Christmas 2013

Just a few snaps of some of the gifts we received this Christmas. 

The Flood.

If any of you have seen the news this Christmas you will of seen major flooding in parts of the UK and that over 100,000 homes were without electricity. 

We were part of that figure. Unfortunately our Christmas ended up clouded by floods, no heating or light and constant worry about whether our home was going to be under 3ft of water when we got home. 

We had to leave our town on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because we had no power so couldn't cook, didn't have any heating, lighting, wifi, phone etc. It was awful. Honestly I didn't appreciate electricity enough until it was gone. 

We were fortunate that our home didn't get flooded and that although our Christmas wasn't spent at home we live close to our family and could spend our holiday with then. 

Here are some pictures of our town on Christmas Day. 

This is the main road leading out of our town. 

This was a field before the river burst it's banks. 

This is the access to our train station which was completely flooded also. 

The water levels have dropped a lot now so fingers crossed we can hold off with the rain. 

I hope you have all had a happy Christmas and enjoy the new year celebrations. 

Mia 13 month update

This month Mia is starting to become a little more confident standing unaided. We have started practising walking while she holds our hands. She can now walk just holding one hand rather than two. 

She is loving books this month, the turnig of the pages is what she loves the most haha! She is also starting to play more with we soft toys and dolls. She cuddles them which is so cute! She also loves musical instruments - I wonder if we have a young musician on our hands?! 

She has still got 6 teeth and is now wearing 6-9 month clothes. She's loves anything she's not supposed to have such as iPads and iPhones! Haha! She even knows how to use the middle button on the iPhone!

She's started saying 'oh' a lot and pointing at everything. 

Christmas is coming!

Mia turns one!

So my baby has finally had her 1st birthday and has reached the 1 year mark! 

She had a wonderful birthday party, I will write a separate post showing you the decorations and how we followed the Alice in wonderland theme. 

This month she is trying to free stand more although still not often. She is pulling up on everything and cruising loads! She also now has 6 teeth! 

She eats anything I offer her apart from egg, she's never been keen on egg in whichever form I try, scrambled, omelette, hard boiled etc. It's funny because my mum tells me I didn't like egg under the age of 2 either! 

She loves toys that require her to think and do something to get a reaction such as opening and closing, pressing buttons to make noises, musical instruments, rocking horse, books etc. 

Emotion

My baby is turning one in a couple of days! You may find this post bizarre especially if you don't have your own children but I feel really emotional about Mia turning one! It's like my baby is growing up suddenly. I'm fully aware that she's not going to suddenly be a walking, talking toddler as soon as she hits one it just feels like she won't be a 'baby' anymore. I've been making a lot of the decorations and favours myself for her party which has also been pretty emotional, especially the video compilation. What I will say is since I've been sorting through photos and videos for her party I'm so glad that I was camera happy with Mia because I have A LOT of photos and video footage to loom back on and remind me of all those memories we had of Mia being a newborn, learning to sit up, crawl etc. I would strongly suggest investing in a good camera for capturing family moments. 

Mia's Autumn favourites

                              Gift

                     Argos £19.99

                          Ikea £10

                 Christmas gift 2012 

I know the last one is a Christmas story and we're only in November but I was going through her books the other day and Mia spotted this one and now won't put it down! Haha! She loves looking at all the pictures and laughs her head off each time she turns the page! 

Mia's party dress

My mum made Mia this dress for her themed party. Can you guess what the theme is? If you are a regular reader I think I have mentioned the party theme in previous posts! 

Healthy breakfast

Berry porridge with blueberries. Mia loves blueberries and I try to give her some fresh fruit everyday. She loves bananas too! 

Weekly favourite

Mia's 11 month update!

It seriously feels like only 5 minutes ago I was writing Mia's 10 month update! Where does the time go? 

So Mia was 11 months on the 23rd, nearly one that's crazy!! She is cruising everywhere this last month and crawling really quickly now! She is still wearing 3-6 month clothing although we have put her in a few 6-9 month clothes too just to get some wear out of the lovely summery clothes she has before it gets too cold! 

