Loosing the baby weight

Hi everyone,

Today I thought I would do a post on weight. Weight is quite a sensitive subject with me. In all honesty I've struggled with my weight since I was around 13/14 years of age. Just before I fell pregnant I started to do slimming world and successfully lost 5 stone. I think this is also contributing to how I managed to fall pregnant with Hallie (I have polycystic ovaries) during my pregnancy I tried my best to eat healthy and exercise as regularly as I could. I only gained 10lbs throughout my whole pregnancy, which is actually reasonably good. After having Hallie I went back to slimming world and on my first week back I lost 17lbs which meant I had in fact lost the baby weight and an extra 7lbs on top. Since then I have coninued to loose weight and I am now an extra 14lbs down. So I've lost a total of 31lbs since having the baby.

But I did and still do still have the jelly belly (to put it nicely, haha) and I would ideally like to loose another 3 stone. I know this is going to be a gradual process and I'm not in a major hurry to loose it, it's not just for the Weightloss I want to do this for the health benefits too.

My diet isn't the best. I'm very much an eat on the go kind of person and I don't do a lot of cooking. I thought I would show you an example of what I may eat in a week, kind of like a meal plan. Hopefully this will help anyone who is trying to loose any extra weight or just maybe trying to get healthier.

Meal plan:

Monday -  

Breakfast: Granola, low fat natural Greek yogurt and a banana.

Dinner - Wholemeal pitta bread, ham, salad and tomato.

Tea - Tuna, mayo pasta.

Snacks - Chocolate freddo.

Tuesday -

Breakfast: Wholemeal toast with sliced banana on top.

Dinner: Jacket potato with cheese and beans.

Tea - Slimming world chips, fried egg and ham.

Snacks - Bag of skips, grapes.

Wednesday -

Breakfast - Porridge with raspberries. 

Dinner: Chicken salad sandwich.

Tea: Chicken, mushroom stir fry.

Snacks- bar of galaxy.

Thursday - 

Breakfast - fruit salad with low fat natural Greek yogurt.

Dinner: Beans on toast.

Tea: Steak, potatoes, mushrooms and onions.

Snacks: cookies & cream flavoured kitkat.

Friday -

Breakfast - Low fat peanut butter spread with Wholemeal toast.

Dinner: Salmon salad.

Tea: Chicken & prawn curry with boiled rice. I buy the sainsbury's own brand curry sauce it's low fat and really tasty. 

Snacks: Can of full fat normal coke.

So that was just roughly the kind of things I would eat on a daily basis. I've not got a perfect diet, I'm still having my daily treats but this is just what works for me. 

Exercise

Alongside eating well I also try my best to exercise regularly. Since having the baby exercise can sometimes be difficult to squeeze in. We will often go for walks as Hallie loves being in her pram. Another exercise I can do whilst still having Hallie with me is swimming. I've taken Hallie swimming a few times. She loves being in the water and it's also keeping me healthy at the same time.

Recently I have started attending more exercise classes. I used to go to exercise classes before having Hallie and they helped me to keep fit and I really enjoyed them. Me and my friend Alex decided to go back to the classes. We have done 'kettle bells' which is a really good class! It's high intensity and it works your whole body. We have also tried 'begin to spin' this class has been given a medium intensity rating, but honestly it's so hard! To put it nicely the sweat was dripping off me! That was such a hard work out. My legs and back side were killing haha!

I hope you enjoyed reading my post, hopefully it's maybe given you some inspiration to get a more healthier lidetyle. Thankyou for reading! 

Has anyone else been doing anything lately to keep healthy? Or tried any new exercise classes? I would love to hear about them!

A day in the life, mammy and baby.

Hi everyone Hallie turned 17 weeks old yesterday! Time has truly flied by! Exactly a year ago today I found out I was pregnant. It's crazy how quick it's gone!  Hallie is now 4 months old and I thought I would do a 'day in the life' post. This is my day in a life from yesterday 8/6/15

9:30am - Hallie slept the whole night through so I woke her ready for breakfast. Lately she has been managing to move herself up the cot and turn onto her side, so she ends up side ways in the cot, I have no idea how she does this! So I continuesly will move her back the right way up during the night. 

9:45am - Andrew leaves for work. Hallie has her first bottle for the day, a 6oz bottle. Even though she's been the whole night without a feed she will never normally drink the full bottle, she will usually drink between 4 and 5oz. 

10:15am - breakfast! Hallie always has porridge for breakfast, she will either have creamy porridge or banana porridge. Yesterday I chose creamy porridge for her. I find this will fill her up and she really enjoys it. We've only just started the weaning process. So far she is having lots of fun exploring different foods. Porridge is a definite favourite of hers!

