Nuby Bandana Bibs.

Hi everyone, well there's no denying it the festive season is fast approaching and we love to get into the spirit of things.

So when a friend signposted a chance for us to try out the Nuby range of festive Bandana bibs we jumped at the chance.

We also have a great sample of the oral care range to try so will feedback on these products as and when we use them.

The Nuby bandana bibs are from 0 months + which is awesome as they can be used from newborn age. So note for Mummies to be they can be packed in your hospital bag (:

Bandana bibs are a real hit nowadays, they have a modern look to them and can actually look great teamed with babies outfits (not to mention protecting them) 

This range feature some festive fun prints for Christmas and ours had a cute reindeer motif and gingerbread theme.

The bibs are incredibly soft, they have a velcro fastening which is quick and easy to do up (saves faffing with poppers) and are of a really good length so perfect for teething and dribbles.

Here is Lottie enjoying her Christmas bandana bib.

Would I reccomend them? Yes, we would.

They're colourful, fun and practical and what we liked most was the length of these bibs ( a good inch or so longer than most we have in the drawer) and how soft and absorbent they are. They're long enough to catch everything ( yes that includes sick burps) and do a great a job at protecting our little ladies cute outfits, they really are a great dribble catcher!

Thumbs up Nuby! (:

If you would like your own festive bandana bib they can be found in Tesco stores for £2 each or bought online at http://www.nuby-uk.com/ use the code FBNOV15 at checkout for 20% off your order.

The bandana bibs and oral care range were samples from Nuby for us to trial, we were not instructed to write this blog post nor has it had influence on this piece. All feedback is of our own opinion following testing and is a true and honest reflection having used the products. In return we are happy for Nuby to use our comments or photograph for press release or social media purposes.

Liebster Award.

Recently bebebearcubs was nominated to receive the Liebster award by Stephanie over at muminthecotswolds.

This is our very first award so we are pleased to display the badge here on the blog.

What's wonderful about the Liebster award is its about being recognised within the blogging community. It is nice to know that readers enjoy your posts, what you write and your blog as an entirety. A lot of bloggers put their heart and soul into the posts, design, photography, reviews and collaborations featured on their blogs and it's great to know your blog has been noticed within the wider blogosphere.

In a nutshell the Liebster Award is ' an award gifted from fellow bloggers through nomination. It seeks to welcome, celebrate and encourage discovery of new blogs' ( quite aptly put by muminthecotswolds)

The Rules:
Once you have been nominated you will need to write a blog post containing:
*A link back to the person who nominated you
*11 interesting facts about yourself
*Answers to questions asked by the blogger who nominated you
*Links to your nominated blogs
*11 questions for your nominations to answer

Don't forget to notify the blogs you have nominated.

11 Facts about me:

1. I'm not ambidextrous but apparently I  wear my watch on the 'wrong wrist' and eat with my cutlery the wrong way round for someone who is right handed. When I sit down to eat I always have to swap my knife and fork over as they're set incorrectly for me.

2. I'm a bit of a Volkswagen fan and have been known to visit some of the veedub meets. My first car was a bright yellow Lupo which was a joy to drive around. She was called HoneyNut Lupo.

3. I have 3 pet guinea pigs (RIP Peanut). I have had guinea pigs since I was a little girl and think they make wonderful pets, they're gentle, sociable and love a cuddle.

4. I own an iPhone mainly for the camera, I actually dislike apple software and iTunes and don't like the restrictiveness of it. I have no end of problems navigating around my iPhone and find it frustrating when I am feeling creative.

5. I broke my kneecap in half 2 years ago whilst carrying my baby boy. It took me a good part of my maternity to learn to walk again which is pretty much the scariest thing I have ever had to do.

6. I love cheese. My absolute favourite is camembert baked in the oven for 20 minutes with nice crusty loaf dipped in, it's real comfort food.

7. I have a love/ hate relationship with social media. I love the ability to connect with people far and wide but I also feel it can be disconnecting, a time waster and take over genuine real life social interactions.

8. I still have my old Sega Mega Drive in storage and am a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan. (Sorry Super Mario)

9. I love to swim and used to swim at County level.

10. I find it hard to open up to girl friends and in fact my best friends are my husband, my mother and my sister. They are my rocks and I wouldn't have it any other way.

11. I recently enjoy photography and my trusty steed is my Fuji XM1.

My questions from Stephanie:

1. How long have you been blogging?

I have been blogging for almost a year now, inspiration for my blog was my baby boy Oscar, who was shortly joined by his sister Lottie in April of this year. There is 18 months between them so the last couple of years have been quite a whirlwind.

2. Do you have any hobbies?

I have a handful of hobbies, namely swimming (my way of keeping fit and thrashing out life's stresses in the pool) this keeps me active and healthy and was a great way for me to recover from recent injury. Another hobby of mine is of course my blogging, I love to write and to express myself through writing. A recent hobby is photography as I love to capture images of my loved ones to cherish.

