Dreamgenii Pregnancy Pillow

I was recently offered the opportunity to review the dreamgenii pregnancy pillow by the lovely Vanessa and Caroline from dreamgenii® Being 30 weeks pregnant I welcome anything that will assist me with a good nights sleep, as it is getting uncomfortable now due to the size of my bump! 


The award winning dreamgenii® pregnancy support and feeding pillow was created by Vanessa who, like many of us pregnant ladies, struggled to get a good nights comfortable sleep during her pregnancy. She was also aware that the optimal sleeping position for the health and well being of her unborn baby is to lie on your left side.


Having tried every pregnancy pillow that was available in this market, she found that none of them actually worked for her. Following 12 design attempts, Vanessa found one that worked for her and after gaining feedback from a number of midwives, fellow pregnant women etc.. the dreamgenii® pillow was born! It has been certified by the European Medical Devices Directorates as a Class 1 Medical Device, and has been used by thousands of women during and after pregnancy. It has also won several top press awards.


So with such a great background story and rave reviews, I was very keen to give this pillow a try. It promises a magical nights sleep during pregnancy and I have to say that after using this product for almost 2 weeks now, I can honestly say that it has helped me feel comfortable in my bed at night. 


Upon taking it out of its bag, it did take me a few minutes to work out how to position it on my side of the bed (although that could be down to my baby brain more than the product itself!). However, after studying the accompanying instructions I soon settled myself down on it. I know that lying on my left side is the ideal and safest position for the well being of my unborn baby, and despite starting like that when I drift off to sleep, I always wake up for my middle of the night  bathroom stop laying on my back! However, I can honestly say that over the last fortnight I haven't woken up as often on my back which makes getting up out of bed so much easier for me! 


Another great thing about the dreamgenii® pillow is thats it's not too bulky to lie against. This means that, unlike during my last pregnancy when I used spare pillows to act as a support, sleeping against this is soooo much nicer!


To spare you an image of a beached whale lying on the pillow (lol)  rather than have a photo taken of me using it I will instead show the official dreamgenii® pillow user image! 






Another clever and beneficial side to the dreamgenii® pregnancy pillow is that once the baby is born it does not become redundant. This is because it turns into a feeding pillow to help support baby while you nurse it either through breast or bottle feeding.


Overall, I would definitely recommend the dreamgenii® pregnancy support and feeding pillow. Although the price tag is quite high (see below), can you really put a price on good nights sleep? Plus because it can be used to assist with feeding baby aswell, overall it would get an awful lot of use for the money you would spend. Obviously if you are planning on having more than one child, then the value for money is greater still. i think this pillow is fab and because it was created by a Mum for other Mums you know a lot of thought went into it to make it the best pillow in this market it can possibly be.


The dreamgenii® pregnancy support and feeding pillow retails for £45.99 and is available from www.dreamgenii.com and other leading maternity retailers and stockist.


You can follow dreamgenii on twitter here

Not So Silent Sunday!

In The Night Garden Live

This weeks entry by myself is a little bit of a cheat.....maybe! However, I am thinking it might inspire some parents to buy some tickets over the weekend for this brilliant live show.


Following the huge success of the tour last year, tickets went on sale today for In The Night Garden Live 2011 and I have bought mine already. The live shows will be available in the following towns:
Sheffield
Gateshead
Manchester
Milton Keynes
Cardiff
Richmond
Tunbridge Wells


Dates vary from April until September. Ticket prices vary depending on the time of your performance but they start from £10.


Burton was 15 months old when my Mum and I took him last October and to begin with I don't think he knew what to make of it.





Infact he cried whenever the characters walked off the stage but halfway into it he got over that and laughed and waved and bounced along to it.


 Like this year, there are two different stories to see the Ninky Nonk (Iggle Piggle loses his blanket) or the Pinky Ponk show which was the tale of Makka Pakka washes faces!




It is just like watching an episode from CBeebies, for it lasts the same length of time and Derek Jacobi narrates the show aswell.


The way the characters are brought to 'life' is very well done and look exactly like the ones from the TV programme.





























It really was a magical day out and the are plenty of baby changing rooms, access and parking for buggies, lots of toilets available and even the snacks and merchandise available to buy were not over priced. The shows are shown inside white domes which have been especially created to house them. Also, the show domes are situated in a park which means a picnic can be had before or after the show - weather permitting of course!


This year they are even offering the chance for your child to meet either Iggle Piggle or Upsy Daisy for an extra £15 after the show, something which my Mum and I wondered why they didn't do last year.


