I am now 26 weeks pregnant. Just 13 weeks to go! After seeing the midwife last Wednesday I now know what is causing me so much pain and understand why it seems to come in a pattern. When I work on a Thursday I spend 7.5 hours of my 9 hour shift sitting on a computer chair. The position it puts me in makes the baby move around to a position that is very uncomfortable for me and causes me pain. As soon as the midwife suggested it, it made perfect sense. Thursday is my longest working day and after five hours I'm in agony. I then go home in pain and end up in bed early curled up with my pregnancy pillow ready for my next shift early Friday morning.
I had a lovely weekend and met lots of lovely people but I was so glad to get home to my little monsters! I got home to find two cheeky faces still awake way past bedtime waiting to give me huge cuddles. A great end to a great weekend!
The lovely team at Hotel Chocolat gave me the option of reviewing some chocolate for Father's Day or giving some away to a lucky reader. As I was feeling generous and thought you guys deserve a chance of winning a special treat I decided to run the competition. If you haven't tried Hotel Chocolat before you can read or review of some of their Christmas Chocolates here. They are a firm favourite for me now!
Right so the prize is this rather fabby Hotel Chocolat Father's Day Collection set worth £15.
As you may know already, thanks to all the photos I have shared over the last week, we were on our family holiday Monday to Friday last week. We booked up to go using the Sun Holiday scheme so it cost us less than £100 for the four of us overall (minus spending money). For the past four/five years we have been going to Haven on our holidays and this year we chose to try another of their sites that we hadn't been to before. As we love Cornwall we chose Riviere Sands Holiday Park. You can read about our last Haven Holiday at Burnham On Sea here.
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Our first evening on the on site beach |
We got to the park late on Monday at around 6.30pm after a nightmare 5.5 hour journey with the kids so weren't in the best of moods. We checked in, the lady who helped me check in was lovely and very helpful explaining all I needed to know about the park. We decided to throw most of the stuff straight in the caravan and take a stroll to look at the beach. It was the best decision we had made all day. In all honesty the on site beach is THE most beautiful I have seen in the UK. We spent a good hour watching the sea and climbing the rocks and the kids loved it. We then went back for fish and chips at the on site chip shop. I did find that this was massively overpriced for the portion size and quality of food. After food we spent a bit of time in the arcade and watching the nights entertainment. We all really liked the size of the entertainment hall and arcades.
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Sandcastles in St.Ives Harbour |
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St.Ives Harbour after the tide came in |
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Gracie with Lifeguard Polly and Rory the Tiger |
On our first full day we visited St Ives which is just a short car journey away. I've been to St Ives before and wanted to show the kids how lovely it is. As soon as we parked up we bought the kids some buckets and spades and actually sat in the Harbour as the tide was out. It is pretty amazing that people can just sit in the harbour on the sand like any old beach while the tide is out. We spent an hour or so building sandcastles in the glorious sunshine before heading off to find food. We stopped at a beach front restaurant which I think was called The Hub? which made the best burger I had ever eaten! The food was all completely fresh, hand cut chips, battered onion rings and the meat was just amazing. The prices were great for a beach front restaurant too. Once we had eaten and had a walk around the harbour we noticed the tide had come in and where we had been sat just an hour earlier was now full of water. That evening we managed to make the character FunTime show. Gracie loved the show and then insisted we went every night.
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Piglets at Roskilly's Farm |
On Wednesday we had another day out this time to Roskilly's farm in Helston, Cornwall. We decided to visit after a recommendation from Jen at My Mummy's Pennies. The farm is a brilliant place to visit whether you have children or not. There are lovely trails to walk and explore. You can see the animals in the fields. They have a big range of animals on the farm we loved the piglets and the chickens. We had a lovely spot of lunch in the cafe' garden followed by some lovely fresh Cornish Ice Cream made on site. (Roskilly's is one of the most popular makers of Ice Cream in Cornwall). I would definitely recommend a visit if you are ever local as it is completely free to visit and you can easily spend all day there. After the farm we went for dinner at Bluff Inn which is a pub just offsite but is used for character breakfasts etc. by Haven. The Bluff Inn has very friendly staff and a beautiful sea view. It was lovely eating dinner with a view out to sea. Of course we went back to the FunTime show once we had eaten for the nights entertainment. Although after the kids shows we walked to the other side of the park to find the other beach access and managed to see the sun setting over the sea which was beautiful.
