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Jumping In Muddy Puddles

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A little while ago we were sent some Muddy Puddles goodies to review for Izzy and Chloe but the weather has been pretty good for the last few months so we haven’t had a chance yet to try them BUT I think the products are so fab that I wanted to share them with you while you still get the opportunity to snap them up before the real autumn and winter weather hits us.

First up there is this 3 in 1 coat, snuggly onesie and mac which we were sent for Chloe:

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Now we have actually used this, well one part of it at least whilst at festivals throughout the summer. The fleecy inner suit was ideal for the cooler evenings especially later in the summer when we were at The Big Feastival. It was lovely and cosy and she seemed happy in it.

It’s great quality and although it seems quite expensive at £59.00 I think you have to look at the bigger picture and the fact that it’s essentially three separate products which altogether would cost you more than that.

Secondly we received these welly liners:

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Izzy loves wearing her wellies and although until this week it hasn’t really been cold enough for liners I’m sure they will be used very soon! She hates getting chilly and loves soft socks so I think this will be a big hit.

If you are looking to get things all ready for the change of seasonal wardrobes I highly recommend you go check the Muddy Puddles website.

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* As stated previously we were sent these items free of charge for the purpose of a review.

Camp Bestival Packing List – Part 1

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It’s just over two weeks until Camp Bestival 2014 – we cannot wait!

Its time for me to start preparing and packing.. Yes it does take me that long and sometimes when I’ve something to look forward to packing is all part of the excitement.

So here is the first part of my packing list. In no real order of importance but all things I think are essential to your enjoyment and comfort at Camp Bestival.

1. Accommodation:

Be it a tent, a teepee, a campervan or a podpad thingy. If it’s a tent get it out now, air it and check for holes or damage. If you are glamping make sure you ask questions as to what is included so as to avoid unnecessary packing

2. Temperature control:

By this I mean be prepared for anything and everything. You will need light, cool layers for the (hopefully) gloriously, sunshiney days. You will also definitely need warm clothes for the evenings. For watching the shows and relaxing outside you need warm jumpers, snuggly hats etc. For bedtime you want fleecy pjs if you have them,thick socks and a good quality sleeping bag or thick blankets. For toddlers and older children a warm onesie is ideal with lots of thin blankets that can be thrown off or added as and when. For babies a winter sleeping bag is best with a onesie and perhaps a light extra top layer.

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3. Something to sleep on:

As much as I love the idea of back to nature camping I don’t love the reality of sleeping on a hard floor for 4 nights. If you are camping for adults an air bed is necessary luxury. For toddlers why not use a readybed we used one last year for Izzy and will be doing so again this year. For babies a pop up travel centre is ideal and easy to transport. Also useful to take into the festival fields if it’s sunny.

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4. The Bubbles:

Bubbles are more important than you can imagine at CB. Every child has them. There are stalls selling amazing wands and bubbles everywhere you look. Take some wands and bubble mix with you. Helps you keep to a budget and stops your child saying please mam..bubbles every single minute.

5. Something to sit on:

As I write this I remember that my camping chairs are broken. Arrgghh. Not good. Sometimes you will want to lounge around on the floor but most of the time if you are over the age of 20 you will want a chair.

6. Wet Wipes:

You will need LOTS of wet wipes. To clean grubby hands, wipe sticky faces and scrub away face paint. For lazy baths and wiping down buggies.

7. Fancy Dress:

Even if it’s just for the little ones. It’s all part of the fun of the festival. No idea what I’m going to wear just yet.

8. Ear Protection:

If you are a light sleeper use ear plugs at night and for your little ones you need ear defenders if you plan to get close to the stage. We used Edz which we picked up for about £10 from amazon.

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That’s it for tonight. More coming up tomorrow.

Tickets are available by visiting www.campbestival.net

Cooking In The Kitchen..Having Fun – Rice Krispie Cakes with a Gooey surprise

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I’m sure not many of you need to know a recipe for Rice Krispie cakes but you never know ..also I thought it would be fun to share it with you.

