Win a Selection of Thomas J. Fudges Savoury Biscuits!

In 1916, Thomas J. Fudge opened a bakery in Dorset. Fast forward 90 years, and that bakery is still going strong. They stock a wide variety of both sweet and savoury biscuits and they've very kindly offered three of my readers the chance to win a selection of savoury biscuits worth around £25!

Image for illustration purposes only. Actual prize contents may vary.

All you need to do to be in with a chance to win is fill in the Rafflecopter widget below. Competition closes on 11th Dec. Good luck!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

(Disclaimer: I was not financially compensated for hosting this giveaway. I did however, receive a sample of Thomas J Fudges biscuits as a thank you.)

Toddler Tantrums

C is now 14 months old and has already started throwing tantrums. Is this not what they mean by "terrible twos"? Have they come early? Or is "terrible twos" a whole lot worse than just tantrum throwing?

C has started throwing tantrums over literally anything. He is sick at the moment so part of me hopes it linked with that. He drops down onto his knees, bounces up and down whilst doing a mixture of screaming and crying and throws his head back. This worries me the most because he just doesn't care if he bangs his head or not. I want to target the tantrums and cut them out by not giving him any attention when he throws one but I always end up going over to him and holding him upright because I don't want him falling backwards and hurting himself. 

I gave him calpol and he wanted more = tantrum. 

I took him out of the bath = tantrum. 

I moved away from something he shouldn't be touching = tantrum. 

His dinner wasn't cool enough to eat yet = tantrum. 

I think you get the picture! The past 4 days have been so stressful with them. 

Are you dealing with toddler tantrums? 

How do you cope?! I need ideas!

Dream Toys 2013 - Monopoly Empire Review

With Christmas approaching, I'm sure your kids all have massive lists for Santa and you want to make sure that you get as much of what they want as possible and leave behind the stuff that will be a novelty on the day, but will get thrown to the bottom of the toy box never to be seen again. 

Just in case you haven't seen the list you can view the Dream Toys 2013 here at Argos.

As I am so lovely to my dear readers, I have been reviewing one of these fab toys - Monopoly Empire. 

I am a huge fan of Monopoly as it is so I was excited to see how this game would differ to the original. The aim of Monopoly Empire is to build your tower first. The first player to the top wins!

I took out all of the pieces and noticed that we had a few new additions as well as some omissions. Towers, brand tokens and Empire cards (Get Out of Jail Free, Just Say No - meaning you can play it when another player has something against you) are all new. We still have Chance cards and tokens (instead of houses) whenever you own a full colour set. The money only comes in 500k, 100k and 50k.

The brand tokens are all different sizes. The more expensive the brand, the bigger the token and therefore the quicker it will be for you to reach the top of the tower. 

Just like the original Monopoly game, you have a banker and each player gets 1000k as well as 2 Empire cards at the beginning of the game which you can play at any time. The towers have numbers on them so when you start placing tokens on them you will see a number above it. When you pass Go, instead of getting 200k, you get whatever number is displayed on your tower. If you have no brands, you get 50k. 

Another change in this game is the Free Parking space. In Monopoly Empire, you can either land on Free Parking and do nothing or pay the bank 100k to move to any space on the board. 

When you land on a brand that another player owns, instead of owing them the price of the brand, you need to pay them the number that is displayed on their tower. 

The die are a little different too. One of them has a symbol of two hands shaking. If you roll and it lands on that, you have the option to swap the top brand on your tower for the top brand of another players or you can just play on as normal with the number shown on the other dice. 

When we play the original Monopoly, the game normally lasts for hours and we end up getting bored. We played this game twice and the longest game only lasted around 45-60 minutes. It is definitely becoming one of my favourite board games and it WILL be out at Christmas for everyone to play. My sister even woke up the next morning wanting to play again!

You can purchase your own Monopoly Empire for a sale price of only £13.49 here.

(Disclaimer: This post is in association with Argos.)

Truprint

If there's anything I love more than personalised items, it's something that I can get my own photographs printed onto. 

Truprint is my idea of heaven. They have been up and running for 30 years and only employ the highest trained staff and the latest technology to ensure great prints and great service. 

Truprint offer a wide range of products from your regular photographs to canvases, coasters, calendars and many, many more!

I was lucky enough to receive a few items from Truprint's range of fantastic products. 

