8 January , 20157 January , 2015 - Sarah 2 Comments

The New Year Tag

So I’m a bit late to the party with this post but seeing as I only went back to work today I think it’s allowed! Thanks to Donna at What the Redhead said for the tag. (If you’ve not seen Donna’s shiny new blog yet you should definitely head over and have a look by the way!)

What was your highlight of 2014?

It’s really hard to pick one highlight of last year. Nothing really major stands out as a highlight. Of course there were lots of highlights watching Toby grow and develop from a six month old baby who could only just sit up to a fully fledged, walking toddler. On a more personal note, losing weight and getting back on stage for Aida in October was brilliant and also winning my battle for redundancy from the council I worked for before my maternity leave when then couldn’t give me a job to go back to.

What are you excited for in 2015?

I’m going to be a bit cryptic on this one, hopefully there will be some very exciting times ahead for both Toby Goes Bananas and us as a family in 2015 but I can’t tell you any more than that at the moment! One thing I am definitely excited for in 2015 is finishing school for the summer holidays at the end of June, I’ll be counting down the days!

Any new year resolutions?

Not really. I’ve never really been one for new year resolutions. I have a vague idea that I want to try and find more time for blogging but unless work gets a bit easier as the year goes on I can’t see that I’m going to be hugely successful with that one.

Blogging high?

I think it would have to be working as a brand ambassador for both Lindam Munchkin and Konfidence this year. I was absolutely amazed when I was asked to work with such big and respected brands. I was sure my little blog wasn’t good enough or big enough but I was delighted to work with them, and in fact all the other brands I’ve worked with this year too. Apart from that I’m just proud of the record of Toby’s life that I’ve created. I don’t write as often as I’d like and sometimes I wonder if it’s really worth the effort but then I look back at all the memories I’ve captured here in my little corner of the internet and I know I’ll be glad that I did it, and hopefully Toby will enjoy looking back at it too when he’s a bit older.

Picture of the year?

This is so hard but I think this picture is one which will always, without fail, make me smile. The two people I love most in the whole world.

I’m not going to tag anyone else because I figure most people have done their New Year posts already but if you fancy answering the questions then go for it.

5 January , 201520 December , 2015 - Sarah 9 Comments

Living Arrows 1/52 (2015)

So here we are – back to week 1 of the Living Arrows and I’m pleased to be joining in this linky again this year over on its new home at Shutterflies.

It’s been a quiet week for us this week. Toby was in nursery Tuesday and Wednesday so we made the most of our first child-free days together since he was born to go to the cinema and out for pizza, and then to take down the Christmas decorations and clean the house, which wasn’t quite so much fun! We had another walk in the park and a trip out for lunch this weekend too. Today Barry was back in work, Toby was back at nursery, and I’m enjoying another couple of days holiday before I have to face the reality of being back at school!

31 December , 201421 December , 2017 - Sarah 5 Comments

Me & Mine: A Family Portrait (December 2014)

In the final hours of 2014 I’ve managed to get our last Me & Mine photo of 2014 up! December hasn’t been a brilliant month for us really – we had two weeks of massively disturbed sleep from Toby, he was waking almost hourly some nights and screaming unless I was sat next to his cot or had him in bed with me. We thought it was just a cold and his last two canines coming through but when I eventually took him to the doctor it turned out he had an ear and chest infection! Luckily a course of antibiotics did the trick and he was much better by Christmas. His sleep still isn’t great but at least he is settling again quite quickly if he does wake up instead of being awake for hours. Fingers crossed things continue to improve and he might actually sleep through again one of these days!

Of course sleepless nights also meant work was even more difficult than usual – I was certainly glad when we finally made it to the Christmas holidays and happily for me I don’t go back to work until the 8th January! I’m sure as soon as I’m back though I’ll be counting down the days to Easter (no half-term for us here in Scotland!).

Anyway, to this month’s photo – it was taken on Boxing Day after a walk in the park with my mum and dad. Unfortunately we made the mistake of leaving it to the end to take the picture and so Toby was getting tired and grumpy and not really in the mood for standing still! At least we managed to get one though.

