November Favourites

Hi lovelies, i know this post is up a couple of days later then planned but i had some issues with taking the pictures for it, however get stuck into my first november favorites and let me know what you think :)

BBC Radio 1s live lounge

I am a big music lover and this year my taste in music has changed a lot. I am steering more towards indie mellowed out acoustic stuff. However I have always had a love for the live lounge covers sent out by radio 1. This one is by far my favorite one and most definitely in my top 5 albums of 2013. The songs are beautifully recreated and I find that now winter is in full swing its a really chilled out CD for those wintry snuggly evenings. My favorite track from the album is Ben Howard - Figure 8 (originally by Ellie Goulding). This stripped back version over guitars is passionate and really focuses on the importance of the lyrics. I would say grab a copy or even request one as a christmas pressie :)

'Along came Betty' Body lotion
Tesco £2.66

In fairness I have had this cream for a year now  (yes the same bottle). It lives in the cup holder of my car and I use it every single day. It is still a far way off of bring finished. It is amazing value for money, smells delicious and is really nourishing. I use it as a hand cream and love the simplicity of the quick pump feature. It leaves my skin feeling soft and smelling nice to. I will be repurchasing over and over again, and have to buy it as a gift for a couple of people that have fallen in love with it once using it in my car lol.

NYC 'City Blackout'
Superdrug £2.45

As said in a previous post I think a black nail polish is essential for winter. This one from NYC is long lasting, good value for money and gives a really smooth, shiny finish. Please see my other post on my Top 3 Nail polishes for winter for a more indepth review.

Converse All star Hi Lthr Black
Office £59.99

I personally love the comfort of converse, as i'm sure many of us do. So when winter rolls around its really annoying when the rain starts and I cannot wear converse because they will get ruined in the rain. So when I saw these leather black converse I just had to have them. Not only does black go with everything (except navy in my opinion) the fact that they are leather means that they are waterproof to. What a win win. They are durable high quality and in the 2 weeks that I have had them they have probably been teamed with every item that I have in my wardrobe lol. These are one of my best buys of the year so far, and they also are available in white.

Herbal essence Bee strong rinse off intensive mask
200ml superdrug £1.99 (usually £3.99)

Now i have seen this product flying around for a while now, but I have tried not to buy into the celebrity produced hype around it. However I caved the other week and bought this hair mask and was so so glad that I did. My hair was very weak and damaged and coming out lots. I used this mask the next morning and instantly felt the difference. I have used it around 4 times now and my hair is so much stronger already as well as being soft and shiny. I go swimming once a week and after swimming last night i put the mask in and washed it off once I got home and straight away noticed that my hair was still nice and strong and smelling gorgeous, usually swimming damages my hair quite a bit. I am repurchasing this as i type and taking advantage of superdrugs amazing deal.

MUA lip liner in Red Drama
Superdrug £1.00

I cannot recommend this lip liner enough. I was on the hunt the day of my birthday party and came across this just before I went to leave the shop. I haven't stopped loving it. It is long lasting - it lasts my whole night out without any need for reapplying, and I put it on my whole lip as a base for my lipstick and it is such a gorgeous red that once the lipstick has worn off the lip liner acts as a very subtle red lipstick. 

Well thats my mixed bag of November Favorites and I really enjoyed doing it so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Let me know if you found any of the reviews helpful or if you have picked up any of the products and what you think.





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50 facts about me

So after reading Gracies post over at http://www.graciefrancesca.com/ where she said that its quite hard to grasp somebodies personality threw blogging at times I thought i would take part in the 50 facts about me tag. Initially I thought this would be a real easy post to write but 50 facts is a hell of a lot of things lol but I have found it a fun one to do.


1. I am a mummy
2. I beat cancer this year 
3. I have an addiction to hot chocolate
4. Ive lost almost 100lb in weight 
5. I say 'like' in nearly every sentence
6. I have had my nipple pierced
7. I am half Irish
8. I suffer with anxiety & panic attacks
9. My first car was a boy racer vauxhall corsa in black lol
10. I am an older sister
11. Love to cook 
12. I love anything to do with the 1950s
13. I love slippers & PJs (to the point of my best friends mum hardly recognizes me if im not in my PJs & slippers lol)
14. I write poetry
15. This year i turnt vegetarian 
16. I passed my driving test 2 days before my 21st birthday
17. I have never ice skated
18. I don't like going to the cinema
19. I love Indian food.
20. I listen to music nearly all day everyday
21. I have found my soul mate
22. I used to have an awful obsession for trainers and tracksuits
23. I love candles
24. I take tons & tons of photographs
25. I cannot sing in the slightest but i love singing
26. I do not smoke and gave up drinking about 3 years ago (its not as boring as it sounds honest lol)
27. I practice yoga
28. I enjoy going to football matches (i love the passion and the atmosphere)
29. Books over films any day
30. I have never been on Holiday outside of England which means ive never been on an airplane
31. I cup my right boob for comfort
32. I love my best friend like a sister and have to speak if not see her everyday
33. I am super nosey 
34. We have a walk in shower due to a disability in our house and i crave a bath everyday
35. me, my best friend & sometimes my boyfriend will have a 'car rave' at least once a week
36. I was once addicted to watching 16 and pregnant & teen mom lol
37. I think about my grandad who passed away 3 years ago every single day
38. I am a very over emotional and sensitive person (i will cry at the drop of a hat lol)
39. I enjoy working out & am very much into health and fitness
40. I love going on random adventures with my son and boyfriend
41. We used to spend every single school holiday on a camp site in Kent and it was bloody amazing.
42. I've had food poisoning twice
43. I have worked in childcare for 8 years
44. I don't wear make-up
45. My favorite crisps are cheese & onion McCoys
46. I always crash my car (& manage to blame it on everyone else)
47. I go swimming once a week but mainly end up gossiping in the pool instead of swimming lol ooops
48. I can only say ice cream & laptop in a south African accent i but always say it lol
49. I am a control freak & try to plan absolutely everything
50. I used to play the flute


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Winter Nail colours.

