Total DeliciousNess

Genius! Gave me a right chuckle when I saw this on the tv today. JML, whatever will you come up with next?

Today we welcome Jane, The Northern Mummy with Southern Children to Total DeliciousNess. I am away on my holibobs for a few days and she kindly offered to write a fabulous guest post. I thoroughly recommend that you visit her blog. I now hand you over…

The old joy that is Christmas is almost upon us again.  As per usual the retail community have been doing their bit by setting daily reminders in store in the form of cliff’s carols since September.  Be a travesty if they didn’t do this as how would we remember? We’d all be sitting on sofa waiting for Eastenders omnibus to start and suddenly her majesty would be on the screen.  “Buggery” we’d all say “why didn’t the shops give us three months notice by putting mistletoe and wine on repeat? We’ve only gone and missed christmas”. Tesco would be flooded with angry punters trying to buy ready cooked turkey.   Think of this next time you strop out of a shop in a huff on halloween because silent night was softly playing.

Anyway hello, nice to meet you. Thanks to Ness for letting me come and ramble over on her lovely blog.
My name is Jane and I have three children, the first two, twin boy and girl are coming up five in January. They are on Father Christmas’s naughty list and have been since birth.  It could be because they were illegitimate or just that they can be pains in the backside. We may never know the answer.  We do know that they are on the naughty list though as Father Christmas failed to drop anything down the chimney on their first christmas.  Bit bloody harsh we thought!  However luckily our families had foreseen that this may well happen and had purchased the entire of toys r us as a back up plan so the kids didn’t even notice. There’s one in the eye for Santa!

Since then we have continued to thwart the grey bearded one at every turn.  Every year we creep downstairs on christmas day hoping against hope that the stockings are filled with gifts? Or maybe even just an orange? How naughty do you have to be to not even merit an orange from santa?  Each year we have been bitterly disappointed as the sacks remain as empty as my size ten jeans.

So we leg it out to the garage and bring in our own pre wrapped gifts hastily throwing the gift receipts in the bin and scrawling love Santa on them all.  The kids come downstairs and their little faces light up to see he has been and always the little terrors call out thank you to the stupidly clothed, over grown elf that studiously ignores them every year.

But St Nick if you are reading this we are giving you one last chance.  Its baby beautiful’s first christmas, she is six months old, the worse thing she has done is cause me a bit of discomfort trying to exit my body.  We even tied the knot a couple of years back so you can’t use illegitimacy as an excuse again.  The extra stocking will be hung on christmas eve.  We will upgrade from Tenants Extra Strong to a Baileys for you and even throw in an apple or two for the reindeer.

Don’t let me down big man.

Merry Christmas!

Babies are expensive…FACT…or maybe not as expensive as they could be.

I think that the spirit of Gladys MacLeod, my grandma, lives on in me as I have become a mega bargain hunter this week. She would be so proud!

It all started on Saturday, when, armed with my trusty list of baby things we should get I dragged a hungover Jamie to the York NCT nearly new sale (it was his penance for coming home at 3am). I had been told that these sales were good, but I still wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. After the initial sales pitch from a lady selling coloured beads to keep babies attention during breast feeding (really love, if I wanted beads that looked like the are for 4 year olds I’ll make them myself, not pay £7 for them. I’d rather wear nice beads, and if my baby is hungry, I’m sure he’s not going to get too distracted anyway) I managed to get to the good stuff. I have to say that there was a lot more stuff for girls than boys there, but at the same time, for the past couple of years everyone I know has had a girl so maybe there was something in the water.There was so much to choose from in there and I successfully got myself a Baba Sling that I was going to pay £50 for in John Lews for…wait for it…£10. It’s perfect. I gave it a wash and you would never know it wasn’t brand new. I also got a very sweet little Superman t-shirt for 50p. Yay!

After our trip to the sale we went to drop off some things to the local Red Cross shop, where I spotted a cute little babygro for 79p. Another bargain in the bag. A good wash and it’s good as new.

This week, I made a start on Gumtree just to see what would be on there. Yesterday I bought a rocking Mothercare moses basket stand for £10, almost perfect condition. Today, I got a Mamas & Papas baby rocker, normally £65 for £20 and may have a play mat, normally £45 for £10. I am so pleased with myself.

Now, I really didn’t think I would be into the whole 2nd hand baby stuff thing. However, when you look at the cost of things and how long your baby is actually likely to use them for, it makes a lot of sense. There a things I probably wouldn’t buy second hand but all the things I have got, can either be put in the washing machine or given a good scrub with some Dettol spray and they’ll be great. It also means less wastage and you’re helping either a person or a charity out at the same time. Brilliant!

I thoroughly recommend this bargain hunting lark. I’ve also never had such a good feeling about shopping. It’s almost like a game!