2014 Bucket List

2014 is going to be a massive year again for me, not only have I got me returning to work and J starting nursery but it will be a massive year in shape of J's development.

Normally I write a list of new years resolutions but after seeing a recently post by the lovely Donna over at redheadbabyled and Sharon's Blog I decided to copy their idea and write a bucket list for 2014 instead. 

Typically a bucket list is a list of all the things you want to do before you die! Well this is my list of the things I want to do but just for this year.

1) Loss the remaining 2 stone of baby weight I have to loss

2) Take a carriage ride around central Park when I go in May

3) Finish decorating the house

4) Make sure we do family days out at least once a month

5) Spend some quality time just me and hubby

6) Do some fun and exciting things with J on my day off 

7) enjoy and savor all those new 1st I will experience with J this year

8) Try and not get so wrapped up in twitter and make time in the evenings for Hubby

9)  Make the effort to cook more recipes both old and new

10) Enjoy time with my friends

I think those are all achievable but will keep you updated

Review of 2013

2013 has been a wonderful year for me, my life has changed forever! 

January for most a dreary month but for me my favorite month as it's my birthday! I celebrated my last one not being a mummy by having a nice afternoon tea with my parents and hubby. It was also the month we found out the sex of baby Hanno! 

February saw a visit to the baby show in London where we purchased our pram and a trip to Mothercare to purchase the cot. It was also the month I started this blog.

March was when we went on our last adult only Hoilday to Tenerife. It was while on this holiday that hubby felt Baby Hanno move for the 1st time

April saw us get a private scan to see how baby Hanno was getting on. It was also when my mum hosted my baby shower, I had such a wonderful afternoon with all my family and friends

May we started the NCT parent course where we meet 7 other couples. It's funny as the beginning I wasn't sure who I'd get on with but now I have made some really good friends who I hope with remain in my life for a long long time. It was also the month I started my maternity leave.

June well what a life changing month that was! The month started with the delivery of our new shed and me at 38 weeks pregnant being up a ladder painting it.

And of course it was the month our son James came into our lives! At just 6.5lbs he was smaller than expected. 

July was when J became official and his birth was registered. Hubby celebrated his 1st birthday as a father. 

August we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary with our 1st meal out alone after J's arrival. We also had our 1st trip away with our son to help celebrate Gary and Rachel's wedding.

September J had his 1st overnight stay at Grandma's & Grandpa's while hubby and I went to the Radio 2 concert in Hyde Park. I also started swimming lessons with J.

October saw a visit to the beach for J and a family holiday with the grandparents and uncle Paul in Devon.

November J had his 2nd overnight stay away but at this time at his Nanny's while hubby and I enjoyed a much needed night out with friends

and that leads us to December to is celebrating J's 1st Christmas! 

Although it's been a wonderful year for us as a family, my thoughts will always be with those who weren't able to, for you I send you much love xx

J's first Christmas

I can't tell you how excited I was for Christmas this year. I'm such a big kid and love it so so much but this year of course was more special.

We were woken up early at 5ish by J Christmas Day, a pattern he'd got him self into in the previous few days. After his bottle we sat on our bed and opened his Father Christmas presents, this is a tradition from my childhood. There were only a few small presents in the special sack I had got him from mamas & Papas. He then had a play with them while hubby and I had ours cuppa's, after a family nap it was time for me to go down stairs to sort out starting cooking the Christmas lunch.

I made a brave decision and decided to make home made bread to go with the smoked Salmon starter so that had to be made 1st thing. The previous night I'd made a schedule of what had to be done when, so on Christmas Day during all the chaos I could know what I had to do.

After bread was made it was time to open the presents from us. When I was growing up we were always made to wait until after lunch, we may do this as J gets older but for the moment we shall open the presents from us in the morning. 

Just a small pile then mummy

As you can imagine J had loads. We'd brought him 4 items including the car walker he's sat in, but of course others who weren't spend Christmas with us had got him bits. I'm not quite sure where it started but I always like handing out all the presents 1st then taking it in turns to open a present each. 

