Family fun in the sun

Hi everyone,

Today I thought I would do a lifestyle post. I've been really quite busy lately enjoying this rare stunning sunshine that we are getting here in Wales.

I thought I would share some pictures on some family things we have been doing.

Above are some pictures from a trip that we took to Brecon. We first went to Brecon icecream parlour and had a lovely icecream. I chose a honeycomb cone and my favourite vanilla flavour icecream. I'm a big fan of vanilla and don't really like many of the fancy flavours. After the icecream parlour we went for a lovely walk down Brecon canal. We seen beautiful canal boats and the most adorable baby chicks had also just been born on the canal. It was a lovely family day out. Me, Andrew, Hallie, my mother and little sister eve went. 

Last week I tried a new sensory play room. Hallie absolutely loved it. I've never seen her so amazed by something. It was just so cute. It's in a local centre by me. You can rent the room for 30 minute sessions for free. It's a big lovely room, much bigger than the other sensory room I went to. I can't wait to go back to this one! I really recommend a sensory room to anyone who has a baby, it's such a lovely place to take them and they really enjoy it. Sensory play is also brilliant for a child's development.

Last Sunday me, and my friend Ashlee, and of course little baby Hallie went to a little shopping place that's local to us called festival park. In the grounds of festival park there is an owl sanctuary. It's a lovely little walk to get there and the weather was sunny and beautiful so we thought we would visit the owls. It was a really nice day. After doing some owl visiting we then decided we would hit the shops and then we finished our day out with a delicious costa! I love girly days out! 

Castell coch is a lovely place to visit for the day. The castle and it's grounds are simply beautiful. I really enjoyed visiting here and I enjoyed the lovely walk around the grounds. The sunshine always makes you appreciate things so much more as everything looks so pretty. The greenery surrounding the castle was so stunning, the perfect place to picnic. Hallie enjoyed nosing around all the pretty views from her pram.

This park above is not far at all from where I live. Most evenings during this sunny weather we have been wrapping Hallie up snuggle and warm and taking her for a walk around the park. It's a lovely park with a great big lake. Hallie loves been walked and we love walking her. It's also a great way for me and Andrew to be improving out fitness and trying to keep ourselves healthy. We are both trying our best to exercise regularly and eat more healthier. 

As you can see I've had a really busy 2 weeks. I've enjoyed having this beautiful weather so much and I'm hoping that this keeps up. I can't wait to have more fun in the sun. I hope you enjoyed this post. I enjoy reading life posts and I really enjoy writing them to. Thanks for reading. Bye xxxxx

What's in my changing bag

Hi everyone,

I thought I would do a what's in my changing bag, since I love reading these posts and watching these videos on YouTube.

Hallie is currently 8 weeks old so this is what I carry with me for her..

The changing bag:

First of all I'll start off with the actual bag. I have a pink mayoral changing bag, I absolutely love it! I had it on offer in a baby boutique £29.99 instead of £69.99! I think I had a great bargain!

The bag is a lovely shade of pink with a pretty bow at the front, it goes perfect with my pram (a pink icandy strawberry 2) .. It's a great size and always fits in everything I need, I even used it as my hospital bag for all the babies things. It gives an option to either carry it using the handles as you can see below, or it comes with a strap, which is ideal for keeping it on the pram, I love that feature of the bag!! 

Inside the bag:

I always have with me nappys, nappy bags and baby wipes. I use aldi nappies, they are by far the best nappies I've used and I much prefer them to pampers! The nappy bags I have are just some I picked up from asda. I use the pampers sensitive wipes, they're the most moist wipes I've used. The only wipes I don't really like personally are huggies, I find them very drying. I also buy the pampers sensitive since Hallie has quite sensitive skin, like me!

I always have a few bibs with me, they're always handy incase of sickiness after a feed. I usually carry around 3 with me and sometimes a few muslin squares aswell.

