15 March , 201615 March , 2016 - Sarah 7 Comments

Toby and Gabe in March

The relationship between Toby and Gabe has continued to develop this month. Toby is very pleased with the fact he can make Gabe laugh and will always tell me when he’s done it which is very sweet. He still veers between being kind and giving Gabe toys and complaining or trying to take them off him when he thinks that they are his. I’m sure that will only get worse as Gabe gets bigger and wants to play with everything!

Gabe is still completely fascinated by Toby and will always give him a smile, even when he’s being totally grumpy with everyone else.

I love the photos that I managed to take of the boys together this month. They were just taken on a morning at home, when Gabe was full of a cold and mostly feeling sorry for himself…but just look at them together.

And look how Gabe looks at his big brother…

Neither of them look entirely convinced about this cuddle though…

Toby loves to give his brother kisses on the head…

…But he doesn’t always think about where his hands are going…

I love the pair of them so much and I’m so glad there’s a real bond starting to develop between them. I can’t wait until Gabe is crawling and walking and really big enough to play with his brother.

14 March , 201615 March , 2016 - Sarah 5 Comments

Living Arrows 11/52 (2016)

I feel like I’m repeating myself, but this last week has been very much like the one before. Gabe still has his cold and hasn’t been sleeping much. After getting some drops from the doctor his eyes have cleared up at least, and although he’s still snotty he does seem to improving slightly.

Toby is still just being lovely, funny, sometimes whiney, Toby. Most of the time he is lovely but he’s been getting a bit too attached to playing on the CBeebies app on my Kindle lately and we’ve had some tears when it’s been time to turn it off. I found him a colouring app too (which doesn’t let you go outside the lines) that I thought he would enjoy…which he did but every single picture he just wanted to colour them all purple! I’m assuming this is just normal toddler behaviour and not some sort of obsessiveness I should be worried about. We definitely need to work on limiting Kindle time though before it starts being an issue. He does call the Kindle the tiny telly though (we used to watch quite a bit of iPlayer on it when it was younger because it was the only way to get him to stay still when changing his nappy) which is pretty cute.

Anyway, to this week’s pictures. They were both just taken one morning at home – I’d been taking some product shots for a review and Toby wanted his picture taken so I took the opportunity to take a few of both of them.

I do love a good face shot of Toby – I don’t know where the scratches on his nose came from though, I think he must have done it in his sleep.

And as for Gabe, you can see he’s still suffering with his cold by the two streams of snot pouring down his face, but he still managed to crack a smile.

11 March , 201623 October , 2019 - Sarah 6 Comments

What Gabe Wore // Pigeon Organics

It’s Gabe’s turn this week and he’s wearing this lovely elephant romper from Pigeon Organics. I actually bought the badger one first for Christmas and I liked it so much I bought the elephant one too.

The rompers are made from lovely thick 100% organic cotton. The elephant romper that Gabe is wearing here has poppers right down the front but not on the legs which is a little bit odd but you can get his legs out to change a nappy without having to take the whole thing off. The badger one does have leg poppers but needs to go on over the head.

I love the fold over feet on these rompers too. They’re just like the fold over arms you often see but they mean that the romper can either have covered or open feet. Although Gabe is already too big for the feet to fold over – this is a photo from a couple of months ago…

I do think these come up a little on the small side – I know I have a very long baby but this is 6-12 months and at not quite 7 months I don’t think Gabe is going to fit in it for much longer. I do love them though so might just have to buy a bigger size!

10 March , 2016 - Sarah 7 Comments

My Wild Ones // Playing with friends

Toby is just getting to an age when he is starting to play with other children, rather than just next to them. I’m sure being at nursery since he was 13 months old has helped him develop this skill. Having said that he’s still got a way to go before he can really play with other children happily by himself.

Yesterday we went to visit my friend Claire and her twins Thomas and Edward who have featured in some of my previous My Wild Ones posts. Being three months younger than Toby all three boys have spent a lot of time together since they were tiny. In this picture I think Toby is about 8 months and the twins are 5 months.

Recently they have started asking to see one another which is very sweet. The other day when we were on the way to take Toby to nursery he was saying, ‘not nursery, see Thomas and Edward in the park’. I tried explaining that Thomas and Edward were at nursery too (they go to the same one as Toby but are in a different room at the moment), but he wasn’t having any of it.

Anyway, yesterday Toby was very excited to go to Thomas and Edward’s house and the twins had been waiting for Toby so he could help decorate some cakes they had made in the morning.

Obviously having been dealing with her boys since they were born Claire is very used to policing them and trying to get them to share and take turns, and they’ve had to do this since they were born too. Toby isn’t always so keen on the idea though and although we had a few moments of playing together we had quite a lot of crying too. How is it that in a room full of toys toddlers will always want to play with the same thing?

