My day to day 'Mummy' Outfits!

Here are some of my daily school run outfits. Being a mum doesn't mean you have to dress up boring. Being curvy doesn't mean you have to dress up boring. Dress how you like in things you enjoy!

Being judgemental?

I really wanted to write something about this on here. Its been going through my mind ages and I still keep seeing comments on Social Media and people in day to day life with it happening. Why are we judged? Why are we judgemental towards others? I mostly want to pick out being judgemental towards parents and parenting? I know it goes off in the world to everyone not just parents but me now being a mum I see it so much more.

Clayton west light railway trip!

Recently I won some tickets on Facebook to go on a trip to Clayton West Light Railway.

But this wasn't the first time we had been, last year in December we booked tickets to go see Santa Claus and Ava was only 2 years and 3 months old. I wanted to do something special and it was it was magical! even for us adults. You get a 40 minute slot to get onto the little steam train ride through to Shelly, Visit Santa have a mulled wine drink and mince pie then get on the train back. All for a decent price! Definitely an experience not to miss. It was dark too so you could see all the Christmas lights and even go through a dark tunnel. Ava loved every minute. But get wrapped up because its freezing!

Little mistress try on haul

I recently won a competition on facebook with Little Mistress and i won £250 to spend on there website. I was so grateful and gobsmacked that i had won, never mind that much too! 

I choose some pieces from there website that i can wear day to day in my mummy life and still feel comfy.

10 more facts about me!

    

     1. I was born with a extra rib

     2. I suffer with really bad confidence problems

     3. I bite my fingers all the time

     4. My height is 5ft 5.

     5. I bought my own house in 2014

     6. I'm a big computer geek

     7. (gross one) I love picking spots.. especially my partners!

     8. I've lived in the UK all my life

     9. I hate spiders!!

    10. I have a pet rabbit called Fifi

My Christmas wishlist that's affordable

This is my Christmas wishlist for 2016,

I went for all affordable things and wanting something that's super expensive i know isn't really practical for us and its all things you can get now for yourself or others.

Only a year later

I do apologise for being absent from blogging for over a year, i thought id have the time and effort to do this but being a mum and looking after a house is hard work. I really didn't think it would be. My little girl started nursery this year and the schools a good walk away from where we live so by the time i get home i get 2 hours to myself.. except its not to myself its pretty much to clean the house up and then i'm setting off back to pick her up.. by the time shes home the house is back to the way it is in the first place haha but that's whats having a child is all about, even though her daddy seems to make more mess!

A little Primark haul

I recently did a trip to Primark and bought myself some essential items. The shop i went to was in Wakefield which they have just extended and now is massive but unorganized. I use to love primark when i was younger but then i started to hate it as i got older because of all the hassle of bumping into people and juggling through all the clothes to find your size then trying them on. Plus i found all the prices had risen. But I've wanted to recently try it out again as i was seeing look books with certain clothing from there. Especially the high waist jeans which i have been dieing for!

Weaning, when & how? and things i cook & use!

As Ava was approaching the 6 month mark i was getting myself prepared for starting her on solids. We had just moved into our own house which was perfect timing and i went out and bought a steamer as i knew i wanted to do all home made food and not use jars. Even though i don't eat many vegetables myself i still wanted to cook the best for Ava. I hadn't cooked proper meals in my whole life as id lived with my parents, so i had to learn from scratch. Obviously i knew how to use a microwave etc but cooking meat etc was all new for me. 

So i went out and bought a few cooking books which have helped me so much and i still use them today. The books are by Annabel Karmel and id recommend them to anyone who's going to start weaning. I started off using the Top 100 baby purees and Baby and toddler meal planner as meals start from 6 months old in those ones. The baby and toddler meal planner was brilliant as it had a guide on day to day, week by week on what to feed your baby and how many meals a day to feed them.

Home decor // Storage

These are some of our home storage ideas we came up with to make things a little easier and to be able to keep things in place without looking a mess. Id still love some extra storage furniture in my house but its just the cost, so it just has to go onto the list of to do things which is a very big list at the moment.

