Dexter is at the stage where is OBSESSED with anything that comes with wheels, whether it be cars, aeroplanes, tractors or trains. He takes a particular interest in choo choos and enjoys activities at home which involve building tracks, running along as if he were a train and driving trains up and down the skirting boards.
Pregnancy. It’s meant be all glowing skin, blossoming bumps and glossy hair. The reality can be quite different! Most days I feel very frumpy, with terrible spotty skin and my hair is usually more greasy than glossy. With this being my second pregnancy, I’ve been determined to look after myself a bit more this time and take more time for ME, to pamper myself and nourish myself from the inside out. These are my must have pregnancy products that I’ve been using over the past few months to really treat myself.
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Made from Australian Emu oil and a combination of other essential oils and natural ingredient, Lorem skin relief oil is the perfect natural remedy for aching muscles and damaged skin. As well as being perfect to treat those pesky stretch marks which invariably pop up during pregnancy, it can also be used to help nappy rash, cradle cap, eczema, chicken pox and insect bites meaning it continues to be an invaluable product once pregnancy ends.
I was sent a little sample to try and was impressed with the non greasy formula. The oil rubbed into my skin easily and left it looking healthy and glowing. I’ve been using it mainly on my face to try and combat blemishes and I’m excited to try it on Dexter next time he has a bad case of nappy rash (although touch woods this occurrences are few and far between)
I had never heard of emu oil and was surprised to read it is used by aboriginals to cure a wide range of ailments. Lorem mix the emu oil with chamomile to create a powerful anti inflammatory which can penetrate deep into the skin to begin the healing process. A gorgeous treat for pregnant skin.
A 30ml bottle of Lorem is £12
I’m all for taking supplements during pregnancy as I am really guilty of eating rubbish food more than not. Supplements make me feel a bit better that the growing baby inside my belly is getting the nutrients they need while I’m pigging out on cottage pie and cake.
Wiley’s Fish Oil DHA Supplements not only provide pregnant mums and their unborn child the vital intake requirement of Omega-3, but research also suggests that DHA may reduce the risk of post natal depression while reducing the risk of the unborn child developing allergies and asthma.
Each bottle comes with a month’s supply of supplements and I took two tablets each day. I saw a slight improvement in my mood and felt better for knowing that consuming the important fatty acids meant I was supporting the brain development of my unborn baby.
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Baobab fruit is one of the world’s most nutrient rich superfoods and African inspired health brand Aduna has created a handy powder rich in vitamin C, fibre and antioxidants perfect for keepign your immune system strong and more importantly for me, keeping my digestive system going as I tend to suffer from constipation when pregnant.
The baobab powder has a naturally sweet and citrus flavour and I love stirring it into my morning porridge and adding it to a bowl of fruit and yoghurt. Each serving provides 33% of your daily recommended amount of Vitamin C which also helps with iron absorption- something else I tend to struggle with during pregnancy.
Magnesium is an essential mineral which promotes overall wellbeing, relaxes muscles and aids skin health- all things I need during these long, hard pregnancy months. Better You have developed these magnesium flakes to add to your bath to help you cleanse, purify and renew. When added to a bath, magnesium flakes are absorbed by your skin through to blood vessels avoiding your digestive system which can often not absorb nutrients.
The 1kg pack is available for £9.95 and gives you enough flakes for four baths. I love the feeling of pure relaxation when I have a bath and these flakes are an added bonus. An amazing must have pregnancy product!
In the UK we don’t see that much sunlight, especially during the winter months. Despite it being one of the hottest summers on record, I seemed to have missed most of it due to working full time and my viatmin D levels do concern me. Better You have a range of vitamin sprays and I tried the vitamin D one to try and boost my levels.
The spray is super simple to use: once a day you spray it in your month. The spray doesn’t really taste of anything and doesn’t leave a strange taste as you might expect. The super soft tissues in the mouth means the vitamin D supplement is absorbed straight away helping get the vital vitamin to your blood stream quickly. I love this spray and carry it in my bag for a quick spray after lunch.
I love this Colief moisturising cream, especially formulated for Mums to be; it has a beautiful smell and doesn’t feel a bit greasy when applying it like many creams can. It is packed full of vitamin B5 which is a natural skin healer and protector. I find my skin can get dry and itchy during pregnancy and this cream just makes it feel that bit more moisturised and stops me scratching away. It also claims to be a secret weapon against stretch marks which makes it a double winner in my book.