Overall, I would highly recommend this day out for your little INTNG fan. My only criticism is that you have to buy full price tickets for the children including any babies who would sit on your lap. To me, I feel children should be a little cheaper and babies a lot. However, this aside if you can afford the tickets and you have a fan of the show in your family then you should definitely go.







Tickets and further information are available HERE

The Gallery - Children

This weeks theme set by Tara over at Sticky Fingers is CHILDREN.

This week has also seen the launch of the new Save The Children campaign which some of our lovely mummy bloggers have become involved in again, namely Sian, Josie and Eva.

The aim of this years campaign, called Born To, is to make use of the talents and gifts which we, the British Public, have at our disposal. We are all born with something we were meant or able to do and the hope is that the Born To Campaign, will encourage people to use those talents to help children of the world eg. Sponsored events to raise money or awareness. Afterall, by utilising what each of us were born to do we can help those less fortunate than ourselves; allow children in less privileged parts of the world a chance to be born to .... well, to be able to live and survive.

I think whether you are a parent in the wild



Or have a child born in a third world country




Or whether like me, you are just lucky to have children born in a country like the UK, where we have clean, running water, nutritional food, immunisations, maternity and health care and so on

I think we all want what is best for our children, to protect them, to nurture and care for them and love them. It's built into our parental instincts to want what is best for our children. I am thankful my children will have a good start in life as a result of being born in the UK.

Above all else I think all children were born to bring hope, love and happiness into the lives of their parents and indeed for the future of our world. I believe that every child whatever their background is entitled to be BORN TO live a life as full as they are able.

For more information on the Born To Campaign please check out SAVE THE CHILDREN

Malteser Chocolate Cheesecake

I recently ate at a local pub where they had a homemade malteaser cheesecake on the menu which was very nice. So I decided to try and make one myself at home and this is how I made it.

INGREDIENTS

300g chocolate digestive biscuits

100g unsalted butter, melted

300g tub of full fat soft cheese

200ml double cream

200g bar of good quality milk chocolate (you could use white chocolate)

Large bag of malteasers (again could use the milk or white chocolate ones)

METHOD

*Grease and line either a deep loose bottomed round tin or grease and cover with cling film a 2lb loaf tin.

*Crush the biscuits into crumbs and add to the melted butter and stir well

*Then put the crumb mixture into your tin and press down. Chill in fridge while you make the filling

*Melt the chocolate with a spoonful of the cream in a saucepan on a low heat, stirring all the time so it does not burn.

*Put the melted chocolate mixture, the rest of the cream 

and the cream cheese into a food processor or large bowl, 

and mix until smooth.

*Add lots of malteasers to the filling but leave some for decoration

*Then pour the mixture on to your base and decorate with 
malteasers & chill for at least 3 hours or overnight        

Then turn out & serve. 

and it tastes deeeelicious, even if I do say so myself :0

Seven Secrets

I have been tagged by the lovely Carolin from MummyAlarm to list 7 secrets about myself. So here goes:



1). I cannot play any musical instrument.
I wish I could though as I think it is a wonderful 
talent to have.




2). I am a clumsy person (hence my blog name) and am always walking into things and tripping up.
One day when I was a student, I was walking in to the local supermarket when I somehow tripped and did a superman along the floor and travelled along it underneath those flappy things that used to hang down to stop people going through, as there was a turnstile you were meant to walk through. I got up as fast as I could, whilst trying to look like it hadn't hurt, and everyone from staff to customers clapped and cheered! Sooooooo embarrassing!



3). I have never had a filling, 
despite having a sweet tooth!









4). I still bite my nails which is 
shameful at my age, I know!
When I gave up work and had Burton I managed to stop myself for a couple of months, but then I had stress and money worries through the business I owned at the time and I started up again and haven't managed to stop it. I must though because I hate the way my nails look.


5). I joined the army cadets while I was at school, mainly because a couple of my friends were already members so I thought I would join too.
However, I only stuck it out for about 6 weeks after one night we had to crawl along the school playing field in the rain and mud. I decided then that this hobby was not for me and stopped going!

