Things I'm loving on Friday

I'm loving our new photos on canvas. Andrew and Raewyn gave us a voucher for Eziprint for Christmas. We decided to finally print some of our travel photos. The one on the left is of a rice paddy in Yangshuo, China and the other is a Songteaw (a taxi-bus-truck thing) in Laos. Good times. Makes me want to travel some more.

I am loving my new curtains. We decided that Adele would sleep better if our rooms were darker. So we got blackouts for her room and treated ourselves to some new curtains AND blackouts for our room. We hardly know ourselves anymore (cause we can't see eachother). Our room used to be very light. Light curtains, street lights, nothing at all over the leadlight window. So now its great! I'm loving the roman blind over our gorgeous leadlight window. This photo doesn't really show you what the curtains look like so you'll just have to come visit instead. Ding ding!

Family photos

Check out this gorgeous family....

They were all taken by Kerrilee Beetham of Envisage Photography. Lovely photographer and the photos are cheap too! Highly recommended :)

A creation a week #2

Whipped up this wee soft cube for Adele last week. Does the fabric look familiar? Stay tuned for more installments of "How many things can Chrissy create with this fabric?"

A creation a week #1

Inspired by Faery Sarah over on Bobbyrobin, I've decided to copy her new year's resolution and try to create something each week. Thanks Sarah! Anything from a sewing project to baking a cake. And I figure if I haven't gotten round to doing something else I can always just say I made some milk this week!

So I missed the first week of the year but I'm sure you'll forgive me. But here is my creation for the second week of the year:

Its fabric over cardboard with a bit of felt in the middle to make it softer. I'm quite chuffed really. Painted wooden letters are really popular at the mo and I had originally thought I'd do that but decided to go for something a little different. The 'd' is my favourite. Love the fabric. Ohh and the green gingham on the 'l' is gorgeous too :)

One day soon I'll post some photos of the whole room for you to see.

Things I'm loving on Friday

I've seen this on a few other blogs. "Things I'm loving on Friday". So here goes.

Adele's new oatmeal coloured Go Go Bag by Merino Kids. We bought it a week or so ago on Trade Me. She already has a winter one with red and blue stripes but I'm head-over-heels in love with the oatmeal.

My mummy embroidered this for Adele and gave it to her for Christmas. Adele doesn't really appreciate it yet but I do! It looks great hanging over her chest of drawers.

My new cookbook: Bake by Allyson Gofton. Apart from being pink and very pretty to look at, its yummy too. I baked the Yoghurt and Coconut Loaf the other day and Mike said "thats the yummiest thing you've ever baked". I thought well, I'll take that as a compliment! The loaf was meant to have a passionfruit icing but as I only had oranges I used them instead - yum!

Learning to sleep

So over Christmas, our wee lassie grew some teeth, slept in all sorts of different places, learnt to roll over and consequently got all mixed up in her sleeping.

So after a couple of nights of getting up to her every 1.5 - 2 hours, we said 'right, time to do something about this'. Now, A has never been a 'good' sleeper, we've especially struggled with nap time, but we've muddled our way through.

One thing that is really important to me is that I be a 'gentle mother'. People keep telling me that I just have to 'get tough' with her. Well, sorry, thats just not me.

So, we went for a wee shop at Fishpond and ordered The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley which I had heard good things about.

Oh my, loving it. Pantley doesn't agree with leaving the baby to Cry It Out (CIO) and suggests a whole pile of ways to encourage bubs to sleep better.

And only 7 days in to it, we're really seeing results.

• The last 2 or 3 days she has had 2 2-hour naps. Unheard of! Even when she was a wee bub.
• She has started going to bed earlier - she's now settling for the night by 8pm. Over Christmas this time was creeping up till 10 or even later sometimes.
• And her night-time sleeps are steadily getting longer each night. From 4 to 5 to 6 hours at a stretch. And last night... drum roll please... 9 hours without waking! Woop woop. Unfortunately though she was as bright as a button at 5 this morning and wouldn't go back to sleep. Oh well. Can't win em all :)

So yeah. Real progress and we've only just begun. And no crying! It's probably too early to say "I told you so" so I'll save it up.

The last 5 months

What have we been up to for the past 5 months?

• Sitting up all by herself (4.5 months)
• Waving (5.5 months)
• First teeth - two at the same time (5.5 months) first one cut through on Christmas Day :)
• First tastes of food - avocado, pumpkin, broccolli (5.5 months)
• Rolling over (6 months) - only a few times so far but she's really keen on it now.
• Kissing (5 months) - mostly mummy but Marshy her little pukeko gets a bit of nooky now and then. Or perhaps she just wanted roast pukeko for christmas dinner???

lots of other things too I'm sure.

Better chuck some photos up too I guess....

At the Tamahere market. Now that Adele is a big girl we're able to carry her in the wrap sling in a hip carry. So much better for seeing the world!

Big bed, little lady.

First foods - a bit of avocado from our guacamole. As you can see by the tight little fists - she was keen!

Its fun to sit outside on the picnic mat and watch Daddy in the garden.


First foods: she put this steamed broccolli in her mouth but didn't swallow anything!

Firstly a disclaimer

I (Christine) would like to point out that it was my ever-optimistic husband who thought that reviving our blog and posting about what our family is up to now that it has expanded. I said "good idea, as long as you keep it updated". As a few of you have pointed out to me, according to this here blog, Adele is still only about 5 weeks old. She is in fact 6 months old tomorrow. Time to give up waiting for hub to get on to it.

So my disclaimer is: I will try to update this a bit more often, but if I don't its cause I'm a busy mummy and couldn't be naffed :)