A Rainbow, Unicorn Birthday Gift Guide

A lot of young girls dream of rainbow, unicorn birthday theme, especially 8-year-olds like Eva! Luckily there are some amazing gifts around that fit this theme. I have the privilege of showing you some fab products we were sent for this gift guide. I’ve also added in a few items we’ve picked up that are awesome too, so if you’re stuck for a gift idea for someone like Eva then check these out!

Unicorn Birthday Gifts

Always Be A Unicorn Personalised Cushion From Funky Pigeon

Funky Pigeon has been a favourite since Eva’s first birthday, we ordered her first personalised birthday card from them. They have a wide range of gifts & cards for all occasions including this adorable, personalised ‘Always be a Unicorn’ cushion. It already looks fantastic on Eva’s bed and costs just £19.99. Funky Pigeon has a great selection of unicorn gifts to choose from but this is definitely a favourite for me!

Always Be A Unicorn Personalised Cushion from Funky Pigeon

 

 

Rainbow Jewellery

Halia Rose Necklace

As most girls do, Eva loves her colourful Jewellery and this Halia Rose Rainbow Necklace Is absolutely gorgeous! This fab necklace comes in white & grey for £12.99 These necklaces are safe, 100% Non-toxic, BPA free, washable & chewable makes a great sensory toy as well as a fashion item. These gorgeous necklaces are perfect for mums of teething babies too!

Unicorn Book

 

The unicorn in a tutu

The Unicorn In a Tutu is written and illustrated by J. Y. Quinn is a fun rhyming story for £5.25. This cute story is about a Unicorn in a Tutu who helps others & gains friends. Eva loves stories like this that she can read to Izzy full of positive messages. Full of colourful illustrations and available in paperback or Kindle.

Unicorn Cake

Bakerdays Unicorn Emoji Letterbox birthday cake

A birthday isn’t a birthday without cake! Bakerdays sent us this lovely letterbox personalised Unicorn emoji cake. These fab cakes are delicious, Eva’s cake is the chocolate chip which we’ve tried before and know it’s amazing! These personalised letterbox cakes are just £14.99 and come well packaged in a special tin so they don’t break when posted. Bakerdays have a range of Unicorn Cakes to check out.

Colourful Gifts

3x3 Rubiks Cube From John Lewis

The Rubiks cube is the words number one puzzle and makes a perfect gift! Great for fidgeters & kids who love puzzles, I picked this up from John Lewis for £9.49 as Eva has asked for one, several times now. I know she will love playing with it and it will definitely keep her busy!

 

Crafty Gifts

Frenh Knitting Doll From John Lewis

Eva loves to make things, watching me crochet has led to her learning to finger knit but she is struggling to learn much more right now. Luckily I found this fab French Knitter which she can use to make a range of items. You can create all kinds of fun things like bracelets, necklaces & 3D appliques. These are simple but fun projects she can learn to do to create her own little projects or work with me on something. French Knitters are fantastic for rope bag handles, a fun project we can do together. I bought this one from John Lewis but you can also find them in most craft shops/ online stores.

 

 

Fab Lab Bath Bombs Kit From John Lewis

 

Along the same theme of making things, I found this Fab Lab Bath Bombs Kit at John Lewis too. Eva loves bath bombs & whilst she loved the ones from Sudzz at the English Festival, she also wanted to try making her own. When I spotted this cool kit I knew she would love it & it would give us a fun activity to do together. This fun little kit is just £11.99

Inspiring Gifts

She believed she could, so she did' Enamel pin

Inspiring Eva to always try and do her best isn’t always easy but this cute enamel pin from Old English Co is perfect! I can see her proudly wearing it and remembering to try her best. To help with that Old English Co also have the same quote on a gold keyring, perfect to hang from her school bag.

She believed she could, so she did gold keyring from Old English Co

Not quite the typical toy loaded gift guide but definitely one for 8-year-olds who would love a rainbow, unicorn birthday!

 

Our Favourite Books This Week – Week 3

The girls have picked out their favourite books this week again and have had lots of fun reading different books to pick from.