10:45am - We start to get ready to leave the house for the day. I start with packing my bag. Then I give Hallie a wash and dress her, lastly I get dressed and try to make myself look remotely acceptable by doing something with my hair and makeup! Hallie always looks amazing and I normally look like I've just rolled out of bed haha! 

11:30am - We leave the house and go to pick up friends ready for baby group. 

12pm - baby group. Yesterday we went to language and play with my friend Nerys and her baby, Rosie is 3 months older than Hallie and they really do love eachother already! Both babies really enjoy language and play. I love going to baby groups the atmosphere is always lovely. It's a great place to meet other parents and for babies to also be around other babies. The session will always start off with us all reading a story in a circle with the babies, then we will make a craft relating to the story. We made handprints and footprints because we read the story 10 fingers and 10 toes. They always try to get the babies as involved with craft time as we can. Then we let the babies play for a bit there's loads of toys down there. Yesterday there was a big foil blanket and the babies loved it! They loved the sounds it made and the feel of it. Before the session ends we play knock on the box. This is a game where there are lots of toys in the box and we always say "knock on the box, who's there, lift up the lid..." Then a child will choose any toy they like out of the box, then we sing a song relating to the toy they choose. Hallie chose a duck so we sang 5 little ducks. Rosie chose a crocodile so we sang 3 cheeky monkeys. They loved language and play and we always make sure to try to take them every week! 

1:00pm - language and play finished and we went straight to the sensory room because we had privately booked it for the babies for 30 minutes. It was lovely and relaxing to go there afterwards and It chilled us all out.  I actually think I could have fallen asleep in there. The baby's really love it, it's full of lights, bright colours, relaxing music and things for them to look at. Hallie also had a 6oz bottle in the sensory room and a change.

1:30pm - left the sensory room and went for a little drive with the babies when they had a nap in their carseats and me and nerys gossiped. They're always tired after baby group and need a nap. 

2:15pm - Arrived home and me and Hallie had dinner. Hallie had some apple, she loved it! I peeled and cut the apple, boiled it for 10 minutes then blended it. I make most of Hallie's meals up fresh because she prefers it and will eat more that way, I also think it's also much healthier for them without all the additives etc that's put into baby food.

I cooked myself some tuna mayo pasta, which is one of my faves.

3pm - After dinner Hallie had a little lie and kick about on her playmat. 

3:30pm - Hallie watched 20 minutes of TV, (peppa pig) in her bouncer and I hoovered and the house before Andrew arrived home from work, I like to relax with him when he comes home and not have to think about doing things like hoovering. I don't like her to watch anymore than 20 minutes a day. 

4pm - Andrew arrives home and Hallie goes in her jumparoo when I make him tea, he had spaghetti bolegnaise. Hallie has a 6oz bottle with him.

4:30pm - When Andrew has his food, Hallie has some time in her swing and I have a clean of the kitchen and do the washing, ironing and mop the floors. I also decided I would burn my new candle I had from my birthday on Sunday. This is vanilla lime, it leaves such a lovely scent when burning!

Whenever I clean I always have candles burning I love a fresh smelling home. Yankee candles are my all time favourite candle.

5:30pm - We go for a walk most evenings, the weather where we live is gorgeous and we only live about 2 minutes away from the local park. So yesterday evening we went on our usual walk and done 3 laps of the lake. Me and Andrew are trying our best to get fitter and eat healthier we are hoping to keep this up! I always feel so lovely and refreshed after a walk and I like Hallie to get some fresh air.

6:30pm - Bath. Hallie has a bath if not every night then every other night. She loves bath time, it really settles her nicely before bed. Last night she went in the big bath (our bath) she loves splashing in there. Some nights we will use the baby bath or the top and tail bowl if we are just giving her a quick wash. 

7pm - Hallie had 4oz of her bottle and spent some time on her playmat and then cuddled up on the sofa with me & her daddy.

7:45pm - Hallie has a small nap. 

8:30pm - Hallie wakes up, has a change and we read a story together. We read a touch and feel book which is an interactive book for babies. It tells little rhymes and a story, and has things to touch, we love this book. I love spending quality time reading with her in the evenings.  

9:15pm - Hallie has a 6oz bottle and cwtches in. (We are welsh, incase you're not welsh, cwtch means cuddle)

9:45pm - Hallie goes to sleep and then we put her in her cot for the night. She will normally sleep the whole night through and as usual she did! She's such a good baby! 

This is pretty much a daily routine for us and is what happens on most days. I hope you liked reading this. I love reading other people's posts like this! Thank-you for reading! 

