I t gives me great pleasure to introduce you to our baby boy … our little Ollie, although in more formal circles he’ll have the option of using his full name which is Oliver Hugo Stanley. He’s been with us just over a fortnight now and we couldn’t be more in love. He has a head full of thick black hair, blue eyes and and is the spitting image of Stuarts Dad – which is a little disconcerting at times, but he smells absolutely delicious and is oh so scrummy!! He’s also such a boy, feeding non-stop, pumping like a trooper and letting out the cutest little sigh once he’s finished eating. I could genuinely just eat him up! Compared to Ettie, Ollie is super chilled and will happily sleep for hours at a time, only really raising his voice when his little tummy rumbles. We joke that he pretends to be asleep to get a bit of a break from his sister who is constantly smothering him with kisses, but perhaps its because he’s just used to hearing all the madness from inside the womb. Ollie’s entry into the world was a fast one at 51 minutes – but I’m going to write up his birth story in more detail shortly. To summarise he was born here at home, on our bed and weighed 8lb 5oz, which is a whole lb and a half bigger than his sister. Neither of us ever expected to have a boy so when I asked if the baby was ok and Stu replied ‘yes he is’, it was the biggest surprise and I spent the next few hours just looking at him saying ‘its a boy, its a boy, what are we going to do with you?’ Because he was a boy we never…
R egular readers may have noticed that I love a good photo of Ettie and I. She really is my little best friend and I know her childhood is going to be over waaay to quickly so I want to try and capture as many of our adventures together as possible, so I have something to look back (and cry big weepy tears) over once she’s flown the nest and all I’m left with is Stu and his chat about the cricket!! (sob!) Perhaps one of our greatest adventures together will be bringing this new baby into the world! It will make Ettie a big sister, me a Mummy of two (yikes!) and change the dynamic of our relationship forever so it’s no longer Ettie and her Mummy, but Ettie and her sibling (whatever gender it may be) with Mummy just popping alongside them for the ride!! Daunting, but ever so exciting! For that reason I’ve wanted Ettie to be involved in the progress of this pregnancy as much as possible, because it’s going to change her life just as much as ours. I’ve tried to capture photos of my growing bump, with her growing up alongside it as I know they will be photos to cherish in the future! It’s quite bitter sweet that she won’t actually remember this time, but hopefully by having lovely images to show her she will realise it was a time of great love and happiness. (I have a brother and its hard to imagine a life without him, but my parents, like me took lots of photos of that time so I know one does exist!). So imagine my excitement when photographer Becca from Becca Wild Photography contacted me asking if we’d like to take part in a maternity photoshoot. I was…
I t was such a big day for Ettie yesterday (and us!) that I wanted to write a little bit about it to keep a record. We turned her cot into a big girls bed which may seem like a pretty normal thing to do, but for us it was huge! Ettie has actually been sleeping in our bed for a couple of months now and its been so lovely that we’re probably a little bit to blame for not moving her back! The slightly squished sleeping arrangements came about because the only way I used to be able to get her to sleep, was to climb into her cot with her!! This was fine initially but obviously as my bump started to get bigger it all became rather impractical. So as time went on, we began putting her to sleep in our bed for a ‘treat’ then moving her once we came to bed ourselves. Or if Stu was out I would let her stay in with me for an extra treat (I actually quite liked having her close to me at night, because I was away from her so much in the day white I was at work), or actually she’d just wake up so much through the night, that it became exhausting continually moving her back to her own room (its hard working full-time and being pregnant!), so in the end we just let her stay! She’s so cuddly and cheeky in the mornings, waking up saying things like ‘Morning Everybody’ with a huge big smile, that we’ve actually loved her being there. We knew it wouldn’t be forever and so have been in no rush for her to move! That is until recently, with Baby Number 2 potentially only days away we knew the time was coming…
H ello and welcome back to the second part of my round-up of our lovely break to Hamburg courtesy of the Come to Hamburg project. I was 7 months pregnant when we took this trip and Ettie was a month off her second birthday so not the easiest of circumstances but we had the most amazing time and were overwhelmed with all that the city had to offer. You can find the first instalment of our trip here: Hamburg with a Toddler {Part One]. The second part of our trip starts on our second day in the city …. Day Two After a rather overcast start on our first day, we awoke on day two to clear skies and bright yellow sunshine. We headed down to breakfast at the Appartello Smartime Living Hotel, where we were staying and filled up on lovely open sandwiches, pastries and fresh coffee. The restaurant area was lovely and clean and even had a play area for children which kept Ettie entertained whilst we were finishing our coffee. Once we were satisfied that our tummies were full, we headed out for the day, walking a few minutes round the corner to the bus stop which connected us with the rest of the city. Not the most exciting photograph, two people eating breakfast! But I love it because of the looks on their faces, I love the way Ettie is copying her Daddy and just look at that concentration on breakfast from Stu. Our first stop was to the Speicherstadt (Warehouse District) area to visit the Dialogue in Silence exhibition. This is an exhibition designed to provide an insight into what it would be like to live in a world without sound. All the facilitators are deaf or hard of hearing, and whilst it wouldn’t usually…
