Feel Good Friday

It’s that time of week again; it seems to come round quicker and quicker. Looking forward to reading about what made you feel good this week. I’d really love to see some new people joining, so don’t be shy.

If I am honest I struggled to find something this week, not because it’s been a bad week. It’s been very pleasant and enjoyable, maybe that’s why I’ve struggled because nothing stands out. I decided my wardrobe was long overdue a sort out, so I made a start on it on Wednesday. I didn’t get very far as the children didn’t permit it. However I managed to sort out all my trousers, once I was finished I was only left with four pairs. Whoops, none of them are the perfect fit either. All the others were huge though, some of them would literally fall down if I walked across the room. That definitely felt good, these clothes fit me before I got pregnant, some of them even fit before I got pregnant the first time.

Its proof that I have definitely lost quite a lot of weight. I just wish I had some money to be able to go and buy some clothes; I’m quite excited at the prospect of potentially fitting into size 10 trousers.

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The End in nigh

It is 11 days until my maternity leave is over and I am back to work, I’ve been trying to ignore it. Living in denial that it’s going to happen and all of a sudden it’s right around the corner. It all became ever more real this afternoon when I went for lunch with my boss so he could discuss what I would be doing when I go back.

Where has the last 9 months gone? It doesn’t seem two minutes ago that I was heavily pregnant and getting excited about going on my maternity leave and now I have an eight month old baby and I’m due to return to work. I’m not jumping for joy at the prospect, given half a chance I would stay at home with my boys until they started school. However in order to keep a roof over our head and food on the table then I need to go back to work and contribute to the bills. Dam the ever increasing price of every god dam thing.

We have fun, we go out lots and the boys love our outings the same as I do. I’m going to miss spending so much time with the boys. I won’t be starting till 11am but it’s going to be hard to fit in much before work. By the time we have done breakfast, got dressed, made my lunch for work the morning will practically be gone. I’m going to have to try and be super organised some mornings though, even I just take them for a walk. I’m not going to be able to go to any groups or anything on the three days I’m in though, but I intend to fill Thursday and Friday with as many activities as I can to make up for it. I’m encouraging A to take them out, but I know I will then feel jealous and sad that I am missing out on the fun they are having.

The three days at work I’m not going to see A; he will get up I will leave. Then I will get home and he will leave. We will be like passing ships in the night; communication will be a quick conversation in the doorway as we pass or little notes. I’m under no illusions that it is going to be easy, but I really really didn’t want to go back to work five days a week and this is the only way that I could fit in enough hours to allow myself a couple of days off.

It won’t be as bad as I’m expecting, I know I will soon get back into the routine and the adult conversation will be really nice. I definitely have one of the nicest bosses ever and work with a lovely bunch of people so that’s one bonus. It still doesn’t mean I want to go back though...

My Bucket List

'And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.'

                                                                                                                 

I’ve never thought of writing one before but after doing some random googling (google is my friend) I decided it sounded like a good idea. A list of things I’d like to do with my life, some only small things, some much bigger.  If I don’t achieve them all then it’s not the end of the world, I might never have enough money for some of them but I like the idea regardless.

It was actually quite hard to come up with ideas, it’s taken me over a week to write it but finally I’ve finished. As I was writing it I realised how much I have achieved already, if I was writing the list five years ago I would have had a lot of things to add – but I’ve done them now. 

I would have had:

1.  Get married
2.  Buy a house
3.  Start a family
4. Swim with dolphins
5.  Visit mexico
6. Drive a Speed boat
7. Visit the Cliffs of Moher
8. Go to Edinburgh

I’ve done all these in the past five years and it puts a little smile on my face.

I’m not going to post my bucket list, because people probably don’t want to read it anyway – there is nothing personal on it. So if people are interested I can show you. I will probably blog when I achieve one of my goals though.

I will review my list every now and again as the things that are important to us change, so there may be things I’ll choose to cross off or others I want to add. It’s not a list of how I have to live my life, or a list to dictate the things I must do. It’s more a reminder that I want to accomplish something from my life, live my life with meaning and not let it pass me by in a daze.

Does anyone else have a bucket list? Did you find it hard to write? Have you ticked many off yet? 

Feel Good Friday

This week started as rubbish as last week ended, I was (still am) full of germs. I’ve never felt so ill with a cold and not getting sleep or time to rest just makes you feel even worse. So I was beginning to wonder if I would find a feel good moment this week.

