Pick it up!

This weeks gallery theme is just perfect for us! My little girl absolutely loves books and everyone knows it. She has loved them from a young age, my husband and I were shocked when we spotted her still only one reciting back to herself 'going on a bear hunt'. It's funny as she would never do that now, instead when she pretends to read books now she makes up her own stories which actually is even more amazing! I love hearing her imagination at work.

When it comes to my daughter - when you get that worrying silence and you wonder off to see what mischief is occurring - 9 times out of 10 she is just sat with a pile of books. She goes into her own world and is completely engrossed.

Word of warning... never start a book with her and don't finish it . This will lead to lots of tears. Also don't expect her to move, answer you or hurry out the door while she is pretending to read. It is much easier to let her carry on and just lift her up and put her somewhere else. She won't even notice.

Hence this photo from our holiday to Loch Lommond, she had been happily 'reading' on the bench... so rather than attempt to remove the book - up and off she goes and everyone is happy!!

This is our entry into this weeks gallery , head over to the sticky fingers blog and check out the others.

Scout My Own LapPup Review

Meet Scout – the LapPup (yes a genius name indeed)! This is a great little toy with plenty of fun engaging features. We already love Scout as we have a funny, cuddly, singing version of him and so were pleased to try out his very own laptop (or LapPup).

My daughter just loves having the perfect opportunity to copy me and daddy and say "I'm just going on my computer", she has been in her element testing out the LapPup. Scout is really lovely for younger children who enjoy the lights, all the sounds, and the easy to push buttons. He is nice and lightweight and easy for little hands to grab onto. When you give him a shake he also makes a good rattling noise. As children get older they can learn from the shapes and the colours as they interact with the toy in different ways.

My daughter loved the songs he played and have fun dancing around to them. Our favourite feature however had to be that when you close the lid Scout plays peekaboo with you, every little ones favourite game! A lovely little toy in my opinion and great choice if you are stuck for present ideas for curious little ones.

We are passing him on to our 9 month old friend who found the lap-pup lots of fun and very engaging.

You'll be surprised my almost 3 year old gave it up when you watch the video and see how much fun she was having testing it out!

Our epic dinostraw

Thanks to Britmums we have received our very own set of Cravendale Epic Straws to play with... whoever came up with this promotion is a genius, they are so much fun!!

Our set came with instructions which Squiggle and I had lots of fun building together, she was very good at finding all the parts I needed and actually found it pretty easy to attach them together herself.

You can feel the concentration!

We were both very impressed with the finished result and she absolutely loved drinking her milk though them. It took a while to get to it but she thought it was so funny and we loved how the straws are transparent so you can see the milk making it's way round.

You can do it...

...did it!

We had two sets which meant once we had build the second construction we could have races. Since we gave up baby milk bottles at night there has been a sudden drop in the amount she drinks, this was a great way of getting the good stuff in her – she drank a lot!!

The next challenge was to come up with our own epic invention, so guess what Squiggle wanted to make... yep, a really tall diplodocus. Hmmmm was my first thought, but I don't think we did too badly. What do you think of our very own dino-straw??!!

Epic dinostraw

 

We have had a great time, I'd really recommend getting a set, if you want to find out more visit www.epicstraws.co.uk and happy slurping!

Tots 100 Home Decor Challenge

Tots 100 have teamed up with Ratedpeople.com to run an amazing competition where you can win £2,500 home makeover. There are 3 categories into which you can enter and I am very excitedly entering the home decor challenge!

The room in our house I would love to make over is our spare room / computer room / storage cupboard / washroom /... you get the idea!

The embarrassing 'now' shot

I am very excited to be expecting my second baby next year which means Squiggle will be vacating the little nursery and moving on up on the world to the bigger room. I have no idea what I am going to do with all the 'stuff' we are currently keeping in there, if only we had a garage!

My little girl loves her little room but as she gets bigger she may as well have the space so I want to make it an easy and fun transition for her. With all the changes that will be happening, the last thing I want her to feel is that the baby is turfing her out of her lovely room and into the boring one! She in fact lovingly calls it the messy room – oh dear.

I would love the chance to make this into a beautiful, fun space for her. If I could, this is what I would do - step into my dream room bubble...

If you would like to see my chosen products in more detail, visit my pinterest board here.

If you would like to see my dream image bigger, try opening this small image in a new window, sorry that's the limit of my blogger skills!

I'd love to hear what you think of my ideas, good luck if you have entered too, it's been so much fun planning this post!