Knees Up Mother Brown

I’ve Gone Self-Hosted!

dawniebrown — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:03:02 +0000

Hello and welcome to the self-hosted Knees Up Mother Brown Blog, everything has transferred over and I’m all up and running – well except for the domain mapping but hopefully in the next few days all http://kneesupmotherbrown.me traffic will bring you straight here and you won’t notice the difference *fingers crossed*

Whilst things have been down, I’ve still been posting away here so there are probably a few posts below that you’ve missed along the way

Something which hasn’t transferred over is my subscribers so if you were receiving email updates from me whenever I posted, then I’m afraid you won’t anymore

If you’d like to resubscribe then I’m just in the process of setting something up so hopefully I’ll be landing back in your inbox on a regular basis soon

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dawniebrown — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:14:37 +0000

With the forecast snow being a huge disappointment up here, there were still long delays on the Durham Express thanks to a baby on the line.

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dawniebrown — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:06:05 +0000

We’ve been trying out the buggy board today and it was a huge success. Zara and Oscar both loved it

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dawniebrown — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:04:58 +0000

It was -7 on the nursery run this morning but it was a beautiful sunrise

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dawniebrown — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:12:33 +0000

Daddy taught her to smile for the camera and since then most of her photos turn out like this.

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dawniebrown — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:22:54 +0000

The time has come for us to move up a step from the double buggy and so I’ve invested in a buggy board. When the terrors get home from nursery I will try it out

2011 – A Review of the Year (part 2)

dawniebrown — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:29:40 +0000

So back to my review of 2011 – I covered Jan – Jun in Part 1 so now it’s time to cover July – Dec so settle back with a cuppa and a chocolate biscuit (or if you’re reading this after 6pm then with a G&T) and enjoy.

July

July saw us going on our first family holiday as a 4 (well it was a couple of days gatecrashing my parents holiday really), we took Zara to the seaside for the first time and had her first experience of paddling in the sea and I shared my guide to Life with a Baby and Toddler

August

August was a pretty quiet month on the blog, with it being school holidays it meant my husband was home and so our days were filled with trips out and about. These included Washington Wildfowl and Wetlands and Adventure Valley, oh and I got a new car and had to change my views on School Run Mums!

September

September saw Oscar meeting a Dragon, one of my favourite posts of the year as I admitted I Don’t Like Babies. I caught up on our summer holiday adventures and shared our experiences on days out to The Alnwick Garden, Blue Reef Aquarium, South Shields and The Seaside and Durham Botanic Gardens.

October

October saw lots of reviews and competitions on the blog as I launched my Knees Up Mother Brown Christmas Guide, we had a fantastic time testing lots of toys and gifts and I’d like to thank all the PRs and companies for allowing us to feature your products.

November

November saw Zara turn 2 years old and I wrote her a letter, I expressed my concern over the Mammy, Mummy, Mam, Mum issue, I shared Oscar and Zara’s first nursery photos in My Beautiful Children, I shared the story of how I made my husbands Birthday Wish Come True, we went to Durham Lumiere Festival, Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens, Beamish Museum and I shared the fun we had making our Annual Christmas Cards.

December

After a really busy year of blogging, it was time for Mother Brown to take a blogging break in December.

I’ve had great fun looking back through all my blog posts in 2011 and I hope you’ve enjoyed looking back at them with me. It was a crazy year but a fantastic one. Stick with me for 2012 to see what adventures the Brown household gets up to next….

The Mother Brown Guide To Cleaning

dawniebrown — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:30:03 +0000

It’s time for me to share another one of my incredibly funny and factually incorrect “Knees Up Mother Brown Guides”. You’ve had my Guide to Baby Clothes and my Guide to life with a Baby and Toddler and now I give you my Guide to Cleaning

Step 1: Assess the need for cleaning! Cleaning costs money and is not good for the environment. All those chemicals used and electricity is not good! I’m also a strong believer in the theory that germs are good for you and if you live in too sterile an environment it ruins your immune system. Do you REALLY need to clean?? If yes then proceed to step 2, if no then pour yourself a large G&T and put your feet up!

