Cut it Out Wall Stickers Review and Giveaway

At the moment we are in the process of giving Calleigh's room a little update. She is no longer a baby any more and I think the time has come to give her her own little space. Obviously as we are renting at the moment we have had to look a little outside the box when it comes to decorating the room to make it "hers". 

So when I was contacted by Cut it Out Wall Stickers and asked if I would like to review one of their lovely wall stickers I jumped at the chance. Cut it Out Wall stickers create beautiful and personalised Wall Stickers that can add that special touch to a room. 

They have a lovely and extensive range from stickers for a girl or boys room to stickers to spice up your kitchen and living spaces, all at very reasonable prices. My personal favourites are the inspirational quote stickers. 

The sticker I chose for Calleigh's room was the Personalised Once Upon A Time sticker.

I was so happy when the sticker arrived and couldn't wait to get it on the wall. I went straight to their website and their How To Guide so I knew exactly how to put it up. I must admit it wasn't as easy as the video made out, in fact it actually took a really long time and it was quite fiddly, you can see in the picture below where I struggled and screwed the "e" up. Luckily, It's not too noticeable.
So one thing I would say when you go to apply your wall sticker, make sure you have more than one person!

The end result though was completely worth it. I love the wall sticker, it really adds a personal touch to Calleigh's room! I am really looking forward to buying all her new furniture and seeing her room transform.

And now you can win your choice of wall sticker from Cut It Out Wall Stickers. Just enter the giveaway using the Rafflecopter form below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


*This giveaway is open worldwide. You must complete the entries to be entered for a chance to win, all entries will be verified before a winner is chosen. The giveaway runs for 2 weeks from 17th Jan to 31st Jan. I am not personally responsible for the delivery of the prize, I will pass on the winner's email to arrange delivery* 

England.. Part One

We really enjoyed being back in England. Spending so much time with our families was great and Calleigh loved all the attention! 

When we first landed it was a bit of a mad rush to go and see everybody, we were a bit jet lagged but wanted to at least show our faces to people we hadn't seen in 9 months. Calleigh settled well back in Mee-Maws house and loved staying there. I think that was mainly to do with Kitty. She loved that cat, although I'm pretty sure the feeling wasn't mutual. Whilst Calleigh would spend all day running around after her, shouting kitty, pulling at her, throwing things at her and emptying a whole packet of treats into her bowl, the cat spent her days running away, hiding, hissing and getting fat eating far too many treats. When Calleigh was asleep however the relationship changed and kitty would sit herself near to Calleigh and take a little nap herself. It was really great to see! 

Sneaking up on Kitty

Both having a nap together

Trying to get a sneaky stroke

Kitty needed a check up

We went out for lots of meals and Calleigh spent a lot of time with Nanna and Grandad as well as round her Great Nanna's! 

Playing with the toys from the crackers

She acquired a liking for Brie

Showing Great Nanna the Calender she brought her for Christmas

At least one of them was looking (this was the best I got haha)

Loving her Balance Bike round Nanna and Grandads

We also spent some time in the pub to see our friends from the village and Calleigh was also able to spend some time with Grand Pops when he came up to visit. 

Trading her Do Do for Grand Pops glasses

Having a ride

Weeee

Back Home

We have now been back home just over a week and things are finally starting to settle down a bit. Calleigh has gone back to daycare today and I will be spending the day giving the house a well needed clean and tidy up. The problem we had when we arrived back home (you can read about it here) has now pretty much been sorted and it's starting to feel like home again here. 

Calleigh has settled well back into a routine, although she is still waking much earlier than usual. She also seems to be having some sort of growth spurt, she has literally not stopped eating these past couple of days. It's really good to see though as she did go off food a bit a while back, so I'm happy that shes now eating well again. Her stomach also seems to have settled down as we have had no more "accidents" since last Wednesday night. 

She does appear to be missing her family a bit though, she is always pretending to be on the phone to Wa Wa (Lana) and Jack (Nanna's Dog) and she loves to see and stroke kitty on Skype. But being back with all her toys seems to help. 

Since we got back I jumped straight into the thing I have most been looking forward to.. Updating Calleigh's room. All her furniture and other bits and pieces have been ordered and we are just waiting for them to arrive. I'm really excited to give Calleigh her own big girl room! 