Once presents we're open it was time for breakfast, Christmas tree shaped crumpets instead of my normal bagel. Once dressed it was time to get on with cooking the Christmas lunch. Like most we always have roast Turkey and all the trimmings this year followed by my Dad's home made Christmas pudding.

We were joined for lunch by my parents, my brother, hubby's mum and Nan oh and we can't forget Bella my mum's tibetan terrier.

After lunch we had round 2 of the present opening. I'm so so glad we asked everyone to respect our wishes of only buying J one present. I do wonder how many toys one little boy actually needs. We'd also decided that instead of buying all 6 other adults a present each we would put everyone's name in a hat and only then have to buy 1 present. Personally I think this worked really well and I think I may do this every year with who ever spends Christmas with us.

After present opening we had dessert before going out for a nice walk.

Both Bella and J were very good all day and J even went to bed at his normal bed time of 5:30. 

The evening we just spent chatting which was lovely and everyone finally went around 10pm.

We had a fab 1st Christmas as a family and I shall remember this one for years to come! I'm already looking forward to next Christmas.

Hope you all had great christmas's too! Heres to a fantastic 2014!

Tis the night before Christmas

Tis the night before Christmas and in the Hannington house all the presents were wrapped and under the tree.

Little J had a nice bath before getting into his Christmas Eve pj's.

Together myself and Daddy read the night before Christmas before I put Little J's sack out along with the special plate for Father Christmas 

What a year it's been I feel very privileged that I get to celebrate my son's 1st Christmas. 

I so excited for tomorrow and it will be a trully special magical day.

So to you all from me and little J I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope 2014 brings you all that you wish for

Lots of Love Xx

A to Z of me

From Emma and Alfie recent post of her A to Z of her she asked other bloggers to give it a go so here goes!

A is for August the month I was married

B is for Brothers, I have 2 of them

C is for Chris my gorgeous husband

D is for my Dad, I think mine is pretty amazing

E is for education I was privileged to have been sent to private school

F is for Friends I have made some pretty amazing ones over the years

G is for giraffe it seem to have a great love of them since having J

H is for Hannington my surname

I is for my iPhone of course I would be completely lost without it!

J is for James my son who I love with all my heart

K is for Koala a native of the country where I got married  

L is for lucky that the IVF worked 1st time

M is for my Mum, she's also amazing 

N is for Nan, although I don't have my own anymore I love that I can call Hubby's Nan Nan

O is for my One Phobia certain eight legged things 

P is for Pink my favourite colour

Q is for quote: Live every moment, Laugh every day, Love beyond words which is my favourite quote

R is for rolling side to side which is J new trick

S is for my and hubby's song Time of your Life by Green Day

T is for Tiffany my favourite shop! there's something about getting one of those little blue boxes with the white ribbon on

U is for unique which I think I am 

V is for Victoria my full name

W is weaning which I am doing with J

X is for X Factor which I didn't watch this year

Y is for Year, what an amazing 2013 it's been full of many 1st's

Z is for my Zodiac Sign Aquarius 

What's your A to Z?

The Versatile Blogger award

I was delighted when Redheadbabyled nominated by the  for a “Versatile Blogger” award. Her blogs is one of my favourites So I was honoured that she thought of me 

The rules to the Versatile Blogger award are as follows…

1)  in your post, be sure to thank the blogger that nominated you
2)  write seven facts about yourself and nominate seven other bloggers
3)  you must use the versatile blogger award image on your post

Ok so here goes 7 facts about me

1. I have owned 8 cars in my life.
2. I have lived in 9 houses 1 being in London
3. I've had 3 different surnames as I've been married twice, the best thing is my initials have only changed twice as my maiden name and new married surname begin with the same letter
4. My favourite colour is pink
5. I have 2 brothers both who are older than me
6. I lost 6.5 stone over the course of 18 months on weight watchers and I'm currently trying to get back to goal weight after the birth of my son
7. I love trashy American TV programs like Glee, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, Devious Maids, Misstresses

Ok so now to tag 7 people

Mrs Shilts

From A to G
Life love laura
Mrs PGD
twinderelmo
Emma and Alfiesworld
emotionalegg's Blog

Thank you again so much Redheadbabyled x

My little man is 6 months old

I can't believe that my little man is actually 6 months old today. Where did that time go? 

