Let these insights inspire you to plan a baby shower full of creativity, joy, and memorable moments.

Selecting the Ideal Theme for a Baby Shower

Forget the traditional pink or blue and dive into themes that capture the unique spirit of the soon-to-be parents. Whether you opt for a fantasy-filled fairytale, sleek minimalism, or a homage to their favourite novel, ensure the theme weaves through every element of the shower, including decorations, games, and even the menu. Such creativity transforms the event from a gathering to a captivating experience that tells a story or creates an atmosphere they’ll adore.

Choosing The Perfect Venue for the Baby Shower

The venue sets the tone for the baby shower. Whether you’re gathering at someone’s home for a cosy vibe or booking a space for something grander, it’s important to consider the weather, guest count, and accessibility. Decorating and arranging your venue according to the theme can turn an ordinary space into a magical setting for the celebration.

Designing Memorable Invitations

The invitations offer the first peek into the baby shower and should capture what’s to come. The design, colour, and wording should reflect the expectant parents’ theme and personality. Including all the necessary details alongside a creative hint of the day’s theme makes the invitation exciting and sets the tone for the event.

Thoughtful Gift-Giving

Choosing gifts for a baby shower is much more than a simple task; it’s an opportunity to express your support, love, and excitement for the new arrival and their family. Consider setting up a gift registry to ensure that gifts are practical and treasured. Alternatively, proposing group gifts, like a newborn photoshoot, can offer something truly special and memorable. If you find yourself at a loss for words when writing a heartfelt message in a new baby card, these ideas from Adobe can help to inspire your sentiments. Whether aiming for something tender and heartfelt or light-hearted and funny, there’s something to match every tone.

Capturing Joyful Moments

Whether you hire a professional photographer or set up a fun photo booth, capturing the day is crucial. Think about unique keepsakes for the guest of honour and the attendees that link back to the baby shower theme. These tangible memories are wonderful reminders of the love and excitement of the day.

Crafting A Delightful Menu for the Baby Shower

A carefully considered menu pleases all palates and accommodates dietary restrictions, ensuring everyone enjoys the feast. Whether it’s a catered affair, a community potluck, or homemade goodies, integrating the theme into the food and its presentation adds a special touch to the dining experience.

Expressing Heartfelt Thanks

A thoughtful thank-you to your guests is the perfect way to wrap up a beautiful baby shower. Personalised notes mentioning specific moments or a snapshot from the day are a lovely way to show appreciation. This acknowledges their contributions and strengthens the connections formed on this special day.

A baby shower is an exceptional celebration of new beginnings and community. By focusing on personal touches and thoughtful planning, you can organise an event that not only honours the expectant parents but also leaves a lasting impression on all who attend.

The post Tips For Hosting A Baby Shower For A Loved One appeared first on The Parent Social.

At the moment, we’re trying to inject a bit more fun, wherever we can, into the children’s restricted lives and trying to differentiate weekends and ‘special occasions’ from the rest of the week and homeschool. We managed this pretty well over the ‘Easter holidays‘ and have done quite a few things during lockdown to keep our spirits up.

We’re hoping to do the same for the VE Day anniversary (some ideas later on).

Some of the activities so far during lockdown

• We’re doing weekly bake-alongs with friends via Zoom

• We’re playing plenty of games (we also taught the girls to play poker)
• Buying more books – Maria’s obsessed with the first Darcey Bussell ballerina book so I got her the full set. Maria and twin sister Gabby are eagerly working their way through them

• We’re participating in lots of family quizzes
• The girls are having plenty of calls with friends
• We’re doing online tutorials including ballet with The Ballet Coach

• We’re watching more films together as a family
• We let the children stay up late to watch Phantom of the Opera (one of the ‘The Shows Must Go On‘ screenings) and they were mesmerised

• We got a kitten (this wasn’t just a rash lockdown purchase!)
• We’re getting to know our local area much better through walks. Check out your borough council’s website to find walks on your doorstep

VE Day 2020

VE Day is a great opportunity to have a day that’s a bit different and more fun…

• It’s a bank holiday, so no school!
• We’ve bought Union Jack bunting for the kids to decorate the house ready for our…
• Picnic in the front garden
• Make up a jug of Pimms!
• Baking – we’re hosting this week’s bake-along and it’s going to be gingerbread men. I’ll be making some scones later
• VE Day quiz – You can get a free downloadable one at talking tables

• I’ve organised an ice-cream delivery from the ice-cream man for Friday (it went down very well the first time)
• We’re going to be playing more games and having a netball competition
• The Royal British Legion Industries (RBLI) has a number of free downloads available on its site (for adults and children) to help you celebrate VE Day including a step-by-step guide to doing the Charleston Stroll!: https://rbli.co.uk/veday75/ 
• Take plenty of photos

Have fun and take care.