New hair and Afternoon tea

Hi everyone,

Today me, my family & friends all went for afternoon tea as part of an early birthday celebration for me, I turn 21 on Sunday! You only turn 21 once so I'm starting it the right way; tea, cake and gossip! 

We went for tea in the angel hotel in Abergavenny. I've been here previously for my 19th birthday and really enjoyed it. Andrew looked after Hallie for me to go with the ladies and Sam as it's not really the most child friendly of places although I would have loved to have brought her with us, I missed her loads! 

Now that I am turning 21 I fancied a change I wanted something to make me look a little bit older. Plus now that im a mammy I want to branch out a bit from my usual hair style and be a bit more adventurous. After a lot of thinking and a brave decision, I decided I wanted to go quite a bit lighter. I'm really happy that I did make this decision! When I told Sam I had made the decision to go lighter he pretty much jumped at the chance to do my hair. He owns a beauty salon called 'Sam's beauty bar' and he's a newly qualified hair dresser. I must say he done an amazing job since he's only just qualified! Having a friend who owns a beauty salon really has it's benefits! He got my hair colour lighter by adding in some foils. He also curled it for me which I really like. My curls are naturally messy Afro curls, he curled it very neatly and got the curls exactly how I like them. The outfit that I wore for the tea is this little black dress with a blue & white floral pattern all over it. It's £25 from next and it's a lovely comfortable fit. 

When we arrived at the Angel we got given menu's and had to choose if we wanted the set afternoon tea or the high tea, we all chose the high tea as this also included strawberries & cream and pastries along with the usual afternoon tea items. This cost £26.80, it's well worth it!

My favourite things of all were the salmon on crisp bread and the scone with clotted cream and jam! Everything was so delicious! 

When it came to choosing my tea I had earl grey, I loved it! I normally take milk in my tea but I don't with this tea because the taste is enough by itself without needing to add the milk. It has a very rich, strong taste, I suppose you could say it's an aquired taste, personally I really like it!

If you live local to Abergavenny I would really recommend a visit! I can pretty much guarantee you won't be disappointed. 

I had a lovely start to my birthday celebrations I have a family meal planned at a resteraunt on Sunday for my actual birthday which I am really looking forward to. 

Has anyone else tried afternoon tea? Maybe even at the angel? What's your favourite part of afternoon tea?

Thanks so much for reading! Xx

Bank holiday and vintage fayre!

I love a bank holiday. I love having special family days out on bank holidays. Today was bank holiday Monday and me, Andrew, my mother, my friend Sam and of course baby Hallie all went to Cardiff bay.

We first had food in oriental garden which is a lovely Chinese buffet. I love it in there! I find that it's really child friendly and the food is always really nice at a great value for money. We only paid £7.99 and it was all you can eat, you can't go wrong for that great price! Oriental garden is inside the red dragon centre so whilst we were eating our food we noticed that the characters from monsters ink, mike and sullie were walking around the centre. After food we took Hallie to see them! She was fascinated it was so cute.

We then took a lovely walk over to the bay. The bay is such a pretty place to take a walk and Hallie loves being in her pram. We went past the millenium centre and noticed there was a vintage fayre going on. I couldn't miss the opportunity to pop in. They had lots of different stalls selling all vintage things like clothes, homeware and jewellery. The clothes were so lovely to look at! They also had people dancing to 70's music it was a lovely atmosphere. Hallie seemed to enjoy listening to the music, she always loves music, she definetely takes after me! I picked myself up a gorgeous pair of floral sunglasses in the vintage fayre for only £5 and also a lovely candle.

When we left the vintage fayre we walked by the harbour and noticed they were doing fast boat rides on a speed boat. Myself, Sam and my mother went on. It was so much fun! The boat went super fast and went over the waves really fast and tilted us to the side! It was so funny! Our hair went wild and we couldn't stop laughing! 

I really enjoyed my bank holiday! It was a perfect day out! How did you spend your bank holiday? :) thanks for reading! xx

Labour and delivery

Here is the story of Hallie's birth. Be warned this contains a lot of detail! 

My pregnancy with Hallie was not exactly the smoothest of pregnancies. I started having dizzy spells from around 20 weeks, at 32 weeks my rib cracked and from pretty much the moment I found out I was pregnant I developed severe exzema from all the hormone changes. All these factors led my consultant to decide I needed to be induced. At 38+4 on Friday 6th February I was taken into hospital for my induction, I was terrified and excited at the same time. I was given a 24 hour pessary first to see if this would get things moving. I think I had it in my mind that I would have this pessary and instantly be in active labour. I was extremely wrong. I felt no different with the pessary, I was gutted. The following day 24 hours later it was removed and I was examined to be told there was no progress. Next they tried a 6 hour pessary. With this pessary I walked the whole length of the hospital about 40 times over. At one point I distinctively remember star jumping, squatting and running, probably the most exercise I'd done in a long time. 6 hours later again I was examined and again there was no progress.