3.Who’s your celebrity crush?

It used to be Will Smith but that was back when I was a teenager so some time ago. I don't really have a celebrity crush, Channing Tatum is not half bad and Nick Jonas relatively easy on the eye. Lincoln from the 100 probably ranks up there too but I'm not a big celeb follower or fussed with following the lives of the rich and famous.

4. If you where a crayon what colour would you be?

Yellow. It's my favourite colour as it reminds me of sunshine, Summer and happy times.

5. What’s your favourite TV show?

This has got to be The 100, it's awesome, totally addictive and when the frikkin heck is Season 3 coming!

6.When you where younger what did you want to be when you grew up?

I never knew. And I still don't career wise. (I'm very misguided) I do however know that I've always wanted to have a family of my own and be a Mummy. Being a Mum is a million times harder than I expected but also a million times more rewarding and pretty much the most wonderful thing to have ever happened to me, my children are my world.

7.Where is your favourite place to eat out?

We don't tend to eat out much, we never really have and love good quality time at home and a takeaway for a treat. With this in mind my favourite take out is a curry, and Kali Mirchi along Shirley high street is one of the best. They sell Maladair a dish which is a spinach, chilli and cream based, it's truly delicious.

8.Shoes or bags?

This is too tough to call.

9.Who is a hero in your life?

My dad. He's a real gent, loving, supportive and intelligent and a real family man. 

10.What’s your favourite season?

Spring. I actually love the Spring. We announced to family and friends during the Spring that we were expecting our first child (our son) and our daughter was actually born in the Spring so lots of happy times. I also find the weather can be really unexpectedly gorgeous at this time of year and adore all the daffodils blossoming.

11.Give 3 words that describe you best?

Loving, determined, sensitive.

So now you've heard a little more about me, it's time to move on to my nominations for the Liebster Award.

My nominations are:

Jodie @  BudgetBeautyandBabies
Lauren @ TheArtOfBeingAMummy

Sue @ HomeHeartHarmony

Naomi @ abandonthehouse.wordpress.com

11 questions for my nominees:

1. How long have you been blogging?
2.What is the inspiration for your blog?
3. What is your favourite App?
4. What can you not live without?
5. What is your favourite colour?
6. What would be your best advice for a new blogger?
7. Who inspires you?
8. What is you favourite takeaway?
9. What social media platform do you enjoy the most and why?
10.What is your favourite season?
11. List 3 words that describe yourself?

Hope you enjoyed my Liebster post and long may we continue to enjoy and celebrate the discovery of new blogs (:

Trendy Tot Thursday-Spooky Spectacular

Well it's almost Halloween so who could resist dressing up the little monsters in fancy dress.

This post features Lottie in her pumpkin outfit complete with stripey tights and garishly green tutu. 

The bright orange bodysuit is embellished with a sequin pumpkin and text 'mummy's little pumpkin'. We grabbed this from eBay for just over a fiver and for a complete outfit that's not a bad price. It was from the range from George at Asda.

Lottie got lots of use out of her outfit attending little bear baby signing Halloween class, Tiny Times Halloween Party with her baby buddies and finally a Jiggy's Halloween Special with her big brother Oscar this week.

I must say I think she looks delectable as a pumpkin (:

We've seen some really cute outfits this year including cats with tutu skirts, a bat, colourful witches, Frankenstein and even Sulley from Monsters Inc.

What fun outfits have your kids been wearing for the spookiest time of the year?

Milkshake birthday card.

Our gorgeous little boy's 2nd birthday has approached so quickly! Can you believe it! Where does the time go?!

Last year I made a giant Gaston the ladybird (from Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom) for Oscar's birthday card which  was read out live on Channel 5's Milkshake for his 1st birthday.

We were so excited it was featured and recorded it to show Oscar when he is older.

So we thought we'd try again this year and put our creativity to the test again.

This years theme we have gone for Peppa Pig, and she is accompanied by her little brother George Pig, Mr Dinosaur and a rather tasty looking chocolate cupcake with sprinkles on top.

But who's hiding under the cake I hear you ask ;) yep there he is, our little Oscar!

To make our card we used some great quality recycled card stock from Hardings, our local framers and gallery in the centre of the village. The shop keeper left some free card stock outside the main entrance to be re used locally, I thought this was a really nice touch so jumped at the chance and grabbed some.

We then printed some stock images of Peppa Pig characters found online (thanks Google) which were sent to our local printers Footprint South. I can't recommend these guys enough! I have used them for all my crafts and their papers and ink are great quality, their customer service fantastic and their print turnaround extremely speedy.

A few hours cutting and sticking later and here's what we came up with.

We used sticky foam to raise the characters slightly and double sided sticky tape to secure the photograph and cupcake securely.

