NetFlix #StreamTeam

You may have seen me showing this little beauty off a bit on social media a week or so ago....

This was my very generous and lovely gift from the amazing team at Netflix as a thank you for being part of the Stream Team!

We have been having so much fun getting lots of use out of this.....Tyne LOVES playing on the Ipad (he has all his own apps, Thomas The Tank Engine being his favourite!)

Infact since our new Ipad Mini arrived, Tyne has actually learnt to take his own #selfie and smile & pose for the camera! All at 16 months old....eeek!

He loves watching Netflix in the mornings....I find that during the school holidays the usual kids TV channels seem to cater more for older children, Disney in particular seems to always be playing Barbie movies which he's just not interested in....but now with the Ipad and the Apple TV he can watch the Thomas The Tank Engine through Netflix directly on the TV....it's so easy to do and plays just as perfectly as if you were watching a standard TV channel.

I've discovered some great movies through Netflix myself this month, my favourite discovery was "The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom"....

I got a bit obsessed with all things Dolly during the whole Glastonbury buzz, and when I saw this movie flash up on Netflix as a suggested title I couldn't resist.

I love Indie movies and this one did not dissapoint!

It follows a pre-teen girl and her discovery that she is adopted, which leads her to follow her idol Dolly Parton across the state to confront her and find out if she could be her birth mother.

It's a great watch....in parts touching and sad, and in parts funny....the perfect mix!

I love that having Netflix has got me back into watching movies more lately, it's always been a hobby I've loved but since having Tyne I was never able to keep up with postal subscription services....Netflix is the ideal answer to all my problems!

Do you use Netflix? Are there any movies or shows you'd recommend to me? 

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Life Lately....

What I've Been Watching....

This past month I've been spending more time than ever just watching YouTube vlogs than anything else! I am now utterly addicted to the likes of The Shaytards, Ellie & Jared, The Daily Bumps and pretty much any American family vloggers!

I do love a bit of UK comedy with the likes of ThatcherJoe too.....I had been enjoying watching Sprinkle Of Glitter but I experienced a very embarrassing moment on our recent trip to Peppa Pig World where a group of 10 year olds actually mistook me for her!

I realise that I have the same dip dyed pink hair, but to be fair....mine is a much darker pink and I look naff all like her! (I wish!) .... I did have sunglasses on and a small blonde baby in my arms and my partner pointing my vlog camera at me while this happened, but the whole experience left me a bit embarrassed (They were shouting "Louise!" at me while the woman in the queue next to me was asking if they thought I was someone famous, and I had to explain to her what YouTube is.....) and I simply can't watch her anymore because immediately makes me want to change my hairstyle!!!

Aside from YouTube videos, I have been loving the return of Long Lost Family.....I love sitting down to have a good sob when it's on, but they're happy tears!

And I did manage to watch the Tulisa: The Price Of Fame documentary last night which I found quite interesting....I've never been a fan of hers but I did feel a bit sorry for her. Did anybody see it?

What I've Been Reading....

I don't seem to get much time to read anything lately, the most I've managed is some of my usual blogging favourites.

I have been browsing Park Resorts blog though, particularly this post on their Picks Of The North East's best beaches as we've been thinking about taking a little trip there before Summer is out to visit Jon's brother and friends. I've never been to the North East before so I'm not sure where to start destination wise!

Any suggestions?!

What We've Been Doing....

The past month has been very busy indeed! We've had our weekend away in Peppa Pig World, our day trip to London for my This Morning interview, and just re-cooperating from how busy June was has really taken it out of us!

We've had some lovely days out though....We went to the Tiverton Balloon Festival a couple of weeks ago, which was lovely....Tyne got very excited at being so close to the Hot Air Balloons!

We also had a day at Teignmouth seaside last weekend, a day at Exmouth beach last week and a trip to Torbay Carnival this weekend which was lovely as the weather was really nice.

What We've Got Planned....

This week we'll be heading back to Torbay Carnival a couple of times, as they have a Carnival Procession tomorrow and a Firworks finale at the weekend which will be lovely to see.