Thursday was our last full day and we drove to Falmouth to visit my younger brother who is at University there. We hadn't seen him since Christmas so was nice to catch up. We spent the day on one of his local beaches, making sandcastles and paddling in the sea before going into town for a nice meal. We very narrowly made it back for the FunTime show that evening where they had a special show for all of us who would be leaving the following day. The kids had so much fun as all their favourite characters were together and even got a photo with them. We were actually all sad that it was our last night as it was such a lovely place. The service was fantastic from all the staff. Even the security guy who let us in and out every night made friends with the kids and they always looked out for him to give him high fives!
So Friday was our last day and we were packed up and out before 9am (a record for us!) so we popped our keys in the postage box and headed to the Bluff Inn for breakfast. I had forgotten that they hold character breakfasts there so the kids were pleasantly surprised to have both Rory the Tiger and Greedy the Monkey come and see them at the breakfast table. The breakfast was yummy too and the lovely guys there substituted the items on the kids breakfast for Zach as he couldn't have a few of the items due to his allergies meaning he still had a big filling breakfast with no extra charge. We then spent an hour on the beach before making the long journey home.
Of all the Haven sites we have ever stayed at this is my favourite (Close behind Perren Sands). I was a bit sad it didn't have a Papa Johns like most of the others but the amazing beach made up for that! We have all said it has been our favourite family holiday so far and would definitely return. It's just a shame we didn't have a few more days to enjoy it and try out the on site activities as there was so much to offer both on site and the surrounding areas. You could find something to do or somewhere to go whatever the weather.
Have you been to Haven before? I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of the parks! You might help us choose where to try next time.
Have you ever felt like you are going through a pregnancy completely alone? It seems like the novelty of having a baby wore off a long time ago for everyone but me. Is this just normal when you have more than one already? It's certainly a different feeling to a first baby when it's all people want to talk about! I've found the last week or so a struggle especially since last weekends stress of packing for the holiday. I feel like I'm doing everything alone with no help or support. I don't know if it's my hormones or whether it's something I just need to get used to. Our trip to the Baby Show this weekend was lovely, for a whole day I felt like we were making plans for the baby altogether for once but things soon went back to normality when we got home. It is making me feel very stressed I have so much to do to prepare for this baby and I just don't know how to start or what I am actually doing most of the time.
I love having a little girl, especially when it comes to buying summer clothing! We were offered a beautiful Tea Party Dress to review from Tatty Tot Clothing and I couldn't wait to try it out. We received the 'Daisy On Blue' Tea Party dress. The dress came lovingly packaged as you can see below.
Review: Blooming Lovely Jewellery: Mexican Bola Pendant
Monday, May 19, 2014When the necklace arrived it came in a lovely little gift bag with a personalised tag congratulating me on my pregnancy which I thought was a lovely touch. Along with the necklace came a small card telling the story behind the necklace.
About your chiming pregnancy necklace...
This beautiful silver chiming necklace is a wonderful way of bonding with your unborn baby. Traditionally called 'Bola' and worn by pregnant women in Mexico, the chime is worn low over your growing bump allowing the soft tinkling chimes to serenade and soothe your little one as you go about your daily life. When the baby arrives, gently shake your pendant while together and the same beautiful relaxing chimes are said to soothe and calm.
We've spent the day today at the NEC Birmingham for The Baby Show 2014. The Baby Show is the UK's number one pregnancy and parenting event attended by hundreds of the most reputable names in the baby business and of course showcases lots of great new innovative products every year.
The kids both love it. It has been in my kitchen ever since however I had plans for this when the weather was finally nice enough to spend time outside.
Do remember it's only mud and there is nothing a nice hot bath won't clean - I even added the kids clothes to the bath.
If you've enjoyed this post you can find lots more on www.emmysmummy.com
Today I am 24 weeks pregnant. I am also on my happy holidays! The weekend was quite emotional. I had an awful day at work Thursday leaving me in a lot of pain and feeling very poorly Friday. I then got so stressed about not being ready for holiday that I had my biggest hormonal breakdown yet on Saturday. The kids had been playing up and I hadn't even started the task of packing yet. Andy was busy all weekend so of course it was left up to me. Of course I feel silly now for getting so upset over it all as it took an hour or two Sunday evening and now we are relaxing in the sunshine and all the stress is a distant memory (until we get home and the unpacking starts!).
Today we have a brilliant guest post from the lovely Kate at Family Fever, Kate is sharing her recipe for home made Raspberry Lemonade which sounds perfect for Summer. I will definitely be giving it a go!
