I love seeing what other people buy, so thought I’d share with you some of our recent buys….
This snowsuit is actually the main reason I wanted to do this post – I LOVE it so much and *HAD* to share it with you! It’s from John Lewis, costs £28 which I think is relatively good value actually – it’s great quality!
These dungaree sets were gifts from my mum and a family friend, so cute! The set on the left are from Matalan I think, and the set on the right is from M & Co…
A family friend also got baby W some lovely things from Next, black cords,a red checked shirt and a cool long-sleeve top….
I love Mamas & Papas but I’ve never bought any clothes there as they’re pricey, so I was delighted to pick up a couple of bargains there last week…. Some cool sleepsuits that were 30% off (so about £15) and some jeans that were reduced from £30 to £7 as they were originally part of a set – W needed some new jeans and I love a bargain!
They have some lovely baby boy clothes in Tesco at the moment, I think I will go back for more stuff as and when we need it, but I couldn’t resist buying these items yesterday – a cool long-sleeved T-shirt for £4 and a GORGEOUS jumper for £9 – I want to wear that jumper myself! The detail and quality is fab and am sure it would cost about £30 at places like Next!
Print t-shirt from Tesco
And with all this shopping for baby W, it’s only fair that mummy gets a few treats too!
So here’s a dress and jumper I bought from H&M – I think they were about £25 each.. I love the jumper anyway but it has a bonus which is that baby W has a very similar fleecy all-in-one so we have a matching outfit!
Also from H&M, a new jacket for the Autumn – I think it was only £35 and I already love it – goes with most outfits and is well-lined and so much warmer than it looks from the outside!
Jacket from H&M
You might remember from my top tips post that my feet have grown since being pregnant/having a baby so I actually *NEED* new shoes… so here’s 2 pairs I’ve bought.. the ones on the left from Dune (about £95 eeek!) and the random, glistening ones from Next from a more affordable £35…
And finally an outfit that I originally thought would be perfect for going back to work but maybe it’s wasted on work… I wore it out last Saturday night on my weekend away with those black heels….
The shirt is another bargain from H&M – only £15! And the skirt is from Oasis and I think it was about £30 – I think I’ll get lots of wear out of the skirt as I reckon lots of styles and colours of tops will match it 🙂
Blue shirt from H&M, zebra print skirt from Oasis
So that’s Autumn/Winter sorted – keep your eyes peeled for a Christmas outfit haul coming up soon!
Last weekend I had my first weekend away from baby W and enjoyed a relaxing weekend with some great friends…
Friday – Clifton village including Somerset House and Wildwood
We picked Clifton/Bristol as it was central to all of us (from Cardiff/Devon/London). The Cardiff contingent got slightly lost driving into Clifton, but that wasn’t half as stressful as trying to find a parking space! We got one in the end, but I think we’d get a train next time – it would have saved me a giggling fit asking a local where to park and him reacting as if I’d asked how to cure ebola.. cue awkward silence!
Parked up, we explored Clifton village and fell in love with it straight away – it’s compact, and full of independent boutiques, bars and cafes. We had a great, late lunch in Somerset House – I had fish (can’t remember which!) on a bed of tomato/chorizo/chickpea with a glass of wine for just a tenner – delicious!
Lunch at Somerset House, Clifton
Post-lunch we had a look round the wonderful shops – we both bought some Christmas presents and treated ourselves to a few things (a candle and groovy umbrella for me!). Even the charity shops were amazing – I picked up a lovely Monsoon dress for £8!
One of the lovely boutiques in Clifton village
After checking into our accommodation (found via Airbnb – very basic and a bit grubby but perfect location!) and meeting a friend for a coffee, we headed out for cocktails. We stumbled on a new, big, cool-looking place called Wildwood.
We made this our home for the next few hours, while we waited for the rest of the girls. Great ambience, friendly and efficient staff, good food and drinks – I recommend it!
Cocktails at Westwood, Clifton villageDessert at Wildwood
Saturday – spa day at Clifton Lido
On a beautiful misty, mysterious morning we walked over to the Lido for a half spa day (£85). Regular readers will know that I love spas and treaments and this place did not disappoint! I’ve never been to a restored Lido before, and I loved it – they’ve done a great job of restoring it, modernising it while keeping lots of the original features.
Looking down on the outdoor pool, Clifton Lido
The outdoor pool was refreshing after using the steam room and sauna (both of which were great although could get busy) and the outdoor hot tub was a great place to unwind and watch over the pool. I had a full body massage with Erica and it was excellent – she really worked on my knots using all sorts of techniques – I was close to sleeping! After a ginger and lemongrass tea in the relaxation room, it was time for lunch…
View from the restaurant, Clifton Lido
I’m used to spa lunches involving salads and jacket potatoes. – this was something else, a really good restaurant that just happens to be in a spa! I had amazing scallops in garlic and herbs to start, followed by lightly spiced minced lamb on a bed of humus – it was highly delicious!
