First birthday gifts!

So our little Freddie Bear turn one four weeks today, so I thought I would do a little post on what we have bought him!

With his birthday being so close to Christmas it's been really difficult to decide what to buy him for his birthday and what to give him for Christmas! Plus with him being the second child and second boy things we would have got him we already have from James!

So for his birthday, this is what we have actually got him:

Vtech Singing Alfie. 

We purchased this from Argos, Their website says "The VTech Little Singing Alfie is an adorable cuddly bear with fun and educational interactive features. This soft polyester toy features 3 chunky, coloured light-up buttons for your child to discover. It promotes recognition and accelerates learning through fun phrases, sound effects and sing-a-long songs"

Fisher price Chatter Telephone 

Again we purchased this from Argos, as both items were in the two for £15 offer. Their website says "This classic baby toy has been dialing up fun since 1961. The Fisher-Price Chatter Telephone is a pull along toy with a friendly face, spinning dial and fun ringing-phone sounds. It introduces role play when baby chats on the phone and dials numbers. 

A new look to this classic pull toy 2 ways for baby to play: sit & play and stand & pull.

Fun ringing sounds & eyes that move up & down when phone is pulled along. 

Dial introduces numbers 0-9. Receiver and dial encourage early role play. 

Pulling the phone along helps strengthen gross motor skills. 

Helps stimulate baby's visual & auditory senses."

I especially like the telephone as I had one when I was a child, and it's been relaunched since James was born so sadly we were not able to get him one, so I have a feeling he may be stealing this from Freddie.

Beatbo 

I have heard a lot of fantastic things about it, so Im really happy we managed to get this! We had been shopping around on the Internet and had found it for £30, days before we ordered it we popped to our local Tesco and they had it for  £28.49! Needless to say we bought it there and then!   

The Tesco website says "Get baby moving with Fisher-Price Dance & Move BeatBo! Colourful and cute with a friendly face and rainbow-coloured light-up tummy, this futuristic dancing buddy will have your little one jigging along to cheerful tunes as they learn the alphabet, colours and much more. 

Press Beatbo's tummy or the buttons on his feet to activate 3 fun modes - Dance & Move, Learning & Games and Record & Remix. Also a customizable function lets parents or children record a phrase or song for Beatbo to remix into an original melody. This mode is particularly useful for growing children who are learning to be more independent and interactive, making Beatbo an entertaining companion for years to come.

Designed to be fun and educational, Fisher-Price Dance & Move Beatbo helps to develop gross motor skills as well as increasing curiosity and discovery."

If you can suggest anything else please do as I'm totally stumped!

Freddie at 11 Months Old

Freddie Bear how can you be eleven months old! Only four weeks and we will be celebrating your first birthday! How can my beautiful little baby be turning one soon! The last eleven months have flown by!

You have learned so much this month! You weighed 20lbs 14oz at your 9-12 month check and are in size 5 nappies. You are also starting to go into 12-18 clothes! Much earlier than James did!  We have lowered your cot mattress as you learned to pull yourself up on the bars and we kept finding you standing up!

Your biggest development has been your progress from army crawling to actual crawling! Mummy needs eyes in the back of her head now as you follow me when ever I leave the lounge! I went to make you a bottle and found you sitting at the front door! You were so pleased with yourself! Within a week though you were following me to the kitchen and escaping the lounge when ever the door was left open! You are also cruising the furniture! You like to spend a lot of time on your feet! 

You and mummy had a lovely day out at the baby and toddler show in Manchester. It was a very long day as we left home at six am and got home just before eight pm! Mummy got you some new dribble bibs by Funky Giraffe, some new mam goodies and some of the new flavours from Piccolo! 

All your little friends have left our baby social group now. You were the youngest of our little group. Lucky we still see some of them at our Thursday group!

We are starting to buy things in for your birthday now, nanny and pappy are coming up from Surrey and we will see nana and gaga. Poor James will be at school on your actual birthday so it will probably be a tea party on the Saturday and a family meal on the day. 

You have been really poorly with a nasty virus, you hardly slept for five nights and when you did sleep it was only on mummy or daddy's chests. You've started napping more in your pushchair during the day, which is a big help to mummy, especially if we need to go out and pick your brother up!

We love you so much our little bear

Love

Mummy 

xxx

Pizza Express Autumn Menu Review

When Pizza Express asked us to come in and try out their Autumn Menu we were thrilled. As busy parents of two young boys we don't get much time to go out and have a meal just us. So we arranged for Nana and Gaga to take James and Freddie for a couple of hours and off we went to our local Pizza Express, which is located on Gosforth High Street, about ten minutes on the bus from our house. 

When we got there the restaurant was very quiet. We were booked in for twelve on a Saturday and when we arrived we were actually the only people there. But by the time we had ordered the restaurant was starting to get busier. I have been past the restaurant late on in the day and it's been packed! 

We had a choice of starter from the main menu, Andy went for garlic bread with cheese and I went for dough balls. Our starters were lovely. Dough balls are definitely my favourite Pizza express starter. 

For our main course we had a choice of Basilicata Romana, Rustichella and Cannelloni. Andy decided to go for the Basilicata Romana, which he said was really good although he didn't realise it was actually a pizza till it arrived! I went for the Cannelloni which was beautiful. It was well cooked and tasted amazing!

For desert we had the chocolate fondant, which was literally amazing. You put your spoon in and the chocolate oozed out! 

Over all we had a fantastic time. The food was amazing and the company was lovely. It was so nice spending time as a couple. Thank you Pizza Express for a lovely time and absolutely gorgeous food.

Disclosure: We were gifted this meal free of charge in exchange for this review, all words and pictures are our own. 

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

Blogtober day Eight!

So favourite TV programs!

I'm such a boring person and don't really change the channel much! We either have Netflix on for James so it's Paw Patrol, Dinotrux or Bubble Guppies on! 

If it's not Netflix then it's either Sky News I have on. During the week it's normally channel five so James can watch milkshake before school then I will watch the Wright Stuff and then turn over for Sky News.

So yep it's official I'm a boring news junkie! 

Blogtober Day Seven!

So what made me start blogging? 

Well we had not long moved house and I was spending more time at our house with James. He was 21 months old and I thought it would be a good way of recording our memories of him growing up.

He is now four and we have obviously added Freddie to the family and I recorded my pregnancy and his birth and so far his first ten months of life.

I think it will be lovely to look back on when the boys are older and they can see photographs of things we did and places we went to.

Blogtober Day Six

So favourite birthday/Christmas present well that would have to be my eternity ring that Andy got me for my 30th birthday last year.

When I turned 30 we were in the middle of buying our first house together and I was also pregnant with Freddie. We were basically living out of suitcases at my mum and dads house.

My ring is absolutely gorgeous and I never take it off.