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May 27th, 2010
I haven’t been around much this week because I’ve been catching up from attending the NEC Baby show last week / taking a teeny tiny bit of time off.
Aside from the thieving gypsies who unfortunately reinforced cultural stereotypes (yes, they were actual travelling folk and they were actually thieving) the most interesting thing I saw all weekend was the Baby Wheeleasy which is designed for wheeling stage 0 baby car seats around – avoiding the swinging, bumping and heaving which generally accompanies moving these car seats.
It particularly caught my attention because my Mum is an auxiliary nurse in a maternity unit and has been for the past 25 years. She’s now got a shoulder injury which she reckons is down to the fact that for many years it was standard practice for auxiliary nurses to have to carry new babies off the premises and actually put them into waiting cars. No real idea why they had to do it, something due to health and safety but which has fallen by the wayside as staff don’t have time to do it anymore.
Anyway, I digress. Basically the Baby Wheeleasy is a little set of wheels which your car seat straps into so that you can pull / push it around easily. I’m guessing it would be especially helpful if you’d just had a caesarian, but of course you’d still have to lift it into / out of cars.
I don’t think I’d use it as an alternative to a pram as your baby is really low to the ground, but for anyone who struggles to lift a car seat, this may well be the answer you’re looking for. The Baby Wheeleasy is priced at £34.95 and is available from Baby Wheel Easy.
Tags: baby wheeleasy, baby wheeleasy review, cloth baby wipes
Posted in Buying For Baby | No Comments »
May 18th, 2010
I’m finally almost ready to go to the NEC Baby Show which runs this Friday 21st May – 23rd May. I’ve collected £5 notes from the bank, snacks and drinks from the Supermarket and best of all my lovely Bamboo Wipes have arrived, just in time for me to give some away free as part of my ‘show offer‘. In case you were wondering, the show offer is buy the kit for £30, get 5 extra bamboo wipes free and add two extra 10ml bottles of oil for £5. Bargain or what?
And I’ve got able helpers on hand too. Last week, we were pretty sure that my original helper, the lovely Claire Sheridan, brains behind My Little Patch wouldn’t be able to make it due to illness. However Claire is back on fine form and hoping to make it to join us Saturday or Sunday. So I’ve roped in another bright young thing, Emma who I think will do a sterling job. It will be her first trip further north than Norwich (bless!) and she’s certainly never experienced anything like the madness that the Baby Show brings.
If you’re thinking of visiting the Baby Show, here are my top tips:
- Visit the special offers page and see where you can save yourself some money.
- Make a list of ‘must-have’s’ and ‘nice-to have’s’
- Familiarise yourself with the benefits of the baby show. There’s a brilliant service that allows you to drop off your shopping as you buy it and collect by car later (saves on sore arms!), but lots of people don’t realise that it’s available and end up overloaded with bags.
- Take advantage of the free nappies etc provided in the baby change area and the free baby food provided by Heinz – after all, the less you have to carry the better.
- Don’t worry about taking lots of cash with you, most retailers take cards
- And if you want to drive a bargain, wait until Sunday afternoon…us retailers would rather sell any remaining stock that take it home, so we might be open to negotiation!
Anyway, if you do decide to visit, make sure to stop by and say ‘Hello’.
Tags: cheeky wipes baby show, cheeky wipes offers, nec baby show offfers
Posted in Baby Show News | No Comments »
May 18th, 2010
Jodie’s writing workshop this week came at an appropriate time. Inspired by the (Nudie) Princess Diaries and tales of wanton destruction wreaked by small children, and given that both my littl’est ones (F who will be 3 next month, and J, 18 months) have been in tornado mode for the last week, it struck a chord with me.
We’ve had a trail of devastation this week that would compare favourably with two mini-tornadoes.
Firstly, we had ‘the domino game’ where F (probably with J as his willing accomplice) dropped their big brothers domino’s down the outside drain, one by one. Daddy fished them out with BIG rubber gloves on and after a good bleaching they’ve come to no harm, but still.
Then we had ‘book destruction’ when F destroyed one of his favourite books for no apparent reason, other than because he could?
But this was topped yesterday by ’scribbling on the living room fireplace’. Possibly F chose the living room fireplace because it has a nice plain cream background, against which his artistic scribbles would stand out nice and clearly. Possible he was just scribbling on the nearest thing to hand. Who knows.
Unfortunately I didn’t catch any of these classics on camera, but thought I’d share a few oldies, so you get a sense of what I’m up against.  Take J for example. As you can see, last week she decided for whatever reason, that climbing INTO the toilet was a good thing. What’s slightly strange is that her brother, F, at about the same age, did the same thing. What’s that all about?
There was also the memorable incident of the weetabix….when F was only 6 months old!
Or when he progressed to eating the newly sprouted sunflowers (his brothers pride and joy…)
But there’s not much which they break which can’t be fixed (except sunflower seedlings of course), so I guess we just grin and bare it and try to record as much as possible for posterity….
And of course, it’s lucky I’ve got my Cheeky Wipes to clear up all the mess!
Tags: cheeky baby wipes, mucky baby, toddler destruction
Posted in Writing Workshop | 8 Comments »
May 13th, 2010
 I’m giving myself a break this year. Although I’m going to do hampers for everyone as usual, I’m starting into them well in advance so that I’m not chocka in October time when I’m going to be really busy with Cheeky Wipes and various trade / retail shows.
I’ve deliberately avoided the use of the ‘christmas’ word to avoid scaring everyone out there. You all think I’m weird enough anyway. But in all seriousness, this would make a fantastic gift for anyone at any time of year – make a stash and you’ll always have a dinner party gift on hand.
