But I do have my pregnant belly back.

If you’re confused then I will explain!

I had a cast done of my tummy when I was heavily pregnant by a lovely lady called Caroline Harris, and she has spent the last few months turning it into a ceramic sculpture for me.

If you didn’t read my original post about having the cast done then you can do so here – Something To Remember.

And here is the finished piece….

I love it and already struggle to remember that I ever looked like that. The sculpture does shrink by 20% in the firing process too so I was actually even bigger!

Caroline has done an amazing job, when we spoke about how I wanted it to look she mentioned that she had never made one like it before (her sculptures usually have a lot more decoration and detail) but I wanted it to be all black as I just wanted the focus to be on the shape of my tummy. This is exactly how I imagined it. I think it is really striking.

It is made from stoneware which means it can actually be kept in the garden but I don’t know if I want it to get all wet and dirty so it’s staying inside for now!

I mentioned in my last post that Dad2BabyInsomniac didn’t really get it and thought it would be like him having a cast made of his testicles. Well I can’t say he has totally changed his mind but he appreciates what it means to me. Women’s bodies are amazing and Jobey might be our last baby *sob* so it is so nice to have this as a reminder of what my body went through to create him.

This is me now…

and this is what I looked like four months ago…

I am so glad I had it done and I think it will be an amazing thing to show Jobey when he is old enough to understand.

Caroline, the lady who made it is so talented and I am also getting some casts made of Jobey’s hands – it was supposed to be feet but he wasn’t playing along! You need to push them into this special seaweed mix which drys in a few seconds and picks up the detail of every little crease in the skin. It really is amazing.

If you would like to more about the process then you can read more on Caroline’s website - http://www.earth-rising.co.uk and if you live in the South-West and would be interested in having one done yourself then you can email her at - avaloncaroline@hotmail.com.

She also has a Facebook page with lots of photos of her work – Earth Rising Ceramic Pregnant Belly Sculptures.

Some people get it, some people don’t!

What do you think, would you have one done?!

Disclaimer: Caroline made the sculpture free of charge but all the words are my own. 

The first year of her life was all about going to baby groups, mainly to discuss the new world of parenting with friends over a nice cup of tea. Then when she became a toddler and decided that she didn’t want to lie in one place while I chatted and drank tea, I decided that I didn’t really enjoy going to play groups that much anymore. I mean chasing your child around a room full of germs and screaming kids just isn’t that much fun is it?!

So we started doing other things instead.

One of which was taking a trip to Ikea. Not everyone’s idea of fun but if you went in the morning then you had the place to yourself. The novelty would wear off if we did it all the time though so I am always looking for something different to do with our time.

Now I have a new thing to add to our list because Kiddicare have just opened a store in Bristol and we went to look around on Wednesday, along with some other lovely bloggers - Ella, Em, Kate, Laura and Clare. I have bought lots of things from them online but this was my first time in-store and I was really impressed.

They wanted it to be more than just a shopping experience so with the cafe and event room you can easily spend a good few hours in there.

The store is huge and shelves of some products go right up to the roof, such as the highchairs in the photo below. I honestly didn’t know there were so many different types of highchairs! And I LOVED this bib bunting….

They have mini-trolleys for the kids which Iyla absolutely loved – and I put my bag in it so it saved me having to carry it! The car seat section was absolutely enormous and they offer free fitting. They also have a fab system where if they are too busy to help then you can enter your phone number to receive a text message when someone is free.

I didn’t take any photos of the clothing section but it is huge and all really reasonably priced. They stock Nutmeg clothing which is Morrison’s brand (Kiddicare are part of the Morrison’s family) as well as a few other brands. The boy’s and girl’s clothing looked so nice and I will definitely be buying some when I am next in there.

The bedroom furniture has all been set up in little individual bedrooms so you can see how it would work in a real life setting.

One of the things I loved was how everything is out and ready to test. They have a stair gate walk and a runway for testing pushchairs.

They also have electronic tags on everything which means the prices are updated on a regular basis.

There is a play area in the middle of the store with cars, dolls houses, slides and rocking horses.

Then there is an event room which runs different sessions. We tried out one of the music classes and all the kids enjoyed singing and dancing around with instruments.

They also have a cafe with another play area for the kids, and a feeding room which has very comfy chairs and a water machine. The only thing I would say is that although it is really nice to have a feeding room, especially when you have just started breastfeeding and want to do it in privacy, for me personally I would rather sit out in the main area as I do it really discreetly and wouldn’t want to make Iyla come in and wait with me. I’m sure it is fine to do so but maybe if the sign said that you are welcome to feed everywhere but if you want to go somewhere quiet then you can…

The toilets have been carefully thought out and every cubicle has enough room for a pushchair and has one big and one small toilet – perfect for when your kids are no longer in nappies – not like mine!

