#ACEit Challenge with Britmums

 With two boys now in full time primary school, I'm having to wash ten plain white polo shirts a week! And with having one boy in reception class his white tops are coming home pretty dirty every day!

We are now seven weeks into term and the polo shirts that were white at the start of term are now a nice shade of pale grey and I am refusing to buy any more shirts unless I absolutely have too! With James a few years ago I had to replace some of his shirts at the Christmas holidays as they were not only a nice shade of grey, but also stained from him playing with paint!

This is where Ace Ultra for whites comes in! It is specifically formulated to help brighten dull whites, It's gentle on delicate clothes, It tackles germs and odours, including viruses! This means not only do your clothes smell cleaner, they actually are cleaner! Something even more important in the current climate! Its concentrated, making it among the most affordable ways to keep white clothes looking bright!

Here you can see the boys polo tops after being worn and washed for seven weeks! They definitely do not look like they did when they came out of the packets when I bought them in the summer holidays!

The tops had a lovely grey tinge to them and the odd food mark or pen mark! Both my boys are notorious for taking their jumpers off in the classroom for no reason at all lol!

This was how the  polo tops when they came out the washing machine! They definitely looked a lot whiter and they certainly smelt good!  The next challenge was to see how they were when they came out of the tumble dryer.

And they are out of the tumble dryer! And wow the difference in the colour is amazing! These shirts were virtually grey after being worn for seven weeks and washed every weekend! We will definitely keep on using Ace Ultra for whites on the boys school tops! Especially given the current situation with another lockdown looming!

**This post is an entry for the #ACEit Challenge sponsored by Ace. Get ideas on how to wash whites, treat stains and laundry like a boss with tips from the Ace Site!**

#ACEWinterRefresh Challenge!

Winter is almost upon us and with that comes even more washing than normal!

Freddie started the school nursery in September and with that came another two school jumpers, two extra pairs of trousers and five more polo tops! 

Not to mention the fact Freddie then gets changed into normal clothes when he gets home, so there is basically double the amount of washing from him! Then of course you have to add in the fact James goes swimming on a Wednesday morning with school so we have a set of swim shorts and a towel to wash every week as well!

Unlike James, Freddie seems to only get one day out off his trousers and jumper! In fact there was one day before half term he came home with mud up the inside of his trousers legs so they had to be washed that night to make sure he had a clean spare pair for the rest of the week!

We've been using Ace for Colours powder on the boys school clothes and it has certainly been refreshing them, and keeping the colours of the jumpers and of course the school logo nice and bright especially when they are being washed every other day! The towel James uses for swimming comes out of the wash so soft and smelling lovely!

Ace for colours has definietley been helping us and I plan to keep using it to keep the uniforms nice and refreshed!

**This post is an entry for the BritMums #ACEWinterRefresh Challenge, sponsored by ACE for Colours Powder. Get help for all kinds of stains with the ACE Stain Helper http://www.acecleanuk.co.uk/ and pick up the range at your nearest Morrison’s store or buy online on Amazon.**

AD: A Childhood Favourite Beef Stew #meatmatters

AD: A Childhood Favourite Beef Stew

This meal was one of my favourites as I was growing up! My Nannie (my mums mum), would cook big batches of this up and put into her freezer to give to me after school, especially in the middle of winter!

This was actually the first time I tried to recreate it for us as a family meal and yes there was two extra portions for our freezer!

With Freddie having food intolerance's, I tend to cook most things from scratch and I actually really enjoy cooking!

The best thing about this dish was it actually cost me under £10 for all the ingredients! The diced beef was £2.59 and the root vegetable pack which contained swede, carrots, parsnips and an onion was only £1! The stock pots I used were gluten free and were Tesco own brand. I chose to use gluten free stock as Freddie has a suspected Wheat intolerance and has been wheat free since the start of January!

When my Nannie used to make this she would brown the meat and then put everything into a pan with the stock and leave it for a few hours, however I chose to steam my vegetables for half an hour to save me some time, so it literally only took me about half an hour to actually put together into the pan after browning the onions and the meat. 

So once the meat and onions are browned add them to a sauce pan with 500ml stock and add in the steamed vegetables. I left mine on a low heat for 30 minutes to simmer. It was all ready for Andy coming home from work and all we needed to do was heat it through and serve with some bread and butter!


