Dream lengths? Yes please

Yet another shampoo post I hear you cry?! But I’m telling you this is the one! 

So I’ve been meaning to try the L’oreal Dream Lengths combo for a while after seeing it in the shops and floating around Instagram. So whilst I was in Asda the other day the entire row of shampoos had gone bar one lonely bottle which I took along with a conditioner.

It was an absolute STEAL at £2 per bottle (on offer) I could not wait to try it at the next available opportunity!

My babies are now just over 2 and just over 1 so I am slowly beginning to be able to shower for more than 4.6 minutes a day, so the quest to find the shampoo is well and truly on! I have also decided that I want to donate my hair to a trust that makes wigs for girls who need them. 

The Little Princess Trust provides real hair wigs free of charge to children and young adults up to the age of 24, who have sadly lost their own hair due to cancer treatment and other illnesses. Hair has to be at least 12” and in good condition. And if this shampoo does what it says on the tin, we are on to a winner! Only a few more inches to grow as a short bob is not for me! 

But right, back to it. The shampoo smells quite fruity and is a little bit sparkly, lathers up really well and rinses fully. The conditioner is thick and creamy and again rinses well but I can feel that it’s penetrated the hair.

I kid you not, after the first use. My hair felt smoother, healthier and it was shiny! I feel like my hair hasnt been shiny for months! And that was before blow drying! After blow drying and straightening, the results we’re insane! So soft and smooth and reflective. My hair felt thicker and had more body. 

I’ve only used the shampoo and conditioner but there is a weekly hair mask and a blow dry/heat protection cream which I’m keen to try as I reckon it will be amazing. 

In short, you need this in your lives!

Jx

New Shampoos!

I’ve got massive issues with shampoos and conditioners. I’m forever on the search for the PERFECT one. I’m yet to find it. However these 2 come pretty close. 

Since Isla has been born I’m lucky if I wash my hair once or twice a week, so it has to be a good one.

I chucked out some Aussie, some Herbal Essence and some L’Oréal as they just weren’t working for me. 

A lovely lady I follow on Instagram called @sunshinesamblog recommended this lovely duo by L’Oréal, so I gave it a go. 

I got them from Sainsburys at £2 each, bargain! They smell absolutely lovely and my hair felt nourished and soft after. I find with a lot of shampoos and conditioners that if you let your hair dry naturally which I do (not out of choice!) your hair can be dry still, but this was not the case with these. So I will keep going with this lot, for now!

Still on my quest, I came across these from Redken, when I was on look fantastic buying a new lippie!

As you would expect, they are a little more expensive, around £10 each, but they are worth every penny! I tried to get the matching shampoo for the All Soft conditioner, but it wasn’t available, but the Extreme shampoo is great. The All Soft is enriched with Argan Oil, and to be honest I was a bit dubious when I put it on, but as my hair has dried, it feels so soft. Amazing stuff. I will be using this once a week and the L’Oréal once a week on rotation. 

This oil also fell into my basket...

And boy is it good! It smells divine! I used it on wet hair before I combed through. My ends don’t look scraggy and they feel smooth. It may well be a combo of this and the Redken but it’s a fab oil. It was around £6 again from Look Fantastic. 

Hopefully I’m on to a winner with these!

Jx

Welcome to the world Isla

In my last post I said there was a few things I wanted to recap on, but I’ve had countless sleepless nights since then and I actually can’t remember what I was talking about! 

But one thing I did want to talk about was my birth experience this time round, as it was a lot more positive and drama free than with Rosie’s. 

Isla was not on time. She was 10 days over due and I was not in a good place mentally. I was uncomfortable, tired, huge and fed up. 

Here I am all chirpy at 40 weeks expecting my waters to break any second as they did with Rosie. But no. That did not happen.

Here I am at 41 weeks, looking slightly less chirpy. I had a full 3 more days to go before she made her grand appearance! 

What I must add is that I put on a lot more weight with Isla than I did with Rosie. And I didn’t weigh myself after 40 weeks. And I think in that last 10 days I put on a hell of a lot! (I’m now working on rectifying this damage, that’s the problem of having 2 babies in quick succession, I got fat!) 

Anyway, back to the story. On Thursday 27th October 2017 at around 2am I started getting contractions. At this point I perked up a bit, I’m going to have to go to hospital in an hour and have the baby I thought oh so positively. But no. By 9am the bastard contractions had stopped. They restarted at 3pm but they were so sporadic. No rhyme or reason to them. They were coming every 10, 7, 5, 3 minutes, really randomly but they were bad. The real thing, I couldn’t breathe or talk through them and I couldn’t sit down as it hurt so much. So I was standing pretty much from 5pm. 

