It’s a funny thing, this Blog Love regular slot. Some weeks I itch to do more than one, and have a string of bookmarked possibles ready.  Some weeks I read and read and read blogs (I know, the job’s a tough one) and struggle to find one that strikes a chord.

And then other weeks happen like today. I ‘forget’ Blog Love Friday because I forget it’s Friday – until my computer chirpily pings up a reminder. I duly squash the reminder, telling it to come back later. Which it does, and too often my Fridays are paved in a series of reminder chirrups that just will not leave me alone (but I dare not [...]

What do kippers, papaya, Kitkats, mashed potato, tuna, mango, yoghurt, broccoli, Weetabix, toast, cheese, peaches, salmon, scrambled egg, Philadelphia, and chocolate Buttons have in common? No, that’s not my hangover diet (well, take away the fruit/veg, add a packet of Boasters and fourteen cups of tea and it is, actually), it’s a list of the foods seven-month-old Joe has tried in the past couple of weeks.

I’m not ashamed to admit I’d started to fret about the fact that I hadn’t really cooked anything for Joe. Okay, I hadn’t *cooked* anything for him at all. I had mashed some fruit and… that was all. Joe and I were both perfectly happy with the fresh fruit combined with the Organix pots and packets (and breastfeeding), but I knew that I had to cook something sometime. But what..?

And then I was sent an Annabel Karmel book in which the author pointed out that, at Joe’s age, he could pretty much eat anything the rest of us humans eat. It was a revelation! Scrambled eggs? Had never occurred to me! Yoghurt? I thought he had to be one before he could have cows’ milk (turns out you have to be one to drink it, but can cook with it sooner). Toast? But, um, he hasn’t got any teeth.
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So, was sitting at the laptop, doing my weekly grocery shopping and on the list was ‘laundry liquid’. Oh poo. The stuff I usually buy is out of stock. What to do? Order a different brand? No! That would be too scary!

But. Could it be better? What else might make my laundry choice better? Liquid, powder or tablet? Hmmmm? Bio or Non-bio?!?! Aggghh!

Research was required and that’s how I just lost nearly an hour of my life reading about the murky world of getting clothes clean.

But! I am now MUCH more informed about the whole subject and this little article here just about sums it all up.

Enjoy and may your clothes be that bit cleaner! :-)

P.S. I chose powder!

Full review coming later this week, but here’s the sneak preview pics of our family day out at Bristol Zoo – the first time Ella has been to one (at least since she’s been big enough to notice), so the whole day was a complete adventure for her!

The lunchtime ‘meet the animals’ display was excellent – but completely packed. We possibly wouldn’t have elected to stop as it was so busy – but the presenter was so good she had us hooked just as we walked past!

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This is Rhys – clearly enjoying his Sweet Potato, Pear & Pea Organix meal he was trying out for us. How gorgeous is he?

His full review (with a little assistance from Mum Natalie) coming over on the main site very soon, but I just had to share this!

The review is now live on the site (just click the pic), but I also wanted to say that if you’re keen, you should get moving. 20th September the Mary Rose is closed as they begin the drying out process – she’s been sprayed since she was raised from the sea, but they’re finally going to start drying her out and creating a whole new exhibition around her – so if you don’t get in before 20th September, you won’t be able to see her until 2011.

And if you’re not sure that you want to, then go read my review first!

Pol is one of our crack team of reviewers, and we are thrilled to announce the arrival of baby Jacob!

The Important Details for you:

- born on 13th August

- at 2.46pm

- weighing 9lb 4oz

- after 2 hour labour!!!

- Mum and baby both doing just fine.

Congratulations Pol, Steven, Sam and Jo – he’s just beautiful (and doing a truly splendid job of reviewing the Halo Rocker *grin* ). And don’t you just love the little curled up newborn legs which leave the babygrow all floppy at the bottom?

This weeks’ blog love goes to ‘A Mothers Place is in the Wrong’ – purely for her macaroni Cheese recipe. this is almost identical to the one I have on a scrap of browning paper written down and sent by my mother just after my marriage in response to an SOS from me – and is the one she learned from her mother. And it is the perfect macaroni cheese, and never goes wrong; so stash this one away to use on a cold autumnal day when everyone needs some comfort food.

This week I’d been planning on writing about all the many and varied foods Joe has tried, but then we went away for a week and I found something else to write about…

On the way home, we’d planned to stop and visit some friends and this meant we had to take the M25. Yes, I know. We got on to the M25. We saw a sign. There was a broken down vehicle and traffic was backed up from where we just got on… to where we planned to get off. Cheers, Sod and your stupid law. The signs said 40, but the traffic was going much, much slower. Thankfully, both boys were asleep. To begin with.

