Oh, Christmas tree

 

We have a lovely bright white Christmas tree and a carefully selected collection of vintage glass baubles and favourite decorations. Baby E isn't yet mobile, so I'm making the most of enjoying them as I fear next year we'll have to find ourselves some more durable plastic ones :-)

Post Christmas Burn-Out

After our Christmas tour of West London and two Sussex pit-stops it feels so good to be back home. We had a lovely Christmas made all the better by a perfectly behaved little baby and dog.

We were all thoroughly spoilt and feel very lucky to have a family that so want us to come and visit - all that being said, the idea that this time next year we should be in a house big enough to host Christmas ourselves does fill me with glee.

A very worn out puppy dog

Explosive Alan - Fantastic Dizzy

I wrote a little piece about my love of Dizzy the Egg games for the very lovely folks over at Explosive Alan

 

Christmas Baby Style - 8 Months 1 Week

 

 

Christmas Pyjamas - Gap (Ebay)

Advent Village - Christmas Street

I'm a bit slow to post about this, but as the dear friend that it was intended for only just managed to make it to the Post Office in time to collect it on the 24th of December I can only post about it now!

Christmas Street by MrPrintables - Yet another successful craft find on Pinterest. What a great thing to offer as a free printable.

I printed them out onto 200gsm ivory and brown card (my wimpy printer can't handle anything much thicker) and glued them together with a regular paper glue stick. I added some extra decoration using some of my Washi decorative masking tape that I bought in Japan.

The instructions were very simple, and I was so pleased with how they turned out.

The fillings were Mini Mars Bars in the houses they'd fit into, and Jazzles. Just as I thought, my lovely friend is planning on carefully opening the houses so she can keep them :-)

I love our Oyster

I'm a complete nerd - I research big purchases heavily before buying, I'm very serious about which colours I like and which I don't and I can't stand bad design. When I found out we were pregnant last Summer, this side of my personality went into overdrive. The biggest expense would be the buggy system.

After a lot of research we settled on an Babystyle Oyster. Firstly, it was one of the only systems that would fit into my vintage Mini. Also, I was going to be seeing whichever buggy we chose A LOT, so I wanted it to look nice. I loved that it had a plain black chassis and from other Mum's comments I found that the black leatherette handle was the most hard wearing. We set on the plum colour pack - my theory that not all boys things have to be blue, and the fact that we could easily and cheaply change the seat colours.

Everything arrived about 2 weeks before baby E did Little did I know that it would be almost another 2 months before we actually took it out for a run (why does no one tell you that it takes so long to get over labour?)


Our first outing - 4 weeks after baby E was born

The Oyster is amazing - firstly, all the extras you get included in the price. I was very pleasantly surprised to find the built in sun shade (hidden under the footrest on the buggy) and the rain covers that came with it. I love that I can have baby E facing me or facing outwards. I love how easy it is to push one handed and how big the basket is for shopping. Also, for a London family it doesn't take up much room on public transport and you can lock the front wheels which makes getting on and off trains and buses so much easier.

But, I found out recently how great their customer service is. When my car was stolen, I had left the chassis of my Oyster inside my car. We were then stuck at home with no buggy and no car. Babystyle UK were amazing - they went above and beyond to quickly put together all the parts we needed and had it sent out next day delivery for an amazingly reasonable price. I'm very quick to complain about bad service, but it's so important to make sure you've said thank you when a business has been amazing :-) Thank you again Babystyle UK

The Saddest Week: Stolen Mini

This week has been a nightmare - my beloved Rover Mini Tahiti was stolen from right outside my house this week, in South London. It's from 1994. It currently has a roof rack, and the additional lights on the front have sun faded orange covers. Number plate M*****R

Not only am I devastated to lose my beloved car, the base of our baby buggy was inside along with Christmas presents for baby E and my Husband. So, at the moment I can't drive anywhere, but I can't even go out because we have no buggy.

I can't believe someone would think this was ok - that someone could do this to me. It's clearly a loved car. It breaks my heart to think of my car being broken up and sold for parts.

If anyone has any information...if by chance you are Googling / researching about this car because you've stolen it...please get in contact or just do the honourable thing and park it back on my street where you took it from.

I'm totally devastated