Night time natter

Good old chit-chat

It's 12:30am, I'm laying in bed wide awake, Evangeline is is fast asleep in her mosses basket to the left of me, although she'll be awake soon for a feed and cuddle, Zachary's sleeping to my right. I'm not at all tired, which is rather odd for me, I'm usually always tired, but nope...not tonight - I'm wide awake and just can't seem to sleep? So instead I thought I'd write a post having a 'night time natter'.

I don't know why, but 95% of the time; unless I'm ridiculously tired - I have so much to talk about the moment myself and Zachary snuggle up under the duvet. I find myself rambling on about absolutely nothing, or making important plans like what we're doing on the weekend - haha. A majority of the time I think I pretty much talk to myself as every time I turn to look at Zachary he's always asleep, bless him. And I guess tonight is just one of those nights that I have so many things, or thought's running through my brain that I can't possibly drift of to sleepy town - the fact I've picked my phone up and starting typing this probably doesn't really help the situation haha.

So I've been really slacking on my blog this last week, well, pretty much the whole of November. I've been so set into a routine with my uploads and practically post the same time each and every week, the odd day change has been occuring quite a bit...but at least once a week. And I feel like I've completely neglected my blog pretty much the whole of this month - which isn't fab...however I did promise that I'd upload 2 this week! I don't think that'll actually happen, but hey, I can try!

I can't believe just how quickly Christmas is coming around! I believe that we are pretty much already half way through November, its the 16th today, my dads birthday - so I'll be spending the afternoon at my parents, of course I'll have to wait until he finishes work first; and plus I've still got to pop into the shop and grab him a few more presents!

I've only just started my Christmas shopping, which isn't like me at all...I usually have at least half of my Christmas shopping complete now - but nope, I have only ventured into 1 or 2 shops to buy presents....I tend to find myself buying clothes for Evie instead haha. Which I should probably stop, mainly because she has more clothes than she could possibly wear in 3-6 months and the same happened with her newborn clothing and 0-3 clothing, we've probably sold or thrown away 30, if not more items that shes never worn. But I just can't help myself; I see an item, know she'll look absolutely gorgeous and end up buying it haha.

So our house has been pretty hectic this week filled to the brim with workmen, we've been nonstop- which you would've thought would make me tired, me to...but apparently not!

So this weekend we're going to be taking Evie swimming for the first time, mainly because I can't actually swim...but also because I wasn't to comfortable with being in a bikini or swimming costume. But regardless, its only been 4 months since having Evangeline - and being completely honest, I very much doubt that anyone will actually care about how I look or what I'm doing, because they'll be far to focused about what their doing. Its just taken me a little while to realise this, but better late than never. She loves bath time and having a splash around, so I have a feeling she'll love swimming, but we'll see.

Anyway, I think I'm going to wrap it up here; or I'll never get to sleep.. so thanks for reading, it means a lot. And I'll speak to you in my next post.

Formula feeding and tommee tippee review :

Mummy Chats:

I wanted to do a post kind of having a ‘mummy chat’ with you beautiful bunch; I’ve been asked a few times – particularly in person as to why I didn’t breastfeed Evangeline. So I wanted to talk a little about that, so that those of you that were wondering will have an insight as to a reason why. I’m also adding in a review on our ‘Tommee Tippee closer to nature easivent feeding bottles’.

So starting right from the beginning- the whole idea of breast feeding was something that I intend to do upon finding out that I was pregnant. I had done a bit of research and spoken to my midwife about breastfeeding and formula feeding, and being completely honest after looking into the pros and cons of both, I wasn’t bothered about which one I would end up doing, in my opinion as long as your baby is gaining the nutrients he or she needs, as long as you baby is thriving why does it matter how you feed them.

I know that there a people out there that judge us mummies for making the decision to breastfeed and for choosing to formula feed – throwing negative comments about either. Anyway, going back to the decision I had made in regards to feeding our baby. As I said I did intend to breastfeed, but wasn’t to bothered either way.

