International children's book day

April 2nd celebrates international children's book day.  The day celebrates the wonderful world of children's books and the love of reading. As a Barefoot Books ambassador I am excited about new ways we can all reach out to help mums and children read more. Reading is a huge passion of mine, a passion that I have had for as long as I can remember. Getting lost in a book and dreaming of plots and characters takes me to all kinds of wonderful places, where I think everybody should visit. As a new mummy, I want my daughter to share my passion and I hope that I can help other children learn to love books too.

ICBD is organised by the International Board of Books for Young people, with a different country leading each year. This years sponsor is Mexico and the theme is ' once upon a time, there was a story that the whole world told '. With that in mind, and the fact that ICBD is held on Hans Christian Anderson's birthday, here are a few Barefoot titles that can help celebrate.

Visit my Facebook page for up to date info on lots of new titles and offers www.facebook.com/deborahgiannasibarefoot

Play Time

Amidst all of the running about and purchasing of cots, prams, clothes, nappies etc in the lead up to me giving birth, I gave little attention to toys. I know babies are asleep most of the time when they are so small but they eventually need stimulation and I quickly went from having the odd toys that were given as gifts to a huge toy box full of rattles, toys, dolls and everything else that looks colourful enough to wave in front of little Sofia.  Without doubt, toys are great for kids but I don't want to go over the top and buy her so many things half of them get forgotten about so will hopefully be buying good quality toys that will both educate Sofia and allow her to have lots of fun. In saying that I have already bought her a kiddies mobile phone as she is like a magpie when mine comes out!

So far as well as the staple stacking cups and rattles, that have been great, Sofia has taken a particular liking to a cool little baby guitar from The grateful thread. Here she is practising to be the next Albert Hammond Jnr

Other favourites include her Sophie the giraffe teether ( link to product on bottom of blog) and a cute donkey rattle pictured below.  There really are lots of great toys out there and here are some of my favourites that I look forward to buying.

Sterntaler Donkey from Oliver's babycare

Wooden London set from Funky Moose

Cloud soft toy by Sew and Sew at Not on the high street

Squirral Walker from Peanut and Pip

Pink Doll from Funky Moose

Turtle Xylophone from Precious little ones

My shoe fears are over

I often say that I am not a ' girly girl ' but I do like to dress up now and again, love anything ditsy and floral and have a bit of a thing about shoes, handbags, tights and scarves, so maybe I am just a bit girly! Up until 6 months ago my love of shoes was all about ' what size heel ', ' will they match my dress'  and ' are they too bright ' but that has all changed now that little Sofia is here. Apart from me now thinking about, ' what shoes will be comfy for a walk' or ' will I be able to carry the baby in these heels? ', now have to think about shoes for Sofia. You would think that my first thoughts were those of excitement, joy and anticipation of what her little feet would look like in cute little shoes but my first thoughts on children's shoes were ' why do they all have to be so dull and frumpy '.

All I had heard about children's shoes was how they had to be the ' right ' material, they had to be fitted by an ' expert', had to support children's feet the ' proper ' way and, for most mums I know, you HAD to get them from a certain shop beginning with C. Now whilst these stores may have shoes that suit the taste of some parents and will no doubt have experienced assistants, are they really the be all and end all of children's shoe shopping ? Surely other stores can measure children's feet properly or even better parents can measure feet accurately then buy online? I really was hoping so as I could not see myself buying Sofia a clumpy brown number from ' the proper shoe shop ', or even worse those horrid pink trainers they have.  But alas my fears are over and the dread of boring shoes is no longer hanging over me, thanks to some great websites that I have found whilst browsing the internet at silly times through the night.

To be honest, I personally don't like to see small babies in shoes, so I have let Sofia's little tootsies hang free, but she is getting bigger now so I set of in search for some iccle shoes.  For now she only needs soft shoes for when she is in her pram during summer but it has been refreshing looking at ideas for when she is bigger without the worry that I will ruin her feet in the name of fashion! To my joy, I came over a great company that produce the most lovely baby shoes. Poco Nido make great shoes and clothes in limited runs, for that something a little bit different. I bought a pair of their pram shoes for Sofia a couple of weeks ago and they are absolutely adorable, as you can see in the picture Sofia admires them too. I picked a cute red pair but it was hard to decide as the prints are so lovely, take a look and I'm sure you'll be smitten too.

So now Sofia has her first pair of shoes I have now got the baby shoe bug so will no doubt be spending lots of money soon. I probably will need a bit of advice on the whole making sure they are the right size etc but I have found lots of great companies that create quality shoes that will not only look great but take care of my little ones precious feet. Here are some of my favourites;

Boys orange shoes from Little Stomper, girls white shoes from Tiny Toes baby shoes, unisex cloud shoes from Alice and Eddie, girls Blue sandals by Ralph Lauren at Alex and Alexa