Kindle Unlimited Recommendations
I was lucky enough to receive a subscription to Kindle Unlimited as a Christmas present last year. Whilst on the face of it this is… Read More »Kindle Unlimited Recommendations
Laura Crichton
Parenting: Scheduling children’s activities
A question I often ponder is how much I should schedule Katie’s life -or indeed whether she is over scheduled! As I cajole her to get ready for one activity or another, I often wonder why I bother when she would rather stay home and watch CBeebies.
Last summer, as I embarked on maternity leave with Thomas, I realised aside from having a new brother, Katie’s biggest adjustment would be not having full time nursery care. As Mike and I work full-time, Katie had been in nursery five days a week, often from 8am until 5pm. Aside from having a whole heap of children to play with, this also meant that she was used to a lot of organised activity.
Super-Mum I am not. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to match the speed at which Katie had moved from activity to activity, nor did I have the ability to provide the same range. Aside from anything else – I don’t have soft play in my house!
But I also was faced with a big question. Is this much scheduled activity actually a good thing? It struck me that there’s some key things to consider:Read More »Parenting: Scheduling children’s activities
Style: Boy Leggings
If asked to describe a typical baby boy’s wardrobe I’m not sure leggings would feature that highly. Although adult males obviously wear similar styles in the form of tight fitting jeans or more obviously, running tights, when it comes to children’s wear they seem to firmly in the ‘girl’ camp.
I generally favour gender neutral clothing but I don’t think it would’ve occurred to me to dress a boy in leggings. Probably because I wouldn’t have considered them neutral but rather more feminine – that is until I received an awesome pair of Blade & Rose leggings from my friend Megan!
I really enjoy dressing Thomas and have a number of items in his wardrobe that I love but these are hands down my new favourite. Today I give you my top three reasons for dressing your baby – boy or girl – in Blade & Rose leggings:
Read More »Style: Boy Leggings
Food: Gâteau au yaourt
It’s been a while since The Great British Bake Off has brought weekly joy to my life and of course, baking inspiration. The arrival of January, in which so many want to watch their weight, has brought my motivation to make cake to a low point. Gâteau au yaourt doesn’t count in my mind as it contains yoghurt which is obviously healthy!
The more astute among you would have noticed from last week’s ‘day in the life of’ post that I’m currently reading ‘French kids don’t throw food.’ Although I’ve read this before, as I approach weaning with Thomas, I’m keen to remind myself of different cultures and the way they do things. This book, written by Pamela Druckerman (an American) , is an account of living in Paris and the many differences she encountered in how people raise their children. It’s a good read and a nice reminder that there is not one ‘right’ way and that’s it’s good to keep an open mind.
In one chapter she noticed at a friend’s house that her small daughter was making cake by herself. Whilst the age wasn’t specified, I thought it would be nice to see how Ben and Katie would get on with her suggested recipe for – Gâteau au yaourt aka yoghurt cake.
Aside from being something of an experiment with the kids, I also wanted to make it dairy free so decided to sub in coconut milk yoghurt for full-fat dairy yoghurt. I have no idea if this was the cause of things not going quite to plan:Read More »Food: Gâteau au yaourt
Design: Photo Inspiration
Back in 2009, I embarked upon a ‘365’ challenge in which I took one photograph every day for a year. I started the year out with a simple bridge camera and ended up with a DSLR. I learnt an awful lot about discipline, acquired plenty of new skills and best all, made some wonderful friends.
Edinburgh had some awesome meet-up groups back then, with loads of people willing to teach and share their techniques. I found that it’s easy to learn one skill – and to keep doing that one thing very well can be tempting – but to really stretch yourself, you need to try new things or techniques.
For that reason I really enjoy reading about other photographers and looking at how they’ve produced their work. I can’t say I’ve ever been close to achieving their standard (obviously!) but I’ve really enjoyed trying to mimic their style or actually – just being inspired by them.Read More »Design: Photo Inspiration
The Philosophy Series: The Seneca addition
This time of year is naturally all about resolutions. Whether your aim is to lose weight, read more, laugh more, or even continue your life without any new goals, I believe that Seneca can give pause for thought.
Seneca was a Roman Philosopher in the 1st century, who identified anger as a serious problem in the Roman empire and aimed to try to remedy this issue. He had good reason, given he worked for the notoriously mental emperor Nero. That said, anger can be an issue for many people on different levels today too. Sometimes it may be as mild as a simple irritation or perhaps a resentment over something – either way, it’s rarely a positive feeling. Seneca offered a rather simple solution to dealing with it…
Design: #2015bestnine reflection
Like many others the world over the end of the year brings a natural time of reflection – What has the last year brought? What do we want from the year ahead?
Much of my 2015 has blurred into endless months of work and exhaustion – obviously completely surpassed by the joy that Thomas has brought into our lives. I hope that when I think back to the time in years to come, my abiding memories won’t be relating to anything other than my family and specifically, the kids. Whilst they may be noisy, excitable, at times uncontrollable – I’m in not hurry to quash their spirit!Read More »Design: #2015bestnine reflection
Conversations with Katie (aged 3)
I am feeling incredibly blessed to be having time away from work, not only to look after Thomas but to be able to see Katie grow too. I’m very conscious that both of the kids will have to be in full-time childcare and that I will miss so much. I’m just trying to soak up every minute that I can and not be too sad at what I will be missing in the future.
Katie is a little chatterbox and I love the snippets that she comes out with. I often have no idea where her imagination has picked them up from but there’s certainly variety. Here are a few of my favourites from the past few weeks that I don’t want to forget:Read More »Conversations with Katie (aged 3)
The Philosophy Series: Epicurus edition
Epicurus was a 3rd century Greek Philosopher who is interesting purely because of the way that his ideas have pervaded philosophy throughout the ages. Only small fragments of his writings have made it through the channel of history, yet we know quite a lot about his life and his ideas because of his influence on others.
Epicurus is our philosopher for Christmas because he spent much of his life considering what it meant to be happy. He believed that we should not feel bad about our own happiness and indeed that we should chase the things that give us pleasure. Whilst that may conjure ideas of great feasts, flowing gin and tonic and piles of new books – he actually followed a very simple life, supping on water, bread, and a few olives.Read More »The Philosophy Series: Epicurus edition
I. J. Mellis Cheese
I have a confession. I have never eaten turkey for Christmas dinner… and I hope I never have to.
As my Dad couldn’t eat white meat, we never had a traditional Christmas dinner growing up. After trying turkey as an adult – I can’t really understand why people would!
Our Christmas meal evolved over a number of years and I now mimic a version of it with my own family (who certainly aren’t complaining!).Read More »I. J. Mellis Cheese