Things I'm loving on Friday

Sneaking in on a sleeping baby

There can't be anything more beautiful and peaceful than a sleeping baby. I love to sneak a peek at Adele when she is having a snooze and see that gorgeous face so relaxed and that little chest rising and falling. Last night she was lying in bed on her back (unusual cause she usually sleeps on her side) one arm flung straight out and little legs all froggied up. I had to go get Mike to come take a peek too. Ahh. Thats why one becomes a parent.

My new heatpump

We got a heatpump installed last week. It's amazing. One push of a button and the room is warm. Now deciding whether to rip out the old pot belly or not...

Friends

I've been really enjoying my friendships this week. I'm slowly making friends in Hamilton and it's great! And it is especially nice to make like-minded friends. Sometimes I can feel a bit like I'm the odd one cause I do parenting things a bit differently to others (demand breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, baby-led weaning etc) so when I find other like-minded girls it makes me so happy. I had a lovely day out with one of these fab girls on Tuesday and we walked around Hamilton lake. [Hi M!]

Things I'm loving on Friday

Kellymom.com

This is a fantastic website devoted to breastfeeding support. Got a question or problem that is breastfeeding related? Then it is bound to be answered on this site.

Kellymom is run by an American lactation consultant named, you guessed it, Kelly.

I find it such a positive and encouraging place to visit when I'm doubting myself. I've got great advice on milk blisters, giving baby water, starting solids, iron needs and sleep!

And there is so much more to read.

Modern Family

My new fav telly show is Modern Family.

I love it so much. I laugh out loud almost the entire episode and can't for the life of me work out why Mike barely cracks a smile.

It's on Sundays at 8pm on TV3.

Things I'm loving on Friday

Been a while since I did a 'things I'm loving' post...

Breastfeeding

I'm loving breastfeeding. It's such a great way to connect with my cherub.

My two favourite things are watching her little eyes roll back and her eyelids fall shut as she is overtaken by sleep. It seems to be such a peaceful way to fall asleep - I admit I'm a bit jealous.

The other favourite is when she's been sucking a while and then gets another let down. Suddenly she has to start swallowing regularly again and her eyes often widen as she concentrates hard. Ooh and I love hearing the milk swishing around in her mouth before she swallows it.

Can you tell I think about this a lot? I love the La Leche League principle "Mothering through breastfeeding is the most natural and effective way of understanding and satisfying the needs of the baby".

Here's us at the Hamilton Gardens.

And this is our very first breastfeed. She was so clever and breastcrawled and self latched within 10 minutes of birth! (BTW, breastcrawling is super cool - google it! Hmmm, maybe I'll blog about it sometime...)

Send a card

This is a cool service from NZ Post where you can go online, pick a card, upload your own photo, write a message and they'll post out a card to someone for you. I've done it a few times now. I took a photo of Adele holding a cardboard sign saying 'Happy Birthday Aunty Susan" and uploaded that as the front page of the card. Super cute! And a very handy service.

A note though - you do need to do it a good few days in advance. It takes a while for them to print and send.

API speaks

A fav website of mine at the mo is API Speaks. It's the blog for Attachment Parenting International. The say they are the voice for gengle parents everywhere.

A variety of writers contribute blogs and they offer interesting perspectives on parenting.

Things I'm loving on Friday

I love mothering.com. It's a website based on the american Mothering magazine. They have lots of very interesting articles sourced from old issues of the magazine and have a great online forum. The magazine's philosophy is 'natural parenting' so they all about natural birthing, co-sleeping, babywearing, breastfeeding, green living etc etc. Fun fun fun.

I love how we can hear the neighbours birds singing. They're in a big aviary and add some much needed alternative sounds to our busy street. We don't have many big trees so it's nice to hear something other than cars going by. Oh, now that I think about it - boy aren't those cicadas noisy at this time of year!

I'm loving that Harvey Norman have a special on small soft cover photo albums. When Adele was 3 months old I made an album of her first 3 months through the Harvey Norman website. I was really happy with the result. And now that same album is on special again so I'll have to make the 3-6 month album!

Things I'm loving on Friday

I'm loving Picnik. It's a photo editing site thats simple and easy. Everyone else in the world probably already knew about it but I've only just discovered it. It's great for putting text on photos and adding effects like rounded corners. I made the header for this blog in Picnik.

From this:

To this:

I'm also loving TVNZ on demand. It means that even though I miss Shortland Street 'cause I am putting Adele to bed. I can catch up on episodes later. I tend to do Shorties marathons and watch a number of episodes at a time. I know, I know, I'm a sad-o.

And finally this week I'm loving that the school term has started again. I'm not loving that Mike has gone back to work but I am loving that all our activities are up and running again! Yay! I was starting to get bored. It's all happening next week - our first swimming lesson, homebirth coffee group, La Leche League and Playcentre. Woo hoo!

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!

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!