Target Toy sale take 2

As I am about to start writing this post, my baby is done for her nap and immense noise works has just started at our door step.  No fury has been had until you have a Mumma who has a baby sleeping and noise is being made!  One thing is for sure, my baby should have a very high noise tolerance level living in our house with her room right next to a busy road :-(.  This post is to finish off my Target toy sale purchases.  I actually went into to target just to buy a couple of cheap tights for G - the pink ruffle bum pair and the black ankle ribbon pair.  However I managed to also pick up a ruffly long sleeve pink heart shirt and a pair of jeggings with cat faces on the rear pockets!  I also picked up a high chair.  We had been indecisive about a chair and to save any further conversations I picked up this cheap one from Target on sale for $39.  At the moment she prefers being fed in her bouncer anyway, so hopefully this turns out to be a good cheap purchase!  Target are having another toy sale VIP night tonight but I am abstaining, due to financial constraints I really need to just stay away - G has enough stuff already :-0.

Sleeping beauty

I think this is awesome! I think any little girl would love this princess bed. We are a long way off G being old enough to have this kind of bed though.

surviving the toy sales

At the moment Big W and Target have toy sales and Big W is just about to start OMG!  It's crazy bargains so I have been avoiding Target, except I forgot they were having a sale and went in to get miss G a couple of pairs of leggings/tights.  Luckily I was completely overwhelmed and didn't end up getting much, I bought a rattle/teething set that I had actually been eyeing off for a while - its a huge diamond ring rattle, a bag rattle with a little mirror and a two teether rings joined by a flower ($16). I bought a set of stackable rings for $5.00.  So that was it for toys!  It also reminded me that I have bought a few more toys and books than that and not posted about them - whoops!  I also bought some clothes and a highchair at Target but I will blog about that next post.  So here is my confession of what I have bought and forgot to post about - see there was a reason why we needed that toy storage!  We actually borrow a lot of books from the library but I felt she needed some at home permanently -she loves the Luv U Zoo scrunchy book (pictured with the two bears on the front).  And because I felt overwhelmed at the toy sales - um where do you keep all this stuff in your house eek!  I am joining the two toy libraries that exist in my area.  I will update about that later.

The 26th Wonder Week and facing the world

This weekend we are turning bub's car seat around so she can see the world!  Haven't weighed her in a while but last time we did she was 8 and half kilos, and she is definitely a lot more chubby rolls than that now LOL. I am so excited, I can't wait to see her face when she starts looking at things in front of her.



In the last week she has had three bad nights, where she has suddenly woken up crying for now reason and I have had to quickly resettle her - it makes you appreciate how good your baby is usuallY! Last night was the first night a quick resettle was unable to happen and I spent two hours with her sleeping on my chest and sporadically waking with a cry - have I mentioned I have returned to work :-(.  It actually wasn't that bad, I knew what I was getting for with a bubby and I think that I have got a really good one, so when she is upset I just want to cuddle the poor girl.  I know that she is teething, but I suspect that her unsettled behaviour is more linked to the 26th Wonder Week she is in.  If you haven't heard of the Wonder Weeks please download the iPhone app and order the ebook:http://www.thewonderweeks.com/index.php/ordering/the-full-copy/ebook.  It will really help to know why baby is being unsettled, what new skills they will have and to look out for.  Here are the screen shots of the 26th Wonder Week.  To be honest at this point she is really displaying much (she is 25.5 weeks), she gets a bit stroppy when she isn't happy about something (sounds of protest - which make me laugh because I visualise her with a little picket sign doing a protest) and she is having the unsettled sleep.  BUT she isn't being clingy at all,she loves doing her own thing on her activity mats (yes she has more than one!) and she loves strangers still.  fingers crossed things stay this smooth :-)

More storage options and let the sales begin

Now baby is fully interactive - well not fully she still can't move anywhere (for now eek), she is making full use of her rattles and activity mats and books etc.  Being so excited about her loving her toys, I have purchased a few - I have tried not to go overboard though, but its so hard to restrain :-).  I am trying to get to the toy library to see if there are things there that we can borrow for her, to save the $$ and the clutter - to be honest the clutter bothers me the most!  Having said how much I dislike clutter, we embarked yet again on trying to find some kind of toy storage facility.  For those who remember my multiple posts about trying to find a wardrobe we both agreed on, you can imagine the saga that we were about to embark on.  After looking at a few things, I realised that my Hubby had envisioned a pure white baby room while I envisioned a pretty pink functional little girls room.  Guess what, I won - purely because we couldn't find what my Hubby wanted (and what I also agreed to) and also because really nice sterile baby stuff is so expensive!

After looking around for awhile, I got nightmares about who long it took to buy the wardrobe and I kept get sick of having nowhere to store her toys, so we bought this from ToysRus on sale for $69.  Her daddy thinks its very tacky and poor quality, and you know what, he is a little bit right.  But it fits into her princess pink theme quite well and it really serves its purpose.  Daddy wanted a white big toy box, which I felt was impractical as it would be hard to keep clean, it would be hard to find things in a big box and I was really worried about when she was old enough to go get her toys and pack them away she would catch her fingers on the lid.  WHO knew it was so hard to agree on these things, while some parents found the demands and the cries of babies quite confronting and unexpected, I find the agreeing on the baby decor dilemmas quite unexpected lol.  Here is pic of my cute little 5.5month old monkey, her tights are from Target, her coat is from Big W - with a handmade crochet flower and a crochet Owl beanie from Etsy:http://www.etsy.com/shop/handmadedonna.

Baby in the Water!