However my best friend since forever – well since we were about seven has returned from Canada. She has been over there for nearly four years, but is back for a year. Not properly back unfortunately, as they are going to be living in Wales. Wales is million times closer than Canada though, so it’s very exciting. I last saw her at Christmas when they came back for a holiday and seeing her and then her leaving makes you realise all over again how important they are. I’ve seen her twice since she came back on Monday and it’s been wonderful. It’s never awkward; she just slots straight back into our lives. Although J is a bit wary of her, but he’ll soon warm to her I’m sure. I’m so glad to have her back in the same time zone, even if it’s only going to be for a short while.

Also I lost 1lb this week, that’s 3lb in the last two weeks. I’m getting closer and closer to my target weight and having the ideal BMI for the first time in a very very long time.






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Sleep…sleep….sleep…..zzzzzzzz

Just lately I seem to be spending far too long either thinking about sleep or talking about sleep. More to the point what I have done so wrong? How have I ended up with two children who don’t sleep through? J can sleep though, he can sleep for 12 hours but he likes to wake up once a night –if Daddy goes to him (which only happens at weekends) then he goes back to bed. When I go to him he holds me hostage, by threatening to scream the house down if I leave the room. Now I have no problems with leaving him to scream and kick up a stink because after ten minutes max he will go back to sleep. However I’m very reluctant to allow it to happen for the fear he will wake R and then I will be dealing with them both awake.

I can’t remember the last time I slept for a full night, by the time J was sleeping through I was pregnant and having to make loo stops in the night. So it’s possible that it’s been over two years since I had a decent stretch of sleep.

R doesn’t need milk during the night, and he’s proved that a few times – however it’s too easy to offer him boob and know the will fall back to sleep. While co-sleeping of course. When he woke Saturday night I sent him down stairs to his daddy and the pair of them slept there. So even though I woke a dozen times because of my cold, it was heavenly to just be able to roll over and go back to sleep. Not attempt a dummy search, while holding a baby and trying to keep him quiet so he doesn’t wake his brother.

R won’t sleep for more than three hours at a time; sometimes he will wake for 5 minutes other times 2 hours. It’s wearing me down and with the imminent return to work I need to try and fix it. I need a plan, I need to stick to it – however I really don’t know what to do. There are so many types of sleep training but most of them seem to involve leaving the room. I don’t want to leave my room at 3am in the morning. If we are doing control crying, where do I go while he’s crying in my bedroom? How the hell does it work? Has anyone done any kind of sleep training while sharing the room with their baby? Or have you just had to grin and bear it?

Eventually he is going in with J, and it’s very tempting to just move him. Face the fact that I’m going to have complete and utter hell for a few weeks but solve the problem eventually. It seems mean to disturb J though with R’s night wakening’s though. I’ll have horrible nights and horrible days, as lack of sleep makes for a very grumpy toddler. HELP!

Feel Good Friday

This week is an easy yet slightly cheesy one. My feel good moment was Sunday evening just before bed; my two boys were playing together so nicely. It’s rare at the moment with J hiding toys or pushing his little brother around. I think they were playing chase, it was completely adorable. J was running over to R and saying ‘Raaarr,’ before turning and running away giggling, R grinned his head off and crawling after him. As soon as R got close to J he would giggle and run away again. I was too busy gushing over it to take any photos or record a video.

My heart melted and all the tantrums, sleepless nights and jealously were instantly forgiven. All the hard work was suddenly completely worth it, having them close together is definitely going to pay off. It gave me an insight into what good friends they are going to be.

This is a photo of them together earlier in the day.

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Review: B – Organic Soothing Balm

I was asked to via twitter to review this Soothing balm, it is suitable for eczema and as I’m not keen on the cream we have received from the doctor I was more than happy to try this.

Taken from the website

Product Description

Winner of TIPS "Editors Choice" Award

Our most loved Soothing Body Balm is handmade with certified organic ingredients without any chemicals. It only has good oils that help to soothe and feed the skin whilst regenerating skin cells. Our Balm is so gentle and mild that can be used on 1 month old babies and adults with severe sensitive skin to any essential oils. It can be used on face and body.

It soothes Eczema, Dermatitis. Skin irritations, Sensitive skin and Nappy rash.

Please read our reviews on this balm, it works wonders on the skin!

100% Organic & Natural with no chemicals.

