Photo Gift Ideas For Christmas?

It's that time of year when I start to panic plan Christmas gifts! I like to try to make sure that gifts are individual and chosen to suit the person I'm buying for, it gives me pleasure choosing and from experience I know receiving a gift with lots of thought behind it is so much more special! Earlier in the year Mr G purchased a new camera from Jessops, and he's been helping me to improve my photography, so I've been looking at photo gifts to make the most of my new found skills and give something a bit different!

This year the boys have changed so much and so many people we love have missed seeing them due to work or just life getting busy! I thought I'd treat Mr G to a photo mug so when he's slurping tea at work he can still have the boys with him. I especially like the magic mugs, so he won't be able to see the image until the mug is filled with hot tea - lots of fun could be had with those! 

I thought the grandparents may appreciate a photo book, so it can document the boys over the last year and be pulled off the shelf to admire when they want, without filling their mantlepiece with too many photos! A friend of mine has already requested I give her a small photobook of our antics this year so she can keep it in her handbag and pull it out when she needs to smile!

As I was having a good look around the Jessops Photo site and I found some amazing photo advent calenders, they're even filled with chocolate! I may have to order myself one of those! What a lovely touch for the countdown to Christmas and I can use a photo from last winter:

Currently Jessops are offering £10 off Photobooks on your first order, plus 40 free prints, the perfect start to my Christmas shopping?

21 months and won't sleep...help!

E is 21 months, he's been quite a good sleeper until recently but now it's a huge battle. Bedtime is tears and screaming followed by climbing out of bed and throwing things. If we can get him to sleep he is waking in the early hours and screaming until someone comforts him. I have no idea what to do..

I'm exhausted, and I'm sure he's just pushing limits but I hate leaving him to cry. With bedtime now taking the entire evening (2hrs plus..) I need to come up with a way to deal with the problem!
In addition to the bed time routine we have tried a nightlight, warm milk, an extra blanket and even audiobooks. He will sleep if we're holding him, but as soon as we move away or attempt to put him into his cot he wakes up and cries.

Any suggestions or tips for dealing with a toddler who is refusing to sleep?

Halloween Cupcakes!

I'm the first to admit I'm not the best cook, but I really enjoy baking! In the last year I've had quite alot of practise baking with the boys, and while the offerings aren't necessarily beautiful (presentation isn't my strong point it would appear!) they're certainly very tasty! 

With Halloween coming round quickly, Boo is for the first year excited about dressing up and having a day of monsters. We've had a practise run of some Halloween baking in advance of the big day! The recipe was easy to follow, and the only adjustment we made was to the suggested decoration and that was as Boo was in charge!

I stood back and let Boo take charge of making pumpkins to adorn the cakes, it was lucky we didn't actually need pumpkins, as we didn't exactly get any...

Well they'll certainly fill faces with horror!! Seriously though, much fun was had making, decorating and then most importantly tasting the Halloween cupcakes!

Baking Mad are offering a fabulous prize of an Eric Lanlard Cook Book and a great new Baking Mad Apron:

To enter to win this lovely prize follow the steps on rafflecopter below:
a Rafflecopter giveaway
 
In the meantime check out all the spooky Halloween Recipes on Baking Mad!

Make and Do - keeping little ones busy!

One of the boys favourite activities is "making", most popular is cutting and sticking, and they will spend ages with torn up old magazines, bits of wool, toilet rolls and infact anything which inspires their masterpiece! We have started to keep a big box of oddments for (or Junk as Mr G calls it!) so whenever we want to be creative we have supplies ready! We seem to go through glue sticks at an incredible rate, and I order them in batches from Viking Direct as I love the ease of selecting what I want, paying with Paypal and getting free delivery when I spend £30. They have a great range of craft supplies which can be delivered to your door from wiggly eyes to air dry clay so it I find I easily spend enough for free delivery especially as they have some great gift ideas to!

The air drying clay can be purchased in a huge pack which makes it very economical, if you keep it air tight (wrap it tightly in clingfilm) it does last a few months or would be ideal for a crafty party activity! This half term we're going to have a go at making some gift tags for Christmas and some Halloween Decorations from air drying clay (I'll post our antics when I get a chance!). The joy of air drying clay is that it enables your little one to easily preserve their model, and the paint really easily! Boo made these monsters a little while ago:

This little monster still has pride of place on our sitting room shelves, I wonder what he will come up with this time? I rather like the monsters for Halloween, so maybe we can make them on a bigger scale? Or perhaps some Wizards? Time to get my thinking cap on!

Brotherly love - nostalgia!

The baby stage feels so exhausting that you wish it gone so quickly when you are in the midst of sleep deprived nights and endless nappy changes, suddenly when it passes you look back fondly at those tiny baby clothes and wonder where time has flown? 
I love this photo of Elvis smiling at Boo, it was one of the first time he'd smiled at his brother, and you just catch a glimpse of how delighted Boo was to be smiled at sincerely by his baby brother. Precious moments, so easily missed, enjoy everyone of them! Try to capture some on camera, looking at this photo transports me back to sitting on this very sofa looking at that baby swing (which stopped playing music when we had it for Boo and we never did get round to replace it..) and feeling in awe of such a wonderful bond I'd just seen between my two beautiful boys.

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E is 20months now, and is now less cute more cheeky, and that's another photo all of its own!

“This blog post has been written as an entry into the Tots100 competition in association with Boots Mother and Baby“