Christmas Tag

I did a similar 'Christmas Tag' like this one last year, with slightly different questions, so thought I would share one again. I love reading other people's answers on these too! 

1.What's your favourite holiday movie?
It has to be Elf!!!! I still laugh my head off throughout. 'Does someone need a hug.. aaarrghh!' 

2. What's your favourite Christmas colour?
I am not a fan of this colour the rest of the year and never really wear it but there is something about it at Christmas that I just love, and that of course is the colour RED. 

3. Do you like to stay in your PJs or dress up for Christmas?
A bit of both really. We love spending the morning in our PJs, opening presents. It's lovely to come down in our dressing gowns and messy hair. However, for lunch and the rest of the day, I like to put on a nice outfit. 

4. If you could only buy one person a present this year, who would it be?
This is obvious but it would have to be my son, Jackson. Chris really isn't materialistic and it's such a struggle to buy him anything anyway!

5. Do you open your presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?
Always on Christmas morning. We have done a mini present advent calendar for Jackson though and he will get a Christmas Eve basket too. 

6. Have you ever built a Ginger Bread House?
No, I am not a big fan of ginger bread so I have never thought to do it. Jackson's too little to do it this year but we will give it a go next year. 

7. What do you like to do on your Christmas break?
Have lots of friends and family time!!!

8. Any Christmas wishes?
For a good birth and healthy baby in 2017 

9. Favourite Christmas smell?
Definitely the Christmas Tree smell. We had a fake tree last year and it was just not the same but this year we went for a real one again and I love it!!!

10. Favourite Christmas meal or treat?
Has to be Pigs in Blankets but, to be honest, I am just a foodie in general so pretty much the whole day is great!!!!

What would you're answers be to these questions? 

Love Sophia xxx

Christmas Tree

Last year we had a fake tree, seen as Jackson was crawling around at the time, and it just didn't feel right to us. It was a really cheap one that we bought, so it was quite rubbish to be honest! Therefore, this year, we thought that we would go and get a real one again, even though Jackson is in to everything at the moment (we may regret this!). We also tried a new supplier this time, which was a local company that hires a hall every Sunday to sell their plants and flowers - during Christmas, Christmas Trees are added to their stock too. We didn't want a huge one so went for a 5 & 1/2 foot one. We also thought that we had gone for a skinner one but when we got home and put it up, it was much bigger than we had thought! It was, however, a bit of a bargain at under £30.

Like last year, our theme is red, white and silver. Chris is always the 'lights-putter-onner' as I just hate doing this. Then it's my turn to put the ball balls on. 

How good does it look! I was really pleased with the shape of it, once it was up and decorated. I think that next year I will look for a new star to go on top though, as I am not sure I like the one we have anymore! 

Olivia, my niece, made us a Christmas decoration to put on the tree and I love it! Amazingly, it matches our colour theme too! 

I picked this star up this year from Country Baskets. It's so sparkly!

Every year, I buy Jackson a new Christmas decoration of his own. Last year, I found this one saying his name which is so sweet and I love the fact it is a personalised one as Jackson can be tricky to find on things like these. 

Not sure where this one is from as it's a few years old but it is a satin one. The fairy lights really bounce off of it too. 

How close to Christmas do you put up your tree and are you a real or fake tree lover? 

Love Sophia xxx

Christmas Cards

We have done our usual photo Christmas card with Jackson and the doggies this year. However, as well as this, I thought it would be nice if Jackson and I made our own cards too, to go with the Ginger Bread Men decorations we have already made for gifts to our family. These home-made cards would be just for a few people, same as the decorations because otherwise we would be making them until after Christmas! 

I told Jackson that I would be painting the bottom of his foot and he got quite excited! 

I really struggled to find brown paint, so I just mixed red and green to make a shade of brown. I covered his whole foot in the paint. 

Then we printed it to the card. 

After it had dried, we stuck on some googely eyes and made a glitter nose. I did the antlers myself (impressive, I know!).

I was so pleased with how they turned out, what do you all think?

