Purple toucan

studies, sniffles and superheroes...

2011-11-21T13:19:00.000+00:00

I started writing this post on Friday afternoon, but then got interrupted by dropping Pete off for his exam and visiting my parents for the weekend. However, the thought of starting all over again was not very appealing to me, so please travel back in time with me to 2pm Friday 18th November.....

So, this afternoon Pete has his final oral exam to complete his 9 years of architecture studies! Phew, we'll be so relieved once it's finished and we can enjoy our evenings and weekends without them being overshadowed by revision.

Natalie's been much better at sleeping at night again, she seems to have gotten over the blip we had whilst on holiday (where she started waking up twice each night! She obviously didn't get the memo explaining that holidays are a time to sleep more than you do normally!!). However, last night she woke up at 12.30 and didn't want to go back to sleep! I wonder if she could sense the air of nervousness from Pete's impending exam and it stressed her out a bit. Thankfully the exam isn't until 3.30pm so there has been plenty of recovery time this morning!

Natalie's been sitting up very well recently - a month ago she could manage about 30 seconds before she'd fall over, but recently she's been able to sit up unaided for around 20 minutes! I can never go very far away as she WILL fall down at some point - I have to be on catching alert at all times.

My poorly little girl!

Both myself and Natalie have had a cold this week - I've got a horrible chesty cough (I've actually had it for about a month now - I should probably go to the doctors!) and she's had a really blocked nose, a temperature and a cough. We bought a saline nasal spray to help clear her nose - she's not a huge fan! She puts up a big struggle, thrashing her head from side to side to prevent me sticking the nozzle up her nostril, and making a right racket as if I'm trying to hurt her. But then once I've squirted it up her nose the crying suddenly stops as she realises that she can breathe through her nose and is able to suck a dummy or her fingers again! We've administered lots of cuddles and some snuggles with a blanket in front of cbeebies, as well as the occasional dose of calpol, so hopefully she'll be better soon.

Pete and I have started making more of an effort for our date nights recently - we've always designated one night a week to be 'date night' to make sure that we spent time investing in our relationship, but lately we've ended up just sitting in front of the TV wasting the evening away watching rubbish. Since we've been married money's always been a bit tight, so we've had to be fairly creative with our dates. Here are a few ideas for dates on a budget:

1. Go for a walk - this one's only really do-able in the summer (unless you like to walk in the dark!), and we often go for a walk along the river or into the woods.

2. Orange Wednesday's 2 for 1 cinema tickets - great considering a cinema ticket costs nearly £10 now (I remember when it cost "2.50 at the ABC cinema - does that make me old??). It may be worth going early to get the ticket as they usually get pretty busy on a Wednesday night.

3. Trade in your Tesco Clubcard points for Blockbuster rental vouchers - we've never paid for a DVD rental the whole time we've been married! You can get 12 rentals for £12 worth of Clubcard points.

4. Trade in your Tesco Clubcard points for restaurant vouchers - £2.50 worth of points becomes £10 of restaurant vouchers!

5. Take a pack of cards to a pub or coffee shop (in Oxford we have a chain of ice cream cafe's called G&D's that are open till midnight! There are loads of nice pubs around here too, like The Isis along Iffley towpath, The Victoria Arms in Old Marston, The Angel & Greyhound in St Clements, The Perch near Port Meadow not to mention all the bars down Cowley Road!

By making the most of the things listed above we manage to accrue a bit of money in our 'date' budget so every now and then we get to treat ourselves to a more expensive date!

The other day we went to Atomic Pizza for dinner as a bit of a treat! When I booked the table the woman on the phone couldn't hear my name - I had to repeat it 3 times and on the third time her response was "ooo, that's an interesting name!". I figured that she cant have heard me properly, because 'Eve' isn't really that interesting a name. When we got to the restaurant and I said to the waiter "I've got a table for 2 reserved for Eve", he smiled and said "Eeeve, we've got your name written down as 'Freeze'!" - obviously my superhero alter ego name!

Right, lets bring you back to Monday afternoon....

Pete's final exam went really well on Friday, and he should get the results this week. We're all very relieved it's over and we can enjoy time together properly again without lots of studying getting in the way! Natalie's particularly happy...

A month in pictures

2011-11-14T15:43:00.000+00:00

So its been a whole month since my last post, life as a mummy has recently become a lot more time consuming. I used to think I must be super efficient to be able to juggle looking after Natalie with blogging, gardening, housework, crafting and sewing. Now I realise that I was just really really lucky having a baby that was quite happy playing without much input and who napped at regular times of the day. Now that Natalie's a bit older she's demanding a lot more of my attention, so the blogging (and most of the other things I used to do) has fallen by the wayside a bit.

However, I do want to continue, so here's the last month in pictures (and a few words!)

We went to the Lake District on our first holiday with Natalie...

We dedicated Natalie

Mum and Dad got me a new coat for my birthday (which hasn't actually happened yet, but I saw the coat while we were on holiday! I have actually worn it too - well, there's no point getting soaked in the rain while you've got a perfectly good coat sitting at home! You'll be happy to know that it worked very well!)

I hosted my first craft evening - I'm hoping to do it once a month. I completely forgot to take any photos while people were here (shows how much of a good time I was having!), so here are some shots from the end of the evening.

I almost finished my first quilt and have started my second one - the christmas table runner quilt!

Natalie's enjoyed lots of new foods. She's now eating pretty much what we have for dinner (we've swapped our normal stock cubes for baby stock). She's had jelly, beetroot (purple nappies!!), her first curry, and a naughty bit of ice cream from daddy's cone!

Natalie's now got 6 (well 5 and a tiny bit) teeth! We cant believe how quickly her mouth's filling up! She's discovered that she can grind them too which is GREAT (I'm being sarcastic - it's one of the most horrible sounds I've ever heard!)

I bought a nice biscuit - now used as a 'cake'- tin from the spangly new Sainsbury's store near us!