This post is an entry for the #MeatMatters Challenge, sponsored by Simply Beef and Lamb. Learn more about the benefits of cooking and eating beef and lamb along with recipe ideas and inspiration here: https://www.simplybeefandlamb.co.uk. We haven’t been paid for this post; however we were provided with a £10 Tesco voucher in order to buy the necessary ingredients for this recipe.

#MyAquaphor Challenge

Winter is a horrible time not only weather wise, but skin wise! As a school run mum I'm out the house no matter what the weather is like early in the morning to drop off James and then back out again later to pick him up This is five days a week twice a day no matter what the weather is like!

I was asked to try out Aquaphor to see if it helped my skin in the cold north east weather! And boy do I love it! This tube sits on my bedside table so I always know where it is. 

This little tube of skin balm has changed my life so far this winter! It does the job of lots of different products! I tend to use it on my cheeks, my lips and my hands. They are the parts of my body that tend to get dry after being out in the wet and cold. 

I do try to wear gloves on the school run, but more often than not I end up having to take them off to open James school bag to check he has everything or to add things into it, especially when I pick him up as more often than not I end up having to send him back into his classroom to get things he has forgotten for example his glasses or water bottle!

I have also tried it on the dry skin that Freddie gets from his dairy intolerance and it has calmed it down so much and stopped him clawing at his neck!

This product has definitely improved my dry skin. Will I keep using it? YES!!

**This post is an entry for the BritMums #MyAquaphor Challenge, sponsored by Eucerin. Discover the benefits of Eucerin**

Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge

Weekends can be very manic in our house! James is normally exhausted after a busy week at school, so he normally wants to chill out in his pjs, but life has to continue homework and the weekly food shop need doing!

By the time the kids are fed and dressed and the shopping is done its normally lunch time and James is moaning that he is hungry. 

This is where the Rustlers Southern Fried Chicken Burgers come in! They are ready after 90 seconds in the microwave! They are a quick, convenient and affordable meal when mums and dads need it most!

We were challenged to buy the Rustlers Southern Fried Chicken Burgers and hack them to suit our family!!

So what did we do with our Rustlers Burgers to Hack them?

As mummy and daddy are trying not to eat bread at the moment so we decided to hack ours by removing the burger from the bun and using wraps instead. The buns were saved thought for the kids! 

We decided to do ours with sliced peppers and diced onions. We lightly fried the onions and peppers in spray oil.

We put Tesco sweet burger sauce onto the wrap and spread it out, we then put a few spoonfuls of the onion onto the sauce, then a few of the sliced peppers on top of the onions. We heated up the burgers following the instructions on the packet and then sliced it up and put it on top of the peppers and onions then folded up the wrap like we would normally do.

This was so yummy and a really good and a really quick lunch for a Saturday. Mummy tends to eat wraps for lunch most days so it really was a no brainer to hack ours using wraps. The ones we used for this project were wholemeal wraps, but we also quite like wraps flavoured with herbs.

That was how mummy and daddy did the hack on their burgers, but how did the boys have theirs? Freddie just had his as it came, but James he decided he wanted to have mustard on his bun instead of the mayo sauce that came in the packet and he had some steamed carrots and broccoli on the side! A few months ago the thought of James eating carrots and broccoli with his dinner was laughable! He would never eat them, so for him to ask to have them on the side of his dinner is a big thing!

We really enjoyed taking part in this project and would definitely make our hacked burgers again! I think it would even make a great midweek tea for the kids, especially when we have had a busy day of school and playgroup!

This post is an entry for Britmums Rustlers Burger Hacking Challenge Sponsored by Rustlers

#VicksTricks

Winter is definitely not my favourite time of year! With two boys, one being at school, someone is always ill.

As soon as James was back at school last September he was bringing home germs and passing them onto mummy, daddy and Freddie. I was praying we all stayed healthy this winter but alas we have all been ill! James and Freddie have both had numerous colds and sniffles, both boys have inhalers, Freddie just blue and both blue and brown for James as he seems to suffer badly! Daddy has had colds and flu and mummy coughing and colds! 

Winter 2015 was a bad one for us as Freddie caught a cold at 6 days old, which progressed into Bronchiolitis two days after his first Christmas and then him and mummy had a three day stay in hospital.

