Plans for 2013

I know I’m a little late to this party, but that seems to be the way it is at the moment! Time is flying by so fast, I’m missing all sorts of things. For example, a very good friend had her birthday one month and five days ago (you know who you are!) and I’ve yet to send her her birthday parcel. She’s going to have a lovely late spring surprise at this rate! The daft thing is that I had almost everything I wanted to send ahead of time, and then the days got away from me and I didn’t do it. It’s OK, I do realise how rubbish I am!

So, plans for the remaining ten and a half months of the year include;

1. Holiday – don’t know where, don’t know when but we will have a change of scenery and see somewhere new this year!

2. Redecorate Sweetie’s room before she moves in. Her cot is in our room at the moment, and I think will be for a little while. We need to work out how to put up a curtain rail, as there is no space between the top of the window frame and the ceiling. I sorted out everything in her room this last week though so there’s no rubbish in there any more! However, I still need to decide on a room layout and colour scheme.

3. Get a new kitchen sink. We have one of those beige plastic kitchen sinks at the moment, and since we moved in I’ve wanted to swap it for a stainless steel one. I can’t dye yarn easily until I do, as it would wreck our current sink. Our plumber should be coming out to replace a radiator soon though, so I’ll ask him about it then.

4. Fitness – improve it! I was almost immobile during the last few months of my pregnancy last year, and then it took longer than last time for the pain to go away. On the whole things seem to be more or less back to normal now, so I’m very slowly improving my fitness levels. I aim to go out for walks more as the weather improves, and I always run up the stairs (except when I’m carrying the baby of course!). Baby steps, but it’s slowly slowly paying off.

5. Get my Etsy shop back up and running. I’m planning and working on items for my shop at the moment. I hope to go back to the craft market later in the Spring too, if they have room for me! But I want to revamp my stall completely, so I need to work on that for the next couple of months.

6. Enjoy my kids. They are all three of them growing and changing before my eyes, and I don’t want to miss a minute! Well, maybe the odd minute here or there to go to knit night or Wonderwool Wales, but you get the general gist!

So, these are my overall goals. I’ve got more specific ones, such as improving my baking, or certain projects I want to make. Hopefully I’ll find time to talk more about these as and when they happen.

Baby Sweetie eight (and a half!) month update

Where does the time go? So many times I think about blogging but something always happens to stop me. Mainly, at the moment, something about a foot and a half tall with a cheeky little smile! Baby Sweetie is sprouting up, but strongly dislikes it when I try to do anything other than play with her or ply her with food.

I meant to do monthly updates about her, if only to remind ourselves of how fast she has grown. Alas, that too has gone by the wayside somewhat. So, in brief, she is eight and a half months old already. She is interacting with everyone wonderfully, and is becoming quite vocal. She says ‘ta’ every time she wants something, or wants to accept something she has been offered. She will say ‘na na’ for night night when she or someone else goes to bed. In mobility, she isn’t trying to crawl yet, but if we put her on her back she will roll around the floor to travel. She knows exactly what she wants and will manoeuvre into quite tight spaces to get things!

I bought her some Winnie the Pooh board books and she really loves them. Here she is studying one while I make the dinner (or cookies. There have been lots of cookies recently!).

During January she got three more teeth, bringing her up to a grand total of six. This has made her a bit less happy than she usually is, but we still get wonderful smiles and chuckles. She’s very ticklish, especially by her jaw and her tummy and ribs. She loves that we all make a fuss of her feet when she is stripped down for nappy changes, and looks for her brothers to come and kiss her toes!

Just look how gorgeous she is! Who could resist that smile!

Crafter in waiting

Baby Sweetie has discovered my retractable tape measure and it’s her new best thing ever.

I’ll have her finger knitting by Easter!

Stuck

I had plans to be busy this afternoon, but then this happened;

Sweetie was miserable and unsettled this afternoon, and as GG couldn’t get her to sleep I offered to calm her down. Seems to have worked!

Mind you, it looks like it’s contagious – GG’s now asleep in his new chair with his mouth open. We must be getting old!

I’m working on a hat for my niece at the moment, as well as dungarees for baby Sweetie. The dungarees are all but finished, they only need buttons and decorating. Both the dungarees and hat are my own patterns. I’m enjoying coming up with ideas to design for the babies, although it’d take me months to work through all the ideas I’ve been jotting down recently. Especially if I spend many more afternoons like this one!

Mornings

I like mornings more than I used to. Of course, it helps that I wake up to this view;

Not the best photo as, again, it was taken on my phone. But sometimes even a poor photo is good if it brings back happy memories. This one will certainly do that in years to come. The memory of that pretty little face smiling over at me from her crib beside my bed is already so precious.

She’s so good in the morning. She wakes up smiling, and waits patiently for us to talk to her. Then she has a little play while I drink my first cup of tea. Only then do we get her up and start the changing and feeding. She’s such an easy baby. It’s so nice to have a little time to wake up in the morning rather than having to go from fast asleep to fully operational in half a minute!

Christening

And now for a happier post!

Two weeks ago we celebrated baby Sweetie’s baptism. It was in the same church as both of our sons were baptised, and where we got married. We were lucky enough to have had the same minister officiating at all of the services as well. Father David is so lovely, and so I’m really glad that he ‘dipped’ all three of them!

Lots of our friends came to share the day, which I found really touching. For some reason I didn’t quite expect people to make an effort to turn out for a christening, I’m not sure why! The church was nice and full, and we held a lunch in the church hall afterwards. We decided to spoil ourselves and had caterers to do the main food. We hired Apex Catering and they were absolutely fabulous. Two people came and served a hot carvery buffet to around forty-five of us. Everyone complimented the food, and I would definitely use that firm again and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the buffet. Perhaps someone else managed to get one before it was demolished!

