Toddler stocking filler ideas

Hanging a stocking by the fireplace or child's bed is a really important tradition in preparing for Santa's arrival. When I was younger, stocking filler presents were inexpensive, often fun, small gifts bought for a few pounds, like chocolate coins, selection boxes, a pair of earrings, gloves, a yo-yo etc. Looking around the shops and online for some stocking filler ideas, it's clear to see that 'stocking fillers' no longer seem to be just that. Online you'll find stocking filler ideas and gifts from a couple of pounds to £50! To my mind, you shouldn't be spending £50 in a stocking filler - for one, it's too much and two, it more than likely won't fit inside a stocking! With this in mind, I did lots of searching for some small, cheap gifts for both Tommy and Isla's stockings. Again, I picked up gifts as I saw them. Obviously, many of the items are personalised for my son, but he's a typical three-year-old really who likes and enjoys the typical things a three-year-old boy does. I can't quite remember everything that's gone into his stocking this year but here are most of the items I've bought.

1. Cars Leapreader book. I bought Tommy a Leapfrog Leapreader Reading and Writing system a while ago and he loves it. It enables children to begin reading and writing and they can use it independently to learn to write letters and numbers and sound out words.

2. Finding Nemo Leapreader book.

3. Disney Cars Sheriff die cast toy.

4. Disney Cars Chick Hicks die cast toy. Tommy has been searching for these two for ages but they're really rare and difficult to come by. I found these on eBay after looking EVERYWHERE and paid a little bit more than the RRP (£5.99). I think I got both of them for £20, which isn't too bad. Chick Hicks is on Amazon for £30, so I feel I got quite a good deal!

5. Large bubble wand from Amazon. This speaks for itself!

6. Disney Planes Thumb flyers. I bought a couple of these. They're small polystyrene planes that take a minute to make. I'm not sure how well they work but for £1, it doesn't really matter.

7. ELC rolling pins. I loved these. They have different patterns on so are perfect for using with Play doh or paint.

8. ELC soft stuff vehicle and people cutters.

9. A personalised minion keyring bought from eBay.

10. Despicable Me 2 mug from Asda. Tommy is minion-mad at the moment. He has a lot of different cups and tumblers but I wanted something a little bit more grown up for him.

11. Despicable Me snap bracelet.

12. Despicable Me plate, bowl and tumbler set.

13. Despicable Me cutlery set.

I've also included a glow stick wand bought from The Card Factory, some bubbles, a small indoor football, bath crayons and other items I can't quite remember!

Newborn baby gift ideas

Isla is just under four months old at the moment and it is really difficult to find gifts for Christmas, particularly as we've accumulated so many toys since having Tommy, all of which we've kept should we have another baby. It's easy if it's your first child you're buying for, as there is a huge array of baby toys, bouncers, swings etc. on the market. We've kept things fairly low key with Isla this year, only buying her a few little toys and clothes.

1. Fisher Price Soothe and glow seahorse. We had the blue version bought for Tommy when he was born and he loved it. Since we've sorted all the baby toys out, this has found itself on Tommy's bed. We had hoped we could use it with Isla, but he wasn't ready to let it go. So we've bought he pink version for Isla for Tommy to give her for Christmas and then everyone will be happy! This is for use at bedtime and is particularly useful in these dark, cold winter nights. You press the tummy which glows with a lovely soft light. It then plays a range of lullabies, along with some relaxing ocean sounds.

2. Hippo bath rattle from Mothercare. This was only a few pounds so it makes the perfect stocking filler. It's great that it can be used in the bath too!

3. Blinking and flashing blinkies bath toys from John Lewis. We've bought Isla quite a few sensory toys for Christmas, as she is too young for a lot of toys at the moment. These are just fab - you put te in the bath and they light up and flash with different-coloured lights. I'll just know she'll love looking at the bright colours.

4. Bath time twinkies from John Lewis. Again, these will make bath time really fun. They have reflective materials and balls on the inside.

5. Blossom Farm touch and feel cubes from ELC. This is a lovely set of four fabric cubes made of a variety of materials and textures. These will be lovely for Isla to explore when she is able to sit unaided, which isn't far away!

6. Lamaze My friend Emily doll. We have quite a few Lamaze toys and have been very impressed with them (hence buying another). They're made of a range of fabrics and textures and are all brightly-coloured. They're perfect for attaching to a pram, pushchair or car seat. Isla loves her Freddie firefly and I'm sure Emily will be a big hit too!