Minced lamb at Clifton Lido
Post-spa and lunch we were wiped out but managed to drag ourselves around some more shops! In the evening we wanted to try one of the other independent restaurants in the area but they were all fully booked so we defaulted to Pizza Express 🙂
Sunday – Clifton suspension bridge and Sunday dinner at Somerset House
A perfect, fresh, Autumnal morning for a walk to and across the famous Suspension bridge…
Clifton suspension bridge
After working up an appetite (doesn’t take much!) and a bit more shopping (!) we ended our weekend where it all started – Somerset House. As expected, they do a perfect Sunday dinner with excellent house wine. We shared a dessert of apple and cinnamon doughnuts served with toffee sauce and apple puree – yummmmmmmmm!
Doughnuts at Somerset House
So there we have it – great company, a wonderful spa, delicious food and wine, beautiful shops – all in one unique, independent part of Bristol…. Clifton, I’ll be back!
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Baby W turned 6 months a week ago, and although I was in no rush (and nor was he really) it was time to start weaning! I think my reluctance was that this signalled the end of an era… the end of a milk-only diet… our baby boy growing up!!
We wanted to give ‘baby-led weaning’ a try but would try purees etc if that didn’t work for any reason.
Preparation for weaning
So a few weeks ago I started sitting baby W in his ‘snug‘ chair on our dining table to sit with me while I ate my breakfast/lunch, to start getting him interested in food. This was a change to our routine as I’d always tended to grab my food when he was having a nap.
I bought a couple of books, a ‘doidy’ cup, a cutlery set and off we went! In good timing we were given some wipe-clean Christmas bibs as a gift!
Some of our weaning kit
Attempt #1 – carrot, avocado, sweet potato
2 weeks ago we had some spare time on a Saturday lunchtime so we decided to try him with some foods – we gave him carrot sticks, avocado strips and some sweet potato mash and put them on his snug tray. And we both just stared at him, willing him to eat the lot! He didn’t like any of it – pulled some faces, gagged and puked!
In hindsight, we made a few mistakes – we weren’t eating at the same time as him (one of the key points of ‘baby-led weaning’), we maybe gave him too much choice and maybe the flavours were a bit too much for him after nearly 6 months of milk!
Oh and we also ‘helped’ guide the food into his month so it wasn’t strictly baby-led! It was still a great experience – while he pulled some really funny faces, me and my other half couldn’t stop laughing! (Bad parents ;))
Attempt #2 – banana and baby rice
Exactly a week later, we placed some banana strips in front of him and prepared some baby rice for him. Baby rice seems to go against the baby-led weaning approach as it’s not something that adults eat, but we just wanted to try him with something plain/bland. We kept putting it on his spoon and watched him get the spoon to his mouth but never in quite the right position! He enjoyed sucking on the banana!
This time daddy was eating banana with him, and mummy was pottering about – so a bit less pressure for him than the first attempt!
Attempt #3 – mango and blueberries
A few days later I was having a healthy breakfast of ready-made pancakes with mango, blueberries and raspberries. I put some fruit on his tray, including squishing the blueberries… and he seemed to enjoy sucking/munching on the blueberries 🙂
Attempt #4 – banana, baby rice and houmous
Another lunchtime, another tray of bananas and baby rice. This time he was more adventurous in trying to eat the banana -twice he gagged up pieces of banana. Good progress but very scary for me watching him gag so much!
I was eating pitta bread and houmous for lunch so he also had a suck on that!
Attempt #5 – carrot and broccoli
Friday was time for (over) cooked carrot sticks and broccoli florets. I read on some baby-led weaning forums that gagging on banana is quite common as it’s so squelchy, whereas carrot and broccoli break up easier. He definitely enjoyed sucking and chewing on the broccoli. He gagged some broccoli up once, but it wasn’t quite as scary this time around!
He somehow ended up with carrot on his shoulder 🙂
‘Deconstructed’ carrots and broccoli
Attempt #6 – more carrots and some trifle!
Yesterday I went for Sunday dinner with my parents, baby W was very excited when the food arrived! I gave him 2 of my baby carrots to munch on, and I’m pretty sure he swallowed them as there was only a tiny bit left when I cleared up afterwards – clever boy! My parents also couldn’t resist spoon-feeding him some cream and custard from their trifle. I don’t really want him to be spoon-fed or to eat too much sweet stuff so lucky he doesn’t see my parents too often otherwise I’ll be having words 🙂
So:
The good bits
Watching him play with, discover and explore food is great fun to watch, already I can see why people advocate baby-led weaning for this alone!
