Prepping for Fathers day :-)

We are still prepping for Fathers day with two days to go!  I have a huge goodie bag full of awesome stuff from Etsy (will post about them after Fathers day) and other things.  I picked up this book from Big W on the spur of the moment, its such a gorgeous book and its exactly all the thing I would imagine little G would think about her daddy :-D.

 I am doing a photo shoot with G as I got her a top from Etsy that says Happy Fathers Day 2012 Love G.  I wasn't really sure what bottoms I was going to pair with it, but I wasn't on the look out for new clothes - she has so many clothes its not funny!  But then I found this cute glitter tutu pink skirt in Betts and Less (I know, what was I doing looking at girls clothing in Betts and Less!).  I have not bought her any skirts in size one because the size zero skirts have driven me nuts as they just ride up over her tummy and I constantly have to pull them down.  But these ones have shorts under them - genius!! They were $12 so I thought they would be perfect for the photo shoot and justified buying them :-).

Sleeeeeeeeeeep

So it has been a couple of months now that we went from months of straight through sleep to constant wake ups during the night.  And to boot instead of the great self settling G did (sometimes I just put her in the cot and walked out the door!!), every sleep is a battle - every sleep every day.  Its very demoralising to have to listen to her cry several times a day just to get her to go to sleep, especially when 70% of the time for day sleeps we will spend an hour battling and then she will sleep for 40mins tops!  Of course there are a lot of reasons why, teething, sickness and a general new awareness of the world.  So I am delving back into the world of sleep help books for babies.  Don't worry I am not going to go all Tizzie Hall on you.  I of course read Tizzie when I first had G as its such a popular book.  As soon as I read about schedules and waking babies up I was outta there!  But I will be checking her book again to pick up any tips that I might of missed the first time, I did take some of what she said originally and it worked for us.  Anyway I am borrowing a massive amount of sleep help books from the library and I will post up what works for us :-D.

Prepping for First Fathers Day

It is so exciting, both Hubby and I do not have a father.  I have never done a fathers day and Hubby has not done one since he was a kid.  Its very sad, but now its the first year where fathers day is going to be a joyful exciting event!  I have been madly preparing buying lots of first fathers day stuff and doing arts and crafts projects with G :-).  Of course we will have the mandatory big adult present as well.  Stay tuned for what Hubby/Daddy got after Fathers Day next week :-D.  This photo of David Beckham really epitomises the kind of Daddy I hoped my little one got, and she did get an awesome daddy!

I love how all DB's kids are clinging to him, you can see that they adore their Daddy!

Big Leaps!

Little G is in the middle of a leap, its like she is high on drugs because she is full of energy and absolutely fascinated about everything!  Its actually quite fascinating to watch her being fascinated by everything lol.  Yesterday afternoon she was refusing to sleep - I laid her down her usual nap time and two hours later she was still rolling around her cot having a great time.  So I decided to get out of the house and go to the shops, inspired by her new interest in things I bought her some more stacking cups and blocks and also some more books that not only I could read to her but where her size to play with.  she just loves textures and shapes at the moment.

blocks and cups were $15 together from Target.  Books from Big W for $12.50

I was tempted to buy her this toy, which she kept laughing at when I was showing it to her at Big W, it seemed to be her favourite out of all the ones I was showing her.  But it was $40, so a bit $$.   I am looking forward to our move to the big smoke where I can go and pick up some good secondhand baby stuff at a lot cheaper prices!  At the moment the two big ticket items I bought brand new - the little lamb rocker and the jumperoo are completely redundant.  Don't get me wrong for the couple of months use we got out of them they were awesome but for over $300 that isn't very good price/use ratio.  And I was a bit optimistic on the resell value, apparently people would rather pay buy something cheap thats been used a million times and has stains on it then to buy it slightly cheaper than new but actually in brand new condition.  I am not sure what to do as we could pack them up for the next bub and get our moneys worth, but we are not planning to have another bub for a couple of years!  I think most people get more use out of the items then we did as G does not want to be confined to those things anymore.

on the wish list! $40 from Big W

How cool is this kid lol.  I bought these sunglasses for $9.95,  it is the classic cliche of dressing your kid up in stupid stuff for a laugh, but it was SO funny!

