Oscar
2011 – A Review of the Year (part 2)
0So back to my review of 2011 – I covered Jan – Jun in Part 1 so now it’s time to cover July – Dec so settle back with a cuppa and a chocolate biscuit (or if you’re reading this after 6pm then with a G&T) and enjoy.
July
July saw us going on our first family holiday as a 4 (well it was a couple of days gatecrashing my parents holiday really), we took Zara to the seaside for the first time and had her first experience of paddling in the sea and I shared my guide to Life with a Baby and Toddler
August
August was a pretty quiet month on the blog, with it being school holidays it meant my husband was home and so our days were filled with trips out and about. These included Washington Wildfowl and Wetlands and Adventure Valley, oh and I got a new car and had to change my views on School Run Mums!
September
September saw Oscar meeting a Dragon, one of my favourite posts of the year as I admitted I Don’t Like Babies. I caught up on our summer holiday adventures and shared our experiences on days out to The Alnwick Garden, Blue Reef Aquarium, South Shields and The Seaside and Durham Botanic Gardens.
October
October saw lots of reviews and competitions on the blog as I launched my Knees Up Mother Brown Christmas Guide, we had a fantastic time testing lots of toys and gifts and I’d like to thank all the PRs and companies for allowing us to feature your products.
November
November saw Zara turn 2 years old and I wrote her a letter, I expressed my concern over the Mammy, Mummy, Mam, Mum issue, I shared Oscar and Zara’s first nursery photos in My Beautiful Children, I shared the story of how I made my husbands Birthday Wish Come True, we went to Durham Lumiere Festival, Kirkley Hall Zoological Gardens, Beamish Museum and I shared the fun we had making our Annual Christmas Cards.
December
After a really busy year of blogging, it was time for Mother Brown to take a blogging break in December.
I’ve had great fun looking back through all my blog posts in 2011 and I hope you’ve enjoyed looking back at them with me. It was a crazy year but a fantastic one. Stick with me for 2012 to see what adventures the Brown household gets up to next….
Organic Baby Wipes and Biodegradable Nappies from Baby Patisserie Review
1In our household we get through an extremely large volume of nappies and baby wipes each week, with two children still in nappies. When Baby Patisserie contacted me to ask if I’d like to review some bio-degradable nappies and some organic baby wipes, I of course said yes. I admit I’ve tried reusable nappies before and we didn’t really get on with them but I’ve still got a large guilt complex for the amount of waste we are contributing to landfill and with most disposable nappies taking centuries to dispose it’s a terrifying thought.
Baby Patisserie sell Beaming Baby nappies which are biodegradable and disposable with the majority of the nappy degrading in just 4 years, compared to the 400 years of other leading brands. Beaming Baby nappies mean that your baby and their skin is exposed to less chemicals every day and the nappies last up to 12 hours. Since the baby nappies contain less chemicals than ordinary nappies when wet they do not emit the nasty chemical smell that you may have experienced from other brands.

We were given a couple of size 5 nappies to test on Oscar and Zara (they are both currently in the same size nappy). My first impressions of the nappy were that it seemed a bit bulkier and papery than the Pampers that we usually use. Once we put the nappy on, it fit great and both babies were happy in them, they didn’t seem as bulky once they were being worn. As for performance, well it’s hard to give you a complete opinion of them as we’ve only used 2 and only during the day so I didn’t get chance to put them to the test overnight. I can say that I didn’t notice any difference in performance to Pampers. Both Zara and Oscar had dry skin once the nappies were taken off (an issue I had with reusables was that their skin felt damp all the time) and the nappy did just what it was supposed to do.
The Beaming Baby nappies sell for £8.49 for a pack of 34 on the Baby Patisserie website which is more than you’d pay for Pampers, in comparison a pack of 27 Baby Dry nappies in the same size is £6.49 at Tesco. That works out at 25p per nappy for the biodegradable ones and 24p per nappy for Pampers so actually it’s not that much more really and 1p more a nappy to reduce your landfill guilt? Sounds good to me. If like me, you are considering ways to make a difference, then it’s worth giving these nappies a try and seeing how you get on
We were also given a pack of Beaming Baby Organic Baby Wipes to try out.

