Welcome to the first instalment of my A-Z blogger challenge. Now before you think I’m going to write about being attacked, don’t worry I haven’t. I have chosen the word attack because this year I have decided to ‘attack’ 2016 and make it as good as it can be.

The end of 2015 was pretty pants for me and my family. I know you’ve heard it before, but seriously, I found out I was pregnant *yipee*, only to be in a pretty bad car crash a week later, lose my job without notice a month after that, watch my beloved Grufallo die a month after that, need a new clutch that cost £800 a month after that. Not to mention the washing machine breaking and the tumble dryer breaking.

Let’s just say it was tough.

So many people commented on how strong and positive I was during this rough patch. It could of been really easy for me to slowly melt into a state of depression or unhappiness, but there’s something in my personality that doesn’t allow me to do this.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been depressed before, once in my uni years and then I struggled with (undiagnosed) PND when Lamb was a baby (and toddler).

But what happened to me at the end of last year just didn’t hit me in a way that made me break down. I just kept telling myself we could be worse off. We still had a roof over our heads and food on the table, my baby and I had survived the crash, and my little lamb was oblivious to it all and continued to be his happy self.

I was continuously told “2016 will be great”, “you deserve a good year”, “2016 will be your year”.
I attacked 2016 with positivity and passion. I wasn’t going to have a repeat of the end of last year.

I had launched my Lamb & Bear clothing brand, I had put all of my efforts into my blog and I had time to focus on growing my second baby.

So far my attack on 2016 is going pretty well and I’m so excited of this year to progress.

Here’s to continued blogging and brand success, a continued healthy pregnancy (and soon to be labour!), and a very happy family.

Ax

P.S I’d also like to continue winning competitions. So far this year I’ve won a pram, £100 John Lewis vouchers and a luxury, leather changing bag!!

My lovely friend Hannah from Budding Smiles inspired me to take part in the A-Z blogging challenge this month. You decide on a theme and write a blog post every day (apart from Sunday) based on each letter of the alphabet. Starting today with the letter A.

It didn’t take me long to think of my theme. A lot of things have happened to me recently, good and bad, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to continue to document our family, which is why I have chosen my theme to be life.

I’ll be following Hannah’s A-Z challenge posts everyday and I recommend you do too. 🙂

I will be planning my posts a few at a time and so far I have decided on the titles for A, B and C.

A is for Attack.

B is for Blogger.

C is for Create.

My first post will be published later today so make sure you look out for that.

I’m really looking forward to taking part in this challenge. I’ve been struggling to write recently so I hope this create some lovely posts for you all to read 🙂

A x

Last week the lovely lot at OXO Tot emailed me and asked if I’d like to take part in a little Easter collaboration with Riverford Fruit & Veg. As it’s Easter Monday, and we have all stuffed our faces with chocolate, I thought today would be the perfect day to show you what healthy, fruity snack we came up with using our delicious Riverford fruit box.

The box arrived nice and early (around 8am) so there was little risk of us missing the delivery. In our box was bananas, oranges, grapes, apples and kiwis. All perfect ingredients for our fruity smoothie!

If you want to find out more about the Riverford fruit & veg boxes then check out their website here.

I was really impressed with the Riverford fruit box, the fruit lasted well and the bananas turned up slightly unripe which meant they didn’t need eating on the day they arrived!

In our house, we eat a lot more veg than fruit, but what’s great about these boxes is you can choose  mix of fruit and veg, so I could get a mix to cater to our needs. The box we received costs £11.95 which I think is great value as it’s organic and you get a really good amount in the box.

As my little lamb is a selective eater, we struggle to get him eating his fruit and veg, in fact he’s never eaten veg since he was on purees! He will eat apples, pears and satsumas, but also likes smoothies, so daddy spent an hour chopping the fruit with him and letting him help with using the smoothie maker. What’s great about smoothies is you can literally chuck in whatever fruit you have in the house, add a bit of juice and you’ll have yourself a healthy snack/drink. Smoothies are certainly a great way of getting kids to have their 5 a day.

As part of this fruity Easter challenge OXO tot sent us an amazing selection of their products, which I’m also offering to you lovely lot in a giveaway! I love OXO tot products and have been using them for years with Lamb and can’t wait to use all of these goodies with baby number 2. They are amazing quality and last really well. I have opted for their green range, but you can also get pink or blue. One of my favourite OXO tot products is there training seat which we used when getting Lamb used to the toilet. We have also been sent a OXO Tot Perch Booster Seat but I’m going to review that separately for you later this week.

The products offered in the giveaway can be seen in the picture below. As you can see there’s a huge amount of OXO tot products perfect for weaning/feeding your baby/toddler.

You can enter via the form below.

Ax
a Rafflecopter giveaway
*I was sent the RIverford Fruit Box and OXO tot goodies free of charge as part of this healthy Easter collaboration. All opinions are honest and my own.

UK entries only. No cash alternative.
Winner will be drawn at random within 48 hours of competition ending.
Prize will be sent by the brand/PR and is not supplied by Lamb & Bear.
Prizes are subject to availability. Colours/products may vary and alternative prizes will be offered if not available.
All entires will be checked and verified. People who do not fulfil all requirements will be disqualified.
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