed, beamed, clasped him to her, quite literally jumped up and down squeaking”‘yippee! yippee!” and then rushed off to reunite him with Daddy mouse and Mimi mouse.

He had been languishing all this time behind Jollys chest of drawers.

Of course.

Anyhoo, the mouse is found, and is back where he belongs…

See how happy he looks to be home?

Nearly as happy as a certain Pink someone was to see him.

As you, dear reader, will know, a love affair started in this house around Christmas time. These charming little mice did bewitch all of our hearts, but for Pink the love was total. This is her on Christmas Day night, poorly and restless in Mummy & Daddy’s bed:

And so the love began. Mimi and Mustafa (named by Gangy (Granny) on a whim, and apparently unable to change it to anything else) have been constant night time bed companions, and constant day time play companions too. They smoosh happily in her bag to accompany her on the school runs. They have ousted the usual plastic residents of the Happyland play village. They are apparently very partial to a cheese sandwich for lunch (grated please).

So much so that when that bad bad lady at Armstrong Ward wrote to me about a new batch, the family simply had to be added to. A bigger boy mouse was received, pronounced ‘Daddy Mouse!’ and gladly welcomed into the Mousefold. Bedtimes changed a little – now we had three mini beds for Daddy, Mimi and N-nuffa (woe betide anyone else calling him anything other than Mustafa, mind). Mice had to be called to bed, kissed on the nose and tucked up before Pink would receive the same treatment…

But. Tragedy has befallen our little mouse trio. Sadness flows where once merriment lived.

Mustafa is missing.

At first, we thought ‘oh, he’ll turn up’. The first bed time was hard – the Mice family was sadly tucked in, and the empty bed stroked wistfully. Big, tired eyes gazed up, a small lip wobbled. “Where’s N-nuffa, Mummy?”

Glib promises were made that he was off on an adventure, that we would find him in the morning.

A second day went past, with a more thorough search. A second bedtime with a sad little empty bed made ready for the missing Mustafa Mouse.

A sad little hand slept clutching his blanket for another two nights.

Yesterday I noticed that Daddy mouse and Mimi mouse were lying carelessly on the bedroom floor. It seems that an incomplete mice family is too sad to play with. Bedtime last night there were no mice in the bed. Six o’ clock this morning I was woken by sad girl calling quietly for her N-nuffa.

We have overturned the toybox, we have rummaged down the back of the sofa, we have checked in the shoe box, we have peered, poked and prodded into every dark corner we can find.

Where oh where oh where is Mustafa?

Well, Katy’s away, so I have to announce the winner of the Baby Show Ticket competition here – I’m not grown up enough to be allowed to play with the proper web site pages, see.

Anyhoo, the winner of a pair of tickets to The Baby Show at London’s ExCeL from 19th to 21st February is…

Sarah Whittington from Kent!

Email coming to you soon, Sarah – congratulations!

For those of you that didn’t win, don’t forget to check the other competitions – and there’s some new fab ones coming next week. Just as soon as the grown up is back to put them on the site…

Okay – here it is. Our Pancake Day effort. This morning, tempted by some really very evil Tweets this morning, I decided the boys might like a change from their usual Golden Syrup-fest. So I surprised them with this :

Once the boys had polished off one each of these, only No.1 managed a 2nd. Boy went for his more usual plain (yes, as in just-the-pancake; no toppings at all. Odd child, I know), and Jolly had a mini one with his favourite maple syrup. Never before have they been contented with so few pancakes! Win!

So there I am, browsing Etsy, like you do (Oh yes you do) – when all of a sudden my attention is nabbed by the MOST lovely t shirt. Just how gorgeous can one pig print get? Best of all, being Etsy and therefore all hand printed (my fave bit – stamped with locally-grown potatoes)  it comes in sizes from itty bitty 6mths to galumphing great 6 years! Now tell me you haven’t just fallen in love with this cleverest little bi-lingual pig. After all – how many of you are fluent in cow?

If you’re new to Etsy (tsk – shame on you) then don’t be put off by the price in dollars – the seller My Pipsqueak is most definitely in the UK (Wales, actually, just in case you were interested…), you’ll just have to work within Etsy’s pricing American-ism’s.

So the husband and I have been married for (counts on fingers… and toes) 18 years this year. Which means we’ve been together for 20 (*wails* I’m so not o-o-old enough for those numbers…).

A few years ago, we just stopped ‘doing’ valentines. Does that mean that romance is dead? Hardly. But as times gone by, it has changed. Different things matter. When I was 17, it was the most romantic thing in the world that he turned up at my door with a dozen red balloons. When I was 18, I opened the door to a stranger in a suit and cap instead – the limo driver who was taking us out to dinner and a show (Michael Barrymore, doing stand up. Yes, THAT long ago. Yes, I laughed till I cried – he really was funny once). When I was 24 we spent the whole valentines weekend walking, talking, cooking, eating… and planning on having a baby in two years time (I was pregnant a month later).