Every day I am very thankful for the wonderful gift of him.

God he's changed so much 

He's learning to sit by himself kidda he manages about 10 secs before he wobbles. His favorite games are to blow bubbles and to play with his feet.

I started weaning him about a month ago. He still not massively fussed about food differently doesn't take after his mum but he does now have 2 meals a day. His still teething but we have no teeth yet.

I'm so looking forward to spending our 1st Christmas as a family, finally everything feels complete. 

The new year is going to be exciting but scary for us. J is starting nursery in January ready for my return to work in Febuary. 

I will then be looking forward to our 1st family holiday aboard then of course planning his 1st birthday party and of course of the many exciting 1st that will happen next year! It's weird to think this time next year he'll hopefully be walking and talking.

So to my son happy 1/2 year birthday

Love

Mummy

Salt Dough Decorations

A recent post by another blogger got me thinking about being more crafty this year. For those who don't know a lot about me I love art hence why I love all my cake decorating but I barely get the chance to do or make anything these days, but what I better excuse do I have than having a son. Although he is a little at the moment I know over the years to come I shall enjoy making things with him.

So this year I decided to make some salt dough decorations for 3 very special twitter ladies and with the extra I had left over I made some decorations for our tree.

You will need:

Mixing bowl

Wooden spoon

Cookie cutters

rolling pin

Lined baking tray

1/2 cup of salt

1/2 cup of water

1 cup of flour

Food colouring of your choice

How to make the salt dough

Mix the salt and flour  in a bowl and stir in the water a little at a time, you want the dough to be dry – if it gets sticky add more flour. Knead the dough, you can now add any colouring you want to the dough, add a little of the colour at the time and knead well and then roll out and use the cookie cutters to make the shapes you want. If you are making hanging decorations don't forget to make a hole, the easiest thing I found to do this was a straw.

You can either dry the salt dough in the oven at 100c for about 3 hours, or leave on the side for about 2 days. I dried mine in the oven then left them out overnight on the side

You can paint salt dough with pretty much any paint, from acrylics to metallic sprays. Finish by coating with a clear varnish if you'd like to use the decorations next year.

These are ones I made

Christmas Cake

I've made a christmas cake for the last few years now. Normally I used the Delia recipe but I always find it too dry and not massively nice. I love moist fruit cakes, so this year I decided to throw caution to the wind and ask my lovely twitter friends for their christmas recipes. The lovely @penguin_physio shared her tried and test family recipe. So about 2 months ago I set about baking this year Christmas cake to the following recipe.

Christmas Cake Recipe

By Trompetto – Chef at the savoy – London

For the cake you will need: 

8 inch loose bottom cake tin lightly buttered & dusted in flour and lined base

Cooling rack

Large mixing bowl or mixer

wooden spoon

preheat oven at 170c 

8oz Butter

8oz Caster Sugar

4 Eggs

8oz Plain Flour

8oz Sultanas

4oz Currants

4oz Raisins

2oz Blanched Almonds

2oz Chopped Mixed Peel

2oz Cherries

1/2oz Mixed Spice

Juice of 1 lemon

Juice of 1 orange

One teacup of equal parts Rum and Brandy

Mix together butter, sugar, lemon and orange juice then add eggs one at a time until all added. Add sifted flour and spice and stir then gently fold in fruit.Pour into greased and flour dusted tin. Covering the top for first hour with loose grease proof paper prevents burning, also cover the outside of the tin with a magazine will help prevent over cooking.

Bake a1 170°C for 30 mins. Turn down to 120°C for 3-3 ½ hrs. Test with skewer after 3 hours to check it is cooked it should come out clear when it is.

Leave to cool in the tin and turn out when cold. Gently pour mixed spirit over the bottom over a couple of hours . Wrap in tin foil and store in a tin for a couple of months,  Improves with keeping.

