Rye Bread

I recently bought a bread-maker and have been delighted with the results. We eat a lot of bread and so far we haven't bought a single loaf of shop-made bread (it's been 3 weeks now!) Today I made a loaf from 50% rye flour and 50% white flour and it was a success with everybody here.

Car seat shopping again.

Today we spent £250 on a new car seat for L. Yikes! Until today he was still using his infant carrier/bucket seat and although he is still less than 20lbs in weight, at 16 months old he was growing out of it, and wanting to be upright and viewing the world as we drive, out of the window.

I had recently read a lot about keeping young children rear facing in cars for longer (the average in the UK is 9-12 months, ie most parents turn their children around into a forward facing seat between 9 and 12 months, some even earlier). Many Nordic countries keep their kids rear facing until between age 2 and 4 yrs and there is plenty of evidence to suggest this is the best option in the event of a crash. I am guessing rear facing car seats for the over 1's will grow in popularity over the next few years as people start to catch on. In the meantime I aim to be a trend setter ;-)

Anyway, we decided in the interests of safety, we had to act on this information, even though it is costly (we already have a number of forward facing group 1 car seats that our older children have grown out of). So we bought a Britax Multifit which means L has a lovely view out the rear window and he is sat next to his big sister who at age 5, is forward facing in a high-backed booster... so they are virtually looking at each other, which is quite a socialable position, putting aside my worries that rear facing might not be as practical as they grow.....

This seat should allow L to be rear facing until he around 5, dependent on weight.

This link explains some of the reasons we decided to choose a rear facing chair for our toddler. And I have to mention the most very excellent shop from which we made our purchase today... we travelled to York to Paul Strides shop, where the staff bent over backwards to not only ensure the new chair fitted well, but that we had all 4 seats well-fitted and in the best position. Oh and they sell cloth nappies, so obviously they rock!

I will upload a photo of L and the Tribe in situ in their new positions once I get chance to take a picture.

Jo gets blogging

I realised a while ago that I treat Facebook like a blog... many of the updates and photo's are probably of little interest to anyone other than me... but it certainly helps me collect my thoughts and feel proud of achievements, even the most irrelevant ones. So here I am, blogging for the first time. What am I likely to write about? Food, my children, and family life. So if you ain't interested in babies, children or families, probably best not reading anymore, as this is what makes my world tick!

I recently got married to Dylan ... after 13 years, 4 kids and a mortgage we finally got hitched this summer.

I have a growing interest in cooking (and some baking) and I create many recipes for my family, from scratch.. though I can only claim a very basic knowledge of all things food....but this is slowly increasing as I get more time as the children grow. I should point out that since September 2003, I have either been pregnant, just had a baby (within 8 months) am newly pregnant again..... etc. So it has been a roller coaster 5 years, with very little time to stop and think... but as our youngest is now 16 months old and there are no more babies coming (this is usually the point at which I give birth to the next!), then this is a changing point for us.. we are moving on from the baby days and learning our places in our family aka Jo's tribe.

I am vegetarian, with an interest in and aspirations towards a vegan lifestyle.. though I not close to making that final step just yet. Unsure if I will be.. ever. But it's not an impossibility.

I am also passionate about bringing up my children in a way that respects them, teaches them unconditional love and compassion. I realised when I had my 3rd baby that Dylan and I seem to practise 'attachment parenting' to an extent. This is not something we aimed to do, we just seemed to naturally fall into this category, once we had read and understood what it actually means.

We use cloth nappies (after becoming converts just over 12 months ago) and we carry our two youngest children in slings on a regular basis. I am quite passionate about breastfeeding too, after a long and difficult journey, but i am proud to still be breastfeeding my 16 month old.

I rarely get time to read nowadays but I do still enjoy a good book - am hoping to get more time to do this in the next 12 months as L starts to learn to sleep a bit better...

So these are most likely to be some of the things I will blog about.