My baby boy is BIG now!!

Eli went into a big bed last night... *sniff* well, its a toddler bed that Greg picked up cheap from work... but no cot anymore.... oh, *sniff* he is growing up so fast.... he was SO excited to sleep in his bed though, and jumped right in and fell straight asleep after his bottle (the next thing to go I think!)... we were a bit worried about him falling out numerous times coz he's a bit of a squirmy-wormy sleeper... but he only fell out once really.... he didn't notice though... and then at other intervals during the night I found him sleeping with his head on the bed, but his legs off... and once on his tummy on the floor... lol.... here he is all ready for bed!! *sniff*

I also got a few snaps yesterday while we were all just mucking around on the bed...

My 3 beautifuls...

Love love love these ones of Greg and Lani... he's gonna love them too when he sees them!! He's got a special place in his heart for his little girl, as I'm sure most Daddy's do for their daughters. Definitely have to scrap these ones too.

This one we call 'kiss monster'... Lani LOVES the kiss monster.

The two babes in their cow-print MCNs... beeing meaning to get one of this for a while... its not a very good pic, but anyway.... they are still so cute!

And a couple of Eli...

(We attempted to have his hair cut at the hairdresser the other day.... unsuccessful... he would not sit still.... so looks like I'm going to have to try myself!!)

And a couple of Lani...

Jai went off very eagerly to Grade 3 today. We have both been looking forward to school going back all week.. I personally think that 6 weeks off is too long - for parents AND the kids!! But I'm happy to have life back to 'normal' now, as much as we had fun on the holidays, and it was good not having the school morning routine! I intended to get a pic of him before school today, but 8.30pm rolled around too fast and we were out the door... might try and get a quick snap this arvo - still technically the first day back right!?

Well that's about all for now, just wanted to get those pics up there...

Ciao!!

7 months old

Baby girl,

You are now 7 months old, boy oh boy that time has gone so fast.

You certainly make life around here very enjoyable. We just LOVE having a little girl around.
Your brothers adore you, and Elijah especially expresses this. Almost the first thing he says each morning when I come in to you both, is 'Lani!' - he wants to see his little sister. He looks at you with this big proud loving cheesy grin most of the time. Its so nice to see that sibling love. I'm sure it will die down once you're into his toys though...

You are almost crawling now - your own version of it though. It looks like what I can only explain as a 'caterpillar'... you get up on your hands and knees, then sometimes you'll reach out your arms, and sometimes you'll just fall back to your belly, then you stretch those arms out, and scoot along on your tummy, then get back up on your haunches again. It's definitely starting to serve its purpose now though, as we can no longer contain you to the loungeroom - you want to be under the computer, the dining table, in the kitchen when Mummy is cooking - wherever the action is. You seem to slowly be getting the gist of moving your arms alternately, but haven't quite got the arms and legs together.... I'm sure it won't be too long and you'll have it. We wonder if you will crawl the way your brother ended up doing it - with his bum in the air and his legs straight... we figure its the way to get around when you have wooden floors - no sore knees!

You love bouncing in the Jolly Jumper. You grin from ear to ear as you bounce up and down. You also love playing a peek-a-boo game while you bounce; as the JJ is away from the main rooms, in my bedroom (the closest door frame), you can't see me when I'm in the kitchen. But you love it when Mummy jumps out from the kitchen and says 'Boo!' You giggle and bounce and giggle and bounce some more. We have started taking the JJ downstairs under the house (carport) so that you can still be with us when the boys are playing outside and Mum's putting washing on the line.

You started on solids about5 weeks ago now, consistently at 6 months. You LOVE your food, and I've not once had you spit out anything we've tried. For breakfast you have either Baby Rice and fruit mixed together, or the Farex Banana Custard mixed with some yoghurt. For lunch you usually have vegies and either custard, fruit or yoghurt, and the same sort of thing for dinner. I have you your first little bit of toast yesterday, you sucked away at it to your heart's content. We will continue to introduce some more finger food as we go - with careful supervision of course.

