Sunday 31 January 2016

The Three Little Pigs Book Review

The three little pigs is such a classic fairy tale that I remember fondly from my own childhood, it use to be one of my favourite bedtime stories. So when I was sent a gorgeous hardback slide and see copy, as part of the Parragon book buddies scheme I was overjoyed and was really looking forward to introducing it to my little two children. 

The book itself is rather thick and hard backed making It perfect for babies and toddlers to grab a hold of. I love books like these as they survive little ones chewing on them and as the pages are made of thick card they can't be ripped either, which is always a worry when you have young children. As with all the Parragon books, we have read the illustrations are gorgeous and really bring the story to life. 

three little pigs book
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Saturday 30 January 2016

Slimming World Syn Free BBQ Slow Cooked Pulled Pork - Recipe

Every weekend I have decided to share a recipe of a meal that I have loved whilst on the Slimming World plan. When I am eating healthier I sometimes get bored of eating the same meals over and over, so I have been making sure I try out a few new recipes each week. Last week I shared my chicken fajita recipe and this week I made BBQ pulled pork in my slow cooker, it was syn free and delicious. 

sw friendly meal idea

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Monday 25 January 2016

The Playground Mafia Book Review

I was recently sent The Playground Mafia Book by Clare Christian and Elisabeth Kent, as this months Britmums Book club book of the month. This is a small light-hearted easy to read book that you can just easily dip in and out of whenever you fancy. The book is broken up into around 30 short profiles of the types of parents you may find in the school playground.

the playground mafia book
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Sunday 24 January 2016

Slimming World Slow Cooker Chicken Fajitas Recipe

Regular readers will know that I am now back on my Slimming World diet in a bid to lose weight once and for all. When I have followed the Slimming World plan before I always stuck to the same meals so this time I have decided to try out lots of new recipes, so that I don't get bored and turn to unhealthy foods. This week I decided to dust off my trusty slow cooker and make some Slimming World style syn free chicken fajitas and thought I would share my recipe. 

slimming world fajita recipe
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Thursday 21 January 2016

Slimming World Weigh In Two

I originally planned on posting all my Slimming World updates on a Wednesday, but as always life got in the way and I have only just found the time to sit down and write this now. After my amazing 5.5lb first weeks weigh in last week I was full of determination to lose 1.5lb this week and get my first half stone award. I sat down and meal planned and was all set for a good week but all my good intentions went out the window this week. 

This week was star week, basically that time of the month, I know sorry for too much information. I have tried losing weight so many times before in the past and I know that whenever it is star week I put weight on before losing it the following week. I gained 1lb which although was a little disappointing was something that I was expecting as I know what my body is like. 

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Tuesday 19 January 2016

The Book Of You Review

The new year is always filled with the promise of new years resolutions as people vow to break bad habits and form new healthier or better ones instead. Now we are a few weeks into the new year most people will have given up on those resolutions already, I know that personally, this is what normally happens to me. Making changes to your lifestyle is a big deal and for some people making big changes all in one go can be hard work and seem a bit daunting and this is why they fail. 

So when I heard about The Book Of You, a book that focuses on the little small things that can help improve your life rather than making big changes all in one go. 

book of you
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Friday 15 January 2016

Slimming World Weigh In One

Regular readers will know that last year I joined Slimming World as I had gained a lot of weight (4 stone to be exact) since having my son. I have never really been the skinny type and have always been a bit overweight and my weight has yo-yoed over the years, but gaining that extra four stone really got me down as none of my clothes fitted and I just did not feel very good about myself any more.

 I knew I had to do something about my weight so I joined Slimming World, a diet plan that I had used in the past and that I knew worked without having to count calories and starve myself. I went on to lose almost 2 stone (1 stone 13lbs) over the few months I was following the plan, but I started missing groups and seemed to lose and gain the same few pounds every few weeks. I honestly think that it was just not the right time for me to lose weight as my youngest was not sleeping and after over a year of sleepless nights I was exhausted, I lost all my motivation and often found myself reaching for the chocolate and crisps for comfort.

slimming world week one
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Tuesday 12 January 2016

Epson EcoTank ET-4500 Printer Review

Working from home on this blog and having a teenage daughter who is forever printing things off for her homework means that we use a printer a lot. My old printer was pretty rubbish if I am honest as it took ages to set up, having to plug cables in and we could only use it on the one laptop. We use to spend a fortune on ink cartridges as well as every couple of months we seemed to need to buy new ones. 