I’ve really enjoyed taking our monthly photos for the Me & Mine project and most months they are the only photos of the three of us that I have. I’ll definitely be carrying on into 2015 but for now here’s a look back at all our pictures from the last year…

31 December , 201427 March , 2015 - Sarah 1 Comment

Living Arrows 52/52

Well, it’s a little bit late as I’ve been having a bit of a blogging break over Christmas but we’ve finally made it to week 52 of The Living Arrows project. We spent Christmas visiting family. It was lovely to see everyone and I was really pleased that Toby seemed to remember his grandparents and uncle and auntie this time. We don’t get to see them very often so it’s nice that Toby is starting to remember them from one visit to the next. He still had no idea what Christmas was all about though but he seemed to enjoy tearing the wrapping paper off his presents, and then giving every tiny bit of paper he had torn off to my mum which was very cute! He got so many new toys that I’ve put some of them away to bring out later in the year – there’s no way he could play with everything all at once!

On Boxing Day we went out for a walk in the park, it was a bit cold and damp but Toby didn’t care! He was wrapped up nice and warm and had his first experience of splashing in puddles! He is so good at walking now and definitely has his own opinion of where he wants to go (hence the reins!).

I can’t believe how much my little boy has changed in the last twelve months. How can that toddler in the photo above have been this little baby just a year ago?

Lastly I just want to say a big thank you to all the lovely I Heart Snapping ladies for hosting The Living Arrows for the last year and I’m very much looking forward to continuing with my weekly photos in 2015 when The Living Arrows moves to its new home at Shutterflies.

30 December , 201424 October , 2018 - Sarah 3 Comments

Review: Lindam Easy Fit Plus Deluxe safety gate

Just before Christmas Toby really upped the stakes in the ‘I want to get everywhere’ game by working out how to open the doors. He’s been able to reach the door handles for quite a while but he suddenly put two and two together and simply closing a door is no longer enough to keep him contained. Downstairs we’ve been using our Lindam Play Pen as a room divider for a while now and we can safely leave Toby on his side with his toys (although he doesn’t like it too much these days unless one of us is in there with him). Upstairs though we didn’t have any safety gates and it would only take a second for Toby to be out of his room and taking a headlong tumble down the stairs, especially seeing as, along with opening doors, his other new found love is walking up and down the stairs (which he can only manage with our assistance at the moment!).

So this is where the Lindam Easy Fit Plus Deluxe Safety Gate comes in. We decided the best thing would be to fit a gate across our upstairs hallway. This means Toby can still get from his room to our room, which I thought might be useful when he moves out of his cot, although I may well live to regret this if we start getting a midnight visitor somewhere down the line. It also keeps him out of the bathroom and our spare room/office as well as safe from the stairs. We chose the Easy Fit Plus Deluxe gate because it is pressure fit gate, meaning no drilling into the walls. We live in a new build and our walls are seemingly made of cardboard so fixing anything to them is a nightmare. It’s worth noting that Lindam don’t recommend you use a pressure fit gate directly at the top of the stairs.

Fitting the gate was very simple. It is supplied with plastic cups and sticky pads to attach them to the walls (you can also screw through the middle of the cup if you prefer), and an Allen key to tighten the gate once it’s in place. We also needed an extension as the gap we wanted to fit the gate in was slightly too big. Lindam make a variety of extensions in order for their gates to fit most spaces. The only tricky part about fitting the gate was removing one of the plastic plugs in order to attach the extension. In fact we couldn’t get one of them out at all and so had to fit the extension to the other side of the gate instead. This wasn’t really a problem but was slightly annoying.

The gate opening and closing handle can be operated with one hand, which is essential when your other hand is occupied with a toddler intent on escape down the stairs! There is also an additional optional second lock at the base of the gate for added security. I would just say you need to be careful with the handle – if it is left up Toby does like to push it down and it has quite a snap so could very easily trap little fingers.