Canvas print

Isn't this gorgeous? This print is 12"x12" and is a price of £29.99. The quality is absolutely fantastic and it looks great hung up on the wall. As you can see, my photograph is placed on the front. It wasn't a brilliant quality photo so I decided not to stretch it as I didn't want it pixelated. I went for a black background and I think it works really well!

Photo book

This photobook comes with 20 pages of photographs and measures 11"x8". I love the hardback cover (you can choose your own colour too!). The process of creating the books makes it really easy to insert your backgrounds onto each page or you can automatically fill them. You can even add text to the bottom of each photo. The hardback cover and glossy pages definitely make it worth the amazing £19.99 price tag.

Coasters

These coasters are amazing! They are like nothing I've ever seen before. They are shiny and glossy and are printed on so I don't have to worry about the picture peeling off. They're thick too and give a lovely personalised touch to your dining room. Would you believe that they are only £9.99 for 6!?

Note cards

These are my favourite! From New Baby to Wedding, there are so many different occasions and designs to choose from. With Christmas approaching I had to opt for the Christmas cards. Again, they have a glossy cover and you are giving a blank page inside to write whatever message you want. They are available in a pack of 12 (with envelopes included) for £11.99.

Photo calendar

I'm always forgetting birthdays and appointments and I'm not a fan of the plain calendars that you can buy in the shops. I love the idea of having my own photos on my calendar. The boxes for each day and month are big enough to fill in whatever appointment that you need to remember. As with the photobook, you are easily able to put coloured backgrounds behind each photo. This 12 month calendar measures 11"x8.5" and is available at a price of £14.99.

Inserting your photographs into any of these products is so easy. There is an online editor and you are able to choose whether to upload your photos from your computer or you can import them from Facebook or Flickr.

I would definitely recommend Truprint and I know for sure that I'll be purchasing from them again in the future. The quality of all the products are fantastic.

You can find out more about Truprint at their website, Facebook and Twitter.

(Disclaimer: I received these items free of charge in exchange for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)

I'm a Shoplet Blogger!

The best thing about starting a new school year, for me, was buying stationery. I used to love choosing nice pens and pretty notebooks - I still do now! Imagine how thrilled I was to be chosen as part of Shoplet's UK Blogger network. 

Shoplet.com was originally founded in 1994 and are an American based company. Today, Shoplet in the number one e-retailer of office stationery and supplies, carrying a selection of over 400,000 business products, 20,000 of which are eco-friendly.

In June of this year, they branched out to the UK with shoplet.co.uk which is where I come in. As part of their Product Reviewer Program, I'm here to pass the word on about this fantastic company.

To ease me in, I received a welcome pack. I was so excited to see what was inside.

I received:

• 43g Pritt Stick - this is great as I love doing arts and crafts with C so will come in very handy. I will be doing a lot of Christmas crafts so I will definitely need it!
• Nescafe Gold Blend sachet - Coffee is not to my taste so I didn't use this - my mum enjoyed it though!
• 3pk Remarkable pencils - I LOVE these. It's very noticeable that these pencils are made from recycled materials and they're bright and colourful too!
• Sample of screen cleaning wipes - I own a laptop, iPad mini and iPhone and I will always be using one of them. I'm naughty and never clean my screens but this worked so well! 
• 5pk paper clips - These aren't like your regular boring metal paperclips. They are so colourful and make your work look fun!
• Shoplet catalogue - I had a good browse through this and wanted to buy almost everything in it!
• Address Labels - I have a eBay account so these labels come in very handy when selling an item. Usually I write out the buyers address on a A4 sheet of paper and cellotape it to my package. These labels cut down the time it takes to get an item ready for sending.
• Folder - my partner has claimed this. He's currently doing a course in biomedical and biological science so this is great for keeping his notes together.
• Notebook & pen - again, something that Chris has claimed for his course. Definitely coming in useful!
• Information leaflets 

As well as what I have received, Shoplet also offer A4 paper, cleaning supplies and even discount office furniture!

I really loved my welcome pack and I'm so excited to bring you more Shoplet news!

C at 14 Months

Today, C has hit the 14 month mark and he suddenly has tons of personality and is becoming a little bloke! 

This month, we had lunch out at a cafe. He ate what he wanted then I noticed he was playing with his food and began stacking the chips. I was so impressed and proud of him. He now tries to stack everything so we've bought him a wooden set of stacking fish and wooden blocks for Christmas. 