The farmers market 'key/letter holder' is from i think the Gift Company in junction 32 they sell lots of quirky little items like this and furniture too. This was £12.99 and as you can see we hang pretty much anything we can on there as one of the hooks has broken. Oops!

The shelf is from Ikea which i bought last year it was super easy to put up and was really cheap, they did them in different sizes too. I keep all Avas books on there which is a bad idea as there is a sofa underneath which she climbs onto to reach the books. It will be getting changed once we change the living room around.

Home decor // shabby chic & more

We moved into our first house February which means i could decorate our whole house with my style! Which is awesome. I love all old, vintage, shabby chic with retro pops of colour here and there. I also love the country house with showing beams style cottages so i'm trying to incorporate all that into our house. 

These accessories which hang on the wall are downstairs in my kitchen and living room, i got them from a garden centre in Sharlston and they where pretty cheap around £5.99-£11.99 each. 

Day at the farm!

This post is a little late up but I've been trying to enjoy the sunshine as long as possible and play outside with my little girl and her daddy as we haven't really been doing that because of the terrible weather and my partner working so we try to spend as much family time together as we can, whilst we can.

Monday after Easter we took our little girl to Farmer Copleys which was fabulous. Its the first time taking her to a farm and the first time we had ever been there. What a beautiful place! .. plus it was FREE! 

Easter Sunday // What we did?

Our Easter Sunday was amazing, last year we didn't really do much as Ava was too young to really understand. She couldn't eat loads of chocolate and get creative. So this year was much more fun! plus her daddy wasn't working which made it 10 times better as we could have a family day too.

First on Saturday night i set up all Ava's Easter eggs and gifts on the sofa so when she woke up Sunday morning she could see all what shes got.

She got mostly chocolate eggs, The dolly was from http://www.mrshhandmadeandmore.bigcartel.com i totally recommend them, the dolls are great and most of them you can create yourself and add more items to. She also got a Frozen football, some pretend make up and a story book with a little dolly.

Whats in my Storksak Caroline Nylon changing bag

I got this changing bag bought for my 21st birthday in January 2014 so I've had it for just over a year. The first bag i had was a OIOI in yellow but as it was yellow and coming to winter i didn't like it anymore so i wanted a black bag that was a good all rounder.

Obviously things I've needed in my bag have changed slightly since Ava's got older. But everything has always fitted, as its quite large and spacious.

These are the things i need in my bag on a daily basis apart from the odd thing will change so if we go somewhere late on ill take along with us some pj's and a cup for her bedtime milk and her milk carton. Also things change when seasons change as i wont need to carry any gloves around in the summer etc. Also my keys and phone go in my bag too.

My breastfeeding story! (blocked duct - septicaemia)

As soon as i found out i was pregnant i knew i wanted to breastfeed, knowing it was going to be best for my child. I started going to classes at my mother and toddler group to learn more about birth etc and a lot of pressure was on to breastfeed our babies when their born. Learning the facts of breast milk being better than formula i was so determined to do it. 

On the 8th of September, 6 days before my due date i gave birth to my little girl in hospital. She was born natural vaginal birth, i had to be stitched up for a good hour so i couldn't move much and being a first time mummy i didn't have a clue what to expect or do. Once i was all sorted and washed the midwife asked if i wanted to try get her to latch. I struggled right from the start, it just wasn't happening. At one point it seemed like she had latched on but only for a few seconds and she was back off. We left it for a bit and i just tried again. This continued for a few hours. The midwife then suggested to squeeze my boob so the milk came out and put it on a little spoon such as a clean medicine spoon or a little measuring cup. So when i got home i had to do that to make sure she was getting something. I still kept on trying to get her to latch and i felt really disappointed in myself for it not going the way i expected. 

