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By Little Mummy, May 30, 2009 7:51 am

Fairy Non-bio Gel

We were sent a little gift set, not sure it’s a ‘gift’ if it involves cleaning but it looked really nice when it arrived. The basket was filled with a bottle of Fairy Non-bio Gel, handwash, and a cloth. I’ve been using the gel all week and I’m really impressed, it’s simple and clean to use and makes the washing smell lovely, and I guess that’s all you can really ask for from a laundry detergent.

Bedtime Stories

I settled Erin down with the Bedtime Stories DVD but truth be told she wasn’t really into it, however, I have to put that down to her age more than anythingelse as she mostly watches animated programmes at the moment.

So here’s a trailer instead;

Awards

I’ve been given a couple of awards, the first was from Nixdminx (thanks). I now have to give this to a massive ten newly discovered blogs, which I think is a ridiculous amount, so I’m going to choose three special ones;

Experimental Mum, notSupermum and Are We Nearly There Yet Mummy?

This award is from cynical Jane (who admittedly is not so cynical anymore!)

This one goes to one person and one person only Jo Beaufoix

Blogs to Read

You’ve Got Your Hands Full – a blog devoted to twins.

Mummy Do That! – A Glasgow based blogger who’s had a difficult month.

Have a Lovely Time – Inspiration for things to do with the family

Something Funny

Funny cow picture from Dulwich Divorcee.

Newsletter

Pick up the littlemummy.com newsletter.

Have a good weekend everyone. X

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By Little Mummy, May 29, 2009 12:26 am

Well, it’s all happening in the blogosphere at the moment isn’t it. Did anyone miss the double page spread in the Times? If you did the links are here;

Mums the word in cyberspace

Mummy bloggers hit Disney

Two great articles, and not just because I get a mention in both

The debate about reviews rumbles on with the majority favouring the ‘if we all pick our freebies wisely there is space for the review thing in the British blogosphere’.

A point that has been raised further with myself both publicly and privately is how honest we can afford to be when it comes to reviewing.

Today I was quoted in the Times from the angle of the fact I’m not scared to say what I think about a product, I won’t go out of my way to be nasty or derogatory but I will say it how I see it;

In a review of Aveeno products on littlemummy.com, Douglas wrote: “First up the colloidal oatmeal bath. Every time I mention colloidal I think it sounds like a nasty hospital treatment. I have to say the reality wasn’t much better. Then there was the disposable potty. “Basically, I thought it was rubbish,” she says

I believe the only way forward is complete honesty, otherwise we can kiss goodbye to future opportunities, companies are relying on us to tell the truth, as the Times puts it today “when companies plug in to a network of mummy bloggers they are in effect getting in on the mother to mother conversation” the trust and honesty involved in those conversations comes at a price, for some companies with a strong product it means an excellent marketing opportunity and for those with weaker products, well, yeah…there are gonna be some casualties. But that’s life, and business, it’s survival of the fittest and I don’t think we need to concern ourselves with the effect that our review has on a product, as long as we’re being honest to each other we are fulfilling our remit. Besides, the companies are well aware that there is a risk involved when they approach blogs for reviews;

Companies maintain that all news is good news, when it comes to blogs. “If they don’t like the product, that’s good feedback for us,”

So, in response to the question ‘Would I lie to you?’, no I wouldn’t, not ever, because my priority lies with you the reader, because if you don’t believe me I won’t get the reviews anyway. And if I don’t believe you…

So we’re all gonna tell the truth and nothing but the truth , right?

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By Little Mummy, May 28, 2009 6:48 am

The spa at the five star Grand Floridian resort.

Wedding carriage complete with wigged horsemen.

The Disney 7 on the beach in front of the wedding chapel.

Lunch at the Grand Floridian, strawberries, feta, leaves, strawberry vinaigrette and roast cashews.

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By Little Mummy, May 27, 2009 10:51 am

You’ll have heard of the recent muffin-off, well I decided that competitive baking wasn’t really my bag (I don’t even own a cake tin!), however, having seen Laura’s efforts (sorry Laura) I was compelled to give it a bish bash bosh (sorry, full to the brim with crohns and flu plus tablets, may be slightly delirious).

Of course I used Englishmum’s base muffin recipe, why wouldn’t you? It’s seriously good. I added white chocolate buttons (leftover from Easter) and pecans (leftover from previous planned baking sessions, all non-starters!)

Overall, very pleased, much cheaper and tastier than Tesco variety, however, it’s clear from the disfigurement I need to buy a cake tin.

