I recently purchased one of these manual Avent breast pumps to help with feeding my newborn baby after she experienced problems with latching on during breast feeding. Having used an electric breast pump whilst in hospital I was initially dubious as to whether a manual pump would work as well. I was, however, surprised to find it quite efficient. It is very easy to sterilise and set up and a cup full of milk can usually be produced within a 15-20 minute period providing you are keeping yourself well hydrated. In some ways it is nicer to use than an electric pump, being much less noisy and less painful on the nipples. It certainly provides as much milk as the electric alternative I have tried in a similar space of time. At less than £20 it has been a very good buy and one that with our current feeding problems has proved essential. We are now progressing well with breast feeding but will be continuing to use this to enable us to share the most tiring of the night time feeds.

If you like me are partial to a little bit of cheese and wine, then you might want to rethink your wine choices. Whilst many people, think a red wine is the perfect accompaniment to a good cheese it seems a white wine might be better. According to this article white wine is a much better choice with cheese than red. The main reason is that red wines are generally more strongly flavoured than whites and as such can overshadow all but the most robust cheese. White wines on the other hand are more versatile and compliment a much wider range of cheeses. It seems the tannins in red wines simply dominate the flavours of most cheeses so experts recommend drinking white instead to get more from your cheese experience. Whites that have been “oaked”, that is left in oak barrels should also be avoided with cheese.

We had a lovely pork roast for our New Years Eve dinner but it was really too much for 4 people and there was loads left over. I found some recipe ideas when searching online and decided to make a stir fry with some of the left overs. Adding a couple of peppers, chilli's, soy sauce and lemongrass and putting the pork into the pan at the last minute created this dish pictured. Served with rice it was full of flavour and tasted so much better because it cost less than a £1.00 to make and made use of what we already had in the fridge.

Rather than go out this year we spent New Years Eve at home as we thought Penny was too small to go to the pub and didn’t really fancy leaving her for a whole evening just yet. I cooked a slow roasted leg of pork with trimmings and apple sauce and and apple crumble which used up nearly all of the apples I had stored from this years crop. Then we settled down to watch the fireworks on the TV. Penny did wake up in time to watch with us, however, didn’t seem that impressed with the display, I think she may be a little too small to appreciate TV just yet.

I had a voucher which I think I got from one of my Bounty packs for an Amazing Baby Black and White book. I must admit that at first I was not hugely impressed with the book as I found it a little basic even for a baby book. It was only when I read an article about how babies are particularly drawn to high contrast black and white images that I decided to give it a try. Obviously at only 4 weeks my baby is not old enough to attempt reading the text or even know what the images are. She does, however, love the book. She stares for hours at the stripy bees and the spotty frogs in the book and seems completely fascinated by it. I have since ordered several more similar books that focus on high contrast images and give Penny a new book to look at every day, turning the pages for her so that she always has something new to look at. I would highly recommend getting some of these great books for your newborn baby.

It was lovely to have Penny home for Christmas especially as we were not expecting her to arrive until the 26th of December. My husband Rory was particularly excited about the whole Christmas celebration this year, despite the fact that Penny is only 4 weeks old and really too young to remember anything. I have never, known Rory to be so keen to do the morning present opening. We opened Penny’s dream sheep and some baby books for her and she did sleep through most of it. She does, however, like the gifts when she is awake enough to enjoy them. Christmas is certainly more special with children but I think I am looking more forward to next year when Penny is old enough to know what is going on.

As we have learnt in the past, Jesus does appear in some unusual places. The latest sighting has appeared in a sock. The miraculous image pictured left was found amongst the laundry by Sarah Crane from Orpington in Kent. Personally I remain unconvinced.

If you have consumed a little too much over the festive period then this article might make for sobering reading. It claims that it takes most people three months to lose the excess weight they put on over the festive period. According to an MSN survey three quarters of people over indulge at Christmas and suffer the consequences of an expanded waistline. Personally I have lost a great deal of weight over the Christmas period but then I suppose I did just give birth to a baby which helps. I still have a few pounds to shed in the new year though, so will be starting a exercise regime again soon to get back in shape.

The recent addition to our family has meant a steep learning curve and lots of new kitchen appliances. We have recently become the owners of a steriliser, a bottle warmer, a breast pump and numerous bottles and attachments that are used with the aforementioned devices. The daily rituals of expressing milk, sterilising bottles and pumps and warming feeds, which at first seemed a little daunting have now become second nature and the devices have become daily essentials. They will all be reviewed here at a later date when I get a moment to do so.

I was interested to read this article which suggests people that emotionally abuse their partners could soon be deemed to be guilty of domestic violence. Examples of emotional abuse could be banning them for seeing friends, cutting up clothes or just generally bullying someone without having physically attacked them. The call to recognise this type of abuse comes after it emerged that tens of thousands of teenage girls are being sexually or mentally abused by their boyfriends. I would imagine it would be fairly hard to prove conclusively whether this sort of abuse has been suffered in a relationship, particularly as it is often just the alleged victims word against their partner.