Even though I said I was in no rush, it was encouraging to see him suck and chew on food after just a few attempts, and swallowing food on his 6th attempt seems pretty good to me!
The bad bits
The gagging – not nice to watch and a bit scary. I plan to watch some videos on it to make me feel less guilty! The baby-led weaning books I bought don’t seem to address how to deal with it or what to expect!
Next steps
I’ve just bought some all-over bibs. We still need to buy a highchair (after consulting with other mummy bloggers the faves are Ikea, Stokke, Chicco and Cosatto.) No rush, I think he’ll be fine in his snug for a while… I never leave him unattended in it!
We have carpet in the dining room so I need to buy a plastic sheet or shower curtain to cover the floor!
So we’ll carry on with our version of weaning – lunchtimes only to begin with and maybe some breakfasts. I’m going to make a conscious effort to eat healthier lunches so that we can try and eat the same food eg fish with veg.
I will also keep offering him different flavours and textures… Cucumber is ready in the fridge for him and I think we might try mash this week too.
Also need to start offering him water to drink with it… I imagine this will be fun and messy 🙂
We’ll keep you updated on progress – to stay updated follow me on twitter or bloglovin!
I love travel and holidays. Pre-baby, most of my disposable income went towards the next holiday… the next big trip. I love it all… package holidays, city breaks, backpacking on a budget and a bit of luxury!
My motto used to be ‘work hard, play hard, travel harder’! I’ve had some amazing experiences and I firmly believe that even not-so-good travel experiences should be classed as a positive life lessons!
Here’s some photos from some of the countries I’ve been to with some of the memories created there….
Arenal, Costa Rica
Costa Rica: zip wiring, kayaking with crocodiles, sloths, tarantulas, sunset at the Mariposa, monkeys on the beach, waterfalls, frogs, hot springs overlooking a volcano
New York after Sandy
New York: Sandy! sisters, coffee, waffles, SATC, Tiffany’s, Starbucks, shopping
Baby turtles, Sri lanka
Sri Lanka: first wonderful holiday with my other half, releasing baby turtles into the sea, seeing elephants in the wild, fishermen on stilts, afternoon tea and tea plantations, tuk tuks, beers at sunset, watching turtles in the sea
Sunset, San Antonio, Ibiza
Ibiza: sun, swimming pool, showers (or lack thereof), beers on sunset strip, sangria, amazing steak and awful paella, girly fun
Marbella, Spain
Marbella: girly weekend, pretending to own a huge yacht, mixing gin with red bull = awful hangover
Amsterdam
Amsterdam: Anne Frank’s house, wine, scrabble in a pub on a Saturday night, the cat museum… and another trip…. 12 hours of madness including a stag do and getting behind a bar to DJ in a pub!
Lagos, Portugal
Portugal: a few days by myself but making a great friend in the hostel, amazing beaches, amazing seafood, a man cooking sardines outside his house, cobbled streets and a wonderful square
Near the top of mount Kinabalu, Borneo
Borneo: arriving alone and deciding to climb a mountain twice as high as Ben Nevis: getting up at 3am see sunrise from the peak was pretty special! getting approached by an orang utan at the sanctuary, wandering round the city barefoot (lost my flip flops) with people calling ‘miss, miss, you wanna buy slippers?’, our bus breaking down and being propositioned by a politician
Sunrise after a full moon party, Koh Pangan (no filter!!)
Thailand: full moon parties (3!), temples, hours waiting for buses, overnight journeys, my first (and only) drive of a moped, seeing fluorescence in the sea for the first time, waterfalls, jungle treks, live music, great food, beautiful beaches, ping pong bars
Whitsundays, Australia
Australia: sleeping on the deck of a boat in the barrier reef, camping on fraser island and thinking a dingo was outside our tent, taxi fun in Sydney, kangaroos and koalas in Australia zoo, bats in the botanical gardens, meeting the English rugby team… and Romanian waterboys!