That's mostly it I think! Here are a couple more cute ones before I leave (hopefully not for a whole month this time!).

I've made my first quilt (almost)

2011-10-11T20:06:00.001+01:00

A while ago I was given some old fabrics (curtains, bedsheets and a dress!) from my mother-in-law, so I started making a quilt! As I began, I thought "this is easier than I thought it would be", but then I got to the actual quilting bit and the unpicking began! I've had to simplify my design to match my skills, but as a first attempt I'm pretty happy with it. Here's the process in pictures:

The benefit of using second hand fabric is that I didn't need to wash it to pre-shrink it (yes, I just hung it on the washing line to get a nice photo!).

First I had to decide on a pattern for the quilt, so I drew up some options but here's the one I settled on.

I then drew a square template to cut my pieces from...

...and cut out all my squares.

I then had to sew them all together - at this point I was getting a bit full of myself as I managed to do it fairly quickly.

Next I decided to sew a border on:

...and then it got tricky. I decided to go for a fairly complicated free hand quilt pattern, but quickly realised I'd been way too ambitious as the quilt started to pucker and the bulk of it got wedged in the sewing machine! So I spent a few days unpicking the bits I'd done and then I just quilted along the lines between the squares instead.

So it's almost done - I just need to sew the bias binding round the edge of the whole thing! The back is a bit of a mess, but I've learnt from my mistakes and will do things slightly differently next time. I've already bought the fabric for my next project - a Christmas table runner:

And now for something a little different - we bought Natalie a nice wooly hat because we're going to the Lake District next week, it looks very cute! She's been wearing it on our bedtime walks (which normally end with her falling asleep!)

Round Our Way

2011-10-06T15:28:00.001+01:00

The arrival of Natalie's teeth has triggered a change to her bedtime routine, as we now have to brush them after she's had her bedtime milk feed. So we've started feeding her dinner, followed by a bath (extremely necessary - she's becoming a more and more messy eater by the day), and then we pop out somewhere local for a walk before giving her some milk and brushing her teeth.

This has meant we've discovered some really nice places right on our doorstep, and it also means we dont waste half an hour watching rubbish telly waiting for bedtime! We have the advantage of living close to the Thames path, but even the walks round the neighbourhood are pretty interesting.

A bit more of an update on Natalie:

We got some bandana bibs (from Bubba Bibs) and Natalie's dribble rash has cleared up a lot! Not sure yet if the rash has cleared because of the bibs or because we've cut orange juice out of her diet this week (an experiment suggested by my mum because I used to be a bit allergic to OJ).

They do a great deal - 5 for £10.45 plus 1 free - 100+ designs to choose from!

Natalie started eating a lot of new things last weekend - Weetabix, cow's milk, chicken, fish, fromage frais and cottage cheese (she doesn't like this one - I dont really blame her, it looks like sour milk!). She even had jelly today, I made up some using fruit juice and gelatine sheets and it went down extremely well!

mmm, chicken!!

grated apple fangs!

We had a few new words (well, sounds really) from her - she now says 'dada', 'gaga' and blows raspberries!

Natalie's strong legs are being put to good use as she now loves standing up!

And again, for the grandparents (and anyone else who needs a big Natalie fix every now and then), here are a couple of cutie pics:

Half Birthday Celebrations!

2011-09-27T15:57:00.000+01:00

As our babies are all about to reach their 6 month milestone, our NCT group (antenatal classmates to those not in the 'baby' loop) decided to get together again. The mums and babies have been meeting up weekly since the babies were a few weeks old, but the dad's haven't seen each other or the babies for about 4 months so a meet-up was well overdue! We got to see everyone again except for the family with twins, so we'll have to get together again soon - what a shame!!

It was great to catch up with all the guys again and compare how our bubba's are doing, I'm so glad we did an NCT course! We were a bit apprehensive at first because of the cost, but the friendships we made are invaluable so it was well worth the money!

New Parent Must-Have Items..

2011-09-26T16:15:00.002+01:00

I was planning to give this post the title '10 Must-have Items for New Parents', but as I was writing it I kept thinking of other things I couldn't live without (OK, slight exaggeration - we could have lived without them but they made life a whole lot easier!), so the list is 14 items long.

Here, in no particular order, is my list of items to make life with a new baby much easier (I've added a few links to help you find items easily online!):

1. The Right Nappies
We settled on Pampers after having major leaks with Huggies and a supermarket brand. I'm sure it can't be that Huggies aren't as good, because they keep winning 'Nappy of the Year', so I've come to the conclusion that certain nappies fit certain babies better than others. Therefore, I recommend trying a few different brands to see what fits your baby best - you normally get a few different free samples in your Bounty pack (people with babies will know what this is, but for those that dont, Bounty give a pack of freebies to pregnant women at various stages of their pregnancy!)

2. Value Nappy Sacks (16p for 100 from Sainsbury's)
After buying some more expensive sacks we realised that no matter how much money you spend, a nappy sack is a nappy sack! We bought some biodegradable ones once because that's all the shop had, and I was baffled - why would you want a biodegradable sack when the contents of the sack aren't biodegradable?? Anyway, I bought 10 packs of the Sainsbury's value nappy sacks when they were only 9p per 100, but now they've gone up to 16p - still a bargain though!

3. Sangenic Nappy Bin (£9.99 from Mothercare)
After my 1000 nappy sack purchase we heard about the Sangenic Nappy Bin from some friends of ours and decided to buy one while they were on offer in Mothercare (I'm still getting through the sacks when we're out and about so I dont feel too bad!). The bin is brilliant, it makes a string of nappy sausages by twisting the nappies in a tunnel of plastic, sealing in the smell. The canisters that go inside it aren't amazingly cheap, but they're occasionally on offer if you shop around.

4. Sleeping Bag
Natalie is a bit of a blanket cycler, which means that when she has a blanket on top of her she tends to use bicycle legs to remove it! For this reason we found the baby sleeping bag a bit of a life-saver as she would wake up in the night cold from kicking off her blankets, but with the sleeping bag on this wasn't an issue at all! We'd definitely recommend getting a few so that while one is being washed you have a spare.

