Early morning giggles!

My girls had a party at three am. My toddler brought her pillow, Elmo and Grover plushies into our room and chucked them all in between my husband and me, got comfy and she started chatting and giggling. 

Our baby girl decided at that moment that she was hungry so my husband made a bottle while I tried to convince our toddler it was still sleepy time. Sleep was no fun when she knew baby girl was up, so she wiggled down off the bed and ran to help Daddy. I dragged myself out of bed and snuggled with everyone on the couch. 

Today I cancelled all social outings, chucked on my crazy Aztec pants (that my husband thinks are too lare-y for public viewing) and decided we will have a lazy day at home. Completely understandable right?

Rediscovering old toys

We did a bit of a tidy yesterday and organised all the fluffy toys. This morning my little one is rediscovering old toys and having a blast! 

She came out of her room with an armful of elephants. Five in total. Such a joyous and LOUD household this morning with so many elephants running around!

Holey Doley, praise nap time!

Both little ones napping at the same time! I've dreamt of this for months!!!!

Now I'm torn, nap or put on a grown-up movie with a warm cuppa?

I've been wanting to watch "Keeping Mum" for ages, too much "Postman Pat" with my toddler can made me crave more adult version of English adventures! Hello, Rowan Atkinson and Maggie Smith, english humour and easy laughs.

Lets see how much I get to watch before my girls stir.

Mamma is sick

Being a mamma is hard! Being a mamma with a toddler and a new born is very hard! Being a mamma with a toddler, new born and a cold is miserable! 

My husband let me sleep as much as I could on the weekend but as he left for work this morning I held him tight wishing he could stay home and care for us. 

Last night, after both girls were in bed, we stacked nappies and wipes, cut up fruit for snacks and savoury bits for lunch, sterilised bottles and filled formula dispensers. Little things to help today, to make being a sick mamma a little easier.

Talk like a pirate day "Arrrr!"

 

 

I am getting excited about "talk like a pirate day". My daughter and I have been watching a little too much ABC4Kids and there has been a lot of promotion for Friday's programming with all the pirate-y shows planned ... this Mamma needs a tad more sleep, but its impossible with a newborn and a toddler. 

So I decided to make us pirate eye patches! Arrrr! 

Here is a visual step by step process:

 

 

 

After drawing/cutting a cardboard template it was easy to cut two matching oval pieces of felt, to make two eye patches.

I used a basic running stitch to join the elastic and folded the oval over the elastic to create an eyepatch shape.

I used the same basic running stitch to join the halves of the felt together and hid the elastic join underneath the felt. I used white crochet cotton, because it was easy to grab, I think the contrasting stitches look pretty awesome.

Tada!

 

"Arrrr" one very pirate-y pillow!

 

All completed!

 

Now make another one! But don't accidentally twist the elastic and sew it all together before you realise what you have done {like I did}.

Tada! All ready for Talk like a Pirate Day!

Note: An older child could easily make something like this while supervised. Have fun with your eye patches activity!


 

Embellishing clothing

Little ones grow so quickly it can get quite expensive buying clothes, so the challenge for every mamma {when you are on a budget} is finding good quality clothing that doesn't cost a fortune.

On a recent trip to the shops I decided my little one needed a few more summery onsies. I found a great bulk buy pack in orange and grey tones with little foxes featuring on several. The foxes were adorable, the plain grey onsie in the pack was very boring. It's always frustrating when you buy in bulk and end up with one or two dodgy choices. 

So, it was time to pull out the crochet cotton and sewing machine and add a little something to make my girls outfit a bit brighter!

I found a online pattern for a small crochet doily and opened a ball of bright yellow crochet cotton. I was so excited when I finished! It was the very first "real" doily I have ever made and the design looked perfect. It was just the right size for my baby girls new onsie.

Note: Here is the link to the "Small Daisy Doily" pattern I used. I followed the pattern using a size 3.00 hook, with slight change to the scalloped edge to get a rounder scalloped pattern (replacing a the treble with a double crochet). 

{http://ignesblog.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/daisy-doily/}

Cardboard box craft: Cameras

After growing up in a big family, one of five children, I am used to having a lot of noise around me. Since having our first daughter we have music or television on in the background while we go about our everyday tasks and activities.

