*This is an advertorial post in collaboration with Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk.*

A few months ago, playing on the beach would have been an extraordinary moment for us. We lived in Birmingham – we couldn’t get much further from a beach if we had tried – so days to the seaside were incredibly rare and really special to us.

Now, we are lucky enough to live on the coast, with a beach pretty much at the bottom of the road. We go down to it pretty much every single day, if the weather allows. In fact, even when the weather is a bit grim, we pop on our wellies and raincoats and go anyway. A bit of rain never hurt anyone, right?

To us, playing on the beach has become an everyday moment, but it’s something we never take for granted and appreciate every time our feet hit that sand. I’ve taught children older than Harrison who have never had the opportunity to even visit the seaside, and we can go there whenever we want. That’s why I love the new Extraordinary Moments campaign from Cow and Gate Growing Up Milk. It turns those ordinary moments that might be forgotten into extraordinary moments that you and your child can look back on.

Benjamin, Graham and I went down to the harbour for a walk a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit drizzly and damp, and Ben had fun jumping in the puddles. Nothing particularly adventurous…until we went onto the Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk Extraordinary Moments website and turned it into a voyage on the seven seas!!

It was really simple to do. We just needed a landscape photo of Ben where he is in the middle, uploaded it to the website, entered our email and waited a few hours for them to make up our online story book. It was lovely to sit with Ben before bedtime and watch our little story – of course, he loved seeing himself on the boat and kept shouting ‘Meeee’. It really did turn an ordinary moment into an extraordinary moment!

Here is our finished online storybook, if you want to take a peek:

If you want to create your own online story book, head over to the Cow and Gate Growing Up Milk Extraordinary Moment website and upload your photos.