I have an 8 month old…

and boy do we all know about it right now! He is so frustrated trying to move but not quite getting there yet. He seems to be able to shuffle himself around in a circle on his bottom but we have no real forward movement yet. Cam is also loving standing and bouncing in your arms while flapping his wings as if that will help him take off! He can also stand unassisted at the couch or coffee table and the grin of achievement on his little face is just priceless!

Sophia is sick with a cough/cold right now but is in good spirits. For some reason her eyes(one in particular) get really green and gunky whenever she is sick. It’s like she has a cold in her eyes – can anyone shed some light on this? I’m planning on taking her to the doctor at some point soon to have her eyes tested as I think she may need glasses. She seems to be having a lot of trouble judging distance. For example I can’t even count the number of times she has missed the step and fallen up it, walked into a door handle or missed the coffee table with her cup or plate and it’s ended up on the floor.

We were told at Kindy yesterday that Sophia could start morning Kindy in a months time. I said “Oh no, really?, I am not ready for that!”

We just cruise here in the mornings right now – Isabella is the only one who needs to get ready to go anywhere and I just make her lunch and ship her out the door at 8.15 to walk to school with friends up the road. I can’t even fathom getting all of us organised to leave the house so that Sophia can be at kindy for 8.30. 8.30!! Who gets anywhere with 3 kids by 8.30? Well obviously a lot of people but I am not one of those =)

Isabella is doing well at School – only two more days of term yikes! I do enjoy not having to rush around in the holidays but she is hard work to keep entertained. It looks like Mum will take the girls to Waiheke for a few days in the first week and they’ll go to Waitomo to Dave’s parents for a few days in the second week so actually I am getting off pretty lightly!

Creatively I have been busy, I’m working on a layout and card kit to go up for sale on the website by the end of the week, so I’ll show some pics of that soon.

Bron very kindly took some photos of the tin I made her and emailed them to me so here they are:

Also I made a cute card with Bron for a School mum friend who had a baby a few weeks ago:

And this was the tag we made at the Stampin’ Up workshop I hosted last week

It was great fun – Bron was fabulous as a first time demonstrator and sales were so good I managed to score some extra goodies. Now we just have to wait for them to arrive, I can’t wait to get stuck into Christmas cards this year!

Wow,  long post! Guess that’s what happens when they are few and far between.

Take care and have a great week

xx Kate

Me again! Back so soon?

What’s going on? Ha I just have a bit of extra time up my sleeve right now is all. Kiddies are all tucked soundly into bed with Cam just recently starting to go down at 7.30 instead of having that last little baby feed at 10pm and down for the night. He’s in a good routine at the moment since we ‘fixed’ his night sleep issues about 3 weeks ago now. He had been sick and was waking constantly feeling unwell and unfortunately this waking carried over and became a habit even when he was well again. It got to the point where I was going in every 1/2 hour from 12 onwards to stick his dummy back in so that he would go back to sleep! After about a week of this I’d had enough, I was exhausted, I kept having accidents during the day like walking into things or falling up the stairs etc and I was so short tempered it was crazy!

So I did some internet research and concocted a plan that would work for us. First I went into his room, found all his dummies and threw them in the bin. That was step one and that was hard enough! Then I stopped feeding him until he fell asleep and made sure I put him down in his cot awake, no rocking, no feeding! He needed to learn how to settle himself to sleep and not rely on me or his dummy to do it for him. If he cried I’d wait a few minutes, then go in, pat his chest or back and say shush. I wouldn’t pick him up or make eye contact. I’d stay a minute and then out again. The first night was the hardest but it got easier really quickly and then we were there! Sleeping through the night, no feeds and if he does wake he”ll usually settle himself back to sleep. Dave was great, after nearly 7 months of it just being me getting up in the night he finally came to the party and helped me get through it. Sure some nights I had to give him an extra shove out of the bed and there were a couple of baby settling technique-related arguments at 4am but for the most part it was good and I think we are both pleased to have done it together.

I got some more photos on Friday, these are straight out of the camera, I will probably edit them a little in Photoshop elements before I print. I found a great site through Cathy Z’s blog called The Pioneer Woman and have been getting all kinds of great photograpy tips and having some laughs reaing Ree’s blog along the way. It is a fantastic site.

Anyway here’s my babies, arent they beautiful?

So there you have it, that’s me for a few days. If anyone has some other baby sleeping ideas or techniques I’d love to hear them.

xx Kate

Fiona wants an update

and because it is well overdue and also a well known fact that I live entirely to please my friend Fiona I thought I better indulge her.

So what have I been doing?

Well… tons actually,here’s a list of my top 5 things I have been doing this past month while absent from blog world.

1. Practicing my photography skills on my beautiful baby boy who is now 7 months old!!. See case in point:

2. Exploring my latest obsession (I have many of these that take over everything for weeks at a time -before this it was Cathy Zielske’s books) of coveting nearly every item in the Stampin’ Up! catalog. Gosh that stuff is gorgeous. I went to a workshop at my friend Bron’s house and she fell in love even more than I did and has just become a demonstrator. I’ve offered to host her first workshop here in 3 weeks time, can’t wait!

3. I’ve been baking with Sophia. This is something we love to do together in fact she asks me everyday if today is a baking day. In the last week we’ve made Stephs Coconut macaroons (to die for thankyou Steph!), several batches of chocolate chip cookies and mini choc cupcakes that we decorated with nests (piped icing around the outsite with MnM’s in the middle for the eggs).

4. I’ve been creative, making tons of cards, a cover for my journal, a tin for Bron to keep her cards in (to say thank you for the mountain of beautiful clothes she gave me for Cameron), scrapbook pages, and now a mini flip album to record Cam month by month is in the works.

Here’s some of the cards:

I’m actually selling this as a kit so if you’d like me to send you all the materials and instructions to make these then flick me an email. $10, bargain!

5. I had all my haircut off last week into a cute little pixie style. I love it and it’s made me put more attention into making myself look nice and not like I got dressed in the dark or haven’t showered for a week. LOL!

Dammit, Dave always takes photo’s when I have a mouth full of food, but hey you get the drift. This was taken at a picnic we had at Western Springs on Saturday. Man it was hot! Spring is on the way.

How was that Fi? Now it’s your turn.. what have you been doing? Since you don’t blog, you best pick up the phone, I’ll be sitting by it waiting for your call.

xx Kate