Friday, December 21, 2012

Six months and more FOs

He loves standing now!

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Finished this cardigan after three years and three months!

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Finished a cardigan for Finn.

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Made a hat for my mothers' group Kris Kringle.  Mack needs to grow into this obviously :)

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Thursday, December 20, 2012

Finn vs Carrots

He's not too keen on his vegies.


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Heading out

On our way to see Radiohead tonight! Nervous that Finn will need me!!!





Sunday, November 04, 2012

Some crafting accomplished!

I finally made this quilt for Finn (yeah coming into summer, great timing)!  It's really hard to find time to work on things in a block, even though this is really quick to make it took four or five sessions.  I used this lap blanket tutorial from Purl Bee.

I did start quilting around the clouds by hand but frankly it looked a bit crappy.  I've never done any quilting before and found it hard to stop the fabric at the back from twisting as I went around the cloud. It sat around for six months before I finally unpicked the quilting and basting and went back to my original plan (which was to use the Purl Bee tutorial).

Other things I've been doing, when I can snatch some time, are reading up on baby development.  It's fascinating.  Did you know babies are actually born with their brains not fully developed and really important parts just won't grow unless they're loved and cared for.  They've scanned the brains of Romanian orphans (who are left alone in their cots all day) and found that they have blank spaces where parts like the orbitofrontal cortex should be.  It's terrible to think about babies being unloved an uncared for, I got teary a few times.  There's also this article published recently which shows comparison scans of a cared for and a neglected baby.
I've read Your baby's Development, Why Love Matters and Making More Milk so far and would highly recommend them.

I read a little of Save Our Sleep but her suggestion that you leave your baby to cry for hours alone to teach them to sleep really didn't sit well with me so I'm not going to read the rest, I think it might just confuse me.

And here's Finn and Matt enjoying some reading.  This book is hilarious and the illustrations are lovely.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Four months

Finn's four months old now and getting more adorable by the minute. I love him so much I think my heart might burst sometimes!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Three months

Three months old.  The time is flying by!  Thank goodness we've now solved his daytime crankyness!  I probably understated it in my last post, he cried most of the day and it was getting really hard to cope with.  It was really upsetting me that he was so upset and I didn't know how to help him and by the end of the day I was almost crying myself.

My feeding routine was that I'd give him 15 mins on each breast and then a top up of 50ml of expressed milk from a bottle.  We started this on the advice of a lactation consultant when he was a couple of weeks old as he was not feeding well and losing weight.  I tried to wean him off the bottle quite a few times with no luck (ie more crying than usual) and so went back to what I knew.  Finally though I realised the source of his crying was probably tummy upset due to too much lactose as he had all the symptoms (putting on weight well but lots of vomiting, lots of mucous in his poo, crying straight after feeds).  Determined to get him off the bottle, once again I tried to cut it out, cold turkey, and he hasn't looked back!  Now I just let him feed from one side until it's drained then offer the other (which he sometimes doesn't need).  He's a pretty slow feeder though, it takes 40 mins to an hour.  It's so much easier for me though, no expressing, washing bottles, heating bottles in the middle of the night, phew.

Now things are fantastic, well, he still vomits a lot which results in a lot of changes of clothes when it escapes his bib, but he's very happy and smiles constantly!  And he sleeps though!  He goes to bed around 7pm and wakes anytime after 4:30am, the last two nights he hasn't woken until 6am!  Happy mummy!!!





He has impeccable timing with the vomit.


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Two months

Finn's two months old already! He's smiling and making "talking" noises now. It's so cute!! Luckily he sleeps really well at night but unluckily he's a bit cranky during the day so I've had a few frazzled days where I called my parents-in-law and said "I'm comin over" and handed Finn to them. Love him to bits though :)

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Adorable!

My gran and Finn.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

I have a baby!

Born yesterday 9 June at 10:01am
3.4kg
Labour 11 hours from waters breaking til delivery
No name yet
3 weeks early
Gorgeous!

Both dad and bubs are doing well :)

Friday, June 08, 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

I'm an Auntie!

My husband's brother's wife (ie my sister-in-law) had a baby girl two weeks ago.  She was 4 weeks early, had a miraculous 3 1/4 hour labour which started just two hours after she finished her last day at work!  Baby Jasmine was just over 6 lb and very cute!

