Category Archives: london baby

The Langham’s Children’s Afternoon Tea

Posted in london baby, product review by

I love the Langham, I love afternoon tea and now I’m a mum so I was really excited to be invited by The Langham hotel to the preview of their soon to be launched (August 1st) children’s afternoon tea in partnership with Hamleys based down the road on Regent Street.

IMG_0295

I’ve been to the Palm Court for afternoon tea a few times before, the location is great and the room is beautiful as you can see here:

You can take children for afternoon tea in other hotels but as far as I know there aren’t many places that cater to children in particular so The Langham is definitely leading the way! They should also probably lead the way with some chair covers because I fear for their beautiful chairs once little people get their hands on cake! In partnership with Hamleys, the Afternoon Tea is part of a series of initiatives aimed at making sure families have a great time at the hotel, whether staying guests (they are starting some new family rooms and family getaway packages.) or not.

I was the only mum not brave enough to bring their child along (I was also really looking forward to some peace!), the children got to try out the children’s tea and us mums had their Wedgwood Afternoon Tea, which was as delicious as I remembered! It is created by award winning Pastry Chef Cherish Finden, you may know her from “Crème de la Crème”

I mean look at those cakes!!!! I forgot to take a picture of the delicious scones, some of which I was lucky enough to take home (A devoured them!)

IMG_0316

Anyway back to the Children’s Tea, here is a copy of the menu:

IMG_0312-0

It was as cute as it sounds on paper, cookie monster went down particularly well!

IMG_0307IMG_0305IMG_0308IMG_0311

In The Langham’s own words “For the pastry, Cherish was inspired by the array of characters and storytelling within the Hamleys flagship Regent Street store to offer children a chance to emerge into an alternative reality of carefree fun” .

They have thought of everything including cutlery and the obligatory pens and paper!

All the children seemed to really enjoy it, one little girl even said it was “the best tea party ever!”. I definitely think it would be a great idea for a birthday or just a special treat! The tea is available every day at 1pm, 3.15pm and 5pm during the summer holidays, it costs 27.50 pounds and includes a complimentary Hamleys bear. I hope they keep it going afterwards because I would love to take A for her second birthday or at Christmas.

I will leave you with one last picture of the amazing cakes and I seriously recommend the Children’s Tea if you’re planning on treating your children this summer! Thanks again Langham, parents and children alike are in for a treat! And Aly (http://allmumstalk.com), Tushna (Marylebone mums) and Mia (@Miakulla), your children were all well behaved and very cute, lovely to meet you all!

IMG_0314

I was invited by The Langham and the Afternoon Tea was complimentary but all opinions are my own.

Days Out in London Maps by East Midland Trains

Posted in london baby, travel by

This is not a sponsored post.

I’ve lived in London for 16 years so I’m pretty familiar with most landmarks, museums etc. but what if you’re not and are just coming down for the day? Well East Midland Trains have put together some very handy and fun maps in conjunction with A Mummy Too that you can print off and download before you come down to London. They cover lots of different options such as the Tate Modern and also boat journeys (which reminds me I really must take A on one of those!). There are 3 different ones: Seeing London for Less, Rainy Day in the Capital and First Time Tourist. I think the rainy day one is probably a good one to print off as lets be honest there is always a chance of rain! Here is a preview of it:

EMTs.PNG

 

You can find them here: http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/summer

London deserves its own blog post, there are so many great places to go including ones I appreciate more now I’m a mum and also new places I have discovered since becoming a parent such as the V&A Childhood Museum in Bethnal Green. You also realise how great the parks are once you have kids and quickly figure out which tube stations are buggy friendly!

However, you still have to get to London (and travelling can be “fun” with children) so the page also includes a cute children’s activity sheet you can download and print off to keep them occupied on the train:http://www.eastmidlandstrains.co.uk/Global/Documents/EMT%20London%20Activity%20Sheet.pdf

Enjoy London!

 

 

A Week of Milestones: Becoming American and Crawling!

Posted in Life, london baby by

A already has her British passport but as her daddy is American, we needed to get her American one as well as a social security number ( so she can pay taxes to the US government on her worldwide income, lucky thing!). I imagined this was not going to be fun, hours queuing, endless forms etc. Well it wasn’t that complicated at all!

If you are in the same situation, here is how it works and some tips.

You download the forms and make an appointment online here: http://london.usembassy.gov/cons_new/acs/passports/

Tip 1: try and get as early an appointment as possible as the wait is shorter.

Tip 2: be very careful filling in the forms, everything goes so much quicker if there are no mistakes!

Our appointment was for 8AM, the most stressful part of the journey was getting on the tube with a buggy during rush hour.

Always carry a bottle of water with you in this hot weather!

Always carry a bottle of water with you in this hot weather!

We arrived at Grosvenor Square around 7.45AM, you then have to get in the right queue before going through security:

Make sure you are in this queue!

Make sure you are in this queue!

We ended up giving A breakfast in her buggy before it started to rain!

IMG_6929

You get asked what time your appointment is and then this is the process:

  • Go through airport style security. Tip 3: you have to take everything off and out of the buggy so be prepared for that or everybody will hate you for holding them up!
  • You then enter the embassy and hand in the forms along with supporting documents. Tip 4: bring the LONG COPY OF THE BABY’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE! this wasn’t clear to us but I had a feeling we would need it, not just the short original. the long one gives both parents names and lots more info than the short one. We also brought our passports and proof of my husband living in the US (old tax returns).
  • You pay for the delivery courier and they give you a number
  • You go upstairs to the waiting room that is very kid friendly:

IMG_6932 IMG_6931

  • you get called to hand in the forms, you pay $205 for the passport and social security number. The you wait and then get called back again once they have checked the forms to swear on oath they are correct and sign the forms. DO NOT SIGN THE FORMS BEFORE THEN
  • We got there around 7.45 and left at 9.25AM, which was much earlier than I had anticipated. We should get the passport in about 3 weeks and the social security card in 2 months.

The next day, Arabella decided to live her to new American nationality and be an “awesome winner” and start crawling!

For the past 2 months she has been trying to crawl and mainly been going backwards so when they happened, I was super excited!

A few hours later, she was already getting better at it and now I can’t stop her! These mats really helped, I highly recommend them as you can customize them to spell their name, choose the colours etc… ( you can buy them here)

IMG_6962 IMG_6961

Daddy has been away whiskey tasting for nearly a week, A can’t wait to show him her new skills and I can’t wait to go somewhere fabulous for a week next year in exchange!

I love my American girl!

IMG_7015