Housework Sucks | Oreck Hoover Review

Being the domestic goddess (ha!) in a house of 7 humans and 2 dogs, doing a silly amount of hoovering comes with the territory. I find myself lugging the overworked sucker from the cupboard at least once a day for a quick whip round – then there’s the extra outings it gets treated to when someone explodes a packet of crisps, upturns their croissant plate at breakfast or the mother-in-law’s popping in! So when the team over at Oreck got in touch and asked me to give their Oreck Magnesium a whirl, whilst it might not have seemed like the most glam of opportunities, on my scale, it rated it pretty highly. After all, I was the gal who actually got excited when she received a hoover for Christmas (it wasn’t feigned excitement either) and anything that runs the risk of making my life a little easier (yes, contraception would’ve been easier) is a bonus in my book.

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Family Travel: Toddler Must-Haves

With the summer holidays in full flow and the mass exodus from the classroom many of you lucky buggers will be jetting of to warmer climes for your hols – something we did back in the half term (you can read all about it here and even see the vid here!). At the time we were rather smug at the idea of going away before everyone else, with the optimism of summer laying before us – now we just watch on with green eyes as you holiday spam my insta-feed from gorgeous destinations. But hopefully our premature jaunt to the sun has filled me with holiday wisdom to share – to bring you the bits I couldn’t have gone that week without (and at the bottom, the bits I want to kick to bloofy Jupiter). Ok, well I probably could’ve survived a Greek, all-inclusive resort without these items, but it would have been a lot more stressful (yes, even more stressful than travelling as a family of 7!).

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Bonding With Baby | HUGGIES Wipes

In case you haven’t spotted it yet, we announced over on our brand new Youtube channel that Casper and I are now HUGGIES Wipes ambassadors for the rest of the year. We’re not just putting their HUGGIES® Pure Wipes to the test, we’re combining this with their natural elements and gentleness – taking time out of our hectic days to just appreciate nature and each other. With this in mind, Huggies have enlisted the help of baby bonding guru Gayle Berry. Gayle, the HUGGIES® Wipes bonding expert is a multi-award winning baby massage and baby yoga expert and founder of Blossom & Berry. I was lucky enough to pose a few questions to Gayle recently on developing a secure bond with your baby and nurturing the relationship during times that might be considered “everyday moments”…

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StartRite Rhino School Shoes Review

It would appear there’s a shoe-destruction elf at the boys school. Admittedly I’m yet to receive the email informing me of such, which I imagine would be in a similar manner to the “there’s nits in your kids class – watchout” text that I receive twice a month, but I have the evidence to show he exists… Whilst they sit at their desks beautifully, listening attentively to their teachers every word simultaneously writing poetry whilst unicorns graze in the playground, the mischievous little imp does everything in his power to destroy a perfectly good pair of boy’s school shoes which cost moi anything between £30-£60, depending on the desperation level I’d reached at not being able to find decent school shoes in the boys’ sizes at a moments notice. This is an easier pill to swallow than that of “my children just decimate footwear with little regard for my bank balance.”

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Monday Must-Haves: Smellies for A Christmas Stocking

I’ll keep it short and sweet today, as not only is it a Monday morning and caffeine is calling – but we’ve all got Christmas shopping, ahem, I mean work to do, so I’ll get to the point…

There was a time, circa 1995, that getting “smellies” for birthday and Christmas presents was about as crap as it could get – it usually meant a satsuma scented, animal shaped BodyShop soap stuffed basket, topped up with a lot of straw to make it look even more full of shit than it really was. Oh how times have changed (as long as there’s no Sanctuary gift box in sight) if someone were to present me with any of the following “smellies” at anytime of year I’d be bloody chuffed; if they could also throw in a voucher offering 2-3 hours of child free time to indulge in the loveliness, then even better – but that’d just be asking a bit much methinks!

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