Me

Nude Patent Wedges from Shoe Zone – Review

1 week ago

by DawnieBrown in Fashion, Me, Reviews

I love it when I receive things for ME to review so when I was asked to be a Shoe Zone Mummy blogger then I was happy to help. There are certain types of shoe that every woman should have in her wardrobe. Like a good pair of jeans, there are certain shoes which are staple items. Since having children, I admit I seem to spend 95% of my time wearing trainers now a days but it doesn’t stop me loving shoes! When Shoe Zone asked me to choose a pair of shoes to review, I decided I needed to start building my collection and the perfect pair to start with are these beautiful and simple nude patent wedges.

These are the type of shoes which can be worn with everything and anything, I honestly don’t know how I coped for so long without a pair of shoes like this in my collection!

What do I love about these shoes:

1. They can be worn with absolutely everything, a true wardrobe staple which every woman needs in her shoe collection.

2. They are extremely comfortable. I’d say they are true to size, I am a size 7 in most shoes and these in a size 7 fit me really well. They feel great to wear which is always a bonus as I simply don’t believe in crippling myself for the sake of a pair of shoes, no matter how pretty they are

3. The wedge heel makes these shoes so wearable. I’m tall anyway so I don’t particularly need skyscraper heels in my life (although I do own a couple of pairs) and wedges just feel so much more stable whilst still giving the elegant feel and look of heels. Ideal when trying to cope with two toddlers out and about

4. Quality – now I have to admit, when I saw the price of these shoes (£14.99), I was pretty dubious about what quality they would be but to my surprise they look and feel really well made. Of course I’ve only had them a couple of weeks but from my experience of them so far I’m expecting them to last quite a while.

So, overall am I impressed with these shoes? Definitely yes!

nude patent review shoe zone shoe zone mummy shoes wedges

Freeing My Feet With Clarks Shoes

1 week ago

by DawnieBrown in Fashion, Me

When Clarks Shoes challenged me to style up with some of their metallic Studio Beat Sandals and free my feet, well I couldn’t turn them down It seems like winter has lasted forever up here and now we are finally seeing some sunshine I couldn’t wait to get my toes out!

So what summer outfit did I style my Studio Beat Sandals with? Well I’d normally opt for shorts in this weather but I’m a little slow with the fake tan and so I thought I’d spare you my white legs and opt for my favourite maxi dress. It’s silk and I love the bright butterfly print, I feel like a million dollars whenever I wear this dress and so the studio beat sandals are the perfect footwear to go with it. The gold of the sandals seems to bring out the colours in the dress and they really are so comfy to wear which makes them practical too! I’m a big believer in not suffering for fashion so shoes and clothes which look stylish but are easy to wear are a must.

The dress, I got from Warehouse last summer and the sandals of course are from Clarks

Disclosure: I was given the sandals by Clarks for this challenge.

#freeyourfeet Clarks free your feet gold sandals shoes summer

Dowdy Dowdy Dowdy – Fashion Disaster Help Required

2 months ago

by DawnieBrown in Fashion, Me

You know when you look at your wardrobe and you just want to weep? Well that!

I suppose I’m not the only mother of two young kids who has spent the last three years wiping snot, milk, sick and food off their clothes (all of these originating from my children not myself I hasten to add!). It’s no wonder that I’ve not been buying myself nice clothes for a while. I live in jeans (my current jeans were actually bought about 8-9 years ago) and v-neck jumpers. I look OK in them but they are just SOOOO boring!

It is only now as my children are getting less messy, that I look at my wardrobe with longing in the hope that I can just open the doors one day and find a beautiful selection of clothes waiting for me. There are only two real things stopping me from doing this though:

1) I HATE shopping! I’m just no good at clothes shopping, I see people walking past or on TV looking absolutely stunning and I wish I had their style – my problem is that when I walk into a shop and see rail after rail of clothes on hangers – well nothing looks appealing! I’d much rather see a whole outfit being modelled by somebody (or a mannequin) so that I can have some inspiration.

2) I don’t have TIME to shop. I work full time, run my own business and have two children under three. I work until midnight most nights, my weekends are fully occupied by my family so when exactly am I supposed to shop? It’s impossible to go shopping at the weekend with a 2yo and 3yo in tow!

I was really lucky towards the end of 2012 when I won £250 to spend at Boden! £250! Do you know what’s incredibly sad? That money is still sat in credit on my account waiting for me to spend it four months later because I simply haven’t had the time or the inspiration to choose anything. I’ve promised myself that this money is going to be spent on me and not the children as I could spend it in five minutes if it was for them. (Why is it so much easier to style children than it is myself?)

So – anybody fancy doing a bit of virtual shopping for me? What do you think I’d look nice in? If you’re feeling creative why not design me an outfit or shopping basket from Boden for £250 and I’ll publish them on here at a later date (with links back to you).

boden dowdy fashion help makeover wardrobe

The Moment You Realise Your Child Doesn’t Need You Quite As Much Anymore

3 months ago

by DawnieBrown in Family Life, Me, MissB

Today was that day for me.

This afternoon we went out to Adventure Valley for a couple of hours, we have annual passes (a really thoughtful gift from my mother in law for Christmas) so we tend to go there every couple of weeks as it has a lovely, big soft play area and the kids love it.

Now usually on these days, both my husband and I are playing with MissB and MasterB in the soft play, helping them to climb up, holding their hands as we go down the slide and generally being the most important people in their lives who they love to play with

Today, whilst we were playing, we heard a little boy shouting MissB’s name. It turned out to be a friend from nursery and that was it. MissB was off playing with a group of children her own age. Charging around the soft play, giggling together, running around and generally having an absolute ball with barely a glance back to see where Mummy and Daddy were.