5. Tippitoes Bath (£11.95 from Amazon)
We tried using a basic baby bath initially, but found that Natalie hated bathtime because we were a bit awkward at holding her so that she didn't slip under the water. Then a couple of friends introduced me to the tippitoes bath which is shaped in a way that means the baby can just lie back and enjoy the bath without being held! Since getting it bathtime has been a lot more enjoyable.

6. Bath Thermometer
Another thing that helped Natalie enjoy her baths more was a bath thermometer! Before we had one we were making the water too cold and she hated it (despite the elbow test telling us that the bath was a perfect temperature!), but since upping the temperature a bit she's much more comfortable.

7. Bottles
We realised a slight con from the bottle companies - they make small 4oz bottles and also bigger 9oz bottles, along with a variety of teats for the different stages of your babies life. We bought the small bottles which had the small teats on them, and then when Natalie was able to have more than 4oz in one sitting we had to buy some 9oz bottles. We now realised we could have saved a lot of money by just buying the big bottles from the beginning, and buying smaller teats separately to use on them! Think carefully before buying as we now have lots of small bottles that are completely useless to us!

When you get to the weaning stage....

8. High Chair (Chair, tray & cushion £20.48 from Ikea)
Ikea do a great high chair made of one piece of moulded plastic with 4 metal legs that pop in the bottom. You can buy a tray separately and an inflatable cushion to help your baby sit upright more easily. Why do I love this high chair? Because it's so easy to clean - just one wipe and you're done, there are no creases for food to get stuck in! The tray is nice and big too, with a good sized lip around the edge to stop things falling off so easily. The fact that the cushion is inflatable means you can deflate it as your baby gets bigger! The whole thing is really easy to transport too as the legs pop out with the push of a little button.

9. Shallow Spoons
When your baby starts eating from a spoon they're not great at getting the food off because they dont normally have teeth to help! The best spoon we found is from a set that Ikea sell (consisting of a frog bowl, bib, beaker and spoon), but a close second best are a set of 6 spoons from Ikea (£1.49 for the set) - they're very shallow and have an angled handle so they're really easy to use.

10. Bowls (91p for 6 from Ikea - Bargain!)
What more can I say - they're colourful and very cheap! We only bought one set of 6 but I'd recommend getting a couple of sets as we use them for all sorts of things!

11. Hand Blender
Save yourself a lot of washing up by using a hand blender instead of a full size food processor to purée food for your baby. We use one I got about 10 years ago but Argos do a few cheap ones!

12. Lidded Ice Cube Trays
When you make a batch of baby food it's a great idea to freeze it in an ice cube tray - we use 2 cubes worth for one portion. I came across these trays in a Poundshop in Cambridge - the lids are great to stop your baby food getting contaminated in the freezer.

13. Bag Clips (£1.99 for 30 from Ikea)
Once the baby food is frozen I pop it out and store it in a plastic bag, labelled with the date and contents, and sealed with one of these great little bag clips. Bagging them up frees up your ice cube tray, and the clips just make it a lot quicker to get a couple of cubes out when you need them - I started just sealing the bags with the little plastic coated wires that come with the bags, but I found it was a bit of a faff undoing and doing it up again each time.

14. A Rain Mac with a Hood
You may think this is a strange thing to have on the list, but after battling with an umbrella on a rainy trip to the supermarket one day, I've realised that umbrellas weren't designed to be compatible with pushchairs! The pushchair itself has a rain cover so Natalie was nice and protected but I was having a tough time trying to hold my umbrella in one hand and steer the pushchair with the other, whilst avoiding the puddles (and the curb, and the wall...)! So I've decided a rain mac is the way to go. I dont have one yet but it'll be going on my Birthday/ Christmas list!

So there you have it, my list of items that have kept me sane through the first 6 months of Natalie's life. Hope it's helpful to any new or expectant parents out there!

(wow, this has turned out to be a very long post - sorry about that!)

Natalie update...

2011-09-22T17:28:00.001+01:00

So I realised I haven't posted for a while - I've had trouble getting Natalie to nap during the day for over a week but she seems to have gotten back into the rhythm again now so my hands (and brain) are free to blog!

Here's my latest photo montage - Natalie at 25 weeks - wow, she's nearly 6 months old - time's gone so fast!

Natalie now has 2 teeth, which she's still getting used to - the other day she bit her tongue and made it bleed - she was NOT very happy about that!

She's widened her repertoire of foods:

carrot

swede

butternut squash - her favourite

avocado & papaya - not so keen on that one!

rice cakes

and also banana, courgette, green beans, potato, apple, sweet potato, pear, peach, brocolli, cauliflower, leek, and dried fruit! Next month we'll be trying some meat, and not long after that we'll hopefully be able to feed her the same things we eat!

Natalie's new 'thing' is standing up - we obviously have to hold her while she does this but she's loving having her feet down and straightening her legs at the moment!

And to finish today, here are a couple of pictures of Natalie looking cute (these one's are for you Nanny, Nonno, Granny & Grandad!)

I spy with my little eye....a tiny bit of a tooth!

2011-09-15T18:34:00.001+01:00

It's been a while so here's a bit of an update (and a recipe to make amends!).

Last weekend was my grandad's 90th birthday and my great aunts 60th jubilee of nunhood (is that a word??) so we made our way to Upminster for the celebration.
29 members of the family pitched up, along with a few friends which was great, although Natalie was a bit overstimulated by all the attention. Grandad's house used to feel huge when I was little, but now that the family has grown so big it's struggling to contain us all!

Natalie can now add butternut squash to her list of favourite foods! She's also tried courgette and green beans, and is loving all the new experiences. Next week we'll move onto 3 meals a day (at the moment she's just having breakfast and dinner) which will be fun, it wont be long before she's eating the same meals as we are.