We had a great day and will definitely be going back again soon.

Click here to locate your nearest Kiddicare store.

Disclaimer: Kiddicare invited us to look around the store and provided us with lunch and gave us a goodie back but I haven’t received any payment to write this post.

Of their company, of their location and of their yoghurt.

I live about half an hour away from theYeo Valley Farm and last year I was invited to visit and have a tour of the surrounding countryside to see how the process of making yoghurt involves far more than just milking cows.

I can honestly say that Yeo Valley yoghurt is the only type I buy. Iyla has the kids ones and I buy the big pots, we all love it.

The Yeo Valley Farm also has an organic tea rooms and the chef there makes delicious food with produce from their gardens. When we were there we sampled some smoked trout which had been caught from the lake behind the farm.

At the heart of Yeo Valley Farm is a family who really care about where the food they eat comes from and now Sarah Mayor, daughter of the couple who started the farm in 1961 has written a cookbook.

I was sent one to review a couple of months ago and have been deciding which of the yummy recipes to cook since then, well that at trying to find the time to actually cook anything!

Yesterday Dad2BabyInsomniac was rather excited to come home to a proper home-cooked meal.

I decided to make the smoky bacon meatballs because I knew there was a strong chance that Iyla would eat them too.

I missed out the minced pork as with the beef and bacon I thought it would make it a bit expensive, oh and I couldn’t find any apple balsamic vinegar in my local supermarket so used the normal one instead.

They didn’t have any pappardelle either so I used tagliatelle but the recipe turned out well for once (usually the things I make go wrong!) and it was really rather tasty. There were a couple of things I couldn’t do which I will for next time.

Firstly I didn’t have a food processor so I had to cut the bacon instead of whizz it up, this meant there were rather large chunks of it and the same went for the lemon rind as I didn’t have a grater with a fine grating side resulting in a few rather large bit of lemon rind!

Overall though it was a success and the thing I like about this recipe is that it really doesn’t need cheese. I usually cover all pasta dishes with it but because of the lemon and tastiness of this dish, it really didn’t need it.

And the most important thing of all is that even Iyla ate it!

Disclaimer: I was sent this book free of charge but all of the words and opinions are my own.

We are still in no routine because like I said a few weeks ago I don’t do routines, mainly because I’m a bit lazy and hate anything that ‘needs’ to be done at a certain time. I am aware of his moans though and what they mean, it’s a lot easier to tell second time round the difference between hunger cries, tired cries or ‘I just want to be picked up’ cries. If I know he’s tired then usually if I rock him for a minute, either in my arms or in his chair and he will fall asleep but he isn’t much of a sleeper in the day and tends to wake again after around seven minutes!

I know some books say this means he is over-stimulated but from my experience it’s just him. He is so different to Iyla when it comes to naps. She used to have such deep sleeps in the day that lasted for hours whereas Jobey doesn’t even go into deep sleeps in the day and will easily wake with noise. It would be a problem but luckily so far he is sleeping pretty well at night, whereas Iyla didn’t. He is a lot easier to get to sleep in the day though, it used to take so long to walk / rock / feed Iyla to sleep whereas Jobey will sometimes fall asleep himself or if not is doesn’t take long to help him. Sometimes if he really needs to sleep and I don’t have time to do anything to help him then I will stick him in the sling and he falls straight to sleep in it, usually for a lot longer than 7 minutes too!

By about 6pm he wants to start cluster feeding and that will go on until about 9pm when he is fully asleep at which point I put him in his bouncer and enjoy my one hour of free time before changing his nappy and giving him his last feed before bed. At around 10.30pm we go upstairs and he will wake up for a feed at around 3am and for one at around 5am but will go back down afterwards, although sometimes after the last one he will still only sleep in the crook of my arm.

He sleeps on his tummy which I know they advise against but when he’s on his back he startles and wakes himself up. He is a right fidget and moves into all kinds of positions, this is how I found him the other morning!

He had his first cold this week which was horrible for him, obviously having an older sister means he will catch things a lot sooner than Iyla did when she was a baby. Luckily he wasn’t too ill though and it was mainly just a blocked up nose. He also had his 8 week check up and first set of jabs this week. He was a bit grizzly afterwards but luckily they didn’t have too much of an effect on him.

He has started giggling and making little noises which is just adorable. I feel bad though because I hardly get anytime to sit and talk to him whereas with Iyla I used to do it for hours. In the evening when Iyla is in bed though we have a little bit of time where he will laugh at the silly noises I make. It is just the best feeling when they start interacting with you after weeks of not doing anything. Luckily he is still a chilled out little thing because with his sister well and truly in the midst of the terrible twos things would be absolutely manic if he was screaming all day too!