Posts Tagged "presents"

Christmas Goodies for the Kiddies

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 17, 2010 in Product Reviews | 3 comments

A month or so ago I had the pleasure of receiving the TrayKit created by Solvej Biddle. If you were under a rock (or live in the US), Solvej had 2 of the Dragons from Dragon’s Den clamboring to back her enterprise. She’s the first entrepreneur to put together such an outstanding pitch that she left the Dragons without concern or need to question. Solvej secured Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden to back her TrayKit and she was off to the races.

The TrayKit is the ideal travel companion to keep kids active on any long journeys this Christmas. On how she came up with the product, Solvej said: “TrayKit came about after too many flights jumping up and down getting toys and snacks out of the overhead locker or scrabbling under seats to find lost treasures or trying to rescue a favourite toy from the car floor just as we joined the motorway. My solution was a backpack that my children could pack with all their favourite things, that they could carry themselves and that strapped to the seat in front in the car, or to a tray table or sit on a lap and would open to become an extendable play tray with special raised sides so no more toys on the floor”!

Little Miss has suddenly become a very keen artist. She loves to draw but it has to be on her terms. Plain paper, a book to set the paper on and her Crayola twistable colouring pencils to draw with. We had a series of journeys back in November involving considerable time in the car. With the TrayKit installed on the back of my seat, Little Miss was able to have her own private desk with everything secure and reachable for her. She made some amazing drawings on these journeys and the TrayKit definitely made the whole process considerably easier.

She was keen to wear her TrayKit at every opportunity and while, at 2 1/2 she’s a bit younger than the recommended age, she was still entirely capable of carrying her “back pack” safely and securely. We are most pleased with our TrayKit, I must say.

As Solvej’s product has grown in popularity, it is now more widely available in stores on the high street. Last week saw Sainsbury’s stores rolling out their display of TrayKits which Solvej is very proud of. So now, when you’re whizzing around Sainsbury’s doing your Christmas food shop, you can pick up one of the TrayKits for your budding artist. They are priced at £24.99. It’s one of the best products we’ve had the pleasure of testing this year.

In addition to Solvej Biddle’s TrayKit, the Cafe Bebe family highly recommends the following as possible Christmas Goodies for the Kiddies:

• Snowflake and Toybox CD’s- Outstanding Children’s Christmas songs and lullabies respectively. Most welcome in any household.
• Mothercare Urbanite Pushchair- A surprisingly sturdy, stylish and functional “umbrella-type” pushchair. Very impressed and would definitely recommend.
• Maclaren Beginning- Maclaren, the pushchair and nursery product company, has branched into mother and baby beauty products. From home fragrance and candles to baby massage oil and stretch mark cream, Maclaren has produced a very nice line of products that will be welcome by any mum and baby.
• Tommee Tippee Explora sippy cups- Little Miss still needs a sippy cup as the temptation of tipping over her cup onto her high chair tray is too much. We’ve just purchased the Tommee Tippee Explora sippy cup (24 months +) and it’s PHENOMINAL. Little Miss has never drunk so much water. We will be getting 2-3 more!
• My Carry Potty- Little Miss is potty trained! (does a dance of joy) And thanks to the My Carry Potty it only took about 8 days to crack it. Totally portable, exceptionally functional, you simply MUST have this product if you’re embarking on the Potty Training Journey!
• John Crane Balance Bike and Doll House- Little Miss FINALLY can ride her Balance Bike which we received back in March and she LOVES it. She’s so proud of herself and can toodle right along. I can’t wait for Spring Time for her to be able to get up some real speed! We also received a John Crane Doll House when we stayed at Yew Tree Farm in the Cotswolds. It’s a gorgeous, wooden, beautifully painted doll house which Little Miss stands at and plays with all the time. It’s nice to have something so nicely crafted and NOT PLASTIC in our house for a change. Highly recommended for children of all ages!

These are just a few of the items we’ve been lucky enough to receive this year and that, as a family, we stand behind. Please check them out and don’t hesitate to add them to your family…you won’t be sorry!

The Pain of One Income

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 26, 2009 in Motherhood | 23 comments

I don't care that we don't have money Mummy!

The pain of being on one income has reared its ugly head this Christmas.  When Little Miss was born in June of 2008, I had been on maternity leave from my crap wage lucrative job as a teaching assistant.  We eventually would learn how NOT crap that wage was when we went onto Statuatory Maternity Pay (SMP = approx. £118 per week at that time) when Little Miss was born.  And we really learned how NOT crap that wage was when I ended my maternity leave and we decided that I would stay home with Little Miss and no longer work.  My hubby makes an adequate wage as Managing Director of what used to be his family’s generator business.  He managed to get a pay rise this past summer and a new company funded and fueled car in September.  But debts on both sides of the Atlantic, an 18 month old child, a house and various and sundry other bills mean that we pretty much live paycheck to paycheck.