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Sadly, nothing is normal right now so no trips away and no friends and family over 🙁

Differentiating the Easter holiday in 2020

We’ve just completed our first two weeks of homeschooling. I’ve been fairly strict on routine and they’ve done a lot of work. Part of the reason for my approach is because I want to take our foot off the gas these coming two weeks so the Easter holidays can still feel significantly different whilst we continue to be confined to home.

These next two weeks we won’t get up as early, we won’t be doing Joe Wicks, we won’t be structuring the day and there’ll be no formal learning. It’ll be a time to chill out.

The girls’ ideas for Easter

I asked the girls what they would like to happen at Easter within house and garden. Here’s what they said:

Easter egg hunt

We can definitely still do this whether it’s indoors or outdoors. We’ve had some hunts indoors when it’s pouring with rain or freezing cold and have done others outside very early in the morning when it’s been so hot the chocolate was melting. You’ve got to love the unpredictability of the British weather.

Barbecue

It’s an Easter tradition to get the BBQ and spit out even if it rains. The girls have asked if we can cook burgers, chicken and arrosticini. Arrosticini are small lamb kebabs from the Abruzzo region of Italy. We’ve eaten them for as long as I can remember in Italy but last year I got my husband the specialised trough to cook them on and they were cemented as a firm favourite. We did a big summer BBQ last year and they were a huge hit with everyone.

Mocktails

They’d like to have a mocktail making session and create their own bar. Mum and dad get to sample and choose their favourite drink.

Easter fashion show

Dress up like a bunny, wear your bonnet and other Easter-inspired garb and sashay down the improvised catwalk; take plenty of pictures. Sofia wants to do the make-up!

Games day/night

To include (amongst others): Poker, netball tournament, badminton, Frustration, Cluedo, Monopoly…

Cooking

Sofia wants to make pizzette, Maria wants to make gingerbread shaped bunnies and Gabby wants to make chocolate Easter egg nests.

My ideas for Easter

The Easter display

This has become a tradition in the last four years. We have a small white wooden tree (bought from the wedding section of a department store), which we hang our collection of little Easter decorations from. The tree came with wooden heart tags for wedding guests to write messages on. We’ve used them each Easter for our friends and family to write on. We’ve got a nice collection of them now, which is a great reminder of the people we’ve spent Easter with over the years.

Make a restaurant

We all love going out to eat under normal circumstances so Matt and I are going to try to recreate the restaurant experience at home. Nice table clothes, menu, flowers on the table, our best silver service… you get the idea.

Write some Easter cards

We’ve written and posted some already. I love getting ‘nice post’ and hope these will put a smile on the recipients’ faces. Maria and Gabby are also making some cards for their friends.

Dresses

I buy the girls an ‘Easter dress’ each in the same way I buy them a dress each for their Christmas Eve Box. It’s just going to be the five of us, but we’re still going to make an occasion of it so let’s dress up a bit!

Sow some seeds

I want to get busy in the garden this Easter. According to the RHS, beetroot, carrots, Swiss chard, summer cauliflower, kohl rabi, lettuce, leeks, radish, turnip, spring and pickling onions, peas and perpetual spinach are good to sow in April.

We’ll also do another round of Beebombs. These are wild flowers, which specifically attract bees, in a seed ball. You just scatter the pellets; no gardening skills required.

We can also tend to the fairy garden, which has now sprouted.

Summer challenges

We can’t do all of these right now but there are quite a few we can do on here.

What are your plans over the holiday?

The post Easter Holiday on Lockdown appeared first on The Parent Social.

