Asian steak marinade
We don't eat red meat much trying to be healthy and all that, and steak is a really nice treat. Ali makes an Asian steak marinade and now eating plain steak is just not right. This recipe come from Jamie Oliver, one of our favourite chefs and tastes so good, if you try it too you will never eat plain old steak ever again.
Duck Duck Moose Itsy bitsy spider
Part of the Duck duck moose range of aps Itsy bitsy spider is another fun and exploring ap. Here's Sophie helping Itsy bitsy have an adventure to collect eggs and get them to Itsy's spider web, there are lots of things to touch that make noises and even a counting squirrel and a pigeon with a hat fetish. This is a fun ap that keep her occupied for ages.
Cooking mini quiches with Sophie
I love to cook and I hope that cooking with Sophie will give her the same passion and skills. When she was really small I used to sit her on the counter and let her watch me cook and I would tell her everything I was doing. Now she has her own set of step ladders and likes to join in and get involved she is now 19 months old and is really showing a flair for cooking.
Nettle Beer
I look forward to this yearly treat nettle beer is just delicious and has its own wonderful scent and flavour flowery nectar and very easy to drink. If you read my Nettle tea post then this will not taste like the tea, far from it.
Nettle Tea
The health benefits of nettles are widely known and have been used for centuries, containing lots of iron, vitamin A,B2 C E and K, acetophenone, heptennone, polysaccarides, Folic acids, Calcium, potassium, magnesium, glucidic stubstances, flavanoids which are an antioxidant, beta- carotene and many amino acids, formic and acetic acids, amines sterols, panthotenic acid, chlorophyl 0.3-0.8, protoporphyrine and coproporphynine, cetones as methyl heptenone, sitosterols, Ca, Mg, Fe and Si salts, phosphates, zinc as well as being high in protein. So as you can see it really is a super food.
(above list source live and feel, bright hub and tea benifits)
- Nettle tea fights coughs, tuberculosis and asthma;
- Nettle tea counters arthritis, rheumatism, tendonitis and other disorders of the muscles and joints;
- Nettle tea combats a variety of intestinal disorders;
- Nettle tea fights skin problems ;
- Nettle tea fights allergies like eczema, and hay fever;
- Nettle tea is used to treat urinary tract infections.
(above list source tea benifits)
The plant also has anti-anemic, haemostatic and diuretic properties and a great help to those suffering from diabetes as it can decrease blood sugar and glycemic levels. It is also useful in eliminating viruses and bacterial infections.
(above list source live and feel)
Woman's Tonic
Nettle tea is considered an excellent tonic for women. Native American women would drink it during their pregnancy and use it as a remedy to stop excessive bleeding after delivery.
After childbirth, nettle tea helps restore a woman's energy and stimulates milk production.
Nettle tea can also reduce water retention, soothe premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms, stop excessive menstrual bleeding, and treat anemia.
Hay Fever
Nettle tea has natural antihistamine and anti-inflammatory substances that can open nasal and bronchial passages, making it a great herbal remedy for treating hay fever. Drinking nettle tea three times a day can help prevent springtime allergies
(above list source bright hub)
Nettle tea is considered an excellent tonic for women. Native American women would drink it during their pregnancy and use it as a remedy to stop excessive bleeding after delivery.
After childbirth, nettle tea helps restore a woman's energy and stimulates milk production.
Nettle tea can also reduce water retention, soothe premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptoms, stop excessive menstrual bleeding, and treat anemia.
Hay Fever
Nettle tea has natural antihistamine and anti-inflammatory substances that can open nasal and bronchial passages, making it a great herbal remedy for treating hay fever. Drinking nettle tea three times a day can help prevent springtime allergies
(above list source bright hub)
Making nettle tea is simple adding 1 oz of young nettle leaves to 1 pint of boiling water and leave to steep for 10 mins to get rid of the sting. By adding a slice of lemon the tea will change from a green to pink colour but I prefer mine with a bit of sugar as the flavour for a first time drinker can be a bit odd as it is very fresh and green tasting and takes a few cups to get your head around drinking.