One of my goals for 2010 is to really and truly sort out our finances.  We need to budget properly and stick to it.  We’ve dramatically limited what we do with our money already.  We don’t go out, we don’t buy things for ourselves and we only buy limited things for Little Miss.  We don’t have Sky satellite, we don’t have gym memberships, we don’t have flashy clothes or fun toys.  And where we’ve now felt the pain of living on one income is this Christmas.  We couldn’t afford to buy anyone in our family anything really.  We saved up what money we could to be able to buy a few things for Little Miss and that was it.  My husband and I have not bought each other anything for Christmas, birthdays or anniversaries for the last two years.  This year was the first year that we couldn’t buy anything for the nieces and nephews in our family and it really hurt.  We feel lame and stupid and we know the children don’t understand.  However, in the 4 1/2 years that I have lived in England, we have never been able to send anything back to my family in the US which includes a nephew on my side of the family.  The only presents have been when my mum was here for Christmas and they were mostly of the handmade variety.  We just can’t do it.  And we feel like rubbish.

It’s no fun to be the only people in the family to not be able to “carry our weight”.  My hubby feels particularly horrible as he feels that he’s not providing enough for his family.  He works in a job that he doesn’t particularly like, that drives him to distraction and takes him away from his family for long hours every week day and some weekends as well.  We can’t afford to put Little Miss in something like “Tumble Tots” which would be the PERFECT outlet for her because it COSTS MONEY!  I feel particularly horrible because I’m not bringing in any income (other than the odd freelance writing commission and some product for testing/review) and am doing my best to keep us on track.  Obviously that BEST is not enough!  So my goal for next week is to really sort out our finances and see where we can make cuts and save and scrimp so that next year we’ll be able to afford to buy at least SOMETHING for everyone in the family and feel like we’re proper grown-ups.  We do know that we are certainly better off than some people and we are grateful that Hubby has a job PERIOD.

And now, I’m open for suggestions.  If anyone has any money saving tips, tricks or genius solutions, I’m open to your ideas.  For anyone in our family who happens to read my blog, I’m very sorry that we couldn’t afford to buy anything this Christmas.  We love you all and would love to buy you everything you deserve but we just couldn’t this year.  We’ll try to do better for next year.  In the meantime, I would love to know how YOU do it?  How do you keep your family on track?  What is the key to surviving on one income?  Thanks, in advance, for any advice you might be able to share.  I’m willing to try anything.

US vs UK Christmas

Posted by cafebebemama on Dec 15, 2009 in American Mum Me, Little Miss Adventures | 13 comments

Little Miss' First Christmas 2008

As our fair Josie at Sleep is for the Weak is taking a holiday sabatical from the Writing Workshop, we here at Cafe Bebe are struggling for inspiration.  I’ve gone to Josie for a personal prompt and it’s a good one!  Her advice, US vs UK Christmases?  Which one is better?  What’s different??  Are you ready for a bit of Christmas cheer??

Here is what my Christmases were like in the US…it should be noted that I DO NOT SPEAK FOR ALL AMERICANS!

