WIN WIN WIN! BMW Baby Racer!

It's been quite a while since I've run a giveaway on my blog, in fact I've been neglecting this blog massively recently, but that's about to change! This week, I've got a super quick giveaway and one lucky person will be winning a BMW Baby Racer like this one here...

Win this awesome prize!

Coincidentally we recently acquired a BMW through a company car scheme - and I have to say on the day it arrived I was pretty excited, though probably in hindsight the beige seats were a mistake. We did have a slight problem with one of the indicators, but luckily BMW Servicing is so good that it was immediately rectified, yay!

Anyway, back to the giveaway, the car is suitable for ages 18 months to 3 years and has all the cool features of a full sized BMW. To enter, all you need to do is leave a blog post comment saying what your favourite car is, then follow the instructions on the widget below.


ENTER HERE

Terms and Conditions

Ends 31st October at midnight
UK Residents only

  

#FallFashionChallenge at Junction 32

There have been many moments in my life when I've felt very glad that I took up blogging. It's opened up many opportunities to me and also made me a ruckload of new friends. Online ones of course, but many of whom I've had the pleasure of meeting in real life. Last weekend another such opportunity opened itself up to me, in the form of the Junction 32 #FallFashionChallenge. Four bloggers were faced with the "challenge" (if you can call it that!) of spending £100 gift voucher at the Junction 32 Shopping Village near Castleford.

We were met by the lovely Rachael from the PR agency, and treated to a VIP brunch by Thorntons, which was very nice and made us feel pretty awesome. I met the lovely Esther from Inside Out and About, Laura from A Forte for Fashion, and another lovely blogger Hannah, whose blog name I will find out!

At first, it was loads of fun, trawling round shops without children looking for a perfect outfit for the school rub (every blogger had a different outfit challenge), but I soon realised that shopping under pressure with a particular "look" in mind, is not that easy, at all! The other bloggers and I kept running into one another desperately chanting, "have you found anything yet?!" to which the answer was usually a panicked, "no!". Still, it was nice to see what Junction 32 has to offer and I thought the variety of shops was pretty good for a shopping outlet. Basically, it tends to have last season's offerings at hugely discounted prices, and shops range from M&S, Next, Mango, and the like to quite a few homeware and outdoor type shops.

I thought the best clothes were in M&S, mainly because of the size of the store and the fact that it wasn't all Summer clothes. After much searching, I found a fitted black cotton/wool mix dress with leather shoulder pads, it sounds hideous but actually it's lovely and really versatile, I can wear it dressed down or dressed up with accessories. I also spotted a really warm and cosy leopard print wrap that I can wear over the dress and sort of perks it up a bit, they go really well together, here is the finished product!

M&S Woollen Mix Winter Dress £19.99

Leopard Print Wrap £25

Copper Bracelet £5

And another more professional one..

In the changing room...

All the ladies with their outfits on...

I'm really pleased with my outfit and I've already worn it loads. Warm, comfortable and versatile too! Thank you Junction 32 for my voucher and a lovely day out!

I was given a voucher to purchase an outfit at Junction 32 Shopping Outlet, but all thoughts are my own.

Should Children Wear Contact Lenses?

I started wearing contact lenses when I was 13 - back then I was embarrassed about wearing glasses and could never find anything to suit me, so I would just walk around half blind, waving to total strangers, nearly being hit by cars, that sort of thing.  It was also a nightmare when it came to school sports - many a time when playing netball I was hit smack bang in the face with a large netball. It still pains me to this day. Missing the hoop because I couldn't actually see it was a common occurrence. The day I got my first pair of lenses I started living! I could see! I could take part in sports, see the board, understand what was going on in the cinema, normal stuff, but not if you can't see!   I foolishly accepted advice back in the bad old days, that gas permeable lenses would be the way to go, as they are apparently healthier for your eyes and also work out cheaper. I found them very difficult to cope with at times, and if some dust or fluff got inside them, it was akin to water torture. However when I was about 18 I saw sense (literally) and started wearing soft contact lenses. I've tried lots of different companies and brands over the years, with varying results, but I actually now don't feel fully awake unless I'm wearing my lenses, although I do try to give my eyes a rest one day a week and wear glasses. I've never had a problem with dryness particularly, and my eyes never  feel really tired. I honestly don't understand why anyone would choose glasses over lenses to be honest, when there are so many obvious restrictions wearing glasses.

With this in mind, I recently had a chat with the ACUVUE team at Britmums Live - it was really interesting talking to them and they were really keen to hear about people's experiences of wearing lenses, and how they worked for people. I do know that ACUVUE make really high quality lenses, and it's really important not to scrimp on things like contact lenses as your eyes are SO important. One thing that the guys told me, that I was very surprised about, is that children as young as 5 can wear contact lenses! I was really surprised, but apparently research has been done, they've been tried and tested etc and apparently it's the way of the future. I do remember as a child, when I did choose to wear my glasses feeling embarrassed and restricted, I'm quite sure if the option had been available to me back then I would have taken it. It would also have enabled me to take part in sports and activities that glasses can get in the way of, or in my case, hardly being able to see at all!

What do you think? Should children wear contact lenses, or does it just depend on the individual child? 
“I wrote this review while participating in an influencer campaign on behalf of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care and received a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.”