I have also made Isla a small stocking, in which I've bought some bubbles (cheap party bag ones), a pack of balloons we can blow up and watch and some nice baby massage oils. I've also included a bottle I've made with sequins, glitter and water in as something for her to watch.

Toddler Christmas gift ideas

I thought I'd share with you some of the main gifts we've bought our toddler this year. I tend to start buying Christmas presents around August time, both to spread the cost and avoid having to panic about what to buy too close to Christmas. It's easier to just buy things as I see them and I like to spend some time shopping around and take advantage of offers and deals.

1. We bought this Built It! construction starter set from Early Learning Centre. It's currently half price (down from £40 to £20), so an absolute bargain. Tommy is really into making things at the moment, and it's one of the only activities he will sit down and do for any length of time. This set includes instructions and parts for making a robot and several different vehicles and then of course children can create their own as well. 

2. Next up is the Toot Toot drivers parking tower, which we bought from Amazon. Tommy's already got the airport and the garage from the same range and spends hours playing with them. I think they're really good value for money. The little vehicles interact with the various stations for hours of fun. To love how all the different components can fit together to create an entire town or city. It's fab for pretend play. 

3. We also purchased some spare track (again from Amazon) to connect his garage, airport and parking tower together.ma must-have if you have any items from the Toot Toot range. 

4. GLTC play shop and theatre. This has been on my wish list for Tommy for a while and I've been umming and ahhhhing about buying it for Tommy's birthdays and Christmases since he was one. It has a shop in one side, with shelves for food storage and a blackboard top. On the other side I a theatre, complete with curtains and a stage. This is still sitting flat-placked in our pantry, so I can't comment on it's quality or how easy it is to assemble! I can say though that I always buy from GLTC and there wooden toys in particular are always sturdy and really good quality. They have some beautiful traditional toys, one-of-a-kind toys, furniture and storage solutions. Their Christmas items are worth checking out too! This is a fantastic price, considering it is two items in one. I just know Tommy will absolutely love this - he loves role play and has a really good imagination so it will be right up his street!

5. Melissa and Doug play food crates. These will obviously go well with the play shop. Again, I'm a huge fan of his brand - they're another brand I would always trust to deliver a quality, well-made and reasonably-priced toy/game. These handy little crates are small enough for little hands but big enough to look like the real thing. They're handily organised into food groups, so they're educational too. We bought the fruit, vegetables, meat and fish and dairy products set.

6. Early Learning Centre cash register - again, a must if you are playing shops! This has both realistic-looking coins and an electronic card machine. It features a scanner for scanning food items and includes a few select pieces of play food.

I'm getting super excited about the big day now, mainly because I can't wait to see Tommy's face when he opens his presents!!!!!!!!!

Cotton pad snowmen

Here's another idea for a snowman-based activity suitable for toddlers/preschoolers. Again, it's really simple and everything is reusable. We used a range of materials for this activity: cotton wool pads, a range of small sticks we collected on a wintery walk, coloured sugar paper, buttons, pom-pom balls, googly eyes and some small pieces of coloured ribbon.

The cotton wool pads obviously function as the heads/bodies of the snowmen and the rest of the materials are used as decoration. I just left Tommy to it and he experimented for a whole hour creating a range of different snowmen. He really did love this activity. To make it more educational, you could put a number on the hats and get children to include that number of buttons on the snowman's body or even write the letters of their name on each of the cotton wool pads. We didn't do either of these, as Tommy is past the stage of recognising numbers to 10 and and being able to write his name.

Foam Craft - 'Olaf' from Frozen

We've been doing lots and lots of crafting recently, seeing as the weather's not been particularly great. I thought I'd share with you this activity, as it's so easy and cheap to do and it can also be enjoyed time and time again.

Tommy, like a lot of children his age, is COMPLETELY obsessed with the film 'Frozen' at the moment, so I decided to base this activity on it.

All you need is a pack of craft foam in different colours (I bought ours from 'The Range' for a few pounds), some water and a paintbrush. Yes, it really IS that easy. I cut out a template of Olaf from 'Frozen' and then Tommy could get to work! All you do is 'paint' the foam with water and then stick it to a window!

Because only water is required, there is scope to rearrange all the component parts as many times as you want and reuse them time and time again.

The possibilities of this activity are endless. You could make a Christmas tree, a nativity scene, whatever you wish. It's a great, no-mess, fun activity for children to do on a rainy day. 

