Life Update - Bear With Me

This photo was taken yesterday, my last day at home full time with my gorgeous little boy. As this post goes live, I will be stepping into my new office and starting my first day in a new job.

The Best Christmas Yet?

I am writing this on the evening of 23rd, sitting in front of the tree with its lights twinkling, and Oliver's Christmas Eve box placed beside it, waiting for us to open in the morning. Normally we'd put our presents under the tree as and when we receive them, but this year it remains completely bare, through fear that Oliver will go after them, just as he does with the decorations! They will all be laid out when he is in bed tomorrow night, so the first time he sees them will be Christmas morning. Sitting here in my festive setting, with a candle burning, and a Christmas tea nicely cooling, has got me feeling all reflective.

Day Out At Hatton Country World

My husband has had a couple of days off in the run up to Christmas, so we wanted to have a nice day out as a family. With Oliver still being so young, we didn't want to be travelling very far, and with Hatton Country World being just a 20 minute drive from our home, it seemed like the perfect place to go.

What's In Oliver's Christmas Eve Box

I can't believe it's only a week until Christmas Eve! This month seems to just be flying by! Even though Oliver, at just 9 months old, is far too young to understand Christmas yet, I wanted to start the Christmas Eve box tradition now, so that we can say to him it's something we've done since he was a baby - plus it's a little bit of fun for me! Today I'm going to share with you what we've put inside he first ever Christmas Eve box.

Cutest Festive Outfits For Kids

I had a lot of fun researching for this blog post - kids Christmas outfits are so adorable! A couple of years ago I dressed my niece as a reindeer, and I'll be doing exactly the same to Oliver at some point next week! As well as the reindeer costume, he also has the obligatory Christmas jumper for today's Christmas Jumper Day, and a couple more festive pieces. After searching through the web, here are my top picks of the festive kids outfits out there.

My Newborn Essentials

When you're pregnant you're bombarded with giant lists of things you absolutely must get for your little ones arrival. Whilst most of it can be useful, some of the items are just completely unnecessary. I'll probably do a post soon on the things I regret buying, but today I'm focusing on those that I really couldn't have survived those first few months without.

A Typical Day At Home With Oliver

I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet with this picture, honest! When I think back to the early days with Oliver, it was pretty much take each day as it comes and roll with it. Now that he's much more settled and growing up, we've managed to get ourselves into a bit of a routine. Obviously, not each day is exactly the same, and we do like to get out and about with friends, but I thought I'd share with you what a typical day looks like when it's just the two of us.

Motorola MBP49 Baby Monitor Review

Making the big baby purchases can be a daunting experience. You want to make sure you're getting the best for your baby, without completely blowing the bank. I already had an idea in my head of which brands I wanted to opt for when it came to most things, but the baby monitor was a tricky one. I thought the one my sister had was a really good choice, and I knew it came recommended, but when I browsed the internet I discovered it had been discontinued, so it was either completely out of stock or the websites that still had some were charging the earth for it! Whilst scrolling through the products in one of the Mothercare baby events, I spotted the Motorola MBP49 Monitor at half price (£99.99 - it's now £199.99 but may go in the sale again!) and decided to add it to my basket. The blurb looked impressive, and with it usually being so expensive, I thought it had to be good. Oliver's been in his own room for four months now, so how have I been getting on with it?

My Labour Story

Apologies for the extremely unflattering photo, but it's one of the first we have of Oliver, and the first as the three of us as a family so I wanted to share it, no matter how bad I look! I wanted to share with you my labour story. I researched quite a few of these whilst I was pregnant, purely out of curiosity as I know every labour is different, but I had quite a positive experience, much better than I was expecting, so I thought it would be good to share for those of you reading pre-baby.

Life Update - Meet Oliver

Well it's been a long old time since I've sat at my computer to write something for you goes...it feels kind of odd to be back but I've been itching to do this for a while, so I thought I'd just bite the bullet and do it. As you can probably tell, my life has change a lot since my last post, so here goes...

February Primark Haul

It's been quite a long time since I did a good old Primark haul on my blog, way too long! I went in recently to pick up a few essentials for my hospital bag (post on that coming soon!), but it kind of turned into a full on splurge, so I thought I'd share with you all of the bits and pieces I picked up.

Gestational Diabetes & Pregnancy Update

Apologies for todays post going up a bit late, I'm sure you'll all understand though. This post was just meant to be a gestational diabetes update after my last round of appointments on Wednesday, but a lot has happened in terms of the pregnancy in general since then too, so I thought it best to fill you in on everything.

My Baby Shower

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen already that 12th February was my baby shower. I had a really lovely afternoon with a relatively small group of my closest friends & family at home, and I think my mum & sister did a brilliant job of organising the day. I thought I'd share with you the highlights in pictures.

My Maternity Leave To Do List

So today is my last day at work before I head off on maternity leave, and I cannot wait! I'm so looking forward to having the option as to whether I get up and go out somewhere, and being able to stay in bed if I'm having a pants day, as I'm starting to get really uncomfortable and could do with some rest - I can now see why my sister chose to start her maternity leave much earlier than I am! As well as some much needed rest though, I've still got a few jobs that still need doing before little one arrives, and I thought that as today marks the start of my leave I'd share them with you.

What Excites & Terrifies Me About Having A Baby

As I'm now approaching the final few weeks of my pregnancy, it's all starting to feel very real now. The nursery is almost finished (tour coming soon!) and all of the big baby purchases have been made. Plus, it's now less than two weeks until I go on maternity leave!! It's got me thinking about all of the things I'm going to love about becoming a mother, and also the things that terrify me ever so slightly. They are only little worries, so this post in a way is meant to be taken a little lightheartedly!

Second Trimester Update

I feel like I've been pregnant for the longest time, yet I still can't believe that I am now here in my third trimester. My personal life was dealt a few blows during my second trimester, I even used to joke that my pregnancy was the only thing going right at the moment. Then a pretty nasty diagnosis a couple of weeks ago threw a spanner into the works there too! Still, I am determined to remain positive.

7 Things I'm Looking Forward To In 2017

Happy New Year everyone!! I hope you all had a great time celebrating last night, whatever you did, and you're not paying too much for it this morning! As you can imagine it was a bit more of a sober affair for me, just having a nice evening with my friends & husband, but it was still lovely.

I've seen loads of "Goals for 2017" posts popping up in my feed over the last few days. I did consider writing once of those myself, but I always end up looking back at the end of the year & realising I've barely done anything I set out to do, and my goals always end up being really samey. I think also with so many big changes coming up in my life this year already, I don't want to push myself into committing to anything else - I'm just going to take each day as it comes. Instead I decided to write a post about the things I know will be happening this year and that I absolutely can't wait for. 2017 is gonna kick 2016's ass!!

Baby Gender Reveal & Mini Haul

This post is a very long time coming - I've actually known about this for nearly 8 weeks,,,,and had another scan since! Life has kind of gotten in the way a bit recently, so sitting down to blog has been the last thing on my mind. But I said I'd do a gender reveal post and here it is - better late than never...

I Have Some Exciting News!

So it's been a very long time since I wrote a post on Kizzy Hearts, or was present on any of my social media but, as you've probably already guessed from the photo, I have a very exciting reason for this - I am having a baby!