Love Sophia xxx

A Week in Photo's

I have put together my week in photos for you, including some really Christmassy days and some general, everyday-life days too. Enjoy... 

Monday 

Jackson spent his first night in his new room last night. He slept in until 8:30am, which he hasn't done in ages!!! Typically, it was when I was working though, so I had been up since 6:30am anyway!

Tuesday 

One of our dogs needs to get regular hair cuts, as his hair grows really long and really quickly, so today he went in for his Christmas hair-do (the next one we have booked is potentially just after baby no. 2 is here, so we will see if it has to be rescheduled!!!). Look how cute he is, he also made it onto the groomer's facebook page, proper fashion pooch!

Wednesday 

This is a snippet of what my day involved; Jackson refusing to do anything I asked him to do. I was trying to get him dressed when I took this photo, so he ran and hid inbetween the cot and the wardrobe!! Cheeky Monkey!

Thursday 

We went over to Jackson's cousin's house and his Aunty Claire cooked them both some lovely dinner. It's always so mad when they get together but good fun!!

Friday 

Chris had the day off so we went up to London and had a look at some of the sights. Jackson loved walking around Winter Wonderland!

Saturday 

Jackson and I had a stay at home day today. In the evening, Chris and I had a Christmas themed night, we watched Elf and wrote our Christmas cards.

Sunday 

We had a busy day racing around seeing different people but we did manage to buy a Christmas tree. We didn't get time to decorate it but it's up at least!

Love Sophia xxx

What Jackson Wore #6

This week, we have another Christmassy edition of 'What Jackson Wore'. I bought this jumper in the John Lewis sale last year, it was actually on my toddler jumper blog from last year too (if you want to check out my favourite toddler Christmas jumpers from this year, click here!).

I just love this jumper as it is such a lovely shade of blue and it really suits Jackson. I teamed it with some H&M jogger jeans and, of course, some Reindeer socks.

Jumper: John Lewis 

Jeans: H&M

Socks:H&M  

Jackson got this HappyLand fireman in his advent today, so he features in all the pictures too, haha! 

Yes, again, that is dribble down his jumper - will this toddler ever stop dribbling?!? 

As usual, this 'What Jackson Wore' blog is linking up with 'This Mama Life' and 'The Diary of an Ordinary Mum' for the #WeekendTotStyle. Visit one of their pages if you want to link up too! 

Love Sophia xxx

Sweet Chilli Jam

Hampers are always a popular gift at Christmas time and they can be made as cheap or as expensive as need be. Homemade gifts can be really good to add to them too, not only is it cheaper but it's also nice to receive homemade products. 

I am not actually doing any hampers this year but I really like making Sweet Chilli Jam. We quite often buy it but every year, at Christmas, I tend to make a big batch of it (I am not sure why I only do this at Christmas to be honest, maybe because it takes so long to get through it all!). 

The recipe that I follow is another one from Good Food, and here it is... 

Ingredients:

8 x Red Peppers

10 x Red Chillies - I used mainly green ones this time as that's all the shop had!

1 x finger piece of Ginger 

8 x Garlic Cloves 

400g of fresh tomatoes - the recipe says tinned but I like using fresh and I don't peel the tomatoes either, but if you're not a fan of the skin then I would recommend sticking with tinned!

750g Golden Caster Sugar 

250ml Red Wine Vinegar 

A side from the mountain of sugar in the back of the photo, the colours look amazing! 

For the first step, you need a food processor. Mine is a really cheap one from Argos that I bought about 6 years ago but it does the trick (I want to buy a new one but this one just keeps going!!!).

Hint: Because there was so many ingredients, I blended them in batches, chopping everything up a little smaller before putting them in. 

Next, put everything in a large pan - I used my large Le Creuset pot which is my most used kitchen pan, I absolutely love it!!!

Bring the pot to the boil and then the recipe says to leave to simmer for 50 mins. However, I followed this and found that it needed much longer, about an additional 40 mins!  

Once you have finished cooking, leave the mixture to cool and then decant it into your jars/containers. You can buy many different sizes of jam-styled jars, depending on how many people you are giving it too, but as we are just keeping it for ourselves (may give some away but we'll see) I added it to 2 separate jars. 

