"You know you’ve read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend."

The last few months have been all about making the house ours, moving rooms around, de-cluttering and making use of all of the space we have. We decided that one of the rooms downstairs needed to be a relaxing reading space. We couldn't quite decided what to put on the wall though in a relaxing space dedicated to one of our favourite past times. That was until I thought about a gift that my bestie Helen had got me for my birthday. She has really helped me through a lot of the harder parts of all this heartache and she was eager to help with putting some personal touches into the house. She had very Kindly bought me 3 canvas's so that the boys and I could create one each.

I asked the boys if they would use their artistic flair to create something each around a book (or series of books) that were important to them. I knew straight away that mine was going to be based on A Series of unfortunate events as Ive been reading them to Opeie at bed time and Ive really loved how excited he's been as we have ploughed through them. I didn't want to draw an obvious picture of the Baudelairs or even their nemesis Count Olaf so I went for a random singer from the Volunteers fighting disease, as the song about the heart shaped balloon always stuck out for Opeie.

I wasn't at all Surprised when Opeie decided he was going to base his canvas design on Beetle boy by M.G. Leonard. The Beetle boy trilogy will always be very special to me as they were the books that really opened up Opeie's imagination and made him realise just how amazing the world of books can be. He hung off every word of those stories and after the first and the second books we were both eager for the release of the next one. I was genuinely gutted when Battle of the Beetles ended.

I not quite sure what I expected Seth to choose, as he mainly reads on his own these days and he gets through so many books that I can't keep up with him.  I was pretty surprised that he chose Enid Blyton's 'The Secret Seven' as they are books that I have been reading to him at bedtime. The secret seven and the Famous five were books that I grew up on and I wanted to share those adventures with the boys.When I asked Seth what was so special about the Secret Seven books he said that he loves me reading to him and finds my voice really relaxing (which made my day).

Emotions may be all over the place at the moment but these little personal touches around the house are making fun new memories and giving us the relaxing home that I think we all need.

The little boy who lost his name... Gifts from the pirates review

It seems really difficult to find tasteful personalised gifts for children, which is why when it comes to the boys we tend to create our own. It seems that most products on the market that i have seen are just generic items with a child's name stuck on there. For  the past year i have been working on two personal books for the boys but finding the time to complete them is annoyingly difficult. I love the boys having things that are personal to them, i have nothing from my childhood due to a difficult relationship with my family. So when i was asked a few weeks back if i would be interested in reviewing a book that would be made specifically for the boys i jumped at the chance. Who honestly is going to say no to that.

The little boy who lost his name (also the little girl who lost her name) has been created by a group of dads and is a book aimed at 2-6 year olds. It's a fully personalised adventure based soley around your child's name. Each book starts and ends the same but the adventure inside depends on the letters in your child's name. If the thought of a personal book for the boys wasn't enough the other thing that sold it for me was the illustrations. It's usually the reason i agree to review children's books.

We had only read a few pages when Opeie realised that the letters were spelling his name which was great for a three year old especially because he still doesn't understand which letter is which despite knowing his alphabet for quite some time.I love how the animals and characters you meet along the way find items that are the shape of your letters.

The books have become a firm favourite with the boys and have made their way to the list of books that are always asked for when we go to bed or have our reading session on the trampoline in the sunshine. the quality of the book is exceptional, in fact i don't think we own another book with such a nice finish. Its the sort of book that as children get older you want to pack away safely to bring out years down the line. Its a really nice item to keep and ours will be cherished for years to come.

The book itself is a little more expensive than most children's books but then you are paying for a custom book that is created for your own most loved creations so it is worth every penny. A 15% discount code has kindly been sent to us too, use AWESOMEDADS15 at the checkout.

I think I'm definitely going to be buying these for peoples birthdays. A great idea, perfectly executed by a group of devoted dads, i love it.