Oscar

The Gallery – 3 Words

16
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in , ,

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is 3 Words and so this week I have decided to post this photo, the 3 words? Well they can only be Must Be Love

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A Tour of My Lounge

1
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in ,

Well you’ve seen my kitchen and seeing as my lounge is currently looking reasonably tidy I thought I’d share it with you :) Take note of my stalker Indie, you first see her behind me on the stairs lol and no my house isn’t sponsored by Fisherprice!

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4 Months Old! How time flies

4
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in , ,

Today my little man is 4 months old, I can’t believe how fast time is flying. I’ve been looking back through Zara old photos and found one of her at the same age as a comparison

Zara aged 4 months

2 days after this photo was taken Zara rolled over for the first time, I think we’ve a while to go before Oscar is doing that but as each week goes by I see them becoming more and more similar.

Oscar aged 4 months

What do you think? Are they starting to look alike? :)

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Has it really been a year since I started blogging?

3
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in , , ,

I’ve just been looking back through my blog and I’ve realised that a couple of days ago was my blogiversary. I’ve been so busy the last few weeks the date passed me by but on 4th June 2010 I started this little blog :)

Since then I have written 160 posts and have shared many highs and lows with you all. I’ve had the opportunity to review some great products and I’ve met some lovely friends. You’ve witnessed the trials of my second pregnancy, the birth of Oscar and Zara growing up and starting to walk.

There is always a lot of issues during the first week of the month when various statistics are released but I have to say that I’m happy that I’m not necessarily a “top rated” blog, you see I don’t blog for money or products (although I have received some lovely ones). I blog because I get lonely like a lot of mums who work from home and I want to make contact with the outside world. I blog because I like sharing my family and life with people and I blog because I like the blogging community and I want to be part of it. My stats are increasing all the time and as much as it makes me happy to see so many people reading my blog on a daily basis I’m quite happy to just keep blogging and see where it takes me :)

With my first Cybermummy in just a couple of weeks I can’t wait to meet many of my fellow bloggers who I have come into contact with in the last year, when we share our lives on our blogs it feels like I know many of you and your children already :)

And just in case you missed my first ever blog post it was this one:

The Brightness of Dawn

And finally a big thank you to all my followers, subscribers and commenters over the last year, you have made my first year blogging a lovely experience.

Zara, Oscar and Me!

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How it all began…

6
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in ,

Today both our children were in nursery so my husband and I took the opportunity to have a day out together and we went back to the place we first met and lived. York will always be a very special place to us, it’s where we first met, where we first lived together and where we got married and going back there always brings the memories flooding back.

Our first date together started here…

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I was an hour late and so we missed our original meeting place of Parliament Square and outside the Zara store just happened to be where I was when we found each other. When deciding on the name for our first baby we jokingly said we should do a “Posh” and name it after where we met if it was a girl. Thinking it over we realised we actually loved the name and after looking up the meaning which is “the brightness of Dawn” it just had to be :) and so Zara was named.

Back to our first date, after meeting outside Zara we then decided to go for a drink at a bar that we both knew….

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Yes you’ve guessed it, following a theme when trying to decide on a boys name we came up with Oscar as this is where we had our first drink together, again we happen to love the name and so it was decided. Luckily we had a boy second time round as we didn’t have a name with such a relevant meaning if it were a girl.

And now we’ve had 2 children we are stopping as if we carried on with our theme our third child would be called Pitcher and Piano and I think that’s just taking it a bit too far ;)

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The Gallery – I’m grateful for…

10
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in ,

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

This week is a special week over at The Gallery, Christine Mosler from Thinly Spread is off on an amazing journey with Save The Children to Mozambique. She has been invited along as part of their campaign to make a lot of noise ahead of the Global Vaccination Summit on June 13. The aim is to encourage the world’s leaders to plug the vaccination funding gap. They want a fair deal for children all over the world!

How can you help? Simply pop over and sign the petition HERE

So the theme for this weeks gallery is I’m grateful for… and this week I found the theme far too easy. You see all this talk about vaccinations got me thinking about modern medicine and how lucky we are in the UK today. Regular readers will know of Oscar’s arrival into the world, he arrived 6 weeks early by emergency c-section. Oscar had to be resuscitated at birth as he was born blue and floppy ( I believe it took them 5 minutes to get him breathing by himself, I of course was unaware as I was under general anaesthetic), I lost over 3 litres of blood and received 6 units of blood and 3 units of plasma during theatre but we are both here now 3 months later, fit and healthy which is all thanks to the care we received and modern medicine, sometimes we take how lucky we are for granted but I can never be more grateful for anything in my life for the wonderful NHS and the care we received that day. And so here are my photos for this weeks gallery….

Oscar 1 Day Old

A fit and healthy Oscar, 3 months later

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Bags of Love – My beautiful Fathers Day gifts!