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By Little Mummy, May 26, 2009 1:00 am

Day three and we’re off to yet another restaurant for breakfast, this time it’s not a buffet which is actually quite unusual whether you’re staying inside Disney World or not, the ‘breakfast buffet’ is big business.

Spoodles is located on the boardwalk, near to the Flying Fish Cafe, we sat outside which was quite a novelty coming from Scotland.

The manager was quick to come and see us, he even organised some tasters for us including this beautiful fruit platter and one of their specialities flatbread pizza, one topped with egg bacon and tomato and the other was a vegetarian variety.

We ate all that and we still had to order our own breakfast (I’m so glad that my crohns was fine while I was there!) I chose french toast, bacon and maple syrup which as you can see from the photo was lovely, it was served with buttermilk which I hadn’t tried before but was a nice compliment to the sweetness of the maple syrup. I was completely stuffed and couldn’t finish it all which was a shame.

Back in the blogger bus and we headed straight for the Grand Floridian Resort and Spa, time for some serious pampering. It was with a little trepidation that I got undressed and slipped on the robe, I’m not great at these sort of things, I was having horror flashes that my gown would fall off, or I’d say something stupid, or fall asleep….or something.

After what seemed like an eternity (around ten minutes) my name was called, unfortunately it turned out that I was unable to have the swedish massage due to my previous miscarriage and the fact that I might be pregnant again (which I was, for a while). I was slightly disappointed, but completely relieved to be able to get dressed! I ended up having a manicure, no average manicure I should say though, this was a manicure with bells on, my arms were soaked, my hands were massaged all whilst sitting in a heated massage throne with my feet up. I felt the need to apologise prefusely to the poor lady having to file my gnawed and mistreated nails, she did an excellent job, she must have filled a whole bin with my cuticle cuttings which she was taking off with what looked like a pair of plyers with a clipping edge, they must keep these on standby for the really bad cases. And guess what, I haven’t bitten my nails at all since being back and it’s been three weeks now

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By Little Mummy, May 25, 2009 12:05 am

This recipe has been adapted from one I read somewhere, might have been Good Food or the Sainsbury’s magazine.

There isn’t all that much cooking involved and you get to cheat a little with the black bean sauce, makes an ideal weekday dinner.

It’s ‘budget’ as the original recipe called for pork fillet but I found that loin steaks work just as well (better?) as long as you cook them properly (see step one).

Serves 2

Ingredients;

3 Pork Loin Steaks
Black Bean Sauce
6 babycorn
3 spring onions
1 clove of garlic
Quarter tsp of ginger (fresh or dried)
Small bunch of coriander
Oil

1. Trim the fat off the pork steaks and cut into chunks.

2. Heat some oil and stir fry pork at high heat. Make sure the fat is rendered and the meat is caramelised, this is key in getting the right texture from the cheaper cut.

3. Add ginger, garlic and babycorn.

4. Add spring onion and the sauce, I used the whole jar but a bit less would have been nicer I think.

5. Chop coriander and add at the end. Serve with boiled rice.

Comments (22)

By Little Mummy, May 21, 2009 11:43 pm

There’s a lot of chatter about PR trips, freebies and paid blogging at the moment. I thought I’d add my own views, because that’s what us bloggers do isn’t it.

PR Trips

A few interesting conversations have come about recently, mainly off the back of the Disney trip. Should PR companies target bloggers. Should bloggers accept trips. Can reviews be trusted if the blogger has been lavished with freebies. It certainly seems to be on people’s minds as even when a journalist was interviewing me for the Times those very questions came up. Did you consider declining? Did you feel obliged to give a positive review? How did it fit with your other blog content?

When I accepted the Disney trip it was because I knew that it would be a good fit, after all I already have my own (paid!) trip to Disney looming and my tagline says “life, parenting and trying new things” I like to think that’s my clever way of covering all bases, but seriously, if you’re a parent blogger then Disney is definitely in your topic range .

Did I consider declining? Don’t be silly. An all expenses paid trip to Disney and the chance to hob nob with the some of the best British bloggers, I don’t think so. I’ve been writing this blog for three years, a little perk here and there is justified, no?