When ready, brush cake with warmed apricot jam before covering in marzipan. Brush the marzipan with rum then cover with rolled royal icing and decorate as you wish.

This is my cake from this year.

Little Bird Told Me - Curious Caterpillar Activity Pull-Along

I was recently asked to review one of the lovely soft toy products on the Little Bird Told Me website. You can check out their website at http://www.littlebirdtoldme.co.uk/

I choose the Curious Caterpillar Activity Pull-Along from their soft toy collection for the purpose of this review, it retails at £18.

On opening the outer box and seeing the Curious Caterpillar I instantly feel in love with it and Little J's eyes lit up. Little Bird Told Me have been very creative with their packaging, the Caterpillar's head and tail peak out of the cleverly created box. Removing him from his packing was easy and meant J could play with him within minutes of the box being opened.

The Caterpillar came out with ease from inside his Apple Chariot and straight away the bell began to jingle. Instantly J was reaching for him and wanting to hold it himself. What is great is the caterpillar is a nice size which means that J's tiny hands could grasp hold of it. It also has different textures and sounds which helps develop little ones motor skills. At the moment J needs a lot of help playing with this toy as he is unable to put the caterpillar back into the Apple Chariot himself or pull the chariot along, but from his big smiles on his face he enjoyed watching mummy do it. 

The Chariot has a little mirror attached that J was able to look at him self in, this is also surrounded by different textures, the whole toy is very light which means J had no problems picking the whole thing up. I am certain this is a toy he love playing with as he grows.

The only slight downside to this toy is the string for the pully bit it attached 1/2 way down by a piece of velcro, this means it comes apart quite easy and therefore the main part of the toy can become detached. I'm then not sure if J will understand how to reattached it and to me I don't understand why it's there.

Overall I do really like it and would recommend it to others.

The other item I absolutely love on the website are the Rocking Horses especially the Bobby and Pip infant Rocker. I think every baby should have one. 

Disclaimer: I was sent this product for the purpose to review it, all the word, opinions and images are my own. 

My cakes

Recently I volunteered rather "stupidly" to make a friends Son's christening cake. It was so much easier when I didn't have a 5 month old, now it takes twice as long due to having to occupie him or doing it while he naps.

Anyway I thought I'd actually share with you my cakes I've done. I've always enjoyed baking right back from when I was little. My 1st big cake was actually my own wedding cake or I should say cupcakes. These had little love hearts as the decoration.

Then in 2011 I decided I actually wanted to do a cake decorating course. I did the Wilton Cake decorating course level 1-3 at Need a cake in Woodley. These were the cakes I made.

So now I just make cakes for friends and family.

Birthday cake for hubby's Aunt.

Retirement cake for a colleague

Cupcakes for 'Royal Wedding' party 

Birthday cake for my cousin

Christening cake

My Christmas cakes

Needing my own space

I've wanted to be a mum for a long as I can remember. I am one of those girls who believes in fairy tails, you meet the love of your life, fall in love, get married, have children and live happerly ever after but now I wonder what that happy every after is.

Don't get me wrong I love being a mum but I find it bloody difficult at times although I rarely admit this to anyone. I'm not sure what I expected but it's nothing like the reality I have. 

I am very lucky that J is a very good little boy most of the time, though he has already learnt how to play us and is a pickle at times. At night he sometimes gets himself over tired and then won't go down without a massive struggle. God only knows how Iife would be if he'd not been so good. I wonder how others cope sometimes? 

Everyday is full on I never really seem to get any of my own real time or space but this is my own fault really as I never let myself just relax. If I'm not of doing things for J or the house or for hubby then I'm on twitter or Facebook or playing candy crush. Finally I think it's all got too much and I find myself needing more space even so much so I'm considering going back to work early. 

It's not like I don't want to spend time with my son but for me 10hrs a day 7 days a weeks is a bit too much, actually if I spent that much time with anyone more than for a few weeks then it's too much for me. But what sort of mum does that make me saying I'd rather go back to work than spend time all my time with my son? I feel bad for saying that. 