We managed to get a great charity shop purchase the other day - this lovely pumpkin patch vest was only 99p!

We harvested our carrots the other day. They're a special variety - they're spherical! They taste yummy - very sweet!

I finished (well, almost) the student welcome packs for church. Here's what they look like:

You're probably wondering when I'm going to tell you about the tooth I mentioned in the title of this blog. The wait is over! Yesterday Natalie did 5 poos - literally every nappy bar one was a pooey one. I now realise why, as she was smiling up at me this morning and I spotted a tiny (and I mean really tiny) bit of tooth poking up from her bottom gum! What a big girl - she's growing so fast!

(ok, you can't really see it in the pic but it is there!)

We also had some really good tummy time yesterday, mucho progress!

I almost forgot to mention that our dishwasher miraculously came back to life! After handing in his case study, Pete decided to have another look at the dishwasher to see if he could fix it. He switched it on for a rinse to see what it would do, and it seemed to work fine! Not sure how long it'd been working for, hopefully not long so that the weeks of washing up haven't been in vain!

I've been thinking about the blog, and have decided I'd like to make it a bit more tailored as I currently cover lots of different subjects in each post. I'm coming up with a list of topics so watch out for the slightly more focussed Purple Toucan, coming very soon!

Now, here's the recipe.

Bacon & Pea Risotto

We eat this meal quite a lot because its really tasty but very easy to make and doesn't require many ingredients at all. You may think that the words 'easy' and 'risotto' are oxymorons, but this is a bit of a cheats risotto that doesn't require constant stirring. Enjoy...

Serves 2
1 onion, finely chopped
2 rashers of bacon, chopped
150g risotto rice
500ml hot vegetable stock
50g frozen peas

1. Fry the onion until lightly browned in 1tbsp olive oil and a knob of butter in a saucepan (about 7 minutes).
2. Add the bacon and fry for 5 minutes until it starts to crisp.
3. Add the rice and stock and bring to the boil. Stir well, then turn down the heat and cook, covered, for 15-20 minutes.
4. Stir in the peas, add a little pepper, and cook for 3 more minutes.
5. Dish up and serve with some grated parmesan.

My sister got married!

2011-09-07T20:51:00.001+01:00

On Monday my beautiful sister got married! The wedding happened on the London Eye, and then we all took a boat to Greenwich for the reception meal in the Fan Museum's Orangery.

A day of firsts for Natalie - first time on a train, in a taxi, on a giant big wheel, and on a boat, and she seemed completely unphased by it all! She did really well, despite the awkward attempts at breastfeeding on a train and a boat in a posh frock - never again!!

Here are some photos from the day...

Finished!

2011-09-01T19:34:00.001+01:00

Pete finished his case study last night and got it bound today!! What a weight off his (and my) shoulders!! We can get a bit more of a life as a family again now!

Natalie's tag blanket is finished! I got Pete to sew the last corner together in the end because I didn't want to mess it up (and he's good at that sort of thing), and then I quilted it this morning and gave it to her to try out - I think she likes it!

I harvested our chili's from the garden - they look great, not sure how hot they'll be (and I'm a little bit scared to try them in case they're 'blow my head off' hot!).

Tonight we've got our community group over for dinner and to say goodbye to John who's going overseas soon - we'll miss you John! As a special treat I've made a massive pavlova...yum!

I'm sure it wont be long before that get's 'finished'! (oh dear, I sound like Pete, sorry about that!)

On a different note, Natalie's birthday buddy came over with his mum today and it turns out that it's not only Natalie that loves the taste of her feet - Harry had a little nibble too!

We're looking forward to my sister's wedding on Monday - on the London Eye! Can't wait! I've tried Natalie's outfit on and she looks very cute:

It'll be nice to see Nicola and John again, and to meet Natalie's new cousins!

foot in mouth....

2011-08-30T21:17:00.001+01:00

Natalie's doing really well at eating, she loves carrot, swede, and baby cereal!

Potato she's not so keen on, and she makes a face as if I'm feeding her a lemon when I give her potato to eat (it makes me so sad, I love potatoes!!).

We gave her some diluted fruit juice too which she didn't like at first she eventually got the hang of drinking it.

However, Natalie's got a new favourite thing to eat, even more than carrot....her right foot!

At every opportunity she grabs it and shoves it in her mouth. Yesterday she managed to get her big toe in her mouth and her second toe up her nostril - what a talented daughter I have!

Here are some pictures of a present I made for my friend's birthday last week - I really enjoyed making it, I may have to make one for myself too!

Pete's been working really hard over the last month on a case study he has to submit to university in order to graduate as an architect (along with taking some written and oral exams). He decided not to work on it on Sunday but to spend some time with me and Natalie so we went for a walk in the woods near home. It turned out to be a really nice walk, we're thinking of doing it again on Christmas Day after dinner (yes, I know - I'm already thinking about Christmas!).

I cant wait until November when all of Pete's uni work is finished and I get my husband back! It's been pretty tough having him at work during the day and then working in the evenings and at weekends too - I know he's looking forward to getting his home life back too!

I've noticed recently that Natalie's become very interested in the labels on her toys, so I decided to use some of the many ribbons I have collected over the years and make her a tag blanket:

It's not quite finished yet - I need to sew up the corner that I left unstitched so that I could turn the whole thing inside out again (I never know how to do this neatly - I think I'll have to do some research to find a tidy way of doing it), and I'm going to quilt the square to hold it together better, but I think she's going to like it!

Pretty in pink (...and orange!)

2011-08-25T11:00:00.001+01:00

I forgot to mention in my last blog the picnic I had on Friday with 2 of the other mums from JellyTots. We went to Christchurch Meadows by the river and laid out our blankets ready to eat our sandwiches and feed our babies, and along came a goose! It waddled closer and closer to us, even stepped onto our picnic blanket, so I got up and tried to shoo it away, but this just made it angry and it started hissing at us, so we gave up and moved to a new location. We were ok for a while, so we settled and I started feeding Natalie, when suddenly a group of geese started making a bee line for us! Tan and I both instantly stood up, whilst feeding our babies - impressive huh! - and Kate, the SUPERMUM, ran around like a loon chasing the geese away! Thanks Kate!!