My best trick for winter is definitely a fully stocked medicine box! Our number one supply is definitely Vicks vapour rub for James, mummy and daddy. We also have snuffle babe for Freddie as he is under two.  Liquid paracetamol is definitely another lifesaver! James has a generic versions, but we have to give Freddie colour free calpol as colourings in medicine seems to make him vomit. We then have things like paracetamol for mummy and daddy, olbas oil, tissues, ibruprofen, cold and flu tablets, cough medicine and of course sticky plasters! You definitely need a supply of sticky plasters with a school boy! 

We have tried the good old Vicks vapour rub on the feet and cover with socks trick a few times, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It seems to work more with James than Freddie. 

This is our entry for the #VicksTricks campaign with Britmums

The Aldi #MamiaDaysOut Challenge

When we were offered the chance to take part in the #MamiaDaysOut campaign we jumped at the chance!

To put it simply Freddie is a Mamia baby! It's all we have used with him since the day he was born! The nappies are fantastic and the wipes are brilliant! Now he's weaning and on food if we are going out we will take a Mamia food pouch as they are organic and to be honest yummy! Freddie adores them! The fruit pouches are ideal for mixing into yoghurts and porridge! 

We were challenged to go out with Mamia products for a day! Mummy and Freddie had a day out planned to the baby and toddler show at event city in Manchester, so this meant three meals out the house for Freddie, two being on trains, so the Mamia pouches were ideal! We had our Mamia rice cakes in our snack pot and our nappies and wipes packed in our Babymule changing bag!

We were sent a hamper of products and a voucher to get nappies and wipes with. Freddie's favourite product from the hamper had to be the rice cakes! These are something we actually do buy pretty often as both boys love them! The fruit pots are ideal as a snack or a dessert after his lunch or tea! 

On our day out we had a breakfast pouch on the train down to Manchester, then we had meals at lunchtime and tea on the train home! The pouches are ideal to slip into the changing bag, but for this trip we had a lunch bag under the pram complete with bibs and spoons to keep the food at a decent temperature as I knew that Event City, where the Baby and Toddler show was, would get rather hot! 

Overall we were thrilled with the products we were sent and its proved to us that we have made the right choice for Freddie in using Mamia products for the last ten months!  I'm looking forward to using them for the rest of the baby and toddler days! 

This post is an entry for BritMums #MamiaDaysOut Linky Challenge, sponsored by Aldi Mamia

Confessions of a Summer Parent!

Summer holidays argh!!! This year Is the first year I have had to face the six/seven weeks holiday as before this year James had always been with me, but since he started nursery school last September and subsequently going to school this September, school holidays have become so important.

Our school finishes on July 22nd and goes back on September 6th so I have a grand total of six weeks and one day to amuse James. As each set of holidays have rolled round this school year, I have for it harder to amuse James as he has been desperate to go to school and see all of his friends. 

Lucky for us our local children's centre normally has at least one 0-5 group on, so I can take the boys along to that. But finding stuff to do the rest of the time is hard especially when daddy does not have any holiday off till the last week of the holidays and even then it's only two days and we will be down in Surrey visiting family.

Through James school we get a copy of a magazine called Primary Times and I find this fantastic as it has all the activities that are on at attractions in the North East listed! It also normally contains a few vouchers for money off entrance. We have used previous vouchers during other school holidays to keep James amused!

There is so much going to be on over the summer and these are just a few of the things happening in the north east, some of these I'm hoping to get the boys along too!

First off we have Warkworth Castle, which is literally a five minute walk from my parents house! They have stuff on every holiday and this summer is no different! Starting from the first weekend of the summer they have something on at least one day a week and also the village show is on 20th August. Primary Times also has a voucher for free child entry with a full paying adult. 

We also have Alnwick Castle, they again have lots on over the summer, for five weekends they have on Potter inspired characters. This is because Alnwick Castle was used as Hogwarts in the first couple of Harry Potter films. There is also the beautiful Alnwick Gardens too! 

For a child like James, who loves diggers then I think a visit to Diggerland is definitely on our list! 

We are lucky to have places like these a short drive away, so we will definitely be paying a visit to them. But for the days when we are at home mummy will be turning to good old arts and crafts and of course Netflix to amuse James. He's a real lover of Paw Patrol and Bubble Guppies so they will definitely be used to keep James amused on the days where mummy just wants to chill out.

So these are just a few of the things I'm going to be trying to do to keep my big boy amused over the summer holidays! 