It's Jons birthday next Sunday, so I`m busy trying to organise gifts and plan what to do on the day for that.

The following weekend is my nephew Kier's Christening, so we're heading back to Liverpool for that and staying for a visit too....I need to get my thinking cap on as I haven't even decided on a Christening gift for him yet!

I've also decided to take part in my first ever Daily Vlog challenge - I'll be joining in with Vlogust! - basically vlogging every day in August! It should certainly be interesting trying to film and upload every day while we're in Liverpool as I'll be doing it all from my Ipad, but fingers crossed it goes ok!

I don't get many views at all on my YouTube videos but I love making them anyway as Tyne loves watching them back, and I think the memories they capture for us as a family are priceless!

If you'd like to have a look at our channel, please click HERE

So that's our Life Lately! How's Life been treating you?!

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Transforming my Yard & Summer Picnic Fun!

We've been living in this house for almost a year now.

We moved in blindly....for anyone who is unfamiliar with the situation, I was very ill in pregnancy and myself and Jon ended up moving in with my parents in Liverpool so that I had someone with me while he was working.

Once Tyne was born, and I started to get better....we of course wanted to get our own place and head back to Devon where we had lived before.

But due to Jon's job and travelling with a young baby, it wasn't possible for us to keep visiting Devon to do house viewings.

It ended up that my sister (who already lived there) and my parents (during visits to her) did some viewings for us, and they ended up finding our house....so we moved in never having seen the place before!

Of course this isn't the ideal way to move in to a property, and there are aspects of it we don't like much....but on the whole it's a nice big house with lots of space, and has certainly served us well over the last year.

One of the things that wasn't ideal about the house, but is sadly the case with a LOT of rented houses in Devon, there is no garden space.

It's a terraced house near to the town centre, so there is no front garden and only a small yard space in the back.

This was fine when Tyne was a tiny baby as I'm not much of an outdoors person anyway, but now he is older he needs a little outside space.

This was how our yard space looked before.

No safe, grass area to play in....very dull and dark. No greenery whatsoever.

With (a lot of!) help from my mum who is MUCH more green-fingered than me, we bought some roll-out artificial grass and some flowers and plants....and managed to transform this bleak space to a lovely little town garden which is the perfect size for Tyne to play in!

What a difference a bit of greenery makes!

Tyne loves to play outside now - the grass is lovely and soft, and the good thing about artificial grass is that its obviously never muddy and doesn't hold the water!

He uses his water play tray, slide and see saw out here a lot when the weather is nice and we'll be setting his paddling pool up this week too!

This weekend we enjoyed our first picnic in the garden!

 We were very kindly sent this beautiful picnic basket from Wilko (£25.00) - I absolutely love it, it's the perfect size for a little picnic dinner and includes proper cutlery, plates and cups! 

 Tyne loved getting stuck into his outdoor dinner....we had all of his favourites, including his ABSOLUTE favourite which is corn on the cob! (and Mummy's favourite Falafels too!)

We also used our little Summer Picnic as the perfect time to try out BN Biscuit's new flavours - raspberry and chocolate!

Both of them were delicious, but the chocolate was the winner in this house!

Tyne had never tried them before and was besotted with the smiley faces!

I made the mistake of singing the "Bn Bn" song from the ad campaign when he ate his first one, and he thought it was hilarious to make his biscuit dance while I sang....so of course thats what we then had to do for every single biscuit each of us ate from then on!

 We had so much fun having our little picnic, and it just goes to show that having good family fun in the Summer doesn't have to cost the earth...it can be as simple as just a picnic in the garden!

I'm loving having a nice little outdoor space to relax in and watching Tyne play outside is lovely.....and I've really been enjoying buying some nice bits & pieces for the town garden too!

I particularly love these outdoor lights (£10.00) which were also from Wilko - they look so pretty all lit up of an evening!

How have you been enjoying the summer so far?

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#MamaStyleMonday

You're going to have to excuse the serious lack of effort with this week's MamaStyle Monday folks...ever since I came back from London on Wednesday I have been SO ILL!!

The sickest i`ve been in AGES!