I was always a little unsure about introducing television too early to a little person. I did a bit of research, aka google-ing, and the majority of reputable governing bodies claim that little persons under two years old should not watch television... Hmmmmm. I was a little anxious reading these recommendations as I already had exposed my little one to television, but I felt a little better when I realised she didn't actually watch it very often. Although we have it on in the background, in general the only time she actually watches television is when a song starts on ABC4kids, she dances and then goes back to the activity we were doing. 

Now that she is older, she sits and watches little programs, Play-school, Sesame Street, Peppa pig, Octonauts, Tinga Tinga. We have only just started watching disney movies but they need to be supervised and themes softened {disney villains and dastardly deeds can be very scary for little ones}. After my earlier google-ing I made a decision that watching television would be an interactive activity, it would be a chance for us to learn new words, concepts and social relationships.

One of the shows recently introduced on ABC4kids "Big Teds Adventures" is great for this! It is a short offshoot program from Play-school, where Big Ted goes to the zoo, basically the program introduces an animal, explains  a few interesting things about a animal, the actors and Big Ted take pictures and have a bit of a song at the end. My daughter loves pretending to take pictures with the actors and we always sit together, talking about and exploring what's happening and right at the end we go "click click click".

After seeing how much my little one enjoyed taking pretend photos I wanted to be able to give her a little pretend camera to play with. Trying to keep costs down on purchasing toys that may never get much play, I decided I would make one. It cant be too hard to construct a box out of felt/fabric, sew on buttons, stuff it and such. A few weeks went by and I never had the chance to craft something.

Eventually I came up with a brilliant idea that we would make cameras together out of recycled soap boxes, paper, glue and pens. It meant we had a fun craft activity and we would have a purpose for the item when it was completed! My daughter loved it, she never wanted the activity to end, had to use up all the spare pieces of paper and glue as much as she could manage. 

I didn't think the cameras would last very long, but after five weeks, we still have two cardboard cameras floating around the lounge room and every time Big Teds Adventures come on my little one runs for her camera and gets ready to "click click click"! She has also taken lots of photos of mummy feeding her new little sister, a few pictures of her dollys and some pictures of Daddy. 

Crochet Toddler Slippers

Another crochet project, toddler slippers! I found a pattern on pinterest with a chart for the soles of a pair of slippers and managed to get a matching pair of soles completed. I was a little nervous about getting them to match. I taught myself to crochet nearly two years ago via YouTube and google, so my skill level in replicating the same thing accurately is not 100%. 

I was so happy once I pulled off the soles I jumped back on pinterest and opened up the link to the blog with the chart for further instructions on making the slippers. Then in dismay realised it was Russian or Czech or some other foreign language I could not recognise and was never going to be able to read or get google to translate. My keyboard does not make all of the letters/symbols I was reading! 

I decided it took too much time to get two matching soles to give up, I tried to find a free patten to adapt to the soles but could not find anything, so I made it up! Yep, I managed to make a decent looking pair of toddler slippers! I'm not completely convinced every single stitch was identically placed in the pair but after scrutinising over them for a few minutes I could not actually find any stitches that were missing/added incorrectly. 

I had to bribe my toddler with stickers to get her to try them on three times while I was making them for sizing and to make the strap. Now that they are completed she loves them! Unfortunately our house is completely tiled, so crochet slippers are incredibly slippery! {he he he he, pun intended!} I will have to find some way to add grips to the base.

Bottle feeding: Dribbling Dramas!

After struggling with breast feeding our second daughter, we needed to bottle feed. Unfortunately the difficulties getting her to latch was not so easy to overcome. Our little newborn drowned, dribbled and cried until she managed to down enough milk from the bottle to quench her thirst. She gained weight, was happy and content with a full belly, yet throughout every feed she bathed in milk. 

It was so difficult bottle feeding, when I think about it, it was just as difficult as breast feeding {except for the pain and physical damage caused}. We spent so much time watching her feed, spotting where the milk was escaping, repositioning and coaxing her to suckle. We noticed that she clamped down on the teat and had wide gaps in the corners of her mouth, milk escaped and air was sucked in. She burped like a pro but all that air caused her difficulties settling. 

