Last weekend, that most beautifully sunny of weekends, the mela (a bangladeshi new year festival) took place in and around Brick Lane. Known to some as the curry festival, is a riot of people, food, music and carnival rides. It culminates with a concert in Weavers Field, right across the road from my house.

Last week was so like summer, we had a picnic dinner in the park every night and watched the fun fair being set up. Frankie and Connie were beside themselves, and every morning looked out my bedroom window to check on progress.
By Saturday I had Frankie at least understanding that there would be a ride quota, 4 rides each on Saturday, and 6 each on Sunday. They both handled it with a minimum of fuss when the time came and we all had a ball with a picnic at the end of each day.

My favourite weekend so far this year.

Here's us on the water ride - by far the favourite of the day. Connie and I escaped too much of a dousing sheltering behind the new guy.



and introducing the lovely Simone, my good friend and new to the Oh Baby London team as PR who spent this gorgeous weekend with us.

When I ws a kid there was a cherry blossom tree right outside my bedroom window. Spring was always my favourite time, not just because it mean't my birthday, but because of cherry blossom. The sight of it fills me up to the brim with pleasure and I lose myself in it. It's my favourtie feeling. I often wonder why it affects me as much as it does.

So when the new guy took me to see this exhibition last week, it was love at first sight - with the work that is.

Mustafa Hulusi
Exstacy
1 May – 13 June 2008
Max Wigram Gallery
99 New Bond Street

Girls, these jeans will change your life.
Slightly high waisted, not too skinny, and somehow they just look better than any jeans I've ever had. Acne Jeans are my number one.

I get them from Start Boutique in Rivington St, Shoreditch (right across from the Bricklayer's arms - which holds almost too many pre-baby memories for me). It's the best place to buy a pair of jeans if you like to get some serious help from the a sales assistant. I do; I'm a libran, and making decisions is not really my thing, so I love the service at Start, and thoroughly recommend it.

They're not exactly budget jeans, but what price can you put on feeling a million dollars?

The First Thursday bash went off without a hitch last night, so great to see everyone who came down.
The students work is fantastic, and will be on display in the shop for the next two weeks.
Innocent provided the drinks, their new strawberry and banana flavour is gorgeous as usual and the first 10 people who took advantage of our 15% discount at the party got an innocent frisbee and Oh Baby London toy.
Anyway, thanks to the students, who really made the night happen.

We'd love to invite you to our first Time Out First Thursdays events organised by The Whitechapel Gallery.

A collaboration with Chelsea College of Art students has resulted in the Oh Baby London shop window being dedicated to their work and it will be on display from Thursday 1st May. The Time Out First Thursdays link means that the shop, and over 70 other galleries and museums around east London, will be open until 9pm that evening.

Every month Oh Baby London will team up with artists to produce a baby size exhibition and this will be on show in the shop window from the first Thursday of each month.

The work produced by Chelsea College of Art students for May centres around a brief to produce innovative children's toys and furniture in an Oh Baby London style


The lovely people from Innocent will be providing smoothies, and we'll have some adult drinks as well!

We will also be offering a 15% discount to everyone who joins us between 6pm and 9pm on Thursday 1st May. This will be available online at the same time with the code "FIRST"...


Come down to the shop tomorrow Thursday 1st May between 6-9pm, 162 Brick Lane London E1 6RU for some drinks and bargains (and a bit of culture)...

It was way overdue, so the girls got down to renovating the shop. We've gone glam and used black, gold and white to offset the bright candy colours of the Summer collection. And it kinda rocks. Keeping things a bit Brick Lane we have an all black window, with the most popular black and white garments of this season, "Too Cool for School", The new Mexican Rock Print T-Shirt, and of course "Been Inside for 9 Months" black and White playsuit featuring against a black and white photographic background.



We're starting to collect cool, kitschy stuff just because we want to, and all our finds will be for sale.



New in-store, we now sell "Milk" magazine - a french children's fashion mag, totally gorgeous and a must read (english translation in the back) for all stylish parents. Not just because they featured us in their latest issue, we would love it anyway...


Our little project at the moment is our "Remember Baby" wall. We were trawling through an antique market, and came across a load of old photographs, within them a lot of baby pictures. I treasure the pictures of my babies, and I'm sure at one point all these pictures were treasured too. So we decided to rescue those baby pics and create a wall to honour their memory. Anyone with baby photos to donate to our wall, you know where we are: 162 Brick Lane, London E1 6RU.

This was found by a friend of mine last week, anyone interested in the great Kent Police/Oh Baby London showdown... click and have a read...

Found the perfect solution to my "how to fit exercise into the life of a working single mother with own business" nightmare.