Raspberry Lemonade
With summer approaching, many of us will be thinking about picnics in the park and balmy evening BBQ’s. The perfect accompaniment for these is a raspberry lemonade – something we absolutely love to make.
Ingredients
* 2 lemons
* 75g caster sugar
* 175g raspberries
* 200ml cold water
* 500ml sparkling water
Recipe
* Cut the lemons, and add to a blender along with the raspberries and 200ml cold water. Blend until fairly smooth.
* Pour the mixture through a sieve into a jug to remove any lumps
* Top up the mixture with the sparkling water and serve with ice cubes.
It is such a delicious and refreshing drink, and it keeps well for a couple of days in a bottle. Just give it a good shake before serving.
It's been a while since I left a simple photo post but I thought this was so cute and wanted to share! Gracie has not long learnt how to draw people. Mainly being the typical circle with eyes, mouth, arms and legs and she loves to associate her pictures with her family telling us she has drawn mummy or Daddy etc. A few days ago I gave her a little notepad I received at Blog On Mosi and she amazed me by drawing a picture of 'Gracie's family' this picture is apparently Mummy, Daddy, Gracie and Zach. I love it and have photographed it so we always have the photo to look back on.
Over the bank holiday weekend we were challenged to do our weekly shop at Morrisons. That weekend the great new lower prices were announced at Morrisons so I was intrigued to see how much we could get for our money. Armed with our vouchers the four of us popped in on Monday to do our shop. We were asked to share a recipe from our bank holiday celebrations and I had planned to attempt a cheesecake for the first time! As we had planned a picnic at the park we were also in search of tasty picnic treats for the day.
The shop was quite quiet for a bank holiday so nice and easy for us to get around. I was very impressed by the salad bar so picked up a salad for the picnic. We managed to find lots of other reasonably priced snacks for our picnic. They didn't have all the ingredients I needed for my cheesecake so I picked up a big piece of British Beef Topside Steak and some sweet potatoes to attempt sweet potato chips (which I had wanted to try for so long). As well as my recipe ingredients I got lots of fruit, meat, washing supplies and frozen food as the prices were great! You could really notice the price cuts, we spotted lots of 'I'm cheaper' signs dotted around the store. I even picked up a nice colourful jug to make some homemade cool drinks in the summer and a large glass bowl for desserts. Our trolley was full and came to £94.27 which although is about £30 more than I would usually spend, I had enough food to last for two weeks instead of one (so a saving in the long-run) and stocked up on a few household essentials which I now won't have to buy for a while.
Now for my recipe!
British Beef Steak and Sweet Potato Chips:
- British Beef Steak: We chose one big steak we could cut into smaller pieces to share between four of us. (This steak cost us £5.49)
- Sweet Potatoes: We used two large sweet potatoes between four of us but if you are cooking for adults I would recommend one potato per person. (These cost us 86 pence)
- Vegetable Oil: (We already had this in our cupboard so cost us nothing but you can pick a small bottle up for around £1)
- Seasoning: I actually forgot to pick up some seasoning! So it is not in my recipe but if using seasoning you can mix it in with the chopped potato before putting in the oven.
Preheat the oven to around 220°C/425°F/Gas Mark 7
Once chopped how you like, you can season your chips by adding them to a bowl and mixing in oil and the seasoning of your choice.
Pop your chips onto a baking tray and stick in the oven for approximately 30-35 minutes.
I waited 20 minutes before starting the meat.
Chop the meat into smaller portions if you need to. I cooked the meat for 3-4 minutes on each side so that the meat was well cooked but still nice and pink on the inside.
If you would like vegetables on the side you can cook these whilst cooking the meat.
Disclaimer
We were given vouchers for morrisons in exchange for this post as part of the #morrisonsmums challenge in cooperation with Britmums.
I have had such a busy week and spent this weekend in Manchester for Blogs Up North conference 'Blog On Mosi'. It was an eventful to say the least. I'll tell all about the conference itself in another post but what I will say is that little miss was determined to remind me that she was there on my 'child free weekend'.
*This post was sponsored by ASDA
Seems as this week is Real Nappy Week I felt I should write a quick post. I planned to use cloth nappies full time with Zach whilst pregnant, collecting lots of different brands and types of nappies ready to try out when he arrived. Nappies have certainly changed since the old days of terry towelling nappies held together with a pin! You can get all sorts of colours and styles and all for different price ranges. I found Real Nappy Week 2012 very important as it was a great time to find out all I could to prepare myself and I even won a fair few nappies to add to my collection!