OUR SCANDI KITCHEN WITH POSTERLOUNGE

The kitchen is said to be the heart of the home, and it's a stance I completely agree with as it's probably the reason my heart was definitely in our current house, until now. I hated our kitchen, I really did. Stupidly I never took a 'before' photo, as I detested it too much to photograph, but with it's beech wood cupboards, magnolia walls and horrible tiles, it was as far away from my pinterest dreams that you could get. I knew I had to change things up and after pinning till my hearts content without actually converting my inspirations into reality, we decided to redecorate the kitchen.

LET'S TALK PARENT AND CHILD PARKING SPACES

Parent and child parking spaces, always a bit of a controversial topic aren't they. Who are they designed for? Who should get to use them and should people who misuse them, be penalised? They're aimed so generically that it makes it hard to determine who should be favoured to use them and even when they are abused, are the rules ever enforced? I don't think I've seen someone yet be confronted by a store for taking advantage of their parent and child bays. After conducting a poll across twitter it seems that seeing someone without children in those spaces irks more of you (a whopping 70%) than it doesn't.

INSTASHAM

Instagram, the platform I love to hate. It would be without a doubt my most favourite social media platform, if I wasn't a blogger. But I am, and from day one bloggers are drilled with growth, growth, growth. It's not a numbers game, but if you don't have X amount of followers we wont work with you, after all who wants to work with a micro-influencer that doesn't really have any influence. It's become more apparent now that if you're hosting big numbers on Instagram, you can be bringing in the big bucks too and from the outside it looks like a quick and easy way to riches, you just post a picture to your masses, reap in the interaction and therefore the cash - right? Wrong. But it doesn't stop people aiming for that, so with more people than ever playing the unfollow game, is Instagram even fun anymore?

BABY GIRL NAMES I LOVE BUT WONT BE USING

Naming baby girls is something I like vicariously through others for as being a boy mama means I haven't had chance to experience it. Nor do I think I ever will as more children is definitely off the cards for us for the foreseeable. Which means, I can share with you all the would be names that we had in mind for the daughters that never were. Typically for us, baby girl names seemed that little bit easier to think of and agree on, not that it mattered too much as John is more than aware that I have the final say.

MUMMYS LITTLE TERROR - I THINK NOT.

Unless you're hiding under a social media rock lately, you'll have seen the huge scandal that erupted after Clarks released their new school shoes with quite obviously sexist names to suit. The boys range were named 'Leader' whilst the girls seemed to appear quite inferior by being called 'Dolly babe'. And whilst I wholeheartedly agree that both of those are terrible names, they are sexist and give very unjust gender stereotypes. I can't help but feel a little miffed that all of the other glaringly obvious negative connotations towards little boys, appear to get overlooked?

SURVIVING IKEA WITH CHILDREN HACKS

Ikea is the place of dreams. Cheap, cheerful and child friendly furniture what more could parents want? Well to shop in peace without children would be a start right? Ikea have tried, they really have, there are so many nooks and crannies for little ones to get a similar enjoyment from the store as we do as adults, but it just doesn't cut the mustard. I could lose hours in Ikea, much to my other half's dismay. Just recently after attempting and failing to palm the children off on my parents, we did the unthinkable and headed there with both children in tow. Now it wouldn't be such a big deal if our local Ikea was actually local but it's about an hour away on a good day - this trip had to be worthwhile.

BABY PRODUCTS YOU DON'T NEED

When you're pregnant every woman and their mother wants to fill you in on the products that you most definitely need. You hear never ending stories of what baby swings worked miracles and the things that got their child sleeping through from the day they were evacuated from the womb. In hindsight it's super obvious that what works for one wont for another, as with us adults, we all have our preferences and in reality, babies are absolutely no different. In the same respect what you love one day, you can loathe the next. Parenthood is very fickle. What I did find out however, was that nobody really talks about the products that were a huge waste of money. I sure as hell spent a tonne of money on things that didn't have the tag ripped off or that sat in their nursery till this day. Ah yes, the nursery, you know that room that just had to be finished before the baby came but still sat there untouched until they reached half a year.

THE THREENAGER - A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH

Terrible twos, threenagers, fearsome fours. I thought it was all a load of rubbish if I'm honest. I was in charge in this household and no mini-me would run me down. Ha, fucking ha. We seemed to breeze through Noah being a two year old, he's always been a bit wiser than his years and with his speech second to none, we communicated well and escaped relatively tantrum free. I was smug, too smug perhaps and karma decided to pay me a visit in the form of a threenager.

MY KITCHEN WISHLIST

The kitchen in our house has always been my least favourite room. When I looked into decorating it, it felt like a huge job because there wasn't really any of it that I liked - minus the size as it's quite a large kitchen / diner. It seemed to be one of those tasks that I just didn't know where to start, but now we've lived here just over two years I've managed to give it the overhaul it needed within a couple of weeks and I can't describe the level of content it's brought.

BOYS NAME I LOVE BUT WONT BE USING

Very late to the party on this one, but I absolutely love reading these blog posts and watching these youtube videos. I don't even know why, we don't plan to have anymore children but I still enjoy hearing peoples suggestions for baby names. I think baby names give you a little bit of insight into peoples lives, do they like the most obscure and uncommon names? Are they more down the traditional route? Are they modern and stylish?