Izzy is really getting into spending time in the kitchen and I am keen to encourage this .. Mainly as it means I also get to be in the kitchen!

Today she wanted to cook but we were running short on time and I was running extremely low on energy so I thought why not Rice Krispie cakes? Easy peasy.

I must have made these a hundred times been but this was my favourite time.

I always use the same recipe which is:

200g of Milk Chocolate
125g of butter
6 tbsp of Golden syrup
200g Rice Krispies
*Mini marshmallows (optional)

Melt your chocolate, butter and syrup together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water – best to avoid letting your child do this part. Then let your little one mix the Krispies in gradually until they are all coated.

We decided for fun to add in some marshmallows so we put a dollop of Krispie mix into the cake case followed by a marshmallow and some more Krispies and a marshmallow.. Repeat until all your mix has gone. It makes about 24. Leave to chill until hardened.

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It’s worth noting that these are extremely addictive. If you tell yourself you will only eat one then you are only lying to yourself.

The Talkative Twos

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It’s been a while since I wrote about Izzy. Of course she’s been included in other blog posts and I’ve written some recipes and talked about us cooking together but I haven’t written just about her. Life has been rather chaotic so I guess that’s to blame but I don’t want to look back on this time in her life and think why didn’t I write about that? Because its a funny time. She’s harder at this age ( she knows her own mind) but she’s also easier at this age ( she sleeps ) and she is so so funny.

Izzy as a little baby:

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And Izzy now:

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Every day I laugh at something she says or does. Every single day. Even when I was incredibly down just before giving birth and weepy and depressed after giving birth ( I still get these days) she managed somehow to make me laugh which must make her a pretty amazing girl yes?

I wonder how her little mind works when she suddenly pipes up 3 months post partum “Mammy where’s your belly gone?” Or how she seems to know everything. Now this isn’t a mummy brag but seriously the child knows everything. Nothing gets past her. This isn’t always a good thing.

Her favourite phrase is still ” What are you doing?” I hear it on average 200 times a day. Sometimes it gets a bit much and I ask her the question over and over which annoys her and amuses me. Yes I’m a mature parent.

She loves her grandparents and her extended family. She asks for them all the time and will often demand we make cakes for Nanna.

Her favourite foods are tomatoes, olives and cheese. She mostly has a hearty appetite and will eat whatever we do but just this last week has developed an adorable (not) habit of chewing her food into mulch and then spitting it out – aaarghhh please tell me it’s a phase.

Sleep is still good for us. I realise just how lucky we are that for the most part Izzy sleeps from 7pm to 7am and naps for 1.5hrs at lunchtime. She loves going to bed especially at nap time and will tell you when she’s ready..on a recent shop trip she removed her shoes and climbed onto a display bed:

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She is pretty well behaved, ask anyone and they will tell you she’s such a good girl but she can also be naughty. She can be very naughty and I have days when I feel like pulling my hair out. She is normally only misbehaved for me and her Dad although we discipline her well and I think it’s because she feels secure enough to push our buttons. And push them she does.

Nine times out of ten she is helpful and generous, if I ask her to pass me the feeding cushion or a muslin when Chloe is screaming for a feed she will run and fetch them for me saying “Izzys helping” ( we have a lot of talking in the third person) then on just the one occasion when I will really need it she will flat out say no. Normally smiling wickedly whilst doing so. Why does that happen? I have no idea.

I still don’t think of this time as the terrible twos though. She is such a bundle of happiness and light on the whole that I can put up with a little naughty behaviour and at least we don’t have tantrums – the tantrum phrase was very short lived with us although I know it could still return.

She is very blonde and blue eyed and she is finally getting some hair – it looks pretty curly ..awwww. She is super tall like her Dad and most of her baby fat has gone which is not surprising as the girl does not stop moving. My Dad calls her Busy Izzy and its not hard to see why.

She loves to go the park and the river with her Dad when they can run about and get messy. She loves the soft play and so does her Dad – luckily.

