Guest post at The Golden Gleam

Recently my lovely friend Rebekah at The Golden Gleam shared the wonderful news that her family is growing. Rebekah and her husband are adopting three lovely children to join their beautiful daughter E. You can read about her emotional journey here.
While she is taking an important break to welcome her new family members I have had the pleasure of guest posting on her brilliant blog. My guest post is How to make a Cardboard Ambulance. I'd love for you to pop over and check it out - as usual with my Goblin based activities things did not go quite as planned.

Guest post

I forgot to mention earlier in the week that I have been sharing my "wisdom" over at B.Inspired, Mama
for her genius series Mama Knows Best.

I would love it if you popped over and left a comment. 

All about Me!

Today I am (sort of) guest posting at PlayDrMom. She runs a cool series called 'The ABCs of ..." which every week showcases one of the Bloggers who hosts the Kids Co-op link up. This week its me. So if you are curious to know more about what I get up to when I'm not blogging why not pop over and check it out. I've tried to be brutally honest.

The ABCs of The Monko from Taming the Goblin

In {her} shoes

Crayon Freckles runs a great series called In {Her} Shoes which gives a 'behind the scenes' look at the bloggers behind the blogs. I have really enjoyed reading about some of the parents behind the great blogs I follow and am very excited that this week its my turn. I can't believe I get to be up there with some of my favourites. So if you are interested in knowing a bit more about my parenting philosophies and why I blog, please pop over and visit Crayon Freckles 

One Lovely Blog Award

Two blog awards in two weeks is too cool. I have a confession. Lovely Sierra at H is for Homeschooling actually gave me this award a fortnight ago, but it involves finding 15 great blogs to pass it on to. Now that is not difficult because there are a ton of great blogs out there. But deciding which 15 is difficult, and that is why I have been procrastinating. But no more!

For anyone who doesn't know, the point of a blog award is basically to let your readers know what other cool blogs are out there and thus help widen their readership. I have had a couple of blog awards before so in my list of 15 I am going to try and avoid ones that I have previously mentioned (you can check out the others I have previously listed by clicking my 'blog award' label). 
 

One Lovely Blog Award Rules:

1. Link back to the one who gave you this award.

2. Pass the award on to 15 other lovely bloggers.

3. Follow the person who sent it to you.

Here are the 15 bloggers I am passing this award on to:

Make, do and Friend

Trail and Error mama

Moonbeams and Applesauce

Dirt and Boogers

Train up a Child

Joyfully Weary

Mermaids Making

Passengers on a Little Spaceship

Rockabye Butterfly

Kingdom of the Pink Princesses

The Mommies Made me Do it

Putti Prapancha

A Secure Base

Child Led Chaos

The Golden Gleam

 

I hope you'll find the time to stop by and check out some of those listed. 

Blog Award - Liebster

Rachel over at Sparkling Bay has passed on the Leibster Blog award to me. I am really chuffed that she thought of my blog for this award. Thank you so much Rach. 

I have received this award once before. I hasten to add this makes the fact I got it again no less cool, but the good thing is, this time round I know the deal (last time I got it I was very confused about how this all worked and had to ask some really dumb questions) - it is a way of spreading the readership of blogs with less than 200 followers, who you think your readers might enjoy.  The idea is that you pass the award on to the owners of blogs you like reading. 

So, here are my picks for this award and why, in alphabetical order.  

Dilly-Dali Art - This is one of these blogs that I have been aware of for some time because its always being featured on other blogs that I read, but for some reason I hadn't found the time to check it out until recently. And as soon as I did I was hooked. I had assumed it wouldn't qualify for this award on the basis that its for blogs with under 200 followers, but according to the widget in the side bar it still qualifies - hurrah. You have to check out the amazing art stuff that they do, its stunning. 

H is for Homeschooling - Another amazing blog for toddler educational ideas. Sierra's older son Boogie is the same age as Goblin so I often pop in to get inspiration. She also hosts a great link up "Whats on the tray Wednesday", and a fab series of guest posts that I contributed to, which is on Sundays and is about sharing parenting fails. The author of this blog is so lovely at leaving supportive comments and has made me really feel like part of a blogging community. 