Duck Duck Moose Baa Baa Ap
As said in the technology post Sophie loves her I pad and has a few favourite aps here is Sophie and her Baa baa Ap part of the Duck Duck Moose range. This is a great little app where Sophie escort sheep across a river and hunts for items to match the shapes at the base of the screen, you can even have an underwater search too and meet the master, dame and little boy who lives down the lane. Get coordinating Ap that helps put items into shaped holes and learn their names. Good fun
Steam train ride at Chinnor
Today we took a ride on an old fashioned steam train, and felt very Harry Potter'ish as the big rumberling huffing and puffing train pulled itself into Chinnor station.
Technology
Both my Hubby and I were brought up in the era of the computer and my hubby's career started out in I.T. He works with computers and plays many games on them in his free time, my computer use to demand many hours of attention when we were a couple but this has all now been diverted to little Sophie now she is running about and is an active child.
Sophie was introduced to computers early on in life, and when she was born she used to lay neatly in my crossed legs, warm and snug and close to me while I tapped away on the computer.
Crufts
Up at 6 am this Sunday morning as were off to Birming NEC to Crufts and large dog exhibition, as we have been thinking for a while about getting a family dog, now Sophie is up and running about and as dogs tend to live for 15 years or so it would make a great addition to the household and a great mate for Sophie to grow up with. The Crufts exhibition was enormous and covered 5 huge halls and there were thousands of dogs there covering every breed imaginable, big and small, Fluffy, licky and full of love.
There were some amazing scenes as pooches were primped and primed, poofed and brushed within an inch of their lives ready to be shown of in the arena
This row of golden labs made us giggle as it seemed to be a sea of blonds all waiting for their moment.
We came to the conclusion that our short list of dogs that would suit us would be the following, Daddies choice, Labrador or Golden Retriever or Cavalier king Charles. Mummies Choice Miniature Schnauzer. Sophie's Choice Great Dane !!!!!!
Ivinghoe beacon
Co sleeping with my daughter
When Sophie was born, like most first time mothers I was paranoid about cot death and not being able to see or hear my baby in her moses basket even though it was right next to my bed. I am also a firm believer in skin to skin as this help regulate heat as a practical solution and has helped me out on a few of Sophie's fevers. More importantly to me co sleeping and skin to skin re firms close bonding, eases tension, and is extremely loving.
When Sophie was in my tummy I had gestational diabetes so I was huge and sleeping was uncomfortable and I tossed and turned a lot. My husband also has his sleeping habits, the usual snoring which is very loud, tossing and turning, sweating because he has hogged all the covers, and if he has been playing computer games thinks he is fighting soldiers in his sleep and I very often I got a punch or kick in the night. As well as all this our mattress developed an ridge on his side of the bed. All this combined lead him to move to the spare bed, leaving me to ripen into pregnancy and finally when Sophie came with the night feeds let me able to deal with her needs without disturbing his sleep.
She is 18 months and Sophie and I still sleep together and being able to do this has helped me help her get through her colic, teething with minimal disturbance, be close for her when she is ill, calm her very quickly when she has bad dreams and night terrors. Basically have been able to anticipate her needs very quickly and sooth her back to sleep.
It hasn't been easy, she has always been a very bad sleeper since day dot, waking through night, as well as being a very anxious child even now as an 18 month year old. As newborn she was either sleeping beside me in a moses basket or on me for skin to skin, as a pre 10 month year old i would have to lay with her cuddling her to sleep in my bed as she was terrified of being apart from me, when she drifted off i was able to leave and about 6-8 month we did the cry out thing in her cot in her room and she would always end up in my bed and by the time she was one she was ready herself to be put down in her room at 7pm for sleeps but would wake up to 5 times in the evening up until midnight where she would come to bed with me and sleep, where she might sleep waking briefly a number of times in the night so to calm her and get her back down before she wakes to much is a good thing, else she will be up for hours wanting to play. By the time she was 18 months she can sleep through the night in her room however she is very sensitive to our creaky house and hears us coming to bed and jumps in with me if she awakes. For me it was a hard adjustment, being the main carer for Sophie I was the human Teddy bear of choice and naturally a baby will want her mummy, so there were time where I would be either sitting in the dark willing her to go to sleep so I could go back downstairs and see my hubby or do something for myself and identity. Or I would be wishing that she would go to sleep so I could get some sleep, but they were just a few cons.