A summer hat has been coming with me in my bag everywhere lately. Recently the weather where we are living in Wales has been boiling! I think it's essential to carry a hat for children incase they burn and also it keeps the sun out of their eyes. Hallie does not like to wear hats at all, but I've been trying my best with getting her to wear this for protection from the sun. This hat is £5 and it's from next. There is also a matching dress which I bought her to go with it, together they're a lovely summery set!

This is a different kind of hat, this is just a soft cotton material and is handy for when we are out in the evening since it keeps her head that little bit more warmer. This hat is also from next. It came in a set of 3 and I'm pretty sure they were £9!

Spare clothes are an essential I think in every changing bag. Weather it's from a poo explosion or sickness they're very handy to have, haha! I pack 2 spare vests and a baby grow with me.

I pack 2 pairs of spare socks. Hallie has a lovely habit of kicking off one sock most times when she wears them. I always have 2 spare pairs handy with me incase this happens.

I always carry toys with me in the changing bag. She's getting bigger now and is more interested in toys. She loves any rattle toys and crinkle toys. This one is called a sensory toy and I had it from tk maxx, it was £2.99 the RRP was £7.99 so I think I had this for a great price!

I always carry spare dummy's she likes to have a dummy when she sleeps.

These wipes are absolute life savers! They can be used to wipe dummy's, bottle teets and teethers. They are so handy when out and about because the dummy or bottle will often fall and these will clean it properly. They kill 99.9% of bacteria and viruses so these are brilliant to carry around. I even use them to wipe down toys if they fall on the floor! They're around £2.99 and I had them from tesco. Anyone with young children/babies, I strongly recommend these!

In my changing bag I always keep hand gel. I use it after using public changing rooms, after changing Hallie and after eating food etc. I always find myself reaching for sanitiser so I always keep it handy.

Freshener wipes. I use these to wipe down surfaces or wiping my hands  when out and about. I actually picked up a handful of these in the changing rooms in the harvester, I picked a good few up and so far they've come in handy!!

The only thing I haven't shown you is my feeds. I always take boiled water in a bottle (I use avent bottles) and keep the powder in the tommee tippee powder pots, I'll leave a link to them below. I had them for £2.99 in boots but can't find the link so here they are for £2.50 in tesco.

http://www.tesco.com/direct/tommee-tippee-closer-to-nature-milk-powder-dispensers-x6/130-2351.prd 

I recommend getting these, there are 6 pots and they hold the oz ready to tip into sterile water.

I normally will also always carry a ready feed with me incase I ever need a feed in a hurry, the cow and gate ones are normally 70p or £2.49 for a pack of 4. They are extremely useful to carry in a changing bag since you just tip them into the bottle and then the baby can drink them straight away.  

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this post! Has anyone else done a post like this? Or anyone else have a mammy blog like mine? I would love to have a read of your posts, feel free to leave a blog link below! :) 

Hallie's first Easter!

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a lovely Easter! It was Hallie's first Easter and we really enjoyed spending every minute of it as a family. I'm just going to show you a few things from our Easter.

Hallie's presents:

Above are some of the lovely gifts that Hallie had for Easter. She took a real liking to the little bunny which we have now called flopsy, she also really likes the little chick which makes cute sounds. She has had a few Easter eggs but she is only 8 weeks old so she obviously cannot eat them. I did give her a little cheeky taste of chocolate for the first time though. She only had a teeny tiny bit but she absolutely loved it. I think it's super cute how she had her first try of chocolate on Easter Sunday.

Easter treats:

Above you can see I also had some lovely special treats too. I had my first ever Easter card from my gorgeous baby Hallie which I love so much, along with lots of lovely gifts from family. I've been totally spoiled and I'm really greatful for everything.

Thankyou for reading this post, my Easter was so special and I had an amazing day! Xxx

Review on activities with babies

Hi everyone,

Sorry I haven't done a post in a while, mammy duties took over. My beautiful daughter Hallie Ann was born on 09/02/2015 and weighed 6lbs 1oz, she is now 7 weeks and 5 days.

