My 2010 mood board

I have been pulling together my review of the year post for the last couple of days.... but I'm still only at May! So when I saw this post from Rosie Scribble my Blythe sister, who had nicked the idea from Not Super Mum who nicked it from ThatGirl, I thought - what the hell.....

So please enjoy my personal mood board of inspiration for 2010.

From top left we have.... 

1. My hubby, the amazing Yan To - having just launched his first womenswear collection he will be showing at On/Off in Feb.

2. My new kitty Cheryl... she is a super oft Cornish Rex and my new baby! Did you know that she has her own kitty blog at TotallyKitty?

second line from left....

3. FunnyGirl.. the funniest kid in my life - she brings light and joy to every path she meets.

4. TotallySonny, my no2 son - a geeky scorpio blogger just like me!

5. No1 son.... now off at uni and who would have guessed that he would be planning a career in the media too?

third line from left

6. My new addiction, Blythe. The amazing doll who was originally produced for just one year in 1972 ( the year I was born). Alas she was ahead of her time. I love her style and in all honesty she's as photogenic as ModelGirl!

7. My no1 daughter - ModelGirl (in pic with me). She inspires me and challenges me in equal measure. I love her with all my heart after longing for a daughter for so many years.

8. The dress... I love this dress. My hubby made it for me and it makes me look and feel like a total princess.

fourth line from left

9. ModelGirl in her full modelling glory. She has the ability to be totally amazing.

10. TotallySonny was so excited by my blog that he started blogging himself. Amazing for an eight year old boy.

11. My beautiful custom Blythe once again... this one is for RosieScribble.

last line from left

12. My other new addiction... Big Eye Art. I have loads of pics and if you ever see any at car boot sales or thrift sales, please buy them for me! This is my fav... and why wouldn't it be? Those big sad eyes are so me!

13. My babies.... say no more. xx

The BMB Carnival....

Welcome to my first hosting of the BMB blogging Carnival. As I'm the boss this week I am going with a birth / birthday / rebirth theme as it's my birthday this week and well it seemed like a good thing to do. It is quite a lot of work getting though all of the posts that I have been sent but I have found some amazing new blogs to add to my reader. I hope that you will enjoy them as much as I have.

I hope that you don't mind me kicking off with my own post. This is a story of rebirth and recovery following a very near fatal brush with post natal depression. It's called Me...

We are all programmed to think that the transition from person to mother is a smooth one. Your due date arrives and a beautiful baby is delivered by a Stalk wrapped in the finest cashmere blankets but in reality we know that is not the case. As mothers we deal with our own birth stories and move on, forgetting our own horror stories as quickly as we forget those around us.

Kelly from A Place of my Own is sharing an amazing journey with us here. Many of her Twitter friends (me included felt as if we were part of her experience) wanting to help and advise. Her story is sweet, lovely, from the heart and proof that you should do what you feel is right for you and not what you are being told.

Kelly and Piran – you guys rock.

And as for Claire at OMG pregnant / Then There Were Three, well she had the textbook birth that we can only dream of. Of course without the text advice of her Twitsters it could have been a totally different story!

Laura from AWNTYM shares her unexpected birth tale with a very sweet though slightly unnerving outcome!

Josie at Sleep is for the weak time travels through her birth story.

Over at the Angels & Urchins blog they plea for the smug side of motherhood to let rip. I know I'm good but how great are you?

Tara at Sticky Fingers tells an all familiar of tale of evil party bags packed with malicious swag! A true pet hate of my own, though i do seretly like getting to scoff all of the BAD sweets that I remove!

Karin at CafeBebe, has a birth experience not unlike one of my own (hey I’ve had 4!) .Four down mum to go shares a young fellas birthday story. 

Pippa at A Mother's Ramblings tells how birthdays in her life are a huge family affair. HomeBaked explains her obsession with Christmas.

Liz at Living with Kids has the birthday grumps that can only be truly appreciated by a fellow Scorpio! With you all the way Liz!

Elaine at Little Sheep learning has some wise words and practical advice on how to prepare siblings for the arrival of a new baby.