Overall we are very pleased with the Lindam Easy Fit Plus Deluxe safety gate. It does exactly what we need it to and I was delighted with how easy it was to fit (and without filling my walls full of holes!). I’m not sure Toby is quite so convinced about kept safe from the stairs though!

Lindam have a whole range of different safety gates so if this one isn’t quite what you’re after you can be sure they’ll have one to do the job.

The Lindam Easy Fit Plus Deluxe safety gate has an RRP of £23.99 and the 7cm extension which we used is available separately with an RRP of £8.99.

**Disclosure: We were sent the Lindam Easy Fit Deluxe Plus gate and extension for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own.

22 December , 20142 July , 2016 - Sarah 1 Comment

Living Arrows 51/52

Almost there! Week 51 of the I Heart Snapping Living Arrows project and I haven’t missed a single week! I was pleased to hear this week that The Living Arrows is going to carry on next year too so I can do it all again! This last week started off pretty horrendously with Toby still awake and screaming for hours every night, unless I was sat on his bedroom floor. He spent more than a few hours sleeping in our bed this week as it was the only way we could all get some sleep. Towards the end of the week though, his cold wasn’t clearing up and his cough seemed to be getting worse so I took him to the doctor on Friday….and it turns out he has an ear infection and a chest infection! No wonder the poor little bear was crying so much. So, he started antibiotics on Friday and we’ve had two much better nights, still a wake up or two, but straight back to sleep after some milk and a cuddle. So fingers crossed we get a third good night in a row and he’s as recovered as he can be for Christmas. It’s been lovely having our happy, playful little boy back this weekend, even if he is still dripping snot like he’s got a tap up his nose that someone forgot to turn off!

In this week’s photo Toby is having fun with his Christmas tree. We’ve got a big tree too but we’re trying to keep him away from that one. This little fibre optic tree is the only one I used to have when I lived in a flat on my own and now it only has a few cheap supermarket decorations on it so Toby can take them off and put them back on to his heart’s content. He especially likes taking the glittery star off the top and putting it back on – this little tree is the perfect height for him! And he even says something that sounds like it might be ‘star’ too.

19 December , 2014 - Sarah 2 Comments

Bah humbug!

Over the past month I’ve seen so many blogs filled with gift lists, Christmas crafts, festive recipes, tales of Christmas traditions and visits to Santa. And on my blog, this is the first time I have even mentioned Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big a fan of Christmas as the next blogger but I’m just not feeling especially festive this year. I am still at work until the 23^rd of December, and then facing a Christmas Eve drive to Blackpool to spend a few days with my parents. The kids at school have all been hyper for the last two weeks and trying to keep them working and focussed has been a nightmare. Where did kids get this idea that they have some inalienable right to watch DVDs for the last week of term in every single lesson? (OK, I’ll admit, Ratatouille has made an appearance in some of my classes, but we have been studying food, and I’m showing it in French).

Anyway, what with having a stressful time at work and Toby still not sleeping, getting excited about Christmas has been the last thing on my mind. We put the tree and lights up at the start of the month but that’s about as far as my festive cheer has spread. If I’m honest, I also don’t see the point in making a massive fuss about it all when Toby is only 17 months old and hasn’t got a clue what Christmas is about. I was the same last year when he was only 5 months and even though it was his first Christmas we didn’t really do anything special. This year the only Father Christmas he’s seen was at the nursery party, oh, and the dancing Santa band at the garden centre which he loved. I’ve even decided that I’m not going to bother wrapping his presents (of which there are only a few) and carting them all the way to Blackpool only to bring them home again. He’ll be getting plenty of other presents off his Grandparents. And before you all start thinking what a horrible, mean mum I am I do intend to fully embrace Christmas when Toby is old enough to understand what it is all about. We’ll make decorations and visit Santa; we’ll have a Christmas Eve box and leave out whiskey for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolph; we’ll have a lovely morning unwrapping a pile of presents… but for now, when the Christmas present I would like more than any other is for my boy to sleep through the night my festive spirit is sadly lacking.

Am I the only one? Is there anyone else who’s not feeling the Christmas cheer this year?