Learning for Life - This fantastic blog makes me want to move to Ireland just so Goblin can attend the pre-school which is the feature of most of the posts. They do such amazing out door play and I get inspiration every time I go there. It makes me want to take Goblin outside as often as possible.

Rainy Day Mum - This is a blog that I only discovered recently and then wished I'd known about it sooner. It has fantastic craft ideas as well out door play, indoor play, and three {yes Three!} weekly link ups "made with Love" "Tuesday Tots" and "Kids Co-op".

We Can Do All Things - This is a fantastic blog with loads of great and unique educational activities for toddlers. The fact that the star of the blog, Adeline, is super cute and very photogenic also helps make reading the blog so very pleasurable. I steal a huge number of my ideas from here so its nice to have an opportunity to confess that in public. 

I hope you find the time to pop over and check out these blogs. They are fantastic inspiration to me. 

Guest post - Lessons learned

(Goblin is 28 months)

Woop! Woop! I got my first guest post published.

Please go and check it out over at H is for Home Schooling. 


It is part of a Sunday series of guest posts entitled "Lessons Learned". The idea behind the series is to share in a more honest and open way some of the more difficult moments in parenting, but in a lighthearted way, and hopefully with a 'lesson learned' at the end of each post.
It also gives a sneaky peak into the inner "crazee" within many blogging parents.

If you aren't a blogger yourself, and you read kids activity blogs and find yourself feel somewhat inadequate that you aren't doing X, Y, Z with your little one (like I sometimes do), this series may be just the remedy. It will help you see that bloggy parents have just as many lazy days and bad parenting days - they just don't tell you about them that often.

If you do pop over to H is for Home Schooling do take time to read some of Sierra's other posts, she has some really great tot school ideas including a wednesday link party, and she has just started two new link ups, one for playdough ideas, and one for sensory bins.

My 'go to' blogs

A while ago I told you about HappyWhimsicalHearts, my 'feel good' blog, but I also have three blogs that I would consider my 'Go To' blogs. One for all my educational activities and two for all my craft activities. I thought I'd share them with you in case you haven't discovered them yet.

Living Montessori Now.
This is a fantastic blog written by Deb Chitwood. It covers all things Montessori including articles about Montessori Methods, Give Aways of Montessori equipment and books (and a link party for Give Aways on other people's blogs),  but I have to confess my main love is the Montessori Monday link up.

Every Monday Deb hosts a link up where anyone doing Montessori based activities can post their stuff. It is a one stop shop for brilliant ideas and the majority of the educational activities I have done with Goblin come from this link up. 

Red Ted Art's blog

This blog is written by Maggy Woodley and I love, love, love it! Every single post is something crafty and inspirational. I went through a phase of clicking on pictures on link up parties and always ending up at this blog - so now I cut out the middle man and just visit direct. It has 'how to' tutorials, 'what we have been doing' blog posts and again a fab link up party. 

This link up party is on a Wednesday and contains a bunch of ideas for craft activities for all age groups. I always find something to do with Goblin on my weekly visits. 

NurtureStore

This is another fab blog for craft activities. This blog is focussed more directly at Goblin's age group which is why I like it so much. I also really like the layout, its very easy to find exactly what you want with all the clever headers and sublinks. If you visit close to a big holiday be sure to check out the 'Festivals and Celebrations' sublink in the 'Spirit' header. It has archived ideas for nearly every holiday going. This is where I found the fab Diwali salt dough candle holders last year. And of course it has a great link up, on a Friday. 

This link up has both craft ideas and wider play themed posts and there is a lot to pick from for toddlers. 

So go and visit, enjoy them, and why not spread the word. 

The Leibster Award

I got another award. This is obviously a good week. 

One of the great things about keeping a blog is that you have your own record of what you have been up to with your toddler. When I started writing this 4 months ago thats really all this was. But it is lovely to receive awards like this one and realise that others are reading about your week and enjoying what you have been up to, and maybe even taking some of the ideas and using them themselves. 

I discovered a lovely blog not so long ago called Happy Whimsical Hearts. I listed it in my top 15 for the Versatile Blogger Award and bizarrely at the same time as me listing Kelly, she was preparing to list me for this Liebster Blog award. A bit of mutual appreciation there. 

