Halloween

This year saw the return of Out Of This World to Sheffield city centre, the boys love to have their faces painted so I got the face paints and asked what they wanted.

Noah went with someone very close to his heart, someone that suits his personality down to a T .... Sadness!!

Ben wanted Iron Man, I've done this a few times now so getting a little better at it - but I always need to copy an online example to get it right.

Christmas: Advent Calendars

It's almost the first of November and that means only 4 weeks to get an Advent Calendar in.  Every year I look for one that we would all love, every year I refuse to spend too much money, and every year we tend to end up with about 4!

Here's my favourites from those I've spotted so far, please share your finds in the comments.

The Ideal Home Show At Christmas, Manchester

4 months ago I was packing my day bag and heading off to Manchester for the Ideal Home Show, I was just a little (ok a lot) excited.

I had a great time, looking at homeware stalls, watching celebrities in the Ideal Super Theatre where I learnt about colour, organisation and clutter.  I came away with plenty of ideas to re-decorate my new home, I'm just waiting for the money fairy to drop by. You can find out more about the brands I saw over here.

A night in with Lush

There's few shops I enjoy going in but as you've probably gathered from my blog Lush is one of them. I can't fault the staff at Meadowhall, whenever I go in with the boys they spot the frazzled look a mile off and take the boys to investigate a bath bomb or two while I have a good look.  So I was really excited to be invited to their special VIP night to celebrate the opening of their new store (still in Meadowhall but a but further along).

Review: Brewers Fayre

I used to love Brewers Fayre when I was living at home, we used to have one on the doorstep (and conveniently one that my sister went on to get a job at).  We moved to Sheffield and visited a couple but they gradually got taken over by another company until there are none left.
  When FrankPR asked us to try out their new Autumn menu I was, initially, disappointed at the thought of having to turn down such a great offer but then remembered we were off to Chesterfield at the weekend for Ben's Birthday and they have a lovely Brewers Fayre, Lock Keeper, which sits near the Chesterfield Canal and is only a short walk from the bus stop.

So presents opened we set off for Chesterfield, Ben had no idea what we were doing so we headed off for a little walk along the canal path before turning round and making our way to the Brewers Fayre, which is conveniently sited next door to the Premier Inn if you ever stay there.

Review: LEGO® Awesome Ideas Book

When I was little I spent hours and hours with my LEGO box building multi-coloured house after multi-coloured house.  The base was a thick green rectangle (what's happened to them now?) and then I built up the walls with any and every colour I had with some windows nice and evenly dotted around then another green block on top.  We didn't have a 'set' that I can remember so had to be creative.

  

Not like now, the boys have tons of sets, fire stations, police stations, train stations, numerous vehicles and a proper house, not to mention a harbour and Hulks Hellicarrier.

Sadly as the models get broken up (as they do with a 7 and 4 year old) they don't always get rebuilt, as this happens all our pieces go into storage drawers.

  

Then we moved house and decided that would be a perfect sort out opportunity, well we got part way, we started to bag up the sets but only managed a few.

Now the instructions are all boxed away as we are re-decorating the boys rooms and (after climbing over boxes) I was able to bring their LEGO downstairs to play with, but they were lost.  You see that's the problem with buying sets now, my boys don't have the experience of building for the fun of building.  Which was why it was perfect timing for the DK LEGO® Awesome Ideas* book to land on our doorstep.

Christmas: The list you never knew you needed....

As Christmas fast approaches it's time to look at those gifts that you've only realised you need now you know they exist.

For years people have lived a happy existence 'making do' and just muddling through life but now there are gadgets to do those jobs and we wonder just how did we ever live without them,  Or fun things to make life just the little bit more interesting.

Here's my top tips of what to buy the person who has everything....

Stainless Steel Egg Topper
or "Egg scissors" as they have become known in our house.

No more holding your egg still in the egg cup while you battle with a knife to chop the top off this little gadget will snip it off for you.

Review: Pan

Second star to the right and straight on 'till morning

 We all know the story, Peter and Tinkerbell go to London, the Darlings visit Neverland, the villainous Captain Hook must be overthrown.....
..... but do you know what happened before this?  How did Peter become a Lost Boy in Neverland?  When did Peter and Tinkerbell become friends? How do they know Captain Hook?

Reusable bags

I've been planning for a world of reusable bags for a while, I love them.  What I mean by that is I love how pretty they are and the different designs you can get..... I tend to forget that the point of them is to take them shopping with me.... oh well a great excuse to buy another one :)

With the 5p bag 'tax' now in force across England, joining Scotland and Wales, I thought it would be a great opportunity to bring you my run down of reusable bags (in no particular order).

Review: The Dinosaur that Pooped the Bed

It's been 10 months since we reviewed the other Dinosaur that Pooped books and they still make an appearance on a daily basis, Noah (4) especially loves them, I often find him curled up under the covers with them in bed when he should be asleep.  He was super excited when I told him Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter has released a new one - The Dinosaur that Pooped the Bed.

Lush: October haul

This week Lush launched their Halloween and Christmas goodies, there were soo many lovely new releases, including the return of some from last year, that I could justify buying them all.

Here's what I picked........

Blogging Event: Lands' End with Joe Blogs

Friday night was like any normal night, I'd put the finishing touches to be shopping delivery, tucked the boys up in bed and put TV on, planning what to do the next day..... Lego was featuring pretty highly...... then Joe Blogs posted about an event, in Leicester and the lovely Amanda sent us an invite.  After a quick check of trains I decided to brave the journey, we quite often do Manchester (an hour away) so in reality by this was only an extra half hour - what could go wrong.

I packed a bag of spare clothes, activity books, story books, crayons and Bananagrams ready for an early departure Saturday morning..... and re-booked my shopping order.

Saturday morning the boys woke up and got ready with minimal fuss and we headed for the station, tickets purchased we dashed to buy pastry goodness for breakfast ......

But I won't bore you with details of our journey, but we made our connection and got to Oakham an hour early.  We had a little trip up and over the train bridge - it was a great view.  Then had a little wonder around the village before heading to the 'park' for a sit down, snack and drink.  We then set off for Lands' End HQ (next to their outlet centre).

Made In Sheffield: Sheffield Style Show

Sheffield has some great, little known, fashion brands as I discovered when I met Panache, the shows sponsor, earlier in the year.  Charlotte Calvert, from Millhouses, noticed this and found a gap in the market for a high-profile fashion event in Yorkshire so together with her best friend Cheryl have created what is set become an annual fashion event for autumn.

“There are fashion shows in London and Manchester, and Birmingham’s clothes show has been going for decades” said Charlotte. “I definitely noticed there was something missing to fill the gap in Sheffield, which is why I wanted to start the Style Show. I want to re-educate people about the range of styles and budgets available in boutiques across the city and the wider region, and to show that they aren’t all the expensive places people think they are.”