Farewell 2011

So 2011 is almost over and is tradition for this time of every year, I have been reflecting on the last 12 months and looking back with the help of my blog as to what I got up to.

January to March 
was a struggle being pregnant and so huge with it. I struggled to get comfy in bed and it was tiring during the day when spending time entertaining and playing with Burton. 

I was excited but very anxious about introducing a new baby into our home and was worried how Burton would handle having a new brother or sister. Still he knew where the baby was going once it arrived!

March
Arriving 10 days early, on the 30th March Jenson was born and I had another beautiful baby boy and a little brother to Burton. We went from a family of three to four and all of a sudden my almost two year old seemed so much more grown up and bigger - almost over night Burton seemed to change into a boy.

April 
my blog celebrated it's first blogaversary. I had my first Mothers Day as a mummy to two and  Burton got on with life as a big brother.

May 
I was still surviving on very little sleep and I was noticing that Burton was showing more signs of those terrible two's and I was feeling the stress and guilt of being a tired mummy to two under 2! We decorated Burton's bedroom with a Toy Story theme and to this day this is my highest viewed blog post (I get hits on it every day!).

June 
I turned another year older and I held my first ever blogging carnival with Emma from A Matter Of Choice with the theme of potty training. There was also my breast feeding post which I wrote for breast feeding awareness week, where I was pleased to share my experiences of as it not an easy subject to tackle as it spurs very strong emotive responses. I also wrote about Burton and his assertive toddler behaviour.

July 
marked Burton turning two 

and I also wrote about his birth story at last. At this time with him celebrating his second birthday I also wondered if his lack of talking was something to be concerned about. I also had a tweet up and my first blogging event at the Luminarium where I met 'the Boy' and 'me' from TheBoyAndMe and Karen and her girls from WouldLikeToBeAYummyMummy.
I also wrote about a subject which as it turned out seemed to strike a chord with a number of people about my lack of sex life following my second baby and how I had lost my 'sex mojo'.

August

Burton stayed at his grandparents and grandad kept a photo diary of his weekend away. I blogged about his fussy eating and reasons why you know you are a mummy and Burton had his first big boy haircut

September

Jenson hosted his first ever post about his first 6 months in the world. Burton (and Jenson) had his first trip to the beach and I shared some sneaky swimming pool photos on the blog. My I Love Cake linky started.

October
Burton started his potty training and it was a success (yay!). I went to my first blogcamp at Bristol (where I met some lovely SW Mums - see my blogroll)  and met up with Helen and her family from The Crazy Kitchen. 


November
I signed up for NaBloPoMo  and I have to say that this month was my best month for blog post writing and I feel I wrote some of my best posts to date. Posts ranging from rants about housework to my boys and their age gap and how I don't want to try for a girl, to discovering I was pregnant for the first time to my struggles with parenthood to toddler olympics and a toddlers take on potty training.

December
I started the month by signing up to another month of posting everyday but it was a struggle with Christmas looming, illnesses, a trip to Butlins and all the other christmas preparations! In the end I stopped on Boxing Day and enjoyed a few days without blogging at all!

So here I am after a good year with lots of changes in my life and on my blog and all for the better, I am pleased to say. I have discovered that I can write about topics close to my heart and ones that other people can relate to. I have made new friends and met some of them through twitter and blogging and read some wonderful blogs and posts.


Thank you for stopping by and commenting and supporting Mummy Mishaps, and thank you also to my boys who inspire me to be the Mum I am and the kind I want to be and who give me ideas for posts!!

Happy New Year and here's to 2012 I hope it brings you happiness, success and whatever you wish for.

Saturday Caption

So its the night before the new year otherwise known as new years eve. It is also Saturday which is also known as Sat Cap Day and here is my entry




Dont forget to check out the other entries here

Oh and Happy New Year :)
Xx

A Spoonful Of Sugar Doesn't Help All The Time!

So today I experienced my first encounter with trying to give foul tasting medicine to a toddler. Following a visit to our GP yesterday, Burton was prescribed a course of anti-biotics in liquid form - 5 ml to be taken 4 times a day until the contents of the bottle have been emptied. Having been warned by the pharmacist that this medicine did not taste nice and my best bet was to mix it with a little calpol or some chocolate mousse to try and soften the bitterness, I knew that Burton was probably not going to enjoy taking it as much as he likes having calpol. However,before I attempted to get him to take a spoonful, I was feeling pretty confident that it wouldn't be too much of a problem if i told him it was calpol! Hmmm oh dear! How wrong I was!

