there's nothing mummy loves better than shopping for a new handbag in which to carry her next new purchases. these days she has the following excuses for a new handbag:

1. I gave birth to another child

2. I now have 2 children therefore have more gear to lug around

3. I only have brown handbags

4. Have you seen how big that boy is

5. I need it and l'oreal told me i'm worth it

6. I'm going back to work

7. We all need to do our bit to support the British high street

8. Jesus could return tomorrow and we'll leave all those savings behind!

 

talk about clutching at straws. here goes:

 

1. Asos £75 leather doctors bag - buy it here



2. Karen Millen leather croc £225 handbag. - buy it here.

according to mummy, nothing says "i mean business!" more than croc leather. i'll keep that in mind for when i'm demanding biscuits for dinner.



 

 

3. Zara leather bucket bag £159 - buy it here
Let's face it! If there hadn't been a zara bag on this list you would have cried foul. We all know mummy spends half her life on the Zara app filling and emptying her basket.



 

 

4. Zara leather bucket bag with zips - buy it here

this is the bag mummy will buy after she's shown daddy the bag above and he says no. she knows that he'll then think £80 isn't too bad compared to £160. Result. If she went in at £80 then she'd wind up with one of those "if you like Nike then you'll love Neki" type bags. she says these skills are essential in marriage and that i need to learn now.



 

 

5. Mulberry Alexa £1100 - buy it for mummy here
this is the "dreams can come true" handbag. as it is a fun satchel bag whose price is equivalent to most peoples monthly mortgage, it might be hard to convince daddy. but then again, if she wins that daybreak competition...(yes, she still goes on about it)



so there you have it, mummy's dream list of black handbags for back to work. do any of them take your fancy?

off i go to ask daddy for a crocodile.

Morayo-Hope

xoxo

as i mentioned, we have sold our flat and are moving on to a better life in a house, with a GARDEN! yay! daddy isn't quite as ecstatic about the whole garden scenario as it seems he's been automatically assigned the role of garden-keeper. as mummy goes pinterest crazy pinning all the amazing pictures of stunning gardens she sees, i have decided to show you pictures of our current abode. mummy says this place will continue to hold a special place in her heart as this is where they started their life together and where myself and baby judah first called home.

this is a view of one side of our kitchen where many a delightful meal has been prepared. mummy agonised for a long time (6 years) over what colour to paint it. things came to a head when they had to paint it for sale. this bright sunny yellow must have hypnotised the buyers into making quick offers! (oh yes, we used to have a lot of chairs around that table, then mummy had a brainwave and...sold them on ebay before she had decided what she was buying.....now here we are.)

our living room lay out changes regularly, this was the layout that day!

this is the room i share with baby judah. mummy took pride in painting that chest of drawers a zingy yellow for a unisex colour scheme. she also enlisted the help of a couple of friends to sew that blind by hand (a separate post will have to go up about this room!)

this is mummy & daddy's room. mummy takes special pride in that bed as she bought it on ebay and re-upholstered and painted it. it is her pride & joy!

these images were taken by the estate agent's photographer. as you can imagine, mummy cleaned like her life depended on it. if you had been in the flat as these were being taken you'd know that my mummy and uncle were shuffling all the clutter from one room to the next. apparently an image showing life as it really is does not sell flats.

the weeks that followed were hilarious as mummy had to ensure the flat looked exactly as it had done in the above images everytime prospective buyers came. we were living in a showhome! mummy even sat on the corner of the sofa and pretended to read her Harpers Bazaar whilst one buyer walked around, doing the obligatory smile and nod as they peered in. the illusion was shattered each time someone asked to see the garage. lets just say you could happily furnish another 2 bed flat and clothe a mini refugee camp with everything stored in there. we are sure  there is a family living in there. of rats.

right then, off i go to warn daddy about mummy's garden obsession....some of the stuff she's pinning will require a landscape art engineer.

morayo-hope

xoxo

so...incase you were wondering we are still alive! over the last few weeks a lot has been happening in our world. mummy is getting ready to go back into the world of work full time, we have sold our flat and are busy hunting for a new home. i say "we" but it's really mummy and daddy! baby judah and i have just been eating, playing and sleeping.

another amazing thing that happened was that we were featured on the website of Africa's 1st fashion channel, Spice TV. mummy was ecstatic as can be expected. i wrote a piece for them and she chose some fun outfits for mums & tots. she also got to showcase 7 outfits from her wardrobe to show how she dresses in a week (disclaimer: this typical week is one that obviously isn't all one week, so please add a pinch or tablespoon of salt!). you can see my article here and mummy's article here.

so, if you look at mummy's outfits you'll see she quite likes the shorts. it hasn't always been that way! mummy has an ongoing love/hate relationship with her legs. she was teased a lot at school, with one boy taking particular pride in hollering "she's going to snap!!" as she did athletics. as fate would have it she bumped into this boy when she was 20 and he was all "oooh Tanaka!" and she swiftly reminded him of his youth crimes. he didn't remember and apologised profusely. mummy didn't care and told him the axe forgets, but the tree stump never forgets!