Which leads me to your teeth!! Your first little toothy-peg has sprouted! It's hardly visible yet, but I can definitely feel it. You weren't too unsettled when it was coming through, which is nice. Just chomped hard on stuff a lot! We will need to give your cold teethings rings a better work-out I think, and I keep forgetting to get you some teething rusks to chomp down on.

You have your first cold at the moment my poor little darling. Last night you looked so stuffed up, and Mummy had a kind-of rough night with you. You didn't stay up for long, but woke frequently, I bet its a pain in the butt when you can't breathe through your nose Missy! A bit of Dimetapp I hope helped last night - and hopefully you'll be better by this arvo... unfortunately Eli has woken with lots of snot too, so maybe we'll all get it.

Speaking of sleeping, we've been perservering over the last month, trying to get you to sleep through the night. I must admit, this have been a bit of a frustrating esxperience for me darling. Both boys slept throug hthe night from about 3 months old, so I'm finding it hard and annoying that you still wake. But I have definitely learnt that each baby is different and do things in their own time. To help you along though, we started following a daily routine, and have dropped the middle-of-the-night feed. I realised you were waking for that feed out of habit, and you have not missed it. You still wake, but you are not hunger-crying, so its just a matter of teaching you to settle yourself back to sleep. This is a little more difficult than it could normally be, as you share a bedroom with Elijah, so we can't just let you cry it out, as he will wake. On many occasions, I have had to drape you over my lap (trying to keep you away from the boobs) and patted your back.... to keep myself awake, I usually surf the web and pat with one hand. On many occasions, its taken up to an hour to put you back to sleep. But on others, less time, and a handful of times you've not woken at all. I think it will just take a bit of time, and maybe once Jai is back at school, fine-tuning that routine a bit more. Please start sleeping through baby girl. Mummy would so love some unbroken sleep again.

You are a cloth nappy baby. We are well on our way to getting your brother out of the disposables too. You look very cute with your big nappy bums, of various colour and pattern. I'm making them all for you and Eli, and I love doing it. You wear mainly pocket nappies now, which are great coz I can have lots of cute patterns on the outside and they dry quickly as I pull the stuffer out to wash. My favourite is your cow-print one with purple inner.... I have just bought some new cow-print though, so you'll have a couple more soon - red and pink inners I think.

You bring us lots of joy little one. Your precious smile brings warmth to me and your Daddy. Mummy still loves dressing you up and playing with all things pink.

We love you little princess xxx

Bits and pieces...

Don't have a real reason to update, just thought I'd share some random things from my last 2 weeks:

* I did my first 'real' photoshoot last Saturday. I was a little nervous, as I don't know how to use my camera really well, but I played around with the settings a bit, and photoshop is a beautiful thing - I've learnt a few new things in there too! Thanks for the opportunity and your generosity too Alex! I hope you do like the photos.

* School holidays are nearly over! YES!! It's been great having less of a routine and having Jai around to play with too, but we're both ready for school again. Jai's been hounding me to do the naming and covering of his books etc, but I keep putting it off... suppose I should make a start on that or I'll be up all night on Monday night doing it (can totally see myself doing that though!)Bring on next week and a return to my normal schedule!

* Greg is taking some holidays in 2 weeks time. We can't wait! Not sure if we'll go away for the weekend somewhere - might do.... but one thing we are going to do is getting into our 'junk' room and purging and sorting - I think it will mostly be purging coz there's so much un-needed stuff there.... good thing we don't have to pay to go to our dump (and that its only a 2 min drive from our house!). Will be really great for him to get some time off though - he's worked so hard since the end of November - too many hours! So hopefully he'll get the recuperation he (and all of us!) needs.

* Today I am stalking my parcel man.... I have a very special parcel arriving - my SNAP PRESS!! Can't wait to get it and finish off the 5 nappies I've got waiting for snaps for Eli :)

* Sal and I had a play-date yesterday :) Well OK maybe the kids were the ones that played, coz between looking after 7 kids, we didn't get much sewing done at all! I didn't even turn on my machine!! Did cut out a nappy though, and sewed it up last night. Oh, we did go to Spotlight for some new fabric for the nappies :) I got a few cute ones for Eli's nappies, I already have heaps for Lani :)

Well, I should go and do some stuff. Ciao xx

Leaving you with a couple of cute pics of my two babes... yes I know I do have 3 kids... just don't seem to actually take many pics of Jai, oops!

