This year is all about making our own family traditions! Chloe has just turned 1 year old and is getting excited about presents, lights, Christmas decorations etc. This is the perfect time to make traditions which as a family we can start following every year. With me being Polish and my husband being English there is a lot of traditions to choos from/ follow. I will write more about it in the next few days. One of the traditions we started last year is Chloe receving letter from Santa. Today Chloe’s letter from Santa has arrived! I must say is one of the nicest letters I have seen. What is so special about it? The magic reindeer food and how personalised the letter is. It talks about Chloe’s real friends, real achievements and milestones! I loved it so much that I had to share it with you guys. 
Tag: Family
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MEAL, ANOTHER OUTFIT …
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER OUTFIT …
In ❤️ with those cute crown printed leggings !
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MEAL …MUSHROOM AND MINCEMEAT RICE
Ingredients:
– 200g mushrooms
– 250g pork mince meat (you can use different one if you prefer)
– 50g carrot
– 1/2 onion
– 1tsp thyme
– 1tbsp reduced salt soya sauce
– 100g brown rice
– 100ml vegetable stock
– 50ml double cream
– 50g parmesan cheese
Cooking method :
All vegetables to be sliced in to small cubes (I use food processor for onion and carrot).
Cook rice according to the cooking instructions on the packet.
Fry onion and mince meat on the frying pan for 5 minutes. Add carrot and mushroom and fry for another 5 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 10minutes.
Add rice to the dish and then finish off with the parmesan. Enjoy it !
ANOTHER DAY,ANOTHER MEAL … CAULIFLOWER AND SWEET POTATO CURRY
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MEAL …
CAULIFLOWER AND SWEET POTATO CURRY:
We love curry in my house and luckily for us so does Chloe. Now that she is one year old I can make a kids version of the curry that we eat, which makes the cooking so much easier.
Hope that your baby will like it as well.
Ingredients:
– 100g chicken
– 150g cauliflower
– 1/2 onion
– 200ml tomatoes
– 200ml of coconut milk
– 2tsp of mild curry powder
– 2 sweet potatoes
– 1 tbsp of basil
– 1 tsp ginger (cut in to very small cubes)
Cooking method :
Peal and slice sweet potato; steam until soft*
Fry your onion on a little bit of olive oil for 3 minutes. Add chicken and curry powder, fry for 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and coconut milk and simmer for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile wash your cauliflower and blend it in the food processor (if your baby/child is older you can divide it in to small florets instead).
Add cauliflower in to the curry and simmer for another 10minutes. At the end add basil.
Cut sweet potatoes in small cubes and combine with the curry.
Your dinner is ready to serve!
* I like to cook potatoes separately by steaming to preserve more nutritions and because it’s so much easier to cut them in small cubes once they are cooked.
BEST BATH TOYS.
Kids love bath time, and what’s better to make it more fun than a great toy. Unfortunately a lot of toys designe for a bath don’t work very well in the water. I was shopping for new bath toys for Chloe and decided to share my findings with you.
1. Ocean Explorers Sparkle Bay Fountain.
2.Little Tikes Sparkle Bay Water Spinners
3.Edushape Magic Fish Bath Mirror
4.Munchkin Turtle Shower Bath Toy
5. Nuby Kissy Fishy Bath Toy
6.Lamaze Bathtime dragon
7. Tomy Splashy The Penguin Bath Toy
8.Playgro Bath Sort n Stack Floating Hippo
9. Hamleys Water Fun Musical Blossoms
She looks so grown up !!!
CHRISTMAS DINNER let’s get all dressed up !
Christmas dinner is a special event for which you will need a very special outfit for your gorgeous baby. This year is all about Reds, Checks and Golds and below are my favourite picks.
JOHN LEWIS
ASDA
SAINSBURY
MOTHER CARE
M&CO
LINDEX
MAYORAL CHIC (at childrensalon)
MONNALISA CHIC (at childrensalon)
MAMAS AND PAPAS
SMASH THE CAKE BABY !!!
I love the cake smashing photos of babies covered in cake, icing and chocolate ! I also like the idea of giving then some sugar for the first time and capturing theirs reaction on the camera. What I don’t like is the though of all of the sugar that they will eat! That’s why I decided to make my own cake and get a “healthy balance” between sugar and healthy cake. I decided to make a bannana cake and cover it in normal icing. That way Chloe wouldn’t have that much sugar and icing would give her a taste of the forbidden thing.
Cake came up very tasty but I must admit bcause of the texture it’s not the best one for smashing…. Especially if your baby doesn’t like to get dirty ….