I was prepared to breastfeed we had bought a breast pump, breast pads, milk storage bags – everything that we felt we needed. When packing mine and Evangeline’s hospital bag these were all things I had placed into the bags, products that we felt I would need; obviously we ended taking way more than what we needed haha. We also added a ready made formula and some bottles into our bags, just in case we needed it and boy am I glad we did. I think every first time mum has those thought’s running through their head “what if my milk doesn’t come in?”, “what if I can’t do it?” so many different thoughts, and in actual fact the reason that I couldn’t breastfeed was actually something I hadn’t heard of before, although now I’m aware that it is incredibly popular.

Your probably all thinking ‘well what was the reason then?” after Evangeline was born, I was taken into the recovery ward – this was due to having a csection. When in the recovery ward I had my first attempt at breast feeding, around 10 am. The midwife helped me to try and get Evie to latch; but she wouldn’t. Obviously I started to panic thinking that maybe I was doing it wrong, maybe she wasn’t in the correct position; the midwife said she wasn’t concerned because not every baby is hungry straight away. Which eased my mind.

Through the day up until around 6pm I was constantly trying to persuade Evangeline to latch, with the help of my mum, midwife and a breastfeeding specialist- but she just wouldn’t. I was given the option to self express and syringe my colostrum into Evangeline’s mouth; which we tried but not going to lie I was to out of it on medication that it became to much, I just wanted her to feed at this point and after around 8 hours of trying I was becoming extremely concerned and stressed, and myself and Zachary made the decision to try her on a bottle of the ready made formula – you know, the one that comes in those tiny cute bottles. And she latched straight away, feed for about 10 minutes and took 30ml or just over 1 ounce. Which was such a relief, a relief that she was finally feeding. Although I did blame myself, thinking it was the positioning or my milk. But the truth is it wasn’t either of our faults.

The next morning the paediatrician came around the ward to check Evie, to discharge her from the hospital, they do this for every baby; carrying out routine checks. Which is were the reason we couldn’t breastfeed was found, Evangeline was diagnosed with tongue-tie. It’s a condition involving the tongue  (obviously). Normally the tongue is loosely attached to the bottom of the mouth with a piece of skin called the lingual frenulum – however in babies that have tongue tie this piece of skin is particularly tight and short, preventing them from being able to breastfeed or in fact some babies can’t feed at all. Fortunately Evie’s tongue tie didn’t prevent her from feeding with a bottle. So we’re very lucky. I will say to anyone who is in the situation of their baby not latching defiantly ask for your baby to be checked for tongue tie.

Anyway, moving on. Let’s change subject to the review. Since Evie’s arrival we’ve purchased and trialled a variety of different bottles by numerous companies, however none seemed to work for Evie – I guess this is because she couldn’t quite get to grips of the bottles I suppose, or she just couldn’t work with the teat...I’m sure you understand what I mean, or at least I hope you do. But we finally found the perfect bottles for her, the Tommee Tippee closer to nature bottles. These are absolutely fabulous, Evangeline latched and feeds on these bottles like a dream and I don’t think we will ever change to any other bottles. When trying other bottles we found that Evangeline would just move the teat into the side of her mouth, and a majority of the milk would end up running down her chin.
Anyway, moving swiftly on – I’m just rambling…

So lets talk about the products or bottles:
The great thing about these bottles is that the teat is shaped to help encourage natural feeding. Also meaning that it is incredibly easier for baby to switch from breast to bottle. Fortunately these bottles work extremely well for Evangeline, she has a perfect latch and doesn’t dribble or loose any milk when she is feeding, unlike some of the other bottles that we have tried. Ironically, a high percentage of babies that have tongue tie tend to be unable to feed on bottles that mimic the breast, however that isn’t the case for Evie. The bottles we bought came in a set of 6, all of which had attached a slow flow teat – suitable from birth up. They are BPA free and can be held 3 different ways and offer the most natural feeding position. Our bottles in specific come in two sizes, 150ml and 260ml – we used the 150ml up until Evie was around 1 month old, and now use the 260ml. Another thing I love about these bottles, is due to the size Evie can easily grip and hold onto the body of the bottle, I really hope you know what I mean by body lol.