Snorkelling in the Gili islands, Indonesia
Bali/Lombok/Gili islands: snorkelling with the crazy boat-man, Ramadan, amazing seafood
Petronas towers, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Malaysia: where do I start…. spending the night in a jungle hut, the night before sleeping in the worst accommodation ever – no running water!, the night after spending a fun night on the jungle night train, snorkelling with turtles in the Perhentian islands, having to leave said islands as co-travellers nearly started a riot, getting up early and hungover to go up the Petronas towers, bat cave, drinking in the hostel stairwell, rollercoasters in shopping centres
Sleeping man in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
Vietnam: lanterns in Hoi An, cone hats, noodle soup and cheap beer on the streets, getting lost on a moped looking for ‘chicken town’, hanging out with tribes in the North, getting invited to a wedding party, going to a fashion show, mud baths, war museum and tunnels, getting ripped off by a taxi driver on my first day, sleeping on the deck of a boat in Halong bay
Ta Phrom, Cambodia
Cambodia: temples, hanging with locals at a sacred lake, scorpions, sad recent history, spending a day helping out at an orphanage (the day Michael Jackson died), making new friends for life, waiting around for a bus to go into the remote North East
Trinidad, Cuba
Cuba: beautiful Trinidad and beautiful beaches at Varadero, dancing in the streets
Monks in Luang Prabang, Laos
Laos: 10 pin bowling then staying up all night for sunrise to see the monks receive their alms, nearly drowning in a kayaking incident, long bus journeys, hanging in a hammock with sticky rice on 10 thousand island, Buddha park, beers and food at Vientiane riverside where you could buy a turtle’s foot for dinner 😦
Tulum, Mexico
Mexico: temples, driving a hire car, my first time snorkelling, dancing on the sand in a nightclub in Puerto del Carmen, Halloween in Cancun, sea sickness, amazing food!
Burj al Arab from medinat jumerah, Dubai
Dubai: family, breakfast on the beach, Atlantis, sunburn, shopping, 4×4’s in the desert
Old and new: Boston
Boston: family, autumn, the crazy town of Salem, pretending to be students at Harvard
Shacks in Soweto, South Africa
South Africa and Lesotho: horse riding to the highest waterfall in Africa, being so cold that I had to sleep fully clothed and keep my head under the covers, a bat in the house, roadside graveyards, shebeens (illegal drinking dens!), seeing elephants and giraffes in the wild, amazing landscape
The YSL garden in Marrakesh, morocco ,
Morocco: haggling, lanterns, amazing smells of spices, amazing food
Coliseum, Rome
Rome: rugby, lots of Chianti, pizza and club sandwiches in the hotel while playing cards
So there we have it – most of the places I’ve been! We’re hoping to continue seeing the world with baby W in tow and I still have so many places I’d like to visit….
Croatia especially Dubrovnik and some of the islands
Santorini (I’ve been to Rhodes, Corfu and Kos and loved them all!)
more places on our doorstep in France and Spain e.g. Valencia
Italy – Venice, the lakes, Sorrento
The Maldives
Mauritius
the whole of South America!
New Zealand especially the South island
India especially Kerala and Varanisi
Miami
San Francisco and Las Vegas
the Norwegian fjords
And anywhere else we end up 🙂
So there we have – I have lots of lasting memories from around the World – but lots more to create, now with a family in tow! I’ll leave you with one of my favourite ever quotes from Mark Twain…
‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover’
This post is an entry for the #Flying100 Family Holiday Challenge, celebrating how flying allows us to make memories and ‘be there’, in association with #Flying100. Find out more at http://www.flying100years.com/
Boy, oh, boy – my baby boy turned 6 months old today! What a milestone! He is turning into a gorgeous, healthy, happy chappy…
Weight/size
I have no idea how much he weighs – it’s been nearly a month since he was last weighed. Assuming he’s still on the 25th percentile, then he should be getting close to 16lbs. He’s small and perfectly formed 🙂 He’s still in 3-6 month old clothes and I think we have a few weeks wear left in them. I’ve just bought my first load of size 4 nappies as the size 3 don’t fit him quite as well anymore.
Milestones
In the last few weeks he’s started rolling around a lot, especially in his cot! I can’t leave him on the sofa or bed any more as he could fall off!
Also during the last few weeks he’s found his feet, so he loves grabbing on to those in the cutest position!
We always feel like he’s had strong legs and at the moment he LOVES bouncing – he loves being in his jumperoo but if he’s being held by anyone he expects them to bounce him!
Today, to celebrate his 6 month birthday, his 3rd tooth is cutting through! So he’s grouchy and clingy today -it’s always tough as he’s usually a happy chappy.
He only poos around once a week these days, and last week that happened at my friend’s house – I think we can safely say he had his first poonami – as I took the nappy off, like a Mr Whippy machine it just kept coming…. and coming! While I cleaned her rug, she carried him upstairs to be hosed down… he left a few deposits en route!!
Sleep
You’ll know from previous updates that baby W doesn’t sleep through the night – so as we were approaching the 6 month mark of poor sleep, something had to give and we started some ‘gentle sleep training’ last week – I will blog about it separately (once we’re sure it’s worked) but we’re off to a good start – the last 2 nights he has dropped all night feeds and only woke once (about 3am). I’ll keep you posted!
Daily routine
To get ready for the sleep training I’ve been doing lots of preparation over the last few weeks, trying to give his day a bit more structure and encourage longer naps, putting him in his cot for day naps etc so roughly our day looks like this:
7-7.30 get up, first feed then play time!