Our Christmas Eve hamper

Our Christmas Eve hamper

  

I've already shared with you one of our new Christmas traditions we've tried for the first time this year - our reading advent calendar. Another tradition I thought I'd start was to make up a hamper of goodies for us all to share on Christmas Eve and I thought I'd show you what I've decided to put in it this year. With all Christmassy things, there can be a tendency to go crazy - it's tempting to buy every single Christmas decoration and every Christmas jumper and it can all get very expensive and become over the top. I haven't spent an awful lot of money on the items in our Christmas Eve hamper. Instead, I've tried to think of things that could be brought out on Christmas Eve year after year, in order to keep costs down. I'm well aware of just how expensive Christmas with children can be, particularly now that we have two of them!

The idea of a Christmas hamper is really rather simple. You get a large hamper/basket and fill it with things that can be enjoyed in the run up to the big day. Again, as with the reading advent calendar, the items can be new or things that your children already own or use - bringing old items out that haven't been used for a while is exciting too! The hamper itself I purchased from eBay but for a more inexpensive solution, you could use a cardboard box and wrap it in Christmas paper. Another idea might be to make up individual shoeboxes for each child instead. I decided to make a single hamper, as Isla is not really old enough to use most of what's gone into it this year, so it made sense just to make a joint one.

The first items I purchased for the hamper were a Christmassy DVD (The Snowman) and a copy of 'The Night Before Christmas.' The DVD gives us the perfect opportunity as a family to snuggle down together before bedtime, when the vegetables for the Christmas dinner are prepared and everything's ready for the big day. I lined the hamper with this huge cosy fleece blanket (Primark, £6) and this will keep us nice and warm whilst we're snuggled up on the settee.

Next up, we have the snacks, an absolute essential for film-watching! Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without chocolate, so I've included some gold chocolate coins and chocolate Santa and reindeer figures (these ones are hollow with smarties inside). To go with this, I picked up some Wispa hot chocolate and bought a new Christmas mug to put it in.

A major part of the preparation on Christmas Eve involves getting ready for Santa's arrival, so I've included some items for Tommy to give Santa, who'll be incredibly tired from travelling the globe and need something to keep him going! For Santa, I've put in a small box of cookies, a carrot for his reindeer and some reindeer food. The reindeer food, mug and cookies came as a set from Primark for £4. If you can't find any reindeer food (to be honest I imagine it's pretty hard to come by!), you could use porridge oats sprinkled with glitter instead. We intend to sprinkle ours outside the front door. I found a gorgeous little platter for Santa from Matalan (£6), which reserves a space for the reindeers' carrot, Santa's drink and his cookies.

Another important part of the preparation for Christmas Day is the hanging of our stockings, so I had two personalised ones made and have placed these in the hamper for hanging up on Christmas Eve.

Also included in the hamper (well not quite in - it was far too big!) is a 'Santa - please stop here' sign I picked up from our local garden centre. We'll stick this in the ground outside our house. I've also bought a magic key for Santa from eBay. He'll need it because we don't have a chimney for him to travel down!!!!

Last but not least, I've included a new pair of wintery/Christmassy pyjamas for Tommy and Isla to wear on Christmas Eve. I struggled to find Christmassy pyjamas in Tommy and Isla's sizes this year for some reason, perhaps because I left it quite late this year. Next, Primark and Matalan all have some nice ones. These ones were bought from Asda - Isla's were £6 and Tommy's were £8.

I'm hoping that the hamper helps build up the excitement towards Christmas Day. In addition to the items in the hamper, we also plan to track Santa's progress across the globe via the Internet and, depending upon its timing, watch out for his sleigh in the night sky (or the ISS as it's otherwise known).

Here are some other ideas for gifts for your hamper: Christmas socks/slippers, hot-water bottle, Christmas craft packs, door-hanger for Santa, Christmas-themed earrings or reindeer antlers, a Santa hat, Christmas bath bombs, popcorn, a special outfit for Christmas Day or a new teddy. I'd love to know what you have/are planning to put in your Christmas Eve hamper this year if you're doing one!

Toddler boy H&M haul

Tommy is a really adventurous little boy, who loves nothing more than jumping in muddy puddles, footballing, playing at the park, climbing - basically anything that involves him getting dirty! Consequently, his wardrobe pretty much only consists of hooded tops, gilets, bodywarmers, jeans and jogging bottoms. These are fine for everyday but because we're now in the run up for Christmas, I wanted to buy him a few smarter pieces that would see him through all of his Christmas parties and celebrations. All these items were from H&M.