Harry woke first, saying, sleepily, “Are we there?” Then Joe woke, [...]

Full review of our fantabulous day out at the dockyard on Friday will be coming to LittleStuff pages very shortly, but for now here’s some pics of Family Laura enjoying the day…

My Sailors four

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Okay, so I’m cheating – this one’s not a blog. But, it’s one of my much loved waste-five-minutes links, which absolutely guarantees to make me laugh, even on the grimmest of days. Read a few before you dismiss it, there are some genuine Laugh Out Loud ones in here, and they get updated so often I would bookmark it and re-visit whenever you find yourself wanting to snort through a coffee break.

Read an interesting short article this morning on how ‘Brand Savvy’ tweens (9-11 year olds) have become. The good news for me is that although they are scarily brand aware, they are also exceptionally cynical and not fooled by clever marketing (my ten year old frequently jeers at adverts, and whilst i am sad at his lack of trusting innocence, I am sneakily rather proud of his ability to see through the shiny veneer of advertising). Sadly, though, over two thirds of tweens are label conscious due to a fear of being teased – and over a third of them ARE being teased. That’s just not a nice statistic, is it?

… and Amalia appears to be loving it!

Amalia is the first of our reviewers to come back with her opinion of the new Stage 1 savoury meals from Organix.We have a few families reviewing these right now – but the new reviewers have some compeition for the funniest; Amalia’s Mama and Papi turned out to be pretty good at this whole reviewing thing.

The reviews will go live on LittleStuff later this week, but we couldn’t resist showing you Amalia being a little unlady-like in her haste to snaffle down the Sweet Potato, Pear and Pea meal!

Independent research commissioned by LG has revealed that the UK is a nation of ‘house-proud domesticates’, with over a third of people washing and hoovering daily. However, the ‘Simply Living’ report, shows that 39 per cent of us think we spend too much time doing household tasks (or that we would prefer to pay someone else to do our daily chores!).

·         Over a third of Brits do the laundry and vacuuming every day
·         Durability and ‘greenness’ top our washing machine wish list
·         Cooking is actually favoured more by British men than British women
·         Over £90 million food thrown away each week in the UK

Wash day blues?

36 per cent of us Brits with families put on at least one load of washing every day. Whilst almost a quarter of those admitted that they enjoy doing the laundry (shameful hand in air… I feel like a domestic goddess when I’m doing the laundry) – but 42 per cent of us believe we spend too much time doing it (oh my yes) and wish we could cut down on the time it takes – or pay someone else to do it for us. [...]

We have enough families now. Thanks for everyone who volunteered, if you have been selected you already know, and if you haven’t then keep your eyes peeled, we may need you again!

Synchronization of us

This weeks Blog Love is ‘Sychronisation of Us‘ – written by Laura, a Scottish  Mummy Blogger who has three small people. This post just made me smile, and also a bit wistful. Laura’s youngest has almost cracked the whole walking thing, and her post really brought back that “hooray she’s walking… oh, where did my baby boy go?” rollercoaster you go on as your baby transitions into a fascinating (but less reliant) toddler. If this is your last child, there’s the added bittersweetness of it being a ‘never again’ phase. Ella is a ferocious 2 1/2 now, and watching her charge around with her brothers makes her own wobbly walker period seem so long ago.

But to top it off, there is [...]

In Catherine Newman’s gorgeous book Waiting for Birdy (if you haven’t read it, get hold of a copy as soon as you feasibly can, seriously), she describes an occasion when her young son, Ben, choked on a “Lifesaver” (that’s a Polo to us Brits). She writes that Ben was less worried about choking and more that his mother would never give him a Lifesaver again. “Indeed,” she says, “I never will.”

I was the same the first time I gave my eldest son, Harry, an apple. Even though he was quite old and the apple was chopped into teeny pieces, he still choked. And he’d been enjoying it so much that, even as he was choking, he was opening his mouth and reaching for more apple. “Not likely, buddy,” I thought after the partialy digested apple had shot out of his mouth and across the room. “You can eat apple when you’re living under your own roof, not mine.” [...]

Blog love daisy

I know, I know, Blog Love has been suspiciously absent recently. Illness struck me down, and then Holidays took over. But here – the perfect peice of Blog Love to make you smile. Perfectly Happy Mum does a very nice line in Friday Cheese (and is far more efficient at her weekly posts than I am), and this one just made me grin. I have very similar memories of seriously unpermable hair, on top of which Kylie & Jason’s song brings back so many fun, silly, downright perfect girlie teen memories I couldn’t not shout about it.