8-9 first nap starts (ideally an hour long)
more play, second feed about 1030
11ish second nap starts (ideally an hour long)
1230 ish try some food, playtime before and after
sometimes he has 2 afternoon naps, sometimes just the one depending on what we’re up to
2.30 ish third feed
6ish bedtime routine begins – bath, sometimes massage, bottle of formula (4th feed of the day) then bed
Weekly routine
It’s been the same for a while now:
Mondays – fortnightly local mother and baby group (Bambino’s)
Tuesdays – TinyTalk in the morning, mother and baby yoga (PureYoga) in the afternoon
Wednesdays – mother and baby group (Jellybabies)
Thursdays and Fridays – free for walks, meeting people etc!
Saturday – swimming lesson in the morning with daddy
Feeding/weaning
You’ll see I mentioned food – we’re slowly starting the weaning process – I’m in no rush and nor is baby W!
We’re going to attempt the baby-led route to begin with – so far we’ve tried it 3 times – he hated sweet potato and avocado, but has enjoyed sucking on banana, baby rice and blueberries! Again, will blog about it separately when I have more to report!
What we’ve been up to
We found a park that we can walk to – it has a duck pond and a heron, and views across to the sea! Nearby there’s also a new coffee shop that’s just opened – so far we’ve had a take-away from there but we need to check it out properly!
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Last week we went to stay with my parents for a few days and had a lovely time in my hometown (Aberystwyth) and a lovely walk around New Quay.
Sunrise from my parents’ house:
For Halloween I dressed him in a skeleton outfit and took him into work for a ‘bring your kids to work’ afternoon. Much fun and many cuddles 🙂
Mummy update
A combination of sleep deprivation and my other half being away a few times with work left me feeling a bit blue a few weeks ago. I think I had one of those ‘who am I’ type crises as my maternity leave is coming to and end, I looked like crap and I’d maybe spent too much time with baby!
It was lovely at the weekend to have a bit of retail therapy, have my eyebrows and hair done, and get dressed up for a fab wedding party! And I had a lovely night in with my sister and her friends a coupled of Saturday nights ago… I’m a lucky girl, it’s just easy to forget when you’re frazzled!
Over the next few weeks I have some keeping in touch days at work and my first weekend away from baby W…. eeeeeeek!
When baby W was born and I started breastfeeding I remember looking into what to wear – should I buy a cape/poncho thing? some special ‘nursing’ tops and dresses? A lot of people recommended the double top method – wearing a vest that you could pull down, while a top over it keeps you covered.
In the end I didn’t buy anything – we had a hot summer, I lived in baggy T-shirts and I quickly became comfortable feeding him out and about, showing my bare belly (and probably more!) in the process.
Fast forward to Autumn and what a great time to review the Breastvest – I’d not come across it before but it’s a vest that basically is missing the top bit where your bra is – it scoops down below your bra, so that when it’s feeding time you don’t have to faff about with pulling your vest up or down. As I said, perfect timing as it’s starting to get a bit nippy so it’s handy to wear this underneath tops that I’d normally wear this time of year, to keep my belly warm!
The breastvest
I can confirm it’s a great bit of kit – works like a treat, I’ve tried it under a few different tops – tight tops and looser-fitting blouses and it looks great and seamless – although might look a bit odd if you wear it with a sheer top haha! The fabric is of good, soft quality and I can imagine it will last quite a while unlike the regular vest tops you might be pulling into all sorts of shapes underneath your clothes!
I know lots of mums feel self-conscious breastfeeding out and about, in part because of their post-baby belly and this could really help with that and hopefully give those mums a bit of much-needed confidence 🙂
It has adjustable straps which is great – I’m short and it’s a lovely length on me, just skimming my bum which I love, I love longer tops!
I honestly can’t think of a negative for this review – they start at £10 (limited edition colours, £15 for black/white) which I think is quite good value, but obviously if you wear it a lot you’ll want to wash it regularly – daily if it gets covered in breast milk! So perhaps the only con is that it could add up if you want to buy a few (although they do sell 2 for £25).
You can buy the Breastvest in a range of sizes and colours (black or white, but they do some limited edition other colours!) at their website but they have also kindly offered me one to give away… all you need to do is enter through Rafflecopter below where it will ask you to leave a comment about other useful breastfeeding items. The winner will be picked at random on November 5th. Only open to UK residents.
Here are some smartphone apps I’ve found useful over the last few months (as a new mum!) that I hope you will too….
Baby Connect – an app that you can track everything from feeds and nappy changes to milestones and medical information on
You might remember that I first mentioned this app in my breastfeeding story – I found it really handy to track when the last feed was, which side etc. Over time it was crazy to see the overall time feeding go down from about 6 hours a day to a more manageable 2-3! It was also handy to check in the morning how many times during the night I’d been up – however tired I was, I always managed to use the app!