Then there’s the biggy, did I feel obliged to do a positive review? Eh, no. Yes, Disney flew me to Florida, they put me up in a 5 star resort, fed me gourmet food and paid my exorbitant wifi bill, but I didn’t sell my soul. I never once considered, before or after that I would need to write a positive review, in my mind a review that doesn’t find at least some constructive criticism of a product or destination is pretty useless anyway and probably fake. Disney World was no exception, there were things I thought could be better, I said it while I was there, and I’ll say it again here (eventually, when I get to that bit). It would be unnatural if everything we wrote was positive, Disney realised this when they decided to have no input into what we wrote, we had no word count, and no guidelines. The moment anyone asks anything other of me is the moment I’ll say no to the product or trip.

Freebies

Recently the British blogging scene has seen a big rise in the freebies for review, first there was the Lego Duplo, then the Disney DVD’s and Blu-Ray players and just today it’s been the Skoda test drives. As always the Americans are one step ahead of us, they’ve had the freebies for review for a while, the new trend is to start a seperate review blog for this type of thing, Suburban Turmoil (who was on the US Disney bloggers trip) was talking about it just today.

I don’t think we’re at that stage and I hope that we can navigate the waters more successfully so that this sort of thing is unnecessary. I don’t think that a seperate review blog really helps the marketers, the bloggers or the readers, is the point not that the freebies are used and trialled as part of everyday life?

Sponsorship

Finally there’s the question of having advertising on a blog, whether it be in the form of adsense or banner advertising (as you can see in my sidebar), some say that on a ‘mummy blog’ it’s distateful, yet others go further and accuse mum bloggers of cashing in on their role as a parent.

I disagree with this viewpoint and I don’t see that a few ads is really ‘cashing in’, it costs money to keep a website going and if you can make some of that back as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing, because every penny that remains in this household goes towards things that make my daughter’s life more comfortable anyway.

So that’s my viewpoints on everything, what do you think?

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By Little Mummy, May 21, 2009 2:58 am

Last week I decided to write about my second miscarriage, as you know I came back from Florida five or six weeks pregnant, I was only back a few days when I had a miscarriage, my second in three months. It hurt like hell, not physically, but emotionally and mentally, the bits that are hard to heal.

This post about blogging as therapy explains it far better than I can, but in that moment it felt like the best therapy in the world, because sometimes you just need to talk, not for sympathy, or words, or even blog comments, sometimes you just need to get it out, before the whole thing eats you up from the inside.

There are a ton of things that I’d never write about here, things that only my husband or family will hear, and I’d never write about other people’s business or indeed anything I’m told in confidence or otherwise. For this particular situation though it felt like the right thing to do, and it worked, as it worked for Jane and Linda and countless others, after I wrote that post it all felt so much easier, it was like placing the grief in a little box. God forbid it happens again, but at least next time I now I have a place to put the hurt and upset, one that doesn’t expect anything from anyonelse.

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By Little Mummy, May 20, 2009 12:31 am

Evil Pig Dog Toy

My mum bought Erin this from Homebase for £2.99, don’t ask me why (it’s a dog toy)… this thing seriously freaks me out, every time she makes it oink (which is often) I panic that I’ve inadvertently burped, and the pig’s name? Oink, of course. A quick video, demonstrated by Erin…

Super Soaker

Bought for £4.99 one of the best value toys we own. Erin calls it her “choker, choker” which makes it sound more evil than ‘Oink’ but of course that’s impossible, because nothing is more evil than that pig.

A Large Box

Yep, it’s that old cliche. But here’s a picture to prove the point (this was the one that contained two brand new sets of Lego)

Balloons (including partially deflated)

They’re all over the house and it’s like world war three if I try and throw any out.

A parrot ornament

The next door neighbor donated this one and it has recently been promoted from a garden toy to the eclectic indoor selection (which includes that evil pig, did I mention it was a dog toy?). She talks and strokes it in a fashion akin to the ‘peeteeee’ scene in dumb and dumber (tried to get video but couldn’t catch the moment.

So that’s our random selection, what are your odd toys?

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By Little Mummy, May 19, 2009 3:32 am

As threatened here’s my photo diary of our night at Bunchrew House.

This is the view from the front. Erin called it her ‘castle’, it did look disticnctly like Archie’s pink castle in Balamory.

View of Beauly Firth from the rear of the house.

I read somewhere that wild bluebells were becoming quite rare, so I took a photo of some in the woodland surrounding Bunchrew.

Erin taking a break before we head down to the beach. I love this photo, I might get it blown up for the wall.

The view was so clear, and the restaurant from Bunchrew House overlooks this!

The drawing room, thought I’d died and gone to heaven when they told me there was wifi here, I sat next to the open fire tweeting and reading emails, all cosy.

And finally a wee pic of Erin and I just about to go for our meal.