This recipe is from the book Ballymaloe Cookery Course by Darina Allen. You might remember that I made her fabulous Orange Marmalade back in January when Seville oranges were in season. I have to say that particular marmalade is the nicest one I’ve ever tried as it’s not sweet, but has a really dark flavour and I’ll often have it on toasted crusty bread for lunch.
This recipe is for the Orange, Lemon & Grapefruit Marmalade and is great for this time of year as it doesn’t require seville oranges. The marmalade produced has a deep rich flavour, more orangey than I had expected, rather than grapefruit-ey? However this could be because I didn’t stir it enough while it was boiling to it had started to caramelise! Whatever, it made a fantastic marmalade that I’ll definitely be trying again. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
- 2 sweet oranges & 2 grapefruit weighing 3 lbs in total
- 4 unwaxed lemons
- 6 pints water
- 6 lbs sugar
Method:
Wash the fruit, cut each piece in half and squeeze out the juice. Cut the halved fruit in half again and scrape off any membrane with a knife. Set aside scraped off membrane and then slice the rind across ways.
Put the juice, rind and water in a bowl.
Put the membrane and pips into a muslin bag and add to the bowl ( I use a Cheeky Wipes Mesh Bagwhich is perfect for the job).
Leave overnight.
Next day, simmer the fruits and water in a big stainless steel saucepan for 1 1.2 – 2 hours or until the peel is really soft, covering the pan for the first half hour. The liquid should be reduced by half to two-thirds of the original volume.
Towards the end of this period of time, warm your sugar in the over at 180c for 10 minutes.Then remove the muslin / mesh bag from the pan and stir in the warm sugar.
Bring to the boil and boil hard until it reaches setting point (wrinkles when dropped on a cold plate) (mine took almost an hour, but was supposed to take only 8 – 10 mins?)
Pour into sterilised jars (warm from the dishwasher is fine) and cover while hot.
With this recipe it’s really important that the rind is really soft before you add the sugar, otherwise it will harden. Yuck.
Tags: frugal gifts, Home-made Gifts, three fruit marmalade recipe; edible gift recipe; cheeky baby wipes
Posted in Home-made Gifts | No Comments »
May 10th, 2010
I’ve just had news that the Aquabuds fabric for our Cheeky Monkey kits is being discontinued.
The good news is that we get to choose another print – all to ourselves. The bad news is that there’s too many pretty colours to choose from and I need help. I’m uploading all my favourites below – please leave me a comment and let me know which you prefer (you can choose more than 1!)
 MM9  MM6  MM8  MM4  MM3  MM1  AH3  AH2  AH1  RK7  RK6  RK3  RK2  RK1
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments »
May 6th, 2010
For anyone who is expecting a baby / just had one, the Baby Shows at Excel, NEC or Earls Court are worth a visit (not least because you can see fantastic ideas like Cheeky Wipes in the flesh so to speak.
Where else can you see all the major nursery brands under one roof, get to try and test buggies of all shapes and sizes and save yourself money?
 
Plus there’s usually an interesting range of speakers and the odd celeb to spot. At the NEC, this will be Katie Price aka Jordan who is launching her new range of baby clothes (???) on Friday. I’m not sure I’d EVER buy baby clothes ‘designed’ by Katie Price but it’s surely worth a look for nosiness sake!
The lovely ladies from Mums Club who offer inspiration and support for Mums in business also have a stand and are running a Baby Show treasure hunt with lots of prizes.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, we’re exhibiting on stand K53 if you fancy popping along to say Hi. We’re alongside Mummy & Little Me, the fab maternity shop based in Lincoln which has recently expanded to Birmingham and Leeds. I’m sure they’ll be bringing along their range of Pink Lining (Yummy Mummy) and Lin and Leo Changing Bags which are just gorgeous.
We’ve got 5 single free tickets to give away. Simply leave a comment below, and we’ll pick 5 people at random, next Tuesday 11th May at 5pm. We’ll let you know when the competition is closed and will notify winners by email.
Tags: NEC Baby Show tickets
Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »
May 4th, 2010
I know I’ve mentioned a couple of the many uses of Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda) before (home-made deodorant and cleaning soiled mattresses. But I thought you might be interested in a few more things that it can be used for…
Removing Odours and Reducing Smells
Bicarb is fantastic for removing smells, so use it anywhere you’ve got a stinky problem. I use it for washing out the little compost bin in my kitchen and my bigger bin too.
I also found that the stainless steel flask which I use for my yogurt was getting a bit manky if I left the lid on it. A good wash with some bicarb sorted that out quickly!
My wooden spoons were really starting to absorb cooking smells but washing with bicarb paste got rid of the lingering aroma of curry.
And don’t forget your dishwasher – chuck a bit into the bottom to remove smells, or give a thorough clean by running it empty with just some bicarb in the main wash area.
Last (but by no means least), sprinkle some bicarb into stinky training shoes to get rid of the potent odour of sweaty feet – yuck!
Cleaning
Bicarb can be used for a number of cleaning purposes and it particularly good for greasy surfaces, especially in conjunction with white vinegar.
I recently gave my Microwave a spring clean, heating a bowl of water with a teaspoon of bicarb in it for 5 minutes until it was boiling. The steam loosened the grease and it cleaned up a treat.
But it’s not just microwaves. Try using bicarb and white vinegar on your oven or Barbecue racks. Alternatively, sprinkle dry bicarb onto your stainless steel hob and clean with a damp cloth. Brilliant!
If you’ve got any hints and tips you’d like to share, or alternative uses for bicarb, feel free to share them…
Tags: baking soda, bicarbonate of soda, cleaning bicarb of soda
Posted in Green Cleaning | 2 Comments »
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