This post is an entry for BritMums Confessions of a Summer Parent Challenge, sponsored by Anchor

Images supplied by www.ivtography.com

#EnjoyMoreWater with Robinsons and Britmums

It can be such a challenge to get James to drink water. When he takes his water bottle to school it comes back most days barely touched. 

In January 2016 Robinsons launched the Enjoying Drinking More Water campaign and I'm thrilled that me and James are getting involved in it this summer! We both need to learn to drink more water and this campaign as given us the incentive! 

We were sent six different flavours of Squash'd to try, plus a packet of fruit stickers and a two week chart to track how much James drank! The pack arrived while he was at school, so once he got it I asked him to chose a flavour and if he wanted a glass to drink. On day one he managed two cups of lemon and lime water, which was brilliant as normally he will only drink milk or hot chocolate. 

Whenever we go out as a family, the first thing I put under the pram is a drinks bottle for James. At the moment he is using a Disney Lightning McQueen drinks bottle from poundland, which he loves. I find if the bottle has his favourite film characters on then he is definitely more likely to use it. He was given a water bottle at his pre school health check and so far has turned his nose up at it. Even though it is a bigger bottle! Compared to his Lightning McQueen bottle it's pretty boring!

The Robinsons Squash'd are brilliant! You get enough in each pack to make twenty drinks! James has tried the orange and peach in the past. The lemon and lime has to be my favourite! I'm always buying bottles of still lemon and lime water at the shop by the school. So this has saved me some money! I didn't think James would like the lemon and lime flavour but he surprised me and loved it! His favourite flavour has to be the citrus as he says it's yummy!

I love the fact I can throw a pack into the changing bag so if we are out and need to refill a bottle I can just get a cheap bottle of water and add flavour to it. This happens pretty often with James, he just cannot get by on the taste of bottled still water. 

At the end of the first week James had gone from a couple of sips of water to drinking at least two beakers a day. 

Week two has been much better and James has finally started using his bigger water bottle! 

He's gone from drinking virtually no water to two or three cups in an afternoon after nursery!

Thank you to Robinsons and Britmums for getting us involved in this challenge! 

This post is an entry for BritMums #EnjoyMoreWater Challenge, sponsored by Robinsons

Freddie's Firsts with #PetitsFilousFirsts

We are experiencing so many "Firsts" with Freddie at the moment. He's now six months old and well into his weaning journey. Some of his first foods have been mango, apple, sweet potato and courgette. 

My First Petits Filous have come about at just the right time as we are starting to introduce a pudding to Freddie after his evening meal. We always have some sort of fromage frais in the fridge with having a three year old, but these are perfect for introducing to Freddie, plus James is the type of boy who does not like sharing his food! 

Where we live, we have some brilliant groups to go to & this is where Freddie has been experiencing most of his "firsts". In the last few weeks he has experienced gloop (cornflour and water), he's had his hands and feet in jelly, he's had his feet painted, he's sat in cornflakes, the list goes on! Being in a sure start centre I was sadly not allowed to photograph him in the jelly but I will be recreating at home so his daddy can see his reaction! 

The consistency of the My First Petits Filous is brilliant for a baby if Freddie's age! It's not as thin as some fromage frais, which means it does not fall off the spoon! Even when I mixed fruit purée into it, the consistency did not thin down! This has been one of the things Freddie has eaten the most of lately as he's finding it so hard to suck on his bottle with his tooth coming in.

Not only has Freddie experienced his first Petits Filous, but he also had his first Yorkshire Pudding! He sucked on it and loved it! We went for a meal out for his nana's birthday and he had his first broccoli and even more Yorkshire pudding! 

Now he's tried the My First Petits Filous on its own, we have experimented and mixed it with one of his favourite fruits, mango! This went down brilliantly! Freddie gobbled it down! The cool temperature was really soothing on his sore gums.

Freddie has had two really big "Firsts" this last week. He's had his first trip away from home to stay at his nana and gaga's house, which was also first time not in his crib. But the biggest has to be his first tooth starting to cut through his gums. And for Freddie it's one of his top front teeth coming first! 

I love celebrating all the "Firsts" for both my boys, James has a big one come September - his first day of big boy school in reception class! 

This post is an entry for BritMums #PetitsFilousFirsts Linky Challenge, sponsored by Petits Filous