And much as I love and cherish those memories, have they actually been the most romantic of our time together? No, actually, they haven’t. Far more precious is the memory of us in bed, him lying widthways with his head on my rounded stomach singing Christmas songs to our unborn child. In August.

Or when I had been in labour for 14 hours, and he noticed that my feet were freezing, rummaged in my labour bag, found socks and put them on my feet – without me saying a word.

Or being at a party, catching his eye across a crowded room and him winking slowly at me.

Or the times he has actively taken my icy-cold feet in bed and wrapped them in his legs to warm them.

Or the countless times he has come home with a beautiful bunch of daisies – just because.

Or the times I found my craved-for raw-onion-and-smattering-of-cheese sandwiches at my elbow – despite him knowing just how bad my onion breath is.

Or the thousands of times he has, without me saying a word, wrapped his arms around me and held me tight and not let me go.

So no. We don’t do Valentines Day. We have no need.

I love you C. xxx

Things may get a little ugly round here while we make some oh-so-exciting changes. All will be prettiness again soon, we promise!

The Fisher Price lion booster seat has been seriously road tested in my house by my 2 year old, who takes meal times very seriously.

Like all children’s equipment the seat came with a full instruction manual, in at least 12 languages.

But frankly I managed to ‘assemble’ the lion head back to the seat base and then add the tray without the need to refer to the manual (pat on the back for me!), and the straps were already in place which made the set up really easy for me.

I strapped the seat to a simple kitchen chair and it stayed in position really well. Wiping up food mess wasn’t that tricky; in fact there were minimal nooks for food to hide, so a big tick for that.

The bright orange lion was much admired by my 6 and 4 year olds, but for me the colour was a little too bright.  Although saying that, it did make it really easy to spot when we took it with us to a local restaurant, we certainly knew it was ours! I would score this booster seat 8 out 10. Rooooaaaaarrrrrrr

Available for a wobble under £30 at ToysRUs

Reviewed by Dolly Blake – read her blog here.

Okay, okay, I know, the Blog Love hasn’t been flowing recently. The dog ate them? I had the bubonic plague? Aliens abducted me? MI5 demanded my services? Nope, not really any good excuses. Just..erm.. busy. You know.

Anyhoo.

We’re back. It’s Friday, and it’s Blog Love day.

Todays little treat is American crafty/thrifty/all-things-pretty blog Dottie Angel that I happened across recently, and one I hugely recommend you add to your reader. I love the quirky layout, the swoony prettiness of the posts – and the style is so fun too. Basically I just want to be Dottie Angel Tif’s friend.

So go – clickety click on that there little daisy, and visit a small world of creativity. Be warned though. Every time I read it I leave with the urge to go make something…

The lovely people at Organix are giving 10 of you the chance to win £20 worth of its new and delicious organic baby food jars.

Click here for full details and entry form.

Yum yum!

Our review of the Cosatto 3sixti highchair can  be read on our site here.

“The straps are easily adjusted, but I found they didn’t stay in position. No matter how many times I shortened them, they’d slipped back down again by the next time we used it..”

The Cosatto 3sixti looks great. The seat is large with two recline positions, a padded cover, and an easily removable two-part tray (the top part can go in the dishwasher). The seat cover is easily removable, which is of course important since you need to clean underneath it. The chair’s easy to clean too, because it’s all moulded and rounded, so there aren’t so many nooks and crannies for all the junk to get wedged into.

The straps are easily adjusted, but I found they didn’t stay in position. No matter how many times I shortened them, they’d slipped back down again by the next time we used it. There’s also a plastic, um, thing that sticks up between the baby’s legs and I found this incredibly useful: it meant there was no fear of Joe sliding out from under the tray, even as I was strapping him in.

The seat can be raised and lowered via a gas lift like on an office chair, but we didn’t really use this since it was the right level for us anyway. The chair also spins 360 (hence 3sixti) degrees, which was useful too, although I didn’t feel like it was quite as stable when it wasn’t facing forward. If Joe started rocking back and forwards (usually with excitement at the sight of oncoming food), I worried he was going to break it. It also has castors so you can move it around easily but it doesn’t move when the baby is in it (at least it doesn’t on a carpet).

The main negative for me is that the ‘footprint’ of the highchair is too big. We’ve only got a small house and the 3sixti takes up quite a lot of space next to the table. My other complaint is that, being made of plastic and with a PVC cover, sadly, it certainly looks cheaper than the £150 price tag.