I have an addiction...

Vlogging Diary - nursery meltdown

And the week just gets tougher...

Vlogging Diary - nursery countdown

Vlogging Diary - teething woes

Before you watch this video - I've decided it feels too awkward saying 'Mr A' and 'Miss E' when I'm vlogging, so I'm giving them a name-change! Miss E is now Ez, and Mr A become The Fonz (Fonz, or Fonzie). Anyway, here's what we got up to last week...

Vlogging Diary - some grown-up time

Meant to post this on Friday but I'm... umm... rubbish. But it seems a shame to waste the vlog so here it is, a couple of days late!

A MAD party political broadcast #2

It was Miss E's turn to hit the campaign trail today...

Vote Young & Younger for Best MAD Baby Blogger in the Butlins MAD Blog Awards 2010! Head over there now to place your vote.

Little Miss Sunshine

This video clip is for this week's Little Film Club over at It's a Mummy's Life. I chose the prompt, 'sunshine' because Miss E has been my Little Miss Sunshine this week, making me smile and laugh at her general cheeriness. I used to smack my lips for her because she thought it was hilarious, and this week she's started copying me - it's her new obsession.

Just Vlog It... Bathtime

As reigning Just Vlog It champion (the monthly vlogging challenge brought to you by Karin at Cafe Bebe and Heather from Notes from Lapland), I could hardly fail to defend my hard-won title this month. But I've been suffering from Brain Drain this week, and thinking up what to do for April's theme, 'make us something' had me stumped. I'm pretty creative most of the time, but could I think of a decent idea? No. Until I remembered a recipe for some fab and easy-peasy bath fizzies in last year's Ideal Home's Complete Guide to Christmas.

 

So here, ladies and gentlemen, with less than two hours to go until Just Vlog It's midnight deadline, I hope to make you relax, after you've made these bath fizzies.

 

What you need:

• 100g cornflour
• 300g bicarbonate of soda
• 200g citric acid (I get mine from Amazon)
• Essential oil
• Small spray bottle
• Food colouring (optional)
• Ice-cube tray 

This should make around 20-25 fizzies.

Little Film Club - Miss E at work

At least I can get my contribution to It's A Mummy's Life's Little Film Club ticked off my to-do list (even if this is about four days late). This is a video taken early in the morning, after an interrupted night's sleep. My main thought on it is, 'why did we ever think it was a good idea to buy that toy?'.

I think it goes well with the prompt 'interaction' (Miss E is interacting) and 'How to' (how to wind up your sleep-deprived parents).

And so it begins...

We're finally reaching the stage I've been looking forward to since I found out I was expecting twins - they are starting to interact and amuse each other. They've been aware of each other for quite a while now and will try to eat the other baby's hands, but they didn't seem to be getting much from each other. But then last weekend they were lying next to one another in the cot in fits of chuckles. They've started making each other laugh and it makes me smile from ear to ear. Miss E was rubbing Mr A's head, and apparently it was the funniest thing either of them had ever experienced. Young Daddy managed to catch a bit of it on camera...

Both babies are also now pretty confident at sitting up unsupported (we still have a few topples but they're getting steadier every day). I sit them on the mat facing each other, with a bowl filled with toys between them and they work their way through the bowl, pulling out the toys they want to play with and then casting them aside (my role is to continually re-fill the bowl with toys). But a problem I wasn't expecting yet has already started to arise. They want the toy the other baby has. Miss E, whose grasping skills are a bit more advanced than Mr A's, has a habit of grabbing a toy from Mr A's hands, though he isn't always the innocent party by any means. He tried to tug a toy from her, and because she wouldn't let go (stubborn see, like me) she toppled over instead.

I haven't quite worked out yet how to react to and manage this situation. They're obviously too young to understand sharing, so I guess I'll just leave them to work it out in their own time. I don't want to hear myself saying, 'no', repeatedly already. I could give them separate bowls with their own set of toys, but I think it's better for them to learn to play together. It makes me incredibly happy and proud to see them enjoying each other's company.

