The Only Girl in the House

Recent Posts

  • Come Find Me Over On Substack…

     Come Find Me Over On Substack…

  • Ride or Die’s | Golden Glow Essentials

     Ride or Die’s | Golden Glow Essentials

  • Renovation Regrets

     Renovation Regrets

  • Pre-Loved Back to School

     Pre-Loved Back to School

Going Green | House Plants for a Family Home

Going Green | House Plants for a Family Home

It was only last week, after about 53 minutes of finally moving back into our newly extended/renovated family home, that Mr Only Girl turned to me and whimpered, “I just wasn’t expecting it to be quite so black and white!”. I’m not sure quite what he expected, given that we’ve both been privy to our joint Pinterest “house renovation” board for well over a year, jointly selected a white kitchen, black flooring, white bathroom, black bathroom furniture and a charcoal sofa. Said Pinterest board provides endless scrolling fun of Scandi-inspired interiors, awash with white walls, black accents and the odd smattering of birch ply – so his insistence that this was all “a bit of surprise” was met by “I just don’t think you’ve been paying attention!”. That said, as I wandered from room to room I noticed there was an element missing – something that my Scandinavian muses hadn’t overlooked but was such an integral part to their home design, it was like a camouflaged, subliminal message from the super stylish sanctum: House plants.

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Baby Essentials Bargain Hunt | Tesco Baby Event

Baby Essentials Bargain Hunt | Tesco Baby Event

One of the main criteria when extending our house (anyone following along with our daily mayhem over on my social media, will be aware how much of a ‘new house’ bore I’ve become) was storage! The Holy Grail all large families seem to be in search of and certainly never have enough of. But as the older boys have pared down their “toys” in the last few years to nothing but gadgets and the odd box of Lego, which I hold onto out of a) nostalgia b) for those days I’m being a proactive parent, have banned gadgets (WHY?!?) and hear “I’m bored!!” every 37 seconds and c) ‘cos once I get my bum in gear I can flog it on Ebay and pay for the next round of brightly coloured plastic; it’s not them that needs the storage – it’s me. No, not for my abundance of clothes, shoes or Tupperware, but for the goodies I insist on stock piling when they’re on special in Tesco! I bloomin’ love a bargain (you only have to see my recent charity shop coat post on Instagram as evidence) and when it includes life necessities like nappies, baby wipes and bubble bath, I’m all over it like chicken pox on a toddler.

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Why We’re Not “Doing” Presents This Christmas

Why We’re Not “Doing” Presents This Christmas

We might not have a home this Christmas due to the major renovations, haven’t erected our own tree and are haemorrhaging money left right and centre on project “build a house big enough to hold all our kids” (must come up with a better code/project name). But these aren’t the reasons we’re not “doing” presents this year. I get it, it sounds bloody harsh, with 5 kids to suddenly announce that no-one, not even that cute doe eyed toddler, will be receiving so much as a satsuma in their stockings this Christmas, so let me explain.

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Our Year With Huggies Wipes

Our Year With Huggies Wipes

Mid 2016, a very excited Casper and I announced our Huggies Wipes Ambassadorship in one of our first ever vlogs. I’ll admit, I was dubious when Huggies told me their focus was bonding with baby and creating special moments with wipes! Like many, my first thoughts of baby wipes tend to land firmly in the clearing up mess camp – be it change time, lazy/knackered mum make-up removal, spill clearance and general disaster avoidance; but the crew over at Huggies convinced me there’s more to their wipes, and ultimately change time, than the rate at which they can shift a sticky, post-porridge explosion.

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Lazy Days with FatFace | Ad

Lazy Days with FatFace | Ad

Ermahgerd – it’s December! Where did that come from? It means for the next three weeks our weekends are filled with ice-skating, winter fairs, Santa’s grottos and yes, even more chilly morning football matches. So yesterday, when we had a rare football-free day, we relished the opportunity to drink bucket loads of hot choc, light the fire, snuggle under our duvets and open our box of FatFace goodies to get involved with our new Pjs and festive onsies.

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