Candle Favourites.

Olivia Blake London.

Wild Mint and White Tea. 

TK Max

Price : £7.99

RRP : £25

One of my all time favourite candle scents is The White Company's Wild mint candle. I actually planned to get that one on my shopping trip today but £28 wasn't in my budget this week. I cannot tell you how excited I was to come across this candle in TK Max. The Olivia Blake candle is a little more stronger scent wise and the white company is more of a fresh mint scent to it but they are both just as good as the other and smell amazing! Honestly if you have never smelt this candle you really need to. 

Wax Lyrical.

Soft Cotton

Asda Living

Price : £5

It smells like fresh washing which is one my my favourite scents of all time. I love this.

Bean xo

Three counties show.

There is only one reason I go to this show every year and that is the food court and Pimms which for the price of the show (£21 per adult) probably makes me crazy but I do love the show for other reasons to. I love watching the men making horse shoes, (all sweat and muscles what's not to love) the animals of course and the many shows you can watch. Red devils being my favourite. This year I don't know, we got a little bored so didn't really watch any shows which is sad because they are always really good. And due to the amount of crowds we hardly saw any animals either. We did however learn that despite his love for anything car like Archie is not a fan of tractors and hates horses. The photo above showing Eva happily smiling doesn't show Archie who was screaming in his pushchair is sheer terror at this "monster" being near him. (I'm not that evil though, as soon as the photo was taken we moved away from the horses). Over all though we had a great day out and the kids loved it! - I loved getting my cheese, fudge and sausages. (and Pimms of course) 

Bean xo

A week in Instagram photos

Monday

Eva lost her first tooth while at school. She came home very pleased with herself. her two front teeth have been wobbly for ages, infact they took so long to come out that the new teeth have grown behind them! I am a little worried about this as now that tooth has fallen out her teeth are not in the correct place. I am hoping that once the other teeth come out that they will be pushed into the correct place otherwise it's very likely she'll end up with braces when she's older.

Tuesday

 The weather was amazing, so after lunch me and Archie (and my mum's dog) spent the afternoon in the garden, me sunbathing and Archie playing with his cars, chasing the dog and having fun. To keep the sun off him I decided to build him a little tent, the dog used it more then he did!

Wednesday

 My mum had been to the doctors for personal reasons and was in quite some pain, so at 9pm that eveing I walked the 5 minutes to her house just to make her a cup of coffee. That's all I did there, I had a little chat to my brother as well who was on the phone to my mum but I made her a cup of coffee then headed home.

Thursday

 Another sunny day so another afternoon spend in the garden. Archie loves the garden, it's at the moment his most used word. He will ask to go in the garden by pointing at the door and saying "Garden" then brings me his shoes. I love that we now have a huge private garden, it means we can spend hours out here.

Friday

 Thunder storms and rain. Weather wise it was a pretty awful day. I spent the evening at my mums sorting though her cupboard under the stairs and coming across all sorts of treasures from the past. This camera was my mum's when she was a teenager, it first belonged to my Aunt who passed it on to my mum. When I was little this was in my grandads outhouse (along with a gas mask and other "junk") me and my brother used to play with it pretending we were photographers taking photos of models. I am now a huge photography fan and finding this camera made my heart race. It's beautiful, although it's in a sorry state and no longer works, it's such a lovely little camera all the same.

~ You can follow me on Instagram here for more photos ~

 Bean xo

Sister and brother bond

When Archie was a baby I worried alot how Eva would cope going from an only child - used to getting all the attention - to having to share that attention with someone else. I'm not going to lie, she didn't take to being a big sister quickly, although she's always loved him, having him take some of her lime light was hard for her. She had many tantrums and tears, but once he started to walk I think it was a turning point. He became someone she could play and have fun with and she learnt that sometimes it's OK for him to have the attention and for her to stand back and let him.

Now Archie is 20 months and Eva is 6 years old, they have the most adorable bond I have ever seen. Eva has taken the roll of protective big sister and looks after him so much. If he cry's she's there soothing him, she understand's his baby talk and knows what he wants. She is happy to share toys with him and play games together. Sometimes they will sit and play barbies other times they are racing cars, and I love that! While they have completely different personality's - Eva being the bossy one while Archie is laid back and cheeky - and do like different things they are very happy to put their games together and enjoy just playing together.

They share a room now, it's something Eva was really looking forward to and now that it's happened she'd super happy. I'm actually looking forward to the day when they have bunk beds and will wake up and run into my room together all excited. Especially on Christmas morning. I am so proud of Eva and I love her little bond with her brother, I hope they stay close as they grow up.

Bean xo

Sunshine fun.

