This day I love.......: light

As 2015 draws to a close I am reflecting on the interior design projects that have been completed, those that are still to be done this year and those that will be completed in the future. The arrival of Thing 3 in the early part of 2016 has of course altered the course of our interior design projects and plans but nevertheless we have still accomplished a fair bit.

My main aim this year was to design a luxurious feeling bedroom on a budget. I originally planned the room with walk in wardrobes but after several design consultations this had to be changed. It was decided that this would simply make the master bedroom too small, and now as I reflect on this decision I can honestly say it was the correct one to make.

Our master bedroom has been completed transformed and you can read about the transformation here. One of the biggest transformations in the room is the wardrobes, which I still look at and admire. Every time I walk in the bedroom I feel proud that it is my room. From the gorgeous super king size bed to the beautiful blind. I love every part of it, and cannot wait for the paint to arrive so I can finally complete the room.

The only part of the room I did not change was the lights. Whilst I put new bedside lights the main feature light stayed the same. It is part of the plan in 2016 to change the light to a new one and we are currently drawn to the Artemide collection. For now though the light will remain as is.

As Thing 3 will be making their appearance in the New Year one of the rooms originally not due for a transformation now needs to be converted to a nursery. The main aspect of the room to be changed is the flooring. Currently there is a very dark carpet in there which to be blunt is horrible. I really want to put some laminate down as it is much easier to keep clean with a baby. The paint has been chosen and all the furniture is ready to go in. All that is missing is soft furnishings and blinds. There is not enough wall space for curtains so it has to be a blind.

On the list for this year, although it may now be pushed into next, was to refresh my eldest daughters bedroom. Her room was one of the first to be decorated. The furniture is fine but the walls really need a new coat of paint. Her eczema is also triggered by dust and so one of the biggest changes I want to make in this room is the flooring. Again taking out the carpet and replacing with laminate which I hope will improve her skin. The final change in her room is the light. She still has the same lamp shade she had from a baby and she could really do with something more modern. I am currently looking through the collection on Lampcommerce to find one for her.

Next week sees perhaps one of the final interior design projects of 2015. The front room is finally going to be decorated after living here for three years. The paint and wallpaper have arrived and this weekend the plasterers are coming to fix the damaged ceiling. I am really looking forward to this transformation and finally making the front room ours. The long term plan here is to add a log burner. The previous occupier had one in but replaced it with an electric one to sell the house. The log burner is on the top of my wish list at the moment but it will probably 2017 before we save up for one.

The girls are very lucky that they have a playroom. When Thing 3 arrives I can see us spending a lot more time in here and I would like to brighten the walls up with some new paint and a feature wall. This is another plan for early 2016.

Before finding out we were expecting Thing 3 we had planned to do our en suite and main bathroom in 2016/2017. However we have had to put this plan on hold. This hasn't stopped me planning, designing and day dreaming about a new bathroom. I have many boards on Pinterest full of ideas and inspirations for a new bathroom and en suite, although many of them are secret at the minute.

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Sometimes something comes along that really makes you go wow. The lite cup did just this. I know what your thinking, how can you get excited about a cup, right? Trust me this is no ordinary cup.

Imagine the scene, it's night and you or your child have woken up thirsty for some water. You fumble around looking for the cup on your night stand and whoosh, next thing you know you have knocked the cup of water all over. You are now wide awake, or worse yet the water has woken up your child. Which results in a change of bed sheets, change of clothes and a wide awake child who is rather upset at the rude awakening. I suppose you could just not give your child a drink at the side of the bed, but then you know what will happen, a 3am wake up call, 'I need a drink'. I guess the other option is a no spill valve cup, which is great, but if like me you are trying to have your children drink from normal cups, not the best solution.

You see this is where lite cup offers a solution. First it is rather clever no spill, yet it doesn't have a valve as such and you drink from it like a normal cup

Second there is a button on the underside which you press to give the cup a blue glow. The light is just enough so you can locate the cup in the night, but not enough to keep you awake or stop you going to sleep.

The lite cup can then be easily located in the dark. As it is used as a traditional cup, and not a typical child's no spill cup, it is suitable for both adults and children. It did take my eldest some convincing on how to drink from the cup, but she managed it first time.

The downside well you cannot use hot drinks, put in microwave or dishwasher but it is easy to clean and I guess if the intended purpose is to use at night for a drink of water, then the microwave or hot drink is slightly irrelevant.

We have been really impressed with the lite cup, it's not often something has impressed me so much.

I was sent a Lite cup to review. All words and opinions are my own.

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It has been a very wet weekend. The rain has hardly stopped since Friday and the house is so cold we have had to put the heating on. The girls did not sleep well last night, I think it was down to the cold and after a 4.45 am refusal to go back to sleep, today needed to be a relaxed day.

The wet weather did give us the perfect excuse to try out our shadow puppet kit. The girls have been experimenting with shadows and noticing them more, so with it dark outside the opportunity was perfect. I set up the theatre and a light and the girls took there seats ready for the show to start.

We had been provided a great selection of puppets to use. We could however have made our own from black card and a wooden stick, but I like these. They were well made and came with a rather handy stand, meaning you could line up in order the puppets as you needed them for the story.

