My Week In Pictures #2

From top left 

*Lady hogging the bed* *Sleep Darcie, Sleep* *AHHH FINALLY* *Cuddles with Daddy* *Darcie in her big pushchair* *Chocolate and hazelnut cake* *Just chilling* *Lady* *Freddie* *Mmmm green tea* *Love my girl* *Bath time*

August Loves

Wow hasn't August just flown by?!?

Baby Groups: I have really enjoyed attending our local baby groups, I can not stress this enough for new mums they are brilliant! Its lovely to see the babies interact, and even try and copy one another. I very much believe these interaction help with a childs development! Also attending these groups have given mine and Darcie's week a much needed structure, becoming a Mummy really does turn your world upside (for the better)and its nice to finally feel like we have a little routine! Another reason I am loving these groups are the people you meet!

Dentinox Teething Gel: An absolute necessity for and teething babies!!

Next Baby Clothes: Darcie is growing so quickly and so we have been doing lots of clothes shopping and I really do love Nexts range. Its a little bit pricey compared to other stores but I think there quality is fantastic, and you really notice the difference. I think all of my Next clothes may last till baby no. 2 (if that happens) as they wash really well. Bellow is a selection of a few of the pieces I have been loving.

(All currently available here)


Baking: When I was pregnant I did lots of baking but once Darcie was born I didn't seem to have enough time. Now Darcie is in a routine it has allowed me to go back to this passion!

(Chocolate and Hazelnut marble cake)


Pinterest: If your a regualar reader you will be aware I'm slightly obsessed with Pinterest. In the evenings I could literally spend hours looking through it getting inspired! I LOVE it! (follow me here)

Nail Varnish: I do love my nail varnish, I'm never seen without it! I have been particularly enjoying wearing Tecnic's "Carnival" which is a doupe for OPI's Muppets "Rainbow Connection" and was a steal at £1!!!

Mummy B xoxox

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My Week in Pictures #1

This is a new blog series that I will be doing weekly, just a short post sharing my week in picture format, enjoy....

From top left *Darcie and my friends little girls* *Cuddles before Daddy goes to work* *My Victoria Spunge* *My Bargain £1 nail varnish* *Deep in thought* *Early morning walk with Lady* *More Cuddles with Daddy* *Darcie was a brave girl getting her 2nd injections* *Tummy time* *Sleeepy* *Playtime* *All smiles* 

7 Things for 7 Days September

So I decided to join Louise of Sprinkle of Glitters interactive 7 Things for 7 Days blog (See Louise's blog here) 

So lets see how August went....

August 7 Things

Get My Bloody Kitchen Floor Cleaned!: Mission completed!!! Twice in fact!!!

Plan For The Spare Room Project!!!: My spare room has been planned now, to see my ideas please see here. 

Buy A Printer: Unfortunately this boring "thing" has not yet been completed, to be honest I need to do a little more research on the one that I would like, so fingers crossed I can find a good'un!

Arrange Girls Night In: Again this is in the process of being organised, which I am pleased about!! 

Plan for Christmas: Planning has already began!! Presents have even been bought!!

Have a BBQ: We finally had a BBQ at my parents house, and it was a complete wash out and a storm topped off the evening! Plus Darcie was a grumpy bum too... food was good though!

Shopping for Darcie: Darcie's Autumn wardrobe is coming together nicely, however she is growing at such a rapid rate I think I need to buy some 6-9 months clothes and quick!!!

Overall I am pretty pleased with my goals, so lets moves onto September!



September's 7 Things

Try Out a Pinterest Recipe: On my food and drink board on Pinterest (find me on Pinterest here) I have a ton of recipes I have saved and I have not tried any, so this month I really want to give it a go!!

Lose 5 pounds: Its really time I start to loose the baby weight. Darcie is almost 14 weeks old and so I'm pretty into the swing of things now so there is no excuse. I think I may start a separate blog post series about this as ideally I would like to lose 38 pounds. So this month I want to try and lose 5 pounds, I think this is quite realistic so fingers crossed I can do it!

Buy a Blender: This is to aid with my weight loss, and also it will come in handy when Darcie is ready to be weaned. I have seen on Pinterest this which is quite taking my fancy...

(Lauren Conrad's "7 days to Skinny Jeans", find out more here)

Buy Darcie a footmuff for her Quinny: My friend Chloe, who has two children of her own (and another on the way, so exciting!!!) recommended this,

Its £25 from John Lewis!! It will fit her Quinny and the colour matches up really well, so it is a complete bargain! Find it here!!

Find an alternative to Darcie's Swing: Darcie currently has a Fisher Price Swing, which she absolutely loves, but unfortunately I don't think it is going to last much longer as she is getting too heavy! So I need do some research and see if there is a bouncer or something slightly bigger for her. Any recommendations would be welcome.

Back Up All Pictures of Darcie: I keep fearing that my iPhone is going to get stolen and I will lose all my precious pictures (I don't know why as I do not live in a rough area!), so this month I must must must load them all onto my PC!!!

Take Jamie to a Wiggle and Giggle Session: Me and Darcie have really enjoyed this Wiggle and Giggle group, a sensory music and movement session designed for under ones, which is run by my local Sure Start Centre. And I think Jamie would enjoy it too, this month his shift pattern has changed enabling him to be able to attend with us!