To be fair yesterday we did get the first spoonful in no problem because I told him it was calpol and he did pull a face afterwards but a drink of squash took away the after taste. After his bath it was time for another dose of the evil meds and he refused point blank and didn't fall for my "but it's calpol Burton, and you like calpol" routine at all. However, Daddy came to the rescue and bribed him with a chocolate biscuit and an episode of Peppa Pig on You Tube, which actually got increased to two episodes by Burton! He is a good negotiator , unlike mummy and daddy it would seem!

This morning, however, despite telling Daddy and I that he would take his medicine as long as he could have a jaffa cake and five episodes of Peppa Pig, when it came to trying to put the spoon into his mouth he changed his mind and no amount of persuading him or bribing him would make him open his mouth. Daddy and I reasoned with him and explained why he had to take the medicine but he wouldn't let us give it to him. Eventually after about 40 minutes of negotiations, Daddy filled the syringe and I tried to administer it to him while he was held down but Burton just spat it out! Nightmare!

So I asked on twitter to see if anyone could suggest anything that  might help

Twitter how do you get a toddler to take a foul tasting medicine? Burton isnt budging despite all sorts of bribes!!

As always I was blown away by all of the replies I received and a BIG thank you to all of you who took the time to reply. From reading the tweets in my timeline I have learnt the following tip with regards to getting your child to take devil juice medicine:

disguise the flavour

ice cream, jam, orange juice, milkshake, yogurt and chocolate were suggested

make threats 

these included; having to have an injection, take them to hospital,  and take them to the doctors

bribery

anything that will get them to take them although chocolate of some description seemed to be the most popular

force

if all else fails, pin your child down and force it inside their mouths via a spoon or a syringe. Not the nicest method it was agreed but sometimes has to be done to get the meds inside them 

We had tried, unsuccessfully, all of these techniques (except the threats one as he doesn't understand about hospitals and injections. although I did tell him that the area in question that he is taking the meds for could drop off if he didn't take his medicine!!! *hangs head in shame*)

So the only thing I could think to do was phone my GP back and explain the situation and see if there were any different antibiotics Burton could be prescribed instead. He did and the new meds were tried out at tea time and they are better because they can be taken with meals this time too. So to begin with Burton wasn't going to try this new yellow medicine, the previous one was neon pink, and although it doesn't taste lovely it is not as bad as the other one.

Anyway, in the end I worked out a plan of attack and made the following bribe proposal to him:

if he takes his medicine which mummy will mix in with one of his fromage frais, and he can wash it down with a jaffa cake and some of mummy's squash, in return he will get a sticker and if he gets all of his stickers on his reward chart, then mummy will take him to buy a Peppa Pig (his new fav at the moment) DVD

Once I persuaded him to try a little of the 'fromage frais', he realised that he couldn't taste the medicine and he ate it all!!! I was so chuffed and wanted to dance a little victory dance around the downstairs rooms, but I restrained myself. 

I just hope he keeps up the momentum tomorrow and the next day and possibly the day after that!

Are there any methods you emily that haven't already been mentioned here? Please say if this is so as it is always useful to know!

*I would like to add that since I wrote this post, Burton decided he wouldn't swallow the second medicine he was prescribed and Daddy had to use the 'force' method each time by holding him down and forcing the syringe into his mouth which was not nice or enjoyable for all involved. *

I am linking this up as the one that should have done better to

Christmas Recap

So thats another Christmas over and done with.

I always feel sad one Christmas Day turns to night and then Boxing Day comes to an end, because that means my favourite time of the year is over for another 12 months *sighs*

However, it was a fantastic festive fun filled couple of days and despite the fact that I was hoping to share more photographs of the two days with you, which I am unable to due to not being able to find the device which connects my iPad to the camera (!), here are some highlights.

Christmas Eve

We arrived at the OH's (Jon) parents at 5pm, with the car boot filled to the brim with presents which I had secretly packed without Burton seeing! I actually didn't think i was going to get everything we needed for our 2 night stay in the car but I did - just! Jon's brother and his wife and two children were also staying the night so you can imagine how excited Burton and his two cousins were about Father Christmas coming.