I have been really enjoying my time off work and have been spending my maternity leave doing lots of fun activities with Hallie. I know some people may think that she is little for baby activities, but I think it's very important to dedicate time to playing with them and taking them out around other children from a young age.

Two of the things I have tried so far are sensory play and baby massage, so I'm just going to explain and do a short review on each.

Sensory play:

I took Hallie and my cousin lyla (who is 6 months) to sensory play on Wednesday. I had never been in a sensory room before and it really entrigued me to see what it was like. Hallie was sleeping when I first took her in the room, when she woke up she was amazed at all the lights and was looking all around the room at the pretty colours. Lyla enjoyed playing with the soft toys in the room and took a particular liking to the butterfly below. During the sensory play the room had a calming scent of lavender, this is a feature that I really liked! I would recommend anyone with little ones to take them into a sensory room, Hallie who's 7 weeks and Lyla who's 6 months both really enjoyed it! I also found it really calming and relaxing for myself too. 

Baby massage:

I took Hallie to baby massage on Monday with my friend Naomi and her little girl Monroe. It was our first time for us to try baby massage and didn't know what to expect, but I had heard great things about the classes. When we got there, there was a circle of changing mats all set up ready for the babies with some extra virgin olive oil next to the mat. They use this oil because it's the most natural moisturising oil to use on their skin. During baby massage you leave the babies with just a nappy on and lay them on a changing mat with a towel underneath them. A nursery nurse then holds the class and demonstrates on a doll the different massage techniques and the benefits that they have for the babies. An example of the benefits of baby massage are there are ones done on the tummy which are good for wind and prevention of colic. During baby massage Hallie was really relaxed and made all cute cooing noises whilst in the class, showing that she did like it and she even had a few cheeky smiles. She particularly liked the back and the tummy massage, but she wasn't too fussed on her arms being massaged. After the class, the nursery nurses gave an option for the babies to be weighed afterwards. I thought this was a great feature of the class. After the class both babies had a sleep and we think it really relaxed them. A benefit of any baby class is it gives you an opportunity to chat with other mammy's and for babies to play together. Overall me, Naomi and both babies really enjoyed the class and we are going to make a weekly thing of taking them. 

I hope you enjoyed this review, from now on this blog will have lots of mammy features and I will try to blog as much as I can. Thanks for reading, bye xxx

Healthy pregnancy (slimming world and exercise)

Hi everyone, 

I've not posted since the new year. One of my New Years resolutions was to keep myself healthy. The year before last and the beginning of last year I done slimming world and lost over 5 stone. I then stopped slimming world and put some of that weight back on. As some of you may know I am now 35 weeks pregnant. Since being pregnant I have only gained 15lbs which is actually pretty good (the midwifes are impressed) .. As part of my New Years resolution I decided to go back to slimming world. So on Friday that's exactly what I did. The plan I'm doing is the 'extra easy' plan like I did last year. The only difference is now being pregnant I have to have more healthy extras, which means for example I can have more bread and milk, which I'm happy with 😉.

So for anyone who doesn't know slimming world, it's a very easy diet to follow, to be honest it doesn't even really feel like a diet, it's more like just being aware of what your eating. Your aloud to eat a lot, there is no limit to how much you can have and you never have to go hungry. Every day your encouraged to have 'healthy extra's' one A and a one B choice, unless your pregnant then you can have two A and B choices.

Heathy extra A - this is basically dairy, so you can have milk or cheese as an healthy extra A.

Healthy extra B - Examples of this is, bread, cereals, and breakfast bars such as the hi-fi light bars (they're lovely).

Free food - you can eat as much free food as you like. Free foods include things like chicken, turkey, ham, potatoes, pasta, rice, fish, beans, eggs etc. There is literally loads, soooo much you can eat.

Super free speed food - these foods again you can eat as much of as you like. Your encouraged to have 1 third of your plate of food to always be super free speed food, this will boost your weight loss! These foods include a wide variety of fruit and vegetables.