6). My favourite flavour of yoghurt is 
black cherry













7). I once appeared on the Lily Allen show 
and had to reveal a saucy story. 
I have never told my family about this, but of all 
the people who saw this episode (which went out on BBC 3) one if them just happened to be my OH's gran! It was so embarrassing as I felt I had to apologise, to which she just said "we will never mention this again". LOL




I am meant to now pass this onto other bloggers, but most people I know have been tagged! So if anyone reading this would like to take it on, please do xx

Silent. Sunday - Snoozing

Apple & Mango Loaf Cake

I had a very ripe mango left in my fruit bowl together with some apples and wondered what I could do to use them up. So I opted for a cake (like I need an excuse!) and adapting a carrot cake recipe I often use I switched some ingredients and made this




And this is how I did it:

INGREDIENTS:

50g sultanas or raisins
150ml sunflower oil , plus extra for greasing
2 eggs
140g soft light brown sugar
170g self-raising flour
2 tsp each ground cinnamon and ground mixed spice
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1eating apple, coarsely grated
1 ripe mango, roughly chopped
50g walnuts roughly chopped - this is optional (I excluded them when I am making it for Burton aswell)

METHOD:

*Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and grease and line the base and sides of a 2lb loaf tin.
*Whisk together the oil and eggs.
*Mix together the sugar, flours, mixed spice, cinnamon and bicarb in your largest mixing bowl.
*Add the sultanas/raisins, grated apples, mango walnuts (if using) and whisked egg mixture into the dry ingredients, then thoroughly mix with a wooden spoon.
*Tip into the loaf tin and bake on the middle shelf for 1 hr, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool the cake in the tin.
*Once cool, remove from the tin.

Mmmm it tastes good too :)






Have a go - its very yummy and must contain something towards our 5 a day :)

Pasta Art

So it's another Friday and it's time for Something For The Weekend hosted by the lovely Christine over at Thinly Spread.

So for this weekend why don't you give pasta art a go! Burton is probably a bit young for this activity really, but I thought I would give it a go anyway!

You will need:

* Pasta shapes as many different colours and shapes as you have

* Glue (I used a washable one which is great as I didn't want me, Burton and the house cover in glue lol!)

*Paper or card or even paper plates
(With paper plates you could make faces, as spaghetti would make great hair!)

Not being particularly artistic myself, my OH 

very kindly drew me a template on the piece 

of card and I chose a 

butterfly as I thought Burton would recognise 

that as we stuck the pasta on.

As soon as we started making our pasta art, Burton grabbed a cannelloni tube and stuck it onto the glue and then kept dabbing the glue onto the butterfly template - he thought this was great fun!






I started adding the pasta, he did help add some bigger pieces but then he tried to remove them :)





So he went back to dabbing more glue everywhere!












Anyway, a butterfly began to emerge and Burton recognised what it was as although he cannot talk yet he pointed to it excitedly and shouted a lot, when I said "butterfly" to him!

Anyway, we got there in the end and as you will see a lot of glue was used but hopefully you can see what it is

Obviously, yours can be much neater but slap dash is ok in this house!

Don't forget to check out the other posts to give you ideas for things to do with Something For The Weekend

The Gallery - Mummy Nature

So another week and another The Gallery with another fantastic theme suggested by Tara over at Sticky Fingers, that being MOTHER NATURE

I am a bit nervous about posting this photo as I don't like seeing myself uncovered, plus I took it myself so it was hard to get an angle which worked! Anyway, *deep breath* here is my entry for this week.

Mother Nature
n.
The personification of nature as a powerful and nurturing woman



I am not sure about the powerful part, but I am indeed nurturing at the moment (both with my first born and now my unborn) and lets face it, the whole baby making process is an amazing example of mother nature at it's best!

A Lovely Sunday

Yesterday we had a really lovely family day - just the three of us. This may sound strange, but it is not often that the three of us spend a whole day together where we actually do things together out and about as a family. Usually it involves other family members, or friends, or we stay in. However, yesterday was great :)

It started off by a trip to the swimming pool at a health club we belong to. I didn't get into the pool (funnily enough I can never find my maternity swimming costume when I need it! Lol) so it was just Burton and Daddy. Burton loves swimming and above all of the other children and parents there, he was the loudest by far! I spent my time watching and waving and looking on proudly.

After swimming we came home and Burton had a nap so the OH suggested that we go out for lunch - I didn't have to be asked twice afterall it meant no cooking for me (yay!). So after his nap the three of us headed out to a pub in a nearby village for roast beef (yum!). Burton was so good but also very funny and was copying his Daddy as whenever Jon drank some of his guiness and said "aaah" after, Burton would pick up his juice and do the same noise afterwards!

Down the hatch





But then Burton wanted to try some of Daddy's 'juice'





Needless to say the guinness got spilt! (note the white foam on Burton's cheek!)





But Burton seemed to quite like the taste of it!





Still, not as tasty as his dinner!






The rest of the day involved a quick food shop and them home for playing and watching Toy Story 2. It was a nice family day :)