I spent a large part of Friday and Saturday baking. As we were hiring caterers to provide the meal, I wanted to contribute something that I had made. It started off as just a Christening cake. Then it was a cake and a few cupcakes. Then I added in gluten free cupcakes as four of our guests (including Sweetie’s Godmother and her mother and sister) have coeliac disease. Then I couldn’t choose between two designs for the main cake so I decided to do one normal one and one gluten free. All in all, quite a lot of cake!

Here’s the main Christening cake;

This was the gluten free version;

I had a lot of fun learning to make sugar roses for the main cake, and playing with all the food colouring and fondant icing. I was pleased with the results too, and I’m looking forward to trying out some more cake decorating. Hopefully I’ll have an opportunity at Christmas time to have a play!

Finding her feet

Well, her toes at any rate! Baby Sweetie has in the last couple of days decided that her feet are a couple of the best toys ever. Which is good this morning as she woke up more than an hour earlier than usual, and those built in toys have been keeping her very happy!

Not the best quality photo as it was taken in the half light on my phone, but you get the general idea.

By the way, I absolutely love those pyjamas on her. She had them in newborn size, and the boys and I loved the outfit so much we went back and bought it in 3-6 months size. I must confess I’m very tempted to go and see if Sainsburys has any in size 9-12 months to lengthen the joy!

Six weeks old

I can’t believe that Baby Sweetie is six weeks old already – it’s gone so incredibly fast. And she has already changed and adapted to ‘outside life’ so much. Her feeds have settled down to every three or so hours, I’m starting to learn when she needs long naps, and she has been sleeping through the night for a little while now. She’s slept through every night this week, and more nights than not the week before that. So fingers crossed she’ll stay like that now! She generally has her last feed between ten and eleven, and then falls asleep any time between straight away and an hour later. But then she has been sleeping all the way until between seven and eight, so GG and I are getting that precious chunk of sleep which makes us feel so much more human the following day! I expect that it’s been especially helpful for GG given that he’s been back at work for a week and a half now, and doesn’t really want to feel like falling asleep mid-afternoon in the office! He has joked about booking a meeting room for an hour, shutting the blinds and taking a nap, but I imagine that might be frowned upon!

Sweetie is beginning to have longer ‘happy times’ when she’s awake and ready to play and interact. She definitely recognises GG and I as well as her brothers – whenever Handsome or Cheeky walk into the room she’s immediately watching them move and wriggling excitedly if they come towards her. Which they inevitably do because they both adore her! There has been no annoyance or resentment of the baby from either of them; on the contrary she’s the only person who has ever been able to make them happily leave the computer or the TV or whatever games they’re in the middle of – if I tell them that she wants a brother, they come running to do her bidding – I wonder how long that will last!

Both Handsome and Cheeky have changed a nappy – willingly as well! I think they’re looking forward to the time when she gets solid food so that they can help out with feeding her too. They’ve been really lovely about helping out – always happy to stop what they’re doing to go and fetch something for me or do something which can’t wait. They’ve made this whole time so much easier for me, and I think both Sweetie and I look forward to them coming home from school each day!

She has rocketed from a respectable 7lbs 10.5oz to 10lbs 15oz (as of yesterday afternoon), gaining 3lbs 4.5oz in six weeks. Lengthways she is filling her 0-3 month outfits, whilst widthways she is working very hard on some very nice rolls and creases on her arms and legs! She is a strong little girl; she has been holding up her head and moving it around for some time now, and when she’s in a bad mood she has the strength to support her weight on her legs if she feels the need to stand up and shout a protest into my face!

We are gradually building a routine, starting to learn when she needs naps and at what points through the day she’ll feed. Getting her off to sleep can still be problematic – this morning she took more than an hour of grizzling to get to sleep, only had a short nap then woke up for a feed, and has since fallen asleep on my shoulder – but hopefully as we settle into a routine she’ll find it easier to fall asleep without intensive rocking, walking, singing and back-patting.

This last week we have seen her first smiles. I think the boys have had far more than their fair share, but I suppose I’ll get over it in time! It is such a joyous thing to see her smile, and I’m glad that they’ll only get more frequent as she gets older. I’m looking forward to catching one of these early smiles on camera.

The coming weeks should be good with lots to look forward to; more smiles, first giggles, greater interaction. Not to mention more predictability so that it will be easier for me to plan ahead.

Well, that’s only taken me two hours to write, with frequent breaks for feeding, winding, changing and pacing up and down the hallway! Who knew life could be so much fun!

A lovely surprise gift!

I’m a member of a group on Ravelry called the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup. The purpose of the group is to inspire all the members to knit, crochet, weave etc at least one thing each month. Each project you submit gets you points for your ‘house’. I’ve been a member for nearly three years now, and the people there are so friendly. They’re really supportive in good times and bad. As a fabulous example, look what I got a couple of weeks ago;

The blanket is made up ( as you can see) of nine squares, made by five other members of the group and then pieced together and sent to me by one of them as well. What a lovely gift to get! These people have never met me, and in all likelihood never will other than on the internet and yet they took the time and trouble to make this for my new baby. She’s a very lucky little girl! It’s been in use every day, and I can see that it’ll be useful for a long time to come, either as a playmat or to keep her warm whilst she’s sleeping. One of my friends suggested that it might become her snuggle blanket which would comfort her when she’s off colour. However it’s used, I’m sure it will be well used and well loved!

 

Baby brain

You know you’re suffering with a bad case of baby brain when you’re driving along and you suffer a few moments of panic because you can’t remember what you’ve done with your car keys!