A tale of two teeth

I can't believe I haven't got round to blogging about this yet (bad mummy), but Miss E got two teeth a couple of weeks ago! Both babies have been drooling for England for months and have red, rosy cheeks a clown would be proud of. Then one morning Miss E was on the change mat and I noticed something on her bottom gum. I had a feel and lo and behold it was a tooth. She had made absolutely no fuss whatsoever, unbelievable when you consider what a little drama-queen-in-the-making she is, and so the tooth's appearance was highly unexpected. In hindsight, it was probably the reason she's been sucking her gums like a toothless old man for a week, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. By lunchtime that same day she had cut the second bottom tooth, and now we're enjoying the cutest toothy grins. I've tried to capture it on film, but it's proving tougher than I thought. Here's a little video I made yesterday - you can just about catch a glimpse of those two little toothy pegs right at the end...

This post has been retrospectively added to It's A Mummy's Life's new Little Film Club, which launched this week. Head over to her blog on Monday for next week's prompts. I think this one fits into this week's prompt, 'Excitement'.

Drum roll please.. The Arrival of The Slanket

My prize (a stylish *ahem* Slanket) for winning the first Just Vlog It challenge (the blogging brainchild of Heather at Notes from Lapland and Karin at Cafe Bebe) arrived for me this morning, and in the spirit of vlogging, I thought it best I do a vlog to mark the occasion.

Some notes:

- Yes, the camera is too far away from me according to Karin's vlogging tips, but I wanted you to have the full glory of the full-length Slanket shot.

- And yes, I have forgotten to remove the tag from my new jeggings, which also arrived this morning. All I can say is thank goodness I did this vlog, so I could see it and remove it before I left the house.

- You can also glimpse some balloons that are still up from Young Daddy's birthday yesterday. It's probably time I took those down...

The Slanket may well be making more appearances on Young & Younger in the future, as I think it may have inspired a vlogging series - '101 uses for a Slanket'. So please get in touch with your Slanketeering suggestions and stay tuned!

JUST VLOG IT! Young & Younger does Big Brother...

In my first vlog, I appeared in front of the camera. Mr A and Miss E were itching for their five minutes of fame so I gave into their demands this time, and let them taking the starring roles.

We had a lot of fun this weekend creating this vlog for Karin at Cafe Bebe, and Heather at Notes from Lapland's JUST VLOG IT challenge. Blogging is usually quite a solitary activity, so it was great that Young Daddy could get involved in vlogging with me. We got a bit carried away with the video editing programme (Pinnacle Studio) we found online, but are quite proud of our virgin-editing skills in the end.

This month's JUST VLOG IT challenge's theme is 'Teach Us Something!'. I'm not sure how much you'll learn from our entry, but we hope it might make you giggle, just a little bit....

Technological headaches

So I've somehow managed to successfully lurch my way into the vlogosphere with my earlier nursery video tour, but it's been no easy ride. The original video I shot had a file size far too HUGE to upload so I had to get Young Daddy to help me to find a programme to reduce the file size. Then it took Blogger about a million years to upload the file onto my post. Next time (yes, there will be a next time) I shall use Photobucket or YouTube, but I've just got to work out how to do that.

In the last fortnight I've become a bit of a Twitaholic (for a novice guide to Twitter, you can't get better than Battleplan's guide here). I didn't really get Twitter before, but I am now fully immersed in the hot-tub of Twitterland and have been really enjoying it. Enjoying it so much it seems, that I may have formed a small addiction. Today there has been something wrong with Twitter that has meant that I can't take part or see any of the usual banter and I have been left frustrated and at a loss. I can only hope they fix the problem soon, before my Twitter friends forget me *bottom lip starts to quiver*

Then, to fill in the time when I would normally be Tweeting, I decided to upgrade my comments box. I found some easy-to-follow instructions, and was feeling rather like a computer whizz-kid-cum-complete-genius when suddenly my stomach lurched as I realised I had manage to lose every single past comment anyone had ever made on my blog. I shouted, I cursed, and tears threatened, until I worked out that they were not, thank goodness, lost for good and I managed to retrieve them.

So this is my test post. Has my new Disqus comment box appeared? And will it work? Please comment and let me know....

My first vlog - a video tour

So here it is, I have braved my first vlog. After I got the initial vanity issues resolved (tie bad hair back, give up on idea of putting in contact lenses etc), and worked out how to use the video option on the digital camera I was away! It's a fair first attempt, but plenty of room for improvement I reckon. I know I say the same thing over and over again, and it's not the most riveting of video topics but I felt better getting started on something that was straightforward and involved no editing. It was definitely not as painful as I thought it might be, and Miss E and Mr A have been begging me to make an appearance, so I'm pretty sure some more vlogs will be showing up here soon....