Is it selfish of me to say I need space, I need my own life as well as being a wife and a mother? Don't get me wrong I do get time out but then I feel guilty after for not massively missing my son and enjoying myself. Is it a part of parenthood being racked with guilt all the time? 

I need some normality back in my life I need more of a routine for me, thats probably a weird thing to say. This scale has been well and truly tipped and I need to find a way of balancing it all out again. 

So how can I achieve this? Well for one I need to take a step back from social media and not get so obsessed by it and wrapped up in others lives.  As normally I wrap my self up in others rather than deal with my own issues, I have my own to life that I need live. I need to make sure I go to my fitness classes twice a week to give me some time out, but also I think I am going to look I to going back to work early, though I am ashamed to say this.

If you think this makes me a bad mum I'm sorry, everyone is different, I'm never going to be an earth mother. To me this is me trying to make my relationships with my husband and son better. 

Coral Reef

As you may know from reading my blog I've been taking J swimming for about 3 months now and he loves it as much as I do.

After a conversation with the NCT girls we decided that on one of our weekly Wednesday we'd go swimming. After a bit of a chat we decided that Coral Reef was probably our best bet, although we all live in Reading and it is in Bracknell which is about 30 minutes in the car from Reading.

You have to pay £3 for car parking but this is deducted off your swimming. We went off peak, so swimming for me and J only cost £4.70 this included the parking which I think is great value. Unlike other swimming pools I've been too they have 1 changing area with various sections in it including huge family changing rooms which was perfect for us. This also means when you go as a family you can all stick together. The 7 of us split ourselves over 2 of the large family changing rooms. 

The only small annoying thing is the lockers are slightly small so you may need more than 1 if you have lots of stuff. They do tell you at the till when you pay but the locker costs £1. I have one of those "£1" locker coins that I keep attached to my bag I take swimming so I never had to go searching for that £1.

After changing we were ready for swimming. As J is still so little and our changing room was far away from the pool side I took a towel for J and just left it by the poolside, this was a bonus at the end as the showers are right by the poolside. There is a very small group of rock where you can leave things. I had told the girls not to bring in prams or car seats, Coral Reef do allow them in but you have to leave them by the poolside because there is no we're to leave them in the changing room, this would potently mean they would get wet!

The pool it's self is quite big and split up into various areas, oh and not forgetting there is a huge pirate ship! What I love about it is that you can take your children there even if your not a great swimming yourself because the pool isn't too deep that you can't touch the floor. The toddler pool starts very shallow and there are various water bits to keep them and you entertained. For toddlers upwards there are various slides for them to enjoy, some need an adult to go on with them. You can check out Coral Reefs website for more information. http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk/coralreef

After swimming I always shower J. Coral Reef have shower gel dispensers on the wall by the showers so you don't need to take any shower gel. Though you will need shampoo and conditioner if you wish to wash your hair. Of course there are hair dryers to dry your hair with after.

After showering we were back to the changing room. I wisely had taken the little swimmers hygiene mat which was perfect for putting J on the floor on in the changing room. One thing I hadn't said was how impressed I was by the changing rooms they were very clean and tidy. 

Once everyone was dressed we then went to the Coconut Grove and Beech cafe for a spot of lunch. The choice was somewhat small but ok I had a ham sandwich and a yogurt of course there are chips available. 

Overall I was very impressed by coral Reef and would definitely go back and recommend to others.

The other thing have is an on site photographer, they are there snapping pictures that can be brought on the day. They also do every so often take underwater photos, unlike most baby swimming classes they don't charge a booking fee or horrendous amounts for the photos. Their next underwater session is running mon 2nd until Friday 6th Dec 2013 between 10-12.

What you need for swimming.

• Wet nappy - you can buy these in packs of 12 for under £8
• Happy nappy or swimsuit - Coral Reef say you just needed the wet nappy but I always think you need to have something over it.
• Towel for drying little one
• Something's for the floor like the little swimmers hygiene mat or an extra towel
• Your swim suit - I always wear mine going and remember to pack my bra and knickers for after
• Towel for you