Syns - syns are treats. So you need to syn up things like chocolate, crisps, pastries etc. Your encouraged to eat between 5 and 15 syns a day and it's very important that you do eat them. My favourite syns are either a curly wurly for 6 syns, or a ripple for 8.5 syns to satisfy my sweet tooth. I'm not really one for crisps (since being pregnant I've gone right off them). 

Here below are some picture of the types of foods I have been eating throughout the day.

Here I had porridge with raspberries. This was really nice! I had never tried raspberries in my porridge before and I actually really recommend it, it gave a sweet flavouring mixed in with the porridge, yummy! The porridge counted as my healthy extra B and the milk it's made with was my healthy extra A, the raspberries then were my super free speed food part of the meal.

Here I had tuna mayo pasta, with a side of salad and low fat ceaser dressing. The only thing on here that was syns was the mayonnaise and the dressing, I counted 3.5 syns for this meal. It was so yummy and filling though and well worth the small amount of syns.

Here I had salmon, boiled potatoes and green beans. I absolutely love salmon, plus it's really good for you (VERY GOOD during pregnancy too). This meal was very filling which is lovely after a long day. The salmon and potatoes are free food and the green beans are my super free speed food of the meal. 

Just because it's a diet doesn't mean you can't have chips 😉. These are slimming world chips. They're absolutely gorgeous to snack on and you can eat as much of them as you like, guess what.. They're totally free and no syns! I make mine using my actifry where you just chop potatoes, spray them with fry light (low cal cooking spray) and pop them in the actifry for 20-30 minutes... If you don't have an actifry what you do is boil the potatoes for around 6-8 minutes and then cut them into chip shapes, then place them in the oven for around 20-25 minutes. They taste just as nice that way too! I highly recommend these if your on slimming world or just eating healthier and looking for something to snack on, yummy!

Thst pretty much sums up slimming world in a nutshell! There are loads of slimming world groups around and the consultants that run them are always really lovely and ready to help. 

http://www.slimmingworld.com here is the link to the website where there is much more info on plans and where the groups are etc.

I'm planning on keeping up with slimming world and following the plan as best as I can. Being 35 weeks pregnant I realise it's not going to be the easiest. I just want to stress that I am not going to loose weight being pregnant, I'm going to keep myself healthy and eating the right sorts of foods. I'm not expecting any losses, the main thing is I'm keeping myself healthy and eating the right foods for both me and baby. I am planning on doing some exercise, I have been recommended to go swimming and try water exercises by the midwifes. I have joined the gym and I'm ready to start doing it and keeping myself in good health (this apparently helps with labour to, I hope so, haha) .. Tomorrow I will be going swimming, I'm aiming to do some lengths in the pool. I am also going to be taking part in aquasize, the trainer knows I'm pregnant and I've been told it's a great exercise when you are pregnant, I'm really looking forward to it because when I've been previously I've really enjoyed it.

Thanks for reading everyone! Hope this post wasn't to long and boring 😚 

Abbie xxx 

Pregnancy in autumn photo's!

Hi everyone, 

Yesterday me & my friend Alex decided that we should be more active and going for walks and just generally exercising a lot more. 

I'm now almost in my third trimester of pregnancy, tomorrow I will be 27 weeks, I have been told that it is good to keep fit and active, this can even help with labour! 

So yesterday we went to the local park. We first walked around the lake and then we walked up into the fields/forestry area around the park. Everything looked so lovely! Alex brought her camera along and we couldn't resist taking a few snaps! I'm 26 weeks, 5 days pregnant in these pictures!  

Autumn is by far one of my most favourite seasons of the year! I can never decide weather my favourite is autumn or winter, I would say it's a joint favourite. I think everything about autumn is just so pretty! 

Me and Alex both had a really nice day yesterday wandering the park finding all these pretty places! I enjoyed having these photos taken and I think it's lovely to be able to keep these and always remember the size of my bump etc at this stage in my pregnancy. I will hopefully have more photos similar to these taken later in my pregnancy (maybe a winter photo shoot) so that I can compare the difference!

