Hello blogger world I'm BACK!! ... With a 13 month old...

Hello 2017 - Please be kind to me; I've waited a whole year to self improve!

I've been on a little bit of a hiatus on here - I seem to appologize every single time - sorry. Again

In recent events my little bean turned 1 years old

 (as of 28th November 2016)

HOW MAD IS THAT!?

We kept everything super simple for her birthday - we had family over for a little teaparty. Her party was held on 27th November to accommodate our guests.

Quinn's "theme" was 1st birthday Safari - green and pink.

Here's the links to the items I ordered; pink safari party pack guest book banners

I loved the idea of a guest book so people can write cute messages and predictions for Quinn so when we come across her book in years to  come we can have fond memories of her 1st birthday.
My mum and sister made her cake - simple white icing with green and pink detail.

We ordered a really cool activity cube as her main present from us and told others to buy toys that would help her expand her learning as for months she's only had "baby" toys - it was time for the noisey toys and multi function!
activity cube 
minnie mouse ride on plane -which was gifted to us!
We have a special video up on youtube celebrating Quinn's 1sy birthday, check it out here;
Quinn's birthday presents vlog
Quinn's 1st birthday vlog

We had pizza, sausage rolls, dips, veg sticks, bread sticks, 3 type of sandwhiches too (cheese and tomato, salmon and cucumber & ham and cucumber) We also had 2 desserts; fruit salad with almond agar agar & orange jelly with chocolate angel delight and her cake as well. Plenty of food to go around.As Quinn has just turned one, we didn't bother going all out with a theme because she wouldn't really be into anything as such yet so until she's older and can make choices we kept everything simple - there were soooo many balloons tied everywhere though!!

We've also just celebrated Christmas twice, once on the 18th December at my mums house and then the big day at Kurt's house with all of his family. It was so lovely being able to share the days with our families, especially since everyone is so fond of Quinn they all want QT with her. Which I LOVE!
At my mums house we had spiced parsnip soup to start, roast beef with all the veggies and trimmings for main followed by 2 desserts made by my sister - tripple choc tart and spiced apple sponge as well! Lovely! 
We travelled a couple of hours on the 23rd to be with Kurts family and had 3 days up with them, we had a cool experience with doing an escape challenge on 24th then on Christmas day we enjoyed a full Christmas dinner spread of paté starter, tukey dinner and lots of pudding choices including chocolate yule log, christmas pud or triffle!! SO MUCH FOOD!!

Escapism chester

Christmas vlogmas 1/3 

Christmas vlogmas 2/3
Christmas vlogmas 3/3 

 
Since quinn has gotten older her food intake has improved a lot - she's not fussy at all [a part from pesky broccoli] She enjoyed all her main meals and loves yorkshire pudding and bpreadsticks, more importantly she loves her veggies so we mashed up some sprouts in there with some gravy - her plate was clean afterwards!!
We don't give her many sweets stuff like chocolate and cake, there's plenty time for that when she's older so as pudding she has fruit and/or yoghurt. Daddy (kurt) does sneak her some chocolate but I'm quite strict still!! (I've noticed she can't process chocolate that well.. It's so bad to clean her up ya know)

New years was fairly casual after we spent xmas with his family we had a few days to chill then we celebrated 2017 in our house with my sister & brother in law and mum & brother with chinese take away and a board game!! Just the way I like it - I love the idea of celebrating New Years with a party but I'm not a big drinker and the previous times before I had Quinn our local night club missed the countdown in two consecutive years - what a waste of a night, being trampled on and drinks being spilt all down me. Not a nice vibe!!

All in all I've loved 2016 for personal reasons but for the vast majority of people 2016 has been hard, especially with all the poverty and wars and devestating poll and electorial votes as well as the continuous fight for deadly illnesses...  
Donate here to help syrian kids  &  Donate here to cancer research

2017 for me will be about confidence and improvements, there's certain things in my life which I've neglected and I am in need of an overhaul, not to change but to bring out the real persona and the real side of me. I've noticed since I became a mother I've been ignored and quite frankly over shadowed (not by my child btw) as well as left behind. I've said in previous posts about not having friends and feeling trapped and it's taken me this long to feel like I can be in control again. Starting with my apperance and going back into work. We're in need to changing our home environment too, with renting a place you never know how long you'll be there but the longer we stay the more it's like home so we should put more effort in to make it "our own". I've also been engaged for 1.5 years - not long in real terms but for our relationship and even though we have our daughter neither of us feel 100% commited so when an argument occures we're both threatening to leave - which we won't do, but we both feel we need to step up to solidify our relationship.