I love these bottles and would strongly recommend them. We also use the tommee tippee dummies, which are just as fab!

I’m going to end my review and chit-chat here, other wise it’ll probably end up being 320,967 pages long haha, thank you for reading; and I’ll speak to you in my next post.

Happy birthday to me

Another year older:

So it’s my birthday in a few days, although when I hope to upload this post, it will in fact be the day of my birth - 26th October to be precise, hmm, actually it’ll probably be the day after being completely honest, I doubt I’ll have much time on my actual birthday...but we’ll see... anyway its the day I turn 21; my first birthday being a mummy.. Although I was pregnant on my birthday last year, I just didn’t know, so technically in a sense it’s not technically my ‘first’ birthday as a mum, but it is at the same time...hopefully you get what I mean? Haha. 
I can honestly say this year has been the best year of my life, so many changes; all positive changes, all changes that have made my life a million times better, more than a million times, I don’t actually have a word for how much happier I am now or a word to describe how much my life has changed in a positive way. How much love I have now, there just isn’t a word in my vocabulary that could describe those things. I don’t think in my entire life I’ve been this happy, becoming a mummy has been the most rewarding, amazing, the greatest change in my life; being a mummy to our beautiful daughter Evangeline is the best thing that has ever taken place in the 21 years I’ve been on this planet – I love her more than anything.
If someone had said to me this time last year, you’ll have a beautiful baby girl, living with Zachary in your own place, running a blog, working with so many amazing companies and have over 31 thousand followers on your instagram; I never would’ve believed them. I cannot even begin to think of a way of describing how lucky I am. And I cannot even comprehend or even begin to think just what it’ll be like next year...will we be living in the same house? Will our little instagram family have grown? Will I still be uploading on my blog? (I hope so!) – I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. And so many things to look forward to next year, and this year too! But that’ll all be spoken about in another blog post I’m sure. 
But anyway, I’m going to wrap this up – because as I mention in pretty much every post, if I don’t I’ll be sat here for hours typing away having a good old ramble...so I hope you all have a spiffing day, thank you for reading and I’ll speak to you soon!

Mamas and Papas Urbo 2

Pram review 

I’ve been asked recently on my other platforms of social media whether I would do a review on our pram – so here it is. I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts about myself and Zachary purchasing a new ‘travel system’ for Evangeline. I uploaded a very similar post a few months back reviewing the ‘mothercare orb’ what are views on the pram were, why we bought it and so on – so if your interested feel free to go and have a nosey. But since that post we’ve purchased a new pram the ‘Mamas and Papas Urbo 2’, I briefly spoke about this pram in the other post to haha. 

 
So for those of you wondering ‘why did you change your pram?’ the main reason we purchased a new pram was because of our car, we bought a new car – our previous car wasn’t very practical as it only had 3 doors (including the boot) so moving Evangeline in and out in her car seat was a full on work out haha. We bought a 5 door car (again including the boot) which happens to be a lot smaller than our previous car – therefore our pram frame/chassis didn’t fit along side the carry cot therefore it resulted in us having to travel with the carry cot on the front seat when using the pram; which was a bit of a pain and not very practical if we’re being honest. But anyway, I’m rambling. We had to buy a new pram that could actually fit in our car, and I guess one that we both liked. 