I will be writing about our time in England, so look out for that to come soon! 

A Quick Update and a Short Goodbye

Well what a couple of days we have had! 

I woke up in the early hours of Tuesday morning (the day we were set to fly back to St Louis) quite ill. By the time morning came around I was feeling a bit better and ready to set off home. Then Calleigh woke up and threw up, aah! We dealt with it as best we could and then headed off to the airport. By the time we got there she had stopped being sick thank god. 

The flight went well and we only had a short delay in Newark. 

When we arrived back in St Louis we went to claim our bags, only to find that Calleigh's suitcase failed to make it back with us. It had all of her clothes and Christmas presents in so I was really gutted and worried. We were told that it would fly over on another flight and we should get it delivered to our house soon. 

Little did we know that that was the least of our problems. 

When we arrived back to our house we walked in the door and it was absolutely freezing, 28 degrees Fahrenheit! All the pipes had frozen and even the toilet bowls were frozen solid. It was a nightmare. We managed to get the heating back on and hoped that heating the house up slowly would save the pipes from bursting. Unfortunately that didn't happen and water began poring out of the pipes, flooding the basement and the utility room. At that point we managed to turn the water off and Paul decided it would be better if Calleigh and I stayed in a hotel that night. So we quickly packed up our bags and went to the Wildwood just down the road. 

We had a great nights sleep and Calleigh seemed much better in the morning. Paul picked us up in the morning and we headed back to the house, it was now lovely and warm and we stayed in until a plumber came out to fix the pipes. Calleigh had so much fun playing with all her toys all day. 

After the plumber had finished with the pipes where the water came leaking out he turned the water back on, only to find out that there was now water leaking through the ceiling and he feared there was a lot more damage than we first thought. So we faced another night without water until he could come back the next day. 

After that bombshell we seriously thought things couldn't get any worse. And that's when Calleigh became sick again, all over our bed! I was extremely worried about her because she was irritable and very tired. Shortly after cleaning her up (as best we could without a bath!) she fell asleep on the sofa and we took her up to bed. Shaking with worry and feeling a bit ill myself I went to bed too and hoped that the morning would be better. 

We took Calleigh to the doctors today to ease my worry and he seems to think she is fine and the sickness is just due to some mucus a the back of her nose. At least that was one less thing on my mind. 

Back at home the roof started leaking again, so we rang the plumber who said it may be worth getting in touch with a contractor instead. We are still waiting to arrange a time for someone to come round and assess the damage but I am trying to stay hopeful that this problem will all be sorted soon. 

I do however have some good news to tell, Calleigh suitcase turned up safe and sound with everything all still there! 

With all this being said, I'm sure you can understand that until the house is fixed and Calleigh is back to her usual self again I will not be writing any new posts, even though I have lots to write about I just feel that my time is better spent sorting out the house and attending to Calleigh. 

I'm really hoping it wont take too long! 

Happy New Year! A Look Back at 2013

Happy New Year everyone! We were thrilled to see the new year in with Family in England.

2013 was a truly amazing and exciting year for us all as a family.

In April we moved from our little home in England, away from our families, all the way to St Louis, Missouri. Calleigh was just 18 months old and was blissfully unaware of how big this move was. She adjusted really well.

You can see more of our journey here.

In May Calleigh started going to Daycare.

In June Calleigh finally called me Mommy for the first time! She also had her very first haircut.

In July we celebrated our first ever 4th of July, my Birthday and we took Calleigh to DisneyWorld in Florida.

In August family came out to visit us. We had so much fun spending time with family and showing them around our new home.

In October we went Pumpkin picking and celebrated our first American Halloween by taking Calleigh trick or treating.

In November Calleigh turned 2 years old and we celebrated with Mee maw who had come back to see us again. I also used this month to post my birth story.

In December we enjoyed playing in the snow in St Louis before flying back to England to visit family.

And that's where we are now.

We have 6 more days left here until we fly back home. I am excited to take Calleigh to London on Thursday to see my friend Charlotte. I have missed that girl! We will also be running around between family to make sure we see plenty of everyone in these last days.

I am very much looking forward to what next year has in store for us. Hopefully we will become permanent residents of the USA and have plenty more adventures to new places!