Creative Stay at Home Mum?!

I love the rhythm of our festivals and seasons. We are now officially in Spring - hurrah! Unfortunately it seems to have rained solidly since we dared to start dreaming of sunnier, warmer days.
We have also embarked on Holy Week which starts with Palm Sunday and of course ends with the joyous Easter Sunday. I have such good intentions every year: I'm going to send beautiful hand made cards to all my friends and family; Amos and I will bake easter bunny buns and give them to neighbours; we will paint eggs together and hang them on trees...... Ok, you've got it, I'm really too late to do any of this. How did Easter sneak up on us like that? Is that the same for all us stay at home mums and dads - or just me? Anyway today Amos and I attempted card making and came up with one quite abstract effort and a rather bizarrely painted egg:) Don't fear, though, I've just found, on this remarkable interweb, a way of sending ecards for free and you can put on family photos and whatever you want - it's brilliant! You can also do some scrapbooking in no time at all - something I've planned to do since Amos was born. To put a smug, organised parent smile on your face click here and start creating with Smilebox.

Cheap day out

What all us stay at home mums and dads need on a rainy day like today, as we begin to feel the walls closing in on us, is a day out that costs as little as possible. Well today Amos and I cracked it - we went to Endsleigh Garden Centre. I'll be the first to hold up my hands and say that I thought Garden Centres must be very dull, I mean they're never featured on the fashion pages of Elle, and whoever heard of Prada doing wellies!

Today, though, we had a lovely time. There was enough room for Amos to run about a bit; there was a pet department where we fell in love with the cuddly bunny rabbits and the chatty parrot. We were amazed by the variety of fish they had on sale and we could even look at snakes and iguanas. There were beautiful flowers to admire; rides for Amos to go on and books we could look at....... there were even things to buy:)

Whilst there I noticed that on Sunday 28th March from 11 - 1 they are doing a growing veggie workshop for kiddies, completely free and they can take their plants home with them.
It's worth checking out your local garden centre to see if they've got any events for kids on..... it's a great day out but beware you may arrive home with a cute bunny or a talkative parrot and wonder how that happened!!

Stay at home mum - all tea and cake?

I'm Hazel and my son, Amos, is almost 19 months. he is an absolute treasure - my world. Yes, literally my world, since his birth I have probably been away from him for a total of about 90 minutes - hmm, that's a football match minus injury time! Most of the time this is no problem at all and other times - as he attempts to shove things down the toilet whilst I'm sitting on it, for example - it can get a little intense. My husband thinks I sit around all day chatting to friends on the phone, drinking tea and eating cake - sound familiar? Wow, the truth is so unbelievably far from that, in fact to actually drink a whole cup of hot tea........now that would be bliss. To have an actual flowing conversation, finishing sentences, making sense......heaven. Stay at home mums and dads I know you're with me - feeling my pain.

Motherhood is pretty new to me and I never pictured myself as a 'stay at home mum' I loved my job, it was fun. Last year I wondered when my 'stay at home' sentence would end and then I woke up and realised that actually I had stepped into potentially the most fun job in the world. This blog is about me and Amos and the stay at home fun, fun, fun we've had and we're going to have.

Are you a new 'stay at home' mum or dad? Well stick around and we'll show how this can be a great adventure. I know you're on a budget but it can be done.

What are some of your 'stay-at-home-things-to-do' ideas?

This time with our little ones is so short - let's party and make them days to remember!