Happy 2nd Birthday Calleigh Emma

Just a quick post to say Happy Birthday to my beautiful little girl! 

I will be posting more about her birthday at a later date but here are some photo's of her day so far. 

Birthday Preparation

Calleigh's Birthday is tomorrow!!! 

I have been waiting for this day for so long now! To see my little princesses face when she sees all her presents!

Today though, Calleigh was at Daycare and Mee-Maw, Daddy and I spent the day preparing everything. There is still a few more bits left to do after Calleigh has gone to bed. So we will be sneaking around later setting everything up. 

Here are some photo's from our day. Just don't tell beans. Shhhh

Making a start on the Kitchen

Nearly done

Building the table and chairs

Mee-Maw re-creating the movie "Up"

Finding the Right Card with Cardooo

It's always been important to me to find a beautiful and meaningful card for Birthdays/Christmases and Anniversaries etc. 

I have been struggling a bit this year to find that perfect card for Calleigh's second birthday. I've not really found any that I like and I think the choice out here is very slim. There doesn't seem to be any nice cards to a daughter of this age, they all seem to be for a older daughter and with age cards none of them are very good. 

Wouldn't it be great to be able to buy a card that lasts for more than just one day, that doesn't just sit on the fireplace but instead a card that they can play with, that teaches them vital literacy and numeracy skills!
Well with Cardooo you can!

Cardooo creates a range of different cards for Children that are more than just, well, a piece of card. You can find story cards, activity cards, doodle cards and puzzle cards as well as many more for a variety of different occasions. They are the only cards available that help kids with literacy, numeracy and imaginative development. 
Cardooo cards are for kids aged 3 and up so are definitely something I will be getting for Calleigh's next birthday. 

A Little Princess Card

In the video below you can see an example of what is in one of their cards.

The cards are available on their website from £3.50. Take a look now and browse their various categories.

With Christmas being just around the corner you can also find great Christmas cards on their site. All of which include the same great activities as the others and more.
I personally love the Christmas Story: The Night Before Christmas. It would make a great story time for Calleigh on Christmas Eve night.

Finding the right card is easy with Cardooo and you can be happy knowing that you are doing more than just giving a card, you are giving a child an exciting adventure or a interesting puzzle and a great way to improve those vital skills.

You can follow them on Twitter or Facebook

2 Year Update

Wow in just under 1 week Calleigh is going to be 2 years old! I can't believe it, it seems to have gone so fast. It feels like just last month we were celebrating her first birthday. 

This has been such a massive year for us, a lot of changes have happened and adjustments have had to be made. Calleigh has taken it all in her stride and has been a little star throughout it all. When I think back to how Calleigh was last year I am amazed by how much she has grown and all of the things that she can do now that we were not even thinking about last year.

Calleigh at her first birthday party

Her speech is coming on excellent and pretty soon I can see us having full on conversations with her. She went so quickly from just being able to say a few words of choice to being able to identify and say lots of different things such as coat, hat, bed, bowl, frog and house just to name a few. I would be here all day if I went through every word she can now say. She has also started stringing words together to tell us what she wants. There is still a long way to go but I'm certain that she will soon be talking up a storm. 

Calleigh is far more advanced in other things. I was amazed when she was able to put the wooden animal shapes in the right places a couple of months ago, but now she can do a jigsaw! It's amazing to watch her, she is so clever. She also has a few apps on Paul's Ipad which she is an expert at. These apps are made for children between the ages of 3-7 and she can pretty much do everything herself with no help needed. Through trial and error she just knows what to do, it's pretty amazing.

Her personality is really shining through now. She has such a good sense of humour and always has us in hysterics with all of her crazy ideas and antics.
She can also be very loving. She has a fondness for her teddy bears now and always gives them cuddles and kisses. On the other hand she is also becoming a bit of a drama queen. Her temper has definitely well developed and if she doesn't get her own way everyone will know about it and someone will pay! It's a bit hard to handle at times but we are learning new ways to deal with the tantrums.

At the moment we are busy planning a big update to her room to change it from a nursery into a little girl's room. She will be getting a pretty new toddler bed to replace the crib and some new furniture to store her toys/books/clothes and teddy bears. I can't wait to get started!

