Do You Have The ‘Sewing Bug’?

Are you a sewer?

A home seamstress or tailor – as opposed to some sort of drainage for waste??!!!

I used to be when I was a teenager and in my early teens.  I made quite a lot of my own clothes.  Some well and some quite badly.  As my author Mum (Alanawoods.com) will attest!

I often pop into the local sewing store for a few bits and bobs and I always stop to admire their window display.  The shop is manned by a group of grey haired grannies – but boy, do they know how to do some great windows!

Mamasimx About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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Hundreds of children over the age of 5 are sent to school wearing nappies

An article in the Independent yesterday.  This is a pretty shocking statistics…. what are your thoughts?  How old were your children when they were toilet trained?  Were they over 5?  Would love to hear your views.  Leave a comment below.

Hundreds of children over the age of 5 are sent to school wearing nappies – and teenagers as old as 15 can’t use the toilet on their own

Hundreds of school children over the age of five are being sent to school wearing nappies, a major survey suggests.

The survey of 602 teachers in primary schools and 561 teachers in secondary schools found that pupils as old as 15 were not toilet trained, despite having no medical conditions or developmental issues.

Nine per cent – almost one in 10 head teachers and senior staff – said that a child aged between five and seven had come to school wearing a nappy in the past year. The figure was five per cent for classroom teachers.

If the figure is representative of schools across England, it could mean that up to 1,600 of the 16,000 primary schools in the country have at least one pupil over the age of five still wearing a nappy.

The findings also show that as many as 4 per cent of heads and senior staff said they knew of children as old as 11 who had been sent to school in a nappy in the past year.

The survey results add to growing evidence that an increasing number of children are starting school without knowing how to use the toilet on their own.

But this is the first report to suggest that toilet training problems extend beyond the Reception year.

Click here to read the rest of the article on the Independents site….

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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Boots No7 Shade And Define Eye Pencils – Review

The No7 Stay Perfect Shade and Define Pencils*.

Great colours, great formula and great staying power.

I was not expecting to like these as much as I do.  Having had fairly Review - Boots No7 Shade And Define Eye Pencilsdisappointing experience with the No7 Stay Perfect Amazing Eyes Pencil (the difficulty in getting any colour on the lid). I was fairly ambivalent.

Wow, was I in for a surprise!  The colour just glides (as Boots promo bumf says) onto the skin and has great staying power. It comes in a range of 8 very pretty colours.  I was fortunate to try 4; 2 darker and less shimmery colours (Deep Purple and Coffee Bean) and two lovely shimmery colours that I absolutely fell in love with.  (Pink Pearl and Glistening Ray – great names!)

The brown and purple are perfect for a smoky or shaded eye.  Applying and smudging with ease with just the tiniest hint of shimmer.  Very attractive.  Once set they do not budge until you remove them.

Review - Boots No7 Shade And Define Eye PencilsBut I absolutely adore the pale shimmery pink and gold colours.  They are perfect for spring and will be wonderful in summer when you have some colour to your skin.  They are very shimmery and very pretty and flattering.  I have been wearing all 4 for most of the past two weeks.

As above, I have been doing a smokey or shaded eye with the darker colours. The shimmery colours I have been using all over the lid to frame a lovely lashy look. See below for pictures. I highly recommend these pencils. I will be investing in the other 4 colours for sure.

 (Click on the photos for larger views)

 No7 Stay Perfect Shade and Define Pencils available now at Boots.  £8.00

Colours are:
Cool Mink
Velvet Truffle
Deep Purple
Gunmetal Gray
Black Shimmer
Coffee Bean
Pink Pearl
Glistening Ray

 

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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And BabyGirl’s Cake Is A Success (Thank Goodness!)

As you will remember LittleBoy was soooooo not impressed with me cutting his precious Lightning McQueen cake.  (Read about the drama here!)

LittleGirl loved hers thank goodness.  The cake is based on one from the brilliant site by Ann Reardon’s How To Cook That.