I'm so ready to go back to work and to have just 2 days to be myself and get back into a routine and for someone else to have Quinn, don't get me wrong I've been blessed and have LOVED to have been a stay at home mom for a whole year and 1 month but I need to get back into the world and not have my bubble in the house, it has added to my anxiety to leave, because I haven't wanted to, working and moving on is the push I've needed. Quinn will be looked after by my mum and sister, they're so willing to help and can't wait. It's important for Quinn to be able to spend a few hours without me in good company so that when she's even older a nursery and school ect can be added into our weekly routine and she can communicate and meet other people.

Quinn took her 1st steps 5 days before her 1st birthday. Re-taking her 1st steps for daddy video She's very good with her manners and sharing. She loves a bath every night and has recently moved into using the big bath instead of her baby bath. She still has 4 bottles of milk a day and her 3 meals but I will be cutting her breakfast bottle out as I've been making her cereal with her milk, she can move on to proper cereal and porridge with whole cows milk and have only 2/3 bottles and 3 proper meals a day, plus some snacks now as shes using way more energy - she's hit and miss with her naps, which stops productivity during the day for me as my attention is 100% on her, but this will all change!! Currently she still naps when I shower at around 11am (she's awake at 8am) but more and more she's been fighting her naps until 4pm to sleep for an hour, not sure if its a good idea or not yet really as it means dinner and bed time is pushed back a little bit later then I'd like. Most kids are in bed by 7-8pm... Noooo not Quinn, she doesn't wanna miss anything and wants to stay up until 9/10pm.. It depends on how shes been throughout the day of course..
Quinn probably should've moved on in her diet already but I've been going at her pace and now she's growing and she has teeth now (8 in total - more to come) the less formula she drinks the better, especially to encourage more self feeding too. She's actually been self weaning from her bedtime bottles by herself which is so much better for me, I will still offer her one at night time, even if she doesn't drink it. There are some things you need your baby to "decide for you" and others you need to be more of the enforcer and move on for them. 

Quinn is so bright and cheerful and is so friendly, she does have a bit of a temper and can give up easily on some things but for the most part she's very clever and everyone has complimented our role as parents to not "baby" her and show her the right and wrong things, she's very interested in everything and always wants to try for herself - which is cool that we're seeing her working stuff out and remembering things. We're only now seeing her mischevious side, but she's slowly learning her boundaries - babies are not as dumb as people think - they're very receptive and soak everything in - always remember that your actions, words and behaviour will be at some point mimicted and repeated by your child, so it's best to be a good, clean example for them to follow. *practice what you preach elle - I swear far too much...*

Quinn's stats as of 4/1/17;
91st percentile for her weight 
10.23kgs
8 teeth
Walking & walking backwards
Copying everything I do
Babbles that sound like actual words 
Wearing 12-18 month clothing mostly
4+ nappy size but may need bigger
Wearing 9-12 month body suits & pjs
Loves breadsticks & yoghurt
Enjoys teeth brushing and bath time
Still drinks 4 bottles of milk but self-weaning
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I hope you all have a lovely New Year to new and old readers.
Follow me on Instagram @MommaElJ
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~Ellie xoxoxo

I have a 10 month old. WOW!

Hi guys It's been a while. 

I've oficially got a 10 month old and soon to be 11 months in 2 weeks time... How is this happening? Can I pause time to take all of this in?!

I love being a mother, there was a point where I thought I'd never leave her and then other days I'd be so ready to go back to work, just to be around other people - sure I could've gone to baby groups, but I don't drive so have to rely on buses ect, it's hard work especially has once you've gotten ready, you've changed and fed the baby and next thing you know you've lost 2 hours of time and missed the opportunity to leave the house and I'm not alone with this, even mums who do drive, I bet they never expected to always be late somewhere. That's why I plan to do things mid morning because come lunch time we're back and home all settled for lunch and a nap! I live for the afternoon naps, we play all morning so by the afternoons I need a little bit of peace to get jobs done around the house.

I wish people had told me what to expect from having a baby at this stage, They either talk about newborn stage or toddler nightmares!
I've had to say 'No', 'come here', don't do that' & 'that's not very nice' so much starting from when Quinn turned 8 month's old.
I've experienced the tantrums and the hitting, punching, pinching, slapping and hair pulling FROM A BABY.. What am I supposed to do?! I've never been told about what to do when this happens - short answer; ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Telling them No in any kind of tone doesn't work.. And let's not forget the poop situation - it's gets MESSIER. SMELLIER and the sore rash.. Quinn never had this as a newborn, but once they start teething, crawling and trying solid foods it's inevitable they have a hard time.. Literally. I feel so bad for her sometimes but you have to introduce things at some point right?!