When in Hamburg we were invited to attend the Dialogue in Silence exhibition in the Speicherstadt (Warehouse District) of the city. I was a little dubious about this at first because exhibitions aren’t really my thing – unless they are talking about something old like the Empire State Building (ever the geeky Geographer!). However we were so impressed with this one, I wanted to write a separate blog post about it to give it the coverage it deserves. As you might expect from the title, the aim of the exhibition is to get the audience thinking about how we communicate with one another, particularly through the use of non-verbal communication. It sounds quite straight forward but was actually harder than it looks and I left the whole experience with a much greater level of understanding of what life must be like for those deaf and hard of hearing. I think that’s why I enjoyed the experience so much, because it provided an insight into a world that I shamefully hadn’t given much thought about before and I found it really thought provoking. Dialogue in Silence The hour long tour began in a large room, with activities dotted around on tables which participants were asked to complete without talking. No insight into the world of non-verbal communication had been provided at this point and so the whole thing wasn’t taken very seriously, but I found it ever so insightful to compare my feelings and understanding from this stage of the tour with how I felt at the end. All of the facilitators leading the Dialogue in Silence experience are deaf or hearing impaired and after a short while in the ‘school room’ we were greeted by our facilitator and taken into a sound proofed room to collect noise-cancelling headphones that…
Afternoon all, just a quick one today. We’re in the process of planning our summer holidays and with a new-born in tow, realise it wont be anywhere exotic so camping is top of the list. Last year we took a trip to Eweleaze Farm in Dorset when Ettie was 12 months old and we absolutely loved it! We went with friends who had a little boy the same age, and it was so lovely watching them discover all of the new things camping had to offer and also giving them so much fresh air!! I can’t lie and say I wasn’t a little nervous about taking a baby on a camping trip! They require a car full of equipment at the best of times, never mind when sleeping under the stars! But the trip was absolutely fine and we were better equipt than we thought we would be!!! Knowing that camping was something we’d be trying again in the future and being organised for once in my entire life!! I made a list of everything we found useful while we were away and added things to it that I thought we should remember for next time! So in the interest of saving other families hours of research trying to establish what to pack when taking a baby/toddler camping, here is my Essential Guide to Camping with a Baby* Is a one year old a baby or a toddler? I wasn’t sure?? The Essential Guide to Camping with a Baby A Blow-up Travel bath – Needless to say babies will get grubby when crawling around outside so will need a bath at the end of the day. We had the duck bath available from Boots and it worked amazingly well. A Travel cot – This isn’t an essential and it takes up quite…
G rowing up, Germany always had a special place in my heart. My Aunt, Uncle and cousin lived just outside Frankfurt and my best friend lived in Berlin for almost a year so I’ve been lucky enough to visit on a couple of occasions and always found it a really vibrant and friendly country. Over the course of the next two blog posts I’m going to tell you all about our recent trip to Hamburg which came about following an invitation to take part in the #CometoHamburg project! It’s always such an honour to be invited places on account of my blog, but to be asked to sample a whole city was truly amazing and I couldn’t reply fast enough stating that we’d love to take part. You can find the second part of our Hamburg trip here: Hamburg with a Toddler {Part 2}. With it being the height of wedding season, we opted for a mid-week break (as opposed to a weekend) so that Stu didn’t have to miss an extra game of cricket (the struggle is real people!!). It worked out really well, the flights were cheaper, (around £60 each way from Gatwick) and all of the attractions were open when we got there – something we forgot to research to our cost in Stockholm. The city centre was also relatively quiet which was amazing with an over excited toddler in tow as I imagine it could have been a completely different story on a Saturday. Prior to our visit, I think my impression of Hamburg was one of industry, grey buildings and beer swilling men stumbling out of bars dressed in Lederhosen. I know a few friends who chose Hamburg for their stag weekend and because of that its never really featured high on my list of…
There really only was one place we could take Ettie to celebrate her second birthday and that was to meet her hero Peppa Pig at Paultons Park outside Southampton. Like any girl Ettie’s age, to Ettie Peppa is GOD. She could happily sit four hours watching Peppa on repeat if let her and I’m sure I’m not the only parent who’s found herself humming that silly theme tune when no one else is around.. Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum!! [if you know you know!] So when I heard there was a whole park dedicated to our funny pink friend and her family I just knew we had to go! Ettie’s birthday coincided with my last day at work before going off on maternity leave (well strictly speaking I still have a month to go, but I’ve finished early to spend an extra month with Ettie before baby arrives!) so as a double celebration we loaded up Stu’s van one sunny Saturday morning and took ourselves on a birthday adventure to Peppa Pig World in Hampshire. Peppa Pig world is based in a small area of the wider Paultons Park just outside Southampton. Entry to the park is around £35 each which is pretty expensive for a two-year old (discounts are available for families and children under 1m go free!) For that, you do get entry into the whole park which I suppose justifies the price if you have older children that will make use of everything, but for a 2-year-old I thought it was pretty steep. There are often discount schemes available buy saving up tokens from newspapers and cereal packets so it’s always worth looking out for those. Walking into the park I literally had goosebumps thinking about Ettie’s little face lighting up once…
:fill(white):sharpen(0.5,0.5,true)/https://www.oliverbonas.com/static/media/catalog/product/1/2/1229578_1.jpg)