So when Epson got in contact to ask if I would like to review one of their Eco Tank printers, which can save you up to 70 % off your printing costs I knew this would be the perfect printer for our family. The Epson EcoTank printers come with up to two years worth of ink supply, which is enough to print 4,000 black pages and 6,500 coloured pages. You get four bottles of ink included with the printer and you simply fill the printers refillable ink tank with them, they fit so much more ink then a regular cartridge could and there is no hidden extra costs. 

epson printer
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Monday 11 January 2016

A look Back On Jacob's Weaning Journey With Vital Baby

This time last year my youngest child Jacob was almost five months old and we decided to wean him a little earlier than recommended on the advice of our health visitor, as he was suffering from colic and reflux and was such a big hungry baby. As he was only almost five months old we started off weaning him on baby rice before slowly introducing baby porridge and then fruit and vegetable purees and lastly finger food.  

Jacob loved his food and weaning him was such a lovely experience, when he was ten months old we were invited to be part of the #WeaningWarriors team by Vital baby and I wrote about the start of our weaning journey. I wrote about how we started Jacobs weaning journey and how he was at the stage where he was starting to eat family meals, I also shared some expert weaning tips from Dr Rana Conway.


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Friday 8 January 2016

December 2015

Each month I like to write a little round-up type post of the month gone by, a way to record and remember what we have been up to as a family. I love writing these posts as I hope that someday my children will read them and they will help them remember their childhoods. I normally write these posts on the 1st of the month but with Christmas and new year I am a bit out of the swing of things blogging wise and I am so behind with posts, please bear with me the next few weeks whilst I catch up. 


It seems so long ago since I wrote Novembers update which was a lovely month for myself and my family, so let's have a look at what December was like for us. Firstly sorry for the lack of photos as I took hardly any over Christmas and the ones I have taken are special ones that I want to keep just for us. 

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Monday 4 January 2016

Teenage Girl Bedroom Ideas

Regular readers will probably know by now that we are planning on moving home this year, as our current home is just not big enough for our family. I am really excited about moving as I am so looking forward to creating a home perfect for our family. One room that I am most looking forward to transforming is a bedroom for my teenage daughter. 

At the moment her room is fairly plain and boring, after browsing online I have decided to really make her room special. Teenagers are notoriously messy so I am hoping that if we create a nice space for her she may even keep her new bedroom tidy, or maybe that is just wishful thinking? 

I want to create somewhere that is slightly grown up but still fun and girly, with plain walls that can be easily transformed as she grows, but with lots of fun prints and girly accessories and splashes of colour. I do not want the room to be too grown up as she is only 13, but I want to create a room that will easily grow with her over the next few years.

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Sunday 3 January 2016

My 10 Most Popular Posts Of 2015

Now that it is a new year I thought that I would share my 10 most popular blog posts of the year gone by (excluding giveaways). For the last few month's I kind of feel like I have lost my way with blogging and was unsure of what direction this blog was heading in. So instead of listing my ten favourite posts of the year gone by like I did last year, I decided to see which were my most popular posts and this has helped me to decided what direction I will be taking this blog over the next few months.

I am really surprised with my ten most popular posts as some of them I honestly never expected to do as well as they have done, whilst other posts I really expected to be here are not. So let's have a look at my most popular posts from 2015.

1.) Slow Cooker Slimming World Campfire Stew Recipe. 

I never expected this post to do well at all, I was just trying out some new recipes and decided to post about slow cooker campfire stew, as I fancied featuring a recipe for a change. This post literally took me about 15 minutes to write up and I have hardly promoted it at all, but the views have gone crazy. This post was on Pinterest before I had even joined Pinterest as someone else had pinned it. I still get hundreds of views every single day from Pinterest and Google for this recipe a year later, which is crazy. I only wish all of my blog posts got as many hits as this one as it gets thousands of hits each month.


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A Day Out With Pampers Baby Dry Pants

Back at the end of November, I wrote a post about how Pampers were sending us on a day out with Jacob to test out their baby dry pants and take part in the Pampers happiness challenge. We were offered a day out at Peppa Pig world but obviously living in Newcastle it was too far for us to travel too, so we planned a trip to visit Santa at Beamish instead.

The weather in the North East has been awful these last few weeks and every time we planned our day out it rained. So the week before Christmas we decided to just try the Pampers baby dry pants on a regular day out instead. We decided to do some Christmas shopping, visit Santa and have some lunch, a perfectly normal family day out that when you have little ones can often result in lots of nappy changes along the way.

fenwicks newcastle window 2015
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