Again, I've bought things that I can mix and match. I bought a 'This boy rocks' motif fine knit jumper (£9.99), a gorgeous red and navy checked shirt (£7.99) and a pair of bright red chinos (£5.99).

Next I bought another pair of chinos, this time a navy pair that will go with pretty much everything (£5.99). To go with this, I picked up a thick, knitted navy jumper (£14.99) and two plain long-sleeved t-shirts in grey and navy (£4.99 each).

H&M do a fantastic basics range and from this I bought 3 stripy long-sleeved t-shirts, which are made of organic cotton so they're super soft and cosy. They were £4.99 each but are on a 3 for 2 offer at the moment. I buy a lot of children's clothes from H&M. They've got some lovely winter clothing in store and online at the moment and I look forward to seeing what their SS15 collection has to offer.

Baby girl H&M and Next haul

Anyone that knows me knows that I am a bit of a shopaholic. Ok, a MAJOR shopaholic. My inclination to shop is not helped by the fact that I am currently on maternity leave, with constant access to my computer, iPad and mobile phone. Now that I have two children, I'm not only addicted to buying things for myself but also for them. Isla is 3 months old and, as anyone with a tiny person knows, they seem to grow out of their clothes so quickly and you seem to be constantly buying new outfits and getting rid of or packaging away old ones. Over the last few weeks, I've been doing an awful lot of sorting out both in preparation for Christmas and creating some space. I've had all the clothes out of wardrobes and cupboards, sorted them out, sold the decent stuff, thrown the rubbish away and had a look at what was left. It turns out, neither of them had a huge amount of clothes that fit them, particularly warmer items they would need for the winter. So I decided to order them quite a few bits and here is what I bought for Isla. I will do a separate blog post on Tommy's things, as there's far too much to put in a single post.

First of all, I bought this outfit for Isla from Next - a gorgeous tartan dress, crochet hat and tights set. The dress and tights come as a set for £13 and the hat was £6.

The rest of the clothes I bought for her were from H&M. I tend to buy outfits in similar colours so that I can mix and match everything. I bought a long-sleeved blouse, corduroy shorts and tights set (£14.99). The t-shirts and blouses are all made of organic cotton and all super soft. The two long-sleeved t-shirts came in a pack of two for £5.99. One is pale pink and the other has a super cute bird, cupcake and bow design.

Up next are a red lace dress that came with a matching red bow hairband (£12.99), a heart fine-knit cardigan (£9.99) and a stripy knitted dress (£9.99).

I loved these red and white long-sleeved tops with frilly detail (£5.99) each. I also purchased some tweed shorts (£5.99) and trousers (£9.99). The shorts will look lovely with some cable-knit tights. The cotton white blouse was £7.99.

My final purchase for Isla was these pack of two long-sleeved t-shirts (£5.99), which, in my opinion, you can never have enough of. Again, these will match with her shorts and trousers. I love H&M baby and children's clothes. They are very reasonably-priced and good quality too. What more could you ask for?

A reading advert calendar

I saw this idea a while ago when I was searching for activities to do around Christmas time with Tommy and I thought it suited him down to the ground. He absolutely loves reading. He's the type of boy that wants story after story before bedtime and knows many of them off by heart. Since Tommy was a tiny baby, we've always read him a bedtime story, regardless of how late he's ended up going to bed. It's always been part of his routine and we intend to do the same with his little sister. 

The idea of a reading advent calendar is extremely simple: you wrap up 24 books, one for each bedtime before the big day, your child chooses one each night and that's their bedtime story. Now I'm not suggesting that you go out and purchase 24 new books for this, far from it. Books can be extremely expensive and purchasing an entire new set of books solely for this purpose would add considerably to the cost of your Christmas. But if you're anything like us, you've probably got hundreds of children's books on shelves, in boxes, in all rooms of your house, some of which were much loved but haven't been read for a while and even some that might not have been read at all. It's funny how children come across an old toy or book that was once their favourite, and yet they can't remember ever owning it at all. 

I must admit, we did purchase several books for Tommy's advent calendar. If you're looking to buy some new books but keep the cost down, I'd really recommend The Book People or places like The Works. I visited The Works a few weeks ago and managed to pick up four books for £5.

Thinking back on our reading together, I remember there was a time that Tommy would always want me to read 'Dear Santa' to him. Every night. In July or whatever summer month it was. It got to a point where I had to hide it before we gotto bed and claim I didn't know where it was. Doing a reading advent calendar allows you to collect all your Christmas/Winter-themed books together and read them when they are relevant. It also helps the build-up towards the big day and increase the level of excitement and magic. 