Now that baby W’s feeds and naps are far more regular, I don’t really use the app any more but like I said I did find it really useful in those first couple of months. It’s an expensive app (£3.99 I think) but it has lots of other features that I didn’t end up using like tracking their weight/height, photos and milestones, oh and nappy changes (I forgot, I did track nappy changes at a time when we seemed to be doing it every 5 minutes!), and you can use it for more than one baby/child.
2. Wonder weeks – keeps track of your baby’s development leaps
This was recommended to me by a friend and I’m so glad. Every time baby W is grouchier than usual, I check the app and I can see he’s in a ‘developmental leap’ and that explains why his mood is slightly different – he’s learning new things and taking in lots of information! I’m not sure how widely these leaps are used e.g. by health professionals – I’d not heard of them before this app – I guess you can think of them as a type of ‘growth spurt’?
Either way, the app has been bang on so far, and gives lots of info about the leap and what to expect afterwards…. it will be interesting to see if it carries on being so useful as I can see that the start windows (based on baby’s age, by week) become a bit wider so might get harder to tell if he’s in a leap or whether there’s something else happening?
At the moment we’re in leap 5 aka ‘the world of relationships’ where he’s learning about relationships and distances with people and objects… very interesting!
As you know, I don’t post photos of baby W on the blog. I almost kept him off Facebook too but relented in the end and add a few every month or so…. as much as I’d love to show him off, I didn’t want to spam Facebook friends with daily photos of him whereas close friends and family want to see as many photos as possible!
Screenshot from 23 snaps (sorry no baby photos!)
That’s where these apps come in – they’re private social media networks. Upload your photos, and send invites to people who you want to have access to them. All very safe, very easy to use and manage, and ends up being a great online, timelined record of baby’s photos, and status updates! I’ve mostly been using 23 snaps, which I love, and now have just started using Tinybeans too as I won a photobook with them (via Jenna at Tiny footsteps’ review and giveaway :).
Hopefully using these has kept Facebook friends happy at not being spammed… and I know many family members have really appreciated the 23 snaps updates as they’re not on Facebook.
So you’ve sorted out your online photos, but what about printing them off? I think it’s nice to have an actual copy of photos plus I’d lose all of baby W’s photos if I lost my iPhone so I’ve been using Freeprints to print them off.
There’s no catch – it’s a great deal, you get 45 free prints a month and just pay the postage which is £3.99. For more than 45 prints, you pay £0.09p per print. I’m on my third month and can assure you that the quality is as good as the value! Also, I made a mistake on my first order but Michael from their customer service team sorted it out for me very quickly – great service!
The only downside I’ve found is if you’re uploading a lot of photos, it can take a while but I think that’s probably the same as most other photo printing app
This is only relevant if you’re like me and like sending actual birthday cards in the post and not just writing on people’s Facebook walls 😉 This app is great – it’s really easy to use, to upload photos and edit text using one of their templates – within just a couple of minutes you’ve created a personalised card and posted it to the recipient!
Including postage, cards cost £3.60 which I think is pretty good – a decent card can cost as much as that these days! Saves you leaving the house to ever buy birthday cards again, and these ones are better anyway as your friends and family will be delighted to see your little munchkin on the card! I’ve used it at least 10 times now – 3 father’s day cards, a wedding and lots of birthdays – I’ve now gone down the prepay route which gives me £5 free credit on a £20 spend!
The only downside I’ve found on this app is that you can only order 1 card at a time – so on father’s day I had to do 3 separate transactions – still only took minutes though 🙂
So there we have it – some of my favourite apps from my early parenting days! What do you think of this bunch? Do you know of any alternatives? What have been your essential apps (apart from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram!!)? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below….
Last week we went our first family holiday to Center Parcs in Longleat, read on to find out how got on 🙂
How we chose Center Parcs
My other half and I LOVE our foreign holidays and we always thought that baby W’s first holiday would be to somewhere like Spain or Greece. However, as he still isn’t sleeping through the night, the thought of the 3 of us sharing a hotel room all week was unappealing! We’d been to Center Parcs separately (read about my girly weekend there when I was pregnant) and both loved it so we knew it would be perfect for our first family holiday as we’d have plenty of space! (And if he screamed the house down, we wouldn’t wake up any neighbours!!)
Preparation
I’ve never been so busy in the run-up to a holiday! We wanted to take as much food and drink with us as we could, to try and recoup some of the money we’d spent on booking the holiday! So the day before I went to Aldi’s, home bargains AND got a delivery from Tesco lol!
The day we left it took us a good couple of hours to get our stuff together and into the car. The accommodation doesn’t include a washing machine, and the weather was looking mixed… and you never know when baby’s going to have a growth spurt… so I took a LOT of clothes!
