The Future of Dating in Manchester

Earlier this week my sister and I were chatting about everything and nothing over buckets of tea and mince pies (don't judge), she had the day off work so came to keep me company with Eva before collecting her girlies from school. We started talking about my blog and how I'm keeping my brain working while I'm on maternity leave, which is something I'm really trying to do with my blog, because to be honest memorising nursery rhymes and treating my daily dose of Pointless as education is not quite working for me...

Comfort Food: Pasta Aglio e Olio Recipe

Is there anything better than settling down on a cold autumn evening with a big bowl of delicious pasta? Well there probably is but that might involve leaving the house and I for one am it on board with that at the moment!

As much as I love fancy food and going out for dinner, staying at home with Joe (and now Eva too) eating pasta is way more preferable in my new sleep deprived world. This is one of our favourite recipes and is also the simplest, it uses ingredients you’re likely to have in the house so is perfect for a last minute comfort food dinner.

Building Capsule Collections

As much as I love being at home dressed head to toe in stretchy jersey (baby vomit optional), every now and then it feels glorious to put on normal human clothes, a full face of make up and venture into the outside world.

I’m also fully embracing having my body sans bump back, it’s obviously not in good shape at all complete with a lovely flabby belly and stretch marks but I’m back in a size 12-14 and I am so happy with that. I can wear normal clothes again!

Life Lately: Hello Motherhood

This year has absolutely flown by, I can't believe it's already mid October, I have a 5 week old and I'm nearly 30! I've been very quiet on here recently because it seems babies do not like having a laptop balanced on them and give you very little time to do, well, anything. But I thought it was about time I showed my face, said hello and gave you a bit of an update of what's going on in my little life from motherhood to body confidence.

Our Birth Story

On the 6th of September just before 5am the newest and smallest member of our family decided to join us, a week later than expected but still in quite a rush. She is now two weeks old and an officially registered person, we finally decided on her name too. Say hello to Eva Victoria Anderton.

I wanted to share our birth story because I absolutely loved reading other people's before I gave birth, I felt like they were preparing me for so many different eventualities and it was so good to be fully aware that whatever you plan for your perfect birth, it rarely goes exactly to plan! Ours didn't go to plan in the slightest but it was still a really positive (dare I say it, almost enjoyable) experience so I thought it would be worth sharing. So many people love to tell pregnant women horror stories about birth so I wanted to share a bit of positivity!

In the run up to the birth I'd been working my way through the Positive Birth Company online hypnobirthing course which I found incredibly useful, not necessarily for the breathing techniques which I thought I'd be most interested in, but more for the detailed descriptions of the different stages of labour and birth so I felt like I was prepared for anything that could happen. I'd thoroughly recommend this to anyone who's pregnant at the moment, it's only £35 and worth every single penny.

So, onto the birth story! It's a bit long and rambly but so is labour so I'm sticking with it.