How to make a birdie birthday cake

 

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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It’s A Little Girl’s World… Being A Dad In A House Full Of Girls…

Pink, pink and more pink…

It is so lovely to be able to have a house with PINK things in it. Things that sparkle and glitter and are shiny and pretty. As N&S Wedding-285regular readers will know, after 7YearOld and LittleBoy we now have BabyGirl. It is a whole new wonderful pink world for me.

I know an awful lot about Thomas The Tank Engine and Fireman Sam and Playmobil and Lego Starwars. And I know way too much about Mike the Knight and Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures.

Now I look forward to being able to name all the Disney princess and their love interests. Someone else with this very skill (but perhaps not the same enjoyment?) is Dad Kip Tribble. Here is his very amusing post on how to be a Man in a world full of little girls…

What You Learn Raising Daughters

By: Kipp Tribble

I think it’s time I step out from the protective shieId of MadeMan and admit my deep dark secret. I have three daughters. Three young daughters that will one day all be enrolled in the same high school at the same time. And while I am not too deep a believer in karma, I am starting to fear what I will reap from all these stories I pen about ways to hook up with chicks and how to lie your way through life. Clearly, I am screwed to the tenth power and should have thought this through a little more.
And as my ladies grow up, I’m sure I’ll learn many more things from them along the way — like knock before ever entering a door in my own house, or how to purchase tampons while still keeping a shred of my dignity (clue: drive to another city and wear a disguise) — but for now, I feel like it’s time to share what I have learned from raising my daughters so far. Here’s hoping karma will cut me a little slack.

Everything About Disney Princesses

Anyone out there know the definition of osmosis? I do. A subtle or gradual absorption or mingling. And if you need a definition for that definition, it also means a person can learn and pick up new things by absorption or being around someone un-Forrest Gump-esque. This is what has happened to me. I know way to much about Mulan and her quest to save her dad. I know all the words to “A Whole New World” and I hate myself for it. I can name the love interest in Sleeping Beauty. It’s Prince Phillip. Yeah, as someone who claims to be a man, I admit that’s just wrong. And I could go on-and-on about my wealth of Disney Princess knowledge I’ve gained from osmosis. I actually don’t think I’ve ever watched one of these movies in its entirety. All this knowledge has seeped into me over the years from continuous play in the DVD player while I am forced to keep track of the football scores on the computer. A computer that has a Beauty and the Beast screen saver. Well, used to. Now it’s Ariel. She’s from The Little Mermaid, by the way and fell in love with Eric…[sigh].

Boys Have Weird Front Butts

We all know kid’s can say the darnest things, but girls seem to be more inquisitive than boys. I say this because I also grew up with brothers much younger than myself and well, they’re idiots, so that doesn’t make me an authority on the subject, I guess. But I have been put in many an awkward position — as if trying to be a good parent isn’t awkward enough — when one of my girls somehow sees an infant boy getting his diaper changed and proceeds to yell out questions about his odd “front butt.” Luckily, this has only happened in public places like the mall or Outback Steakhouse. For my part, I have held it together, covered their mouths and explained that it wasn’t what the thought they saw, but an optical illusion. Then I distracted them by by pulling the fire alarm. And now that I think about it, boys do have weird front butts.

How to Fix Pony Tails and Hair Bows

You know how a scene from an action movie will have Bruce Willis or Sly Stallone rigging something out of gun strap or his shirt with all those fancy knots and look all badass while doing it? Yeah. Nothing like how I look…. To read the rest of the post please click through to Kipp’s here.

Mamasimx  About Me

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.

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Places To Take The Kids – The National History Museum – Dinosaur Exhibition

On Easter Sunday we took the kids to see the Dinosaur exhibition at the National History Museum in  IMG_1373London.  It was all out excitement for 7YearOld and LittleBoy with Babygirl along for the ride.  Excitement because 7YearOld was finally going to visit the place that Andy works (Andy’s Dinosaur Adventures on Cbeebies!)  Excitiement for LittleBoy because we were going to travel ON A TRAIN.  Major excitement factor.