Actually on advice from Claire I now always get the boys exactly the same thing for Christmas and birthdays – if you know someone with twins I would definitely recommend it. You might think that getting them two similar but slightly different things is a good idea but invariably they will both want to play the same one – and having two identical toys can help solve the problem (although sometimes even that doesn’t mean they won’t both want the same one!).

Despite the tears and moaning Toby didn’t want to leave and had a lovely time playing with Thomas and Edward. I just realised last week though that even though he’s known them all his life, and they aren’t identical, Toby doesn’t actually know who is Thomas and who is Edward. I suppose we always just refer to them as ‘Thomas and Edward’ so it might be quite tricky to work out. Toby has solved the problem though by just calling them both Thomas!

I think I’m going to have a very sad little boy on my hands at the end of the month when his friends move away back to England. And I’ll be sad too – I’ll miss having a friend round the corner who I know I can always call on for a cuppa and a moan…I can see a lot of FaceTime happening in our future!

8 March , 20167 March , 2016 - Sarah 2 Comments

Stuck in a never ending Twinkle Twinkle loop

I think the title of this post says it all really…. I wonder just how long Toby would have kept on in his loop of Twinkle Twinkle if I hadn’t helped him finish the song, eventually. Apologies for the weird hand waving by the way – he was in the middle of lunch and had hummous all over his fingers which apparently was very interesting!

7 March , 201615 March , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

Living Arrows 10/52 (2016)

Here we are with another week of Living Arrows – and we’re into March already, this year is just flying by!

This week has been pretty miserable for the most part. Gabe has been choked with a cold – it’s been awful not being able to help him. It’s been so bad he even had snot coming out of his eyes, which has now turned into conjunctivitis. Poor little bear. The last few nights haven’t been too bad but most nights last week I ended up sleeping on the sofa with him because the only way he could breath was if he was upright on my shoulder. Aside from his eyes the cold does seem to be improving a little bit so I’m hoping he’s on the mend.

Despite feeling rubbish we have had a few smiles out of Gabe this week. He seems to enjoy being in his high chair (and weaning is still moving along quite well) which means he can stay there for a little while after lunch while I get Toby ready for nursery. I love the concentration on his face in this picture – this toy was Toby’s (and still is if you ask him) and it’s great because it sticks to the high chair so I don’t have to pick it up off the floor every two minutes!

So far Toby has succumbed to the lurgy beyond a snotty nose so here’s hoping it stays that way! I took this photo of him when I was getting him to pose for last week’s What Toby Wore post but I couldn’t resist using it for this week’s Living Arrows too because he just looks too flipping cute!

4 March , 201623 October , 2019 - Sarah 4 Comments

What Toby Wore // Gray Label salopettes

I’ve already mentioned my new found love of all things Scandi when it comes to clothes for the boys. Well, this week I’m featuring a not quite Scandinavian brand; Gray Label (which is actually Dutch).

I umm’d and ahh’d about these dungarees (or salopettes as Gray Label call them) for a quite a while. Toby hasn’t worn dungarees since he was about 18 months so I wasn’t sure what he’d make of them, and I didn’t know how much of a faff they would be with him still in nappies, or if he’s still wearing them when we finally get round to potty training. Added to that they are quite expensive….but then I just loved them so I decided to go for it.

I do wish they made them in adult sizes though – they look so comfy. There’s certainly plenty of room for Toby’s cloth nappy in that baggy bum! They’re actually really easy to get on and off for nappy changes, there’s just one button at the back for the straps but you don’t even need to undo it to take them off. They should last Toby for a good while too because there are three button holes to adjust the salopettes and he’s got them on the smallest one at the moment.

I’ve just put the salopettes with a white long sleeve vest from Tesco. I’ve found they do look better with a poppered vest because a t-shirt just comes un-tucked really easily. Toby has a few of these vests in age 2-3 but I’m not sure what we’ll do when they don’t fit any more (and of course they aren’t really practical for potty training either).

Toby’s boots are from Bobux. He loves them and can put them on by himself which is fab, and makes my life ever so slightly easier too.

(I don’t know what Toby is doing in this picture but I had to use it – it’s such a great catalogue pose!)

Gray Label is available from a few UK stockists – I got these from The Wee Department Store. I was really tempted to get some for Gabe too but for the amount of time they would fit him for I really couldn’t justify it. I’ll just have to make sure Toby looks after his so we can pass them down eventually. And before that I’ll have to resist buying him more in some of the other colours!

3 March , 20163 March , 2016 - Sarah 4 Comments

My Wild Ones // Chasing bubbles

We had such lovely weather this weekend that we decided to go up to the park at the top of our road. It’s not a very big park – just a slide, a few swings and a see saw but there’s enough to keep Toby happy for twenty minutes or so.

This week though I decided to stick a bubble wand I had picked up in the supermarket a few weeks ago into the buggy basket so we could have a play with that while we were out.