• The official Christmas shopping season begins the day after Thanksgiving.  Every shop in the land is open at 5 or 6am with “Door Buster” sales and all sorts of incentives to get silly shoppers out of the house at ridiculous o’clock.  Thanksgiving is usually the 4th Thursday in November- this past year it was the 26th of November so “Black Friday” was 27 November.
• We usually got our Christmas tree after Thanksgiving and decorated it then.  My brother and I would help with the decorating along with my Mom.  Dad did the technical stuff like stringing the lights.  Outside decorations usually were hung when it was pitch black and howling with snow for maximum effect.  I recall making hot chocolate a few times for my Dad while he was stuck outside in the misery.  But, oh, it looked so pretty when he was done.  In addition to the tree and outside decorations, we also had a nativity set that was placed under the tree.  It generally was my job to set it up…occasionally I messed about with the figurines and put them in odd places.  You have to have a bit of levity at Christmas!
• Advent calendars of the chocolate variety were a tradition thanks to school fundraisers.  I seem to recall more than one season where all of the chocolates disappeared within days of Advent beginning.  I do not recall how that happened.  As I was raised Catholic, Advent was a bit of a big deal in the church we attended…Christmas was about Jesus after all, not SANTA!  I didn’t really care who it was about as long as presents were involved.
• Christmas Eve was when most of the fun happened in our family.  When we were younger, we attended the Christmas Eve Children’s Mass at our church (my brother is 6 years younger than me) which was always quite entertaining.  And I was always happy that church was out of the way!  We would then go home and usually have my Grandparents over for present opening.  You see, in our family, the main present opening took place on Christmas Eve.  I know a fair few American’s who did this!  I don’t know exactly why that was our family’s tradition but it was.  My brother and I would take turns passing out presents which were under the tree and then the fun would begin.  We would all take turns opening a present and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over everyone’s presents.  My Grandpa would always ending up wearing whatever he got which was quite amusing as the layers accumulated!  I would stack my presents in an orderly pile and take extra care opening the paper (don’t tear it!) and not peeking as I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.  We usually had to have an intermission part way through (sometimes the present opening took 3 hours) and we’d always have hors d’oeuvres to keep us sustained through the marathon present opening.  Christmas Eve dinner was usually pretty casual.  No turkey for us that night…it was usually a Christmas Day feast.
• Christmas Day we would come down from our rooms to find that Santa had visited and left us “Santa” presents in our stockings.  These were usually the smaller presents or “stocking stuffers”.  I never knew that Santa was supposed to bring us our big presents.  I do remember the year that I figured out that Santa wasn’t real (DISCLAIMER…SPOILER!!!).  I looked at the gift tag on one of my presents and realised that it was my Dad’s handwriting…fun over.  No more Santa.  I had it sussed!  I never spoiled it for my brother though.  I think he still believes…don’t tell him!
• Christmas Day was usually about food and playing with presents and napping.  Not a bad sort of day.  In latter years, as a family we would go to a movie on Christmas Day.  I recall seeing “Hook” one year.  There was also American Football to watch and traditional movies like “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” or “A Christmas Story” (two of my ALL TIME favourites) as well as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Miracle on 34th Street”.  I always looked forward to the children’s Christmas movies- “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “A Charlie Brown Christmas”…ahhh…childhood.  By the way, there is no Boxing Day in the US.  The day after Christmas is when everyone starts taking back the Christmas presents they hated or capitalising on the After-Christmas-Sales to shop for the next Christmas.  Don’t you love American capitalism??

Our First Christmas Together 2005

My UK Christmases- 2005 to Present:

• In the UK, Christmas Eve IS NOT CHRISTMAS.  But in our household, it is.  On Christmas Eve we have, since my arrival in 2005, had our own, private Christmas on Christmas Eve.  It’s when we give each other our presents but as we can’t afford to give each other presents anymore, it now becomes when we open the pressies from the American side of the family.  Little Miss’ second Christmas will begin Christmas Eve at our house with the presents we have for her.  That’s enough Christmas for us!
• My Hubby’s family is where we spend Christmas Day and Boxing Day and on and on.  We head over to his parent’s house (all of 5 minutes away) in the early morning.  This year my Hubby’s twin sister and her family will be here from Australia to enjoy the holidays with us.  There will be 3 children + Little Miss so it should be great fun!  And as Little Miss will understand a bit more about presents this year, there are bound to be lots of photo opportunities.  Before present opening, their family tradition is to have the following for breakfast:  Crumbed Ham, Pork Pie, pickled onions and a few other bits and bobs.  As I’m not keen about pork pie, I mainly have a ham sandwich…for BREAKFAST.  I’m still not used to this tradition.  I believe we will have a Little Miss adapted breakfast of either Eggy Bread or Pancakes.  Maybe that will become the next tradition.
• Present opening with my Hubby’s family is much like mine, thankfully.  Everyone takes turns and oohs and ahhs.  The children get the most, the rest of us get a few.    My youngest nephew is the constant recipient of “Sit Down”, “Stop Twirling”, “Don’t kick your brother/sister” and I’m sure this will remain the tradition this year.  He’s 8 now so those kicks hurt a bit more. 
• After present opening there’s a few hours of down time for present playing, napping, eating while my Mother-in-Law prepares the Christmas dinner.  Christmas dinner is traditional English- turkey, stuffing, potatoes- mashed & roasted, parsnips/carrots, leeks in white sauce, bread sauce, brussel sprouts (yuck) and assorted other veg.  Christmas pudding, mince pies and my niece’s birthday cake are the dessert options.  I’m not a fan of Christmas pud or mince pies so I feel a bit sad when it comes to pudding…there’s always my niece’s cake though!
• I love Boxing Day!  I love that there’s just one more holiday after Christmas here in the UK.  We generally spend it with Hubby’s family and it is centered around eating most of the time.  I really think that the US needs to adopt Boxing Day…it’s a lovely holiday.  Do you know the historical significance of Boxing Day?  Apparently, back in the day, it was the one day off each year for the servants.  The masters/mistresses would bring the servant’s presents in a BOX and they would get the day off.  Hence, BOXING DAY.  If you know another answer, let me know.