We missed the library last weekend so we went yesterday to return the books the girls previously borrowed and pick out a few more. After almost an hour the girls #LoveGrays tote bag was loaded up with quite a few books! Along with the other books we’ve picked up this week in town we’ve been quite busy reading through new & old books.

 

Izzy’s favourite books this week:

Izzy has been loving discovering a range of books at the library & this week chose a few lift the flap books & chose 2 of them as her favourites!

Busy building site is one of Izzy’s choices this week as she loves anything to do with building! She loves watching the digger’s & cranes when we go out so it was no surprise this was a favourite! Izzy loved the fact they build a school and you can see the classroom at the end. There were a ton of flaps to lift so it kept her quite busy especially pointing out all the things she recognised!

 

Izzy also chose Who lives a here? A lift the flap Gruffalo book discovering where each animal lives. Izzy loves lifting the flaps and telling me who she had found. We had to read this quite a few times! Her favourite part was finding the Gruffalo who is apparently her favourite out of all the animals in the book.

 

Eva’s favourite books this week:

Eva chose Abracazebra this week as her favourite book. She picked it up at the library at the last minute but seemed to enjoy it the most. Her favourite part was when Abracazebra came back on the boat. Eva loves reading stories like this to Izzy, they enjoy looking at the pictures together too.

 

Eva also chose The  Rabbit Who Want’s to fall asleep.. although she didn’t fall asleep haha! She loved it when Roger Rabbit met Uncle Yawn & loved that the picture from that page matched the front cover too! This one is off of our bookshelf and she’s read it quite a few times over the last month or so.

Our Favourite Book This week:

“Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,” Said the Sloth by Eric Carle was the girls favourite book & I had to read it to them  a few times although Izzy does get rather impatient at the end and likes to skip back to see what the Sloth does “Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,”. Eva likes that the Sloth is slow and doesn’t mind being slow.

What have your kids being reading this week? Have you picked up any new books?

Spreading The Joy Of Reading This Christmas

I have always loved to read and reading was my favourite thing to do as a child so I love the idea of spreading the joy of reading this Christmas by giving 3 amazing Penguin Random House Children’s Books (teamed up with Britmums) I received to Izzy as Christmas presents.

Izzy is really enjoying reading books with all of us and as we did with Eva, we intend to encourage her love of reading. We sometimes go to baby rhyme time at the local library and always come back with a stack of books which we read over and over at home. The girls have an ever growing book shelf too & these books will make a lovely addition!

Max & Bird

Max & bird looks like quite a funny book about a kitty who wants to be friends with Bird. He also wants to chase and him as a tasty snack . But that’s not what friendship is all about… is it? I can’t wait to read this to Izzy, I know she will love the illustrations as she loves cats!

 

The Little Elephant Who Wants To Fall Asleep

 

The Little Elephant who want to fall asleep is a the latest book from the author of The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep which is a global best seller! It’s aimed at helping children fall asleep.  Following Ellen the elephant on a journey through a magical forest that leads to sleep! This sounds like a brilliant book and I’ll definitely be trying it out on those nights the girls just can’t sleep.

 

The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas

 

I can’t wait to read the dinosaur that pooped Christmas! We’ve read the dinosaur that pooped the world which the girls absolutely loved. This time Danny’s new dinosaur eats Christmas!! I wonder what happens next!?

 

 

They all sound like brilliant books, I can’t wait to read them to Izzy!

I loved books growing up and The Secret Garden was always my favourite as a young child! I have saved a copy for the girls to read. Hopefully one day it becomes a favourite for them, getting lost in the beautiful secret garden and storyline.

What was your favourite book as a child? Do you read it or plan to read it to your child/ren?

Are you giving books as gifts this year? Which ones?

*I’ve been sent these books by Britmums and Penguin Random House as part of their children’s books Christmas present challenge.

Italian chocolate chip bread

Today we made Italian chocolate chip bread from a recipe Eva had chosen in a book ‘Bread 100 everyday recipes’ we’ve had laying around for a few years.

Italian chocolate chip bread

The recipe and method were nice and simple for the girls to do and they absolutely loved eating it too!