Cleaning Essentials

Step 2: So the house needs cleaning? Right well you now have two options available. A) Considering entering for “How Clean Is Your House”. Yes you will be hugely embarrassed and the laughing stock of your neighbourhood for years to come but at least somebody else will do all the work for you! B) If you don’t fancy being a TV star then I’m afraid you’ll have to do it yourself and proceed to step 3.

Step 3: Remove all children from the house. It’s a well known fact that with children under your feet, cleaning takes three times as long so for your own sanity get them out of the house. How you do this is of course up to you. Arranging a playdate works well, send the little darlings round to trash someone else’s house whilst you clean yours

Step 4: If a machine can do the job for you then let it. If it can go in the dishwasher or washing machine then use them. No point breaking your back cleaning if there is an easy solution. Grill pans, rings from the hob, dish rack and pretty much anything not nailed down goes in our dishwasher and comes out sparkling.

Step 5: Start high, there is no point cleaning the floors before anything else. Always start at the ceiling level and work your way down. A feather duster is a great investment for removing cobwebs and dust.

Step 6: Have a quick dust and polish everywhere. To be honest nobody can really tell if you’ve polished but a quick spray of polish in the air gives the right impression. If like we do you have hardwood floors, be careful of spraying polish too liberally as it has the effect of turning your floor into an icerink.

Step 7: Kitchen and Bathrooms – liberal amounts of spray cleaner, rinsed and wiped clean will do the job. Chuck half a bottle of bleach down the toilets, it’s not very environmentally friendly but it looks nice and clean afterwards. The smell of bleach in the air also shows you have been cleaning! If you have pets or toddlers then remember to close the toilet lid once you’ve poured bleach in there to prevent them trying to drink it.

Step 8: Hoovering – I have a simple rule when it comes to hoovering, if it’s on the floor and it fits up the nozzle of the cleaner then that’s where it belongs! Take no prisoners!

Step 9: Mopping – I can’t live without my steam mop, it’s quick, easy and takes no effort. I find it essential for removing dried in food off the kitchen floor. It’s probably my favourite cleaning accessory, if you don’t know what I mean then it’s something like this one
>> Vax S2 Hard Floor Master Upright Steam Stick

Step 10: If you’ve done all the above then your house is now clean. At some point you should recover your children from wherever you sent them but make the most of the peace and have a nice G&T with your feet up before you do

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dawniebrown — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:14:20 +0000

I think it’s fair to say the banana bread is a little disappointing on the looks front! Tastes ok though! My reward for cleaning the house

I’m Speaking At Britmums Live!

dawniebrown — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:37:06 +0000

You may have noticed the badges over in my left sidebar over the last few months, I’ll be going to Britmums Live this year! I don’t think I’ve actually mentioned on here yet though that I’m speaking at Britmums Live!

I spoke about Tax and Blogging last year at Cybermummy and I can’t have been that bad as I’ve been invited to speak at Britmums Live on the subject! I’ll be covering all the tax implications of earning income through your blog, when you need to start paying tax (because believe it or not, income from blogging IS taxable once you’ve used up your personal allowance!) and how to go about registering with HMRC, paying tax, completing self assessments, keeping records and what you can and can’t claim as expenses. I’ll be speaking in the Beginning Blogging Essentials 2 Session 11:30-12:20 on the Saturday so please pop along and say hi!

If there is anything in particular relating to blogging and tax that you’d like me to include then please leave a comment and I’ll either include it or answer it on my blog at some point

If you see me at Britmums Live, please come and say hi! I’m not scarey and I’m a little shy as a rule. I promise not to bore with you tax talk outside my session I’ll probably be the one secretly drinking G&T whilst everyone else in having coffee

PS If any companies are interested in sponsoring me then please email me at kneesupmotherbrownblog@gmail.com I will just need the cost of a train and hotel covering. In return we can negotiate what I can offer you and of course you will get a years free advertising on the blog etc…