I thought I would start a monthly blog post of monthly favourites and I’m almost certain these will change drastically each month as I’m such an indecisive person!

So here’s 5 of my favourite things this month. (none of these are ads I’ve paid for all these myself and have not been paid to mention any of these)

One of my favourites this month is the book “the break” by Marian keyes.

Its such a funny and emotional book it’s had me bursting with laughter but then also feeling sorry for characters aswell.

My second favourite is a hair care item that I wouldn’t really of bothered trying before I had my hair bleached and dyed now I use it after every shower and it’s Garner ultimate blends hair food banana and shea, it has multiple uses I tend to just run it through my hair after I’ve washed it. My hair is left nice and soft and nourished after I use it.

My third favourite is a film and as its coming up to Christmas it has to be love actually! It’s been my favourite film this month and probably will be next month too 😂 it’s just so funny, romantic and festive!

Fourth thing would have to be a new jumper from baby and me by Sarah Ingham it is so warm, perfectly oversized and just pure cozy I wear it soo much its just perfect for winter and it says “busy being a boss mama” which is just perfect.

Fifth and final thing is something I discovered this month and that’s a recipe for pizza pinwheels on the tesco real food website, I loved making these (and eating them 😂) they where so easy to make and taste soo nice I can see myself making and eating a lot if these in the future!

I love doing these types of blog posts because I love looking back on these in the future to see how things have changed!

In September we went on our first family holiday and it was also Esme’s first time abroad!

As much as I was super excited to go to the magical world of Disneyland Paris for the first time (let’s face it I was more excited than esme 😂). I was also extremely nervous to be taking a two year old abroad for the first time, I’m always very nervous and stressed whenever we go on holiday anyway and this time I knew it would be a completely different experience as this time we were taking a two year old!

Looking back I had nothing to really be stressed about.

The holiday started with a FIVE Hour train journey! I think this is what made me nervous the most! Isn’t it everyone’s nightmare? five hours stuck on a train with a toddler! I was imagining tantrums of boredom, screaming, shouting, kicking and crying (from all of us not just her).

In all honestly some colouring books, a kindle with some Disney films that I downloaded on Disney life and legit a bag full of snacks which I think she demolished before we even got to Birmingham there was no chance those snacks were gonna last until London 😂 thats were really all we needed.

The rest was pretty easy she took the eurostar like a pro (again a bag of snacks and toy story helped).

She loved everything about disney and even though we thought she was abit too young she took it all the shows the characters the rides the lot she loved every minute!

In some ways it would have been easier if she was older but she was so excited about the littlest of things like a premier Inn room that it made the holiday even more fun!

She loves looking back at the photos of her meeting Minnie Mouse, wine the pooh, buzz, woody and many more!

All in all it was a fab holiday I can’t wait to go on more adventures and travelling with a two year old isn’t all bad (it’s not all happy rainbows either 😂)

Today we took a big step in the will this be a success or total failure journey that is taking your children out in public!

We decided we were going to take Esme to our local small cinema (like 50 seats at most) to see her first ever disney film, the live action dumbo.

All week I’ve been thinking will she get bored? Will she run riot and p*ss everyone off? Will she scream the place down until we are forced to leave £12 less and no movie!? Or will she be a Saint and sit through the whole thing?

So after worrying all week I can now confirm the worry is over and….. She was a Saint!(this is where there should be fireworks and faboulus dancing).

We had abit of trouble in the beginning she did run round and didn’t want to sit down while there was nothing on the screen (she also tried to steal a little girls shoes) but as soon as the movie started she was GLUED (praise the gods) she sat quietly (apart from a rendition of row row row your boat half way through) and she loved the film she laughed, clapped, cheered and fell asleep at the emotional ending but she loved it, I loved it and overall we had a lovely time!

We have figured out she will sit through alot of things as long as there is food!

So we didn’t have to leave in shame and I will be definitely taking her again as I know have a legit excuse to go see the new disney films 😂😍 next stop Aladdin…

Hello and welcome back!

Before I start I know Christmas was months ago now but I thought I’d already posted this 😂(unorganised blogging)

Now don’t get me wrong I LOVED Esme’s first christmas it was lovely and we all enjoyed it but there was something missing…. the excitement and the magic!