At home she likes to draw, paint and play. TV no longer holds her attention unless she’s feeling unwell and she rarely asks to watch anything – whilst I should be pleased about this some days a 20 minute break would be lovely. If anything will hold her attention it’s still good old Mr T (Tumble that is) Her favourite at home activity is by far cooking click here to see her in action – hopefully this will continue as its something I love too.

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She can count to 11 and has done for a while. She knows the words for everything and doesn’t stop saying them but flat out refuses to learn her colours. She knew them about 6 months ago but now she insists that everything is green. We are working on that one. She understands when I tell her she can have something tomorrow or after her nap. Quite often if she asks for something sweet when we are out I will say yes we can get it and she will say “Eat it after nap” she knows that she doesn’t have treats just prior to bed and will instead ask for the cake or biscuit in the morning – she also understands that chocolate is a big treat and gets very excited. We have recently started to offer yoghurt raisins as a healthy snack and she thinks they are sweets so her face lights up when she sees me getting the box.

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She is an extremely loving child. We all get lots of hugs and kisses off Izzy especially Chloe whom she clearly adores. She also tells us she loves us THIS MUCH and stretches her arms out wide – it makes me feel so good but then she does the same thing for cake 😉

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There are so many things she does or says that I could tell you but I fear I may be rambling already.

What matters most is that even at this time – by far my most challenging year she makes us all smile and I get a glow when she squeezes me so tightly or gazes at her sister with love or still manages to look small curled up on her Dads lap. She may not be the smallest baby anymore but my baby she still is.

Hand, Foot and Mouth

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Hands up (sorry) if you have no idea what HF&M ( hand, foot and mouth) is?

I will admit that until I saw an episode of Get Well Soon where Dr Ranj explained to Deep that he had HF&M I didn’t have a clue. To be honest Izzy was watching it and not me so I was still a little clueless two weeks when Izzy started showing symptoms of it.

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I thought she was cutting her back teeth. She was very very miserable, she had a really bad nappy rash and she even told me she had bad teeth. So we dosed her up on teething remedies and tried to ride it out. Then she started refusing to eat and then to drink. It was really unpleasant. That day I put her in a nice bath to ease her nappy rash which was getting pretty nasty and it was then I noticed the rash had crept down her legs and I spotted one spot on her hand. HF&M sprung to mind and I called my GP who asked us to go down that afternoon. On examination the Doc immediately said it was definitely HF&M and her poor little mouth was packed FULL of ulcers because of it..her pain must have been incredible.

There isn’t any medication for it. Just pain relief and my daughter really suffered for a few days.

Thankfully she is over it. She’s a little pale and washed out but otherwise fine. I’ve had to have blood tests to check I’ve got antibodies against it because I’m 39wks pregnant and hopefully those results will be all fine.

Some info from the NHS site:

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a viral infection that can affect young children.
It doesn’t usually pose a serious threat to a child’s health, but it can be be an unpleasant condition, particularly if it affects younger children.
Typical symptoms of hand foot and mouth disease include: cold-like symptoms, such as loss of appetite, cough and a moderately high temperature of around 38-39°C (100.4- 102.2°F)
a non-itchy red rash that develops on the hand and the feet; sometimes the rash can develop into painful blisters and painful mouth ulcers.

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a self-limiting condition, which means that it will get better on its own without treatment. The symptoms will usually pass within seven days.
However, speak to your GP or call NHS 111 if you’re unsure whether your child has hand, foot and mouth disease.
You should also contact your GP if your child isn’t drinking any fluid or their symptoms last longer than seven days.

There is currently no cure for hand, foot and mouth disease, so treatment involves making your child feel as comfortable as possible while waiting for the infection to take its course.

Possible treatment options include:

Using paracetamol, ibuprofen and mouth gels to relieve the pain of mouth ulcers as well as drinking plenty of fluids to help relieve a high temperature.

I’m glad it’s over with now but on the plus side we have managed to say goodbye to her dummy. She has had it just for sleep since she was 6 months old and has asked for it every night since she started talking. When the pain in her mouth became really bad last week she refused it and since then hasn’t wanted it at all so we have hidden it from view and I actually think she won’t go back to it which saves us having to try and wean her off it!

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