On Monday, Thomas and I went shopping to kit him out for summer and get ready for our holiday at the end of next week. He looked a real cool dude in his new sunglasses

On Tuesday, Thomas came back from nursery and decided to be a boy racer

On Thursday, I cooked my favourite childhood dinner, fish fingers, mashed potatoes, vegetables and parsley sauce. It was delicious!

On Friday, we spent most of the day at home and Thomas 'washed' his hands in his play kitchen

Today, we have to been our local pub and watched some live music in the beer garden. Here is Thomas tucking into a biscuit lolly

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On Sunday, we had a restful day at home. I cooked slow cooker gammon for dinner with new potatoes and salad

On Monday, we went shopping then afterwards we played some football in the garden

On Tuesday, I went to Handmade Burger Co. in the Bullring, Birmingham for a food bloggers event. I had the American cheeseburger and it was delicious

On Wednesday, I went for a walk around work and found these gorgeous looking flowers

On Saturday, I helped at the NCT Stourbridge and Halesowen Nearly New Sale by running the cafe. Here are some of the yummy cakes and cookies people made

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On Sunday, we went to my Nan and Grandad's house and Thomas went and played in their garden. He loved their vegetable patch and went and sat in it for a long time. We wondered what he was going to grow himself into!

On Tuesday, Thomas came home from nursery and played with his stacking cups. He is getting quite good at building towers now

On Wednesday, Thomas left his two monkey friends on his little chair and I thought they looked quite cute together

On Thursday, Thomas played with his Daddy after nursery. Here is his 'Talk to the hand daddy' pose LOL!

On Friday, we had a relaxing day at home and Thomas decided to feed himself pasta bolognaise again! This is the mess he got into

Today, I went to Tots 100 #BlogSummit in Birmingham. I had a fantastic time. Here is a sneak preview of what I am wearing in my photo booth shots!

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Week One

On Sunday, we went shopping and then feeling hungry, we went to the food court in the shopping centre. Thomas tired his first spring roll. He loved them!

On Tuesday, Thomas played with his new drum kit that has been given to us from friends. He deafened us!

On Wednesday, it was Daddy's birthday and as he was away in Edinburgh we wrote a message for him on a chalkboard and Thomas posed for a picture. Daddy really liked it and knew we were thinking of him

On Thursday, I hosted an NCT event at my house and I made this strawberry and caramel tart for everyone. The plate was spotless by the end!

On Friday, Thomas randomly decided to climb into a plastic bucket while we were at our NCT coffee morning

On Saturday, Thomas turned 18 months old (where has my baby gone?)

On Sunday, we went down to Bewdley to see my nan. While walking the dog, we saw this nesting swan and her partner keeping guard. It was lovely and very peaceful.

On Monday, we went shopping again and Thomas played in the play area within the centre. He loved this blue car but wanted to get out of it as soon as another child came anywhere near it!

On Tuesday, Thomas and I took a picture of ourselves

On Wednesday, I took a picture of myself for this week's The Gallery theme

On Thursday, I went to a farm shop on the way back from work to get some asparagus. I took this photo of the apple trees in blossom opposite in the farm shop

On Friday, Thomas tried asparagus for the first time and I made asparagus with poached eggs and butter for my lunch

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We love gadgets in our household. Thomas already knows how to talk to Siri on our iphones’s and knows how to flick between the pictures on the iphone too. Therefore, we were all really excited when we were asked to review the Acer Iconia B1-A71 Android tablet. The full spec details are at the bottom of this post, however a few key things you need to know are:

• Its retails for £99 and aimed at people wanting a second tablet (possibly for the children) or people buying a tablet for the first time
• It has a 7 inch screen (same size as a standard book page) and weighs only 320 grams
• It runs off the Android Jelly Bean operating system and has 1.2GHz dual-core processor ideal for web browsing or watching videos

As soon as it arrived, Thomas knew it was the perfect size for him and he waited very impatiently for us to set it up. The set up was very easy and soon we were downloading applications from the Google Play store. We were very happy to discover that we could get Thomas’ two favourite applications that he already loved on our ipads onto the tablet. They are Ladybird Happy Babies and Ladybird Peekaboo. One negative with the tablet is that I was unable to find an application that made the tablet childproof enough so that I did not have to watch Thomas every single second with it. We tried Kid Mode, Kids Shell and Kids Place and all of them let Thomas press the recent applications button on the front of the tablet and get out of the application. It was very frustrating and I am just glad that our own ipads have a much better system in place.

Compared to my ipad 3, the tablet is much more portable and very light. I was very pleased to discover that it fitted into my Mia Tui Lotte bag and that I could take it out and about with ease. The feel is a bit plasticky and it only has a forward facing camera on the front of the tablet too. I was impressed with the speed of the internet browsing and it played a television programme from BBC Iplayer application very easily without any pauses.

Overall, we were very impressed with the tablet. We would definitely consider buying it for Thomas when he is older as it is very easy to take out and about. I would love to find a childproofing application that actually worked though before giving it to a toddler again. Keep up the good work Acer, we looking forward to what you do with your next entry level tablet!

Acer Iconia B1-A71 features and specs:

-Android Jelly Bean operating system

- Mediatek dual-core 1.2GHz processor (MTK 8317T)

-7-inch diagonal WSVGA capacitive multitouch screen with 1,024 x 600 resolution display

-8GB(2) of internal storage

-Wireless connectivity:

-Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n

-Bluetooth® wireless technology 4.0

-GPS

-3.5mm headset/headphone/microphone jack

-internal speaker

-microSD™ expansion slot with up to 32GB support

-front-facing 0.3-megapixel webcam

-Rechargeable 2,710 mAh battery

-micro-USB (charging and PC connect) with USB 2.0

-Dimensions: 197.4 mm x 128.5 mm x 11.3 mm

-Weight: 320 g

Disclosure: I was lent an Acer Iconia B1-A71 tablet for the purposes of this review. All opinions are my own. I was not required to write a positive review.

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This is Me. Taken in my car while wearing my new sunglasses for the first time this morning.

This post is for for week 140 of The Gallery: Self Portrait

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On Sunday, we went shopping as I need some new glasses. Thomas did not want to miss out on the fun so tried on a pair too!

On Monday, Thomas and I went to lunch at The Custard Factory in Birmingham to meet with a fellow food blogger. To find out what we discussed, find the hashtag #futurefoodies on Twitter.

On Tuesday, Thomas came home from nursery looking like he had been swimming in a bowl of baked beans!!

On Wednesday, I took some star fairy cakes to my local NCT Annual Members Meeting. I was very delighted to discover that the branch have nominated me for a national NCT award for my volunteer work.

On Thursday, Thomas helped Daddy and Grandad fix his trike. We are waiting a replacement wheel but have managed to temporary fix our broken wheel so Thomas can still enjoy the sunshine on his trike.

On Friday, I was feeling brave so let Thomas eat his favourite pasta and bolognaise on his little table and chairs. He quite enjoyed it as you can tell from the pictures.

Today, we have enjoyed the sunshine and Thomas has been on a big boy scooter.

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Thomas is 18 months old next week and this is the first real taste of spring he has had. Today we have taken full advantage of the weather and have had fun doing lots of new things. We have climbed on ropes, been on the big slide in the park, been on a big boy scooter and written with a stick in the dirt. Thomas enjoyed every second of it. He really wants to be a big kid and tries to copy everything they do. I cannot wait for the other first adventures we are going to have this summer!!

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