Weekend Wish List!!

I thought I would start a new weekly post to share some of the things that are on my "Mummy Wish List'. Some of these things are just too expensive for my budget but oh-so-gorgeous, some are things that I will buy when I get around to it and some are things that I will be asking for when birthdays or Christmas comes around!!

I would just like to point out that I have not been paid or reimbursed in any way for my opinions on this post, however I have contacted some of the businesses to ensure that they are happy for me to feature their items.

So this week we have:

1. SugarJack Changing Bag

Even though I read many baby magazines and parenting blogs, I have to admit I had never heard of these bags until they kindly commented on one of my posts a while ago.  I LOVE these bags and one day hope to be he proud owner of one, although it is very doubtful on my budget!!


This is my absolute favourite of their range; the limited edition "Poppy" £349.00 but I must say-they are all beautiful!

These beautiful bags have a separate bag inside for your nappies, wipes etc that you can just whip out of the bag in a second to leave you with a glam bag for your date night/meeting/evening out with friends, and as I was told; "We aim to bring glam to the pram", and they definitely do!!
They also appear to be quite popular with the rich and famous!

2. Fresh Squeezed Squeeze Station

I found this on the BabiesRUs website, and this is something I wish I had for when we started weaning H.  It is a station that purees food and expresses it into pouches ready to eat or store.  I think it is a genius idea and at only £24.99 for the starter kit, something that we will definitely consider an essential next time around with all of those baby gift vouchers you receive when expecting!!

3. Mam Dipper Set

Found these on the BabiesRUs website too.  We have been a bit lazy on the self-feeding front lately and usually end up spoon-feeding H ourselves for speed and because it usually means less cleaning up!!  He seems to prefer finger-foods at the moment anyway, so I think these are the perfect way to ease him into self-feeding, and at only £5.29, they are on my shopping list for this weekend!!

4. Breathable Baby Crib Mesh Liner

I love the fun designs on these and when H was tiny, he was such a wriggler, trapping his arms or legs in between the slats of the crib and I was always looking for something like this.  These are for sale on Amazon at the moment for £27.30 which is pretty good value considering it goes all of the way around.  It would really brighten up H's nursery and keep his little arms and legs safe!!

5. Orbit Baby G2 Newborn Set

This is what I consider to be the ultimate pushchair!  It is so stylish and looks so comfy in all of those pap shots of the celebrities' babies!!  The biggest downfall is the price; at £940 PLUS accessories, it doesn't even come close to our budget!! My absolute favourite part of this is that you can swivel it around to rear-ward facing in the blink of an eye when baby is napping.  However at that price, I am sticking to my up-cycled Quinny for now!!

Well there you have it!  Some beautiful and practical items that I am lusting after this week.  I would love to know if any of you have any of these products and what you think of them.

Have a fab weekend!!

Onwards and upwards!

I have been absent from the blogging world over the couple of weeks because my little man has been poorly- hardly eating and being fairly grumpy (not surprising with a sky-high temperature). I initially thought he was teething but it was hand, foot and mouth disease!! He caught it from my great-niece who caught it from an 'unclean' soft play area. One thing H being poorly has done is bring home to me that no matter how old he gets, every time I see him poorly or in pain it will tie my tummy up in knots and make me want to cry!

One thing that I am so grateful for this week is how good-natured H is, poorly or not. We enjoyed a wonderful family day at the park a couple of Saturdays ago, making the most of the gorgeous weather we had and whilst we were there, H had his first feel of grass (he was too tiny last summer) and loved running his hands through it. On the Sunday, we drove to beautiful Arundel for my best friend's baby shower and then took a detour on the way home to visit family in Chichester. Even though he was clearly feeling out of sorts, he charmed everyone at the baby shower and definitely enjoyed flirting outrageously with all of the cooing women!  Here is a picture of my gift offering for the baby shower:

On a trip into town in the week, he even had the whole bus waving 'bye bye' on our way home!! These little things certainly make the lack of sleep easier to deal with and make me realise how lucky I am to have such a cheery little chap!!

This weekend we managed to enjoy some sunshine in the park again now H is back on top form and picked up a few bargains at a local NCT nearly new sale! We bought H some new trousers and shorts and he actually managed to wear a pair in the park yesterday!!

I have also signed up for a 10 week exercise programme in the hopes that it will kick-start a bit of weight loss and get me back into a healthier way if life. I will keep you posted on how that all turns out!!