So as I previously mentioned in my ‘travel system’ blog post, I’ve always been drawn to the Mamas and Papas Urbo 2 ever since we started looking at prams when I was pregnant – but I didn’t particularly like the pram wheels, silly I know, but I wanted a pram I loved 100%. However every time we’d go into a baby shop I’d instantly be drawn to this pram, pushing it around the shop haha. When it came to finding a new pram that actually fit in our car boot, I suggested this pram to Zachary and he agreed, he liked it, we both did – and I had grown to accept the wheels haha. Apart from being a lovely, modern looking pram it fit perfectly in our car, BONUS! 

 
Lets move on to the review or I’ll be rambling on for hours haha. Our pram is as I mentioned the  Mamas and Papas Urbo 2, ours is in the colour ‘slate blue’ although to me it just looks grey...haha, either way its a beautiful neutral colour; and has a chrome frame with fabric details. We purchased our pram from Mothercare, a bundle deal that included the chassis (obviously haha), a carry cot, the ‘seat’, car seat adapters, rain covers and my fav a cup holder.

The pram is described as a ‘stylish pushchair, perfect for city living.’ And I couldn’t agree any more, this pram is a simple, modern, classy design and can be used with either gender. As I stated above the pram has a simple look, nothing to bright or to in your face if you get what I mean haha; which is what we were looking for.

As I mentioned our pram came with a bundle deal – so lets talk about some of the items that were included:

• Carrycot: The carry cot can be used from 0-6 months, enabling Evangeline or your baby to sleep comfortably and lie on her/there back. Which is perfect for on the go napping!
• The adapters: These enable us to attach Evie’s car seat or your baby’s car seat to the pram chassis for a quick pop into the shops or when needed – the adapters are extremely easy to use, they are one click to attach and detach; so you dont bave to faf around
• Cup holder: This is perfect for keeping you hands free, having a cup holder enables me to place a bottle or cup onto the pram for easy reach; rather than having to hold a cup/bottle when trying to control the pram.

So far we’re loving the pram, it’s very easy to assemble and folds rather compact meaning storage isn’t an issue (unlike some other prams we looked at). There is only one thing I will grumble about – and that is the performance of the pram on a variety of different terrains, unfortunately any flooring that isn’t ‘city like or completely flat the pram is very bumpy, but its still comfortable for Evie so isn't really that much of an issue. Back to the positives. The carry cot is padded and comfortable for Evangeline resembling her mosses basket,, its a very sturdy pram which I love (I hate wobbly prams) and just overall a great travel system and I would totally recommended it! 

For those of you wondering when purchasing the pram the retail or bundle price was £649.00 – which in my opinion for the items you receive the price is amazing!

I hooe yoi found this helpful if you are on the hunt for a new pram/pushchair. Thank you for reading, and I'll speak to you in my next post.

Saturday chit-chats

08-10-2016

I don’t believe I’ve actually ever written a post on a Saturday before?! Or least I can’t remember doing so...I’ve been so busy this last week working on future posts, non stop emails and having discussions about some exciting collaborations with some fab companies – specifically for my instagram. I just completely forgot that I hadn’t written a post to upload during the week, whoops! 

We’re not doing to much today; perhaps some Christmas and birthday shopping, hopefully somewhere indoors or at least I hope? The weather has changed drastically the last few days, or at least I think so haha, the beginning of this week I was wearing flip-flops and a top; yet now I’m busting out the winter boots and jumpers! I love it, although I’ve probably contradicted myself considering I’m wanting to stay indoors and I guess anyone who says they ‘loved’ the weather would want to be outside…

This is my favourite time of the year, full of celebrations. So this months filled with birthdays, Zachary’s mums birthday – the 10th, my nephew’s on the 16th, he’s going to be 4! Then on the 20th there my mummy’s birthday, my birthday is on the 26th and I’ll be 21!! Then of course there’s Halloween. November, my daddy’s birthday on the 16th. Before that there’s firework or bonfire night. Then there December my sister’s birthday is the 2nd, on the 23rd is Zachary’s birthday and of course Christmas and new year. So a very busy next few weeks.