But for now we are just looking forward to her birthday and watching her open all her presents!

Yesterday.

Yesterday was a very interesting day. I was excited all day because my mum was due to land in St Louis that afternoon. She has come to visit us for four weeks until we all fly home together for Christmas. When the time came to finally leave for the airport we all jumped into my nice shiny new car (yes we finally got ourselves a little motor). It was all going great, Calleigh was quietly playing on my iPhone and we were well on time to pick up my mum, even if we were stuck in a little bit of traffic. 

And then the day took a horrific turn. All of a sudden Calleigh started projectile vomiting. It went all over herself, the car and the car seat. It was horrendous. At the time we were on the interstate so we had to somehow get off the interstate and find a Walgreens to get some stuff to clean her up. I was panicking wondering if she was okay as she just sat there quietly not saying anything, while all the time I was sticking my head out of the window of the car to escape the smell (why oh why did the last thing she ate have to be banana).  

Finally I got a "I okay Momma" as we pulled into a Schnucks supermarket. I ran inside and picked up some kitchen roll, baby wipes and a car air freshener and we got started on the task of cleaning her up. As we stood outside of the car wiping her down I saw glances from other people with a look on their face as if to say "Oh yeah, I've been there" and others that said "Rather you than me". 

Finally we got back on the road and Calleigh was back to her cheery self as if nothing had happened. At this point we were already half an hour late picking mum up. When we got to the airport Mum was overjoyed to see us as I quickly explained our lateness as we hurried back to the car.

Back at home the first job was to bath Calleigh. After that had been done Calleigh sat with mum whilst we spent the rest of the night washing clothes, car mats and the car seat. Which bring me to our next disaster of the day.
We thought washing the car seat would be relatively easy, we took it apart making sure to take pictures so we knew how to put it back together, pretty easy done. Off it went in the washing machine and then the tumble dryer to dry out before tomorrow as we had to take her to daycare in the morning.

The problem came when trying to put it back together. It was impossible, even the with pictures we struggled with which strap goes where and how it all fitted back together. So on the Internet I went, which is when I found out that it is apparently a big no no to wash the straps of the car seat in a washing machine as it can fray them and weaken them rendering them unsafe in the unlikely event of an accident. Oh poo! If only I had read that before.

An hour and a half later we finally managed to get it back together and we decided it would do for the time being but we are now on the hunt for a new car seat. The straps may be fine but I am not willing to take that risk when it comes to Calleigh's safety.

So I would like to ask anyone that knows of a good car seat or has any good reviews to please leave a link in the comments section. We are looking for a toddler seat with a great safety rating and easy to use and clean. 

Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Whilst out shopping the other day I came across some ready to bake Pillsbury Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies and I just had to try them. I've never tried ready to bake cookies before I have always made my own but these were gorgeous! And so easy to make. 

Just slip the cookie rounds out of the packet and onto a baking tray. Into the oven for 15 minutes and done! 

I will definitely be buying these again! 

Reindeer.

There are so many Christmas things starting out here now. We are really happy that the holiday season starts so early out here, because we are going home this Christmas, it's nice to be able to do some things before we leave. Last weekend we went to a small Holiday Open House and Calleigh got to meet a Reindeer. 

We are so looking forward to more Christmas things to come! 

Riding the Carousel

I can't get over how much this girl loves the Carousel! 

This was from our trip to the mall, we always give Calleigh a go on the Carousel because, well shopping is boring to a almost 2 year old! 

Below is the video I took- the big smile on the picture doesn't do it justice of how much fun she was having!

Outfit of the Month: November

Dress and Tights- Gymboree

What's cuter than a winter jumper dress? 

Little Campers Range at FieldCandy

Today I am excited to announce a new product launch from FieldCandy.

FieldCandy is a design-led brand of tents. They offer a range of  high quality, high performance tents in fun and exciting designs.
They have just released a new range called Little Campers designed specifically with children in mind. The Little Campers range come in 5 exciting designs including a spaceship and a fairground carousel all modelled on a Indian Teepee. Their aim is to spark imagination and bring a new element to playtime. 

