Tuesday 15 October 2013

A Wedding Preparation


I’m so excited – it’s Judy’s wedding soon and she’s asked me to help out with the preparations! Well, what are big sisters for? She’s already picked out an absolutely gorgeous ivory wedding dress and she’s dieting like crazy to make sure she’ll fit into it on the big day. She picked it out many pizzas ago!

She’s actually getting married in Greece – her fiancĂ©, Dimitris is from a town in northern Greece called Giannitsa, pronounced: ‘Ya-neet-saah’. He says it’s situated a short drive from the mountains to the north and a short drive from the sea to the south and so you can go skiing in the morning and swimming in the afternoon. I’m not keen on the idea of skiing, but I love Greek beaches and can’t wait to get there.

The couple have been together for about five years and have a lovely little three year old daughter called Dina. She is going to be a bridesmaid and I am going to be the chief bridesmaid, keeping all of the little terrors under control! Judy hasn’t finalised all of the bridesmaids and pageboys yet but I’m sure all of the nieces and nephews will have a role. I think she’s waiting to see who is definitely coming before she finalises who will be doing what. But she’s started picking out clothes for them – the bridesmaids will wear cute little girls ivory dresses that match the bride’s wedding dress and lovely little kids’ bridesmaid shoes that were actually used at the royal wedding! (They’re not the very same shoes, you understand – we didn’t steal them or anything!) And the pageboys will wear boy’s black patent shoes, boy’s wing collar shirts, boy’s black trousers and boy’s / baby boy’s bow ties. I can’t wait to see all the little darlings all dressed up!

Our two brothers, Dave and Ed are going to be the ushers. I thought that it would be nice if they were dressed to match the pageboys, but they didn’t like the idea. They never like my ideas. In fact, I don’t think they’re very keen on ideas in general - thinking wastes valuable drinking time! Joking aside, they wanted to just wear their normal suits. The whole family’s had a rough time financially recently, and the trip to Greece is going to be expensive, so I expect they wanted to save some money. The whole family does, which is why we’re planning the wedding ourselves. We’re aiming to achieve a good quality wedding at a reasonable price. Dave’s wife works at a printing firm and is getting top notch invitations made up for us at a discounted price, Dimitris’ brother is a chef and he’ll be taking care of the food and we’re getting top quality, affordable kids’ clothing and accessories from Cachet Kids.

Judy said that she didn’t mind if Dave and Ed wore their normal suits but she did ask them to also wear something orange to fit in with her colour scheme and they seemed happy to oblige. She picked the colour scheme orange because it’s her lucky colour. She wants the bridesmaids to have orange sashes, orange ribbons on their dresses and in their hair and the pageboys to have white shirts with orange bowties. She initially wanted the pageboys to have orange shirts with black bowties, but I managed to talk her out of it. I think the orange shirts would have been too overpowering and trying to find them was a major headache! Have you ever seen orange pageboy shirts? I’m not sure they even exist! Anyway, I think that orange bowties will look OK (if they exist) so now begins the quest to find some. I’ll keep you informed.

Sunday 13 October 2013

Lovely INCHworm Trainers


I just have to tell you about some new children’s trainers I bought for my brood which can actually be adjusted to grow with your children’s feet! (They can be extended by 1 full size in 2 half size increments.)  They’re called INCHworm trainers. It turns out they’ve been around for a while but I’d never heard of them until I saw Julie (my best friend Nikki’s eldest) running around in a pair. As a mother of four rapidly growing sprogs I found the idea of longer lasting footwear very appealing and the price was just about affordable at just under fifty quid, so I decided to give them a go. 



At first the kids loved them and wanted to wear them all the time. Chrissy even wanted to take a bath in them! (Thankfully, she doesn’t take after her father when it comes to bathing! She takes two or three baths a day, he takes two or three baths a week! When I try to get him to bathe more he just says that bathing is for dirty people!)

Anyway, after a few weeks the novelty had worn off and the kids weren’t so interested in the trainers any more. Then Chrissy started complaining that hers felt ‘funny’ and she didn’t want to wear them at all; some of the kids on the street were teasing her about them, which put her off wearing them. I think the trainers look pretty and cool, albeit a little unusual (as you might expect from a new design of trainer) and some kids have a habit of picking on the unusual. 

I have a worry that the trainers may age like normal footwear (which is very rapidly with my little terrors) and so by the time they need extending they may look pretty tatty and I’m not sure how comfortable I am with the idea of my little ones running around in tatty trainers for longer. I also have a worry that the kids may grow out of the shoes as their feet get wider as well as longer.  I’ll have to wait and see.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the idea of adjustable trainers is a great idea, especially for kids with one foot bigger than the other (which thankfully none of my children have) but I’m not sure that these are the trainers for me … or my kids! Only time will tell.