I’m in the process of washing Evangeline’s 3-6 month clothing, although in saying that I’ve been in the process of washing them for a few weeks now, she has sooooo many clothes – and I just keep buying more haha, there just all so stinking cute!

Anyway, I’ll be uploading some exciting posts in the next coming weeks so keep your eyes peeled for those. I’m going to end this ‘chit-chat’ here as we’re about to head of on the hunt for a variety of gifts and I’ll speak to you beautiful bunch in my next post! ♡

My little lady

All about Evangeline 

Evie’s going to be 12 weeks on Thursday, Thursday 29th October 2016. She’ll be 3 months on the 7th October, 3 months!? Its crazy to think my teeny tiny little newborn is going to be 3 months old. It baffles me just how quickly time has flown by, I mean I know I say it on pretty much every other Instagram post and in every other blog post too haha, but I just cannot get over how quickly these weeks are flying by – it feels although I’ll blink and she’ll be 1! 

She’s such a happy, loving, cheeky, inquisitive little lady; brightening up the day of everyone she meets – such a social butterfly, always showing of her beautiful smile. It amazes me how such a tiny little girl can light up the room and melt everyone’s heart. ♡ 

She had her jabs a couple of weeks ago, well more than a couple... almost 4 weeks ago, and she has them again at the beginning of October. I hate every moment, I know it’s good for her, helping her to build up immunities to all of those horrible illnesses, but it breaks my heart. In actual fact, I think I cried more than Evangeline when she was having them being completely honest- I could’ve slapped the nurse that done her jabs haha, I’m sure some of you can relate. 

So she’s completely out grown her newborn clothing - although saying that now is a bit late as she outgrew it weeks ago haha... and some of her 0-3 is a bit snug, she’s actually been able to fit into and wear some 3-6 items this week and the last few weeks, so other than the items she’s worn (as they have already been washed) we’re in the process of washing all of her 3-6 clothing; which is taking forever, she has more clothes than Zachary and I combined lol. 

She’s starting teething now, so we’ve bought her several teething rings – she only likes one that we purchased at boots by Nuby, I believe the one we've got is called the teething keys or something haaha. Other than that one, she doesn't want anything, although in saying that she’d much rather chomp on her fist over any teething ring… 

So we’ve recently started attending a ‘baby play group’ there are some lovely other mummies that also attended; everyone’s so friendly and welcoming. Its nice, I lost pretty much all of my friends during pregnancy some of them I’m pretty chuffed about having absolutely nothing to do with being completely honest, they bought nothing but negativity to our friendship – so its nice to be able to go and meet other mummies, and Evie can socialise with all the other babies. But anyway back to Evie, the first time we attended the group she was asleep the whole time haha; this will probably be a recurring situation as it falls at the same time as her afternoon nap haha – 1 till 2:30pm.

Talking about naps lets talk about her routines, so we’re pretty much set in a solid routine now; I know some people don’t agree with having a routine at 3 months, but actually it works really well for Evie, Zachary and I- and we’ve had this routine since around 3 weeks. So I guess I’ll start from evening to morning...it’s easier to explain haha! 8:30 pm she has a feed, usually a bath and placed into her pjs; then she has a cuddle and falls asleep, around 12-2am she will wake for a feed 90% the time its around 2, she’ll feed, we’ll change her nappy and then put her back down to sleep, she doesn’t normally wake until 5:30am – she has another feed, nappy change, cuddle before falling back to sleep at approximately 6-6:30 am. She’ll wake between 7-8am, a nap around 10:30am after a feed, she'll nap at around 1pm to 2pm, 4pm till 5pm and then the routine continues, filled with nappy changes, feeds and lots of playing and cuddles...so it’s fairly “solid” but don’t get me wrong, it depends on the day really...what we’ve done and how much she slept during the night. Obviously I haven’t gone to in depth into her or our routine, but if you’d like me to do a post going over that – let me know. 