So they decided they would all like to sleep in the same bedroom so we got on and bathed them and got them ready for bed just after 7pm and once I had got Jenson down we met in the lounge for the three children to get their santa sacks ready and to leave out a mince pie, two carrots and a cup of chocolate milkshake for Father Christmas and Rudolph. In their excitement, Burton and his cousins decided they would like to get inside their santa sacks!

 Then the three of them set off to bed for a story and to go to sleep. Yes to sleep! do you think that happened? Oh no not at all! There was giggling, talking, running about and generally everything but going to sleep really! In the end it was Burton who couldn't get off to sleep and eventually after a few tears and relocating him into mine and daddy's room he went to asleep just before 10pm!! Talk about being over tired!

Once the coast was clear and all children were off in the land of nod we brought all the presents in from the car as did Jon's brother, and his mum gathered all of her gifts and we piled them around the Christmas tree 

After much discussion between Jon and I about where to leave the santa sacks for Burton and Jenson (and me putting a tweet out about it asking where people hang theirs in their homes - at the end of beds or downstairs), we finally decided to put them in the lounge by the chimney

Christmas Day

Started very early!!! 5.30am I was woken up by Jenson and then the other three children were up and about giggling at 6am! My photos of Burton's little face when he saw his sack full of presents were just gorgeous and he was very excited. However, he didn't really get the whole unwrapping of his gifts bit - he opened a couple and liked what he received but he was far more interested in seeing what everyone else had, playing with Jenson's presents and playing with the things he had as he opened them. He was the last one to open all his presents and even that took a lot of persuading!

Me: Burton, why don't you open another one of your presents?

Burton: No thank you, Mummy

They each received some wonderful presents and Burton loves his wooden train set that we bought him

I also had some lovely presents and my cake making will be going to a whole new level next year with these two little beauties, which I cannot wait to use.

It was a great Christmas made the more special by my two boys and especially Burton when he saw that Father Christmas had visited us in the night. It was magical and I wish it was happening again this weekend!

Silent Sunday

Merry Christmas Everyone
I hope you were all good and got a visit from Father Christmas xxxx

Saturday Caption Day

ho ho hooooo!! Its Christmas Eve and Father Christmas is checking his list to see who has bern naughty and nice!!

Here is todays photo ready to be captioned







Dont forget to check out the other entries :)

Merry Christmas!! DAY 24

Christmas Card Tradition

A couple of week's ago I took part in an Ultimate Christmas Meme, one of the questions asked me what my Christmas traditions were. I answered that I was yet to establish any but it was something I really wanted to rectify and it got me thinking about what I would like to do going forward.

In doing so, it made me realise that we do have one tradition that we have done every year since Burton's first Christmas and that is we make our own Christmas cards. Being the skilled amateur photographers that he is, my OH has a lot of photography equipment and when he sets it all up in our downstairs living area, it looks like we are living in a photography studio! Anyway, together with his computer skills he has produced some wonderful card creations for our family and close friends over the last three years.

Our first card back in 2009 was when Burton was a little over 5 months and of course we dressed him as a little Santa baby :)

We sat him in our fireplace (I would like to point out that it is not a working fire just an alcove!) and he was such a good baby and sat and smiled and hardly moved at all. Here is the finished creation

Last year was a bit more tricky as Burton was toddling and he was poorly and had a bad cold which resulted in very rosy red dry cheeks. Luckily, I chose an elf outfit for him so at least the red cheeks complimented his costume! Daddy got a little fraught at times because we couldn't get Burton to smile for the camera despite bribes of chocolate buttons and watching In The Night Garden on my iPad! It took a couple of sessions and in the end Daddy had to crop two photos to paste a smiley face on to Burton's body! Anyway, ths was our 2010 card

This year of course we have a baby and a toddler to contend with so we knew it may not be the easiest of tasks to get both boys looking and , hopefully, smiling in the same direction and at the camera! Having asked Burton what he would like to dress up as, he said a snowman so that was our theme sorted! 

Well, our fist attempt was a disaster! By the time it took to be get all of the photo shoot equipment ready, Burton decided that he had enough and refused to smile and then wouldn't sit next to Jenson and then started to strip off!! He would not pose for the camera and in the end after me pleading with Burton to sit with his brother to no avail, we gave up. Luckily, two weeks later for our second attempt we explained to Burton who the card would be for and how much his grandparents would be happy to see his smile, and he did smile lots! However, Jenson wasn't quite as happy the second time but he wasn't crying so result! 

So I present to you our 2011 card and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas
 (as we didn't have enough cards printed to send out to you all individually!)

