Back to school shoes with Jake Shoes

The summer holidays has been an amazing time. It has been lovely spending quality time with both of the kids, especially with the youngest set to start school part time in the nursery in a few days time. In spite of the odd argument between the two and juggling keeping them entertained without breaking the bank - yay for free/cheap days out to the park, beach and woods! - it has been a wonderful time especially with a holiday away which was fantastic.

Like most other parents across the country with school aged children I have also had the mighty task of dealing with back to school shopping. This year it has been double the work as we have had to kit out both kids ready for school. Apart from the school logo clothing that we have to buy from the school I bought the rest of their school uniforms at the beginning of August before we went on holiday. Trust me I breathed a sigh of relief when it was done as back to school shopping can be a nightmare.

Designer kids clothing

As the boys grow older I have seen their own special traits and characteristics flourish. Their unique characters shine through and they are develop strong opinions about their likes and dislikes. One area of life where I have really noticed them voicing their likes and dislikes is clothing.

River Island childrenswear collection

The other day I sent a photograph of the boys on one of our adventures to my mum. Even though it has only been a few weeks since she has seen them in the flesh she was shocked at how grown up they both look.

Both of them are changing and growing up way too fast. Milestones reached and achieved, clothes grown out of as they get bigger and stronger, new achievements are mastered and their characters develop.

Organising a christening

There are many reasons why a parent might decide to have a christening for their child. Perhaps they are christian and want their child to be raised as a christian too. Maybe they find the notion of being part of the christian community appealing and want to welcome Christianity and the Church into their family’s life. Or the motivation to have a christening for their child is not focused on faith rather it is because they want their child to be blessed to celebrate and show thanks for their safe arrival into the world.

Noisy Sauce - Officially Awesome kids clothing!

Like most kids Bug loves clothing and accessories that feature his favourite characters. Thankfully I have found a great site that can satisfy his love of character clothing and accessories – Noisy Sauce!

Noisy Sauce are an online website that are dedicated to providing high quality, officially licensed kids clothing and accessories that feature favourite characters from TV, films, gaming, comic books and music.

Rockin' Baby roar-some kids clothing!

On Friday the 25th March London Zoo will be opening to the public its brand new Lion enclosure Land of the Lions which was unveiled by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on Thursday the 17th March.

Perfect for little ones who want to celebrate Land of the Lions, Rockin' Baby have a roar-some new lion-themed collection of kids clothing.

The award-winning kids clothing company's fun and fabulous range 'Out of Africa' features bright and bold lion-print t-shirts and onesies.

Rockin’ Baby Child To Child Charity.

I’ve written before about Rockin’ Baby’s amazing charity initiative Child To Child where for every item of Rockin’ Baby clothing purchased the company donates an item of clothing from their colourful Hero collection to children from impoverished backgrounds in Uganda. As I think the concept is amazing and I admire Rockin’ Baby even more for their fabulous charity initiative I was delighted to hear news about them making a clothing drop of the donated clothes to children in need.

World’s First Child To Child Kidswear Charity makes inaugural clothing drop with Rockin’ Baby donating their first 2000 items of clothing from their Hero collection of clothes to underprivileged and disadvantaged children in Uganda.

As part of their Child To Child Mission in parternship with ChildFund International, Rockin’ Baby have handed out 2000 brand new items of childrenswear, including brightly coloured and comfortable shorts and t-shirts, to children in villages across Kampala.

Thanks to the sales of their first childrenswear collection, which launched in Autumn/Winter 2015 Rockin’ Baby are able to help make a big difference to the lives of children across the world, starting by helping desperate children in Uganda, by providing them with much needed clothing.

Rockin' Christmas kids clothes.

Every Christmas day since I was a young child after a morning spent opening Christmas presents and excitedly playing with the new toys and goodies (boxes too I’m sure) we would get dressed up in smart, fancy clothes for the rest of the day which we would enjoy with family as we tucked into the eagerly anticipated delicious Christmas dinner.

As I have fond memories of the Christmases of my childhood, now that I am a parent I am introducing family traditions from my childhood into my own little family. Looking at photographs from past Christmases from when I was a child I love that we used to dress up in our best clothes, often new clothes we had been gifted that day.

Bringing the tradition of dressing in lovely clothes for Christmas day after a morning of wearing PJ’s from our Christmas eve box as we open the presents under the tree and in our stockings from Santa, I like to get Bug, and now Jelly Bean too, a lovely new outfit.

