Dear Gemma {circa 2010}, Congratulations, you are pregnant (and expecting a little girl). I know you weren’t planning to fall pregnant so quickly – and I certainly know that Ell was hoping to get in a bit more ‘practice’ first – after all you had only been married 3 months when you discovered you were going to be parents. Remember that day? Ell had told you to wait to take a pregnancy test until you missed your period, after all ‘how expensive!’ are those tests. Of course you snuck upstairs when he was mowing the lawn – one day you’ll…

*This post is an entry for the Britmums Christmas #sdfiverchallenge, sponsored by Sportsdirect.com Having sports mad husband (now he’s given up football, he thrown himself full on into playing golf guys!), the mention of Sports Direct usually brings me out in a cold sweat – usually at thought of spending a riculous amount of money on some item of golf paraphernalia . I – and I’m guessing I would be right in thinking most others probably associate Sports Direct with trainers and sporting equipment, but did you know they also have huge selection of other things, including gifts for £5…

As a family, the majority of our family holidays are based in the UK. Primarily for ease due to the amount of things we have to take with three young children – nappies, sippy cups, and pushchairs – plus their scooters and helmets for exploring. I think I’ve actually become quite good at getting everything packed (tightly!) into the car and remembering what we need. One thing I’m not so good at though is entertaining the kids during the car journey. This year we have visited Cornwall twice, and most recently Wales. Each time, the journey has been over 2…

As a kid I used to cringe when I had a play date that involved my mum picking them up in the car. We were always subjected to listening to Classic Gold on MW – all songs from the sixties and seventies and I always thought my mum was totally embarrassing. Unsurprisingly though it has given me a taste for a large range of music. I could probably sing the words to most songs from the sixties and seventies now. The eighties too. I’m now that embarrassing Mum that makes her kids listen to the music from my childhood (hellloooo…

As I write this sentence I know that most parents reading this will want to slap me (I’m so sorry) All of my babies slept through the night from a few weeks old. Before you lynch me, please just keep reading. I honestly wish I had a magic formula to explain why but I don’t. Obviously they woke for feeds and dirty nappies but even when teething they didn’t really wake and we had hardly any sleepless nights. Izzie was always a very heavy sleeper, so much so that when she was toilet trained we had to wake her to…