The Only Girl in the House

The Only Car Seat You’ll Need

The Only Car Seat You’ll Need

As my third and our collective fifth, it would be an understatement to say Cas has been the King of Hand-me-downs; if ever there was a kingdom of second-hand garms, spider ravaged garden toys and over-bounced jumperoos – Casper would reign supreme. So, when it came to his car seat, it was no different – out came the biscuit encrusted throne from the shed, complete with the musty smell of a bygone childhood. Not only was the hand-me-down ethos we’d adopted for our latest bundle of joy friendly on the pennies, but I convinced myself it was saving my sanity – after all, who wants or needs to learn how to install yet another car seat?

Then, the kindly folk over at GB (Good Baby) seemed to take pity on little Cas and offered to send over one of their rather trendy Vaya i-Size car seats form their swanky Platinum Collection. If ever there was an excuse to finally clean out the family car (aka The Dump Truck) a brand new, gorgeous cars seat is it! We opted for the lux-black, with a Saville Row inspired pin-stripe – if it was just down to how it looked, it gets top marks from me!

View Post

Casper’s First Day at Nursery | Vlog

Casper’s First Day at Nursery | Vlog

Wednesday saw Casper’s first day at nursery – my littlest of beans at only 2 years and 1 month, I wasn’t sure if he was ready, or, more to the point,if I was ready! So, with iPhone in hand and with not a second to spare as we were already running late, I thought it would be a fab idea to film the highs and lows of our day!

View Post

What to Expect from The Only Girl in the House | Mission Statement

What to Expect from The Only Girl in the House | Mission Statement

When I hit the very scary “publish” button for the first time two and a half years ago, I had the intention of bringing stylish family interiors to the masses. But I found bringing my interiors day job into my hobby of writing like latching on a creative leech to the heart of my ju-ju – it sucked the life out of my writing. In addition, I was about to drop our boy number 5 into the world so my brain was addled with all the new amazing baby garb that had been invented/re-invented since 2008; we were living in a rather uninspiring, dark rented house – so taking swoonworthy interiors shots was like trying to catch the slippery soap in a lukewarm bath (impossible) and I found it piss easy to bemoan life with a brood of boys to anyone that would listen, whilst struggling for my next interiors post subject matter. Something had to change – and it did.

View Post

Birthday? What Birthday?

Birthday? What Birthday?

It seems like only a few weeks ago I was writing about why we didn’t “do” presents last Christmas for all the boys – and yet now, my Grinch like antics have spread like the Child-Catchers sneeze of doom to Casper’s second birthday this coming Monday. Yes, my darling little cherub of a ‘baby’ is turning two and what are we, his abnormally large immediate family doing about it? Diddly squat, that’s what?! There’ll be no Daily Mail headlines of this toddler’s parents lavishing him with a diamond-encrusted tractor ride party at Daylesford Farm with Mr Tumble and co as special guests, at a grand cost of £237k; in fact, the headline will just about make it to my personal Facebook page and perhaps my Instagram, with a modest picture of the tot in question ramming his face with the Asda equivalent of Colin the Caterpillar cake. Last minute guilt might also manifest in the shape of a Gruffalo helium balloon.

View Post

Baby Essentials Bargain Hunt | Tesco Baby Event

Baby Essentials Bargain Hunt | Tesco Baby Event

One of the main criteria when extending our house (anyone following along with our daily mayhem over on my social media, will be aware how much of a ‘new house’ bore I’ve become) was storage! The Holy Grail all large families seem to be in search of and certainly never have enough of. But as the older boys have pared down their “toys” in the last few years to nothing but gadgets and the odd box of Lego, which I hold onto out of a) nostalgia b) for those days I’m being a proactive parent, have banned gadgets (WHY?!?) and hear “I’m bored!!” every 37 seconds and c) ‘cos once I get my bum in gear I can flog it on Ebay and pay for the next round of brightly coloured plastic; it’s not them that needs the storage – it’s me. No, not for my abundance of clothes, shoes or Tupperware, but for the goodies I insist on stock piling when they’re on special in Tesco! I bloomin’ love a bargain (you only have to see my recent charity shop coat post on Instagram as evidence) and when it includes life necessities like nappies, baby wipes and bubble bath, I’m all over it like chicken pox on a toddler.

View Post