Note the high chair from Target - $39 I got it for.  I dont know what extra things the expensive highchairs do because this one is perfect!

Baby love

Today is daycare day.  I am returning to work in a couple of months and she will be going to daycare three days a week (if I can get her in - a whole another story), but I have been leaving her in for a day every week to stay used to being with different people.  At the moment we have four hours to go, but I am about to publish this post and go pick her up.  I have a MILLION things to do today, but I miss my baby girl after only three hours so I am going to get her!

After waiting months and months for Tinyme to have a sale I gave up and finally purchased some vinyl labels to put on her bottles and other things for daycare.  I actually needed some iron on ones as well but forgot when I was putting through the purchase whoops.

Stocking up!

Because I am incredibly worried that my baby will wake up any day now and not fit into any of her size 0 clothes I keep buying more and more size one clothes in preparation.  I did a huge haul online at Cotton On because they had 30% off online if you signed up.  It was all new Summer stock that I hadn't even seen instore so I was very excited!  Even though I ummed and ahhed about the contents of the shopping bag for awhile, I now..not regret..but have realised that no more blue for my baby, even if its a dress because it still confuses people!  And no more tankini swimsuits, they ride up during swimming lessons and she basically spends the entire lesson with her belly hanging out and me trying to pull the top down!  This is it for awhile now, as she is still fitting a majority of size 0 wardrobe (though I have packed some stuff away already).   The haul came to $124 reduced from $158, so not a huge saving particularly because I had to pay for postage, but this is all new stock that wont be on sale anyway. This week I am getting good use out of the Vicks Vaporiser as she has a snotty nose, it has caught me unawares a few times when I have been out and realised that after showing her off several times she has actually had a runny nose. lol.  I need to carry around baby handkerchiefs ;-).

This is gorgeous, I am so in love with this swimsuit.  $24.95 pre discount.

Cute swimming tankini!  I love spots and frills.  In retrospect I should of got a full piece but oh well!  $24.95 pre discount

I love clothing with flowers on them, so cute! Especially with the frilly sleeves - $12.95 pre discount

cute pink singlet for summer - $7.95 pre discount

I chose this one to get away from the mass amounts of pink she has!  It was $19.95 pre discount

This is SO pretty, I love playsuits :-).  $24.95 before discount.  I have noticed Target are starting to get little playsuits in as well (at half the price!)

I love this, but I regret getting it in blue due to people constantly mistaking G for a boy even when its a blue DRESS!  $24.95 pre disoucnt

I see adult women wearing these all the time at the moment due to the floral trend.  I maintain that it is a look only for little girls!  $10 pre discount

this was $7.95 pre discount, a plain black singlet for summer - it feels  like nice material as well

Hurray for Toofies

After two weeks of broken sleeps and terribly upset baby, my baby is back to her happy happy self.  And why?  Because her top tooth finally broke through!  We tried many things during that period, baby nurofen, baby panadol, bonjella and the last thing we tried was the Brauer teething relief liquid that cost $16.95.  To be honest, nothing was a magical cure - the real painkiller relief of nurofen and panadol did help ease her pain, but I think when they are teething its just a tough time for baby and parents.  I think with most of the teething relief options, its just a placebo that helps you feel like you are doing something, instead of being so helpless.  The only thing that helped was when the tooth broke through, and now sleeping is back to normal as well :-).

I wandered into Target in the hope of picking up some Winter bargains, but there was nothing really there.  I ended up getting two sleep suits in a size one, although the Elmo one turns out it wasnt really a proper sleep suit it was leggings and a onsie - which is even better as now I have leggings and onsie to layer under things now as well.  Both were reduced from $22 to $11.  I had alot of wins this week with G, She is now drinking from her Nuk sippy cup!  She isnt holding it though :-( still got lots of work to go for that to happen.

Moving up in the world

So G is officially getting tight in her size 0 clothes.  Eek.  I have started stocking up on size one clothing in anticipation of her going up a size pretty soon.  Everybody says that once babies start moving their weight stabilises.  I don't see G moving anytime soon, she is quite happy just sitting up and the only real exercise she gets is at her once a week swimming lessons (loves to splash and kick!).  So at 7 months I don't think we are going to get the 6 months worth of wear of the size zero's I thought we were going to get :-).  So I stopped into the local Kmart and picked up a few things, I was actually on the lookout for Winter specials but there were none!  And G was also very lucky to get a cute Pink coat with bling bling on it in a size one as well, fingers crossed it lasts till next Winter (that weight is going to plateau once she moves right...) - technically it should lol.