Yesterday I decided to ignore the over flowing wash basket and the crumbs on the living room floor and enjoy a day in the sun with Archie. Archie's new favourite word is garden. He will point out other people's gardens whenever we go out, and is forever asking if he can go out in the garden. So he was pretty excited when I opened the back door that he ran out screaming on the top of his lungs! 

I enjoyed a nice lay in the sun catching up on YouTube videos (I love the SacconeJolys) with an ice cold glass of coke watching Archie enjoying himself. He brought out a few of his cars and races them up and down the path, inspected Eva's bike and played with the rabbit who wasn't too pleased about being poked but still..

Once we'd picked up Eva from school, sh came and joined us in the sunshine and insisted I found her some sunglasses and get her an ice lolly. She wanted a picnic in the sun but as she was going to her grandmas for tea I just made her a bowl of strawberries and grapes which she enjoyed - Archie enjoyed feeding me his grapes - 

I'm glad I took the time to just have fun, I think sometimes as mums we get wrapped up in things that could be don't later and miss out on the little moments.

Bean xo

Mummy Monday ; Turning 26.

Last tuesday (March 24th) was my 26th birthday and honestly I had the most normal day that I hadn't got around to writing about it until today. Most people spend their birthday doing the most exciting things, but since having children I no longer want to. Last year I spend the day with a poorly Eva who was off school with the chicken pox and even did the weekly shop as though it were any other day (read about my 25th birthday here) and I basically did the the same this year. I did go shopping after dropping Eva off at school, I felt like treating myself to some new bath bits from Lush and then somehow I ended up in The chocolate Hotel buying myself (and Archie) some yummy treats before popping over to River Island and using the last of my Christmas vouchers to buy a new dress. But that was possibly as exiting as my day got! The afternoon was spent going back and forth from the local dump as I cleared out junk from my garage.

Even though I wasn't doing doing the most exciting things I honestly had a great birthday. Waking up to Eva coming into my bedroom carrying presents and singing happy birthday while Archie looked at her like she was crazy (he's not a morning person at all) then dancing to The Frozen sound track in the car all day because Eva had left it on and I couldn't be bothered to change it. Enjoying breakfast at BHS and laughing with the man who was serving me and finally spending the evening out with friends enjoying some good food at my favourite restaurant. Being a mum has taught me to spend more time enjoying the smaller things in life, living in the moment and enjoying myself in what ever I am doing. And I did, immensely. 

From the kids I got Antigue perfume from next.

From my mum I got a gaint eaten mess easter egg.

From luch I brought ; Sakura Bathbomb, Hoppity Poppity and Honey Bee bath bomb.

I also got myself a new dress (as pictured above) from River Island (here) and a fringed yellow jacket from Primark (here)

Bean xo

Now I am six.

When I was one 

I had just begun

When I was two

I was nearly new.

When I was three

I was hardly me.

When I was four

I was not much more.

When I was five

I was just alive

But now I am six I'm as clever as clever

so I think I'll be six for ever and ever.

On March 3rd Eva turned six. This was a birthday she'd been looking forward to since Christmas day had finished. I spend all of her birthday's looking back at old photos being amazed at how far she's come. From the tiny 4 week premature 15lb 5oz baby she was in to the clever little chatter box she is now. 

From the moment she learnt to talk, she's been all about animals. It's been "I'm going to a be a vet when I grow up" or "I want to be zoo keeper", never anything that isn't to do with animals. I know that without a doubt she will achieve what ever her heart is set on. With this in mind of course when it came to her birthday treat that was easy. I paid £40 for her to a be a zoo keeper for the day at All things wild. She was the first child to ever do this there as they'd only just started the zoo keeper for a day experience. Eva loved it! She cleaned out rabbits and birds, fed meer kats and guinea pigs, bathed tortoises, held snakes and cockroaches. After the 3 hours the female zoo keeper who took her around told me she was very confident with the animals, that she'd picked everything up happily without showing any fear. Of course I wasn't surprised by this, Eva will happily go digging for worms or pick up frogs nothing is too slimy or disgusting for her (although she doesn't like spiders). Her fun day ended with her choice of venue for a meal and she went for Frankie and Bennies. For an extra treat they came out with her cake at the end of the meal and sang happy birthday to her, something she loved - being centre of attention is very appealing to her!

On her birthday she had to go to school, which of course she loved as it meant her class sang happy birthday to her. We invited around a school friend of hers with his brother and sister too and had a little tea party. It was lovely.

The best part of it all was Eva telling me, "Mummy thank you, this has been the best birthday ever" because after all everything was for her as long as she loved it, then I'm happy.

Bean xo