In the evening I started to cry to one of the nurses I had been in the hospital such a long time and had no idea the induction process would take so long. Girls were coming in and leaving with their babies and I felt like I was making no progress at all. The nurse agreed to arrange me a sweep with a dr called dr jazz who is known for starting people off. Another DR came to examine me before Dr jazz and she gave me a sweep. Honestly it was horrific, I cried my eyes out. I was linked up to the heart monitoring machine and after my sweep Hallie went into distress. I was kept on the machine for an hour and a half in total until 2 dr's came in and had a discussion with me. They told me they were going to take me to labour ward immediately to see if they could break my waters to start my labour off, if they were unsuccessful with breaking them I would have an immediate section because of the baby starting to become distressed. I was taken to labour ward where I was again linked to the heart monitor machine they were keeping a close eye on Hallie's heartbeat, It seemed to have settled down a lot and was now going at a normal pace again. I was given gas and air and the legendary dr jazz tried to see if she could break my waters. I was only half a CM dilated and they told me this normally isn't attempted until at least 3CM. The thing used to break my waters to me just looked like knitting needles. After what felt like hours she eventually broke my waters. It was the oddest feeling there was just so much water I couldn't believe it had all came from me. I was aloud to sort myself out and have a clean up and then I was linked straight to the hormone drip. They started me on a low dosage but within 2 hours my contractions were coming every minute, they had over stimulated the hormone drip. I was in agony! I coped with gas and air until the midwife said she felt the best thing would be an epidural. My epidural arrived within a few minutes. They had a problem inserting my epidural and I had a bleed on my back. They eventually inserted it. When testing my epidural they realised it had failed as I was still feeling the contractions and they were stronger than ever. They then took my epidural out and they tried again to insert it. Again I could feel everything so it was removed. They called this a failed epidural and apparently it's extremely common. I didn't even know they could fail! Going through the labour with just my gas and air was hard. My pulse and oxygen levels kept dropping and the midwife was constantly checking I was responsive. At one point an alarm sounded and lots of DR's rushed In. I just remember it like a blur they were all standing around me and checking me over. The midwife examined me at around 1pm and said I was 4cm. I was feeling all the pain above my left hip, they inserted a cathator to see if releasing my bladder would help, it didn't relieve any of the pain. When it came to 4 o'clock I was naturally pushing I was addiment I was ready, the midwife told me there wouldn't have been that much progress so quickly but I knew I had to push. I insisted on being examined and I was right, I was 10cm!! I was told to take in massive gasps of air, hold my breath and then push as hard as I could. All my pain was still being around my left hip area. Hallie started to become in distress again and there was now 2 midwifes in the room they told me I really needed to push as I was now at massive risk of having a section and her head wasn't even fully crowning yet but it could be seen. This was clearly the motivation I needed. On my next contraction I held my breath and I pushed as hard as I could with all my strength and then Hallie just came out in a big massive pool of water. The midwifes actually had to try and catch her because they didn't expect her to come the way she did without crowning! I knew she was in distress and that gave me the most motivation it could have to get my little girl safely into this world. She was Born on 9/2/15 at 4:28pm. The cord was wrapped around her neck so they did have to act quickly! My little girl was then passed to me and Andrew cut the cord. I instantly fell in love with her! She weighed 6lbs 1oz (which is small considering I was now exactly 39 weeks and was told to expect a big baby!) I was then back on the gas and air an hour later when they fitted my internal stitches.  

We were then taken back to the maternity ward and were aloud home the following day. When we arrived home I started getting horrendous headaches. They kept getting worse. A midwife visited the following day and by this point the headaches were so bad I couldn't lift my head off the pillow without screaming in agony. The midwife told me it was a side effect of my failed epidural and I may even need surgery called a spinal block, as there was a leakage on my brain caused by the failed epidural. I was taken straight back into hospital immediately that day where I was linked to a drip giving me the fluids I was loosing from the leakage on my brain. Dr's were also giving me lots of painkillers and heaps of caffeine which is known to help this pain. These headaches were so horrendous it was honestly worse than my labour pains. I was so annoyed that I had been pressured into having the epidural and I was now having all this agony and the epidural hadn't even worked! I had done my labour on just gas and air. After hours of having these fluids they allowed me to go home. It took a few days for these headaches to fully disappear. It was awful I felt like I couldn't really do a lot and I needed help doing everything when all I wanted to do is be the best mammy I could to Hallie. As soon as the headaches cleared I was so happy I could finally be pain free and enjoy doing everything I wanted with my little girl.

