beanie madness

I decided to try crocheting some beanies after seeing this link at Foxs Lane.


Firstly I made a super cute one for Miss Amelie.  She also got one in white, green and pink stripes.





Then I remembered I had a crochet book with beanies in so I tried one for the little Guy as well.  In the end Husband Guy and even Grandad Guy got new beanies as well.  I should try and get a photo of them all wearing them together.  Although apparently they all prefer to wear them without the brim rolled up.

what a difference a day makes

Isnt it funny, perspective that is.  Last night both my poppets slept right through the night.  No 3 am feed, no 4am toilet call, no 5am I want to get up.  Amelie asked for a feed at 10pm just before I went to bed and then went right through til 6.15am.  The little Guy slept til 6.30am which is practically unheard of for him.  Although he is a litttle under the weather I think with a slight cold.  He is going out to my in-laws for his school holiday break so hopefully he's ok, there's no way he's taking no for an answer :)  I had nearly 8 straight hours of sleep last night and I feel like I won the frickin' lottery! Happy days.





Here they are playing fire trucks in Amelie's couch this morning.

musings on motherhood

There are so many things about motherhood that people can't/won't/don't tell you about motherhood.  Take breastfeeding for example.  When I had the little Guy I was very determined to breastfeed him, or at least to give it a darn good try.  Fortunately thanks to excellent mid wives and a lactaction consultant we worked it out after a few days.  He was a lovely baby who slept through the night from about 12 weeks and fed every 3 hours like clockwork during the day.  I had mastitis twice with him, at about 6 months and mostly due to the fact that I was stressed and then didn't finish my first lot of antibiotics completely.  


Amelie was a different story in the early days, she attached like a dream from the moment she came out of the womb and I was a lot more savvy second time round.  Though luck wasn't on my side as I got mastitis 3 times (yes THREE times) in her first 10 weeks of life.  I was so sick and miserable and she was feeding every 2 hours like a woman posessed.  Fortunately she has slowed down in her feeding, and now massively exceeds the 100th percentile for her weight.  She is a bit slow on the uptake of the solids whereas Guy ate like a champ from 4 months on.  Amelie has slept through the night about 5 times and still at 6 months of age gets me up at least once a night for a feed.


I'm considering at the moment switching for Amelie's bedtime feed from breast to bottle with formula.  In the hope that a slightly fuller tummy will make her sleep a little longer.  Also with the hope that husband Guy and I could then perhaps go out for a couple of hours of an evening, even if she then gets up in the night.  Isn't that the kicker though, you strive so hard to get breastfeeding established, put up with cracked and bleeding nipples, mastitis, being woken up multiple times per night, and then when you want to scale it back or give it up, it's so hard! I have such mixed feelings about scaling back breastfeeding, I'm terrified about getting mastitis again and it's such an emotional thing.


Anyway I have taken some baby steps.  I've bought a new bottle and some formula and she seems to like the concept of a bottle when I tested her out with a little bit of water in it.  Am I alone in this mental struggle and love/hate relationship with breastfeeding?  Or is this common?

yummy homemade baby food

One of my great joys when little Guy started to eat solids was making my own baby food.  I think in total he ate packet or jar baby food twice in his life.  He just really didn't like it after eating my yummy concoctions.  Now as I've previously stated I am by no means a good cook, my lovely Hubby does the bulk of the heavy cooking in our household, although now that I'm officially a stay at home Mum I am doing more of the cooking.  My skill I must say though lies as a providor and thinker of ideas for food.

running through New Farm Park on the way to the markets

Anyway my Mother in Law called me on my slackness the other day (in a nice way!) asking what delicious delicacies I'd been making for Amelie.  I had to answer 'none'.  Mashing a banana was as good as it had gotten.  So at the markets today I made sure I stocked up on mashable fruit and veges for making baby food.

Making baby food is really easy, especially if you make it in bulk lots and freeze it in baby-sized portions.  You can buy special trays and little jars for this, or ice cube trays work just as well.  It's easy to take a little frozen portion with you if you go out and it will defrost in your bag just in time for lunch usually.

Today I made steamed pumpkin.  A 1/4 piece of a pumpkin which cost us about $2 made about 12 portions of baby food.  I just cut it up into smallish cubes and steam it on the stove.  Steaming is great as it adds a little moisture and is a super healthy way to cook.  I just then fork mash it up. (If you don't have a steamer you can microwave or boil)   Amelie had some for lunch and loved it.

portions of pear, apple & raspberry puree ready for freezing

I also love making my own fruit purees.  Just cut up your apple or pear into cubes and place in a saucepan with just a dash of water, just enough to stop you burning the bum out of your saucepan.  Today I did 3 old mangey pears that had been kicking around in the fridge for weeks, plus 2 apples and a handful of frozen raspberries.  You just cook it on a low heat, stirring frequently so it doesn't burn or stick, until you can fork mash it up.  The raspberries made this batch smell delicious, sweet and very red.  I didn't bother to strain out the little raspberry pit thingys but you could if you were really concerened.  Amelie had a little sample of this one too and thought it was excellent.

If you are stewing or steaming slighly harder veges or fruit like parsnip, carrot or peas, I just use a little hand mixer and give it a quick blitz.  It just cuts it up a bit easier for you.  Once your bub is used to single flavours like pumpkin or sweet potato, try combining them for a bit more of a taste sensation.

my little darlings do Melbourne

riding the free city circle tram - he even got to ding the bell!