So as well as food, drinks, clothes, toiletries we also managed to get into the car baby W’s bath, moses basket, bouncer and playgym!
Our accommodation
We had a ‘new style executive’ chalet in the Pines area. When we arrived I initially felt like it needed a good scrub and/or a bit of a refurb e.g. the bathroom grouting was grubby, handrprints all over the patio doors… but once we’d unpacked our stuff those thoughts faded away and it really felt like a home from home!
This was a slightly more expensive chalet than the previous one I’d stayed in and some of the extra features were a coffee machine (nice!), Jacuzzi bath (lush), en suite bathrooms, daily maid service (fab!) and TV’s in the bedroom (which we didn’t use). The rainforest-style showers in both bathrooms were AMAZING!
I love this wall in the chalet at Center Parcs!
And of course the best thing about the accommodation is the view out from the sofa… the trees, the peace and quiet, the birdsong, the squirrels and rabbits running around….
the view from our back garden, Center Parcs
We were really happy with the location – we could walk to the main Plaza and down to the sports area. When I’d been before we had to get the land train over to the Plaza, so it was nice to be able to be within walking distance this time.
What we got up to
We were blessed with beautiful crisp, sunny weather every day so we did lots of walking around with daddy and baby W making good use of their Baby Bjorn carrier!
Daddy and baby W went swimming nearly every day in the lovely, warm subtropical paradise pool – mummy joined them a couple of times too 🙂
Daddy treated Mummy me to not one but two massages in the Spa and a spa session – bliss! The massages were wonderful, and I really enjoyed using all the steam rooms and saunas that I was unable to use when I was pregnant – my favourite is the lemongrass steam room mmmm. I still think that this spa is the best one I’ve been to by far!
Even the walk to the spa is lovely at Center Parcs!
My parents came to stay for 2 nights so cue more walking, swimming and eating!
We ate most of our meals in the chalet but we did have brunch in the Grand café, lunch in the Pancake house, lunch in Café Rouge and a Chinese takeaway – all very good! I must add at this point that I noticed all the staff at Center Parcs are super friendly 🙂
So other than that we just chilled and played in the chalet. Unfortunately baby W was a bit grouchy for the first few days but perked up by the end of the week. my OH and I took it in turns to have lie-ins/naps so we both managed to catch up with some much-needed sleep 🙂 For the (un?) lucky one that was up early, we were blessed with some amazing sunrises….
sunrise at Center Parcssunrise at Center Parcs
One early morning when I was giving daddy a break I took baby W down the lake and we saw a baby deer (fawn?!) on the way 🙂
early morning walk down at the lake, Center Parcs
We also made a trip into nearby Warminster to stock up on wine, supplies and we bought some 99p reading glasses from Poundstretcher as my OH had misplaced his glasses!
The week flew by and suddenly it was our last day 😦 We made a lovely day out of it, going on safari in Longleat park which was great fun especially seeing lions very close-up (didn’t get a decent pic as I had baby W on me at the time!), having a monkey banging on our bonnet and watching the very nice Mercedes in front of us get trashed by the monkeys! Oh and making baby W wear a giraffe hat that came with a Next sleepsuit, he looked SO cute but unimpressed 🙂
We’ll definitely go back to Longleat park once W is a bit older…
giraffe at LongleatLemurs all cuddled up together at LongleatMonkey on our bonnet! Longleat
We then stopped in Warminster for lunch – we went to a Wetherspoons for my first time in ages and I was really pleasantly surprised by the food, tasty and great value!
Home time
A couple of days after getting home, the weather turned – it seems to have gone from Summer to Winter here in Cardiff – a shocker but makes those memories from last week even more lovely… baby W falling asleep in his baby bjorn in the sun, his first real encounter with ducks… 🙂
Hopefully we’ll take W abroad next year, but we will definitely take him back to Center Parcs at some point – it really was a home from home and it was great being able to take all of his home comforts and toys with us – I’m not sure how we’d cope abroad without his playgym and bouncer! (Although I guess by then he will have outgrown them!)
Where was your first family holiday? Or where would you like to go?! I’d love to hear from you – leave a comment below, or follow me on Twitter or Bloglovin x
You might have read my first liebster award for new bloggers – well my second nomination came from the lovely Mrs H – thank you sweetie! Please go and check her out – find out how she kissed John Barrowman!
Here’s the questions she asked of me..
1. What is your favourite book?
I love reading but very rarely get a chance to do it anymore! I love good thrillers, and a good chick lit but my favourite genre are any books based in faraway places like China, India etc… for that reason my fave ever book is ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ – it got to all my senses like being able to see and smell blossom trees… still can’t believe it was written by a man! 2. If a film was made of your life which actress would you want cast as you?