My first impression of the product was that the jar was quiet small and I couldn’t see it lasting very long. I applied a small test patch and there was no reaction so the following night I was able to apply a more liberal amount to my baby.

I’ve never used a balm on my children before, only creams and oils so I was interested to see how easy it was to apply as it is much thicker. I am pleased to say that I was pleasantly surprised, the balm rubbed in quickly and easily. The cream I have from the doctors takes a lot of massaging before it soaks into the skin, so this balm is perfect. It’s near impossible to try and massage cream into a baby that keeps trying to escape, so the fact this balm soaks into the skin with ease is a huge bonus.

Almost instantly you could feel the difference, his skin felt silky smooth without being greasy. I even applied some to myself because I liked how soft it made him feel.

I used the cream on him each evening after his bath and after three nights the two patches of eczema had vanished. It works much better than the cream I have been using and it’s much nicer to use. You don’t need to use a huge amount and as I am only applying to his driest areas it will last me a while.

One evening he was very sore in the creases of his legs and the only cream I had to hand was the balm, so I applied some. Popped his nappy on and put him to bed. The following morning he wasn’t sore at all. I was very impressed.

The only negative about this product for me could be the price, at £13 a pot it’s more than I would normally pay for a skin product. However the website often runs promotions so I would be very tempted to buy some more along with the body wash which I’d love to try.

Overall I found this product brilliant and I would definitely recommend it to anyone with a skin condition. I love that it’s a multipurpose balm and can be used for skin irritations, sensitive skin and nappy rash and that it works brilliantly.

Now I will show you some before and after photos just to prove it worked. Please excuse how bad they are, I was struggling to get him to keep still while I took them.

Before:

After: 

The difference is perfectly clear.

Feel Good Friday

I was thinking the other day about how I don’t spend enough time thinking about the things that make me feel good, instead reflecting on the things that annoy me. This isn’t how it should be, we should all focus on the good things and do more of them because let’s face it feeling good is wonderful.

I thought it would be a nice idea to create a blog link up, where we can all post our feel good moments. 

So if you would like to join the rules are simple:
1. Write a blog post about something that’s made you feel good this week, it can be anything, big or small.
2. Add the badge below, just copy and paste the code onto your blog post - you can find the code on the left hand side of my blog.
3. Add you link below my post.
4. You don’t have to join every week.

My Feel Good Friday

I’ve never been a girlie girl and I’ve never been one to wear dresses, when I first met my husband I didn’t own a single dress and my first dress was my wedding dress. Now I have a couple in my wardrobe that never get worn because they are to dressy for everyday wear.

It was my nieces 20th birthday party on Saturday and I feeling a bit sorry for myself because I had nothing nice to wear. Even though it was only in my sisters garden, so I could have just gone in jeans and a vest top if I had wanted to. I didn’t though, so I headed for Asda and grabbed myself a couple of cheap dresses. Six pounds – bargain.

Wearing a dress made me feel pretty and feminine; in short it made me feel good.

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Weigh In Wednesday

So after a conversation between a group of us last night about weight loss the lovely @F_a_B_ decided to start Weigh in Wednesday. It’s a chance for us to motivate each other with our goals, whether they are small or big. To lose weight, drop a dress size or just generally get a bit healthier.

I weighed myself tonight for the first time in months and I’m exactly the same, I don’t need to lose weight as such. However I’d like to lose a little more, and get a little healthier and fitter in the process. The last pounds are always the harder and after a brilliant few months when the weight literally just dropped off me, I’ve stalled. So here hoping this lovely lot can motivate me.

If you’d like to join us, the come on over. Just click the linky below.

The Big Save!

July started and as of pay day on Friday we are beginning a BIG save. For the foreseeable future we will be cutting out treats and all the little pointless spends. It’s going to be bloody hard, there is no doubt about it. No more popping to the shop just because we fancy a bottle of wine, or a tub of ice-cream – if it’s not included in our food shop it doesn’t get bought. Other than the obviously exceptions like bread top ups.

I’m not going to discuss what we are saving for, a couple of people know and others can probably guess. It might never happen, it might take longer than our two year plan so I don’t want to go into detail.

Part of our savings plan is giving ourselves 'pocket money,’ we've set a Target of £15 each a week. Out of this we need to buy any extra food bits, pay for children's activities and treats. I think it’s more than enough, but hubby isn't convinced. He's a terrible saver and I can feel he'll struggle more than me. Lots of motivation from me is going to be needed, to prove to him we can still have fun... just cheaply.