We use the Sweet Chilli Jam with loads of different things, the obvious one being with cheese and biscuits - which we love but we only really have around Christmas. Some of our other favourites include pimping up a fish pie (mixing it with Quark or Philadelphia makes a normally average fish pie delicious). Some people just use it on toast but I'm not really a fan of that. 

Let me know if you have made this or if you make anything similar! 

Love Sophia xxx

Jackson's Christmas Stocking

This year, I felt that Jackson needed loads of new toys for Christmas. I am not sure if it is partially down to mum-guilt, seen as I am having another baby, or if he has actually out-grown some of current toys but I have bought so many that I have already saved some for his birthday!!

Below, I have shared Jackson's stocking/sack presents and I have also linked anything below that I could find online. Most of the presents have been brought in pre-Christmas and Black Friday sales...

Last year, my sister brought this gorgeous personalised stocking for Jackson. It will be much more full than last year though (we only put a couple of presents back then, as we had a few bigger bits for him instead). 

The first thing that we have brought him is this baby doll and a buggy. When we go to play groups, he shows no interest in them but I got them in order to try and get him used to babies before his little brother/sister arrives. Not sure if this will work but lots of people have recommended doing this.
Baby: Mothercare
Buggy: Mothercare

We do lots of messy-play at home and Jackson loves it, although we are missing some tools. I found this kit in the Mothercare Black Friday sale - it has so many bits in!
Paint kit: Mothercare

Something that Jackson does love to play with at toddler groups is the tea set they have. I am not really that bothered if Jackson plays with girly toys or likes pink but it was so hard to find a tea set that was gender neutral, as they all tend to be pink or floral. I managed to find this one though from Argos for about £3.50 in the pre-Christmas sales, so was totally chuffed to get one! (Price has gone up now)
Tea Set: Argos

We bought this train set from Ikea (we actually bought it for his 1st birthday but we felt he was too little back then, so we kept it for Christmas). I think that he will enjoy building the tracks now, as he is much more advanced. I have also bought him a couple more trains that we gave to him in his advent calendar.
Train Track: Ikea

Now, this a prime example of mum-guilt. We went to a friends house recently and he loved these type of puzzles, so the next day I went out to John Lewis and picked this up!!
Puzzle: John Lewis

Jackson just loves watching 'Mr Tumble', so when I found this book in TKMax for cheap, I just had to buy it.
Mr Tumble book: TKMax

Our plan was to also get some toy pots and pans from Ikea but after having a look at what we already had for Jackson for Christmas, we chose not to get anymore. I have already brought the plastic food so we will give this to him. This was another bargain from Argos.
Plastic food: Argos

The next toy was, apparently, the IT toy last year and it sold out in most places. I bought this one back in September but I think that it's available in most shops now. Its a bath toy that makes bubble ice creams like Mr Whippy. Looks loads of fun!
Bath toy: Amazon

Jackson has just started to get into role play and my sister has been buying him different hats, which combines his love of both hats and role play. Again I found it quite difficult to buy boy role play sets but I managed to find this doctors kits which looks really good quality.
Doctor set: Argos

Everyone that knows Jackson, knows that he uses most things as microphone, which I really don't know where he gets it from (Dada, haha!). I found this one in Mothercare and it echos when you sing into it. I remember having a similar one as a child!
Microphone: Mothercare

Last Christmas, Chris picked up one of these pull-along/push toys. Personally, I said it was a waste of money as he was too little for a toy like this. Well how wrong was I!!! It very quickly became his favourite toy and he played with it constantly. When anyone asks me what to get a one'ish year old, I tell them to get one of these. Anyway, back to this one... a few months back I stepped on it and broke it (carrying a little extra weight at the moment!). Jackson's Grandpa managed to fix it temporarily and it lasted a while longer but eventually came apart again, so we thought we would replace it for a new one.
Push along toy: Amazon

What have you got your little ones for Christmas?

Love Sophia xxx