But this year was amazing ! Her first christmas she was only six months she wasn’t interested in toys much and didn’t have a clue what was going on . This year however she loved playing with her toys ! also it was Aarons first time not working on Christmas Day which was lovely and made this christmas even more special.

We

knew on the run up to christmas as she was getting more and more interested in toys and showing interests in certain films and shows ( like her sudden obssesion for trolls and frozen that we have now watched about 1,000 times ) that this christmas she would be so excited to see certain toys which made us even more excited to see her open them which was something we didn’t get to experience last year because she was so young .

Waiting for christmas to come just to see the surprise and excitement on Esme’s face was so exciting it made christmas a lot more magical than last year . Everyone always says christmas is for the children but I was more excited than she was to see her play with her new toys ! The massive smile on her face and the hugs all day even though she didn’t understand what was going on and at times you could see she was overwhelmed and just needed some time to chill and play with what she had already opened meaning that some presents didn’t get opened until Boxing Day .All day she kept hugging us and babbling away while playing with her toy kitchen , it was so much fun to watch and all the family enjoyed being a part of it.

Everyone always makes a big deal about “babies first christmas” and don’t get me wrong celebrating your babies first christmas is important but as they grow older each christmas will be more and more magical and I can’t wait for next christmas to be just as magical as this one x

If you follow me on Instagram or YouTube then you will of seen (hopefully) that last year (well last month 😂) we took part in vlogmas which as we were mainly doing vlog videos, vlogmas quickly turned into daily vlogging which looking back on it now was something we were definitely not prepared for…..

So I thought I would share the tips, tricks and experiences we learnt from our first month of daily vlogging and just creating a YouTube channel in general.

The first thing that we learnt is that you don’t need an expensive camera or a shed full of camera equipment! We were lucky enough to have the choice of either using my phone (Huawei P smart) or between two fairly decent cameras as my partner is into photography.

Seen as we already had a fairly decent camera that is what I first chose to start filming on but I straight away came across a few issues…

1. I couldn’t see myself when filming, our camera doesn’t have a screen that folds out so that you can see yourself when filming which is something I never even noticed because we had always used the camera for photos not filming. This wasn’t a major issue just something that I hadn’t really prepared for and it made both filming and editing more difficult.

2. When filming in public it was alot more noticeable when carrying round a camera (and heavy).

3. Sometimes you would want to catch something on camera to put in the vlog but wouldn’t have it to hand or charged.

4. you have alot more issues with the memery card on a camera than you do on a phone (like alot more).also I had microphone issues with mine.

5. Last but not least the quality of a camera is not that different to phones nowadays, with phones progressing more in the filming and photography features there is not alot of difference between phones and camera’s.

After you finally get to grips with filming, editing and uploading (which takes about a month to get to grips with) you then have other factors to take into account like confidence and content.

This is where things went downhill for us, we had all the equipment but just didn’t have the confidence in front of the camera which was something I thought would get easier over time and it just didn’t if anything I noticed my flaws more and more as I continued to film.

Creating decent none boring content was also a major issue for us. We don’t lead a very exciting life and live in a small town so there just where days of having nothing really to film and when we did go out because our town is small it was starting to get very repetitive. We just didn’t do enough to create a constant stream of new and exciting content.

It also took alot more time than you would think to plan content then film it plus editing and uploading. It would take alot out of your day which are already hectic as it is if you have children.

Overall we were in no way prepared and for us it just didn’t work out we weren’t confident behind the camera and we just didn’t have much to share or the time to edit and upload on a regular basis.

If you are looking into doing a YouTube channel the tips I would give is to plan ahead, read up on possible content, tips for editing and create content a head of when your planning to upload.

Thank you for reading 😊.

So as we are about to head into 2019 alot of us (especially on social media) are taking a look back to what this year has given us and I thought seen as I only started this blog in October this would be a great way for you to get to know me abit (all of my 5 followers 😂).