Thanks for reading, bye!! Xxx

Pregnancy autumn pamper routine

Hi everyone,

I haven't done a post in a little while and since my last post autumn has began.

I love autumn, I love everything about it!

I would say this time of year; the autumn/winter months is 100% my favourite time of year, since I'm not really one for summer personally, espessialy since this summer I was pregnant, pregnancy and being too warm is an absolute NO NO! 

One of my favourite things to do at this time of year is pamper myself, take bubble bath's and just enjoy being all snugly at home.

So I'm going to take you through some of the things that I do;

Step 1) run myself a lovely relaxing bubble bath.

Lush now have their autumn/winter products out. I must admit I've already bought a few. This is "the Christmas hedgehog" bubble bar! Oh my god, this is amazing! It has a very relaxing, calming smell to it and it just had me completely chilled out in the tub. I've already used two of these and next time I'm in lush I will be purchasing more 

Step 2) light candles.

These 2 are my favourite candles at the moment. "Party time" is one I had as a birthday present off my mother, so I'm not to sure on where she bought it from. But if you do see it around, it's definetely worth giving a sniff! It smells lovely!

Blissful autumn is one of the Yankee candles brought out espessialy for this time of year, to be honest the only way to describe the smell of this is to say it smells exactly like autumn! Perfect relaxing, bath time candles.

Step 3) facemask

At this time of year in particular my skin seems to get really dry. I think it's really important to look after your skin! I have extremely sensitive skin so it's a struggle for me to find products that don't irritate it. When I came across this facemask in tesco for sensitive skin I thought it was worth a try. I must say it is amazing! For only 99p it always leaves my skin feeling so refreshed and soft and it's just like you've had a professional facial. I just love to chill out in the bath with this face mask on and totally relax. I really do recommend this for anyone with sensitive skin who does struggle to find a good facemask.

Step 4) Moisturise when out of the bath.

At the moment I'm loving the 'lush' massage bars I think they're great and leave skin smelling and looking gorgeous! This one is 'tender is the night' it smells absolutely gorgeous! .. Because I'm pregnant once I've used this I do also rub my bump and thighs with some palmers cocoa butter which I'm preferring to any of the other bump lotions at the moment! 

My skin always feels really soft after it and cocoa butter doesn't irritate my sensitive skin, plus cocoa butter smells amazinggggggg!! 

Step 5) New pj's!

Autumn/ winter time I find is a perfect excuse to treat yourself to new pj's. Plus I have a ever growing bump at the moment so I also used my bump as an excuse to treat myself! The checkered pj's are from new look. The fox pj's are from tesco and the slipper boots are from matalan. Slipper boots I find are also an absolute essential this time of year and these ones feel like how I imagine walking on clouds would feel!

Step 6) Pamper my feet.

I didn't want to display any pictures for this step because to be perfectly honest my feet are not very pretty right now and they are rather swollen at the moment. This step might mainly be for the pregnant women out there. Pregnancy does some strange things. One of the strange things it does is make your feet go swollen and you do feel rather achy. I find it really helps me to use a good foot lotion. The one I'm particularly enjoying at the moment is the 'soap and glory' heel genius. This works a treat. After using this I then spritz myself with 'the body shop' peppermint cooling foot spray. It cools my feet right down and it has the most loveliest smell.

You don't have to just be pregnant to pamper your feet mind. These products are worth giving a try even if your not pregnant! I'm going to be still using them after I've had the baby. 

Step 7) paint my nails/ toe nails

I'm loving the revlon nail varnish's at the moment. This colour is a gorgeous glittery pink, which I think is lovely for this time of year.

Step 8) fresh bed sheets!

I love jumping into lovely clean, fresh bed sheets after a relaxing pamper sesh and then snuggling up with a book! So this for me is an essential step in my pampering process! 

That's the end of my pregnancy pamper routine. I enjoyed writing this post because I enjoy reading posts like this myself. Hope you enjoying reading it! Thankyou bye!! Xxxxx