I've got a couple of ideas, and a few things that bring in a very small amount of money. I'm involved in a shop and scan scheme, which makes me £1 a week, (providing I remember to submit) it would be slightly more if I scanned my till receipts to but the effort of taking photos, resizing them and uploading was too much hassle for an extra 60pence...although it would all mount up.

Surveys. I've been doing these since the tail end of last year and although they will never make me rich they are going to help with Christmas presents. I've just received £35 worth of toys r us vouchers from one website. The surveys are time consuming and boring but since I'm doing nothing else with my evenings I may as well do them. I've been a bit lax just lately so I'm going to set myself a challenge of doing at least one survey every day. Providing they are available.

Overtime. Not me as unfortunately I’m not going to have that option, but A is going to try and do as much as he can. The more he gets the sooner we can set the wheels in motion for our plans. He’s already done 12 hours this week and it’s only Monday.

Those are currently my only money making schemes, I'd love some more suggestions though. Anything feasible.

My ideas to save money:

 1. Do all my Christmas shopping in the sale;, I’ve already made my first three purchases last week. Two at 40% off, one with a massive 70% off.

2. Meal planning. I've never done this before, but it’s been recommended and it does make sense. We are terrible for throwing vegetables away because they didn't get used quick enough. I hate throwing food away. What's the best way to go about meal planning? Would like some cheap yummy food suggestions from people.

3. I tried to trade in all my books for cash but no one wanted any. So that plan was a fail.

Actually that's all I have, that's seriously lame. I need to get my thinking cap on...otherwise we'll never hit our targets.

All ideas welcomed and appreciated. I'll be updated my plans and letting you know how it’s going in the hope that it'll keep me motivated.

My three favourites

I adore these photos almost as much as I adore the people in them. I have hardly any pictures of the three of them together and these are just perfect. Daddy, big brother and little brother.

I love you all, you make my whole world feel complete....thank you!

Silent Sunday

Toddler group breakthrough

Some of you may remember my post a while ago about singing time at toddler group. Well we may have made a break through.

I'd not taken J for about 6 weeks, because he was poorly, then we went on holiday and lastly we were potty training. So to say I was dreading toddler group Thursday was an understatement, but off we went anyway. Things actually went pretty smoothly, we had a small meltdown when I stopped him from escaping but that's it. It was the turn of other children to have major meltdowns this week. Is it bad that I was glad these children had tantrums? It was a relief to see that my child isn't a complete horror and it is normal behaviour. Even though I already knew it was, it just seemed like it was always my child.

Singing time arrived and I was ready to grab J and made a bid for freedom. Before I had chance he had plonked himself down on the floor with the other children. Amazed glances were exchanges between me and my friend as I went to join him. I think we managed three songs before he got bored and wandered off. I can't say I blame him five songs at anyone time is enough to bore most people...me included. I hate all the singing, faffing malarky. We do it at home, but in public it really isn't my thing. Perhaps that's where he gets his dislike for it from?

Hopefully this is a small breakthrough and he'll no longer be the screaming child disrupting everyone else.

Potty Training

Two weeks in and I want to say, done, dusted, finito. I fear I may have just jinxed myself though. I’ve been dreading potty training since forever, having visions of cleaning up deposits from every possible place in my house. The reality though was completely different and the most accidents we had in any one day was three and that was the first day. Within a week, (two of those days we were out all day so he was in a nappy) he was making it through a day at home without any accidents.

The real test was taking him out to play, so our first play date was at my friend’s house. Who only let us go over on one condition – I didn’t apologise if he peed on the floor. He didn’t, I felt like doing a little happy dance. First time I reminded him and showed him where he could go to the toilet – the rest of the times he told me. He doesn’t have many words but he has decided ‘pot pot’ is potty, it works and it lets us know what he wants.

I never thought I could get so excited about wee going in a potty, but I did. I cheered lots the first time, Joshua cheered with me and then I gave him two mini marshmellows. This routine continued for the first few days every time he went. The power of marshmellow!! He would carry the potty over to me and show me, then cheer. It was very cute and he was super proud of himself, as I was of him.

I guess it proves that potty training doesn’t have to be a disaster and if you wait until the child is ready then it was be a smooth transition. Hopefully he’ll continue, and begin pulling his own trousers up and down…instead of taking them off and throwing them away and not wanting them back on.

What are other peoples experiences with potty training? I am sure I won’t have it as easy next time.