Here's Natalie in a lovely new pink outfit she inherited from her cousin Lucy - isn't she cute! We normally avoid pink but we made an exception because we couldn't resist this tiny tank top!!

On Tuesday we progressed from baby rice to....

Natalie loved it! She's had a whole ice cube (defrosted of course) of carrot for the past 2 days and its gone down very well.

It has however changed the output product, and Natalie's nappies now look like they're full of puréed carrot! Lovely!

I got these great ice cube trays in Poundland for freezing puréed food- they work really well because they have lids so you dont have to wrap the tray in clingfilm.

I made some very simple brownies yesterday afternoon, in case it rains today and the trip to the pub on the river I've got planned with my friends gets relocated to my house.

I couldn't believe how easy they were to make, here's the recipe:

400g caster sugar
225g butter, melted
60g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
225g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
60g walnut halves (I used hazelnuts and dried cranberries instead)

Preparation method
1. Mix all ingredients in the order given.
2. Bake at 180 C / Gas mark 4 for 20 - 25 minutes in a rectangular 23x33cm greased baking tin.
3. Cool, and slice into equal square portions.

They're really tasty, we had some for dessert with ice cream! Yum!!

weeeeeeeeaning...

2011-08-22T15:24:00.001+01:00

It's been a weekend of experiments...

On Friday I tried Natalie out in the baby bouncer we inherited from our friends - she was a bit confused by it because she kept spinning herself round in circles, so in the end she just hung there and tried to eat the front of the harness - maybe this one should be put on hold for a while until she's a bit bigger!

Then on Saturday we tried Natalie in dungarees for the first time (thanks for the hand-me-down Heze!), which looked very cute but may need to be teamed up with a girly top in future to avoid any gender confusion!

Also on Saturday was Natalie's biggest 'new' experience - solid food! Well, mushy food anyway - we tried her on some baby rice for the first time.

She loved it! Next week we'll move onto some fruit and vegetable puree - yum yum yum! I dont think I'd quite realised how messy she'd get with eating, I think we'll need to give her a bath every night from now on (instead of every other night), or we'll have a crusty baby!

Natalie got to spend lots of time with her cousins this weekend while we visited granny and grandad, and she loved all the attention she got (so much so that she's been a bit grizzly today with just mummy for company!)

Where's the week gone!

2011-08-17T14:35:00.000+01:00

Sorry it's been a while, Natalie's decided that daytime napping is sooo last month, and has been demanding that she stay downstairs with mummy instead (where she generally falls alseep!)

So, here's a brief photo diary of what I've been up to since the last post...

We went to the park for a JellyTots picnic

I've been thinking of ideas of applique projects I could do (inspired by the flower on these dungarees)

Natalie's been wearing her new cardigan, knitted by Nanny B!

I've tackled a mountain of washing and sorting of clothes (and a few teddies) given to me by my friends that are moving overseas

Natalie's been enjoying Heze's old rocking horse (although she was pretty unsure to begin with!)

We tried Natalie in her new high chair, not long now until she'll be eating in there!

It's a bit warm still for Natalie to use her quilt that Nanny B made her, so we've bought it out as a playmat instead!

We said goodbye to our friends before they move overseas, we will miss you guys!

I got my hair cut

We went for a nice Sunday afternoon walk with Tim & Katherine, and subsequently booked a holiday together in the Lake District in October!

Natalie's been practising rolling over, she can go from her back to her right side, but then she gets stuck - where should that right arm go?

Yesterday I cracked an egg for my lunch, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a double yoker!

Then I cracked the second egg in and it also had a double yoke - what are the chances!

I've been working on re-arranging the kitchen cupboards because I've been getting fed up with the things I need often being on the top shelves, out of my reach. It's a work in progress.

We've discovered the culprit of our nibbled lettuce - there are loads of them on our lettuce crop, so I think we'll have to dig it all up and start again!

So there, you're up to date with the life of the McWilliams! Righty, better go, there's a nappy that needs my attention.

Num num num...

2011-08-10T17:56:00.001+01:00

I made some fridge cake last night - delicious!

Here's the recipe:

1. Put 100g unsalted butter (cubed), 2tbsp clear honey and 400g chocolate (I used 200g dark and 200g milk) into a bowl set over a pan of simmering water and stir occasionally until melted and smooth.

2. Take the bowl off the heat and stir in 5 digestive biscuits (chopped), 100g mini marshmallows and 100g macadamia nuts (halved).

3. Tip the mixture into an 18cm square tin that you've lined with clingfilm. Leave to cool, then chill for 2-3 hours until set.

4. Remove the cake from the tin and slice to serve.

Meanwhile in the garden...

Our tomatoes are thriving, I dont think we'll have to buy any more all summer! I spotted our first few chillis too...

If anyone local would like some basil we've got plenty of mini plants so you're welcome to adopt one or two! (just comment on this post and I'll get in touch)

Natalie's been fairly happy today, compared to yesterday when her teeth we're giving her a bit of grief, so I took the opportunity to get some nice photos.

Recently I've been thinking about my diet, mainly because I'm starting to think about weening Natalie. Since having a baby I've really had to think consciously about drinking enough water and eating plenty of fruit and veg, because I want to make sure that she's getting the right nutrients from my milk.

Today's lunch:

fruit & veg: 2 portions, water: 1 glass (recommended 3 litres per day when breastfeeding, which is about 8 big glasses), plus dairy, protein, carbs and fat!