All FieldCandy tents are made from high quality material and are UV fade resistant, fire resistant and 100% waterproof. They are easy to assemble and extremely durable, perfect for indoor or outdoor use.
These will be the perfect Christmas present for any boy or girl.

The Little Campers range will be making their debut appearance at the Spirit of Christmas Fair in London's Olympia, which is on now until the 10th November, where you can order them exclusively for delivery in time for Christmas. You will also be able to order them online from the FieldCandy website for the retail price of £195 each.

To keep up with the latest news connect with FieldCandy on Facebook and Twitter.

Birthday Presents

I think we have finally finished shopping for Calleigh's birthday. All her presents are wrapped and waiting for the big day on the 28th November. 

I am so unbelievably excited for her birthday it's unreal. We have got her so many good presents I just know she is going to love them! 

Because we will be in England for Christmas and be a bit restricted on what we can buy her (we don't want to spend a fortune shipping huge presents back) we have got most of the big presents for her birthday. 

I think she is going to be a very busy girl on her birthday! 

There is still so much to do before the day. I still have some decorations to make and the day before we will be putting together her kitchen and table and chairs. We decided not to wrap these as it would be a bit of a waste of paper because they are huge boxes, so we will be putting them out for her out of sight and taking her to them once she has unwrapped all her presents. 

Again so excited!

Calleigh's Birth Story

Yesterday I added a new page to the blog. 

Calleigh's Birth Story

With her second birthday coming up very soon I thought it was about time to share the story of, well, how she came to be. It's not your average birth story as I never experienced labour and knew weeks before the exact date that she would arrive. 

I can't believe that even though it was almost two years ago I still remember every minute and every feeling. 

I decided to do it as a page instead of a post because it ended up being quite long and I wanted it to be easily accessible. 

Grab a cup of tea and have a read. You can find it in the navigation menu or click the link in this post.

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Winter is well and truly here.
It has turned seriously cold here in St Louis, some days we have been waking up to a full frost and temperatures of -3! It may be cold but that also means that the holiday season will soon be here!

My favourite way to warm up on these cold winter days is with a peppermint hot chocolate from Starbucks. So when I saw that Betty Crocker did a hot chocolate cupcake mix I just had to buy it. With little marshmallows baked into the cake and a good splash of peppermint extract added to the batter it's the perfect treat on a miserable day.

If you want to make them you can just pick up a chocolate cupcake mixture and follow the directions for baking, but remember to add a few drops of peppermint extract. Top with white icing and sprinkle on some goodies! 

Funky Giraffe Bibs Review

Now Calleigh is older she isn't too keen on wearing a bib whilst she eats, which means a lot of washing for me as she still hasn't quite mastered eating without it going all over her. Whilst I agree that bibs do seem a little babyish for her now I still wish she would wear one to keep her clothes clean. So when I was contacted by Funky Giraffe Bibs I was excited to try out their bandanna bibs.
The bandanna bib is a different take on the usual square bibs that are available and something that can be worn by babies as well as toddlers to keep them clean at mealtime. They are really cool looking and don't make Calleigh look like a baby while she is eating. They just look like a really cool fashion accessory.

I got to choose a few designs from their extensive range of bandanna bibs and I decided on a music note bib, a birthday girl bib (for her up coming birthday) and a Christmas tree bib (ready for the season). They all look really great and are made with soft high quality material.

I love the designs we received and there are plenty more to choose from on their website. Calleigh was happy with the designs too and spent more time looking at her new bib than actually eating her dinner. It did the trick and at the end of dinner I was happy to see clean clothes.
Calleigh didn't want to take the bib off so spent the rest of the afternoon walking around in it, she looked super cool!

It's not just bibs you can find on their website either.
Funky Giraffe Bibs also offer baby and toddler fashion from head to toe. You can find T-shirts, dresses, vests and socks all made from the finest material and at affordable prices. You won't find their designs anywhere else so go to their website for the latest styles and trends.

I was really impressed with the bibs and can't wait for her birthday and Christmas so she wear the other two.

Connect with them on Facebook and Twitter to keep up to date with the latest news and special offers.
Funky Giraffe Baby on Facebook
Funky Giraffe Bibs on Twitter

I received these bibs from the company for the purpose of this review but all thoughts are my own and I was not compensated in any other way for this review.