After the first day we had breastfeeding experts come over and midwifes, they showed me certain positions i could do to try get her to latch on. I struggled to move as i was so uncomfortable since being stitched but i did some positions like they said and it still wasn't happening, she wouldn't latch. The midwife then weighed her a few days after she was born and she had gone from 6.9 pounds to 5.10 pounds which was under what their allowed to loose which made me feel so bad. My partner came up with 'what about formula'. I knew i didn't want to use formula and that there had to be another way. A midwife suggested a breast pump so my partner went out that same day and bought a manual Philips Avent breast pump and some bottles. As long as she was getting the breast milk it didn't really matter if it was from my boob or a teat. It worked a dream! except for my nipples being sore and my boobs engorging and being like rocks i was producing milk. The midwife said 'i could get you a electric pump to lend for a month', which that sounded bliss as i didn't have to manually do it as it hurt my hands. The electric pump worked amazing and my daughter was putting lots of weight on so i was super happy. 

After about 4 weeks of using the pump i noticed i wasn't producing loads of milk like i thought i should, so i started taking some herbal supplements to help my milk supply build up. It didn't seem to be doing much. The health visitor then came around to suggest why not try getting my baby to latch on my breast again after 4 weeks of being on the bottle. So i did which was the worst decision i had ever made. 

At around 4 1/2 weeks of my daughter having breast milk, mid October time i noticed my left boob starting to really hurt, It was aching and i knew something wasn't right straight away. I went to the doctors to explain and he say nothing was wrong and there was no point giving me any tablets for infection as there wasn't any infection yet. So i went home, trying to pump was feeling impossible no milk was coming out of my left breast at all and it was going really inflamed and hard. I went back to the doctors the day after and got some mastitis tablets and took them for a day, But then it was too late the pain was unbearable! I rang my partner to tell him i need to go to a walk in doctors as it was Saturday and my doctors wasn't open. As soon as i went into the doctors and took my bra off my boob was bright red! i had never seen anything like it, he said i needed to be cheeky and go to A&E! 

All i can say is thank god i did, i waited in the a&e room for about 1 hour and i started shivering feeling really uncomfortable and delirious and even started to cry. I felt like i needed to hold my boob up as well. Finally i moved into another room to be seen by a doctor which i was waiting another 30 minutes. Then the doctor finally took me into his room and basically said you need to have a operation as you've got a cyst in your left boob. He said the surgeon was going to come up in the next 4 hours as i had taken some paracetamol and they needed to be out off my system. I burst out crying again and i just remember saying I've let my daughter down with breastfeeding and that i was scared of my cyst exploding inside me. Within the next 20 minutes a surgeon came up and told me to put a gown on and that's it i was off and rushed down to theater. They couldn't put me to sleep straight away as my blood pressure was all over the place and they needed to calm me down i was holding onto a ladies hand and she was talking to me about my daughter and how old she was and she asked 'are you cold' as i was shivering and i said 'no, just nervous' which they couldn't understand. Once i had the operation and came around from the anesthetic i was on a ward to which i had water in a bag rushing through my veins. Most of it was a blur apart from that night trying to get blood from me for tests and saying i might need to go to ICU. That night i thought i was a goner. The next morning the nurse came to me as my mum, dad, partner and baby girl was sat around saying 'you worried us all last night'. But i came fighting back. I had some dinner and felt alright, i managed to get out of bed and sit at the side and a doctor came around telling me i had 'Septicemia' (blood poisoning) from the infection i had. Wow, that was a shock to hear. All i kept thinking is if i had left it another day i might not be hear today. But i am and that's the main thing, once i came out of hospital i felt so much better straight away. Apart from having to have the hole in my boob packed every day then every week EWW! But after a few month around November/December time i didn't have to have it done anymore and it could heal by itself. I was so happy that i could get back to normal life again and start to enjoy my baby girl again.

This has been quite emotional to write about especially trying to remember every detail what happened. I'm just very thankful for the hospital that saw me and for having an amazing family to help me.

But in the end even though this happened to me i will attempt to breastfeed when i have another child, i just will know if my baby doesn't latch on straight away and it doesn't work out not to worry about it. Just go with the flow. I ended up using formula in the end and my daughter is just as healthy now. Formula or breast milk, as long as your child is putting on weight and doing great that's all that matters. It's whatever works for you.