I've devised a weekly planner that I can stick on the fridge and I can tick off every time I have a glass of water (or diluted squash or juice) or a portion of fruit/ veg. It's also quite useful for me to fill in at the start of each day with calls I need to make, emails I need to send, and things I need to do. Here it is, feel free to print it for yourself if you think it'll be useful (you dont just have to be a breastfeeding mum to use it by the way!) - just laminate it or stick it in a plastic pocket and write on it with a whiteboard pen.

Hello again, it's been a while!

2011-08-09T19:45:00.002+01:00

Wow, I hadn't realised I hadn't blogged for almost a week - I must have been busy! I cant think what I've been doing, how embarrassing - I actually have to look in my diary to see what I did yesterday! I hope this is something that happens to all mums, and its not just that I'm losing my mind!

On Friday I had one of the most hectic days ever! I was going to our toddler group picnic so I needed the car that day. Therefore, my day consisted of this:

7am - get up and feed Natalie
7.45am - shower, get dressed, eat breakfast
8.30am - drop Pete off at work (an hour round trip, with a trip to the supermarket in the middle to buy my picnic lunch - I ran out of time to make anything!)
9.45am - got home just in time to give Natalie an early feed because at...
10.15am - I left to pick up Jules and Poppy to take to the picnic at...
11am - the picnic was surprisingly hectic (well, for me at least), as I tried to keep Natalie in the shade and defend her from the persistant wasps!
2.30pm - we left to come home, dropping Jules and Poppy off en route. After dropping them off I got stuck in traffic which meant I didn't get home until...
3.30pm - when I had to feed Natalie before leaving to pick up Pete at...
4.25pm - I got Pete and we drove home, arriving at...
5.25pm - when I quickly tried to blitz the house before our dinner guests arrived at...
5.30pm - Luckily they sensed we needed a bit of space so they waited in the garden while we whipped up some food, then at...
6.15pm - we ate.
7pm - we put Natalie to bed.
10pm - our guests left and we got packing for our weekend at my parents house! Phew, what a long day!

The picnic however, was still fun!

This weekend Natalie got to meet lots of new people:

her great grandad

her great great aunt (the oldest and youngest family members - 93 years between them!)

my childhood friend and her family

and loads of people from my old church (this is one of my best friends Abigail!)

She did really well considering, but was shattered by the time we put her to bed on Sunday night.

My next creative challenge is to make 100 student survival kits that will be given away at church to new students that come along in September! So far, I've got 50 tins of baked beans to transform, I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Hot hot hot!

2011-08-03T21:46:00.002+01:00

I took Natalie along to our local Children's Centre today for their 'Multicultural Day' - on first impressions it looked like a normal fun day with face painting, toys and books and biscuit decorating, but then I spotted the multicultural element - some henna painting! There were lots of kids walking round with their arms out like zombies because they'd had henna art done on the backs of their hands - looks like a great way of getting kids to behave! They also had a massage lady there giving free 10 minute chair massages to advertise her business so I got one of those! Natalie was not impressed at being held by a stranger, but she soon settled into it and I kept getting updates from the massage lady while my face was wedged in the chair on how much Natalie was smiling.

Natalie's been struggling with the heat - she can barely stay awake for more than an hour, she's even been falling asleep during feeds. When she was awake she was very chirpy though! I got the biggest giggle out of her today - I was telling her we needed to go upstairs to change her nappy, and she seemed to find the words COME.ON.THEN hilarious, so I kept saying it for about 5 minutes until she tired herself out laughing - it was very cute! I've tried it since and it doesn't work anymore - I'll have to figure out a new way of making her laugh - she likes to keep me on my toes!

Since my post about things you can get done in 5 minutes I've had a message from my friend with an additional 5 minute idea (a bit of a treat, thanks Hannah!):

"we had fresh blackberries one morning with drop scones - they only take a few mins to make, are simple, and very tasty. add a blob of creme fraiche or yoghurt and yum! we had them one busy morning between lots of errands, about 11am, then we didn't need lunch til later on! hope you enjoy if you eat them."

This got me thinking along the food route and I remembered a 5 minute chocolate cake in a mug recipe my aunt sent me ages ago - dangerous stuff, it means you're never more that 5 minutes away from cake!

Here's the recipe: 5 Minute Chocolate Cake

Summer's finally here!

2011-08-02T21:12:00.000+01:00

As if she wasn't already fed up with medical intervention, we had to take Natalie for her third set of injections this morning! This time she had 3 jabs in her legs rather than the usual 2, and she seemed to take it much worse than the last 2 times. She screamed the surgery down, and then all day was on edge, smiling one minute, crying the next - bit of an emotional rollercoaster. However, after some calpol and a half hour walk to the park she managed to fall asleep and all was calm - it also did me good to see people who didn't just scream in my face (thanks Wendy & Martha!). The park did her good, she was very interested in looking at all the new things (mainly trees and climbing frames), and experiencing new sensations like the breeze on her skin (which frightened her initially but then she seemed to quite like it).

When we got home she was generally more chirpy, smiling and chatting a lot more than crying. I had to do some ninja parasol moves on the way home as it was super sunny and then it started raining the biggest raindrops I've ever seen - they were like water bombs dropping from the sky!

When I was reaching for the Calpol in the kitchen cupboard I spotted a terrible sight....

A big mummy spider with hundreds of baby spiders, getting ready to invade and conquer our house!! I swiftly shut the cupboard door (after taking a photo of course) ready for Pete to deal with when he got home.

I harvested some of our tomatoes today too - there are still loads of green ones so they should see us through the summer!

I've been trying to re-design our bedroom. I'm not sure when we'll get round to decorating it, but it's been a fun project to daydream of how it could look!

Oh, and here's a photo of our lavender, just because it looks pretty...

poorly baby but a tidy house!

2011-08-01T15:41:00.001+01:00

Natalie had had a rash in the creases of her neck for a little while, probably caused by the heat as this area gets very sweaty. On Friday morning it had suddenly got very raw and was weeping with a yellowish fluid - niiiiice!