The Peppa Pig font was downloaded free of charge from the awesome collection at Dafont. 

So, the big question is was it featured...

It sure was. You can catch a small clip right here.

Milkshake require birthday cards at least 1 month before they are due to be read out, so as long as you get crafting in good time and catch the post there is every chance your cards might get read out (:

It's a lot of fun seeing your little ones photo up on the big screen amongst their favourite tv and story book characters.

Blogger Photography- Update.

So it's been a few weeks or so since I decided to take the photography side of my blog and life in general for that matter a little more seriously and start using a more capable camera.

After choosing to shoot with a mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses hubby has been very supportive and let me have a play with his Fuji X-E2, his pancake & zoom lenses.

I've got a nice supportive neck strap and protective camera bag to keep all the photography gear clean, safe and be able to carry it round with me with two kids in tow.

Since then I've had the chance to take some photographs in different environments, at home, out for dinner and at the play park and I must say I'm feeling rather happy with the results.

I've had to change the way I photograph in the sense that I can't just click away hoping to capture everything. I fear action and moving subjects more so than before but I do keep practising. Instead I now spot a 'photo' moment and aim for it. Don't get me wrong I still take a couple of shots and am indeed working on my focusing but I find myself concentrating more on the shot at hand and what I'm trying to capture.

I adore some of theses images and am really starting to enjoy my new hobby:

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates as next month I will be working on my first collaboration here at Bebe bear and will be featuring some great products here on the blog with a distinct pictorial theme.

Trendy Tot Thursday- My Cool Aviator Jacket.

I am so glad to be joining in with this weeks link up for Trendy Tot Thursday as the winter wear is approaching our high street stores.

Oscar has quite a few coats including a matching duffle coat to Daddy's and they usually come up big in size, but he appears to be gradually outgrowing them (still squeezing into 9-12 months) so we've been on the look out for something new. I'll be honest my eyes lit up when I saw this coat, it is just too cute for words.

Here are a few snaps I captured of his new wardrobe piece whilst we went for a family dinner:

Its imitation brown leather featuring a soft white pile collar and applique on the front and two patch pockets with button press studs.

He's had lots of lovely comments and quite a few ladies cooing at him as he struts his stuff.

The jacket doesn't feature a hood so it's not ideal for rainy days but for those brisk cold mornings and fresh cool afternoons it's ideal.

It goes perfectly teamed with a pair of jeans and a snuggly jumper.

We found this from the Kids range at H&M , the majority of the children's clothes we snap up at second hand sales, baby booties or buy & sell groups but occassionally we like to treat them and this was one of those occassions.

We think he looks super smart in it (:

Breastfeeding milestones

I am so super proud and pleased with myself to be able to write this post because this week is mine and Lottie's 5th month of exclusive breastfeeding (:

Lottie was born seemingly having 'read all the books' as the midwife said regarding feeding and latching on and went straight to the breast after birth for her first feed. She did have tongue tie and there have been days and weeks where we've been on the edge of giving up but here we are still thriving on mummy's milk.

My son was quite the opposite and struggled to latch at all, was a lazy feeder at the breast and often fell asleep and just suckled on me. Oscar suffered with Colic and had real trouble with settling at night alongside suffering a dairy intolerance which we are still working through to this day.

Lottie on the other hand is what some refer to as an 'efficient feeder'. She feeds in 10-15 minutes rather than 45 mins-1 hr. This all took me by surprise, so when I  saw how keen Lottie was to feed I felt it was my duty to do the very best I could to persevere with breastfeeding as much I could.

I managed to exclusively breast feed Oscar for 6 weeks and then combination feed him (a mix of mainly bottles in the day and breast at night) for 6 months. At the time I felt a bit rubbish about it. I'd suffered an injury which meant the majority of time was spent at hospital or physiotherapy and this made feeding for an hour at a time on the breast near on impossible with the sleepless nights. I was struggling to juggle all my appointments and hours in the hospital waiting rooms with a newborn.

But looking back i'm actually incredibly proud. Most recent UNICEF statistics released in 2012 still state that by 6 months only 1 in one hundred of mums will be exclusively breastfeeding. Even at 6 weeks the rate of exclusive breastfeeding is only around 24% and Oscar I managed it together despite all the obstacles we faced.

Becoming a parent second time around has meant I've been a lot more prepared for what breastfeeding entails and understand its being confident enough to choose the best for you and your baby. After all you know your baby best.

We all get 'breast is best' etched into our thinking even before baby arrives but that doesn't prepare you for the reality of feeding for you or your baby and you must learn and trust in what you feel is best for you both and for the family.

I truly feel I made the right choices for both my children because they were based on their needs, the situation at hand and what worked best for them as individuals to grow, develop and thrive.

I will endeavour to continue exclusively feeding Lottie from the breast until she show signs that she might need otherwise. But currently we are still going strong and it's the most beautiful bond to share (: