MUMMY TO THE MAX

At Christmas one of my favourite type of gifts is jewellery. From my point of view you can never go wrong when it comes to picking a jewellery gift for a loved one, especially when you have sites such as House Of Fraser to help you pick that special gift. House of Fraser are home to lots of my favourite brands, one of them being Pandora.

The burn time of a large Yankee candle is 110-150 Hours which is a very reasonable amount of time. I find that a large candle lasts me over a course of a month however it may last you a longer or shorter amount of time depending on how much you decide to burn it. The large Season Of  Peace candle is priced at £21.99 which I think is reasonable for the quality of candle you are receiving.

This year is the first year I think Maxwell truly understands Christmas. Although he has still not grasped the meaning of Christmas truly and what it really stands for, he is well aware of Christmas songs, presents, family, trees, decorations and Santa. This year I wanted to make our Christmas a little different. I wanted to try 5 new family traditions that we can continue to do every Christmas.

• This year I have started to create a box of Christmas memories. Inside the box I aim to put the following: Maxwell's Christmas list, a picture of him at Christmas, a picture of him with Santa, any letters which I may write to him at Christmas time and a Christmas day diary so when Maxwell is older we can look back at our Christmas's and have fond memories of them. I have a box of memories from 2000 and the box is fantastic. It has so many memories which I held 15 years ago which are beautiful to look back at now. It is amazing to see how the world has changed since then.

• This year, I wanted to allow Maxwell to pick a decoration for  our Christmas tree and continue this for the next 12-16 years. To me Christmas is all about family and I adore looking at a Christmas tree that is full of love and happiness rather than the latest fashion trend. Allowing Maxwell to pick a decoration for our tree gives our tree a special meaning. I can not wait to see what he picks this year. It will be interesting to see what decorations he picks year to year.

• Although I say Christmas is about family, I also think Christmas is for giving to others. This year I wanted to ensure others had a fantastic Christmas which meant I decided that Maxwell and I would do 5 nice things for other people. This year our "giving" will see us give thing's to others such as our friends over at Post Pals, see us donate a few pounds to charities which we would like to help and see us giving our old things that we do not need to people less fortunate than ourselves.

• Me and Maxwell adore gingerbread and as a new tradition, I would love to ensure we decorate a gingerbread man or gingerbread house every Christmas eve. Christmas eve is always a special day for Maxwell and  I as it normally means Ben is working so we often spend the day doing lots of activities together. I know this is something which Maxwell will love to do and is something that we can continue to do in the future. You are never to old to decoate gingerbread! 

We are now onto our seventh post of Bustling Baskets. Thank you to all those that joined up to my sixth link up. Over the last fortnight I have really enjoyed reading your posts! I am looking forward to reading all your money saving post's over the next two weeks especially now that we are less than 35 days away from Christmas! Why not share those quick, cheap craft idea's, money making ideas and recipe post's? I love finding new ways to save money so keep those handy post's coming!

For those of you that are new, Bustling baskets is a linky that allows you to share old and new money saving posts. The post can be about items you have purchased with coupons, fantastic hauls that you want to show off, items you bought through a glitch, day's out or money saving posts that you want to showcase like my 5 for £5 posts that I write every two weeks or post's that tell others how to make money.

The linked posts can be a post full of description or just pictures. It would be great to see any YouTube videos that you may also have to share! Anything goes along as it goes in hand with the bustling basket linky which is all about money saving.

I would adore as many of you as possible to join in with the linky. The linky will go up every 2 weeks on a Wednesday. It would be fantastic if you could also add my link badge to your post so others are able to see what you are linking up to however this is not a requirement! Please remember to comment on each others posts if you can!

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If you have read my blog a lot, you would understand that I hate wasting money and I am a bargain queen. Many of you would think that I would hate putting money on activities like Bingo however this is something I enjoy doing regularly online. I ensure that when I do it, I will always get my money back and a little extra. Although my Bingo playing idea is not a fast money making idea, it is something which generally makes me profit every month and is something which could help you make some money ahead of Christmas.

To make a profit on bingo you are going to need to sign up to Topcashback. For those that are unaware of TopCashBack, it is a site that gives you money when you spend money online. Once you have signed up and before you start earning your money you will need to clear your cookies, browsing history and download the TopCashBack bar which reminds you of any potential cashback when you are shopping online. Doing this will ensure you gain your bingo profits with ease.

First you will need to sign into you Topcashback account and head to this link and find out what merchants are offering you the best cashback on a £10 deposit on any bingo site. I often find that Sun Bingo, Ladbrokes and Betfair offer great cashback on a £10 spend. I often find that per £10 you deposit, you will receive £25 back once you have used the full £10 you deposited on bingo games.


Recently I took part in the Sun Bingo offer and managed to walk away with £25.25 profit? How? I simply deposited £10 on their site and played Bingo. I used the full £10 I deposited on bingo cards and managed to cash out £10 of winnings after playing Bingo for around 30 mins. Due to me cashing out the £10 which I put upfront, I walked away with £25.25. This offer took me just 30 mins and although it meant having to wait for my returns, I was in profit. I would have still been £15.25 profit even if I had not won a single penny.
My top 5 tips to take advantage of this offer:

• Always ensure you read the terms. Terms can often state that you that you are unable to use any promotional codes you may find online when trying to earn Topcashback. Terms often state how many people per household can take advantage of the offer. If you do not follow terms, merchants do not have to pay out your cashback.

• Always take note of what the Topcashback amount says when you take advantage of the offer. I always ensure I take a screen shot of the amount I am meant to be getting back.  This allows me to put a support ticket into Topcashback if the amount of cashback is presented wrong when it tracks.

• Be prepared to wait a little. Transactions for this retailer often appear on you Topcashback account within 24 hours. Transactions are usually confirmed within a month and should become payable within 30 - 60 days after the event date, this said Sun Bingo paid out my Topcashback within 2 weeks and paid my winnings within 4 days.

• Always aim high. I often only do a cashback deal if I am making £10 or more profit. Each deal can take me anything from 30 mins to 1 hour and I believe a minimum of £10 profit is enough money to compensate me for my time.

• Remember most deals can only be done once. I often aim to complete one bingo merchants cashback deal a month. Although it may feel like there are only 5 - 10 Topcashback deals you can take advantage of, new merchants are being added to Topcashback all the time which ensures there is normally a new bingo site to take advantage of monthly.

Toilet training is a massive milestone. It is something some children find easier than others and something which can come to children at different times. Over two weeks ago Maxwell finally cracked toilet training and as of yet he has not had a single accident.

These days there is so much pressure for parents to have their children potty trained as soon as possible however what if a child is not ready? What if a child has a developmental delay? What if a child is experiencing speech delay and is does not understand the toilet training process easily? There is so much pressure out there for parents and on children to be potty trained as soon as possible.

As a parent who's child has speech delay, I felt that pressure. I was asked if Maxwell was toilet trained regularly by different people and I felt many other children were ahead of Maxwell however, whilst Maxwell was behind in toilet training he was ahead of other children who were toilet trained in so many other areas. Over time I learnt and accepted that every child is different and Maxwell would be willing to learn about toilet training at his own pace. As a parent I did not feel the need to push him. I felt that pushing him would only make him anxious and I felt that the more anxious he became, the less interested he would be.

For us, once Maxwell wanted to learn about toilet training and took a interest in us going to the toilet the whole experience was easy. We went from going on the potty regularly to using the toilet with a toilet seat, to being confident wearing pants, using any public toilet and managing to not need the toilet on long journeys.

For anyone toilet training their child and are feeling the pressure, these are my 5 simple tips.

• We found that using a personalised story book helped Maxwell with his journey. Due to Maxwell having a speech delay, Maxwell favors learning through seeing. We read Pirate Maxwell's Potty book every night to Maxwell before bed and before long he was interested in trying little things he had picked up in his story book.

• We felt that a reward scheme helped encourage Maxwell. Maxwell's reward scheme was made up of some colourful card from the 99p store and some cheap fun stickers which we found on the internet. We did not buy into any expensive reward books. From the get go we explained to Maxwell per 20 stickers that Maxwell got on his chart, we would take a trip to our local toy store and Maxwell would have £7 to spend on a treat. We found that as soon as Maxwell was rewarded through stickers and praise, he really worked hard to achieve his toy trip visit.

•  As frustrating as it can be that your child is not ready to learn to toilet train, stay calm, positive and do not shout. I found that a calm approach to toilet training helped Maxwell become confident in what he was learning to do.  If I had not stayed calm through the process, Maxwell would have picked up onto my negative vibes and would have not wanted to carry on the process.

• We found that Maxwell finally completed his toilet training journey in half term. Due to Maxwell attending 2 preschools and doing extra activities outside of preschool, he has a busy week, every week. Through half term Maxwell had more time to concentrate on learning to toilet train and it also allowed us to be around him. Being around him that week meant if a accident did happen we were on hand to reassure him accidents do happen. 

• If you are reading this and you are worried your child is not toilet trained, don't be. Children develop at different times and learn things at different paces. Our potty training journey seemed to last a life time however Maxwell has finally become confident and is happy to use the toilet in most situations.Your child is next! Stay calm, positive, offer support and do it with a smile on your face.

For a while, we have been looking to get Maxwell involved in an out of preschool activity. We looked at many options but in the end we decided to put him in for swimming lessons. The appeal of swimming lessons was great due to the fact that  Maxwell would not only be able to see his friends and interact with them but whilst going to his swimming lessons he would be learning a life skill.

Huggies have always been a well know brand to my family. They are a brand that I have trusted for a long time and when Maxwell was a baby I was upset to find that they had discontinued their range of nappies that we had purchased for a long period of time. I have never stopped buying Huggies products however and still buy their baby wipes on a regular basis. When Maxwell decided to embark on his swimming lesson adventure, I knew that Huggies would be a great choice when it came to swimming pants.

We are now onto our sixth post of Bustling Baskets. Thank you to all those that joined up to my fifth link up. Over the last fortnight I have really enjoyed reading your posts! I am looking forward to reading all your money saving post's over the next two weeks especially now that we are less than 0 days away from Christmas! Why not share those quick, cheap craft idea's, money making ideas and recipe post's? I love finding new ways to save money so keep those handy post's coming!

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