Either Renee Zellwegger or Clare Danes – only because I’ve been flatteringly-told I have slight resemblances to them (I wish!) 3. What is your favourite way to spend a summer evening?
Sitting in the garden with a glass (bottle) of Prosecco, lovely nibbles, a good magazine and my family 🙂
4. What is your happiest memory?
Has to be the moment that baby W was laid on my chest just after being born
5. If you could have any super power what would it be and why?
I would like to be able to sprinkle fairy dust wherever it’s needed – this stuff could fix wars, broken hearts etc 🙂
I also like Karl Pilkington’s ‘Bullsh*t man’ character – there are lots of people I’d like him to make a visit to!
6. Tea or coffee?
I like a good coffee now and again but it has to be tea – I get through about 10 cups a day!
7. What would you do if you were Prime Minister for the day?
Oooh good question! Essay coming up…
Sort out the housing crisis by repurposing lots of our old, unused buildings – turning them into housing and community buildings. Also on the same note, limit the amount of housing that can be sold to overseas buyers – it doesn’t affect me but it sounds like this is a nightmare in London. In Dubai overseas buyers are only allowed to buy in certain areas – I think this could work in London?
I know unemployment is improving and there are some good, hardworking people who are still unable to find work. However, for all the benefit scroungers out there I can’t understand why they aren’t asked to do some type of community service (e.g. volunteering/ maintenance/ community projects???) or join the army or anything else that’s useful for the rest of us that are paying for them?
I love the NHS but it could be improved – I’d bring in a business guru like Lord Sugar to try and streamline things… not to focus on targets on care but thinking back to my pregnancy, and also an eye condition I suffer from – I’ve spent SO MANY HOURS hanging about in our local hospital – things could be organised a lot better and that would save them money!
I could go on but that will do for now!
8. As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I went through phases… fashion designer, author and then for years I wanted to be an investigative journalist!
9. What makes you laugh?
Baby W laughing… being silly…. Fawlty Towers…. An idiot abroad….
10. What three words would your friends use to describe you?
Easy-going, laid-back, disorganised
11. Bags or shoes?
Shoes!
Now to nominate some new bloggers – here’s some new parenting/pregnancy bloggers I’ve come across over the last few weeks – Little O and me and Another Bun and a local (Cardiff) lifestyle/beauty blogger The little bones blog
Ladies, please use the same questions as above – I know it’s cheating but I’m better at answering than thinking of questions!
Readers – please check out these new blogs and show them your support 🙂
the full rules…..
A Liebster is given to up and coming bloggers who may not be receiving the love that they deserve.It is a lovely way to introduce you, my readers, to some brilliant blogs. Plus, you get to learn more about me as I have 11 questions to answer.
The rules of the awards are nice and straightforward:
Thank the blogger who nominated you.
Answer the questions given to you.
Nominate other bloggers with less than 500 followers whose blogs you love.
I honestly can’t believe it, it’s flown by and the next 3 months will go so quickly.. before you know it I’ll be sat back at my desk with my work head back on!
Apart from the parenting malarkey, I had visions that I would learn some new skills on my maternity leave like:
cooking some new dishes e.g. dhal, hummus and baking cakes
watching YouTube tutorials on how to blow dry and plait my hair!
gardening
I haven’t done any of those! I think the only new thing I’ve done has been blogging… which is a time-consuming hobby but one I’m enjoying and it will also come in handy for my day job (read about it on my ‘about me’ page if you’re interested)
So here’s my mum’s list of things I need to and want to do over the next 3 months – some are chores, some are new skills – either way I find them equally difficult to devote time to without missing out on any of baby W’s time, or catching up with much-needed rest…:
remortgage my house as my fixed rate has ended so I need to lock it in before rates go up, hopefully this will save me some money 🙂
learn how to use the SLR camera that I’ve had for 2 years and hardly used, use it to take some lovely photos of baby W…. first, I just need to find the charger!
the above means I might *need* to get a new laptop – this will be a nice treat, I’ll be able to blog more efficiently and I can sort out all my music/photos/iTunes etc etc
I also *need* to get a new (used) car this year – I drive a 14 year old little Peugeot – it does the job in getting W and me from A to B, but I have to put the pram in the back seat which isn’t very safe… and it’s too old for an isofix and I reckon those time-saving minutes will become so important when I’m dropping off/picking him up from the childminder’s!
discover some more new places in my city of Cardiff – I have done some of this but would like to make more of an effort exploring the suburbs I haven’t been to!
watch some TED talks to find out what all the hype is about
plant some daffodils and tulips for the first time, ready for the spring
Bit of a random list eh!? Did you use your maternity leave to do anything new (apart from learning how to be a parent obviously ;))? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, or tweet me at @yummyblogger
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