Apart from all of that, I have been keeping myself busy creating some new products for my business and finding places to sell them. I have found one local place and took my wares there on Sunday.  It went really well and I gave out many business cards so I hope to go again and have been invited to sell at a craft fair coming up soon off of the back of it so I am hopeful that this means things are talking off!! I will certainly keep you posted.

Time to do some online
food shopping now because we didn't get around to it this weekend with all the fun we had!! ;)

What beauty regime?!

So another day goes by with my only beauty regime being a 3 minute shower (in which I manage to brush my teeth and wash my face but not my hair), a quick scrape through my hair with a brush and then up it goes into a ponytail, and getting dressed into leggings, a vest top and a long cardigan! Being at home means that I tend to choose clothes like these because they are comfy and don't get in the way or cut into my new-found "curves" when I am cleaning, playing cars with H, or sitting down to write!

With hair as naturally curly and fine as mine, I can't wash it every day anyway because it would end up in a not so fetching fuzzy halo around my head! I tend to wash it about three times a week and then blowdry it straight so it is easier to manage. I did manage to have it cut for the first time in a year for my birthday in March and I always have high hopes of maintaining the cut with regular trims, but in all reality, that never happens!!

I would love to be one of those effortlessly cool and sophisticated mums who actually look half-decent after a "beauty regime" like mine but I am definitely a high-maintenance kind of girl. If I don't exfoliate my whole body, moisturise, fake tan, put a full face of make up on and blowdry my hair to within an inch of it's life, I end up looking like an extra on A's Friday night favourite; "The Walking Dead". Add that to a desperate need for at least two pairs of Spanx (or actually a cheap version of Spanx) whenever I try to get into any kind of decent-looking ensemble, and you get the picture.



Don't get me wrong-I do not want to be a "Skinny-Minnie". I had enough of that in high school and being a size 6 with huge 'assets' (family trait) always attracts the wrong kind of attention in my experience, but going from a size 6/8 in your teens to a size 14/16 in your late twenties feels like a step too far. My body shape suits a size 10/12 much better, so I am hoping I can get back to that within the next six months to a year. I want to feel good about turning the big 30 and I won't if I still have my post-baby belly and wobbly bum!

Having said that, I am actually rubbish at exercise and diet plans, so any advice offered would be gratefully received! I will blog on my progress and if I find any good recipes, I will add them here so you can all try them out.



One thing I do know though, is that whilst having a baby has done nothing for my physical side, it has worked wonders for my mental side. I am much stronger and more able to stand up for myself and my family now and I am lots more confident in my choices I make. This, I am sure, comes from knowing that every decision I make now has the best interests of my family taken into account so it makes it easier to be sure of them.

With that being said, I should probably remind myself that being healthy and happier with my appearance is going to be the best for my family in the long run and just stick to it, but only after I finish that pack of biscuits in the cupboard of course...

End of the "Firsts"

It has just dawned on me that this Easter was the last of the "firsts" that I will share with H before his first birthday.  We had a lovely, busy time over the Bank Holiday weekend, and even managed a whole day of relaxing on Easter Sunday-no mean feat in our world!  I don't know if this makes me happy or sad to be honest though-I am sad that everything will be something we have done before now, but also excited for his birthday and to make every event even more special now that we have made all our 'mistakes' and know what we would like it to be like.

I know with absolute certainty for example, that I will never again venture on to the Tube with my buggy and a heavily pregnant friend!  Saturday was an absolute nightmare of trying to negotiate non-puschair/wheelchair-friendly tube stations, to a point where after an hour of being stuck underground me, my desperate-looking friend and a sleeping H decided to just go back to St. Pancras International and have another coffee there!!

Another realisation this weekend has been how much I would like my HarryCakes Creations gift business to work out.  We spent a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in Hobbycraft on Monday (my turn to choose the afternoon's activities), where I spent a small fortune on supplies to get myself motivated to make up more stock.  It worked and I now have a beautiful new collection to add to my website and Facebook page.  I am now looking into how I promote it a bit more and get myself "out there", so I have been checking out some craft and gift fairs to go to sell at and I was thinking of renting a stall at some of the nearly new sales in my area and advertising on the Facebook sites that will allow me to.  It struck me whilst making my creations how much I enjoyed it and that it didn't at all feel like work and that is exactly how I want to feel when trying to earn a crust!!

Here are a few of my new creations:

Making these have definitely got my creative juices flowing!  Best to put this new-found energy to good use and start planning H's First birthday party-the countdown has started!