I shared these pictures on my Instagram and after @wendy_naptimenatterblog asked if I would share the recipe I decided to share the recipe on the blog for anyone who wants to use it since it really is so simple yet so delicious and fun to make! Especially with Cadbury’s chocolate spread…

Fancy giving it a try yourself?

You will need

Vegetable oil for brushing

225g/8oz plain flour + extra for dusting

1tbsp cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

15g/1/2oz butter plus 1/2tsp melted butter for brushing

1tbsp caster sugar

1 sachet easy blend dried yeast (We used 7g Allinsons easy blend dried yeast)

150ml/5fl oz lukewarm water

55g /2oz plain chocolate chips

Method

1. Brush a baking sheet with oil. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and salt together into a bowl. Add the butter and cut it into the dry ingredients,
then stir in the sugar and yeast.

2. Gradually add the water, stirring well with a wooden spoon until the dough begins to come together, then knead with your hands until it leaves the side of the bowl. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 1o minutes, or until smooth and elastic.

3. Knead the chocolate the chips into the dough, then form into a round load. Put the loaf onto the prepared baking sheet and cover. Leave ti rise in a warm place for 1-11/2 hours, or intil the dough has doubled in size. Preheat the oven to 220°C/425°F/Gas mark 7.

4. Bake the load in the preheated oven forb10 minutes,
then reduce the oven temperature to 190°C/375°F/Gas mark 5 and bake for a further 15 minutes. Transfer the loaf to a wire rack and brush the top with the melted butter. Cover with a tea towel and leave to cool.

Enjoy!

Replanting Eva’s Weekend Box rain forest

Eva’s rain forest she planted from her first Weekend box grew quite well although only 2 seeds cracked (admittedly Eva did bury the other’s quite far down!) and Eva decided she wanted to split them and pot them up.

The Mr bought a 10ltr block of coco potting soil from one of the pound shops since the plants were already planted in coco and let both girls help.

replanting rain forest

Eva read the instructions on the soil and the Mr helped them soak it in the bag it came in after they had a feel of the dry block of coco soil. The girls were really impressed by just how much the small block had grown after adding water!

Both girls had a feel of the soil again once it was wet and then helped break it all up to put into the pots. Izzy seemed to know what she was doing and started filling her pot up with soil whilst they were still breaking it up haha!

The girls really enjoyed re-potting the plants and can’t wait to see how big they grow now!

Are you growing a mini rain forest too? If so how did your’s get on? If not then dont forget to visit our original weekend box post and find my promo code to get yourself one free too!

Half term & chronic pain

As a parent you look forward to the idea of half term even if its just a little bit, no early hectic school runs to do, no uniform to sort, more time with the kids.. But then we also kinda dread it a little knowing we have to make sure we keep the kids occupied as much as possible to prevent the dreaded repitition of ‘I’m bored!’ aswell as having twice as much housework to keep on top of!

For me although it is a welcome break from the routine and I love the girls having more time to play together half term has also become one of those times that I feel a little sad. Being in pain so much of the time often leaves me feeling so exhausted I end up feeling guilty for doing so little with the girls in the holidays.

We are half way through this half term and so far unfortunately I have only managed to take the girls to the park twice. I wish we had done more over the past week but I haven’t been feeling great so it has been a struggle to get us out and about as even the short walk to and from the local park wears me out most days.

We have been lucky to review weekend boxes which at times has been a godsend being able to occupy Eva during Izzy’s nap times & we have been doing a few crafts ourselves but I feel guilty that they aren’t out socialising and playing with other children more, especially Izzy as she is now at a stage where she loves playing with other children.

I need to find a way to fit everything in and still manage not to push myself too hard but I get so stressed with myself falling behind as it feels like I’m constantly behind on everything and the girls suffer by being stuck indoors bored doing the same things over and over simply because I’m either busy pushing myself to catch up or suffering from pushing myself.

I am lucky as I now having a working dishwasher so have to stand at the sink less, the Mr does the clothes washing, hoovering, cleaning & feeding the animals, the majority of the cooking and shopping etc but somehow I still struggle!?