When I first told people I co slept, health visitors gave me the big no no and saying I had made a rod for my own back and she would never leave, and to be honest I really don't mind if she doesn't leave, there's nothing nicer than cuddling up to a soft warm body. Also other mothers or older mothers who did the cry out technique raised eye brows at me and gave me their 2 pence of leave her to cry it out, which for a bit my husband bought into and enforced in the house to try it. I have to say it is the most unnatural process to put a mother and baby through, the anguish for the mother listen to to scared screams of her baby, not being allowed to go and do what is instinctively natural and sooth your baby, and a baby left in a dark room alone, scared and confused to why it has been abandoned, away from what it needs their mummy. We did give it a good try just so we could say we tried it and it probably does work for those who want that method but it truly did not work for me or for Sophie and caused no end of heart ache I will never subject any of Sophie's siblings to that process, if we are lucky enough to have any more.
I don't get the crying out system since humans beings began the mothers slept with their babies, and I believe that over 60% of the world today has a family bed or mothers that sleep with their children. Its only the wealthy western world that departmentalises people into their own rooms from such an early age, and even then i know a fair few mums of the western world that co sleep. I know there will be avid supporters of cry out process out there saying how wonderful that their children have slept through the night since they got home from the hospital and how much sleep they get and I'm really happy for you, but this process seems a bit backwards to me.
Aside from which process of cry out or co sleep, I am happy to nurture Sophie in my bed and be there for her and help her through night feeds when she was younger as well as some of her difficult and confusing times she is going through as she grows, to be there for the child first, and not be about how your own life hasn't been disrupted.
There is no beating the calmness and softness of skin to skin, when she wraps her arms round my neck for cuddles and wet kisses the babbling conversations, little songs for sleeping to, Not forgetting the early morning snuggles, pats and pokes to get up for breakfast, rather than a scream from a cot in a different room. Sleep may have taken a bit longer than those people who use the cry out process but everything we have gone through together all builds on a extremely loving bond we have and only makes us stronger and closer. These moments as she grows are short and fleeting and I'm enjoying relishing and sharing her experiences. Overall it has helped me understand her more and anticipate what she needs in the day as well as night and she doesn't seem to be as frustrated and having tantrums as her peers. I have no intentions of kicking her out until she is ready to be a big girl in her own room.
Sophie's house
Early worm catches a bargain, got our free newspaper first time in 2 years, looked through it over my morning tea and saw little Tikes cottage for sale. Now i love little tikes products they remind me of the old day stuff that was built to last and last, you know that what ever you buy of the tike range will see you through as many kids as you could squeeze out, and when your done you can resell it. Im a big beliver in recycling and would perfer to buy something like this second hand as they also come with a heffty price tag. Well i phoned up and managed to buy it before 9am, and anyone else. I'm so chuffed as I got it for a really good price and I know when the time comes to sell it I can resell for twice the price I got it for. Sophie also couldn't believe her eyes and played in it all day, and kept dragging daddy inside and wouldn't let him out, I can see those two will be having some tea parties in the not so distant future every girl should have her own little playhouse.
Gardening in March
WEEK 1 Erg its still cold which is unusual at the time of year, but we are out in the garden doing the jobs we should be and I'm so happy to see all the bulbs I planted in January are starting to poke their heads up and say hello to give us some cheer and motivation in the garden.
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