So, I took her into Boots to get the pharmacist to have a look and tell me whether or not we should go to the doctors, and he looked horrified - I believe he actually stepped backwards and said 'ew'! So, I got an emergency appointment that afternoon, and it turns out she's got a staphylococcus aureous infection so we've been given some antibiotics and a cream to put on it. The antibiotics are pineapple flavoured - yet another fruit flavour to add to her repertoire of drugs! She will forever associate fruit with feeling unwell!

She doesn't look too bad despite the horrendous mess under her chin!

All weekend we've had to give lots of kisses and cuddles to take Natalie's mind off of the medicine (which she hates!). Pete has discovered a fail-safe way of making Natalie smile, and occasionally dribble into his mouth!

After lots of flying, they were both exhausted!

On Sunday we finally cracked out Natalie's 'Hello Kitty' shoes that Abigail bought for her months ago (thanks Abs, they're gorgeous!) - her feet are finally big enough, so we're trying to get as much use out of them as we can before she grows out of them!

We had a weekend of cleaning and other household chores, and it almost killed us! It got me thinking that we need a strategy to keep the house and garden from getting on top of us, and I figured if we can do it little and often then it wont build up like it did. I know this sounds obvious, but doing any housework when you're busy looking after a baby is a bit tricky, you cant really afford to start anything that will take longer than 5 minutes because at any moment you could get summoned back to mummy duties. So, I've compiled a list of chores that can be done in 5 minutes, so whenever I get a free 5 minutes I can do something productive with it! This can also motivate anyone who works full time and feels too busy to do anything at home in the evenings, as a 5 minute chunk of housework seems much more appealing than a whole evening cleaning session!

5 minutes tasks:

- washing up from breakfast, lunch or dinner (if you wash up after each meal it doesn't take very long as dirt hasn't dried on and there isn't much to clean!)

- wipe kitchen surfaces & sweep floor

- pop a load of washing in the machine

- hang out a load of washing to dry (because of my OCD I organise the washing first and hang it up in groups of like items so when I take it down it's much quicker to put away!)

- dust a room

- hoover the house

- clean the toilet (Domestos ZERO limescale is amazing - we had 1cm thick limescale in the toilet when we moved in and this stuff cleaned it away completely!)

- wipe down the bathroom

- put the bins out

- tidy a room (I have a crate where I put anything that doesn't belong in the room, and I can then quickly tidy the room and put the stuff where it belongs later!)

- water the garden

- weed the vegetables

- mow the lawn

OK, that's enough for today - I have to get ready to pick Pete us from work because we sold the car today! Finally and perfectly timed as our temporary insurance runs out tomorrow. Back to a one-car family at last. Clio, I will miss you!!

cake, cress and cute

2011-07-28T12:24:00.001+01:00

The blackberry cake went well - it was really tasty! There's still a tiny bit left but I may have to make another one with the remaining blackberries as Pete loves it! Maybe I'll try adapting the recipe to make some muffins!

Natalie's now at the stage where she can look at the pictures in storybooks, so Pete's been reading her a German book called 'Der Wakelzahn' (The Wibbly Wobbly Tooth). Did you know that the tooth fairy collects teeth to build her house with!

I decided to plant some seeds that my parents gave me - they're sprouting red cabbage, meant to be very good for you! They grow like cress, so I've popped some on my windowsill on some kitchen roll and we'll see what happens.

I've also planted some basil on the window sill (in a pot of course), as the shop bought basil always dies really quickly in our kitchen so I'm hoping I have better luck with the homegrown variety.

I'm feeling it's time for another Natalie photo montage. We did one when she was 2 weeks old (we like to call this 'the funny face of Natalie Grace'):

And here she is now at 17 weeks: The Very Smiley Face of Natalie Grace!

babies, blackberries and bandages...

2011-07-26T17:41:00.001+01:00

So, got together with the other mums from church on Friday and we came up with a name for our toddler group - JellyTots! I've made a logo and we're good to go, just waiting to find the perfect venue for the group come September.

I found our first red tomato this weekend!

Plus, lots of strawberries have turned red too, yay!! Unfortunately something's been munching on the lettuce and pak choi though, and the neighbours cat keeps trying to use the raised bed as a toilet!

I'd been using the water bottle technique to deter the cat but I think they've gotten used to it - I'm going to try putting a net over the raised bed so the cats cant stand on it (well, not without getting their leg stuck!)

Pete's been working on the front garden to make it look less like a wild meadow - he cut the grass last week (took him about 2 hours because it was nearly a metre high!), and on Saturday he trimmed the hedge which desperately needed taming! Seeing the space look a bit neater I've been inspired to think of what we can do with it. It's a strange space, it's quite big but as it's out the front of the house we're not sure what to use it for. So, I'm going to start sketching some ideas...

On Sunday Mum and Dad came to stay so that they could look after Natalie on Monday while I went on my first aid course! The course was really interesting, but a little disturbing imagining having to perform first aid on your own baby! I'd say I feel more confident now though, so I'd recommend doing a course if you can - mine was free at the Children's Centre so its worth checking if your local centre runs one before paying to do one.

While I was out Mum and Dad took Natalie for a walk and found loads of blackberry bushes nearby so we all went for a walk later and picked a punnet - we got quite an impressive hoard! Now they're all washed and have been soaked in salt water to get rid of all the little caterpillars (yep, I thought it was a weird thing to do too but they did all float out of the berries!). Now I need to figure out what to do with them, it feels like the wrong time of year to make a pie - I found this recipe for a Blackberry & Apple Loaf so I may give that a go!

I gave Natalie some more tummy time today and she managed about 5 minutes - I feel like we're making progress!! Look how high she can hold her head up!! I'm so proud!

Creative in pyjamas

2011-07-21T13:08:00.002+01:00

I spent most of yesterday in pyjamas because I was feeling exhausted from the few nights of disturbed sleep we've had courtesy of Natalie. The plan was to try and nap when Natalie did, but I couldn't quite manage that, so instead I browsed the internet for creative ideas and spotted these lovely quilts:

from oliverands

from jcasa

from onegirl

I want to make something similar that we can use as a play mat/ picnic blanket in the garden, but I think that project will have to wait until we've sold our car and we have a bit more of a disposable income again.