I was expecting Chloe to go gravy for the icing and the cake … But she didn’t ! She wasn’t too bothered about it (which outside of the photoshot is a good thing) and it took us a long time to try and get her a bit messy. I had to get pretty messy myself trying to I courage my daughter to play with the cake … That’s how uninterested she was about it!
Considering the amount of cake they actually eat (which isn’t a lot) and the texture needed for a good smas cake session I would recommend to make a normal sponge cake just with less sugar.
Below recipes for the healthy cake and obviously some photos of Chloe.
BABY BANANA CAKE
Ingredients for the cake :
– 5 ripen bananas
– 1 1/2 cup flower (you can use white flower or whole grain
– 3/4 cup Apple juice with no added sugar)
– 3 tsp vanilla extract
– 1 tsp cinnamon
– 2 egg whites – bitten
– 50g of fondant icing of a desired colour(if using)
Ingredients for the icing:
– 250g icing sugar
– 125g soft butter
– 1 or 2 tbsp of milk
– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
– food colouring (if using)
Cooking method:
Preheat your oven to 180C.
Mash your bananas (I blend them for the creamy texture)
Combine all of your ingredients (except egg white) together until smooth. Beat eggs white until quite stiff and fold in very carefully. Pour your mixture on to your forms which has been sprayed lightly with cooking pray. I have used 2 forms for the big cupcake cake and filled then half full, but you can use 2 small round baking tins (depends on what cake you want to make)
Put the cake in to the oven and bake for 25 minutes.
Prepare your icing my mixing your butter with half of the sugar, then add the rest of the ingredients and combine it well. If you are using food colouring add at the end.
When your cake is cooked, cool it and then start decorating.
I went for the cupcake cake. I have used fondant icing on the bottom of the cake and butter icing on the top of it.
If you are using fondant icing you will need to put a very thin layer of butter icing on the cake first so that the fondant icing sticks to the cake. A good tip when rolling out your icing : use a little bit of corn flower it will stop the icing from sticking to the worktop.
I have used a thin layer or butter icing to keep both of the cakes together ; it acts as a very good and tasty glue 😊. If you want to use something healthier soft cheese will do exactly this same job.
At the end I have decorated the top of the cake with turquoise butter icing. I was very pleased with the result …. Not so much Chloe 😂
🎄🎄🎄LETS GET IN TO THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT 🎄🎄🎄
Don’t we all love Chrismas? And Christmas has became so much more fun since you have a baby…. Especially if you can dress you baby in one of the cute Christmas outfit …. This is my pick of the best available Christmas clothes.
MARKS AND SPENCER
H&M
MOTHERCARE 
MATELAN
JACK SPRATT BABY
ASDA
JOHN LEWIS
Playpen/ baby prison …. YES OR NO? NO NO NO !
In principle it’s a great idea. You have something where you can put your baby when you want to use the toilet, tidy up, have a shower … In practice it’s a waste of money !
We bought nice wooden play pen quite quickly because Chloe started crawling at 6 months and also because her grandparents will be looking after her 3 days a week when I go back to work. It mean to be used whenever we need to leave the room and Chloe can’t go with us.
I have managed to have Chloe in it maybe twice without screaming. I have tried everything : putting all her favourite toys in it, leaving her there to cry so she understands that crying won’t change anything, going in to it with her to show how fun it is…. Nothing worked.
I have spend £200 pounds on something what is currently taking up a lot of space in my living room and is collecting dust!
Speaking to other mums I found out that most of them have been faced with exactly this same outcome ( I think that there are only 2 babies who I know of that don’t mind being in a play pen).
Based on that I would not recommend buying one ! Or just buy a travel for which then you can use for traveling / playpen.
What’s is your opinion parents ???
LAST WEEK OF MATERNITY LEAVE 😢
I am becoming an emotional wreck! Last week I was emotional because my little baby somehow overnight has changed in to a big baby (I still cannot bring myself to call her a toddler!). This week I am a total emotional mess because it is my last week of maternity leave which means settling sessions at the nursery and trying to stop ignoring the fact that I am going back to work on Monday !
I just have left Chloe at the nursery on her own for longer than 15 minutes (we started settling in session last week but I was there with her having fun and only left the room for 15 minutes). I have left her doing her first ever painting, seeing her at the table with the apron on starting to do her painting …. I got so emotional that I almost burst out crying !
Today was only to hours which Chloe apparently really enjoyed; tomorrow I will have to leave her from 9am till 2 pm …. How will I do that??? … This whole experience is so emotional and stressful!
NEW YUMMY MUMMY 