Cute Pink bling bling coat 

$4 from Kmart, I love this - I think because it reminds me of my childhood

$6 - a purple hoody covered in hearts

heart leggings - $6, I am slightly obsessed with hearts...

Raincoat with hearts :-)

I also picked up this cup and mobile phone holder for her City Mini pram, because I have had several issues with needing to put my mobile or my drink somewhere and it falling off the hood of her pram, I only spent $16 on it but it does the job!

Big Girl!

Little baby G is growing up so fast. It's hard to imagine this time last year I barely had a baby bump! I couldn't imagine then what life was like with a baby. It's been amazing and such a blessing. Now at 7 months old G is becoming big so quick, she doesn't want to be in her City Mini Pram, she wants to be in her Minny Mouse stroller and she no longer wants to be put in the baby capsule in a shopping trolley. Oh no, she is a big girl now, I had to buy her a shopping trolley cover so she can sit up. Luckily I got one in sale from Babies R Us $24.95 reduced from $50. She loves it! And people love her, she is a very social child :-). I also bought this training bottle to wean her off her bottles, I feel a little bit sad about it though....

Happy Parents, Happy Children

I am all about having a great experience with my children (well just one baby at the moment!).  Having children is a tough gig for everyone, but if there is one thing you can control its your attitude towards it.  Which can be hard when your baby has been sick and not sleeping for two weeks and is miserable!  But studies show that if you pretend to be happy and fake smiling, it works! I love reading books about parenting and the library is an amazing resource with most of the latest books available.  Unfortunately my local library didn't have a few books I really wanted like the Wonder Weeks and also Harvey Karp's  'Happiest Toddler on the Block', so I have bought them as Kindle books from Amazon.  I would prefer actual hard books but a) I don't like clutter and b) when I bought the Wonder Weeks in hardcover I learnt that I actually wanted to read the resource when I was out on my Iphone or iPad or when I was travelling so I ended up buying it as an ebook as well.

The latest book I borrowed from the library was the Calmer Easier Happier Parenting by Noel Janis-Norton.  Turns out it wasn't a book for babies or infants but for 3yr+, but that was okay because it opened my eyes to the fundamentals of behaviour that I should start off anyway, and also validated my belief that its all about positive parenting.  This is definitely a resource I want to have in the future! The author Noel also has a website:http://www.calmerparenting.com.

I am loving the random bargains I have been able to pick up at my local Cotton On for Kids, their website has 30% off but I am on a spending ban so although I went through and put a lot of items in my bag I didn't go through with my purchase.  These two shirts were in my online shopping cart, they were $19.95 each with 30% off.  When I had a look at my local store though they were on the sales rack for $10 each! They are so cute :-).  I bought them in a size one because baby is nearly out of zero's at 7mths old.

Swimming pause

Now that G is going to swimming lessons every week, I have been on the look out for cheap swimsuits for her since she only has two.  I know right, how can a girl ONLY have two swimsuits ;-).  Target had a 20% off sale, but they were still a bit to $$$.  Then I went in the other day and they were having 30% off babywear sets - so I chose a swimsuit set and got 30% off.  So instead of $19 I paid $13 for this cute swim set:

Three swimsuits will do though :-).

Unfortunately there will be no swimming lessons this week because G has tonsillitis :-(.  This is the first time bubby has been really sick and she has been a trouper.  I took her to the doctors a week ago because her sleeping became really bad at night, she is usually a good sleeper.  He said she had a sore throat.  Then her sleeping remained really really bad, but she seemed really fine and happy during the day.  I knew something was wrong because of how bad her sleeping was, I thought maybe it was developmental or maybe teething.  No, it was tonsillitis! Because she was so happy I didn't realise she was actually sick.  Sometimes this Mummy gig is full of Mummy guilts.  The doctor put her on medication and it should clear up quickly- fingers crossed!