So before i had my little Freddie i was nail crazy. I cannot be described as a girly girl by a long stretch out the imagination but one thing i did love (and to be fair get quite carried away with) were my nails. From the age of about 14 i had my nails done with a full set of acrylic nails every 2-3 weeks.

My first time was with a friend of mine who suggested we get them done for a treat for Christmas, and i never looked back lol, ive probably had every colour, pattern, design you could thing of. However as i entered into a career in childcare long acrylic nails were neither practical nor desired by the parents when handling their children and i was asked to remove them.

It took a lot of getting used to but before long I fell pregnant with Freddie and turnt to getting my real nails manicured instead of having the acrylics. This made my nails much stronger, and since giving birth to Freddie i have only had acrylics on twice and to be honest cant wait to get them off again. So now that i prefer to get my nails manicured i take lots of interest in choosing my own polish's etc. I love the wide variety with a colour to suit every mood and occasion and thought id share my top 3 favorites for winter so far so here it goes :)

1. Suzi takes the wheel by O.P.I
I love the colour grey during the winter and find this polish to a lovely shade of grey.
Its easy to apply and lives up to the reputable brand it comes from. I always put on 2 coats of polish and that is more than enough for excellent coverage with this polish. 


2. City blackout by NYC
In my opinion a staple polish for winter has to be black. A good quality black polish is essential for my winter collection and this one from NYC is stunning. Again I applied 2 coats and got really good coverage, it had a lovely glossy finish to it and is really durable. I have it on my toes at the moment and so far it has lasted 5 days without any chipping, and as I find with most if not all of my NYC polishes they dry super quickly which is always useful because lets face it, sitting around waiting for you nails to try is so tedious.


3. Madison Avenue by NYC
With the Christmas season picking up I always like to have a red go to nail polish that i can rely on, and for me it has to be this one from NYC. Its vibrant and strong and adds instant glamour to a LBD. Its nice to have a splash of colour to warm up what can be very dull winter outfits and I choose this red because it does the job perfectly. As with the black from NYC it gives an amazing glossy finish and lasts really well.


These are the colours i am loving at the moment amongst others, i hope they've given you some ideas for winter nail colours :)









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Toddlers & Toilets

A quick note to start to just say that im really sorry that i haven't blogged in forever but ive literally had no access to blogger at all as my laptop died (RIP) lol. However i am now back and raring to go, bubbling with lots of new blog posts so lets get straight into it.

As some of you may know I am a mummy to a 2 year old. He is (if i do say so myself) very clever and intelligent as has been able to talk quite well since forever it seems. As a childcare professional as well as a mummy i think it is important if not vital that children can talk and fully communicate as well as understand their needs before any type of toilet/potty training can commence.

Myself & Freddies daddy have been speaking about toilet training Freddie for quite a while now, and i say toilet instead of potty because we feel that it would be easier to get Freddie used to using the toilet straight away rather than starting with a potty and than having to transfer onto a toilet at a later time. We talked about the idea with Freddie quite a lot, getting him used to the idea of having no nappy on, him watching adults use the toilet & that sort of thing but Freddie was not open to the idea at all. This threw me back if im honest because in my arrogance i thought it would be easy as Freddie is more than capable of communicating and understanding things. So when he point blank refused to entertain the idea of toilet training as well as jumping off the toilet seat before even getting on it properly as if something had bitten him on the bum i was really taken back.

We decided not to push him into it and when he was ready he would let us know. Well luck would have it that Freddies very good friend who is toilet trained came to our house for a play date and needed to use the loo. To my great delight and shock Freddie was then asking to use the loo to and then came *drum-roll please* his first big grown up wee on the "big boy toilet".

That was a good few weeks ago now and if we are honest, because of our work schedule we didn't take the lead & keep going with the toileting and everything kind of happened halfheartedly with nappies sometimes being used and then sometimes not. I suppose we were taken aback a bit by the sudden enthusiasm to use the toilet and didn't have a plan in place for how we would do this.

Well today i am excited to announce that this is officially day 1 of toilet training and Freddie has not had one accident. I decided nappies would be for sleep only and put him in his pair of "big boy pants" when he woke up which he was very proud of and told him the plan of no more nappies unless were sleeping and he seems over the moon. I thought it was a big brave to leave the house on day 1 but we did it anyway, as we had our favorite music group to attend lol. I've put Freddie onto the toilet every 45mins and he has used it every time with the both of us getting super excited and doing a little dance lol. So far I am really pleased with how its going and although it is very early days I am hoping tthat things continue this way. Sleep time is a whole different ball game and we will approach that when it comes but for no its on wards and upwards :)


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