Before having our second daughter, I purchased new teats {all stages/ages} for my old bottles, so that I could express and Daddy could share in the experience of feeding. Our second daughter struggled so badly with latching to the bottle and all those bottles/teats were useless. We ended up buying a bottle of every type, with every different shaped teat, from our local the store. Anything to help feeding become easier! 

Eventually we found the most squashed looking teat we could and feeding became a little easier. MAM have a flattened teat with grooves for the babies lips to sit on each side of the silicone. The shape was narrow enough for our daughter to seal her small mouth around and now she dribbles significantly less and is not taking so much air. 

We purchased the longest bottles, so that as she grows we do not have to keep buying bigger bottles. There were two types, basic bottles and anti-colic bottles. The anti-colic bottles have a plastic screw on base {with holes in it} and a silicone seal that pushes into the base which is designed to reduce the air taken in while feeding. Unfortunately this sleep deprived Mamma often struggles to position the silicone seal tight enough and often leaks milk everywhere ... we prefer the basic bottle.

Breastfeeding the second time around

When you try and try and it still does not work, its time to have a good cry and follow the path the universe has set you. Why I could breastfeed one daughter and not the other feels so wrong but my grief that I am unable to breastfeed this time will ease and I know the most important thing is my baby girl has a full belly and love around her. 

I never considered how much my internal concept of being a mother revolved around being able to physically feed my daughters and provide for them. To be able to nourish that precious little person the way nature designed me. Even tho I have milk to offer her we cannot seem to find a way to fill her tummy without causing more and more physical pain and damage. The more damage, the less milk makes it into her tummy, the less she feeds the more upset we all become. 

I intended to write a long blog post about everything we tried, what helped, what made everything worse, how long it took to get my little one to gain weight, how long it took to heal ... In hopes that one day someone might find comfort, stumbling across this blog, to know they are not alone and that there are things that help. But honestly, its still too fresh.

Nesting vs nausea

Being pregnant is hard work! I was unbelievably blessed with an incredibly amazing and easy pregnancy with my first baby. The experience will forever be remembered as "glowy". Second time around and I am shocked at how difficult everything is! If this is what women normally experience with pregnancy (and I suspect it is) I wonder how the population ever increases.

Only a few weeks away from meeting our baby girl and I decided its time for nesting to kick in. Unfortunately I think nesting has been replaced by nausea, backpain, braxton hicks and reflux. The worst combo for when you want to get anything done. 

Even my little one, not yet 2yrs, asks if I'm "tay?" when I'm trying to move about and get things happening! Mamma guilt slips in that she is too young to have such awareness and concern for mamma's wellbeing. She is just too smart and knows something is up. I remind myself how blessed we all will be having another little person to share our hearts and lives with. Mamma guilt is inevitable I guess, all the hard stuff will be worth it in the end. 

In moments of pure exhaustion I have been sitting in the couch watching play school and the wiggles with my little one. She runs around the lounge room dancing and singing while I crochet mobile decorations for the baby's room. She is so vibrant and joyful it helps lift my mood and make each day easier. She has fallen in love with the amigurumi owls we made for the mobile, pointing out what colours they are, facial features and showering them with kisses. She runs around 'hoot' 'hoot'ing and has a blast. I am getting very excited to see two little girls running around wild and carefree. 

Note: Crochet amigurumi owl pattern is available on Craft Passion http://www.craftpassion.com/2013/10/owl-amigurumi-mr-murasaki.html/2

Tiny beanies!

One of my friends has started a community group supporting premature babies in hospital, they are delivering newborn packs to new families while their babies are in hospital. All items are donated from the community and designed to help new families during the scary journey of premature birth.

So, lately I have been using stolen moments to work on some cute beanies for these little babies. I am overwhelmed at how small the beanies are! I'm 31weeks pregnant, so making such tiny beanies makes me realise how much more my baby has to grow before she is born. 

Happy Mothers Day 2014!

Creamy Carbonara (egg free version)

Our little one loves cooking, she wants to help with everything and it can get a bit much during the dinner time rush. Luckily my husband and I are pretty in-sync and can keep her involved and patient while getting the meal ready. Tonight's menu ... Creamy carbonara (the no egg version since I am pregnant). Our little one loved helping cut vegetables, passing ingredients and taking turns stirring. It can be a bit of a handful at times but at least meal preparation is not boring!