Beaming Baby wipes contains over 95% organic ingredients and are certified by the Organic Food Federation. The highest quality ingredients mean that these best selling organic baby wipes are incredibly soft and gentle on baby’s skin. Each pack contains over 90mls of Organic Aloe Vera (30 times more than any other wipe!), which heals, moisturises and nourishes sensitive skin. Beaming Baby organic wipes are free from: Chlorine, alcohol, paraben preservatives, sodium laureth sulphate and they won the Mother & Baby Bronze Award – Best Skincare Product for 2009 & 2008.
Now I have to admit that I found these wipes a little on the expensive side, selling for £2.99 for a pack of 72 on Baby Patisserie but as far as baby wipes go, they felt soft and the kids didn’t mind me scrubbing away at their faces with them after dinner. I do like the idea of using organic baby wipes but I have my reservations about the cost seeing as we get through wipes by the truckload in this household. I tend to normally use tesco fragrance free baby wipes and because neither of my children have had problems with using them, I’m not sure I’d switch.
Dressing Up Fun
2This post is a entry in Mummy Loves Tutus and Superheros competition which she is running with Appliances Online Washing Machines
I’ve been trying to find my favourite photo of Zara and Oscar dressing up, we have photos of Spider costumes, Owl and Pussycat costumes but the one photo that I absolutely love (and was used for our family Christmas Card this year) is this one….my little snowman and elf

Graco Nautilus Car Seat Review
0As you may know, we’ve been looking for a Group 1+ car seat for Oscar for a while now as he was fast becoming too small for his infant car seat. With thanks to my lovely sister over at Mummy Loves who is a Graco Ambassador, I received a Graco Nautilus car seat to review. The Nautilus is great as it is Group 1, 2 and 3 (9-36kgs) – so this is the only car seat that we will ever need for him now!

Graco Nautilus – The Details
Safety
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Side impact protection
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5 point harness
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Lock-off mechanism
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Group 1 Stage: 9 to 18 kilos with in-built harness and harness protect
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Group 2, 3 Stage: 15 to 36 kilos – please remove harness and use with a seat belt
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Direct-access recline handle
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Intuitive belt routing
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One-hand adjustable head support
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Height adjustment (grows with child)
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Machine washable cover- Integrated cup holder
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Storage compartments
My first impressions on receiving the Nautilus was that it looked lovely and spacious and extremely sturdy looking.

Oscar's first time in the Nautilus
Oscar certainly seemed very happy in his new seat though he was a little perplexed with suddenly being able to see forwards.
When it came to fastening the car seat into the car (we use it in a Kia Sorento) I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to install. With all the media going on about how so many car seats aren’t correctly fitted, it is nice to find a car seat which really is easy to fit and doesn’t move an inch when I test it.
I also like the fact that it has a drinks holder and a couple of handy storage compartments in the arm rests. Now Oscar is a little young for having drinks in the car yet but I know from experience with Zara how annoying it is trying to pass drinks back to a toddler and trying to reach for dropped cups.

Oscar in his big boy seat
I have to admit I’ve not quite figured out the recline feature yet as it doesn’t recline quite as much as I like but at least it has one, the seat we have for Zara doesn’t have a recline and I always feel sorry for her when she falls asleep bolt upright. Oscar at least has a little recline to make his snoozing easier.
The Graco Naultius can be bought from various places, the cheapest I’ve found this morning was on Amazon for around £125 here >> Graco Nautilus Group 1/2/3 Car Seat
which although it seems expensive at first, considering it will be the only car seat I need from now on, it’s not a bad investment.
The Graco Nautilus also comes with a FREE childrens play centre
– as you can see from the following photos, the box provided hours of entertainment for both Zara and Oscar lol

So Oscar gets a car seat and I get a new den - great!

Plenty of room for me and all my toys in here!
A Book About Me – From Baby Patisserie
1The lovely people from Baby Patisserie, recently sent me a Book About Me memory book to review and I have to say I’m very impressed. I’m not usually one for traditional baby memory books but this one is absolutely lovely and we are going to have so much fun filling it in (I need to decide whether it’s going to be for Oscar or Zara first though!)

What I love about this book, is although it contains all the traditional memory book features, it has a lovely modern feel to it. The bright and funky designs on every page are beautiful to look at and make turning each page a pleasure.

The book covers a much wider range than traditional memory books and lets you keep recording all those precious moments through until around 5 years old! We love the fact that by the end of the book your child will be the one creating the memories in it

There is plenty of room for adding scan pictures, first photographs, family trees, first foods and even pages to detail your childs first travels.

We also love the spare pages at the back to allow your child to doodle away their own memories and the plastic pockets for keeping hold of special items you don’t want to lose such as hospital bracelets and in my case the supermarket receipt from the shop I did an hour before going into labour with Zara (I just can’t bring myself to throw it away!)

The trendy and colourful illustrations make the book suitable for both boys and girls and it would make a lovely gift to expecting or new parents. It has a RRP of £24.50 but it currently on introductory offer at Baby Patisserie for £19 which I think is a great price for a product of this quality.
There is also a sister book to this one called For My Grandchild which makes a lovely present for Grandparents and is a lovely way of getting grandparents to record all their memories so that they can be passed down over the years.














Zara is...



