In partnership with My Magic Story
When Lyall and Rich moved in four years ago, there was one hugely influential hobby that arrived with them... football! It was apparent right from day one that Lyall and Rich, but particularly Lyall were football crazy. Tom and I were catapulted from zero interest in football to no less than fourteen footballs in our garage, overnight.
You might have sensed that Tom and I are not mad about football ourselves. But, we decided right from the start we would wholeheartedly embrace the boys' insatiable fascination by finding them each a decent international football team to support. When researching possible teams, we felt it best the teams should be based somewhere sunny, preferably on the south coast of Spain, France or southern Italy, somewhere we could potentially reach via cheap flights, somewhere with tasty wine and rooftop pools. You get the idea (any excuse for a city break). We settled on Madrid for Richard and Barcelona for Lyall. We'd happily escort the boys to either of those cities for a weekend if needed, as a last resort. 😜
Fast forward a few years and Lyall is now an established Barcelona supporter with all the associated football fan stuff - the kit, scarf, boots, posters calendar, books and FC Barcelona are his favourite team on FIFA too.
You can only imagine Lyall's amazement when, one morning last week a parcel arrived from FC Barcelona addressed to him.
Lyall wandered around the house for a little while with the parcel under his arm, looking a little bewildered...
"Daddy?"
"Lyall."
"Have you ever spoken to somebody from FC Barcelona?"
"Actually, yeah - I emailed their manager last week to let them know what a promising defender you are. Why?"
"They've sent me something!!"
Lyall was skipping on the spot now, looking very excited.
"Let's get it open, then!"
Inside Lyall's parcel was the most beautiful personalised book from My Magic Story - 'Lyall and The Magic of FC Barcelona'. The expression on Lyall's face was beyond wonderful. He couldn't believe it. (Of course I had to pretend to know absolutely nothing about the book myself!)
As far as Lyall was concerned, the book had been especially produced by FC Barcelona for him. Inside the front cover was a prologue:
"Lyall... FC Barcelona welcome you to an awesome adventure at Camp Nou Stadium!
Your Daddy and Dad informed us that you're a very talented defender. Keep practising and maybe someday you'll be a pro footballer too!"
The story follows a cute little cartoon version of Lyall as he makes a magical, dreamy journey from his bedroom in the UK to Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, meeting all his favourite celebrity players and seeing some familiar sights along the way.
The story itself is quite an easy read for a nine year old bookworm like Lyall, but it's interesting and absorbing enough to capture his imagination. As you can see from our pics, it's beautifully illustrated. Lyall is 100% convinced that he is the star of the book!
To personalise a book at My Magic Story, you simply select a book and enter your child's gender and name. Then you select, from a range of cute little cartoon avatars, the character that most closely represents your child.
If your little'un isn't a Barcelona fan, there is also an equally captivating adventure about Liverpool FC, a selection of personalised books about the meaning of your child's name and books for the rest of the family too.
Speaking of which, here's a delighted Grandma Jenny and Grandpa Mark showing off their personalised books that we sent to them as a thank you prezzy after they looked after the boys for a weekend.
Links:
Find My Magic Story's full range of personalised books, here
Also, Daddy & Dad have a bundle of four personalised books from My Magic Story to give away to a lucky winner. Find out more and enter here. You have until the end of July to enter.
Here at Daddy & Dad we supplement our adoption content by collaborating with family-friendly brands and businesses. We were lucky enough to receive the items featured on this blog post for free in return for a mention on our blog. Just a quick note to say an enormous gracias to My Magic Story for providing Lyall's FC Barcelona book and Grandma and Grandpa's personalised books. We couldn't recommend them enough.