I try to make it up to the girls by reading and talking to them, taking pictures and doing what I can from the sofa on bad days but I still feel like I’m letting them down. If anyone has any tips or suggestions I’d really appreciate it as over the last few days especially its been getting me down!

Parent’s with chronic pain.. How do you do it? Honestly? I need to change the way I’m doing things but have no idea what to do or where to start!

School Issue’s

Eva is now in year 1 and up until she began this year we were fairly happy with how her schooling was going. She had a very lovely teacher who you can tell genuinely loves her job and working with children to get them ready for the following year. Any problems we had were sorted via her teacher and the year ran pretty smoothly.

This year however from day 1 we have had constant problems. Eva absolutely loved nursery and reception, she could not wait to get up and ready each morning to go and learn something new and play with friends. That changed quite quickly after her first week in year 1 she started getting upset getting ready in the mornings and tried to come up with excuses to not go in, obviously we realised something had changed and at first thought it was just the pressure of moving up and doing some serious work so we sat her down and some really long chats about school and any worries she had.

It turned out there was a whole group of boys in her class making fun of her and scaring her every chance they got and from what she had told us she was ignored by teachers several times when she tried to get them to stop. We told her teacher what was happening and asked her to keep an eye on Eva and the boys to make sure it stopped. A few days went by and Eva was happily going into school again but then the following week she came out of school crying, the boys had been jumping out and shouting in her face again.

I was struggling to leave the house at the time so the Mr went to the school and asked for a meeting to be arranged so we could get these issues resolved. We were both bullied as kids and are well aware the impact it has on a young child. Unfortunately during this meeting the staff decided to turn things around on us and tried to say we had a problem with the boys due to their race. Up until this point we were actually unaware of who the boys were but Eva had pointed them out in the playground and we relayed this on to the headteacher. To be honest I was quite offended when I found out as we both come from families with a range of backgrounds, My great grandfather on my fathers side was Maori, My mother’s father was greek, we both have a lot of scottish across both families etc and neither of us are bothered if your black,white, green or blue! We have friends of all races & nationalities, It simply doesn’t come into it at all. We asked for the situation to be monitored regardless and it did calm down for a little while but has since started up again but again we are being ignored.

Eva’s homework and reading books stopped being checked after the 3rd week of school which we brought up with the teachers as we dont see how they can monitor her progress if they dont know wether or not her homework has been done. As I mentioned before homework is something we do take seriously and expect it to be checked regularly by her teachers just as we are expected to help Eva with her homework and make sure it is in on time. Even after bringing it up with the school her books still go unchecked and sit in her bag week in week out so over the last two week’s I haven’t sent them in as I dont see the point if they aren’t being checked plus I wanted to see if the teacher would notice and say something.. surprise surprise nothing has been mentioned!

To add to it all Eva being born a preemie falls ill quite regularly with coughs and colds and the odd chest infection, she has always been a strong little thing though and usually copes and recovers well so we tend to try and get her into school unless she is really unwell and tell her to let a teacher know if it get’s too bad and at worst we can pick her up again. Obviously she has days off if she is really bad, some of you may know both girls got chicken pox and were quite ill with high temperatures so we kept her off for a few days after calling the office and being told to keep her home until the spots had scabbed up. We continued calling in each morning and leaving a voicemail on the absence line to let the school know she wouldn’t be attending that day and update them on how she was doing. No one called us back at any point but we recieved a letter about her attendance dropping and made to feel like we were in the wrong for not sending her in to infect the whole class.

This week Eva has had conjunctivitis and bad headaches and seeing floating dots, we worked this out after several accidents with her chasing these dots and hurting herself. So we kept her off whilst trying to get into the Dr’s to try and work out the cause, by the third day i managed to get her booked in for the following monday and took Eva for a quick eye test to make sure it wasn’t a vision problem. The school was notified every morning of what was going on and Thursday we sent her in as she seemed a little better. They were asked to keep an eye on her as although the conjunctivitis seemed to be clearing up the headaches are really bothering her.