C had his first McDonalds this month! Now, I absolutely hate McDonalds. The most disgusting food in the world in my opinion but we were out with my mum and 11 year old sister, Eva. Eva wanted to go McDonalds and nothing else would do so we reluctantly went. I made the best of it and only got him chicken nuggets and a fruit bag. He loved it!

He gives kisses. He did this in the past but only if we asked for them. Now, he leans in and opens out his mouth of his own accord. His favourite person to kiss seems to be Chris's mum!

One evening Chris and I were chatting in the living room whilst C cruised the furniture. One of us said something and the both of us were in fits of laughter. C, not wanting to feel left out, decided to do a fake laugh along with us. It was hilarious and so obvious that it was fake. He does it every time he hears someone laugh now. 

C is still obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. He loves watching it everyday and it feels like the DVDs are never off. I wanted to introduce something new though so that he didn't get bored. I saw that Netflix had a few seasons of Handy Manny on it so I gave those a whirl. It is a huge hit! 

One morning, Chris was at work and I let C down on the floor like a usually do. I saw him crawl towards the bottom of the stairs for the first time. I didn't say anything, just got up and followed him. He began to climb. He got all the way to the top (with me behind him, of course)! I definitely think it's time to get a stairgate. 

He has developed a love for shape sorters. We got him a shape sorter ball for his birthday but he wasn't too sure of what to do with it. Now though, he's started putting things inside other things. It makes me so happy to watch his development. 

Chris is his favourite person. He absolutely loves his daddy. Chris is the type of person who will make an absolute fool of himself to make C laugh. He always has him in fits of giggles and I really think that C believes that daddy is only there to laugh at!

My favourite thing is that he's now chattering. He's really found his voice and is always talking away to himself. We have taught him how to say "ta-ta" when he gets handed something and when he hands something to us. 

My boy is getting big!

GoodHeartGifts Personalised Santa Sack Review

Regular readers of my blog will know that I absolutely adore personalised items. If you came into my house you'd probably think I was afraid of forgetting C's name with the amount that we have!

When GoodHeartGifts came along and asked if I'd like to review an item from their range, I jumped at the chance.

GoodHeartGifts is a young company based in Manchester. They specialise in providing personalised gifts that you can give to your loved ones, making that special day truly memorable. What I didn't know was that when you buy, you are helping a charity. GoodHeartGifts give 10% of all their profits to nominated charities.

I scoured the website for a loooong time and with Christmas coming up, I chose the Jolly Personalised Santa Sack.

When ordering you are able to submit the name that you would like on the sack (up to 12 characters). I was really excited to receive mine as it looked amazing on the website.

A few days later, I received a little square box in the post with a GoodHeartGifts sticker on it. When I opened it, I wasn't disappointed! It really does look amazing.

The stitching is fantastic for such a low price (£14.95). The sack measures 70cm x 50cm so I was able to fit most of C's Christmas presents inside. C is only 14 months so doesn't really understand the concept of Christmas and Santa Claus but older kids, I think, would love seeing Santa's face with the words "Santa's Coming" hung up ready for his arrival.

You can find out more about GoodHeartGifts at their website, Facebook and Twitter.

(Disclaimer: I received this item free of charge in exchange for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)

World Prematurity Day - 17th November 2013

Today is World Prematurity Day! 

When I was pregnant with C, I was only 20. I was so naive and assumed that everything would be great. I'd have a smooth pregnancy and sure, most people go overdue with their first baby, right? Wrong. 

At 33 weeks, I lost my vision. I ignored it and went to bed but the next morning before Chris left for work, he urged me to phone the maternity department at the hospital. I almost didn't because I was feeling better but I knew he'd moan. I am so glad I did. And I am so thankful for Chris making me do it. If I hadn't, C and I might not have been here today. 

At 33 weeks pregnant awaiting my results

The nurse at the maternity department asked me to go in for a check up, and then I found out that it was pre-eclampsia. They had found high amounts of protein in my urine and as it was so severe, I was rushed for an emergency Caesarean section. It saved both of our lives. 

C was born at 33 weeks weighing a fantastic 4lbs 10.5oz. He had slight jaundice and needed help with his breathing so he was taken straight to NICU. I didn't even get to hold him. We were lucky. He went from strength to strength and never took a step backwards. We was discharged from hospital at 17 days old. He is now a happy and healthy 13 month old with no developmental problems. 