Everyone who knows me understands that I have a rather unnatural obsession with Hello Kitty, i am a nice person (i hope) and I don't kill people so I just go with it. Then I saw this from Alpha Mummy. OMG if I could have any more children (which i can't) I would be on the next plane to Taiwan (via Hello kitty World in Tokyo of course).

And my final mention has to go out to the best little blogger on the block. My little fella TotallySonny. It's his birthday next week and he so wanted to submit to the carnival but he said can't I ask him to blog about birthdays after he has had his? Urm... NO! I said but please stop by his blog anyway!
BMB are always looking for new carnival hosts. http://tinyurl.com/6doadr

Wow, what a week...

It has been a pretty crazy week for everyone involved in my industry. It began with the annual Baby Products Association trade show from Sunday to Tuesday, the Prima Baby Magazine Award winners lunch was Wednesday and the biggest consumer show of the year, the Earls Court Baby Show, Friday till Sunday. Any single one of those events would quite frankly have been enough but to have them all in one week was a bit too much.

On the up side there have been some fab things happen this week too.

1. My hubby sold the first piece from his collection – a truly stunning jacket (that I had my eye on!). I am so proud of him and all that he has achieved and learnt over the past year.

2. My Twitter sister @OMGpregnant had a text book birth on Monday afternoon welcoming her little Bean into the world – the tip side of that amazing event was that I wouldn’t get to spend the day with her at The Baby Show on Friday as planned.

3. I met my client Lynda from easidream for the first time. Now I do feel that we are old friends as we have become quite close over the last few weeks as we have been working furiously to plan for her official launch, which took place yesterday at the show and we nailed a full page edit in Sunday Times Style mag (that appeared last Sunday).

4. I met my other new client Robynne, who is a truly amazing lady. She nearly reduced the consumer editor from the leading baby magazine and I to tears as she told us the very sad story of how she adopted her first daughter.

5. ModelGirl and I spent the day with my other Twitter sister @soph4soph and her baba the totally cute little Soph. The up side of The Baby Show is that I can spend the day with my pals and still work. We had a lovely day, marred only by the fact that we were missing @omgpregnant. The girls looked stunning in their identical Sophie4Sophie dresses. They bonded and had a lovely time playing and looking gorgeous! We all had Tellytubbie headbands and covered ourselves in I Love Stokke® badges. Pizza for lunch and a couple of odd Twitter experiences as people came up to us as asked “Are you MummyTips and soph4soph?”

Random!

I guess that Nat with the famous yellow Xplory® and me with my bleach blonde hair trailing around after two beautiful girls makes us easy to spot!

6. I got to spend a day with the fabulous TotallySonny! That might not sound like much but when you have four children it isn’t very easy to get regular one on one time. I do spend much more time with my girls and in all honesty I can’t remember the last time that it was just the two of us. We had a lovely day – OK so it was back to The Baby Show again but today we were on a mission. With my work hat on I was meeting with the actress Sarah Parish and her actor hubby James Murray. So what you may say… but for Sonny, this is his idea of heaven. Sarah Parish was the Empress Racnoss in Dr Who and James was Steven in Primeval. His two favourite TV shows in the world!

So we met them and they were lovely to Sonny. James bought him a hot dog and they signed a few bits for him. But the icing on the cake for my fella was James telling him that he loves the name Sonny and that it is top of their possible boys name list. Sonny duly handed over one of his TotallySonny.com badges and we had a whizz around the show with them.

There were some great products at the show. I had a sweatshirt printed for Sonny from Simplycolours.co.uk - they are the best personalised T shirt company that I’ve seen. T-shirts in bright colours in sizes from baby up to ten years and of course all of the fabulousness from my clients Annabel Karmel, easidream, Arm's Reach co-Sleeper, Stokke, TotsBots and Zoobie.

But biy am I happy to be at home today. Totally worn out and looking forward to X Factor!

A late addition to the Wordless Wednesday Pot

Subtitled. A bloggers injury! 
Mauled by a Ben 10 Stretchy figure and all in the name of his TotallySonny, TotallyChristmas guide......

Does this show complete and utter dedication to this young boys blogging vocation? Could he really actually turn out to be THE next Nigel Marvin? Or has he been the victim of a serious mauling courtesy of another family member????

If you want to know more visit the little guys blog... You got to love him..... TotallySonny.com!