We took our littles to Melbourne for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  Normally husband Guy and I sneak off on our own but with Amelie still being breastfed it wasn't an option this year.  

running off some energy

Little Guy has been on a plane before, the last time to Perth, so this little 2 hour flight was a breeze for him.  Amelie was good too, as long as she had people to smile at and boob on tap she was happy.  The only hitch with the planes was a bit of a delay coming home and the worst part was that the window seat we had picked for little Guy was the only row on the whole plane without a window!  Very random and everyone around us clucked sympathetically when he had a big cry due to lack of window.

train station at night

The trip was fun and we saw lots of Melbourne we hadn't seen before.  Like most four year olds little Guy's attention span and tolerance is quite limited so we had to shake it up a bit and we spent quite a bit of time exploring parks.

playing in the leaves in Carlton Gardens (Royal Exhibition building in background)

We did manage to imbibe a bit of coffee and hot chocolate here and there though fortunately.

threatening to feed them to the big cats!

Some shopping was done (he quite likes shopping) and we also visited the Werribee Open Range zoo which was a big hit.

of course I went to Morris & Sons

custom doona covers

As part of the baby bonanza that seems to be going on with my friends at the moment the lovely Dom asked me to make two doona covers for her impending arrival.

Now Dom is a very stylish young thing and I was a bit nervous about the whole thing!  But thankfully she had a very good idea of what she wanted and it was clear that we were on the same page.  We picked out all the fabric together at Spotlight and I set to work.

I was a bit naughty and the two relatively simple doona covers took me an absolute age.  I think it all just built up in my head and I was almost scared to start!  Does that ever happen to you?  Anyway I delivered the covers in the nick of time and Dom delivered beautiful Macey Rose about two days later (Phew!).

a very pretty owl panel which I just added borders and backing to

our masterpiece - I was really pleased with the results of this

Dom really likes bows but was finding bow themed things hard to come by.  I managed to source this fabric on the sly and added a big piece as the backing for the pink frilly doona

 

Granny mafia

I've had great fortune thanks to the Granny mafia lately.  And she's not even my Granny, she's my mum's friend's mother (got that?).  Mum's friend Elizabeth knows that I like collecting crochet doilies and other vintage linens, she happened to mention this to her mother who lives in a retirement village.  A couple of weeks ago one of the other ladies in the village was leaving to move into a higher care facility.  So Elizabeth's mum kindly offered to take her old linen off her hands and forward it on to a good home (me!).  So this enormous bag of doilies and napery turned up at my place the other day with the overwhelming smell of moth balls! (What is that stink Mumma? - from the little Guy).

Anyway now apparently Elizabeth's mother is going around the retirement village hitting up the other oldies for their linens and the lady who moved to the high care facility is doing the same over there!  Gotta love the Granny mafia!

Check out these pretties:

matching coasters, napkins and tea cloth

matching napkins and tea cloth

Plus these from a friend in exchange for some fabric (thanks Christine!)

made by Christine's mother in Germany!

And this one which was made by an aunt or great aunt of my Mum.

I think this is like blackwork - on linen

 

random musings

I've been thinking a lot lately about blogs, why I write mine, why I read others, which ones I like and don't like.  My husband bought me a tablet computer thingy recently and the one thing I don't like about it (sorry honey) is that it's too hard to blog on.  I can do most things I want to do (internet wise) on my phone now but for blogging it has to be the laptop.

I started this blog when the little Guy was about 10 months old.  He was at that stage where he would play quite happily on his own for extended periods, slept a reasonable amount and wasn't getting me up at night.  It was at this stage that I remembered that I had always liked to do crafty stuff.  Sewing, knitting, cross stitch.  I started my Christmas challenge to myself and really felt like recording my progress - hence the blog.  Now 4 years on and we've added to our little family, I take my crafting much more seriously and I am in that most precious of positions - a stay at home mum/housewife.  

I like to sell my craft items when I can, more so I can support my habit rather than becoming a crafting mega star, but it's not always easy.  I have a lot of self doubt and can be overly self critical.  I have been lucky recently to have received a few opportunities for promotion: my guest-blog at the CHA as well as this week's feature in 'The Best of the Web' at Pocketchange.  I don't think I'll ever be blogging up there with the likes of Mrs Woog, Baby Mac or Posie but I try.  I have made a bit of a decision to vary/expand the contents meandmy2guys.  I have realised that the blogs I especially like reading and who make me LOL on a regular basis are the ones with wider subject matter.  

So to this end you will be seeing a bit more randomness, home stuff, kids stuff, general nonsense from me here, as well as my craft stuff.  I'm not quite up to going the whole Facebook hog yet for meandmy2guys but you can definately now find me on Instagram @meandmy2guys.  

Sew Mama Sew - Giveaway Day winners

Hello everyone and sorry for my tardiness.  Life has been a bit hectic and well that's life with two littlies I suppose.

The winners of the giveaway are number 8 - Anita - for a pincushion.
Number 17 - Karrie S - for a crochet flower brooch (or hair clip if you prefer)
Number 24 - Bethany - for a crochet flower brooch (or hair clip if you prefer)

Ladies if I don't get in first please email me with your snail mail address and I will pop your goodies in the post.

Thanks again to everyone who entered, as always it's a fun day.