This month she tried a fish finger for the first time and loved it! I felt pretty weird about it as I've been such a health freak when it comes to Mia's diet. But I just felt it was an ok time now to try a few different things like fish fingers. 

She has been loving any toys that have sounds and lights. She has a walker with a detachable activity toy which she adores. I will write a separate 'Mia's current favourites' as I haven't written one in a long while now!

She's been a nightmare this month with sleeping! Mia seems to of decided she doesn't want to have a bedtime or her own room and only wants to be sleeping with mummy and daddy. We are at a loss as to what to do. With us both working we are so tired by the time it's evening that we just don't have the energy to battle. We tried the battle. Lasted 4 hours still not sleeping baby and a mummy and daddy who just want to cry they're so tired and frustrated. Then a clingy baby for days afterwards! 

Public transport

I have decided to save money and use public transport instead of always taking the car. Today we decided to try the train. It's a quick service that goes from our town straight into London where I work without having to change trains or anything. It was actually pretty nice not having to drive for once and Mia slept the whole way. However we struggled to get the pram onto the actual train! The gap between the station edge and the train was massive! Luckily Adam was there this time to help us but I'm not sure I would be able to do it by myself. 

Luckily most London stations have lifts as well which makes travelling with a pram easier. Plus the gap between the train and platform at the London stations I use isn't too bad! 

However, coming home was a different story altogether. Trying to manipulate a buggy through rush hour in a packed out train station and then having to stand for 40 minutes on a packed train with a screaming baby was not fun. Not at all. I forgot to mention no one offers you a set in London! When I was 9 months pregnant it took Adam physically asking someone to get up! People try to avoid eye contact, pretend they haven't seen you standing there with your huge pregnant belly or your screaming baby who just wants her bottle but you can't really give it to her standing up on a moving train! To be quite honest that journey home wound me up! It made me feel negative towards people's manners and politeness. It made me feel that all Londoners are only interested in themselves and do not want to help  another person, never heard of help thy neighbour and all that?!

Anyway I have decided to trial the train again because maybe this was just one bad experience and the next time people will be helpful with getting the buggy on and off the train and considerate with offering seats. I hope I have got it wrong about people being inconsiderate because its very sad to think otherwise. 

The screams

People told me when I was pregnant that  you learn to zone out from the baby cries. This is so not true! Since having Mia I have been waiting for the day I can block her cries out, her cries go through me like nails on a chalk board! In the car if she has decided to throw a tantrum - yes we're getting into tantrums now because she isn't getting her own way and having someone sitting with her in the back, it is so distracting and annoying I have to stop the car and calm her down. I wish I could just ignore it since I know it's not that there is anything wrong and it is simply Mia deciding she doesn't want to do what she is doing. Her becoming a little madam has only come about these last 2-3 months - she is testing to see if we are strong or will give in. It's hard sometimes to not give in especially after a long day at work! We can only try our best and try to be strong as much as possible! 

Mia's favourite time of the day to test is definitely bedtime! Bedtime has been a bit of a disaster since I started working at a school 2 days a week. On those days I have to leave the house at 6:45am and therefore I'm getting Mia up at 6:30am when she usually sleeps in until 8:30-9am. I usually get home on those evenings at about 7:15pm and by that time I am just too tired to battle with her all night. I try to and Adam helps but it's just so hard knowing you have a long drive so early the next day and you won't be home the following day until gone 7pm. 

Wish us luck tonight because as I write this I am trying to get Mia to sleep!

Weekly favourite

Friendship

Mia's birthday wish list

Urban Decay: naked palette 2 review

I have been using this for about 2 months now so I felt it a good time to write a review. I'm not really a huge eyeshadow person. I don't wear it on an everyday basis, I tend to wear it if we are going out somewhere for the day or evening or if I'm having a particularly bad skin day where I feel the need to do a full face of makeup. The few occasions I have used the naked palette 2 though I have really enjoyed using it. I find the colours really pigmented and they stay on the eye really well. I don't use an eyeshadow primer *naughty I know!* but my eyeshadow tends to stay in place really well anyway. I like all he colours in the palette and find the they all go together well to create different looks. I'm in no way an expert in applying makeup but I've found it really easy to create the smokey eye which is the look I generally would go for on a night out.