Murder, cropping and sitting up...

Our 'How to Host a Murder Party' was so much fun!! Everyone got dressed up and did well to stay in character most of the night. I wasn't the murderer either... but who could ever think I would/could murder my husband (I was the wife of the dead dude. Flabbius Corpus)!! The pics aren't great coz I don't really know how to use our camera at night, and we don't have a good flash or speed-light or anything, but yeah, the memories are still there in the pics.

Greg and I... Greg played 'Maximus Testosterus', military commander; and I played 'Mercedes Acceleratti', rich party girl and wife to the dead guy! (funnily enough, our characters hooked up towards the end of the game - our plan was to be Emperor and Emperess of the known world!

Our friends Ben and Michelle played 'Harangus Adnauseum', philosopher and senator; and 'Rotunda Immaculata', vestil virgin, servant to the Empire.

Mark and Karen played 'Bogus Fortunatus', cult priest; and 'Flotilla Submergia' who owned a large shipping company.

And Marty and Melinda played 'Licentius Caesar', emperor of Rome; and 'Cleptopatra', his love affair and Queen of the Nile.

And poor Flabbius Corpis was played by a basketball, a pillow and a sheet. This role was played VERY convincingly I might add! heehee

None of us had ever been to a murder mystery party before so it was new and exciting ground for all of us. It was GREAT FUN!! Some were worried that conversation would not 'flow' but there are so many things that have to be mentioned each round that everyone's comments just run off eachother, with a few suspicious questions to weasle out information thrown in the mix too. I think everyone would like to do it again, and I know Greg and I are hooked, line and sinker now.... lots of fun!!

***

Now onto Saturday. I spent a lovely abd relaxing afternoon - JUST what this busy Mumma needed - with the girls from Scrap of Faith. The beautiful Alex was visiting from WA so we thought we'd have a crop. Great idea, and hopefully we'll actually keep it up now, not only when someone comes to visit Brissie!! There was a lovely bunch of girls there, and an equally gorgeous gaggle of cute bubbas to cuddle too. I didn't get much scrapping done - I never d0, BUT I'm quite pleased to say I at least did SOMETHING! I have finished most of a layout, I just need to do a LOT of hand-stitching on it.. for some reason I was possessed to punch holes around a large circle for a hand-stitched accent... the sewing machine was right there, I just didn't quite like my luck at sewing a perfect cirlde... maybe I should have at least tried coz it would have taken a LOT less time.... as it is, I'll have to find a good TV program one night and sew to my heart's content while watching TV! Must try and do that this week.

Anyway, here's a piccie of the girls from the crop (oh and ONE boy - Cowper Clifford!):

L-R: Sal and Cowper; Michelle and Asha; Alex and Joanna; Leanne; Chrissy; Amy and Amalia; Kerryn and Lani and I.

And token 'silly faces' photo" - (Chrissy and Amy, where are your silly faces??)

And one of my beautiful girl and I:

Thanks to Kerryn for letting us use your church kids room - it was so perfect, and I look forward to cropping altogether again soon!

In other news, Lani can *nearly* sit up all by herself! You go girl! She is particularly good propped against this pretty ball... and of course with pillows all around for a soft landing!!

She's very close to crawling too... she moves around a bit like a caterpillar... who knows if this will just be 'her way' or if she'll master the hand-work... she likes to get away from the loungeroom and find her way under and around the dining table. She's made it to the kitchen too. She does NOT like it when you place her back on the mat in the loungeroom, obviously spoiling all her hard work.

I could eat her, she's so delicious.

Well, I need to go to bed. (despite the time this post will say, as I started it yesterday morning, its 4am and I was merely waiting for Lani to go back to sleep... again..... hoping its teething now though as the Bonjella did the job! So I'm off to bed again to get some more sleep!)

Been busy (when am I not!?)