I think it's a chest infection, but all I know is that I can't stop coughing - my throat and ears are killing me, every part of me is in agony from all the violent coughing, and I can't stay awake for longer than an hour!

So obviously this week has not been ideal for taking photos and I haven't even managed to get dressed most days if I'm honest!

I'm hoping to be well enough again next week so actually put some effort into a post, but for now I'm sharing one of the few actual outfits I wore this week that wasn't pyjamas (Although they are as comfortable as them and my niece has asked if they are PJs before!!!) and, as a few people asked about my This Morning outfit, I'll be talking about that too!

So this was my one proper outfit of the week!

I LOVE wearing things like this when I`m staying around the house or just nipping out to a couple of shops, or over to visit my sister.

It's SO comfortable, it really does feel like you're still in your PJs!

The plain white top was £4 from Asda.

The zebra print bottoms were from New Look for around £14.99

And the Sandals were also from New Look for around £12.99

And the This Morning outfit!

OH MY GOODNESS you would not believe the stress I had trying to find something to wear!

Infact, I was still out shopping at 8.30 on Tuesday night when I was due to leave for the show at 6am on Wednesday!

The show stipulates that you cannot wear anything patterned (Apparently Ruth is an exception to that rule!), you cannot wear anything white and you cannot wear logos.

Logos I understand, and even white to a degree....but I'm not sure if they realise how impossible it is to find ANYTHING without any pattern!

Everything I own is patterned! My tops, kimonos, dresses, everything I usually wear....all patterned! I don't do plain!

I went to every shop you can imagine.....Wallis, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, New Look, M & S, Matalan, Outfit, Next.....NONE of them had anything in that was plain and was a complete outfit!

It was a nightmare and I very nearly cancelled the whole appearance in frustration. I actually typed out the email to send to the producer to say I wasn`t going because I couldn't find anything to wear!

I decided to try one last shop....the only one that was still open at 8.30....Tesco!

And - at last! - I found this plain bright blue top for £12!

I found a black best to wear underneath it for £3, and a statement necklace reduced to £7.50 which matched it well....but I didn't know what to wear on the bottom.

All I could find that matched was black jeans which were £8.

I actually wore them on the show with a pair of bright blue suede heels, which matched the top perfectly (I already had those at home) - unfortunately my feet were never in shot and by the time I came to have photos taken at the end of the show I was on my way home so had changed back into my flats!!! 

But I promise the outfit looked much better with the heels!

 The reason I'm sharing these posts is to celebrate Mama's & the  style they choose to rock....To celebrate our post-baby bodies and the way we dress them...

If you want to join in with me, just share a photo of your favourite look from the past week...either in a blog post, tweet or Instagram...Be sure to share the link with me!

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#SundayBest - Link Up Your Favourite Post Of The Week!

Thank you to everyone who joined in with the Sunday Best linky last week - I'm so pleased that you guys are supporting this new linky....of course the key to a successful linky is visiting as many other linked blogs as you can and leaving a little comment! If you do, please leave #SundayBest on the comment so that the blogger knows you found them here! :)

To join in with this linky, you just need to link up with what you feel was your best post from the last 7 days!

I will tweet a link to every post that links up at some point during the week, and myself or my co-host will comment on every one. 

I will also choose two of my favourite posts each week to feature on next Sunday's post.

My Top Picks From Last Week's Link-Ups

This post from Mummy Constant is all about instilling the value of money into your toddler - a really thought provoking post, certainly gave me some ideas for how to do this with my child!

Kerry gives advice on how to encourage and entice children to eat meat & fish - some very useful tips for anybody struggling with this!

So now its your turn to link up this week!

There are very few rules, but here are the ones I have:

1) Please visit your hosts, and please try to visit and comment on as many other linked-up posts as you can (one is better than none!), and please leave #SundayBest on your comment so the blogger knows that's how you found their post!

2) You can link up any post that you wish, but the URL must lead to a post and NOT to your blog home page.

3) Please add the Sunday Best button on your blog homepage or your blog post - the more the linky is shared, the more people link up and the more we can all interact!

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