I have always been a GO! GO! GO! from the minute I wake up sort of person. The kids get me up (at 6am most days - thanks Connie), I get them ready, get myself ready, race out of the house at least 20minutes late, walk them to nursery, walk to the office, grab a large full fat cappucino, work work work, walk home superfast usually 10 minutes later than the 6pm my childminders work til, make dinner, do bathtime, read stories, make bottle, put to bed, then collapse on the couch for 10minutes before opening up the laptop and working till midnight.

I kept this up for a long time, and was always stressing about how much I needed to fit some exercise in - going to the gym is just not my thing anymore - was a gym junkie in my twenties and think I OD'd on it. By the time you get there, change, do a work out or a class then shower and get back to work you're looking at least an hour an a half, and my day says a big fat NO! to that. Can't do it at night, without missing out on the kids, and paying for babysitting (the ex is not into doing anything that might allow me some kind of life - putting it mildly).

Then the Eureka moment! What makes us late to nursery in the morning? me getting ready. Solution: just throw on a tracksuit, grab keys and ipod and out the door. It's like a mini miracle. we're out the door on time! Hallelujah! Drop the kids off, run home, 3 times round the park, in the door shower change and walk to work, get there by 10am. How civilised, how grown up, how totally perfect.

I've been doing this now for a couple of months and I feel great. I always find answers to my questions when I'm running, and ideas slip into my head like long lost friends. I feel less stressed, have more energy and am just a better person for it. It's beautiful.

Here's my two favourite songs to run to at the moment, have a listen...
Lets Make Love by CSS
Get Lucky by The New Young Pony Club

So I have a new guy, after a year and a half on my lonesome - which, by the way was just what the doctor ordered. A year and a half of me, Frankie and Connie regrouping and getting used to a new peaceful existence.
Anyhow, he calls Connie "Princess Tippy-Toes".
She's loving it, although insists it is really Princess Cinderella Tippy-Toes.

Here's Princess Tippy-Toes at work on my lipstick, I swear she could eat it for breakfast.
And I could eat her too, she is just so damn gorgeous.

Our very own Emilie keeps us guessing, this week the bump's a boy.

Um, Emilie, be careful what you wish for - this one looks like a bit of a deviant...

What is it about 5 year old boys and bottoms? Frankie is obsessed, which is mildly embarrassing at times, and completely embarrassing at others. Noting quite like having your pants pulled down in the yoghurt section of Tesco.

I love letting him loose with my camera so I can see how he sees the world, so here's a days worth of his bottom pics.

Anyhow, I'm hoping now that there are others out there who share my pain, and not that my son is really some kind of weirdo...

Call me a jaded cynic, but I had to laugh when I saw this in a window in Shoreditch.

Fantastic French urban fashion and culture magazine 'WAD' featured Oh Baby London in their latest issue. If you love fashion, graphics and have an urban sensibility you'll love WAD magazine as much as us.

Here's what they said...

"Is the Brtitish sense of humour learned in the cradle? For those babies who don't take themselves too seriously (if that's possible), Hannah McHalick took advantage of her graphic-design training and in 2002 launched Oh Baby London. Babygro-style suits come in prison uniform-like black and white stripes and bear the words "Been Inside for 9 Months", while T-shirts are covered with twisted song lyrics such as, "Don't you wish your baby was cute like me?" The labels credo of "cute but cool" is assured by the quality of the materials (100% merino wool jumpers for example) and the sheer number of prints. www.ohbabylondon.com"

Here's our very own Emilie getting creative in her third trimester. We think if she has a boy he could be traumatised seeing this pic, so watch this space as Emilie warms up to do a weekly personification of her bump...

The french magazine 'Milk' magazine is my favourite children's fashion mag, so I was really happy to see us featured in their London special this month...

"A little closer to Shoreditch, on Brick Lane, famous for it's indian restaurants, hides a very, very small boutique at number 162. Oh Baby London has beautiful cotton clothing including printed tee-shirts with messages like "Been inside for 9 months" to pop into your suitcase and take back for your french friends"

I have heard that the brain power many of us lose during pregnancy is supposed to come back after a year.
For me this is sadly not true.
Picking up and old nursery notice I read "don't forget that half term is the 18-22 February". So, thinking how many goddamn holidays kids these days get I booked a sweet cottage in Hastings Old Town, for the 18-22 March.
On having my stupidity pointed out to me I thought what the hell, and we had a great holiday, with next to nobody else, down in Hastings.

This little guy is Gustav, our new model and hot favourite at Oh Baby London HQ. Who can resist the blonde curls, rosy cheeks and cheeky twinkle in the eye!
Here he is rocking the very latest I Rock Tshirt, giving it some serious attitude.

The new Spring Summer 08 collection is going down a storm, Connie wore both her new dresses at the same time and refused to take them off all weekend.

She knows how to please her Mummy!

We took this picture last week when the weather made us all feel like spring was around the corner.
On the cusp of mother's day this picture captures for me the joy of being loved and loving these little being I brought into the world.

Being a mother is the best and most important job in the world.

