Life with a young family is unsurprisingly busy and keeping on top of all the playgroups and appointments and work bits can be a bit of a challenge, especially when baby brain comes into play. I have been using my phone diary for a while which is helpful when it’s just me who needs to know what’s going on each day, but it doesn’t quite match up to having everything written down for everyone to access when they need to. Plus, I do love writing everything out by hand and being able to see our plan for the week on a calendar. So when Boxclever got in touch and asked me if I’d like to review their  2020 Family Weekly Planner Calendar I could hardly refuse. Time to get organised! 

The calendar has clearly been designed with family life in mind. Dated from August 2019 – December 2020 it is complete with six columns and headers it is perfect for larger families and has the added bonus of extra space for admin & other bits which aren’t necessarily tied to specific people when there are fewer family members. As there are four of us, I’ve used the extra columns for our daily meal plan and birthdays, bills etc.

The calendar is in a week by week format which works so much better for us than monthly as it means I can fill each box with more than one activity for each person, each day. It also leaves space to use the stickers included which help to make important events stand out and make sure they are remembered! They highlight things like car maintenance, doctors appointments, parties and birthdays so things that are a priority.

There’s also a really handy clear wipe clean overlay which can be moved between each page and is designed so you only have to write the things you do every week once and just move it as you go. A fab time saver for busy Mama’s.

At the back there is a section for writing important contact numbers and a pocket for letters and lists and bits that you need to keep at hand too.

Considering its size and the amount of features, The 2020 Family Weekly Planner Calendar is really affordably priced at just £11.99 and perfect for busy families just like ours. It’s become a bit of a bible in our house! 

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Hallowe’en. It is the marmite holiday of our time and people seem to either love it or hate it. Personally I love it as for me, it signifies the start of my favourite time of year. These magical few months

It’s always been a big deal in my house and I have so many memories of Hallowe’ens filled with fun and friends and all things spooky. As a young child we lived in a cul de sac which just oozed community spirit. Everyone knew everyone, and there would be Hallowe’en parties where everyone was welcome and pretty much all of the kids would turn up donning bin bags, tights with holes cut out and faces full of green facepaint.

As the years went by and we moved house, Hallowe’en was still a big highlight of our year. We have always decorated the front of the house for trick or treaters and my Mum always made a point of making sure it was a holiday full of fun. And of course, as I grew into adulthood we even announced my pregnancy with Florence on Hallowe’en with a pumpkin themed photo.

So it comes as no surprise really that I want to pass on the magic of Hallowe’en on to my children. I think Sean thinks I am a little mad the way I make such a big deal of it but honestly, some of my happiest memories are centered around this time of year.

This year was quite a special one for me, as it was the first Hallowe’en Florence could really get involved. As she’s still quite young and I didn’t want it to be too much of a scary introduction to the holiday, I decided to go with a Room on the Broom theme for our celebrations.  We kicked off the festivities with our annual visit to Pumpkin Moon in Maidstone to pick out our own pumpkins. While our trip was far from blissful (toddler tantrums take to a whole new level these days) and it was extremely muddy because of all of the rain we’d had in the weeks leading up to our trip but we picked out 5 different pumpkins for each of the characters from the book. 

As well as our pumpkin picking, I put together a bunch of Hallowe’en themed activities at home including potion making with vinegar & baking powder, a pumpkin pouring water play tray, we made a pumpkin percussion band, as well as some of these Room on the Broom play activities I shared earlier in the week.

Florence decided she would like to dress up as The Witch and that William should be the frog so I put together a little costume for her and Sean made this extremely cute frog hat for William to wear. Yep. He taught himself how to crochet purely so he could make the hat!

We decorated the house with bats and set out our Room on the Broom Pumpkin characters ready for our trick or treaters to arrive. I think Florence’s favourite thing about the whole day was opening the door and handing out the sweets to all the children who dressed up and calling out ‘Happy Hallowe’en’ to them as they left. When it was our turn to head out on her first Trick or Treat adventure she insisted on taking the bucket of sweets from our house with her to ‘give to the children’ and at the first few houses gave a sweet from her bucket back to the people at the door. So cute. I had explained to her that we only knock on doors that have pumpkins outside and whose lights were on and we had so much fun together searching for the pumpkins and looking at everyone elses decorations. One of the houses in the next street had gone all out and put together a whole display with spooky music, skeletons and such in their driveway and Florence spent ages there watching them and talking to them. There was even a skeleton dog!

We had such a lovely Hallowe’en and it was the perfect way to start this season of sparkle & magic with my little people. I hope you did too! 

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