But I was not prepared with any handknits!  It took a few days to find the right pattern and yarn but I finally settled on the very cute Camilla Babe (3 month size) and, because I had yarn left over, the Small Things Bonnet (newborn size).  Both patterns were lovely, the bonnet in particular was very neatly constructed.

Ravelled here and here.





Tuesday, May 15, 2012

FO - Baby Bonnet

I made this baby bonnet a few days ago.  I don't know why I made it now, it's sized to fit a 9 month old and I have got lots of other knits I should be doing/finishing as a priority.  I guess the unusual construction intrigued me and when I found this yarn (Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted) I had to make something with it now!  I bloody love this yarn!  It's so pretty and soft and drapey and smells like wool (and 50% alpaca) is supposed to!  As soon as I can get myself over to Wondoflex I'm going to get some more to make a baby cardigan.

The hat turned out pretty cute but as I don't have a 9 month old to try it on I can't check how the fit is :)

Baby cap

Here on Ravelry.

Pattern:  Baby Bonnet from Purl Soho
Yarn:  Misti Alpaca Tonos Worsted in colour Silar

Nesting, nesting

I do like to be organised (thought I'm not a neat freak or anything) so I'm not sure if this a pregnancy nesting thing or not but suddenly I want to organise things.

First was my jewellery.  For the last 10 years it's lived in an old wooden cutlery box which was very attractive on the outside but inside a bit of a jumbled mess.  I bought these stackable, flock lined trays from Howards Storage World and now keep them in one of my bathroom drawers.  So much more efficient!  I can now find things, try them on and look in the mirror instead of rummaging about and walking back and forth between the bedside and bathroom to see how they look.

Next shoes!  I had them all in shoeboxes but of course I had to pull them out and open them up to see what was in each of the boxes.  These are also from Howards Storage World and are currently on sale (at least in Nunawadding they are) for $7.95 for 3 boxes.


Finally clothes hangers.  Totally un-necessary really, but I just couldn't help myself.  We have walk-in robes and our clothes are all visible from the bedroom so I will get to appreciate the matchy matchy-ness every time I look in that direction :)  These are from Pink Lily, they're pretty good hangers but the hooks are not all attached on the same angle which makes them look a little untidy and takes the shine off the matchy-ness a little.  I am being fairly picky at the moment!


Today I'm going to a Blum showroom to organise the kitchen cutlery and utensil drawers and my make-up drawer!

And no, the baby's room is not finished, nor do we have all the clothes he'll need!  I'll work on that next!

Saturday, May 05, 2012

FO: Toy ball

Whipped up this toy ball this morning from the Purl Bee beach ball pattern with a jingle ball inside it.

The jingle ball came from American Felt and Craft. I've never been able to find these anywhere in Melbourne.  I know some people use a regular bell and put inside a small container so that it jingles but I've also never found an appropriate container.  So these are awesome.  I also got a few other bits for making toys :)



Toy ball

Thursday, April 26, 2012

I"m making something


I'm back!  Lost my blogging mojo for a while.

I made a bunny using this tutorial from Hazelnutgirl.  He's very cute but it was a real pain in the butt trying to sew the eyes on after he'd been stuffed, there's nowhere easy to hide the knots and because he's stuffed quite firmly it was hard to get the neat stitches that I wanted.



Hazelnuts felt bunny


And this is my longer term project :)  I'm 31 weeks pregnant today, it's a boy and he's due on June 28th, my sister's birthday!

31 weeks


So far pregnancy has been great, no morning sickness, no bloating, no puffy ankles, no needing to pee all the time.  I'm a bit suspicious that this is too good to be true and he's going to be a little horror when he comes out.

I think though I have developed one pregnancy symptom, the nesting instinct, suddenly I want to make baby things!  Right now!!

On my list is:

  • toys
  • nappy bag
  • change mat
  • cot quilt (bought the fabric for this on Tuesday and going to start today)
  • pram blankets
  • bibs
  • burp cloths

I'm going to take the dog for a walk and then get cracking on the quilt!

So I'm probably going to be blogging more regularly now and boring you all with baby talk, photos etc.  I"m so excited about it!  :)