as a result of the bullying she had decided to spare the world her legs and as soon as she could she hid them under trousers. a few years ago she got over the issue and decided that at 70 nobody would want to see her in shorts (well, daddy would have to), so she better get on with it now. she said we all have one body, change the things you can (with exercise etc)  and embrace the things you can't! life is not a rehearsal, it is for living to the full!

morayo-hope

xoxo

after a day's rest to recover from all the dramas of driving up and down the nigerian highways, we had a blessing service courtesy of our grandpa. my grandpa is a meticulous man, and so everything was planned to a perfect "T". it brought memories of their wedding back to mummy and daddy as they remembered grandpa turning up to the first meeting with his own wedding folder filled with his planning documents. that certainly kicked mummy's butt into gear!

overnight the house was transformed to a mini reception area with beautiful tables and chairs ready for our guests. there is a small chapel in the house which is where the ceremony was held. as with any day when something very important is about to happen and mummy really needs us to cooperate, we chose not to. well, i say we. really it was just my little big sis. from the bathing to dressing to sitting still in the service she just acted like she had a million ants in her pants.

i've never seen mummy as intense as she did that day. she was the bottle of coke and my little big sister was shaking and shaking and shaking her up. she was fortunate that 1) there were so many people around 2) it was our day and 3)that they were all granny's and grandpas. on any other ordinary day they'd all have been queuing up with furrowed brows to give her a tap on the bottom.  All mummy could do was give her some intense gazes that said "you just wait till this is over!".

morayo-hope's behaviour reminded mummy of a story her daddy (sekuru) used to tell her about when he was a child. in their day when visitors came they had to politely leave the room and go out to play. however, there was one visitor who always seemed to arrive around food time. they would ignore their mothers cues for them to leave. they'd go on to say "oh, so you are back again?" their mum would give them a strong look and wink in the direction of the door. they would ignore that and continue to taunt the visitor, then just as the guest was about to leave they'd jump up, make their excuses and run off , not returning till it was dark.

i might have to try that some time.....let me just go and skype my sekuru (grandpa) for tips!in the meantime, these are some more pics from the blessing which ended with much merriment and dancing at the reception. those pics will follow on the next post!

what mummy wore:

jacket - topshop (old)

trousers, tshirt & shoes - zara (old)

what m-h wore:

dress & shoes- zara kids

what i wore:

trousers with suspenders - h&m

shirt - little rocha at debenhams

shoes - zara kids

ciao,

judah iyanu

mummy and little big sis have been in cold war mode all week. this has meant the whole "let'supdate the world about our trip to lagos before the end of the week" plan has gone down the pan with their once loving relationship. so...as mummy gets on with searching google for any books addressing "how to love them when they are being very unloveable" ,i figured i better man up and finish this job that these 2 clearly aren't up to. so much for women and multi tasking eh? anyhoo, i figured i need to tell you about my experience of lagos. well, when we arrived at grandpa's house i was quickly introduced to my nanny. yes, that's right, i had my own nanny for the holiday. ok - so she was for morayo-hope too but she loved me...can you blame her? with this little smile? i had her at "tata!".

her name was judith, a petite girl with fair skin and big eyes.  she was wearing a t-shirt that said"chop my money" and mummy immediately decided she was cool. we hit it off instantly and before long i was like putty in her hands. she introduced me to the joys of being carried around on the back african stylee, and soon all i really needed mummy for was my milk. mummy was struggling to adjust to this life of having someone knock on the door at 8 and taking over the care of the children for the rest of the day!she didn't even have to bath us. judith would stay till we went to bed.

 she enjoyed coming to ode-remo with us on boxing day to my grandad's hometown. we also went to a big family gathering called kemule day in sagamu to celebrate the descendants of my great great great grandmother.. as you can probably tell, her name was kemule, she was mother to iya eleni, who was mother to iya ode, who was mother to George Adetola who is dad to kola…MY DAD…and yes there were a lot of people.

these pictures were taken at my grandpa’s house in Ode-Remo

morayo-hope was given a coconut from one of the trees there. we even saw a peacock but it kept disappearing into the bushes so we didn't really get a good picture of it.

we also took judith with us to all the restaurants & hotels we got to go to in lagos. she thought we were angels sent from above. she was an orphan and had stopped school due to lack of funds. she was now approaching 20 and nannying was her job, although nowhere near as well paid or regarded as nannies are in the west. the opportunity to go out opened her eyes to a whole new world & mummy had to stop the messiah complex that threatened to creep in.

by the end of the trip, she had become attached to me, and i to her. as judith said a tearful goodbye to us at the airport, mummy said a tearful goodbye to her freedom as she realised that her holiday was well and truly over.  was there really no way we could fit her petite frame in mummy's suitcase? sigh.  naturally i expected things to continue as they had been in lagos. lots of being carried everywhere on mummy's back has become the normal order of things. only downside is she doesn't sing "pakurumo ko jo dada" quite as well as my aunty judith (don't tell her though - she's very competitive!)

ciao!

judah iyanu