At 6pm I phone my Mum and said could she come and get Rosie as I think it’s happening! Better than a call at 1am! So Mum and Dad came and got Rosie and I carried on with my sporadic contractions. At 9pm they still weren’t regular, and I hadn’t felt the baby move for a while. As I had an anterior placenta, I didn’t feel her much during the pregnancy and espically when I was standing. So at this point I got myself all worried and call MAU and they invited me down.

The car journey to the hospital was horrendous! Every bump hurt like hell! And we love about 35min from the hospital! We got to MAU and I was seen within 10 mins. I got hooked up to the monitor to see how Baby was and she was fine. I was there about an hour. When I arrived I was measured and I was already 6.5cms dilated! I was then transferred up to the Midwife led unit as I really wanted to try and have the baby on my own with no drugs and I wanted to go in the pool. I managed a period of time up there with just gas and air but I was struggling big time. My local midwife has since told me that I wasn’t mentally in the right place and if I had known. The midwife i probably could have carried on. But I couldn’t. I needed that epidural. So I was measured, 8cms. We had to act quickly! 

Before I was transferred down to delivery suites I needed a wee. And as I was sat on the loo the midwife said to me Jo are you pushing? I didn’t know if I was or not! She then said if you’re pushing we can’t do the epidural. I said I’m not pushing I’m not pushing! ;)

Oh what sweet bliss the drugs are! Sod trying to be brave, drugs are the way forward man! I even managed a snooze! Eventually I got to 10cms and was told to start pushing. As with epidurals you can’t feel the contractions so you rely on the midwife to tell you when to push. My midwife was fantastic. So supportive and just wonderful. She held a compress on me when I was pushing to help prevent me from tearing. The only intervention I had was the midwife had to break my waters, but after last time, that’s brilliant. 

I can’t remember how long I was pushing for but at 4:49am on Saturday 28th Octoberweighing 9lbs 3ozs, my second little princess, the last piece of our jigsaw, Isla Grace Reynolds arrived. 

From that first moment I loved her fiercely. 

We stayed in hospital just one night as she did a little poop on the way out and her cord was wrapped round her neck- now that boy was scary when the midwife said to the student midwife, can you press the alarm and call paeds as Isla wasn’t breathing. Thankfully she got going but it was the longest scariest few minutes of my life. 

We were really lucky and were given a private room on the midwife led unit, I couldn’t believe my luck! A lovely lovely midwife even took Isla away for a few hours in the middle if the night so I could get some sleep! As she wouldn’t settle apart from on my chest and I was exhausted. 

Jamie and Rosie came to visit us the next day and took us home after all our checks.

How gorgeous are they?! 

So wonderful to be at home with my perfect little family. Now the fun really begins! 

Jx

Useless blogger

I had all good intentions of documentating my pregnancy with number 2, but I just didn't get around to doing much at all. One post in fact!

I think it was a case of working mum/commuting/busy child that took all my time. Not really an excuse but it's all I have. 

I went back to work for 3 months and left when I was 33 weeks pregnant. I was commuting120 miles a day and it took its toll, especially as Rosie wasn't sleeping very well. She started teething and was constantly moaning in her sleep. Bearing in mind I was up a gazillion times a night peeing. Combo that with being severely uncomfortable I was not loving life. 

But leaving work early was the best decision I could have made. I got to spend time with Rosie again as it broke my heart leaving her for 12 hours a day. I missed her so much. But looking after a busy 11 to 13 month old when you are heavily pregnant is exhausting! 

So that's my sob story on my lack of posts! There's a few things I want to back date, so I'll get on with that now (breast pump in hand) 

Jx 

New products

I went to Superdrug today to get some moisturiser and I noticed this brand on offer (but 1 get 1 free) so with that reason only I decided to give them ago.

The Day cream is aimed at the age group 30-40 was going to get 20-30 but who am I kidding! 

It's really rich but light if that makes any sense. It's got a really fresh scent, like oranges I think?

B says:

Measurably reduces the appearance of lines and wrinkles by up to 7% in just 4 weeks. Significantly increases hydration by 30% after just one day's wear.

I'm quite fortunate to have good skin, but I want to try and reduce as many wrinkles as I can. Especially now I'm about to be a Mum to 2 under 2! FML! 

