Railway Children - Away at Christmas

Did you know....
It's estimated that a child runs away from home or care every five minutes in the UK
In a recent survey, one in 11 teenagers aged 14 to 16 admitted to having run away overnight at some stage in their life
It's impossible to know the true scale of the problem: two-thirds of runaways aren't reported as missing to the police, and many are too vulnerable or scared to seek official help

It’s estimated 2000 children will run away over Christmas

We know this is every parent’s big nightmare and that it can happen to anyone – it’s nothing to do with family economics or where people live.

So as a member of the Mumsnet Blogger Network I received an email this morning asking to highlight this issue. 

For each blog post from a MN blogger Aviva will donate £2 to Railway Children. If I have comments they will donate another £2 for each comment. I know I am extremely small fry in the blogging world but every little helps.

I think every child/teenagers utters the immortal words "I'm going to run away" at some point in their childhood. I know I did, I even went as far as climbing out the kitchen window only to come back in the front door again when I had second thoughts. 

As a parent now I cannot imagine the utter fear of finding your child gone in the morning.

As a child I was lucky enough to never feel the need to run away.

Railway Children help and support children under the age of 16 who have run away from home or are at risk of doing so.

Please see here for a link to the Railway Children website

www.railwaychildren.org.uk

Please see here for a Q&A session Mumsnet ran with Railway Children.

http://www.mumsnet.com/qanda/railway-children

Christmas with a 2 year old.

So this Xmas will be T's 3rd.

The first she was 8 months so wasn't really interested.

Last year she was 1yr 8m and was more interested in the presents.

This year she is a proper little person.

We are putting the "missmas" tree up tomorrow. With her. I don't know if this is a good idea or not.

I will report back tomorrow!



Maybelline Fit Me Foundation.

I have been on the hunt for the Holy Grail foundation for-ev-er.
To give you an idea I currently have 8 or 9 on the go.
So when I heard about the new Maybelline Fit Me Foundation and that they were giving away tailored samples I signed up!
You have to fill in an online form which then tells you your "number". I'll admit I'm usually sceptical about these as I like to see the colour against my skin first.
So I was 115. One of the palest colours.
First impressions were that it blended in very nicely. Feels very smooth and rich but not heavy. Almost gel-like.
One thing I didn't like was that it settled on my eyelids and creased pretty much instantly. I could also see some pore settling pretty quickly too despite using primer. That may just be because I have oily skin.
The colour matching was pretty spot on and I like the finish. However by 1030 I was having to blot and powder the shine coming through.
So will I buy it once the sample runs out?
If I liked the dewy finish then yes, however on my oily skin it's not matte enough. It's a nice foundation though. I'm tempted to try the concealer so may give that a go..

Toddler milestones - Big Girls Bed.

So last night we took the bars off the cotbed. (Well one side as the other backs onto the wall, I'm pretending it's a fancy daybed!)

I've been contemplating it for a while. I keep seeing friends children who are younger moving into big beds and wondering if I'm doing something wrong. Or holding her back. She's 2 years 7 months. I know some kids that have been in them at 16 months.

She hasn't escaped, hasn't really asked for a big bed so I didn't know if she was "ready".
And if I'm being entirely truthful a small part of me didn't relish the thought of a 6am wake up call with a little face 3 inches from my own.

We just decided to do it this weekend. I've been leading up to it all week with her, moved some toys and a big box of books up to her room (yay more space downstairs!) Each night at bedtime cuddles we've been talking about it "Bars off Mama?" And last night we did it.

Apart from a few times telling her it was bedtime and no she couldn't play she went down fine. Woke at 9am (if this is cos of the big bed I am going to be mega pissed I took this long) and told me to close the door so she could play!

I think this may go smoother than I thought!

She's happy anyway!

R.I.P Kindle

So my Kindle died Thursday, just as I was getting onto the train at 23:20.

I was not happy.

To be honest I'm a little bit annoyed too that something I paid over £100 two years ago has died already. It's not as if its an "intensive" item. So a complaint email is winging it's way to Amazon.

So I now have to wait until Xmas for a new one as I can't afford to replace it. It feels so weird reading an actual book again!

Hoarding mission 1 - complete.

First off I forgot to take a before picture. I know not a good start but I'm new to this blogging lark.

Anyway my first mission was to tackle my airing cupboard (room with boiler etc) I'm quite lucky that its not a bad size and has two shelves in.
I keep all my bed linen and towels in it. One shelf also has all my shampoos and lotions on but these will be moved when I find a big enough box!

Its safe to say there is linen in there that hasn't been used since we moved in 7.5 years ago!

God this is going to be an embarrassing process.

I'm proud to say I was ruthless and managed to accumulate a 2ft high pile to give to the charity shop.

Go me.

I also followed an idea I saw on pinterest with regards to storing bedding sets.

All in all a good dehoarding session and a pretty good start.

(picture from pinterest found here http://prettystuff.tumblr.com/ )

Best present ever

So today is my birthday.
I also share it with my wonderful Great Aunt Joyce (known as AJ).
And my sisters best friend and another friend. Bless her its a pretty expensive day for her!

T helped me open my cards and presents. When I say helped I actually mean opened them all.....
She is at Nana and Granddads tomorrow so its curry, wine and a lie in for me.

The best present was this

T knows me so well already.....