I finished Joss’ 4 canvases today, all with a seaside theme and incorporating photos from her first trip to the coast at South Shields and her first dip in the sea.
Bargain canvases at £4 for 4 and a craft magazine with all the trimmings made this a really cheap and easy activity, kept me busy for a few nights and will make a pretty display in Joss’ room!
What better for a girl that likes to explore everything than a spill proof cup?! This week Joss has managed to get into the back of a remote to take the batteries out, opened a mobile phone case to try to make a call and my proudest moment yet, put together her Duplo lego like a pro! This means that she can open most sippy cups too which has made for some interesting (and wet) trips out!
What we really need is to get more Munchkin Click Lock cups, as a Munchkin Mummy I was sent a Winnie The Pooh cup that Joss loves and cannot open no matter how hard she tries!
The soft spout is perfect for teething as it’s chewy and doesn’t hurt her sore gums, and the handles fit little toddler hands really nicely, I think it’s a good size as Joss has a taller cup that gets a bit heavy when full! Here she is very early in the morning looking sleepy enjoying a sip of water before Mammy takes her to the childminder for the day!
All in all a cute, robust and most importantly spill proof cup!
My goodness Joss has been tucking away these last few weeks! If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that I’ve had a few worries about the volume of her food intake and although she’ll try anything she would often refuse whole meals much to my worry and dismay.
They say ‘food before one is for fun’ and we have learned this to be true, at 15m she can communicate so much better that we know what she wants and how she wants to eat it. Big faves include mountains of fruit, pasta and cheese and ham, milk is less favoured but frozen yogurt goes down a treat. There is little more satisfying as a mother than seeing your child enjoying their food, don’t you agree mummy bloggers?!
We’ve learned a lot about trusting Joss’ instincts around food, letting her judge her own portion size and most importantly not worrying about a missed meal as she does catch it up later.
We’ve also learned some tricks, including picnics on the floor to encourage eating more, teaching her words like cheese and milk as she loves to talk, and chatters whilst she eats, occassionally lightening up on having the TV on as this helps her to sit a little longer, and sharing our lunch together to make it a family meal.
Why am I including this in Small Steps Amazing Achievements?
Well she has learned to use a spoon very well this week, and learned the words cheese, milk and water and had her first meal out, at Wagamama tucking into noodles! She’s so well behaved we have no problems with taking her to restaurants and enjoying family time!
A wee and finally, the new Frugi catalogue arrived and I couldn’t resist these little woodland trousers,a tip for cloth bum mums, they’re cut for cloth so well accommodate a big nappy!
I am not good at crochet, I am a perfectionist but cannot achieve perfection with this and so I’ve put away my hook and yarn for the night and indulged in a spot of collage. One £1 canvas and a blog search later I remembered seeing a post on Make, Do and Push and in keeping with a similar theme I used more papers from this month’s Papercrafter to create a collage. Hannah’s lovely tutorial can be found here http://www.makedoandpush.co.uk/2013/06/make-step-by-step-over-rainbow-collage.html
I have three canvases left so I feel a group coming on to fill some bare space in Jossy’s room.
In other news, I saw the ONS data on baby names 2012, just two other girl Joss’ in 2012 and 11 boys!! If you’d like to look up the data on your own little one its usually table 6 that all the names are ranked, here http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-318071
Sunset, July 2011
One of my favourite ever photographs; we live in an urban idyll, just ten minutes out of town by Metro, but by a perfect patch of God’s green land. What could be better when you live in a gardenless flat than having this view on your doorstep. We walk here EVERY evening of the week, rain, snow or shine.
I may have mentioned I’m a worrier, before we ate our marshmallows by this wee campfire one evening I made Alex look up whether there was a possibility that we might be arrested or worse for starting a small fire, I saw it getting out of hand taking with it swathes of trees etc, it didn’t…
Five huge bottles of water and a bit of stamping later (just to make sure it was definately out you see!) we headed for home, stopping by the pub for a cider and smelling suspiciously like smoky bacon crisps! The police have yet to catch up with us, two newlyweds enjoying each others company just two weeks after their wedding, this photograph evokes happy memories of long summer evenings gone.
I am reading about new parent’s perception of time at the moment and am probably going to be doing some research around this area. I’m finding studying, working and trying to juggle family life and run a home rather interesting! The way I work is to immerse myself in my topic, I talk to people about it, read about it, dream about it, and now it seems I have so much other stuff in my head, the nappy washes, what’s for dinners and when’s the childminder always, that I also write post it notes about it….all around the house….
So I’m sort of finding that yes, time does fly now I’m a parent, but it could just be that I’ve stuffed my brain to the rafters as any student would. I don’t feel very studenty, I feel like a fraud carrying a student discount card and sort of wish I could use it in useful places, like less Topshop more Mothercare and the likes! Ironically I probably achieve more in less time than I did procrastinating through my first degree!
Any tips for managing not to have anything vital fall out of my head would be gratefully appreciated! Help, I’m a student, send post-its!
Super quick late night crafting, I like to keep my hands busy to keep them out of the biscuit barrel and protect my weightloss! Made with a small cardboard box, pva glue and papers and bits n bobs from the latest Papercrafter mag, I had to have it, I am big into the nautical theme at the moment and the whole crafty pack was all seabirds, anchors and beachhuts!
Slightly blurry, taken at 3 in the morning, a smiling in her sleep 13 week old Joss. This photograph is on my desk at work, to others it is a smiling snap of a sleepy baby, to me it holds so many precious memories.
When I took this photo it was probably one of the first nights that I wasn’t terrified of being a new mum. Shortly after I snapped this Joss started giggling in her sleep, the video that goes alongside this photo makes me laugh so much, you can hear me quietly chucking in the muffled background, coming out of postnatal depression and enjoying this snuffly little lady.
Why did I take it? For Daddy to enjoy the next morning? Perhaps, but more so to remember that every sleepless night is so so worth it, and after last nights teething ‘worst sleep ever’ it’s lovely to see this photograph again!
When I was pregnant we looked for local baby retailers and particularly wanted to find someone who stocked SkipHop products amongst others. We came across Piccolo Bambino just down the road in Northumberland. When we saw that PB were looking for product testers for the Bibisili bibs they stock we contacted Emily and she sent us Poppy Pig to test.
Why do we like them? Well as well as being funky and fun for toddler mealtimes they’re eco friendly, a must in this household! Made of 100% food grade silicone and lead, BPA and phthalates free they’re eco friendly, non toxic, odourless, flexible and harmless to baba’s skin.
We are big fans of the crumb catcher design, helping keep clothes clean but also making a handy pouch for dropped chunks of food, perfect for a messy tot!
We’ve used this for a week now, it’s seen some stubborn weetabix, messy sauce and plenty of crumbs but cleaned really well and a quick wipe between meals on the go means it’s portable too, no stains as yet and we eat a lot of tomato based sauces!
We like the adjustable neck, it’s a great design actually, others on the market are chunky for wee necks (some remind me of a neck brace, haha!!) and the adjustable hook and eye design keeps the bib in place preventing tugging hands from removing it, whilst giving room to move.
With loads of cool designs including Deano Dino and Sammy Seal you’re sure to find one (or two, or three!) for your little ones!
Check out Piccolo Bambino and Bibisili on facebook:
#/pages/Piccolo-Bambino/138944636204690?fref=ts
and on twitter:
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