Although I still had the full attention of MasterB, I couldn’t help but get a lump in my throat. My little girl is growing up now. How long will it be until she no longer grabs my hand and pulls me into the soft play to see who can go down the slide quickest? How long until she reaches the stage where she is embarrassed to have Mummy and Daddy in the soft play with her?

I love seeing her so happy and being a child with all her friends around her but part of me doesn’t want her to need anybody else in her life but me (and Daddy of course). I’m allowed to feel jealous of those friends aren’t I? I’m allowed to want to be selfish and keep her to myself that little bit longer aren’t I? Or should I just accept that the days of being needed quite so much are dwindling?

I’m going to cherish these days where she is still my little girl and make the most of being able to race her down the slide because today I realised these days aren’t going to last forever

MissB – I love you, please always be my little girl.

growing up independence toddler

Fond memories of my travelling days

4 months ago

by DawnieBrown in advertorial, Me

My little brother has just returned from a few weeks travelling in Australia and New Zealand and its got me thinking back to my travels. In 1996 at the young age of 19, I flew out to Australia for a year of backpacking. It seems a lifetime ago now and a whole world away. Back then I wasn’t able to update my friends and family through twitter and Facebook like my brother did! I suppose one lovely thing from back then was the letters from my family, we wrote at least once a week to each other and I still have every single letter and card that they sent me stored upstairs in my memories box.

I spent most of my time over there working in Cairns and living in a backpackers hostel. I don’t think I could manage the backpacking anymore and I’d much rather stay in a lovely hotel but I still dream of taking my family back there to experience what I did. This time round I want to sleep in a comfortable bed without worrying about bed bugs and have a nice ensuite bathroom that I won’t have to share with a dozen other people Maybe it’s my age but I like my creature comforts too much nowadays

I might not take them skydiving but I’d love to take them diving on the Great Barrier Reef and out to the red centre to see Uluru and The Olgas. Of course we’d visit Sydney and all the other places that I saw back when I was younger. Realistically I think the kids will need to be a little older to appreciate everything Australia has to offer but that just gives me even more time to plan it Well actually I’ve already started planning it and I’ve been drawing up a wish list of gorgeous hotels There certainly won’t be any standing at pay phones with a phone card trying the “phone trick” to get free calls in the middle of the night to speak to my family this time round

And for now….well back to the real world….

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Peeking Out From Behind The Tax Returns

4 months ago

by DawnieBrown in Family Life, Me

Hello there You may have noticed it’s been a little quiet on here recently but life has been pretty hectic recently and as with most accountants at this time a year, I’ve had my head buried in tax returns and accounts for the last couple of months.

Many people have the image of a “mummy blogger” as somebody who stays at home and tweets and blogs all day whilst raising their kids but here is a rough breakdown of my days at the moment, bearing in mind I’m currently working for another company 40 hours per week as well as running my accountancy practice and the blog (oh and raising my family!)

5:45am My alarm goes off and I drag myself out of bed and into the shower, before getting myself ready.
6:30am I pass my husband as he heads for a shower and I go to get the kids up for nursery, we then spend 30 minutes having breakfast, getting them dressed and ready for nursery before handing them over to my husband.
7am I set off on an hours drive to work where I then work before driving home and arriving back around 5:30pm
5:30pm we have dinner followed by bath and bedtime routine. MasterB is still a nightmare to get to sleep and so it is usually 8pm before I am back downstairs with both kids asleep.
8pm Open the laptop and start working on client work and blog posts, this usually carries on until midnight before I drag myself off to bed for a few hours before it all starts again.

If I could get those few hours at night of I disturbed sleep it would be great but MasterB still usually wakes up at least once a night (hubby and I alternate night duties). Needless to say, life is exhausting right now for all of us and I’m missing spending as much time as I would like with my kids but in order to build an empire to hand down to them at some point in the future, these things must be done

I’m not complaining though, I love my life and wouldn’t change it for the world. MissB gets more witty and funny every day, MasterB is getting better health wise. His vision is stabilising and his prescription has decreased to 8.25, the patching seems to be working well on his weak eye. We have been discharged from the consultant for his asthma and we haven’t had a hospital stay all winter with it (touches wood). He is still suffering with ear infections but we are back at the ENT in March to see about grommets. Despite his glue ear and moderate hearing loss, his language is slowly coming on and he even said Dinosaur the other day

Watching my kids playing together makes me realise just how lucky I am

Accountant Blogging busy January working mum

Saying Thank You and Paying It Forwards

4 months ago

by DawnieBrown in Me

I am always lucky to receive lots of gorgeous goodies for MasterB and MissB through blogging but occasionally it’s my time to be spoilt a little Last week I received a lovely pamper hamper from the lovely people at pregnancy support site Bounty.com which was all about a little “me time”.

The hamper contained a book, candle, chocolates and a mum-to-be pamper set. Now I’m not a mum-to-be at present and I’m certainly not planning on being one again, my baby days are over and in just under two weeks MasterB will turn two and I’ll be saying goodbye to the baby days forever I do however work with a lovely lady who is pregnant and so it made me feel really good about myself to give her the gift set for no reason other than because I could

I’ve always been a believer in random acts of kindness, I’ve done a few over the years and I’ve been on the receiving end myself. I love being able to make complete strangers smile just because I can and I have noticed that it really does make a huge difference to the way I feel too! You can’t help but walk around with a smile on your face knowing you’ve made somebody happy. It doesn’t have to be a huge gesture but I’d highly recommend trying it, it can become addictive though and I now try to do at least one random act of kindness a week. Just think how much nicer the world would be if everybody did it!