16 December , 20145 December , 2017 - Sarah 1 Comment

Review: Soft Floor Kids Jurassic Mats

A while ago we set up one end of our living/dining room as a play area for Toby. As it’s not long since we had new carpet we wanted something to make sure it was protected from any spills as well as providing a soft surface for Toby to play on. We bought some cheap foam play mats which do the job but I have a feeling they’re not going to last very long!

When Soft Floor Kids got in touch and asked if we would like to try out some of their soft foam play mats I was more than happy to say yes. Soft Floor Kids make all sorts of different floor mats, including lots of different options suitable for children’s play rooms. I really like their alphabet floor mats but decided that bigger mats would be better for us at the moment, and the Jurassic Mats with dinosaur pop-outs were something I hadn’t seen anywhere else.

The mats are really good quality; Toby has already given them a good tug and pull with no ill-effects so far! Each mat is 60cm x 60cm and they come in a pack of four, including four sections of edging strip. I like the fact the interlocking teeth are quite small (particularly when compared to out cheaper mats), this helps them stay connected much better. The dinosaurs pop out easily and provide a whole other element of play.

So far, Toby mostly just likes to wave them around but he has already started trying to fit them back in the holes too.

The Jurassic Mats from Soft Floor Kids have an RRP of £23.95 but at the time of writing are on sale for £15.84. This is a fantastic price for really good quality mats, they are definitely worth paying that little bit extra for a product that will probably last twice as long (if not longer!) as cheap supermarket mats.

15 December , 201427 March , 2015 - Sarah 2 Comments

Living Arrows 50/52

Last week was a really hard week. I feel like I’m saying this a lot lately but last week really was one of the most difficult weeks we’ve had for a long time. Toby got another cold and had a temperature again for most of the week. His bottom canine teeth are still coming through and are really bothering him too…and the upshot of all this was that we all got very little sleep! On Wednesday night he was up pretty much every hour and a half and so on Thursday when he still had a temperature I decided we would both benefit from a day at home. I had to take the day off work to look after him (luckily I have an understanding boss) and he seemed much improved. But then on Thursday night he didn’t fall asleep until 9 pm (having been in bed since just after 6 pm), he then woke up at midnight and after lots of crying (from him and me) he finally went back to sleep at almost 3 am! The temperature had gone on Friday morning though so I took him to nursery and struggled through the day at work myself.

Friday night was much better but Saturday was rubbish again, and last night was OK, with him only awake once at about 11:30 pm (but for almost an hour) before sleeping for the rest of the night. But…hopefully the end of our awful nights is in sight – yesterday I finally felt the tiny point of the last canine poking through the gum, so fingers crossed in another day or two the worst will be over!

Anyway, this week’s Living Arrows photo was taken on the day we spent at home – you wouldn’t know Toby was ill and had spent half the night awake looking at this picture would you?!

8 December , 201427 March , 2015 - Sarah 1 Comment

Living Arrows 49/52

2014 is still racing towards its end and a remarkable pace. I now only have two full weeks at school (and two days, but we’ll just ignore those for now!) before the holidays and I am counting down the days, the hours even! Not only am I looking forward to a break from school but I’m also looking forward to spending Christmas with my family and getting to have Toby at home too.

This week has been fairly uneventful really. We are all, for the first time in what feels like months, actually well. Apart from a few lingering snotty noses at least! We had a lovely weekend filled with garden centres, dancing Santas, coffee, cake and meeting friends and Toby has caught up on some much needed sleep.

This week’s Living Arrows photo shows Toby in what is a pretty common pose for him. He is definitely a thumb sucker – mostly only when he is tired though. However, he sleeps with a muslin (when he was little he seemed to like them and because I was keen that he not get attached to one particular comforter I was happy to encourage it) and so now the association between muslin and sleep is so strong that whenever he gets his hands on a muslin his thumb goes straight in his mouth too. So even though he was having fun bouncing on his Happy Hopperz cow he still picked up a muslin and started sucking his thumb too!