World Book Day and Dressing Up

I’m a massive advocate of nurturing a lifelong love of reading. I also like the idea of anything that promotes this. However, the whole dressing up rigmarole that accompanies World Book Day (WBD) often eclipses its aim. All the mums I’ve spoken to seem pretty unanimous in their weariness about this aspect of WBD – “I just need something cheap and easy” is the cry.  

First there’s the process of deciding on the character. This is labour intensive. I listed all the great books my children had read and suggested characters from these. However, every idea was vetoed. Then we had the discussion about why they couldn’t go as film characters. At 11, my eldest just wants to be the same as her friends and dress up as Thing One, Thing Two and Thing Three despite not enjoying the Dr Seuss books.   

Finding the time

Life is busy. I don’t really have much time (and crucially ability) to make three costumes. We try to find stuff at home that can be used and adapted, but that only gets us so far, so I end up having to spend money to complete costumes. That’s another downside; there’s a lot of pressure on time poor parents to throw money at the whole thing.

Also some children hate dressing up. Maria was all set on being Delphie from one of the Darcey Bussell books and then panicked that “the boys would laugh at her for being in a ballerina dress.” I’ve talked her round.

Other things to do on World Book Day

There are umpteen dressing up events at our school throughout the year, perhaps the focus of WBD could be on other activities…

Some ideas

My children have been set a number of reading tasks by school to complete. It’s more interesting than it sounds…

Michael Rosen’s suggestion

One of our favourites, Michael Rosen, got back to me on Twitter and suggested Adopt an author

Adopt an author: each class chooses an author for the day, find out everything they can about that author, make posters, read out bits of their books, read whole books. Classes work out how to do a presentation of a book and do the pres. for another class.— Michael Rosen (@MichaelRosenYes) March 2, 2020

He says to be imaginative when presenting a book to another class. For example, do ‘freeze frames’, act out a scene, do a mime from a scene from the book while someone narrates, do ‘guess the book’ shows, quizzes, mock interviews with the ‘author’ or a character from the book.

Get in a guest author

The money that would be spent on costumes could contribute towards getting in a guest author. As the late Jonny Zucker said in an article for The Guardian:

…if an author visit goes well, some pupils will get more of a writing confidence-boost in one day than they normally would in a whole term; some will crack how to plot a story and will go off to compose their first magnum opus; and some will discover that writing can actually be fun.

Jonny Zucker

Competitions and games

• The children at my friend’s daughter’s school are redesigning book covers for a competition. What a lovely activity and something that helps children translate words to pictures.

• Play consequences – Everyone in class gets the chance to become a contributing author in this traditional parlour game. Perhaps the resulting ‘story’ can then be expanded and edited.   
  
• Read part of an unfamiliar text together as a class and then each child writes the rest of the story.  

Get creative

Get them to channel their inner Roald Dahl and make their own version of a Gobblefunk dictionary of descriptive made-up words

Use you library

Get involved with your local library. Many libraries run special events for World Book Day for children of all ages. Keep an eye on your local library’s social media channels and website for details of events. Here are some for Surrey libraries

What was decided

This year, after much deliberation, we’ll have Delphie from Delphie and the Magic Ballet Shoes, the eponymous Matilda and Katniss Everdeen from Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

Finally…

If it all gets too much just remember the dad who took inspiration from the Argos catalogue…

You might also like:

The Gruffalo Tops the Charts as World Book Day 2024 Approaches

The Summer Reading Challenge

Should Fairy Tales be Banned?

The Benefits of Reading as a Family – guest post

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Halloween now

As soon as the children have gone back to school after summer, the pencil cases and uniforms on the supermarket shelves are replaced with tubs of sweets and Halloween costumes and accessories. Shops go to town with massive window displays and loads of fright night stock.

Showing off the trick or treating loot last year

Two out of three of my children are totally obsessed (the other is more about the sweets). They’ve literally been on count down since July and have ideas about their costumes weeks before!?! This enthusiasm has not come from me; I’ve always found the idea of trick or treating cringe. Thankfully, in our local area, people who are happy to have sweet-seeking ghouls, vampires and witches on their doorsteps make it extremely clear.

Despite not being a fan, like usual, I get swept away by the children’s’  enthusiasm. My eldest was invited to a Halloween party weeks ago and has a great TX Maxx Maleficent outfit lined up; I bought a vampire cape for one of my twins last month from Claire’s (which has a huge Halloween range #Ghoulpower) that we’ll be accessorising, and Very.co.uk came up trumps for my less enthusiastic daughter.