C at 2 days old

C at 3 days old

15 million babies worldwide are born too soon with 60,000 of them being in the UK. The charity Bliss are teaming up with other organisations across the globe to help raise awareness. They are asking everyone around the world to Give a Hug. Many parents of premature babies can't hug their babies for days or weeks (I first hugged C when he was 9 days old) so by giving a hug you'll be helping them raise awareness of issues faced by premature babies and their families. 

Getting to hold C for the first time at 9 days old

Take photos of you, your friends, family and little ones giving a hug and share them with Bliss on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or you can email them to [email protected]. 

The international colour for World Prematurity Day is purple, so you could light a purple candle or dress in purple to show your support, and share with everyone to help spread the word.

You can donate to Bliss's World Prematurity Day appeal here.

I've done my part, have you?

Arthouse Review

Arthouse are one of the country's leading suppliers of home decoration products such as wallcoverings, wall art, screens, photo frames and coving & tiles. 

For over a decade they have been designing trend led products for the interiors market. I love finding new items to make my house feel more homely and I received a gorgeous Metro Framed Print to review. 

We live in a rented property so therefore are unable to decorate the house how we want it. Our walls are cream so we try our best to make it look homely.  

I've always wanted my living room to be black, red and cream so as soon as I saw the Metro Print I knew it would fit right in. I did spend ages scouring the website though. They have a really fantastic range of products. I've already got my eye on a few other pieces that I want to buy! 

The print was packaged really well with cardboard coverings on each corner to prevent damage. It measures 25cm tall with a width of 70cm. It is a real eye-catcher and fills the bare walls in my home beautifully.

I love the black and white image with a splash of red. It really makes it pop. Despite obviously having a glass covering over the print, it is really quite light so I have no worries about it falling down. It also comes with two wall hooks so you can pop it up on the wall securely.

This print can be purchased for a fantastic price of £35.

You can find out more about Arthouse at their website, Facebook and Twitter.

(Disclaimer: I received this item free of charge in exchange for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.)

New Limited Edition Christmas gNappies Launch TODAY

gNappies is committed to creating a world where conventional nappies no longer exist. In 2005 gNappies introduced the disposable nappy inserts that can be composted. The inserts tuck inside gorgeous looking, thoughtfully-designed nappy covers that have helped make gNappies one of the most respected baby brands on the market.

With Christmas edging closer and close gNappies have marked the occasion by bringing out a new gJingle Christmas cloth nappy!

The Limited Edition gJingle perfectly captures the joy of the season with this vibrant red and silver foil design. Collect this design for babies first Christmas to remember the magical day.

The gNappies autumn collection is available on gNappies.com , Ocado.com and selected retailers across Europe and North America. They range in price from £14.95 for solid gPants.

About gNappies:

gNappies is out to eradicate conventional disposable nappies from the planet. Over 20 billion are thrown away annually, making them one of the largest contributors to landfills. There is no evidence that conventional disposable nappies ever biodegrade. gNappies disposable inserts break down in a home compost (wet ones only) within 3 months and produce good compost.

(Disclaimer: This is a press release for gNappies. I did not receive financial reward for posting this release. I did, however, receive a gPant to say thank you.)

The First Bump

Now that C is crawling (really fast, might I add), cruising furniture and occasionally letting go and walking on his own, he does hurt himself sometimes.

He is into everything and I constantly find myself telling him to be careful or saying "ah ah" when he touches something that he shouldn't be touching. 

The first time he bumped his head was when he was first learning to crawl. He cried a little and I felt SO guilty. I gave him a cuddle to make him feel better and all was okay. Over time, he would bump his head on more things and my guilt started to go down each time. This was what happened. Kids do bump their heads. It's a fact. His legs are covered in bruises from all the crawling that I think if I had him out in shorts people would call Social Services! 

Recently, his new favourite activity is standing at the TV stand and lifting his DVDs up on the table then back down on the floor. Yesterday, he dropped the DVD that he was playing with and bent down to pick it up. That's when I heard an almighty thud and C's bum hit the ground. Then the tears started. I'd never seen him cry like that before. My heart broke. I scooped him up and immediately noticed that his forehead was red. I tried to cuddle him but he kept pushing me away and screaming. That guilt came back. I can't believe he'd hurt himself so badly in my care. 

After a few minutes, he calmed down, gave me a hug and went off to play with his toys. The redness went down but he's left with a lovely purple mark on his forehead. 

Kids, eh!?