Again I think these are really basic and realistic goals for the month.

Lets see if I can do this!

Mummy B xoxox

DIY Clay Hand Printing

Treasuring you little ones tinsy tiny hands and toes can become expensive if you choose to buy a moulding kit or a clay kit, however it doesn't have to be.

After trying (and failing) many different DIY clay recipes I have finally found one that actually works!!!

Over the last four weeks I have been scouring pinterest for the perfect recipe and tried numerous ones, the one I have found that works the best is as follows....

Ingredients 

1 cup of Salt

1 cup of Water

1/2 cup of Cornflour (You will need more to hand at the kneeding stage)

1/4 cup of Cold Water

Method

1) Heat the salt and the one cup of water into a pan for about three-four mins.

2) Add the Cornflour and 1/4 of cold water to the mixture and mix.

3) Then transfer into a mixing bowl and continue to mix.

4) Leave the mixture to cool for 20 mins (I learned the hard way... ouch!)

5)Once mixture is cool enough to handle start to kneed, adding more cornflour as you go so it doesn't keep sticking (I added quite a bit)- It will be quite sticky to begin with but just keep adding more cornflour and you will eventually get there!!

5) Then form the clay into a nice flat circle (or any shape you fancy really!) and place babys hand in the middle and press - I found this easiest to do when Darcie napped otherwise you may find that they scrunch up their hands.

6) Next you can punch a hole near the top so once it has harden you can thread string/ribbon through and hang (May be a nice 1st Christmas tree decoration)

7) Then leave to set, I left mine on a window to set and in set after three days (a long time I know but its better than any oven clay recipe you may find).

8) Finally you could decorate the piece perhaps adding babys name and age 

I hope you find this useful it took me absolutely ages to find one that would work for me!!!

Why do people think its acceptable to comment on your weight whilst your pregnant?!?!

This is something that really did annoy me whilst I was pregnant, but I have to admit before I was pregnant I used to say to my pregnant friends "wow your huge!!"! I always thought that this was complementary, however since going through pregnancy I now see it is very very wrong to comment on size!!!

Once I had past 24 weeks in my pregnancy it became apparent to me that my bump was very small, and secretly I was very concerned about this. At this point not many people commented. But when I got to 30 weeks and I was very tiny, a few people did begin to comment on the size of my bump, I had these comments from various people, some friends, some complete strangers...

"how far gone are you?.... WOW seriously?!"

"how far gone are you?... I think your dates must be wrong"

"Your very small, are you sure your eating enough... You sure your eating the right type of foods?" (this one shocked me the most, so disgusting that anyone would say this!!!)

"Nice small bump... That baby will fly out!"

Now your probably thinking that there not too bad. But let me assure you when ever anyone comments on the size of your bump whether it be because you showing smaller or bigger than "average" these comments really do strike fear into mothers. My fear was that something was wrong, and perhaps I had done something wrong in my pregnancy.

I did have medical reasons for my small bump (reduced waters resulting in an early induction), and so these comments where neither helpful or sympathetic.

So for anyone who is reading this who is yet to experience pregnancy, please just think about this and think before you speak, you wouldn't comment on someone's size when they are not pregnant (well you may, but that would truly be awful!!) so don't do it when they are!!!

I hope this doesn't come across as a ranty post, but it's something I was guilty of before my pregnancy and I think it's something that's not really discussed in this way!

What do you think, did you ever get comments on your bump? How did you feel??

Mummy B xoxox

Darcie 12 Week Update

So Darcie is coming up to 12 weeks old on Saturday... How time flies!

Are little family has really settled into a nice routine, it has taken us a while to get one established as Jamie has awful shift patterns! Having this established routine I think is key, Darcie is such a good baby I have nothing to complain about, the only time she has been at all grumpy has been when its been extremely hot... but then again who isn't a little bit grumpy in horrible hot muggy weather?! 

(Chilling in the garden)

Darcie has come a long way since my last update, its amazing to watch her develop. So at 12 weeks this is a little summary as to where Darcie is...

*Is sitting up really well aided*

*If she is propped up on some pillows she will try and pull herself up so she can sit properly*

*She reaches out on grabs toys, She loves her mirrored toys... vain child!*

*She tries to put everything she grabs in her mouth... she usually fails though bless her!*

*She will really "chat" to you now, with full on facial expressions to match... she always has such intense stories to tell!!!*

*She tries to hold her bottle*

*She has moved on to size two teats*

*She is in size three nappies*

*At her last weigh in (just over a week ago) she weighed 12lb 15oz*

*During a feed she will normally have between 6-7oz about 5 times a day... sometimes she will have an extra feed but it will only be about 4oz... piggy*

(Summer evening down the pub!)

Darcie is still showing all the symptoms of teething, she is so dribberly! To be fair to her she hasn't moaned much about it, sometimes when she has a feed she will cry a little but as soon as I put her teething gel on (I use Dentinox) she is fine.

(Me and Darcie, look at those cheeks)

(Darcie and her Uncle Jack)

I don't think it will be long before we start weaning her, they recommend you wait till six months, but I highly doubt she will stay contented for that long!

(Daddy and Darcie watching Norwich FC...)

All in all she is such a happy baby, she really is mine and Jamie's world. 

(Darcie having a good old chomp!)

Mummy B xoxox