Hallie is now 15 weeks old and I love her more than I could ever imagine I could ever love anything! I didn't have the easiest labour Andrew, my mother and my nan were amazing, I couldn't have done it without them! But I would honestly do it all over again 10 times over because being a mammy is the best feeling in the world and I've never felt a happiness like it! I love my perfect little family! 

Thankyou for reading! Xx

Weaning

Hi everyone,

Today I thought I would do a post on weaning. Hallie is currently almost 15 weeks old and I have been preparing for our upcoming weaning stage. I have made the choice to start weaning her properly at around 4 months, I'm aware some people may think this is a little young and some will choose to wait till 6 months, but myself and my health visitor think she is ready. She's been having a few little tastes of some things I've been making up ready for the freezer and so far she is loving it. My blender is really good and it blends the food so smooth there is never any lumps and the consistency is perfect for her to be able to have a taste.

My plan is to continue making as much of Hallie's food up fresh as I can.

Some of the things I have made up to freeze so far are

*carrot and potato 

*peas

*brocolli and potato 

*banana

*carrot & swede

*carrot, swede & brocolli

Hallie has tried little tastes of all the food above, so far her all time favourite is banana. She loves banana. I think it's because of the sweet taste. My plan is to try to wean her and get her used to vegetables before getting her used to eating sweet tasting fruit, I want her to love eating vegetables too!

I have had a lot of recipe ideas from this annabel karmel quick & easy weaning book. It has lots of recipes and tells you the best foods for first tastes and then what to give them after first tastes etc. I'm finding this book very helpful and I'm looking at getting some more of her books.

 

I have also stocked up on things like porridge, banana porridge, rusks and baby rice. She's had a little taste of the porridge's and also tasted rusk mixed in with milk. She is a big fan of the banana flavour porridge so far! I have also bought a couple of the ready made sachet foods, I chose the Ella's kitchen sachets. I picked up peaches and baby rice and also mangoes and baby rice. I thought these are useful to keep in my changing bag incase I do ever need to use them. 

The products which I have bought for weaning vary. I have bought the tommee tippee food pots as you can see above (the pink pots) they were on offer for a pack of 4 in asda for £1 so I bought a few packs of them. I also picked up a couple of the mothercare own brand packs of food pots. I have bought the munchkin multicolour spoons from 4+ months, a pack of 7 was also £1 in asda which I thought was a great price so I had a few packs of those too and I have some of the mothercare own brand spoons which are also very good value for money.

I have been so excited to start this weaning process. Hallie is a very hungry baby and so far she is really enjoying the little tastes we have been giving her, so I'm looking forward to properly starting this exciting weaning process.

Thanks for reading xx 

Mini next haul

Hi everyone,

Today I done a little bit of shopping in Next. Next is my all time favourite place to shop for Hallie. The quality of the clothes is always amazing and they wash so nicely. In all honesty, there isn't a lot of clothes in Next that she doesn't own, I'm such a massive fan!

Today I just wanted to pick up a few pieces. I wanted to branch away from buying so much pink. As much as I love little girls in pink clothes, I think it's nice to add more colour for a change, here is what I picked up, you'll have to excuse the poor quality on the pictures I'm only using my Iphone camera taking these.

I love the print on this playsuit. It's different from most floral patterns you see with little girls clothes and the bright colours are perfect for summer, this was only £9. I'm pretty impressed with that price and I think she will get lots of wear out of this.

I bought these leggings with the same floral print on, these were a great price of only £4! You honestly can't go wrong with such a pretty pair of leggings for such a great price.

These trousers are different to anything I've seen for a baby. They're baggy by the bum, then fitted by the ankles. I actually have a similar pair to these myself and find them so comfortable to wear, they're like pyjamas when I'm wearing them.. So I couldn't resist picking Hallie up a pair, she will probably love how baggy they are, and will feel like she has lots of room to wiggle in them. These were £10.

This dress is my favourite of all the items, my nan bought this for her. I love giraffe's, they're one of my favourite animals. This dress is so cute I just couldn't resist. This was £15. 

This little shirt is so adorable. I'm loving the all the yellows so much at the moment, so perfect for summer. This was £12.

I picked up this pack of 3 socks because they go with all the outfits I picked up. They were only £5 which I think is a great price.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this mini haul.