Vertbaudet Autumn / Winter Review

As you probably already know, I'm a great fan of the children's clothes and furnishings at Vertbaudet. Over the coming months I'm looking forward to trying out some of their maternity clothes and in the new year, their designer baby clothes too.

Vertbaudet recently sent Lara a brand new outfit to try out - it freaked me out how grown up she looked in it.

Lara's flared skirt is currently on offer at £10.50 and the Happy Price grey short-sleeved grey cardigan is only £9. If I bought clothes for this price on the high street the quality would be dubious but with Vertbaudet I am always happy with the quality of the items I buy.

The flared skirt has a nice rounded shape to the base. It looks like quite a thick, wintery fabric but actually it is relatively light 100% cotton (which is handy because Lara hates wearing a heavy skirt). It has a zip fastening and is so easy for us to put on a wiggly toddler.

The short sleeved cardigan was a choice of mine designed with the skirt in mind. You can also buy it in pink and dark grey but the light grey seemed to go best with the skirt. I love the wide ribbed neckline and sleeves and the two big buttons at the top which let the cardi gently fall over Lara's belly. It has washed well (always a risk with a knitted item) and I think we will get a lot of use out of this item of clothing.

Both items are available in sizes from 2 to 14 years old.

I guess my only concern with this outfit is that Lara looks so smart that it feels like she should be off to school or to work when she is wearing it!

Living Nature Handcare Review

This month I have been sampling some of Living Nature's products from Mypure for hands. I've tried some of Living Nature's haircare products before and although their all-natural New Zealand approach really appeals to me, I hadn't been that impressed so this time I decided to try something totally different.



The Living Nature Purifying Handwash comes in a 250ml pump-action bottle. It is quite genuinely the nicest pump soap I have ever tried. It is incredibly gentle on my skin for a soap and smells absolutely divine with a gentle honey scent from Manuka honey.

The Living Nature handwash describes itself as 'rich' but I actually find it a bit watery. It is so runny that it spurts out of the pump spout at speed and at an unusual angle so that actually you need two hands - one to pump the bottle and one to catch the catapulting soap!

Despite this, I do really enjoy using the handwash and, as a bonus, the active plant ingredients of Living Nature products are supposedly able to promote cell renewal so my hands may even start to look younger!



To compliment my new handwash I also got hold of a bottle of Living Nature Nourishing Handcream. Once again, I found the formula to be a touch too liquid and this caused the handcream to take a long time to be absorbed into the skin.

The handcream contains manuka honey as its active nourishing ingredient but also Larch extract which I assume gives it a really nice refreshing plant-y smell and helps to provide a natural barrier for my hands against the elements. I've found the Living Nature hand cream to leave my hands feeling supple but not sticky (even though it does take a long time to absorb, it doesn't hang around on the skin).

You can buy pretty much the full range of natural hair, skin and body care products from Living Nature over at mypure.co.uk.

Pregnancy Blog :: Week 14

This week's pregnancy blog is all about boobs. If you're not into boobs then I'd stop reading now. If you are into boobs... well.. I'm not sure I want to know about it.

Boob growth during pregnancy is another one of these things that people don't warn you about.

I remember the shock, during my first pregnancy, of how quickly my boobs grew. By the end of my first trimester I had to get re-measured and had gone up from a 34B to a 38DD! Oh my. After Lara was born I think there was probably a bit more growth to accommodate breast feeding but in the months after we stopped breast-feeding things began to calm down a little. Mind you, I never managed to fit back into my old bras.

This time around I lifted all of my old maternity clothes out of the loft at about 6 weeks pregnant and found that none of my old maternity bras fitted. I'm going through the same enormous growth stage as I did last time, just that I'm starting from a different point. Who would have thought they could get even BIGGER???

This week the boob size actually started to become a problem. I'm not used to them getting in the way when I walk! Mr B. seemed excited by the new figure but as soon as he realised that I was feeling so sensitive I wouldn't even let him breathe on them, he quickly lost interest. Lara on the other hand seems to have remembered that, quite some time ago, she used to have an intimate relationship with my boobs and has re-developed a fascination for them. This week in the swimming pool she kept prodding them!

I know 'why' your breasts increase in size during pregnancy, I just don't get why your body has to make preparations quite so early on in proceedings.