Anyway, whilst browsing the internet I felt inspired to create, so I got out my boxes of paper and fabric scraps and got crafting! I made some bookmarks inspired by ones I found on an italian blog:

and I started making some fruity pictures inspired by some I found on notonthehighstreet.com:

I also got a lovely belated wedding gift through the post from my kiwi friend Anita - it was a cute tile with a fern on it - Thanks Anita!!

This morning I decided to give tummy time another go - normally Natalie hates it but as the health visitor told me she should spend at least 20 minutes a day on her tummy I've been persevering and today I added a cushion into the mix, which actually made it more bearable for her - for 30 seconds at least!

Progress....

2011-07-20T11:02:00.001+01:00

We've had progress in a few areas over the last couple of days...

We went swimming on Monday evening for the first time with Natalie! I wouldn't say she 'liked' it, but she didn't cry so we'll take that as a positive sign. We had to lower her in very gradually because she looked very unimpressed when we just went all the way in straight away, but after a while she got used to all the new noises and sensations. The swimming nappy seemed to work, although that may be because she waited until we were out of the pool and the nappy was off to do a wee...all over her towel! I managed to get in a few lengths too while Pete stayed with Natalie in the baby pool. We're going to try and go at least every fortnight in the hope that Natalie will eventually love it - it took my friend's baby 3 weeks before he smiled in the water, so watch this space.

We tried a new recipe: beef, courgette and potato pie - yum! It was really tasty and a great reward after it took Natalie nearly an hour to drink her bedtime bottle of milk (what's that about!!). It took about an hour in the oven so luckily we popped it in before we started the bedtime routine!

Natalie's first teeth are almost here and unconventionally it looks like it'll be her fangs that appear first! She's started waking up in the middle of the night again and I'm assuming that it's her teeth that are causing it - I hope they pop through soon so we can get a bit more sleep!

Double progress last night when I got stuck into weeding the garden and inadvertently got stuck into an hour long chat with our neighbours! I feel like I know them loads better now, and was able to lend them some cake tins and WD40!

Natalie finally fits into the dress her granny made for her the day she was born - YAY! I think she looks very cute in it too - the flower on the front is made from fabric from my bridesmaid dresses (2 year old fabric - that's practically vintage for Natalie!)

Swimming and massage - what a pampered baby I have!

2011-07-18T15:19:00.001+01:00

On Saturday we had a failed attempt at Natalie's first swim - the pool was shut all day for a swimming gala! It was a bit of a shame because we'd psyched ourselves up for it, but we're going to try again tonight as soon as Pete gets home from work.

We had some friends over on Sunday afternoon to make cakes because we discovered a few weeks ago that some of the guys we know have never made a cake before!

Natalie woke up in the middle of the night last night which she hasn't done for a while (she's gotten very good at sleeping through), and it threw us off a bit - we can normally rely on her to be our alarm clock but she didn't wake up this morning until 8.35am, and neither did we - eek!! Pete had to grab some clothes and fly out the door to get to work on time, and we had to quickly get fed and dressed because we were going to baby massage at the local Children's Centre at 10am. Luckily we all made it to where we needed to go (almost) on time.

When we got to the Children's Centre we were a little bit worried to find out that the lady that runs the massage group was on holiday so it wasn't on, but someone checked for us and it turned out that even though the leader was away the mums who've been attending for a while were going to be doing it anyway and they were happy to teach us the moves! It was a great little group where we were instantly welcomed and Natalie seemed to love the foot and leg section of the massage. She didn't mind the tummy bits either, but when we got to the back she got a bit grizzly - she's still not great at holding her head up when she's lying on her tummy. So all in all I'd say that was a success and I'm planning on going every week. Next week there's a first aid course running that I've signed up for, I may try and find a babysitter for the two and a half hours I'll be out of the house but they said we could bring the babies if we cant get a sitter - could be tricky as I've never left her for that long while she's awake (and across a feed time).

Now I'm back at home I've noticed how much the garden's grown over the weekend! I need to get weeding the flowerbeds - I'd been leaving the little leaves that appeared because I thought they were more poppies growing, but now they look more like potatoes - whoops!

I also need to thin out the veggies a bit or we'll end up with miniature veg again like we did on our balcony garden in the flat we used to live in!

Busy day...

2011-07-15T20:10:00.001+01:00

It's been a busy day today, but in a good way! This morning I had a couple of ladies over from church to talk about starting a toddler group now that we've actually got some children in the church. We went from having 2 kids to suddenly having about 12 in the space of 6 months! I was given the task of setting up and leading the group by our church leader, which will be a challenge seeing as I've never done anything like this before, but I'm excited about it. After the meeting today I feel really confident that we can do this well, I cant wait to get it started!

This afternoon I took my friend and her baby on a trip to Mothercare. I needed to get a swimming costume for Natalie because tomorrow we're planning on taking her for her first swim - YAY (hope she likes it!). For some reason they dont sell swimming costumes for babies as small as Natalie so I had to get a 'swimming nappy' instead, and she'll just have to be topless. Even the swimming nappy is pretty big on her, she's got such skinny legs - I hope she doesn't poo in the pool because that cozzie's not going to contain anything! I also spotted some sunglasses that we're reduced and couldn't resist buying them - safety first (plus they were really cute!). As soon as I put the glasses on her face she went completely expressionless - what a poser!

I also had a chance to plan our meals for next week - what a productive day I've had! I do this every Friday, based on what we have left in the fridge/ freezer/ cupboards - it's helped us cut down our grocery budget loads as we only need to buy a few things each week, and no food goes to waste. I like to throw in a couple of new recipes each week if I can to keep things interesting. I think I'll try and do the shopping tomorrow morning and leave Pete looking after Natalie - it's so much easier without the baby.