1
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in , ,

When Bags of Love contacted me to ask if I would like a 12″x16″ canvas of my choice to review I was more than happy to accept, although me being a little cheeky asked for two (well I do have 2 children after all). I thought a canvas of each of the children would make a fabulous Fathers Day gift for my husband. Well the canvases have just arrived and I can’t resist showing them to you (just don’t tell my husband!). They are great quality and look absolutely beautiful.

This one of Zara was taken using my Iphone and not a fancy high megapixel camera but it has still come out really well, it’s one of my favourite ever photos of her and now we can have it permanently on view

And this one of Oscar was taken by my sister Sonia Thorpe Photography and because she is my sister I’m allowed to use her images for things like this :)

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I think my husband is going to be delighted with his Fathers Day gifts this year :)

Head on over to the Bags of Love website Here to check out what other fantastic gifts they offer, from photo laptop cases, holdalls, digital keyrings and oh my goodness you can even get a deckchair – how funky is that!!

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The NEXT Autumn/Winter 2011 Preview

1
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in , ,

I was very kindly invited down to see the NEXT Autumn/Winter 2011 preview of their new collection and thought I’d give you a sneaky peak of a few of my favourite items from the collection. I’ve already compiled quite a shopping list and I can’t wait for the range to be available in the stores so I can start shopping :)

How gorgeous is this coat? Zara is so going to have this!

And of course she will have to have these matching wellies!

And every girl has to have a gorgeous handbag!!

And I love this Gillet and Top!

I can't forget Oscar, this jacket has really cute elbow patches!

And how snug and warm does this boys coat look!

Can't forget me - I love these boots! Very yummy mummy :)

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The Real Nappy Challenge – The Final update

0
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in ,

 

So The Real Nappy Challenge is over and I managed to use a real nappy once a day for 7 days. How did we do? Am I a real nappy convert?

After a disappointing start to the week on Day 1, things started to improve over Days 2 and 3 and I’m happy to report that the rest of the week went well, apart from one more messy nappy incident that is.

So here are my final thoughts:

  • After a bad start initially we did find a solution to the wet nappies which seemed to help with keeping Oscar dry for longer, I am concerned though that I am having to use Miobooster pads with a 3 month old baby and as he gets bigger and wetter would I end up still being able to keep him dry. I wouldn’t dare to use a real nappy overnight as we are just starting to sleep through and if he was waking up wet and uncomfortable after 3/4 hours it would not be appreciated. I think if I were to move to real nappies I would definitely carry on using disposables at night.
  • I still haven’t found a solution to the washing situation that would allow me to not use a fabric conditioner but still allow me to have nice soft clothes without tumble drying them. If I were to switch to real nappies I’d have to do separate loads for them without conditioner and so it would mean extra loads for me to do, and when you’ve already got the washing machine on almost constantly it would mean my life would be spent doing even more laundry.
  • I do like the look of the nappies, they are very cute and I love the idea of using real nappies and being able to make a difference to the environment but I feel that for me they just won’t work right now. When you have 2 children in nappies and are trying to juggle my time between a 3 month old and a 17 month old, I just don’t think I have the time to spare doing extra washing or changing nappies more frequently.

I am glad I got to participate in the Real Nappy Challenge and it has given me food for thought. I haven’t ruled out using real nappies completely yet, I just need to maybe wait until Oscar is a little older and the nappies are less messy. I’m sure with time and practice we could find a solution that would work for us. I will continue to keep using the real nappies I’ve got when I can but I’m not ready to go out and purchase any more just yet, but you never know I could still change my mind at some point :)

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The Real Nappy Challenge – Days 2 & 3

2
14 years ago
by dawniebrown in ,

After a disappointing start to the week on day 1, I can happily report that days 2 and 3 were much more successful :)

I decided to try using the miobooster pad inside the nappy to see whether it helped with keeping Oscar dry for longer and this seems to have done the trick. With this in we can last up to 4 hours between feeds which is much better. I have to admit there has only been wet nappies for the last couple of days so I’ve still got to see how it will hold up to newborn baby poop!

I’ve also had the chance to wash the nappies and that was easy enough, just popped them in with a normal clothes wash and put a scoop of the sanitiser in the detergent drawer. I wash everything at 40 in this house but the nappies came out nice, clean and fresh smelling.

My only issue with washing the nappies is that you cannot use fabric softener in the wash with them. I like to use this as I find if I line dry the clothes they tend to get a bit hard without softener and I like nice soft clothes for my children. If I were to use real nappies all the time then I would probably have to buy enough to last me 3-4 days so I could do separate loads of washing for them and that way I could still use conditioner on my normal clothes washes. Though if anyone has any tips on how to make clothes nice and soft without using conditioner, please let me know :)

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