 

The first brilliant thing to happen to this year was esmes first birthday, we spent it with family having a lovely outside buffet done by my mum. We kept it very small just some close family and friends which made it very special, we brought a lovely last minute cake from Tesco and let esme shoved a piece of it straight in her face 😂

After esmes birthday I got to go see demi lovato live in Birmingham with my best friend Laura which was an amazing experience that I’m so grateful I got to experience especially with someone I’m so close to.

Next thing has got to be the highlight of my year and something that we have been planning for over three years and that is……. We got married! 👰🎉😍 It all went really smoothly (shockingly) and everyone had a lovely time, esme partied the most! We really couldn’t of done it without family it would of been a disaster as my mum chose literally everything because I’m crap at organising anything! 😂

Also the one thing I did choose was Minnie and mickey wedding cake toppers 😂

This year was a year of many firsts, from Esmes first birthday, shoes and words to starting this blog and creating a YouTube channel which I will leave a link to below 👇👇I would love it if you would go check it out!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0xueAT0nPJA_ZYIhsLzNFA

This year has been full of fun experiences and I have met some lovely people and connected with some good friends through social media.

Here’s to hoping that 2019 has some good things in store for all of us!

This year as Esme is nearly a year and a half we decided to take the plunge and book in to see santa’s grotto at our local garden centre costing us £8.50 ! Thank the heavens that a present was included in the price !

Last year the only time esme met santa was at our local family centre that she goes to every week and he wasnt fully dressed as santa it was a member of staff with a santa jacket , hat and a beard but she LOVED it !

This first grotto experience was a whole other story………

It started off great we arrived early she had time to run around the garden centre and look at all the christmas decorations , she took a very big liking to a light up reindeer figure , we had time for cake everything was nice and calm and chill until…..

we walked in the grotto sat her next to santa and she burst into tears you would of thought santa had give her the vaccinations she normally gets at the doctors the way she was crying and screaming at him , she wouldnt even take a present off him when I was holding her , in the end we walked off with the present, not a nice santa experience and no nice photo just a poor little traumatised girl who then proceeded to love watching anna and else sing disney songs in the middle of the garden centre and did enjoy her teddy from santa but being honest I dont think she fully recovered from what I can only imagine was the most traumatising morning of her life until about mid afternoon after a nap with nanny .

I think its safe to say we wont be taking her to see santa till next year and hopefully I can get that nice christmas photo that we all want at christmas time .

Every year parents stress so much over all the festive events happening over christmas , from seeing santa to christmas shopping ,christmas parties and turning on of the christmas lights .

All of this is soo much to do in one month especially when leaving the house takes twice as long now that you have kids and have to make sure everyone has their coats , hats (that they refuse to keep on ) and scarfs etc.

Something I think that alot of people need hear right not is that its ok not to go to every single christmas event / party just prioritise what makes you happy as a family ! The other day we missed our town turning on of the christmas lights because :

1) the weather was horrid it would of made is all cold wet and miserable

2) Esme had spent all day at her nans she was knackered and would of fallen asleep the second we put her in the car to go see the lights

3) we much prefered going home and watching a christmas film with hot chocolates and mince pies.

Missing out the christmas tree light turning on was one of the best decisions i made this year it helped us avoid a grumpy night , we had a lovely chilled time watching christmas films and instead of taking Esme to see the santa that would of been at the tiny market that our town have that would of been cold she wouldnt of been bothered becuase she is tired , i have booked her to go to a lovely santas grotto on my birthday in the afternoon where it will be warmer we will be more prepared and she will most likely enjoy it more .

Too us getting into the christmas spirit means spending time at home with family , christmas films and christmas treats not rushing around trying to do everything !

So this year i will be choosing our outings more thoughfully and not trying to fit in everything !

it’s our second day and first time doing elf on the shelf and I already had to go downstairs before esme this morning because I forgot to do it!

when we first brought an elf we were really curious if esme would actually be bothered with it as she is only one and a half years old so this is how it’s gone so far….

on the first day elf turned up with a book and esme was not bothered in the slightest, but on the second day she ran straight for the elf where he was sat having a bath in her teapot with another little pressie and she loved it! she giggled and dragged him straight out of the teapot and then sat playing with her present.

so far elf on the shelf has been a success!

yesterday we put our Christmas tree up and it was a really nice day.