Using pure cocoa butter, shea butter, collagen and elastin, Palmer’s Stretch Mark Cream helps to keep skin supple for up to 48 hours allowing it to stretch easily and therefore avoiding stretch marks- a winner in my book! I suffered with stretch marks during my first pregnancy on my ‘muffin top’ so this time I am determined to keep them at bay with this gorgeous cream which smells divine and is a pleasure to smooth all over my body after a hot bath.
What are your must have pregnancy products?
Who needs to holiday abroad when we have so many amazing counties and cities on our beautiful British island? This summer has been perfect for the staycation with all the amazing weather we’ve been having, and with us moving house, buying a new car and my husband having a slight obsession with buying bike parts, it’s not been possible to fund a holiday abroad. I’ve been doing loads of research recently on places down south which would be the perfect destination to holiday in with kids when I realised we’d never, ever been to Cornwall. Is it just me or is there something totally idyllic about the thought of a cornish cottage in the middle of the countryside with the coast either side of you, tearooms serving clotted cream and scones everywhere you turn and surfers rocking up the A30 towards Newquay in their campervans? Cornwall is the perfect county for families, young couples and friends looking for adventure.
*Disclaimer: We were given this end of tenancy clean in return for an open and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Believe me when I say, moving house is one of the most stressful experiences of your life.
We’ve done it three times before, but this time we were moving into a house we would actually own and that came with its own added stresses: Would our offer be accepted? Would our mortgage be approved? How would we afford all of the endless solicitors fees, end of tenancy charges and new stuff we would inevitably need for the house?
I last updated our house buying journey at the beginning of June when we had just had our offer accepted and the solicitor was in the process of doing the relevant searches.
Ten long weeks have passed us by since then, weeks which have passed by rather quickly but with each day filled with stress and fear that something could go wrong and we could lose our dream home.
Living in the city centre can be lots of fun: you are close to loads of bars and restaurants, work is only a stone’s throw away and you have the world of shopping on your doorstep; one thing I do worry about though, is the air quality. We live on the docks and a few miles down the road, in sunny Bootle, there is a huge industrial estate with factories which pump god knows what into the atmosphere. The road we live on which is affectionately known as ‘Dock Road’ sees hundreds of articulated lorries going up and down it at all hours of the day and of course there is all the added smog of city centre living: petrol fumes, second hand smoke and just the general amount of people crammed into such a small area. I was interested to see whether the pollution I was all too aware of was making its way into our city centre flat so was delighted when we were sent a Foobot Air Quality Monitor to try.
Foobot describes itself as an air quality monitor which helps you take control of your air quality, making the invisible, visible. Something which has been very important to me since bringing Dexter into the world. It’s one of the most advanced data processing smart monitors on the market and works by scanning your environment day and night to provide you with warnings and actionable advice to keep the air quality clean.
I was excited to get the device up and running after reading that improved air quality could result in better sleep, improved energy levels and increased focus and productivity. All things that I seriously needed to improve.
Setting up the device was easy. Firstly I downloaded the Foobot app, told it I had a Foobot which was plugged into the wall and tapped Setup My Foobot. I then had to wait for a few seconds before turning the Foobot upside down and back round again to make sure it was connected to our WiFi. It can take up to three hours for Foobot to get used to it’s environment but after that you are good to go.
Foobot uses internal sensors to measure chemicals and particulate matter and alerts you via the app if it detects anything concerning. It measures PM2.5s which include minute particules such as dust, pollen and pet dander; Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) which are toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and ammonia; carbon dioxide which can indicate poor circulation; humidity and temperature.
The app was really straightforward and easy to use and denotes how good your air quality is by using different coloured backgrounds: blue for good and orange for fair to poor. It also gives you a pollution score out of 100 with 100 being highly polluted air. It has real time readings of the PM2.5s, carbon dioxide and VOCs and keeps a track of the data in a handy little charts area.
So what did we learn from using the Foobot? Well, pollution in our flat wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought, but one thing I did realise is that we need to ventilate the kitchen and lounge area when we are cooking as this tended to cause problems to the air quality. We now make sure we have the extractor fan turned on and a few windows open to combat this.
Foobot costs £170 and is available from https://foobot.io/
*Photo Credit: Then There Were Three