Tag: instagram

Children, Christmas, Diet, Exercise, Families, Family Life, Fitness, Food, Gym, Healthy Eating, Hobbies, Parents, Photography

Celebrating The Small Things:Week Four

by thejoyoffiveLeave a Comment on Celebrating The Small Things:Week Four

This weeks ‘celebrating the small things’ is a little self indulgent as I’m unusually pleased with what I have achieved. I’m usually full of self doubt and always see the negatives in what I do which is really counter productive and something I want to try to improve so here it goes:

Happy In My Work- I recently restarted teaching my ladies fitness kickboxing classes which I have found a whole new love for. Teaching was always a huge passion for me but the more children I had the trickier it became to fit this kind of work in and sadly it stopped a few years ago.
Thankfully the New Year has bought with it some lovely faces both old and new that have made my job an absolute pleasure once again.

Weight Loss Going Well – A New Year, restarting my classes and a big hit of self motivation has seen me finally losing some weight.
I wrote a post a while ago on how the past few years have seen me gaining a lot of weigh which has really bought me down and I’m so pleased that over the past few weeks I have seen some changes for the good.
I’ve banished the scales as these are always a source of disappointment for me and have simply used how I look and real as motivation to keep me going.

Looking Back – Last week the lovely Carrisa over at Little Likely Lads tagged me in a post on Insta Stories that needed me to scroll back through my hundreds of photos on Instagram to find my first ever post.
Of course this task had me stopping and looking over all the photos through the years and made me love this social media platform even more.
Moments captured in pictures are hugely important to me and Instagram allows me to see a whole host of my favourite moments in seconds.

Children, Christmas, Families, Family Life, Fashion, Reviews, Reviews, Toys, Uncategorized

Bratz Instapets Review

by thejoyoffiveLeave a Comment on Bratz Instapets Review

As with everything toys have to move with the times and Bratz dolls have always been at the top of the trends.

Over the past year we have been lucky enough to try out the Bratz Remix Doll and the Festival Vibes Doll.

Both of these dolls have kept their quirky design with the addition of fun, current themes.

We were asked to try out Jade from the new Instapets range and I knew my social media loving daughter would love everything about this doll.

Jade and the other girls from the range have a kawaii theme behind them which is something that originates from Japanese popular culture and in simple terms means ‘cute’.

Jade comes with her cute purple fluffy jumper to match her cat, a funky leather skirt and spiked boots.

She also has plenty of accessories to change up her outfit such as cat shaped earnings and cat eye sunglasses that are perfect to get her ‘insta ready’.

They encourage you to get some snaps with your own pet and upload them to Instagram which was the favourite part for number three.

We spent ages styling her hair and changing around her accessories to get her ready for the camera.


I think there will be another doll firmly on the Christmas list this year!  

*we were given this doll for the purpose of this review and they are all my own honest opinions. 

Blogging, Children, Families, Family Life, Kid Bloggers

How To Tell A Blogger’s Child

by thejoyoffive5 Comments on How To Tell A Blogger’s Child

I’ve been blogging for around nine months now and it has bought so much more to my life than I could have imagined.  It has also had a bigger impact on the children than I thought!

Here are a few things that I have caught my children saying and doing since I started blogging and I’m sure that many of you Blogger’s out there can relate to a few!!

“Mum that’s a nice wall” on many occasion we have walked past a big clean white wall or some stunning street art and the children will stop and say “hey Mum that’s a nice wall”.  This is because a wall is one of my favourite backdrops to my photos.

Cheese! My love of walls has now made such an impact that every time  we pass somewhere that looks like a good photo opportunity number five now backs up to the wall and stands there saying “cheese”. He will make a great model someday!

  
Waiting To Eat when we are out the children now dont wait to eat out of politeness, they hang back incase I want to take a photo!  I can never resist a lunchtime upload to Instagram.

  
It’s Nicky! We tend to have quite a few visits from the postman or should I say post lady each week; in fact when the door goes in the morning now the boys run towards the door saying “it’s Nicky”.  Oh yes we are now on first name terms and the boys love to have a chat whist bringing in the parcels.

“Can we play yet?” Once the parcels are in they love nothing more than ripping open the boxes to see what’s inside.  They then sit their patiently asking “can we play yet?”  This is because they know it’s going to take me forever to get some pictures before they are allowed to try them out!

“Where shall we sit?” We have always been a crafty family but this is now a little more structured than it used to be.  I love to get pictures of the children whist they are creating their masterpieces but this requires good lighting and more often than not blocking out my bomb site of a kitchen in the background!

  

 
I pondered over these changes for a while now and to be honest if it makes them more aware of there surroundings, gets them out exploring new places and meeting new people and having the opportunity to try out new toys and read new books  having a blogger as a mummy really can’t be a bad thing.

 

Blogging

My First Blog Camp:Blog Camp Vibe

by thejoyoffive2 Comments on My First Blog Camp:Blog Camp Vibe

  
With a mixture of nerves and exitment I stepped off the underground into the hustle and bustle of East London and with the help of some other blogging Mummy’s I made my way to my very first blog camp.

One of the best things I have found about starting my blogging journey is the huge amount of wonderful people I have started to meet online and now actually in person.  I have been so surprised by how open people are to help you out with problems and help you succeed in this huge blogging world. 

Blog Camp Vibe took my eye as it was geared towards Blogger’s who wanted to move their blog onto the next level and make it into something to earn money from rather than just a hobby.  I had originally started my blog as somewhere to document my family’s life and share our adventures with others.  This is still predominantly why I write but it takes a huge amount of time away from my family so I now feel I need to make it a source of income to.

The day was filled with lots of truly inspirational speakers that gave me lots to think about and that bit more drive to keep pushing onwards and upwards.

The majority of speakers had made the long journey from Israel to come and speak and it was two ladies from @roco_runs that  caught my attention with their huge passion for everything they do.

Roco Runs started with a few women that made a promise to run together everyday and documenting it as they go.  They run, they jump, they dance and they pose.  Their tag line is ‘running is a journey not a destination’.  This really stuck in my mind and now I’m a avid follower of their huge Instagram page.

Their Page has gained a huge 63k followers in only 2 years and this number is forever growing.  To me their stories and beautiful pictures would capture the hearts of many women out there and I know this brand will go from strength to strength.

Another stand out speaker of the day for me was by the wonderful Capture By Lucy.  When I first started blogging her stunning Instagram captured my heart and I was over the moon when I saw her take to the stage as I would love to be able to create an Instagram page even half as wonderful as hers.

I know that I’m real photo spammer and if I take somthing I like I plaster it across every social media platform, smothering them with every hashtag I can.  Lucy told us we need to become ‘photo snobs’ and be very picky about the ones we chose to share on our Instagram feed. 

I have taken on board every tip she gave and have now made my profile pic more personal, I’m trying hard to only share special pics for Instagram and I’m trying to find a filter that suits my style and stick to it.

I really liked the point Lucy made about Instagram being like looking through a magazine and I really want to change things around and try and create this for myself over the next few months.  I thought about all my favorite feeds and Lucy is right, the ones that really catch my eye are very fluid and calming and have a very set theme.  It’s a work in progress for me but hopefully I will get there soon.

The whole day was filled with wonderful tips from beginning to end. That coupled with spending time with lots of friendly, likeminded people and plenty of coffee and tasty cakes my first blog camp experience has been one to remember.

Have you been to a blog camp? How was it for you?