Toby loves bubbles (what toddler doesn’t?) but he normally only plays with them in the bath. He thought the big bubbles were absolutely amazing and spent ages chasing them around the park trying to catch and pop them. He did get a bit frustrated when they blew across the road, or popped before he could get to them but mostly he was having a lovely time.

Of course he wanted to have a go at making the bubbles himself which wasn’t quite so successful – he just kept spinning in circles and any bubbles he did make just popped behind him! Still, with a bit of practice I’m sure he’ll get there.

Sometimes at the weekends I think we should always have plans, be going somewhere exciting or doing something interesting I think I forget that for a two year old a trip to the park with a bubble wand can be about as exciting as life gets.

1 March , 20162 August , 2017 - Sarah 5 Comments

Review: Exante Diet // The Complete 5:2 Diet Plan

Just over two years ago I trialled the Exante Diet Total Solution for a week. You can read all about how I got on with it here. Since then I’ve been pregnant again and had another baby so when Exante got in touch before Christmas and asked if I would like to try their Complete 5:2 Diet Plan I was very happy to give it a go.

I’m sure a lot of you have heard of 5:2 diets – basically you fast for 2 (non-consecutive) days in the week and eat normally for the other 5 days. You do actually eat on the fasting days but you should reduce your intake to 500-600 calories. You can do this by eating conventional food or by using meal replacements like those from Exante Diet.

The Exante Complete 5:2 Diet Plan makes the whole thing super easy. On the two fasting days you choose 3 products from the Exante VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet) range; this includes shakes, bars, meals, soups and even pancakes! On the other five days you can eat some or all of your meals from the Exante Weight Management range.

I was sent a selection of products to try, although I didn’t have Exante products for every meal on the non-fasting days. On the fasting days I had shakes, hot chocolate, pancakes, sausages, scones, cookies, soups and even gooey summer pudding! I’m not going to go into huge detail about every single product – there were definitely some I liked more than others but I think this is really down to individual taste. If you are going to do a diet like this for any length of time then I would suggest you try a variety of different products and you can find your favourites amongst them.

From the Weight Management range I tried the porridge and maple syrup pancakes for breakfasts. I wasn’t a huge fan of the porridge (but then I don’t really like porridge anyway) but I thought the pancakes were delicious. On the other non-fasting days I mostly just had fruit and yoghurt for breakfast. For lunches I had some of the soups – the tomato and mascarpone was my favourite. I usually had salads on the days I didn’t have an Exante lunch.

Finally for my dinners I had a selection of ready meals from the Weight Management range. Again, there were some I liked more than others; the tuna pasta was a particular favourite but I also enjoyed the cottage pie and beef stew. There were some meals I didn’t particularly enjoy but as I already mentioned this is really down to your own personal tastes. I served all the meals with either salad or vegetables – I liked that there were suggestions of what you could serve with the meals on the back of the pack, along with the calorie count too.

All the meals very easy to prepare – they can nearly all be cooked or heated in the microwave. The only exceptions were the sausages from the VLCD range (they come as a powder which has to be mixed, shaped and fried) and the cheese and bacon scones (also from the VLCD range) which are mixed and then baked in the oven.

So as you can see I tried quite a selection of products from Exante, although there are lots of others. But now for the important part…

Did I lose any weight?

Yes I did. I followed the Complete 5:2 Diet Plan for two weeks and lost 3lb the first week and 2lb the second week. I found the plan easy to follow and even the fasting days aren’t difficult as you still get three ‘meals’ and you know you’ll be eating normally again the next day.

Would I do it again?

I would definitely do a 5:2 diet again and I think it is probably easier to use meal replacements for the fasting days. I would probably mostly make my own food of the other days – I prefer to eat something the whole family can have rather than having different meals, but I think it would be good to have some Exante Weight Management meals in the cupboard (they have quite a long shelf life) for those occasions where I need something quick and might otherwise be tempted by a takeaway or something. I like the variety of products available from Exante and how easy it is to order on line too.

Would I recommend the Exante Complete 5:2 Diet Plan?

Yes I would. If you really want to take the guess work out of your diet then following the Complete 5:2 Plan could be for you. You can get all your meals from the Exante range (even snacks too) and you wouldn’t need to worry about what you should or shouldn’t be eating. It could work out to be quite expensive if you were to follow the plan long term – at the moment you can buy a four week bundle for £135 which works out at £5.19 per day. There is also an active Facebook group where you can speak to people from the Exante customer service team, and also get support from other people who are doing the Exante Diet. I think if you don’t have a huge amount of weight to lose and are happy to lose it at a fairly slow but steady rate then a 5:2 diet might be the solution you are looking for.

**Disclosure: I was sent the featured products in return for this review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

Toby Goes Bananas

A family lifestyle blog

Month: March 2016