It's a really good base for makeup and has SPF 15 which is extremely important. It costs £10.99

The micellar oil is lush! I hate any product that makes my skin feel dry. And this feels like it's really moisturising after successfully removing my make up. You might want to follow up with a toner if the oily feeling isn't for you but I personally love it. Beats a face wipe! It costs £6.99

B says:

B. Pure with this oil-to-milk cleanser that contains natural oils to quickly and effectively dissolve makeup and impurities. Deeply cleanses - Dissolves waterproof and long-lasting makeup. Softens and smoothes - Pomegranate Seed Oil helps leave skin feeling moisturised. Protects and soothes - With Vitamin E. Purifies - Chia Seed Oil is naturally effective. Dermatologically approved.

I will definitely be trying more of this range now, and I'll be getting in there quick as it's BOGOF!

**EDIT** After using the oil for a while, I still love it but it massively stings my eyes and doesn't take off all your eye make up. I'll be sticking to my Simple micellar water 

PS writing this as I'm having a weak Lavendar Dettol bath, does anyone else do this? Not so much with regular Dettol, but the lavender one is lovely, like aromatherapy but with almighty cleansing! 

Jx

We heart Cornwall

When I started writing this post back in July (!) We’d been back from Newquay for 3 days, and it was a Monday and it was the Mondayest Monday ever. We did not want to come home. Ever. We both said how lovely it is and how we'd love to live there. There's got to be more to life than driving on the M25 every day! 

ROAD TRIP!

View from our apartment

We stayed in an apartment I found through a friend on Facebook. 

It was incredible. I could not recommend the apartment enough. It was huge and sleeps at least 6. Perfect condition and James the owner had kitted it out so well, thought of everything. 

The link to James' property can be found 

here by accessing Air B&B. You can see my review on the page too. 

Being 24 weeks pregnant with Isla and having a 10 month old, it certainly wasn’t the type of holiday that my husband and I were used to! But I have to say it was the best week. The weather wasn’t great on a few of the days and we only had dinner out once but despite all that we filled our days and at that time we had a baby that napped in her pram (nosey bollocks doesn’t do that anymore and we have to put her in her cot for a sleep!) she has massive FOMO! 

We spent a lovely first morning on Lusty Glaze beach, there are 200 ish steps down (and up!!!) to the beach and with a buggy and a baby it’s not the one but it’s well worth it. We discovered a lovely restaurant where we got takeaway teas and coffees and sat on the beach. Just perfect. Rosie felt the sand in between her toes for the first time!

As I’m choosing photos for this post, the pictures of Rosie are making my heart hurt! She looks so young and little! She’s changed so much. She’d just started crawling when we went away and didn’t put up a fight when you put her in the pram! Now she’s this sassy independent little toddler! I just love her so much. 

We went on so many long walks, sat in beach bars, had cream tea, the BEST fish and chips from near our apartment TWICE! Had lunches on the beach, fought off seagulls, visited cider farms on rainy days (where I changed a poo explosion in the boot of the car!) it was just a perfect first family holiday. 

I mentioned above we went out for dinner once and that was to the restaurant on the beach, Lusty Glaze it was sheer perfection. We had an early sitting and we were welcomed with open arms and bringing our little one was not a problem at all. 

As you can see the view as the sun was setting was perfect, little Rosie was good as gold and the food was incredible. I ordered a seafood pasta dish and I wasn’t sure if I could have mussels, so the waitress spoke to the chef and advised its safe if cooked but suggested I didn’t and he’d give me more squid instead! The food was incredible and the desserts amazing. If you go to Newquay you must pay it a visit. 

We spent a wonderful day in Padstow, took Rosie swimming for the first time, and really relaxed. We even spent time looking on rightmove at houses, we just love it and didn’t want to come home! 

Jx

Taking a break

 

Sometimes we just need to take a break from social media. I don't know what has spurred mine on really. Whether it's because I've gone back to work and I'm a bit sad, or whether I've been really poorly with a nasty chest infection, or whether I'm just bored with it all. 

All I know is I'm a bit down in the dumps at the moment, and all I want to do is be at home with my daughter, helping her grow.

 

I know it's not for long, in fact I think I'm going to leave at the beginning of September now rather than middle. I got a particularly shitty email off a colleague on Friday (shouldn't have read it as I don't work Fridays) but all I was doing was trying to help and carry on the job of a lady in my team who has just left to go on mat leave funnily enough. It made me think Is it all worth it? Do I really need this crap in my life? There are far more importnant things (like my two daughters) 

Whatever it is that's made me take a break, I'll be back I'm sure, I just need to concentrate on me and my growing family. 

Jx