Happy mother's day everyone.

I took Frankie and Connie to have lunch on on the top deck of the Rootmaster on Saturday. It's parked up off Brick Lane in Ely's Yard. Great location for us, just around the corner from Oh Baby London HQ.

As expected they were beside themselves with excitement at the prospect of eating lunch on a bus, and I couldn't wait to see their little faces light up.

The Australian (i think) waitress who seated us didn't seem overly happy about having kids on board. A restaurant in a bus and not overly happy about kids on board?... she better get used to it. And stick a smile on your dial love, make us feel welcome... it's your job.
It was so cool for F&C, they loved it and were so well behaved I nearly cried. We were in and out within half an hour, and they loved their food - great homemade houmous and warm crusty vegan bread chocablock with seeds, the pasta that didn't do it for me, but Connie ate every last bit.

So go on, take the kids to the root master, they will love you for it.

Here's their website, and a Time Out review...

This is a group to watch. All product design foundation students from Chelsea College of Art. Their course director Nikki is a friend of ours (and mother to our lovely model Mimi).

We decided to give them a project, to design a baby product for Oh Baby London, something innovative and cool and inspired by the point of view of a baby.

I went to see how they were getting on last week, and was so impressed by their work. Not least of all because they had all really listened to my brief, their worked showed how much they had thought things through. But mainly because they had all come up with fantastic products that I could really see being produced. Of course it's all top secret till the end of the project...

At the end we will be choosing our favourites to display in the window at Oh Baby London. We'll have a little party to celebrate, and anyone interested in seeing the work of these talented new designers can come along.

Time and date to be established soon...

Just up the road from Oh Baby London HQ on Brick Lane I found these super fantastic posters for an exhibition at the Voila Gallery. Each one hand made and unique. So refreshing amid a sea of street graffiti that has started feeling a little tired. A bit mysterious though - the gallery's website doesn't mention anything about it, so we'll just have to go up and find out...

Fashion retail bible Drapers Record liked what they saw when we launched our new collection at Premier Kids this January:

"Boutique label Oh Baby London has introduced a machine-washable range in merino wool this season. The Charles Dickens-inspired range is made up of pink and dark blue product, including tiered dresses and button detailing. The brand has added denim for autumn, alongside a snakes and ladders print on clothes and footwear. Prints are key, from music and butterfly inspired designs to leopard and geometric prints. It's premature baby range has also been extended."

That's a sneak preview of what's in store for you in our Autumn Winter 08 collection, which will be in-store and online from August this year.

I can't wait...

This funky little baby is Ayesha, in her new Oh Baby London threads. The Cheeky Monkey T-shirt and Been Inside for 9 months playsuit are both available now, and doesn't she model them beautifully!

Her mum says:
 
"Thank you for the clothes we ordered recently, they are great and everyone comments on them.

Here are a few photos of 4 month old Ayesha wearing some of her new clothes. She liked them so much her Dad is coming to see you today to get some black jeans to go with her ' I rock' T-Shirt.
 
Many thanks
 
Adele, Norman and Ayesha"
XXX

Thanks Adele, she's so gorgeous...

My favourite kids cutlery for a few reasons other than my long standing love affair with edge lit perspex.

This Alessi cutlery is moulded perfectly for little hands to hold, makes them smile and looks fantastic on the table.

My number one favourite, but then I am an Alessi kids junkie.

Introducing the lovely Mimi, not on the road, but up at Oh Baby London HQ, she's our latest model and we think she rocks!
Today we had her modelling some classics from AW07, the Victorian lace print bodyvest, leggings and wine/melon stripe hat are all available now.

Next there's a sneak preview of Autumn Winter 08. The petrol blue 100% merino wool made Mimi's beautiful blue eyes pop - she's got a big future ahead of her that one... (and I'm not just saying that because she seemed to really like me holding her, and smiled for me... that kid's a little charmer.)

This weeks issue of Bella Magazine features Oh Baby London, saying:

"If you need to buy a cool baby or toddler gift then Oh Baby London is one of the hottest shops on the web, with beautifully packaged gift sets for your pal's new arrival. Fave buy: I Rock Gift Set, £30, 0-3 months - 12-18 months - a must have for mums who want their babies to make a style statement"

Couldn't have said it better ourselves!

Buy this issue of Bella to enter a competition to win this and other super cool prizes...

This little fella is looking for a home, or rather was, shortly before not doing the old stop, look and listen.

You'll either love him or hate him, here at Oh Baby London HQ he's got us in stitches.

Road Kill Toys, for gifts that will leave them speechless.

Wow - look at these amazing wooden toys from Japanese toymaker Takeji Nakagawa, aka Take-G. How totally cool.

So here's the lovely Emilie and Laura working in Italy spreading the Oh Baby London word.

Through the three longs days of the trade show their enthusiasm and positivity made them a pleasure to work with.