DAY 23

Christmas Pudding Muffins

I LOVE cake and I LOVE Christmas so I may aswell combine the two and create a I LOVE CHRISTMAS CAKE linky :)

Christmas Pudding Muffins

Ingredients:

200g demerara sugar
175g butter, chopped
700g luxury mixed dried fruits
50g glacé cherries
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tbsp orange marmalade
100ml brandy or orange
3 large eggs , beaten
85g ground almonds
200g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp cinnamon

Method:

Heat oven to 150C/130C fan

Place the butter, sugar, dried fruits, marmalade, ginger and brandy/orange juice into a large pan and put on the heat and slowly bring to the boil, stirring frequently to melt the butter.

Reduce the heat and bubble gently, uncovered for 10 mins, stirring every now and again to make sure the mixture doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. Set aside for 30 mins to cool.

Stir the nuts, eggs and ground almonds into the fruit, then sift in the flour, baking powder and spices. Stir everything together gently but thoroughly.

Spoon the cake mix into 12 deep muffin cases

Bake for 35-45 mins until golden and just firm to touch/ an inserted knife should come out clean.

Cool on a wire rack.

Once cooled top with buttercream. I added some gold shimmer spray for the festive touch and then because all I had in my cupboard were shimmer balls and chocolate stars and moons, I added these for decoration too!

They taste just like Christmas pudding!

Do you have a Christmas Cake Recipe to share? Be it muffins, celebration cakes, chocolate logs etc...?
if you have please add it to the link below for others to see and share
thank you

DAY 22  

The Gallery - Christmas Past

So let me take you back to Christmas 1983.

The Christmas number one was The Flying Pickets with Only You

The top selling toy of that year was My Little Pony

The number one film was Return Of The Jedi

And I was 9 and here I am at my (maternal) grandparents in the afternoon after the present unwrapping had taken place.

I am sat on a sledge that my brother was given, which looking back seems an unusual gift to have been given seeing as though I don't remember many times it snowed during my childhood and I especially don't recall my brother using that sledge very much over the years. I do, however, remember the snow we had in the spring of 1991 when myself and a friend borrowed that sledge and broke it going down a field!

Anyway, back to 1983. This was the Christmas that my brother and I were given a Kodak disc camera each which were the 'in' camera around this time. My Dad had one already (see it around his neck in this photo)

And I think my Nanny was given one that Christmas also. My brother and I were very pleased with our new cameras and the photos I am using here are ones that he took as for some reason I have his photo album but cannot find mine (we were each given a little photo album with our cameras, mine was green and his blue). In the above photo you can just make out a Cluedo set which was mine and I still had that board until about 4 years ago when I finally got rid of it.

I also recall that my brother and I were also given Paul Daniels magic sets - and I can remember now us mastering a couple of tricks which we then demonstrated in front of our family in the evening in our own little magic show! I used to love putting on my little magic shows!

This is what my Mum looked like then -

how young my parents look and they were as Mum would have been 27 and my Dad 29!! 

I expect we had stayed Christmas Eve at my grandparents house and we stayed Christmas night for sure, as here I am in a camp bed in my new sleeping bag with my brothers new sleeping bag in the camp bed next to mine waiting for him to get in it.

I remember my childhood Christmases fondly and I do remember this one in particular obviously helped by the photos I expect. I can remember how excited my brother and I were when we awoke and found our Santa sacks full of presents! I also remember how it seemed to take forever until we could open our main presents, which we weren't allowed to do until after Christmas dinner. I remember my Na (grandad) always took ages to open his presents and once my brother and I had ripped open ours in such a rush, he would always have lots still to open and I always wished I had made opening mine take longer! I think he still does take ages actually!!

Remembering back to this Christmas makes me a little sad because that 'magic' I felt is how I still feel now but I am no longer that 9 year old girl with her teenage and adult life ahead of her, even if I feel the same on the inside I certainly don't look like that on the outside.

However, I will live my love of Christmas through my children, and I aim to give them the BEST Christmases I am able so they can look back at their childhood ones with fond memories when they're grown up .

Now go and see what other Christmas nostalgia posts have been written for (photos found on google images)

DAY 21

Project Christmas iPad App

Since the start of December I have been looking on the app store for any cheap little Christmas apps to download for Burton to play with. I have found a couple which have kept him amused which have either been puzzles, or just making Father Christmas talk and being run over by a giant snowball!! 