Quinn LOVES fruit and bread sticks. She's not keen on brocoli, She can eat most things actually, and feeding herself little tid-bits, but honestly she doesn't trust things on the 1st go if it's not been on a spoon 1st.. Go figure!?
I've refused to give her anything artifically sweet, cake or chocolate, they don't need any of this yet so yoghurt and fruit is the treat in my house!
At the beginning of the feeding stage I was soooo nervous and not ready but by the time she was 6 months she needed solids and the health visitor who came and saw her at 7 months said she was a little behind, but honestly I don't know really whether it was my fault but she didn't want to know anything other than mashed potatos and corrots, slowly but surely we got there in the end and she's completely fine with eating 3 meals a day - she stopped half way through our routine to just wanting milk all the time due to teething so once she was ready again with her new 2 teeth she was back on track with the foods. Right now it's a mixture of porridge/ baby cereal in the mornings, baby food in the afternoon with fruit and yoghurt to snack on depending what she wants and in the evening's while we're having our dinner she'll have a smaller portion all chopped up bite size. This is working for us, but soon i'll be moving her on to all solids completely throughout the day.
Although she's content with this routine, I do feel like she's getting hungrier so I'll have to figure out how to start her on different foods at lunch times.
I do think too deeply about everything and I wish I could just 'wing it', but that can be hard for them to adjust to and expensive for me if she doesn't like something. But gotta start somewhere right!?
Quinn is on SMA pro 2 follow on milk - 5 ozs, 4 times a day. As recommended by the peadiatrition, 20 ozs is the limit for her age group, prolonged use of the milk or exsess of it can rot their teeth!

She's now out grown her toys, so we're moving on to noisy toys - lots of books and we're always singing to her. She's learnt to open and close doors and drawers - much to my surprise, but also bad side effects are they don't know how to move away if they are stuck and jamming fingers in drawers is nasty! She loves bath time and is nearly out growing her baby bath completely, we've got a alphabet bath book and only 2 bath toys, She's getting a lot more confident on her feet, pulling herself up and getting around by holding on to the sofa and chairs as well as holding on to the walls as she moves from room to room...
Where has my baby gone?!

I'm back right down to my pre pregnancy weight, and have been for a while. I've got great skin and getting plenty of rest as Quinn is sleeping through the night, I do miss working, but I know as soon as I go back I'll be wanting to be home with Quinn. Vicious circle... I've still got hair loss and I've got more hang ups about my body that I didn't have before I had Quinn, but It's okay - I'm learning to love myself again and for the times that I've lacked confience it basically ruined my relationship and the more it happened the worse mine and my fiance's arguing got. But he finally understands me and Ive been pushing myself to pleasing him which in turn pleases me because he's happy.
I always read that you shouldn't give up on your partner and don't stop going on dates ect, but once one of you is home alone alot and the other working away most weeks, come the wekeend we just wanna do our own thing and just be im the same room as one another. I do realise he's got needs too but he made me feel like second best when it came to seeing each other. I've never wanted to be a "nagging wife," but it was like he'd rather play on his games than hang out with me for an hour or 2, cos without that kind of connection - to me, I can't connect sexually because it begins to feel very platonic and awkward.  Arguments aside now, and we're both working on our relationship, things are on the up.

We both cannot wait for Quinn C Noelle's 1st birthday and are planning on what toys to get and who to invite - as it's her 1st birthday we're not going for a theme, we'll wait till she's a bit older for that!

Here's some recent pics of our lil bean;

Mommy & Quinn selfie

Boy - baby ;)

Climbing!

Nom nom

Mommy,. Daddy and Quinn C Noelle

Beach bum!

Thanks for reading my exteremly late and long blog post!
~Ellie xoxox

My Pregnancy style!

What I've been wearing whilst pregnant!

My belly 'popped' finally at 17 weeks!

Leggings were my best friend, not to mention the extra comfort and support of a non-wired bra! Don't doubt the power of clothing in a bigger size!

Here's what I've been wearing from beginning to end of pregnancy;

Thank you so much for checking out this post, most of the clothing was pre-pregnancy stuff I already had. You can see that from the front you can't tell any difference, only when I turn to the side! Does that make me lucky that I had such a 'cute bump'?!
I tried to be very thrifty during my 1st pregnancy, most of these clothes I still wear now even after having Quinn, the only items I no longer wear are the jeans and bras. 
The NewLook maternity jeans were the best purchase I made.
Check out my YouTube video here: My maternity style

~Ellie xoxox