As we adore our Rockin' Baby ring sling and love our Rockin’ Baby’s kidswear clothing, being very impressed with the quality and design, having an outfit from Rockin’ Baby for Bug and Jelly Bean as their Christmas day outfits seemed to be a rockingly good idea.

Rockin' kids clothing - Rockin' Baby kidswear collection.

Recently we were fortunate to be able to try out a Rockin’ Baby Ring Sling. As Jelly Bean and I enjoyed the benefits of babywearing in the beautiful Rose of My Heart Reversible Ring Sling which we fell in love with thanks to the lovely design and high quality I was delighted to see that Rockin’ Baby have branched out from rockin’ babywearing ring slings and pouches to a rockin’ kidswear collection.

The Rockin’Baby kidswear collection is a lovely assortment of clothing from newborn to aged 10.

As I love and appreciate Rockin’ Baby’s charity initiative ‘Mother to Mother’ where for every sling purchased they give a Hero sling to a Haitian mother in need, I love that they have incorporated the ‘giving to those in need’ concept to their kidswear range.

The new giving charity initiative for the kidswear collection is called ‘Child to Child’.

If you buy an item from the Rockin’ Baby kidswear collection they give an item from their bright, colourful and high quality Hero clothing collection to a child in desperate need. The Hero clothing collection consists of rompers, onesies, t-shirts, dresses, pants, shorts and leggings, all of which will also be available for sale.

Hero clothing

Mad about Minions - #OneInAMinion

Like many households across the country, ours is inhabited by a little person (plus a couple of big kid adults) who is mad about Minions. Ever since he first saw the adorable and funny yellow Minions in the Despicable Me films, Bug has loved Minions.

In fact Bug’s first ever trip to the cinema was to watch the latest installment of Minions madness – Minions.

Adventures on Autumn days,

We love being in the great outdoors. Throughout the year we love any excuse to get outside to explore and play.

To me ever season has its own special charm. The beauty of each season is a wonder to experience and we love nothing more than having adventures in the great outdoors as we bask in the beauty and magic that each season has to offer.

 At the moment we are relishing Autumn. We are enjoying Autumn days spent having adventures in the crisp Autumn air. We love kicking crisp golden brown leaves and hearing the crunch of leaves underfoot as we enjoy long walks, escapades at the local castle ruins and hours spent playing at the park.

During Autumn as we edge ever closer to Winter we dig out our wellies and waterproofs for wet Autumn days for lots of fun puddle jumping and walks in the rain and our woolly jumpers for the dry, yet chilly other Autumn days when we enjoy our adventures in the crisp, fresh Autumn air.

For our recent adventure in the great outdoors when we enjoyed the beauty that Autumn has to offer on a lovely dry Autumn day when the sun was shining beautifully and the air was fresh and crisp, Bug wore a new outfit courtesy of House of Fraser.

New clothes for Bug at bargain prices.

Being a family on a tight budget and watching our spending with a #SpendingDiary I am always on lookout for discounts and offers on products we need to help us save money.

One of the benefits of living in a town is that I can snap up bargains and browse the sales a lot easier than when we were living in the sticks, miles away from the shops.

As Bug is growing fast there is always the need to update his wardrobe which can be very costly.

Needing to get him some new clothes yet having limited funds I was delighted to see some cute t-shirts in Bug's size on sale at Tesco the other day.

Excel Clothing Summer Wish List.

As I love entering competitions and love creating wish lists, dreaming of what I would love to buy if I had plenty of money, I could not resist entering Excel Clothing’s exclusive blogger competition where one lucky person will win a whopping £500 to spend at Excel Clothing.

To enter the competition I had to create an Excel Clothing wish list of my favourite items of clothing for summer.

Saving money on clothes for our growing lad.

Along with the majority of people and family’s across the country we struggle financially.  As our family budget is tight we have to carefully juggle our finances and watch where and on what we spend our limited money on.

We try to ease our tight budget by monitoring our finances and try to save money in numerous ways, such as being economical with our bills by shopping around for the best deal and watching our electric consumption, using coupons and making use of relevant deals on shopping as well as watching our spending on food shopping and cooking homemade, inexpensive meals that give us the best value for our money.

Whilst we monitor our spending, try to save money whenever possible and do not splurge on luxuries with an ever-growing little lad the expensive of clothing him is one we cannot ignore.  To keep our spending on clothing and footwear for Bug from spiralling out of controlling so that it does not take a huge chunk out of our family finances we try to save money where we can when buying clothes and footwear for our growing lad.