20 Weeks (Not) Pregnant

*Trigger warning, baby loss*

At 20 weeks excited pregnant ladies are attending their anomaly scans. It’s the scan where you can find out if you are going to have a boy or a girl. I should be having my 20 week scan around now, no, not should, would. Should implies that I did something to stop it happening and I have to believe that what happened was fate, that losing my baby before our first scan was meant to be. Yet I can’t stop saying “should”.

20 week scan image from my second daughter

Seeking Home Inspiration At The SEH BAC Showcentre

Do you go on Pinterest to seek inspiration for your perfect house? Or maybe you prefer to browse interior magazines? I spend far too long each week on Instagram enviously looking at other people’s beautiful homes and wondering how I can transform mine. When I went to the grand reopening of the Chelmsford SEH BAC showcentre I came away buzzing with ideas.

*This is a collaborative post*

Preparing For Nursery: Our First Days and What To Buy

As she left the house wearing her new bag Little was excited to go to nursery, in fact she had been waiting at the front door for a while as her sister and I finished getting ready. It was a struggle to persuade her she had to take her bag off to get in the car seat, but she eventually conceded to holding it on her lap (before emptying out the contents during the car journey). Throughout the school drop off, the walk to nursery and the wait for the doors to open Little was happy, but as soon as they opened the door she ran the other direction. I eventually persuaded her to go in, but she clung to me and asked me not to go. The staff coaxed her over to the play dough and while she was distracted I disappeared out the door with a promise from the staff they would call if she got too upset.

Giveaway: 4 Teletubbies DVDs including Follow The Leader

The weather for the next couple of weeks is meant to be rainy so I thought I would cheer everyone up with a giveaway. You could win 4 Teletubbies DVDs including the brand new series: Follow The Leader which is out now on DVD.

Finally Getting My DIY Done With The Help Of ManoMano

We moved into our house when I was 38 weeks pregnant so my urge to nest competed with the limitations of my heavily pregnant body. The most urgent work got done and everything else we learnt to live with helped by the distraction of a newborn baby. My newborn is now an energetic 2 year old and I have started to look around my house with fresh eyes. My to do list has grown and I just need to find the motivation, time and money to work through it. 

Magical Family Moments With My Eldest and The #OreoCookieQuest

There are lots of great things about becoming a big sister, but do they really make up for getting less attention from your parents? M loves Little, but over the last couple of years she has had a lot less time with just me. It won’t be long before she reaches the age where she wants to shut herself away in her room to listen to music and she already spends afternoons with her nose in a book so I need to make the most of now. At the weekend I turn Little's nap time into Mummy & M time, a special time where it’s all about just the two of us.  

Exotic Taste Adventures With for aisha Infant Food

Daddy likes super spicy food, Mummy like fairly spicy food, baby likes? Well we don’t know but she is happy to eat the curry mummy likes. It always seems strange to me that most baby food is bland and boring when babies like their food full of flavour, you only have to see their response to fruit to understand that. Of course we don’t want to give children food high in salt and sugar, but there are so many herbs and spices we can use to make food more interesting it doesn't need to be bland. There's evidence that exposing infants to more flavours (and continuing to give them the flavours) helps to encourage them to eat those foods as they get older and enter the “fussier” stages during toddlerhood.

How Will You Be Spending Mother's Day? (With Baylis & Harding)

This year my Mother’s Day is going to be a bit different: it will be just me and my girls. That means no lie in and no breakfast in bed. M has recently learnt how to make tea and coffee so I might get a hot drink made for me while I hover a few metres behind her watching nervously as she pours water from the kettle. How well the day goes will probably depend on how long before 6 am I have to get up. I’m lucky and G normally gets up at 5 something am every morning when the cat or toddler has had enough of sleeping, but this weekend he will be on a stag do in Spain.

Highlights From The SS18 mini club Collection

Yesterday I washed my hair, found some cleanish clothes and headed to the elegant surroundings of Somerset House to see the new Spring Summer Collection from mini club. Mini club clothes are easy to miss if you don’t have a big Boots near you, but they are worth checking out because they have some great pieces at affordable prices. The full collection features clothes for 0 to 6 year olds and is available online including Fearne, the collaboration with Fearne Cotton. I'm going to share some of my favourite pieces from the collection in this post.

The Sensio Home Electric Food Steamer Review And Cooking Ideas

I’ve always known steam cooking is a great way to make healthy, low calories food, but in my head that is synonymous with boring and tasteless food (side note: always may be a small exaggeration). I didn’t see the point in getting an electric steamer, but I have used a bamboo steamer a few times (before it fell apart from getting too wet) and a metal collapsible steamer which goes in a saucepan. Both work fine for the occasional steaming need, but even if you have the right size pan they don’t have a lot of space so I hadn’t really explored cooking with steam until I was sent the 800w Sensio Home Stainless Steel 3 Tier Steamer to review.

Snow Day Memories and an Update on Little's Face

The snow melted over the weekend and it was back to school today for Big Sister. Memories of snow ball fights in the garden have taken on a fairytale nostalgic tint already and fortunately I am forgetting the arguments from two bored, house trapped children even faster. A couple of minutes running around the garden was no compensation for actually going out, but I did get some photo’s of the fun including Little’s impressive first snowball.

The Ultimate Essex Easter Egg Hunt and Activities list for 2018

Easter is fast approaching and fingers crossed there will be some warmer weather. Each year more venues are putting on Easter Egg Hunts and other Easter themed activities over the holidays, but it can be hard to find all of them so I have pulled together as many as I can find. If you are looking for ideas of places to go with your children then check out this list with over 25 places to go in and around Essex. Some events are just one a particular day, others run throughout throughout the school holidays.

Review of The Gentle Eating Book by Sarah-Ockwell Smith

Probably best known as the author of The Gentle Sleep Book parenting expert Sarah Ockwell-Smith has a new book out and this time she is applying her gentle parenting approach to eating. The Gentle Eating Book aims to help parents: understand their children’s eating habits, resolve common eating problems and establish a healthy relationship with food for life.