You can arrange your books as you wish. Mine are just in a neat pile next to Tommy's bed but other people who've done it have arranged them to make an object, like the snowman or Christmas tree below. I like the idea, but it would require finding appropriate wrapping paper and lots of thought would have to go into choosing appropriately-sized books and plus I wanted Tommy to choose his own book each night, rather than opening them in a specific order. 

As you can see, Tommy's enjoying his advent calendar so far! We've got a chocolate one too of course! 2 advent calendars? That's just greedy!

If you were wanting to buy some new Christmassy/Wintery-themed books, here are a few of our favourites:

1. 'Dear Santa' by Rod Campbell

2. 'The Jolly Christmas Postman' by Allan and Janet Ahlberg

3. 'The Night Before Christmas' by Clement C.Moore

4. 'The Snowman' by Raymond Briggs

5. 'Father Christmas' by Raymond Briggs

6. 'The Snowman and the Snowdog' by Raymond Briggs

7.'One Snowy Night' by Nick Butterworth

Autumn leaf tea light holders

I've had the materials ready to make these for a while but I just haven't got round to making them until now. These tea light holders are really simple and easy to make. You only need a few materials, they take a matter of minutes to create and they look really stunning on a dark autumn/winter's night.

To make them you need: several mason jars (I used two empty Dolmio jars and an old candle jar), some autumn leaves (either artificial or real), raffia and some PVA glue. Now just a word of warning about the leaves. I read somewhere that it is possible to use real leaves for this. The instructions stated to collect the leaves then leave them for at least two weeks to dry out by placing them on kitchen roll underneath a heavy book. I tried this but it just didn't work for me. I could not get the leaves to stick at all and they wouldn't mould around the sides of the glass jars. I'm not sure if it was the consistency of the glue or the leaves themselves. By all means, try it - you might have more luck! I decided to attempt this project again, this time with artificial leaves I bought for a few pounds from Amazon.

To start with, you will need to thoroughly clean your glass jars and remove any labels. It helps to leave them to soak in warm water and the labels will come clean off. Then mix PVA glue with a little water and apply it liberally to the jars.

Stick the leaves to the jars, overlapping them but leaving some gaps to allow more light from a candle to show through. Finally, coat the leaves in a further layer of the glue mix to give them a shine. Once the jars are dry (I left them to dry overnight), tie raffia around the tops, place a tea light inside and light it. I've placed mine on the kitchen windowsill and they've made the room look really cosy.

A Trip to the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve

November sees the return of our annual day trip to the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in Lincolnshire, not far from where we live. The reserve is home to one of only four large colonies of grey seals in the British Isles and because of this it attracts tourists from all over the UK. Usually these animals spend most of the year out at sea but during the months of November and December, they come up onto the sandbanks at Donna Nook to breed and to give birth to their pups. They are only around for a short while and they are a must see if you live in Lincolnshire. The viewing area is open from late October to December but the best time to see the most pups seems to be towards the end of November/beginning of December. It allows you to get close enough to the seals to be able to touch them (although you shouldn't and wouldn't want to!)

We take Tommy every Winter to see the seals at Donna Nook and this year we had our newborn in tow too. The walkways at the reserve are relatively flat, so suitable for buggies but there is quite a climb up over the sandbanks before you get there and it can get extremely busy so do bear this in mind. We opted to use a baby carrier instead and Isla was more than happy to watch the seals from there.

The reserve itself is very low key, as it should be. It consists of two little huts, one at each end, that gives visitors information about the seal colony and allows visitors to make donations or buy a small selection of gifts. Information plaques along the way are fun, children-friendly and encourage you to find out more about grey seals and the work that the nature reserve conducts. It has two car parks at either end of the walkway and is £2 to park for however long you want to be there.

We visited the reserve on a rather mild day and we spent quite a while there. It does get very cold and windy on this part of the coast, as it's very exposed to the elements and there is little shelter so if you do go, be sure to wrap up warm! If you do need warming up, there is a handy hot food and drinks van where you can get a Lincolnshire sausage in a bap or a hot chocolate. This we found to be very welcome indeed!

I would really recommend a trip to the Donna Nook Nature Reserve if you haven't been already. There aren't many places in the UK where you can observe wild animals as closely as you can do here, and rare ones at that. It's a super place to visit if you are interested in these animals or you enjoy wildlife photography. It really is a spectacle that both of my children enjoyed. It's cheap, educational and a great place to visit if you don't mind getting a little chilly in the process!