We have recently talked about children's fashion must haves for Autumn but what about the grown ups? What are the on trend fashion must haves for mum?

I have always loved fashion and being a mum doesn't mean you need to turn into a fifties housewife, unless of course that is totally your thing! Keeping one eye on the catwalk and the other on the purse strings, means that being on trend sometimes is about key items rather than a whole wardrobe for super savvy mums.

For me, shopping online is the best way to find the most competitive prices and you can check them in seconds but I have recently found LoveSales  which is a new website and ideal for my shopping habit. It only displays sales and it can easily be personalized as you are given the option of which stores you like and then only those will appear on your sales feed. It also has a feature where you can literally add any website and it will instantly notify you when the price drops, perfect for keeping an eye on those key pieces.

The catwalk has been awash with blue this autumn and while pink has reigned supreme in recent seasons, blue seems to have fought back on the AW14 catwalks. So while the weather maybe dismal at the moment, there is no need to feel blue - you just need to wear it! So what are the best ways to get colour into your wardrobe, without having to buy a whole new collection of clothes?

Scarves

I LOVE scarves, they can be fashionable, practical (and in dire emergencies, can be used to wipe a toddler's nose but I am obviously not advocating that, it was merely an observation). A scarf can add a splash of colour to any outfit!

Jewellery

Add a brightly coloured blue necklace, bracelet and earring set to an outfit and voila, instant colour injection and with very minimal outlay. Costume jewellery is so competitively priced now, it is a great way to change the look of an outfit in seconds.

Shoes

A girl can never have enough shoes. That is all.

Handbag

As above! If you get matching shoes and handbag, (especially blue or red) you can dramatise an outfit in the blink of an eye.

Coat

If you only buy one thing for the new season, it must be a statement coat. I *have* to have a new coat every year, much to the disgust of a certain male in the family. He doesn't understand the need for a new coat if there is nothing wrong with the old one but if I can get one at a discounted rate, it would be rude NOT to buy it wouldn't it?

Is there anything you would add?

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This is a collaborative post.

This week we read a new book.

Giraffe's can't dance by Giles Andreae (who incidentally also wrote Purple Ronnie) and illustrated by Guy Parker-Rees is a fabulous rhyming tale of Gerald the giraffe, who would sorely love to join in with the other animals at the Jungle Dance, but everyone knows that giraffes can't dance . . . or can they?

Poor Gerald the giraffe feels very clumsy until he meets a friendly cricket, who teaches him that we may all be different but "Sometimes all we need is a different song to dance to". This is a lovely story that celebrates the richness of differences and the possibilities created by a more personal approach. It also has something valuable to say about the impact of our own expectations of ourselves and others.

Giraffes have featured heavily in our activities in the last week, as we have also had Jeffery the Giraffe from nursery to entertain. Now I am acutely aware that he is a stuffed animal and he has no clue that he needs entertaining but there is an expectation to complete a diary of his adventures over the week that he is with us. So reading a book about giraffes was fun .... as was taking Jeffery swimming!

Knowing what works at swimming, is as much as knowing what song to dance to. There is little point forcing the little one to attempt things that she is not ready for but to encourage her to develop the skills she is showing naturally.

Her confidence, like Gerald's in the book, is really starting to grow and thanks to our amazing Water Babies teachers, she really can swim.

Unlike Jeffery .... no amount of swimming lessons are going to help him.

I just hope that the little one learns the most important lesson, in that even though we may all be different, we all are able to achieve our dreams when we find the 'music that we love!' 

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I often say the little one is milk drunk. Despite being 3 years old, her favourite drink is still millk. She is not a fan of branded drinks and with recent news reports about children's teeth, I am happy for her to keep drinking it and be "milk drunk" with milky happiness.

I however *may* have been a little cocktail drunk this weekend for my final hen night. 

I cannot remember the last time I drank so much and I maintain that I only stuck to one drink ....... it is just unfortunate that that one drink consisted of a cocktail of other drinks! There are varying moments during that evening that could be considered for this Wot So Funee post but this is a family blog, so we will skip past those for now.

Unfortunately, for me, we had a 3 year olds birthday party to go to the following morning and I was struggling to get out of bed. I could hear the little one chatting with her Dad downstairs and him mention that "Mommy was having a little trouble getting out of bed as she was a little drunk last night".

I smiled to myself imagining her thinking I was drinking her milk and becoming milk drunk.

We went off to the farm party and we were all "excited" to get a ride on a bumpy tractor. (note: I was not excited by this prospect) The little one turned round to me and simply said"Mommy, are you coming on the tractor with us or are you still drunk?"

Mortified is not the word but everyone else found it funny.

I shall not even begin to tell you how I felt going through the pig pens!!

Has your little one said anything funny this week?

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As the seasons are changing, there will be undoubtedly be more time spent indoors and the jobs that might have been "ignored" over the summer, now suddenly seem much more evident in the house. Just under 15 years ago I bought my first house, although in hindsight we bought half a house as we always had a grand design in mind for the property and doubled the size of it within 18 months. It was a mammoth project and not one that I would be inclined to repeat in a hurry but having lived in our current home for 5 years, I do have a niggling desire to create something new with our living space.

Kitchen Island

I have always coveted a centre island in the kitchen. I think it is a focal point and as most of our parties always end up in the kitchen, it is great for socialising too. Everyone can get round the island, stand or sit and relax. Unfortunately for me, I am not entirely sure that our kitchen would take the island that I would really like ...... or the bank balance for the kitchen of my dreams. 

Bedroom

Our bedroom is the one room that has not been decorated in the last 4 years and I need a fresh new look. Thankfully we have painted walls, so creating a new palette of colours shouldn't be an issue. We always seem to have a little person crawling into bed with us in the early hours of the morning so a bigger queen size bed would be perfect and in order to maximise the reduced space, we could look at building drawers into the angled wall space.

Landing Light

Our landing is a relatively big space but it is so dark without the lights on and even though I have recently changed the lighting, it is still not filled with the natural light I would like, so when a friend of mine recently started her own building project, I loved the VELUX sun tunnels  she used to maximise the natural light in her new bathroom. I was amazed to learn that the tunnel between the roof and the diffuser is 35cm in diameter and takes up minimal space in the loft, which is good for me because I have more storage boxes in the loft than insulation!

Sometimes just a few changes can make a massive difference but if all of these things don't satisfy my lifestyle demands, I suppose in the New Year we could always look for a new house, although you know what they say? New house, new baby ...... but shhhh, just don't mention that to the Man on the Lilypad!