Freddie at Eight Months!

Freddie bear how can you be eight months old! It really does not seem five minutes since you were born.

You have come on so much this month! You are eating three meals a day plus normally four bottles of 6oz! You are in a size 4+ nappy and your clothes are a mixture of 6-9 and 9-12. 

Your favourite foods are currently porridge normally with fruit purée mixed in and pasta either in a sauce or baked in oven with cheese. You have developed a love of oranges and bananas from snack time at you baby groups! 

You adore your big brother and find him fascinating to watch and laugh at! You are sitting up most of the time now on your baby gym or a blanket playing with your toys. You prefer when having your bottle to be in your chair or sat upright on mummy's knee. The only time you snuggle into me for feed is when you are tired. 

You love having cuddles with mummy especially at bed time. You don't like daddy putting you to bed so most nights you end up lying snugged into mummy at bed time. 

You don't have a set time for napping. Normally it's just as and when you feel like it. Most of the time you nap when we go out in your pram. 

You are such a happy baby and rarely cry. You are still very much a mummy's boy and you do not like being left in a room while mummy pops to kitchen or toilet. You get very vocal and loud! 

Love you always my gorgeous little man

Mummy

xxx

What Freddie wore!

So today with the warm weather Freddie is wearing his dark blue jersey shorts from Asda, a blue and white stripped short sleeved vest also from Asda and his red and white funky giraffe dribble bib.

We got these shorts the other day in a pack of two, with the second pair being grey. The vest is pa t of a seven pack we also got the other day at Asda. 

I love the funky giraffe dribble bibs so much as they seem to be the only ones that Freddie does not soak through and they are so soft on his skin.

Most of the boys clothes seem to come from Asda, Tesco or Primark so I'm thrilled we have some awesome clothes from Rockin' Baby to review so keep an eye out for that coming up soon!

The last week of nursery has come

I remember sitting down at the beginning of September 2015 one week before James started nursery writing about him being away from me for three hours everyday. 

Today July 17th 2016 is the day before he starts his final week in nursery before transferring to reception class in September.

I'm not going to lie and say it's been a great year in nursery, because it's been blooming hard work, not just for James but for all of us as a family! 

James had only been in nursery for the full three hours a few weeks before Freddie was born, then of course the Christmas holidays Freddie ended up in hospital at four weeks old. 

Watching my baby change from the toddler into a little boy who loves school has been brilliant. I really feel like I have blinked and he's gone from this tiny baby to this big boy who is so opinionated and knows what he wants and when he wants it!

Reception is going to be a big challenge for him and also for us! Not having to pick him up at 12 is going to be odd, but it will give me time to focus on building this blog into something for us as a family! 

I'm so proud of all my boy has achieved this year. There was times I thought we would never get to him being in for the full session. But he has worked so hard this year and I'm so glad to be his mummy.

Well done James mummy loves you so much xx

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

Teddy Passport

For a child like James, who takes his teddy everywhere with him I thought this app sounded brilliant! So when we got the chance to review it I jumped at the chance! 

James has had Cranberry Bear (CB) since he was 15 months old and is very attached to him. This bear literally is joined at the hip to him! He goes to nursery in his school bag, he goes to the shops with us, the doctors etc literally everywhere. There have been days wha we have left the house and had to turn around and go back for him as James wanted him.

The app was really easy to install. All I had to do was download it to my iPad, fill in the Bears details, add a photo and save! The first stamp CB got in his passport was for Newcastle upon Tyne where we live!

I can't wait to take CB away with us to visit family n the summer holidays and gain more stamps in his passport!

I think this add would be brilliant for a family that does a lot of traveling, so teddy could get passport stamps for everywhere he goes!

Disclosure: We were sent a voucher code for the purchase of the app. The app is priced at £2.49 from the Apple App Store.

#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 at Seven Months

Freddie Bear how can you be seven months old!

You are now in size four nappies. I haven't had you weighed at baby clinic for a few weeks as I haven't been able to get an appointment, but we got the scales out at fun, play and learn last week and you were 17lbs 5oz! You are in all 6-9 clothing with the odd 9-12 top thrown in from primark! You seem to be a size ahead in their clothing! You love your food and are eating three meals a day. You are still having five bottles most days but only having 5oz instead of 7oz. 

You can sit unaided for a few minutes till you get distracted and topple over. You have also discovered rolling from your back to your tummy! Now everytime you are put on your back you flip over, it makes dressing you and changin your nappy very challenging! You can also move yourself around in a circle on your mat or a blanket. You love your baby gym and your infant to toddler rocking chair the most.

This month you have finally moved into your big boy cot in your very own room! The first night you woke at 0230am, so came in with mummy & daddy. The second night you woke up at 0430am and again came in with us. But the third night you slept from half past eight till half past six! Mummy and daddy are so proud of you! 

You experienced the swings at the park for the first time. You were not impressed with the big swings, but you loved the basket swing! You loved it even more when you got to swing on your big brothers knee! 

Your favourite person is definitely your big brother! You save all your best smiles for James! You can never take your eyes off him. 

You love going to our baby groups and are really taking an interest in playing with the other babies! 

You have been to two fairs and slept through most of both! You are not liking your stroller one bit as you can't see mummy to chat with!  So I think we will be sticking with the pram for a while longer!

Love you always my little bear

Mummy xxx