So when she came home and I found out she’d told the teacher’s several times she had a bad headache she was told to just get on with her work I was fuming, to top it all her eyes were gunked up again and were really sore. I saw for myself on sports day just how much the teachers ignore what the children say to them, there were kids begging to go to the toilet jumping up and down trying to hold it in being told to just wait until the events were over.. halfway round when they were being given a cup of juice after each event so I believe what Eva has said and as her conjunctivitis has now worsened again I have had to let her have yet another day off school as she can barely open her eyes!

All of these things have been adding up over the last few months and we now feel as though any problem we take up with the school just gets ignored and brushed over instead of being dealt with and resolved fairly. When I send my daughter to school I expect her to be well looked after, I expect any problems she has to be dealt with properly, I expect them to listen to my child when she is in pain, being bullied or just need’s a little help. We are now at a point where we are seriously considering pulling Eva from this school and moving her elsewhere because it is affecting her so much. She is nowhere near as happy as she was to go to school, she plays up when she comes home and then eventually breaks down into tear’s and tells me what’s gone wrong that day to put her in a bad mood and I cant just sit back and watch it carry on any longer and see Eva and her education suffer because of it.

Has anyone else had a similar experience with their child’s school? If so I would really like to hear other parents experiences and hear how you dealt with it etc. I also would like honest opinions, am I being over the top? Am I expecting too much of the school? What can I do to possibly make things better for Eva overall? I would love to get some feedback!

 

Our Weekend Box Fun

We were lucky enough to have the chance to review a brand new mini Weekend box this weekend. These mini weekend boxes contain 2 full themed activities and all the bits you need to complete them.

A weekend box is an awesome little box of crafts to do with your child over the weekend that arrives via 2nd class (Posted on a tuesday) which we recieved on friday morning. Each box is themed and we recieved the rainforest theme.

We love crafts and Eva was really impressed when I showed her what had arrived for her.

weekend box fun

Eva loved the colourful box and found it funny that it matched her special My little pony rainbox dress haha! I thought it looked really fun and loved how excited Eva was over it.

We couldn’t wait to open it up and see what was inside to keep us entertained over the weekend.

Eva really enjoyed reading about each of the character’s and seeing which characters were on the packets which she thought was really cool. We decided to spread everything out on the table and see what this weekend box was really about.

There were 2 activity packs as promised along with any card needed, some collectable cards and even some vouchers to hand out to our friends for a free box!

The 2 activities stated they were of medium difficulty and would take 40 minutes to complete. Awesome naptime activities for me and Eva to do across the weekend. One activity wasto make a parrot mask and the other to grow a rainforest!

Inside the box itself there is also a certificate for the child to colour in and write their name on and keep too!

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Eva couldn’t wait to get stuck in and decided to do the mask first. I helped her cut out the mask and attatch the beak using the glue supplied then Eva got busy following the instructions making ‘feathers’, ‘gems’ and then decorating it with the crayons.

Eva spent hours flapping around the flat wearing her mask so I know she really enjoyed it and having everythting we need to hand was really helpful.

Grow a rainforest was up next. I cut a bottle in half and Eva peeled the pellets that were supplies and we soaked them in water in the bottom half of the bottle.

 

We then had to make a hole in the bottle lid and thread the string through the lid then screwed it back on the bottle. We then had to transfer the soil into the lid half of the bottle, Eva sprinkled in the seeds and we popped the lid half into the bottom of the bottle which we had also filled with water making sure the string dipped into the water.

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We completed both tasks a little quicker than 40 minutes but it was really fun doing the activities. Eva really seemed to be enjoying herself and it was so nice to just pull out the box and get going with an activity. We have a ton of craft stuff but it can sometimes be difficult to find everything we need (mummy’s poor organizing!) so I can really see the appeal of these boxes!

When I asked Eva her opinion on the activities she said ‘It was all fun, I liked making the rainforest because it was messy and I liked making the parrot mask because it was fun making it colourful and drawing rainbow’s on it’.

Mini weekend boxes usually cost £4.95 however we recieved ours free in exchange for an honest review. If you’d like to try one yourself for free then use the promo code EMBER298 when you sign up at https://www.weekendboxclub.com Please Note Future boxes will be £4.95 for Mini Box and £7.50 for a Bumper box, but you can pause or cancel your boxes if you’re not completely satisfied at any time.