Daddy and I thought that it would probably be a good time to go.  Firstly, who goes out on Easter Sunday?  And secondly, the weather was raining after 2 weeks of sun; wouldn’t everyone just rather stay at home?  Ahhhh, that would be a big no.  ALL of the UK (who had children) were at the museum.  Or at least queueing to get in.  When we arrived the wait time was 2 hours just to get in the museum and the queue once inside was another hour for the Dino exhibition.  Aggghhhh!

Cleverly, Daddy was straight onto the smartphone and bought tickets to the Britain exhibition which gave us fast track access to the museum.  It was only £20 for all of us and we planned to visit this exhibition after gawking at the Dino’s.  (We didn’t in the end as we were all exhausted!)

Luckily also the queue to the Dino’s was moving fast and we only waited for 15 mins.  All the while the boys googling at the huge brontosaurus skeleton that we snaked around on our way along the queue.

7YearOld is a Dinosaur expert thanks to watching Andy and his adventures.  Calmly he knowledgeably explained about each exhibit.  I was particularly impressed when he corrected my exclamation, “oh look, there is a T-Rex”.  No Mum said he, that is a Allosaurus as a T-Rex has two claws and the Allosaurus has three!

All in all it was a great day out and I recommend it.  But do what you can to beat those queues!

Here are some pictures I took during the day.

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Mamasimx About Me

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Team Work – The Key To Successfully Surviving With Kids

Our Kids

Our Kids

Last night I was reminded of how sucessfully surviving with kids depends so much on good team work between parents.

At 11 pm I sat in our darkened nursery, softly singing and rocking our restless 8 month old daughter, trying ever so carefully to lull her finally to sleep.

My husband was similarly occupied in our room with our 2 year old.  Littleboy had woken frightened an hour before.  Hubby had spent sometime calming him and trying to convince him to go back to sleep, to no avail.

At last he had brought him into our bed and now lay cuddling and gently patting him in an effort to settle him.

Finally I heard hubby get up and very slowly, doing his best to avoid the squeeky floorboards, make his way in to me.  I smiled to myself as the nursery door very carefully opened and his head appeared.  He raised his eyebrows and looked down at lttle daughter who had just dropped off to sleep.

I had to smile again at the charades.  Both of us so DID NOT want to wake any of the kids again.  The worst scenario is if all three wakeup and need comforting.  Hard to clone ourselves and unfortunately the kids just make each other worse if they don’t get Mummy or Daddy’s full attention.

So I nodded slowly at husband to show she was asleep and then hubby motioned to the downstairs indicating he would ‘close up’.

Just as carefully I made my way back to our bedroom to put littlegirl back into her cot, which is ‘sidecared’ to our bed.  With a sinking heart I then realised I was holding her the wrong way to easily put her in the cot and I was going to have to edge up our bed past 2 year old to put her in her cot.  This gave me a few tense moments.  And returning hubby watched with baited breath as I did just that.  To accidently wake either of them at this point would have been awful!

With littlegirl settled we both turned to look at our little angel sleeping beautifully in our bed.  We had a conundrum on our hands.  Did we leave him to sleep with me while hubby slept in the spare room (been done often enough before but the spare bed is not the most comfortable)? I could see hubby’s heart sinking at the prospect!  Alternatively, we could put littleboy back into his own bed.  But the chances of him waking when we moved him were pretty good.  And we would have to go through this process all over again as he would almost certainly wake babygirl and probably 6 year old as well with his protests.  Oh god.  What to do?

Again the charades!  Hubby looked questioningly at me.  I grimaced, but nodded and we both held our breath as littleboy was scooped up ever so gently by daddy and just as gently carried to his own bed.  I listened with baited breath but heard no cries.  I closed my eyes with relief!

We both lay down, side by side in our bed holding hands.  Too tired for even a kiss goodnight!

I must have drifted off into sleep then because I was woken at what I thought was a short time later by littleboy calling.  But when I opened my eyes I could see daylight and I thankfully realised it was morning.  All three had slept through the night.  Wow!  Then I did the usual calculation to work out how many uninterrupted hours of sleep hubby and I had just had!

And of course, hubby and I will probably get to do the whole thing again tonight. With no guarantee we will be so successful.  But at least we will be doing it together.  As a team.

Mamasimx

Don’t forget to enjoy your day.