So everyday she’s becoming more alert, she's into so many different things; she loves laying or sitting (on our laps) in front of the telly – she loves the lights and colours that are on the screen. She loves her baby sling or carrier, she LOVES having cuddles, and playing under her activity mat. She adores bath time and splashing around – our little water baby. One thing she defiantly doesn’t enjoy is the forever dreaded ‘tummy time’ and boy does she let us know haha. 

Becoming a mummy has honestly been the most amazing and rewarding experience of my entire life. Watching our little lady blossom and grow – its the best feeling in the world.
I know this was a brief update or chatty kind of post, but I thought I’d round it up, or I’d be typing all afternoon...I hope you enjoyed reading this post – I’ll be doing more ‘update’ kind of uploads in the future; and I’ll speak to you lovely people in my next post. ♡

Chit-chats and changes.

A new appearance:

My beautiful little princess. <3

Hello you beautiful bunch, I hope your all doing well! I’m uploading one of my favourite, most enjoyable post’s that I write, my typical chit-chat, nattering, rambling on about everything that crosses my mind kind of post. 
Being honest I don’t really have that much to talk about; I guess the main reason I sat down to type this post is to discuss the new or revamped appearance of my blog. I suppose I could start by saying that the main reason I changed my blog is due to wanting a more elegant, mature, simple design- I felt my previous design didn’t match the what I intend to achieve with my blog or didn’t match the content I upload, you no...sounds odd, but I know what I mean haha. So not only have I changed the pink, girly, floral theme to a simple grey, white and black design – I’ve also changed my blog title or name, rather than being “my life” which being completely honest, I was never particularly happy with; its now “Our journey as a family of three” for me, this name is more than suited to the content I upload, as since the beginning, since starting my blog; I’ve always written about my life, relationship, family, pregnancy and since her arrival about our beautiful baby girl, our journey as a family of three just suits and works with the whole “feel” of my blog. 

Being completely honest, I haven’t really known what to post on here; I mean there’s several thing’s I’d love to talk about...toxic friendships – a ‘friend’ that was possibly the most unpleasant, malicious, dishonest, repulsive human being I’ve ever met; whom I absolutely hate or loathe to be polite; but honestly it’s not worth the time of day, the whole subject infuriates me and plus I don’t like posting negative things on my blog – so I’ll probably leave that post out haha.. but anyway moving on...on a more positive note I'd like to upload some posts about being a new mum, all about Evangeline, family life, budgeting, travelling, my tips and tricks, my interior and DIY ideas...you name it; I have loooaadddsss (felt the need to extend for effect haha) of ideas of posts that I will be uploading on my blog. So hopefully I’ll be starting to work, finish and upload them in the near future – so keep your eyes peeled! ♡ 

So, what have I been up to recently...not much really, just day to day activities and mummy things; cuddling with my little princess, cooking, feeding, shopping, cleaning all the usual –  I know it’s probably incredibly boring to read, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. ♡ 
Myself, Evie and Zachary have been venturing out on walks every weekend, mainly for fresh air; but also because I’m wanting to budge a bit of weight, although that hasn’t really been discussed haha but I’d like to loose maybe a stone or so...I’ve lost all the weight that I gained during my pregnancy, but I’d like to loose a little more, just to make myself 100% more healthy and back in shape! 

On another note we’re entering probably the most expensive but fun and exciting part of the year for me (other than buying stuff for Evangeline or maternity clothing hehe) my nephews birthday, mums birthday, then mine – not that I buy myself anything haha, dads birthday, my sisters birthday, Zachary’s birthday and of course Christmas. It’s also coming up to a year since I found out that I was pregnant, it’s shot by so fast. I’m even more excited this year, more excited than I’ve ever been in my life – it’s Evangeline’s first Halloween, firework night and Christmas; and the first year that we celebrate as a family of three. ♡ 
I guess I should probably consider wrapping this post up, or it’ll only go on for a decade or 2 haha. Thanks for taking your time out to read this post, and I’ll speak to you in my next.