The word 'liebster' actually comes from the German word for love, friend or dearest.

The goal of the award is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. The rules are:

1.              copy and paste the award on your blog

2.              thank the giver and link back to them

3.              reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog

4.              hope that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers

Having just listed my top 15 'new' blogs a few days ago I actually really struggled to find another 5 with less than 200 followers. A lot of the blogs I read are very popular and the problem with newer and less well know blogs is, well, just that, they are less well known so unless they are putting themselves out there by linking to stuff they can be quite hard to find. Never the less I managed to find my five, and some of them were ones I had been reading for a while and just assumed had more followers than they did. 

In alphabetical order they are:

A childhood list 

Mama Pea Pod

Mudpies and Marmalade

Toys in the dryer

What do you do all day 

The Versatile Blogger award

OMG I am excited! I have been awarded the Versatile Blogger award. 

This award was passed to me by Greening Sam and Avery one of the three fab blogs that host the outdoor play link up. I am so grateful to be included in Abbie's list of 15 blogs, and you should see the others I was grouped with (big smile of pride). Seriously though if you do want to see the other blogs check out the link http://greeningsamandavery.typepad.com/greening-sam-and-avery/2011/11/blogging-award.html

And the exciting bit is I now get to pass the award on to 15 blogs. The rules say they should be 'newly discovered' blogs but as I have only been blogging for 4 months nearly all the blogs are newly discovered in my world. I have tried to choose ones I frequent that are either relatively new or ones that give me so much inspiration I couldn't possibly leave them off the list - with quite a few of the blogs those two things overlap.   

The Rules

• Thank the person that nominated you with a link back to them. 
• Tell everyone seven things about yourself.
• Pass this award on to 15 newly discovered blogs and let them know that they've received an award!

Seven things about me:

Oh dear, seven's quite a lot. Well here goes ....

1. I love to sleep. Hublet lets me lie in at the weekends because I am not a nice person when I am tired. But I need a ridiculous amount of nap time. mmmm sleeeeeeep. 

2. I haven't drunk alcohol in three years - since I started trying to get pregnant with Goblin - but I still consider myself a heavy drinker. Weird huh!

3. I love TV. Before I started blogging I spent every non Goblin hour of the day that I wasn't sleeping or working watching TV. Mainly dramas like the fabulous West Wing - which Hublet and I are currently rewatching for the fifth time (all seven series) - but I do succumb to the occasional trash TV like The X Factor too. 

4. I'm not a perfectionist at all. I like doing crafty things but only to a certain level. I'm not interested in learning complicated knitting because my three stitches get me as far as I need to go. I could never sell stuff on Etsy because I don't have the motivation to finish stuff to a professional standard.

5. I don't cook. I used to be able to cook really well. My dad is an amazing cook and I used to be quite good. I learnt to cook when I was vegetarian so most of my food consisted of Mediterranean veg in curries, casseroles etc. But Hublet has cooked every day for the last 6 years (because he doesn't like Mediterranean vegetables and thus anything I cook, plus he really likes cooking) so now I can't even steam veg without them going mushy and gross. 

6. I really like my job. I work for the Department of Health and my job really feels like I am doing something that matters. Plus I work with some great people, and an added bonus is working three days a week gives me time to rest and recharge before diving back in to being a mummy. 

7. My husband and son make me feel so content I really have no other ambitions in life. 

My Fab Fifteen 

Now to pass the award along! Please go and check these guys out if you haven't already

1. My Buddies and I 
2. NurtureStore 
3. Artful Adventures
4. And That's Family
5. Beneath the Rowan Tree
6. I Heart Crafty Things
7. The Education of Ours
8. Living Montessori Now
9. Happy Whimsical Hearts
10. Hands on as we grow
11. Peaceful Parenting
12. H is for Homeschooling
13. Lessons Learnt Journal
14. What did we do all day
15. Pyjama School

Obviously most of the blogs I read are ones that have great activities for toddlers, as that's my main interest in life at the moment, so go and check out what they have to offer. 

And don't forget to check out Greening Sam and Avery who gave me the award.