I made up a story that related to the stories the girls already know, in order to get them to interact. I moved the puppets to get the shadows to be bigger and smaller and experimented with using more than one puppet at a time. The girls loved it and sat really still listening. It was a lot of fun to interact this way. After, I let the girls have a go themselves and showed them what happens to shadows as you move the object closer to the light. The girls had a good look and put on their very own show.

I tried to capture the show and them experimenting with the shadows by making them bigger and smaller, my camera kept loosing focus due to the dark room, so apologies for not the best video.

My youngest became fascinated with the light and started to wonder how shadows worked.

It was really great watching them interact with each other as well as use their imagination to make up a story.

The girls loved the puppet show and we will be doing this again on another rainy day.

Another good thing about rainy days, is that when the rain does stop [even if for a short amount of time] there are plenty of muddy puddles to explore.

This day I love Shadows and mud

Our Puppet kit was kindly sent to us from Swinton Insurance. They have collaborated with Britain's got talent winners Attraction for their fantastic new advert. The girls love watching this advert too and I think they are hugely talented.

The puppets and theatre were sent for review. All words and opinions are my own.

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This week it is National Child safety week and I thought it would be the perfect time to write the review for our Britax King II LS. I published earlier the general statistics for the Britax King II LS which you can see here. I want to focus here more about our experience of using the Britax King II LS and would also like to make it clear that I have not tested how the car seat would be in a crash. I will be writing a separate post and hopefully a You tube video on installation.

The Britax King II LS comes fully assembled and can therefore be used straight from the box. I was impressed with the number of different languages the instruction books came in and also that they could be stored on the seat itself. I often misplace instruction books so this was a great benefit.

The installation was very easy to follow, and I shall write more about how to install the seat in a later post. I managed to install within 10 minutes and subsequent installations are much faster. I have noticed that the installation is easier in cars with a higher roof as its easier to lift the seat up.

The look and feel of the Britax King II LS is really sleek. I love the tough looking outer shell which is also wipe clean and the seat feels lovely and padded. There appears to be a lot of protection around the head and as the head rest is adjustable it can easily be moved into the correct position.

The seat itself weighs just over 10Kg so it is relatively easy to move between cars. The padded material of the seat is soft and feels comfortable. There is a slight snag in that sometimes the back of the seat padding can twist round, exposing the interior shell. It is not a huge problem as you can simply twist the padding back round but it is worth noting to make sure the child is fitted in the seat correctly.

We recently did a 5 hour car journey with my youngest in the Britax King II LS. She usually does not like being in the car but we had no problems. In fact she fell asleep

In fact falling asleep in the Britax King II LS is a rather common theme.

There is a really handy lever just under the seat near where the feet of the child is which reclines the seat. The recline is very smooth and so has not yet woken up my daughter. You maybe able to see the recline in the above picture. The seat moves within its own shell and therefore does not take up additional space in the car. I have also noticed that my daughters head does not seem to fall forward as much in the Britax King II LS when she is asleep as what it has in other seats. She appears to have a lovely deep sleep and her head is always back against the head rest.

The unique point of the Britax King II LS is the light and sound click. To adjust the seat harness ,you either press a button under the seat and pull the straps to loosen, to tighten you pull the strap between the child's legs.

When the harness is tight enough there is an audible click and a green light

This a great way to check that the harness is tight enough. I still do the pinch check on the straps just to make sure, as if my daughter has sat forward the harness would be too loose. 99% of the time the audible click and light needs no further adjustment. What this has meant is that my daughter who used to constantly take her arms out of the straps, has so far in the past 2 months never managed to get her arms out of the straps. I think this is partly down to the secure fit but also the padding on the shoulder straps meaning that she is comfortable with the straps over her shoulders.

My daughter appears to be comfortable in the Britax King II LS. I wanted to trial on both long and short journeys before writing this review and give it at least a month to pick up any snags or little niggles. If I am honest other than the little niggle I have already mentioned the only other thing is the adjustable strap can be quite long and it simply dangles to the floor. I have caught my daughter playing with this and I just think it would be more in keeping with the sleek design to have somewhere to store this. It in no way alters the performance of the seat and it is probably me just being a little picky.

In both the hot and the cold weather my daughter has been comfortable in the seat. I feel she is well protected and because I find the seat simple to install I am confident it would perform as intended in a crash, although I am hoping I never have to find out. My daughter is very happy with her Britax King II LS and one of her favourite games to play in the car is Peekaboo.

I have found the Britax King II LS really simple to use. I changed cars and have had no problems moving between cars. The extra hard shell gives the seat a really sleek look and it is easy to keep clean. The smooth adjustable recline has meant my daughter can fall asleep in comfort without being woken up and thanks to the unique light and sound indicator I have found securing her in the seat incredibly easy with great reassurance. I can really understand why Britax gave this car seat the name King.

I had to include this picture in this post as whilst I was trying to take photos of my youngest in the seat, my eldest had other ideas and it simply is my #king moment!

We were sent a Britax King II LS to review, all words and opinions are my own.

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