Beautiful

I stumbled across these pin up pictures drawn by Duane Bryers. 

It just shows you don't have to be stick thin to be beautiful. 

Mia's 10 month update

Mia is 10 months old! I can't believe how fast the time is going. Pretty soon I am going to have a 1 year old! 

She's still a petit little thing and wears 3-6 month clothes but she is growing into 9-12 sleepsuits and 6-9 leggings. The problem is they're too short in length in 3-6 month now but the 6-9 month are too big in the waist! Such a pain! Lol. Someone invent baby belts haha! 

This month she is crawling everywhere and getting really quick. She is pulling herself up to standing on all the furniture all the time. She doesn't 'coast' yet but she does stand with only one hand supporting her! 

She eats anything and everything. Her favourites this month have definitely been pasta with daddy's homemade sauce, baby custard and baby yoghurts, broccoli and carrots. 

She is saying 'mama' a lot at the moment, I'm not sure she realises what it means but she knows she gets my attention when she says it. 

Weekly moans

So I thought I would add a new spin to my blog 'weekly moans' this might not be for everyone, but I do tend to find a great deal of things to complain about during the week, so I figured if I write them all down then, 

1. It's like a weight lifted from my mind. 

2. Some of these things might help those of you who also moan a lot, in the sense that you can moan with me! Yay!

3. It gives me at least one day a week where I will easily find tons of content to write about! Haha! So I know I will blog at least once a week!

Ok so here goes. This week I have 3 things to discuss which have really annoyed me this week. 

First thing is Mia being unwell. Now I'm not moaning at Mia herself just at the grubby soft play places that keep making her catch horrid bugs! Why can't they just clean their equipment regularly?! It's horrendous at night. She's really struggling to sleep and when your a working mum you really need to function at work, I have a long drive to and from work with Mia in the car so I need to be well alert on the road. 

Second moan of this week is nPower energy suppliers...now we have recently moved into a property and our agent dealt with the transferring of accounts for us (how kind you say, more hassle then it's worth I say!) basically we have two problems. Firstly they spelt Adams surname completely wrong - ok so this is easily rectified. However what's worse is, I always deal with all the utility bills, I'm the best with sorting issues and although I work as well I have 2 mornings a week off so therefore I'm available to call them when Adams working. Now because they have put the account into his name they won't tell me anything! They won't change the account into my name now which is just ridiculous and even if I add myself I'm still unable to set up direct debits or discuss the account, funny they let me make a payment though, they don't mind taking your money!!! So this is just very annoying, now means Adam has to deal with any issues we may have, which if I'm honest most men are pretty bad at! Haha! 

Third moan: petrol prices. Need I say more?! Any of you living in the UK will know how much our petrol prices have risen. it's getting to the point where it's almost too expensive to drive. I miss the days of 70p per litre! I guess it's kind of like the buses though, 79p per adult and 40p for children, alas no more! 

I would love to hear the things that have been getting on your nerves this week. Please leave them in the comments below :)

Tea

An absolute must when you've had a night like I've had.....

Germs

Ok so that fun day I blogged about yesterday, turns out Mia has caught a horrible cold from the soft play place we visited! Sadly her little friend Alice also has a terrible cold as well which is how we know that was definitely where it was caught. 

It really makes me upset when these things happen because it really puts me off taking her again. It makes me feel like a bad mummy because she had a great time but all I'm thinking is 'we're never going to one of those again during school term time because mummy has to work and can't stay up all night with a sick baby' 

Of course I hate seeing Mia unwell but I am quite aware that she will catch these viruses until she builds up a stronger immunity and in order to do that she needs to be exposed to germs. 

She comes with me everyday to work where I teach children and she is exposed to germs (although not quite on the same scale of number of children as a soft play area) but still we have children coming in and out all afternoon and she has caught the odd cold here and there but it seems each time we go into these soft play places she catches a nasty bug!

You just don't know how often these places are disinfected and cleaned, which I suspect is not very often. 

I know I've said before I'm put off taking her to these cafes the last time she was sick but now I just feel like i should of listened to myself more the last time she got ill. 

I hope she feels well soon and that Alice feels better soon too! 

A fun day