Surprise! It's the Best of Britmums Carnival

It's been a while (a year to be precise), but I'm delighted to be hosting the Best of Britmums Carnival again this week. In keeping with the festive season (31 sleeps and counting, people), the theme for this week's Carnival is 'Surprises' which, as it turns out, come in all sorts of shapes and sizes - and, erm, forms.

Thanks to everyone who submitted a post and to everyone who retweeted my Tweets about the Carnival. All that remains is to add a splash of Baileys to your coffee, squirt some cream on a mince pie, sit back and enjoy your fellow blogger's surprises.

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First up, we have Maggy from Red Ted Art who offers a lovely way to surprise someone with these very crafty 'No Knit Christmas Stockings' . She also does some surprisingly green washing with her 'Night Time Laundry' tips.

Next is Emma from Mummy...Mummy...Mum who surprised me by sending her Carnival entries before I had even remembered I was hosting one! She tells us about how surprisingly quickly we forget how calm life was before school days in 'The School Run Baby'. From her Science Sparks blog, she also shares a Bonfire Night surprise with her 'Firework in a Glass.'

Luci from Mother Wife Me is a first time Carnivaller and starts her foray into Carnivals with an absolute corker of a post about the mother of all surprises she got from her toddler. Read all about it in 'Surprise - It's a Poo!'

Next, Heidi from Mama Cook shares some surprisingly delicious food ideas for babies and toddlers. Check out her Roasted Courgette Chips and her Swede and Carrot Puree which, she claims, even adults will enjoy - surprised? You betcha.

Cass from Frugal Family tells us about the very sweet and very surprising organisations skills of her daughter in her Proudest Moment.

In a very honest and touching post, Tracy from Green Mums shares her thoughts on how becoming a parent surprised her in many, many ways in 'Well now, that was a big surprise.'

Next to share her surprise is Liz from The Mum Blog who brought a tear to my eye (and restored my faith in the male species!) in the very lovely, 'Thank you, he's beautiful'.

Maria from Tiger Tales shares her thoughts on becoming a mum (and includes some extremely cute photos!) in 'Surprise Surprise!'

Mary from A Small Hand in Mine who was surprised to see her son's classmates wearing their school uniforms with a post about one of those days in 'This morning...'

And finally, I had my own unwelcome surprise recently when my son discovered one of my Grandma's pills and thought it was a sweet. He was surprised to discover that it didn't taste very nice - I was horrified. Read about it here.

Thank you to everyone for submitting these posts which I really enjoyed reading. If you would like to contribute to, or host, a Britmums Carnival, details are on the Britmums Blog here.

Surprise! It's the Best of Britmums Carnival