The little dress for everyday

Yesterday’s blog was all about Ida’s party dress. Today’s blog is about Dangerbaby and what mischief she got up to in her pretty Annafie dress.

Dangerbaby made her play day in the garden all the more special with her Liberty dress.

She opted to wear her’s like every pretty dress should be worn with pumps and t-shirt while she played in the garden.

Haven’t we all worn our posh dresses to puddle jump or play in? If you weren’t allowed to, try it today. Wearing your pretty frock or special shoes to do everyday things makes you feel very special. Doing those simple things with a special item makes your smile in a very BIG way. After all who hasn't wanted to wear thier princess dress or spiderman outfit to school at some ocassion?

Dangerbaby's day went a little like this.

Dangerbaby had a tea part in her dress with her Teddies. They talked about who would be in charge of  watering the garden that day and whether the pink or yellow pot was best for making tea in.

She zoomed up and down the slide with bunny bunny and teddy stopping only so Mummy could snap a picture of all the fun.

When slide zooming was complete she had a quiet chat with her favourite companion, Bunny Bunny about how best she could improve her sliding technique tomorrow.

And at the end of a very busy day she had her milk with bunny bunny and thought about getting ready for bed while snuggled up under her favourite Shuktara blanket.

Dangerbaby made her special day of garden games all the more special as she wore her liberty dress.

All Annafie dresses are  hand smocked making them perfect for every little girls body shape. They all follow a traditional design and are perfect for today's little girls. Either worn like Ida and Kathryn's or worn with wellies to puddle jump in. For pre-walkers and tom-boy’s, Annafie will even make a romper style in one of the pretty floral fabrics to make it easier for crawling around. 

We hope you find your perfect dress like our girls have. 
When the rain stops we may even put on our pretty dresses and find afew big puddles to jump in!

http://www.unikgifts.co.uk/clothing/clothing_annafie.php

The little party dress

Every little girl deserves a party dress to wear and feel the bee’s knee’s in.

The very lucky Danger baby and Naughty have an Annafie dress each that us Mummies have chosen with the help of both our terror’s.

The naughty, with her Mummies help, chose an Annafie, Amelie in blue flowers for her party dress to wear to her first proper party. The "do" was a civilised afternoon tea for her Aunty Flo’s hen do. She behaved impeccably with her aunties, aunty Flo’s friends, Grandma and Mum all looking on, while she happily munched her way through delicate sandwiches, scones and little pastries.  

While tea was served she played peekabo with Aunty Katie.

She read books with Mummy 

while tea was slurped and the 

nattering started.

She span around and danced while the ladies munched their sandwiches. She played Silvanian families while scones with cream and jam were scoffed. 

She ate afew naughty cakes while the silly stories were told.

And she even managed to get us all playing hide and seek while the little naughty sweet pastries were nibbled by all. The end of the day had everyone singing “The wheels on the bus” while we tried to make her smile for photo’s. 

By the end of the day when she was sleepy and played out she curled up like a sleeping lion with Aunty Katie.

The perfect day and the perfect little dress for a very good little girl. The perfect gift from Mummy to daughter.

All Annafie dresses are  hand smocked making them perfect for every little girls body shape. They all follow a traditional design and are perfect for today's little girls. Either worn like Ida's or worn with wellies to puddle jump in. For pre-walkers and tom-boy’s, Annafie will even make a romper style in one of the pretty floral fabrics to make it easier for crawling around. 

We hope you find your perfect dress like Ida has. 

Later this week i'll tell you what Danger baby does in her Annafie dress!

http://www.unikgifts.co.uk/clothing/clothing_annafie.php

Oompa Grampa speaks wise words...

This is aimed at all the grandparents out there who like me are enjoying immensely the joy of having beautiful grandkids.

Time goes by in a flash and it only seems like yesterday that I was stepping on small toys in the dark and wondering if there was enough money in the bank. There never seemed to be enough time to read the paper let alone to enjoy things with my children.

Now in the autumn of my life and blessed with 3 adult children who are making there own way in the world and my two daughters have married super guys, [though against the rules both of my son in laws’ are taller than I!] So I find myself elevated to being a granddad [or Oompa!] and it is a role I thoroughly enjoy.