Picking out own at Garsons

Carving our haul

I do like the pumpkin carving though. Last year we went to Garsons to pick our own and it’s a great family activity. I can recommend pumpkin and amaretti ravioli to use up the scooped out flesh.

A Few Tips

• Gauge your child’s appetite for all things ghoulish – sometimes children can talk the talk but when confronted with lots of older children in scary costumes they can get very intimidated
• A small party can be the way to go to replace trick or treating for younger ones
• Similarly, instead of going trick or treating yourselves, decorate the house, get the kids to dress up and scare any visitors

Sofia (aged three here) scared the life out of visiting trick or treaters

• Pinterest is your friend for Halloween inspiration… from arts and crafts to decoration and party ideas
• If you are staying in, do stock up on treats (unless you are going to ignore all visitors)
• If trick or treating, only go to houses that have Halloween decorations: it saves embarrassment
• If not going the whole hog, a bit of baking or pumpkin carving can bridge the gap. Bakerdays has some great Halloween cake ideas

• Don’t spend a fortune on Halloween outfits. You can definitely accessorise to lessen the cost. My daughters’ white sheet ghost outfit last year was actually really frightening. Also charity shops usually have a lot of stuff in
• Halloween night movies with a PG rating: Maleficent, Hocus Pocus, Corpse Bride, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Goosebumps, Casper, The Addams Family, Ghostbusters, Halloweentown… Feel free to post your favourites below.

The post A Few Tips for Halloween appeared first on The Parent Social.

Sizes go up to age six, which means I can longer buy for my eldest there, but it’s still perfect for my other two. The clothes are a classic design, well made, wash well and use a lovely colour palette. What I particularly like is that they usually do the same items in different colours. This is really useful for me as I like to dress my four-year-old twin girls in the same style but different colours.

The Kingston store was well stocked!

JoJo Maman Bebe Kingston store

The Kingston branch in Surrey is my nearest JoJo Maman Bebe and happens to be the flagship store. It recently closed for a refurb, and re-opened today. There were lucky dip discount cards for money off all purchases (10%, 20% or 50%) and an appearance from JoJo’s mascot Eloise – aka a restored HY Citroen van. The latter was a highlight for the girls as it was very cute inside and they got helium balloons that walked. However, I didn’t see any sign of the ‘fantastic freebies’ that had been mentioned in their event promotion.

Inside Eloise

So what was new?

The downstairs layout hasn’t changed immensely but is more spacious than previously. They’ve also added a lift, which was really needed. The baby and children’s’ sections looked far better stocked than before, perhaps due to the additional space.

The maternity wear floor

The upstairs maternity section has had a noticeable revamp and has a definite boutique feel about it. The other major addition is a dedicated baby feeding area, which looks very comfortable and is nicely tucked away from the shop floor.

One of the two spots in the feeding area

We bought two floral summer dresses: one in cornflower and the other in navy. They were £16 each. However, if you bought any two, you saved £5. JoJo Maman Bebe offers this type of ‘multi buy’ discount across its ranges at all times.

In their new dresses

• Kingston JoJo Maman Bebe

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The shops have been full of sweets and costumes for ages; Sofia absolutely loves it and has been talking about it for some weeks due to the commercial onslaught (though she has been talking about her birthday, Christmas and Easter this week also).

As a cute witch two Halloweens ago

It definitely doesn’t seem to have much to do with the eve of the feast of All Hallows (or All Saints). My husband Matt loves Halloween, so in our house it does have a lot to do with sweets, trick or treaters and fancy dress costumes. Matt, I think, would have been a make-up artist in another life. He loves getting out the Snazaroo face paints to make up Sofia, so he goes to town at Halloween.

Sofia greeted trick or treaters at our door last year dressed as Samara from The Ring. Visitors were genuinely scared when they saw her. He painted her face, bought the wig, found the white sheets in a charity shop (and stained them) and even put the fake blood on her nails. I’m not completely convinced that it was suitable for a nearly four-year-old, but Sofia was delighted with the results and the reactions she got!

We’ll definitely be buying the pumpkins, outfits, and sweets for our trick or treating visitors again this year, but I’m still not totally sold on the whole idea.

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