I do have some shares - no sorry, not of the scrapping variety though.

I've been busy making pocket nappies for my babes. Yes, for MY babies this time, not others which I seem to be doing more than my own bubs, lol.

I even got to use snaps for fastening rather than velcro and I love these SO MUCH MORE!! A friend has a snap press on loan (but has to give it back on Saturday :() but I think I'm a good part of the way convincing Greg that I need one of my own. Might use some christmas money to get it.

Anyway, here are some of the nappies - there were a couple in the wash, so haven't got pics of them yet!

Lani's newies:

And Eli's (poor boy needs a lot more though!)

In other news, Lani slept through the night the night after my last post... she went 2 full nights, but has woken again for a few.... I guess its going to be a process till its perfect, if it ever is!

Greg and I are hosting a 'How to Host a Murder' party tomorrow night. We got one for Christmas and have wanted to have one for a long time now... the theme is 'Roman Ruins' and therefore we are dressing as romans! Greg's character is a military commander and mine is a rich party animal, so to speak - I think the wife of the deceased maybe. We have a friend who's Mum collects costumes, so we were able to get most of what we need from her and for only a gold coin donation - awesome! Greg got a centurion military outfit (think Gladiator) and I got a dress and lots of accessories - gold jewellery and belt etc.... not sure if I really like the dress, and I was going to try to whip something up myself out of an old sheet, but I don't think I can really be bothered too! lol. Will try to get some decent photos throughout the party :) Should be fun.

Am looking forward to seeing a group of the Scrap of Faith girls for a crop on Saturday! I soooo need this break without kids (well I'll have Lani, but she's a given while breastfeeding still)... and I hope to even get some scrapping done - I'm not going in till about midday so should give me time to get some sketches together so I can actually do something that doesn't need *too* much brain power.

Oh, and I should probably share a piccie of me and my little neice Emmeson too!

And Uncle Greg and baby Emmeson too:

And here's one of my sis and her baby girl, not the best though. Hopefully I can get a little shoot happening when I see them on Sunday morning :)

Take care and have a fantastically blessed weekend! xxx

Perserverence...

It's 2am, and I have Lani draped over my lap,
patting her back,
putting her back to sleep.
It's night number 4 of this.

I realised that she no longer actually *needed* that 2am feed but rather was waking just out of habit... so we're on a mission to kick that habit good-bye!

So far she has not been bothered about not getting the boob, but she's having a lot of trouble with settling herself back to sleep. And as she is a screamer (I know, many of you can't believe that from my angel!) I just can't leave her go for too long in her room as she will wake up Eli (they share). So we're (I say we but I mean I coz Greg is sound asleep) doing a bit of leave her at her own devices for a while, and then give in and pat her back to sleep over my lap... progressively she's screaming less and less, and is more just protesting, but then gets a bit more distressed... (so I pick her up and end up here, with her over my lap).
(NB: I'm writing this more for my own record than anything, so sorry if its boring you)
I know I should really just pat her back to sleep in her bed, but it doesn't seem to comfort her in the slightest, gggrrr....

On recommendation of a friend, we have started following the daily routine set out by Tizzie Hall, commonly known as 'the baby whisperer', and so far the actual routine is working pretty well. Changes have included upping Lani's solid feeds to breakfast, lunch and dinner, and she's loving it! (and yes I actually got around to cooking her *real* vegies too!) The routine also helps ME to be better organised I think, so that's always a good thing! So far though, her 'dreamfeed' (supposed to give the last feed of the night while she is still asleep) has not been so much while she's dreaming, as she has woken or stirred before 10.30 every night and I have given it to her early to try to make at least semi-dreamy!

I'm really hoping and praying that this only takes about a week, and she'll have this waking thing out of her system. Can you pray for me too please?

I guess perseverence is the key! I'm determined to make this work, so absolutely no booby feed in the night.... my boobs really protested to that the first night, but they are OK now, not sore like they were that first night!

Anyway, just wanted to get some of that down for my records. She seems to have dropped off now, so I might try and go put her back to bed and see if she can settle the remainder back to a deeper sleep on her own.