Mmmmmmmmmmm! 

I have a powerful love of pasta in general and while pregnant with our first child we basically lived off macaroni and cheese packet mix meals loaded with whatever we had in the fridge. My husband never complained, he just accepted that once the baby came he would get more variety back in the dinner menu.  Pregnant second time around and my love of pasta remains.

This meal, however, is better than any packet mix pasta creation! Lots of fresh ingredients, that satisfying sizzle of bacon and mushrooms cooking, creamy cheesy goodness ... Sigh. Food heaven!

This is the second time I have made this dish and I am feeling a bit proud. My husband kept going back for more. No leftovers tonight!

 

Creamy Carbonara (egg free version)

Ingredients:

6-7large mushrooms 

4 large shallots

3 rashers of bacon 

1 tablespoon of oil

4 cloves of finely grated garlic

1tablespoon of butter

300ml thick pouring cream

100ml milk

30gm finely grated Parmesan cheese

250g fettuccine 

Method:

1. Boil fettuccine in saucepan, rinse and keep warm during cooking

2. Dice bacon, mushrooms and shallots.

3. Grate garlic and Parmesan cheese

4. Fry bacon with grated garlic in oil on high heat until cooked

5. Add mushrooms, shallots and butter and fry until mushrooms brown slightly

6. Lower temperature and add cooked fettuccini and cream, milk and Parmesan cheese

7. Cook until sauce thickens to desired consistency

Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Being pregnant is hard work! One of the most annoying parts is not being able to sleep despite being completely utterly exhausted. So, waking at 430am is frustrating but it gives me a chance to catch up on the housework and enjoy a coffee in luxury just before my little one wakes for her day. This morning I am extra lucky because I baked chocolate fudge brownies yesterday and they have been cooling in the fridge overnight. Cutting up chocolate-y treats is definitely a task you need to do when there are no little hands reaching out to steal it while you chop.

Mmmmmmmm, chocolate-y goodness! 

I do not particularly remember where I originally got this recipe from, could be a Martha Stewart or a Taste online share but not sure anymore, I've had it for ages and had to modify it to my own baking methods. I have changed the types of flour and amount of chocolate and made a few tweaks to make them full and fluffy rather than dense and fat. Overall, I think this is my 'go to' chocolate fudge brownie recipe. It takes some time to cool but worth it in the end for such perfect bites of manna! (Scroll past the photos for the recipe!)

 

Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Ingredients: 

200gm of chocolate (or choc melts)

225gm unsalted butter (melted)

2/3 cup of Self Raising Flour

2/3 cup of Cocoa

2 cups of caster sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tbsp of vanilla extract

Method:

1. Line baking pan with baking paper and preheat oven to 160degree celcius 

2. Roughly chop chocolate into small chunks 

3. Melt butter until nearly completely melted and allow to cool slightly

4. Sift Self Raising Flour and Cocoa. Stir in Caster Sugar

5. Add eggs and butter alternatively to the dry mix, stir well

6. Add vanilla and chocolate until combined

7. Spread over lined pan and bake for 1hour

8. Allow to cool in pan then on a baking rack. Transfer to cool in fridge overnight

9. Cut into squares once cooled completely

Chocolate alternatives for Easter: Play-doh Plastic Eggs

Searching for plastic eggs to put stickers and such in my little ones easter basket was a nightmare! Pinterest would make me think that plastic eggs are a dime a dozen during Easter holidays and that every Mamma has an endless collection of them stored in her magical handbag of awesome. Not this Mamma! This Mamma was going to write a general letter to all those Pinteresting Mammas and demand they share their secret plastic egg source! 

It took literally two weeks of scouring supermarkets and specialty stores until I found some in Woolworths hidden down the toilet paper isle! I picked these Play-doh spring eggs up with the last of my grocery money and did a little impromptu dance surrounded by toilet paper and personal hygiene products. Any one walking past would have thought me odd, but when you spend so much time searching, you have to celebrate finding your treasure!

Now that I have these babies secure in my possesson I am not sure whether I can dump the play-doh to use the plastic eggs! They are just perfect for little people to play with during Easter!