My two beautiful granddaughters are not only different in ages but also in tastes:

Kathryn is known as ‘Danger Baby’ and is 18months old. As you know she's an outdoors girl who loves to get her hands [feet, clothes and everything else] dirty!

Poppy is 4 years old and lives on a stud farm which is run by my daughter and son in law. She also lives very much an outdoor life around the farm and is learning to horse ride on a weekly basis.

I live in Germany and have spent many years here. Additionally my children grew up and were partly educated over here. Therefore my children discovered many things about living in Germany which they still miss today. They miss great choice of wooden toys, the tastes and traditions they grew up with. The memories are still with them and fondly remembered by them all. 


Being an ‘old’ guy with old fashioned ideas I steer clear of cheap and easily broken plastic tat when buying Kathryn & Poppy presents. Therefore classily made wooden toys which last forever, are amongst my favourites and I can now treat my granddaughters to these treasures. Thankfully I live nearby to Markus Kampe who makes beautiful wooden toys for children. 


During a recent visit to Germany my ‘DangerBaby’ granddaughter was extremely active and exhausting to keep amused [her usual self]. A visit to his workshop came to the rescue and the 30+ minutes of peace we had while DangerBaby played with all his magical creations was a welcome respite. He now works with u-ni-k to share his classy and magical wooden toys.

Yet another favourite where us grandparents cannot fail is a superbly home made cuddly toy with character and lovability. Again there is a super range available at u-ni-k of lovely toys to say to a particular grandchild that they are special and you love them.

I have to say that u-ni-k has taken all the hard work of present buying from me. There is always a chance that us grandparents are ‘out of date’ and therefore buy the wrong things which are soon broken or discarded. I trust that Anna & Sarah at u-ni-k to choose what present is right because they are mums with young children and therefore they are on the toy battlefront all day long.

The wise amongst us elder folk know from experience that the cleverest and most needed person in any family is the mother, they know best and always will. I believe that is the main reason why I love www.unikgifts.co.uk and have no hesitation with recommending it to all grandparents who are not worldly wise enough to be as astute as myself !, ;-)

I wish to add that I am not just any old granddad, I am Granddad [OOMPA] of the Year as voted unanimously by Poppy and Kathryn who like there clever mummies – are never wrong!.

Work Life Balance anyone?

It's hard to be in business and be a Mum

My former work life
- the only thing that's the same is the no. of coffees!

Anna and I have a system, it's not perfect and really neither of us keeps to it but we're in the early stages so we're trying to stick to it. You see – we're supposed to work 4 days on and 4 days off. So I'm supposed to switch off for the 4 days Anna is rota'd on and visa versa. This includes Saturday as a work day. We have a pretty spreadsheet to track our days, a holiday system and an IOU days system. It's all very organised but doesn't take into account one fatal flaw. Anna and I.

Neither of us switch off on our rota'd off days, OK so we don't blog, Facebook or watch the sales inbox but we both work those days in our own separate ways... Anna will do more press work and I'll do more website stuff. Each day, every day. It comes with the territory of starting a new business, you just don't switch off.

I'm actually writing this blog at 11.30pm on a Sunday, Daddy DayCare is watching some movie by himself while I tippy tappy at the laptop. He'll come and find me every now and then to see if I need anything [aka 'have you finished yet?!'] and then he'll pop back to his movie for a while. Needless to say he's been a little neglected for a while.

He's not the only one. While I still keep 100% of my attention on my daughter, I do find myself watching my iPhone far too often – sorry to say at least once a week I'll look up and she'll have her head cocked to once side and will have emitted a 'eee?' noise. Heartbreaking. I'm more than happy to put the phone down, if the laptop is on and I can hear the email 'bing' for those all important sales emails.

All weather gear

Just to quantify things a little for those that don't know me, I am very much a Mummy. My Daughter and I spend hours a day playing, we spend time gardening, reading, playing ball, swimming and being outside. Both of us have waterproof trousers and jackets so that we can play in all weathers and we often do! But we have our indoors moments as well, which is when I fall into the temptation of working and turn to the technology.

So I'm trying to keep a life work balance, it's hard but it'll be worth it, as long as I have managed the balance just right! 

The result of all this hard work is the website http://www.unikgifts.co.uk and the lovely products you find there.

[Please note DangerBaby and I are meeting Anna & The Naughty later today to walk around RHS Wisley - the kind of work life balance I like!]