We have just started swimming lessons.  Baby G loves them!  She has always been a water baby and loves baths and has taken to the swimming pool in the same enthusiasm.  We actually have a pool at home, but its far to cold for her to swim in it (or me either!), if we were to stay living here we would heat the pool, but we are about to move and rent the place out so thats not a justifiable expense.  The swimming lessons are really good, they basically learn to start getting used to putting their head under the water and also gaining awareness of splashing water and going 'back to the wall' - so as they get older they learn to go back to the wall if they start getting in trouble in the water.  We recently had a cold snap (for the tropics!) and G had a cold so we stopped going to swimming lessons for a month, but we are about to head back this weekend.  G got given SO many cute swimsuits when she was born and of course grew out of most of them before she could wear them!  I just packed away four bathing suits in size 00 as she has officially moved up to 0! Luckily we have a wetsuit and a pair of bathers in 0 so that should do the job for now, it will get to cold again pretty soon and swimming lessons will go back on hold.  Im sure Target will start to bring out some cute swimmers once we start to go back into Summer.

I blogged previously on my other blog about the swimsuits I picked up to go to swimming lessons, previously all I owned were string bikinis.  Although I have been lucky not to get any stretch marks and to go straight back to my previous weight, I felt it wasn't appropriate to wear string bikini's to parent and baby swimming classes!  My favourite swimsuit has been the BlackMilk full piece one http://howdidigetinthisnutshell.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/i-know-its-winterbut.html. I LOVE it, I am keeping my eye out for more quirky BM swimsuits that I would like.  I have a whole stack in my saved bag at ASOS, but there haven't been any discount codes and also because they are coming in to Summer over there - there are no sales on swimsuits.  At this point I have enough to get me through, I can't really justify buying anymore when I am on a serious spending ban!

How many outfits can a baby wear?

At the moment the fact G has outgrown three sizes now masks the fact of how many clothes she has owned and worn since birth. The three vacuum packed bags of 0000 and 000 and the soon to be vacuumed pack bag of 00 indicates that the girl likes a good outfit ;-). I make sure she wears every thing that is bought for her - there are some beautiful pieces that won't be getting handed down due to many stains on them lol. I have to confess that I do get a major kick in putting together an outfit for her, but I'm fully prepared for the day she wants to dress herself so I'm having my fun now. At 24 weeks she is such an absolute delight full of smiles and giggles, we just love spending time with her having fun.

I trying to reign back the clothes buying but couldnt resist spending $30 at Cotton On Kids to get all of this including a cute pair of pant leggings that I forgot to phtograph:

baby needs a new dress

G has gone up to size zero.  Size zero is for 6-12 months, G is 5 months.  EEK.  I can still squeeze her into stretchy 00, but I am officially pulling out her bags of zeros.  Thats right - BAGS of zeros!  I started stocking up at sales and then stocking up sales - because zero is supposed to last 6 months, we need twice as much as previous sizes...right? :-).  Unfortunately I have just realised that she is going to clearly grow out of size zero's before she is one unless she loses a lot of chubba bubba when she starts crawling.  So we are going to need to start buying size one's now instead of zeros cause she has enough clothes in that size!  Anywho, Target had 40% off babies and kids clothing the other night for their stocktake sale, I picked up some Winter staples - all in size zeros.....I apologise in advance for the crazy formatting of the below pics of some of the Target haul (blogger platform i will learn how to use you properly one day!):

Hurry up Sales and clean my toofies

I currently have a whole stack of stuff waiting to buy at http://www.tinyme.com.au/. Iron on labels, (for clothes, muslin wraps etc), vinyl labels (for lunch boxes, bottles etc) and two personalised bags - one pink messenger bag for mummy and one pink backpack for daycare.  I am kinda annoyed as I missed out on a sale the other day and they didn't send me an email :-( grrr!  I will just have to stalk Tinyme to make sure I catch the next sale. I am also annoyed because I really really need the labels and I don't want to pay half price knowing that no doubt the end of the finacial year will prompt a sale.  I previously ordered a personalised messenger bag from there with G's name on it, its her daddy's nappy bag and he loves it!

G now has two toofies (she may have more, I haven't checked lately whoops), anyway you are supposed to start cleaning their teeth straight away.  I found this massaging gums/first toothbrush at the local chemist, so I guess I better start using that soon, like today :-):http://www.amazon.com/MAM-Massaging-Brush-Sensitive-First/dp

Never smile at a Crocodile!

We have started on solids and I still haven't bought a high chair, I am starting to think we probably don't need one for awhile anyway, I prefer to feed her while she is sitting in her bouncer.  I think as we progress and she starts to be more independent and want to feed herself etc we will definitely get one!  We are thinking of making a move back to the City, one of the pluses of this is access to cheaper stuff because there are more stores and also alot more secondhand baby gear that is cheap and in good condition!  The Sydney region is an absolute mecca for good secondhand baby gear (checkout ebay and Gumtree!).

I had a major splurge at Target because they had 40% off all babies clothes so will post about that soon, G also had her face painted and professional photos taken at daycare - how awesome is that.  I am really loving her daycare (she goes two days a week) and am not looking forward to having to find another one if we move :-(.   We are fast approaching the 26th Wonder Week:http://www.thewonderweeks.com/.  She had her last wonder week quite early so I am keeping my eye out at the moment for the signs.  Here is a great blog that has featured the Wonder Weeks Guru: <a href="http://www.modernmom.com/blogs/frans-plooij" title="Frans  Plooij&#039;s Blog">Frans  Plooij&#039;s Blog</a>.  You may have noticed that I have not been posting photos of G for awhile, I struggle a bit with the privacy issue of blogging.  But here is a photo of my 5 month old little lady. At the moment she LOVES textures and patterns and clearly loves the textures and patterns of the baby crocodile!  She is wearing a Target shirt (love the flower on it!) and Target tights that have love hearts on the bottom legs and a big love heart on the bum!