This is how I’ve celebrated Christmas in the US and in the UK.  Which one is better?  Well, the Christmas of my childhood when I didn’t have to worry about money, health, fitness or happiness!  All I know is that Christmas is about family and children and I’ve got a great one in store next week.  Little Miss celebrating her second Christmas, my sister-in-law and family home from Oz, all of the immediate family present and healthy…what more could we want?  Well, maybe my American family to turn up on the doorstep as well but I’m guessing I won’t get that wish.  I’ll settle for a phone call and a “Happy Christmas” from my gorgeous girl.  That’s all I need to be happy this Christmas!

My Hubby Christmas 2005

Christmas Worries

Posted by cafebebemama on Nov 15, 2009 in American Mum Me, Motherhood | 9 comments

The other night I went out to dinner with some lovely Mummy friends of mine.  I casually asked them what they were getting their daughters, all the same age as Little Miss, for Christmas.  They listed off lots of things!  All the gifts sounded brilliant.  Most of the stuff we can’t afford.  They asked me what we were getting for Little Miss and sheepishly I admitted that I didn’t really know.  I didn’t know what we could afford!  And I also haven’t given a ton of thought to what I want to get for Little Miss as well.  You see, as much as I want to give Little Miss the world, a) we can’t afford it and b) I don’t know that Little Miss needs to have THE WORLD at the age of 17-18 months.  I feel like if she gets a ton of things this Christmas (which she won’t), then we have to equal or better it next Christmas which then just becomes a contest and more of a stress than it should be.

I remember Christmases growing up.  We had TONS of presents!  My brother and I would hand out the presents to everyone and then we’d sit and take turns opening pressies.  I would always stack mine from biggest to smallest and carefully unwrap each present; never peeking until the entire wrapping paper was off.  In fact, I would carefully unwrap each present in order to prolong the surprise.  No tearing into pressies for me!  No, I wanted to make the suspense last as long as possible.  And then, when I got whatever present out, I would savour it and gaze at it until it was my turn again to open another present.  This present opening usually took HOURS with an intermission at some point so the adults could sneak a drink and the kids could burn off some energy.  I loved Christmas…it was my favourite holiday EVER.

Back to the present.  What to do for our Little Miss??  It’s a bit tricky really.  We have family in the US and it’s hard for them to buy things for her (Amazon is good…other online “wish lists” are good but if I put things on them, usually nothing comes off of them!).  My family here will get things that we suggest, I’m sure.  It’s just hard…I so want Little Miss to have a stack of presents to open and be so excited about what’s in them but I don’t think that stack will be very high.  And to tell you the truth, I don’t want her to have a ton of things that she’s not going to play with a lot.  I would rather have a handful of toys that she’ll love and will entertain her and won’t be relegated to the bottom of the toy bin.  In fact, I really need to go through Little Miss’ toys and take things out that she never plays with and pass them on to a charity shop or new home.

What are you doing for your child’s Christmas this year?  We’re all struggling with the recession/being stay-at-home Mums/maternity benefits/one income/etc.- how will your family cope?  Please share any suggestions…I’d love to know!  I’ll leave you with two items I’d love Little Miss to have…we’ll see if Santa is reading!

Dotty Wot

Fisher Price Farm

Changing Bag Dilema Solved

Posted by cafebebemama on Aug 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

The lovely postman made a delivery this morning!  I love it when the postman rings!  He came bearing two gifts:

1) A SnugBaby sling from the lovely Claire.  She is one of my Mumpreneurs featured on my main site, Cafe Bebe, and asked me to trial one of her gorgeous slings.  I’m quite intrigued to do this as Little Miss is nearly 15 months and has never been “worn”.  We’ll have great fun trying this out.  A review will follow on Cafe Bebe.  Thank you Claire!

2) A SkipHop Duo Deluxe changing bag!  For a second I thought, “Hey- some wonderful company out there read my Changing Bag Dilema post and sent me a Skip Hop!  But then I realised from the label, addressed to my husband and myself, MY MOM sent me the Skip Hop!  My Mom, who’s all the way in Wisconsin in the US.  How wonderful is my Mom?  So thank you Mom.  We’ll put the Skip Hop to good use and will show it to you when we come to the US in October.  Love you!  A review of the Skip Hop will follow on Cafe Bebe.

What a great way to start the day!  Any more presents are more than welcome.