However, I was asked to review an educational Christmas app which sounded like a great idea - to combine festive fun with learning for Burton, so I was all too pleased to download the Stagecoach Education: Project Christmas iPad App.

The concept behind this app has been based on the original books by Dr.Lin Day (the creator of an award winning baby programme) and Stagecoach was the first ever educational course for the under 5's and it helps teach a world wide audience for more than 20 years. The Stagecoach principle is that a firm and solid foundation established in early years for our children, will allow more complex structures to be developed in later years . Therefore, learning to write and read should be done so in a fun way and be seen in the same way as toys and games in that no pressure should be used and instead be considered a happy and fun experience. In making learning a source of pleasure and enjoyment, children will naturally learn new things more easily, in the same way that the spoken word is easily absorbed and and lodged in the memory.

The Project Christmas App contains 30 pages of material for your child ranging from dot the dot, learning to count and learning letters of the alphabet which are all based around Christmas scenes with accompanying music to help gain your child's attention.

I downloaded this app on Saturday and the fact that it shows as the face of Father Christmas on my iPad made Burton very keen to try it out for himself. Being the forceful know it all almost 2 1/2 year of that he is, it didn't take long for the "me do it mummy" words to be said so I left him playing with the app while I attended to some mummy jobs in the kitchen. It wasn't long before I heard a "watch this mummy" which was my cue to return and see what he had done.

 Do you know what? I was VERY pleasantly surprised by what I discovered he had been up to. Without any help he worked on the following two pages from the app work book

As you should just be able to make out he has added 'B' 's for Burton where it asks for a name and one the snowman page he has tried to copy the numbers and written them on each snowman!

numbers on the snowmen are 3 2 1 (bottom to top)

'B' for 'Burton' written in his grandma's 3 favourite colours!

 I did tell him before I left him that one page required him to write his name and the other to count to 3 (he can't read yet.....well unless he can but I don't know!) but he did it all himself! I was gobsmacked!

The app is 30 pages of this type of educational material and priced at just £1.49 I think it is very good value for money. Each worksheet/ page can be saved with the work that has been done on it or you can erase the work your child has done and start again.

The Stagecoach Education Project Christmas can be downloaded HERE

I was sent a voucher to download this app for the purpose of this review.all opinions are my own and based on my experiences of using this app as a mum to a toddler who is learning new things all the time! I only let my children try things that I feel are appropriate to them 

DAY 20  

Sorry Excuse For A Post Really

I feel I haven't been around much the last week from a blogging and tweeting point of view. Since our return from Butlins it feels like our house has been plagued by illness!

I caught a tummy bug on our last night at Butlins which thankfully went by Tuesday, and since then Jenson has had a really nasty cold which I expect he picked up from the soft play unit while we were away for the weekend. Well there is always a bug of some description to be caught from soft play centres!! His poor nose has been like a tap running with snot and due to all he phlegm he has been sick at least once every day - not just a little bit of sick you understand but a LOT! I seem to have had a week of constant changing bedding, cleaning carpets and changing mine and his clothes! Plus he has had a really horrible cough and the reddest little cheeks - like a little elf but one that is suffering with ill 'elf *ahem*.

Most nights I have been up late trying to get him to sleep before he goes down in his cot so he doesn't cry, because otherwise he has been making himself sick as the phlegm moves around in his chest as he gets more and more upset at being made to go to sleep without a feed. I have been trying not to feed him before bedtime because he ends up coughing during the feed and then this makes him throw up all over me, the bed and himself aswell!

As I write this at just before 11pm,I have in fact only just got him in his cot and to sleep! I tried to put him to bed at 7pm but we had a sick incident and then I couldn't settle him back down and I am surprised I am able to write this as my arms have been aching from trying to rock him to sleep for the last 3 1/2 hours! What a relief for him and me when he eventually fell asleep - look at him he has such a sore nose and those dry red cheeks and heavy eyes :(

So seeing as though I am committed to writing a post every day this month I have just managed to squeeze this sorry excuse for a post on my blog just in time for today. Blogging and tweeting have, understandably, taken a back step this last week but I am still here dipping in and out and I hope to be back to my normal blogging service very soon. I am already racking my brain for a post idea for tomorrow.........hmmm that is what I will be doing once I publish this one!

I think I am going to link this post up to a wonderful little linky over at Here Comes The Girls , because a bit of tea and sympathy is just what I need!



DAY 19