Induction Date!!!

I know, I know...it has been almost a month since my last post. Geez - I was doing so well there for a while!!! Then things go busy. You know how it goes...running around after a toddler, working on crochet orders, growing a baby inside me...blah, blah, blah!!! :)

This is a REALLY quick update as I have lots to do tonight. It is now official!! We have an induction date booked in!! This baby will be born on the 22nd of December! Less than 3 weeks to go and I will be holding my new baby girl. I am so excited!! I had an ultrasound this week to look at the growth of the baby. One of the first things the sonographer said was "she is a bit bigger isn't she??!?" Great...LOL   She did all the measurements and on average I am measuring 1 week ahead but the weight is estimated to be 1 1/2 weeks ahead. Due to all of this it was decided to induce early to increase the chance of being able to have a natural delivery. I will have to get 2 steroid shots the 2 days before I go in to start the induction just to make sure the baby's lungs are fully developed. I go in on the evening of the 21st and do some pre-induction "stuff" and then they break my waters the next morning and off we go. Exciting times ahead!!

Mia is doing great as usual! A bundle of energy and a joy to be around! For Christmas from Santa we got a little pool for the backyard. Well it isn't little I guess but it isn't inground or anything flash like that. But Mia is LOVING "her" pool. I foresee many summer afternoons with her in there splashing around. Here are a couple pics of Mia in her new pool!!

I will leave you with that as I am so busy tonight!! I promise to write again soon!!

Another New Vacuum...

David and I have had the worst luck when it comes to vacuum cleaners. I can't even tell you how many vacuums we have bought in the 10 years we have been together. It is absolutely ridiculous!! So yesterday I went to use the vacuum only to find the hose severed at the very top which meant I couldn't even do a temporary fix it tape up job to use it. Talk about frustrating!!!! I suppose it is our own fault because we have always bought "cheap" no name brand vacuums and we have always ended up regretting it yet we kept doing it anyways!! Well this time we decided to bite the bullet and we bought a Dyson. Here is the one we got...

http://www.dyson.com.au/store/product.asp?product=DC29-MULTIFLOOR

Luckily we got it online and didn't have to pay RRP. We got it for $457 including shipping! What a bargain considering they are $679 RRP and that doesn't include shipping. Lets hope we have this one for MANY years to come!!

On another note, all I can say is 3rd trimester heartburn sucks!! The heartburn I have had this pregnancy is far worse than what I had with Mia. I bought myself the BIGGEST bottle of Gaviscon I could and haven't looked back. I get it no matter if I eat or not and no matter what I eat so I might as well enjoy whatever foods I want since it makes no difference! In the end it will all be worth it though holding this baby girl in my arms in possibly only about 5 weeks!!!

Mia's toilet training has been going really well. She has "trained herself" to sleep her daytime sleep in undies and so far we have had no accidents. She doesn't wear a nappy during the day at all even when we are out and we have had no accidents (knock on wood). The last couple of mornings she has woken up dry overnight and asked to go to the toilet first thing upon waking so maybe we might try her sleeping overnight in undies sooner than I thought!! Still no luck with poos...I will keep hoping for a miracle...LOL

Mia is now up a level in swimming and that means she is by herself in the pool without me!! What a change considering we have been doing swimming lessons together since she was 6 months old. She is doing great and is having a blast and I have to admit, it is nice to be able to sit on the side and just watch. Here are a few pictures of her first lesson by herself...

I think I may make a change next year to what classes Mia is taking. Right now she takes a gymnastics class, a music class and a swimming class. She doesn't seem as fond of the gymnastics class now that she has moved up a level but she is REALLY interested in kicking balls around the backyard so I think I might try her in a soccer class instead of gymnastics just for a change! Found a few places but need to do a bit more research! Here is our little soccer playing in training...(and yes, she is a lefty!)

And I will close with a picture of my little gymnast who thinks she is invincible!!....

Summer's Comin'

You can sure tell summer is coming. The humidity is skyrocketing and the sun is beating down. Not today however as it is rainy (still humid though) but there have been plenty of days since my last post that I cursed the day we built our house and DIDN'T put in air conditioning! It is definitely on the wish list though.

Well since my last post things have been pretty busy. Mia and I have been doing our various weekly classes (gymnastics on Mondays, swimming on Tuesdays and music class on Wednesdays) so that has been keeping us busy. Mia has now been moved up to the next level of swimming which means I am no longer going to be in the water with her. I have mixed feelings about that as I love getting in the water with her but it will be nice to be able to sit back and just watch!! I have big plans on some new craft ideas I want us to do over the next couple of weeks but I just need to get myself organised enough to do them!

My obstetrician visits are now fortnightly. I am 31 weeks right now so not long to go!! It is looking likely that I will be induced around 37 weeks and I am getting so excited to meet this little girl! She must be a soccer player because she is kicking ALL THE TIME!! It is crazy! Mia was never like this! Not that I am complaining though because I LOVE it!! I was lying down on the couch last night just watching my belly dance - what a sight to see!!

Mia's toilet training has been going SO WELL!! I am so proud of my little girl! Or should I say my big girl... *sniff, sniff*. We have only ventured out once out of the house in her undies though. I am so scared she will have an accident right in the middle of the supermarket or something! LOL  I don't think I am going to get away with having her wear a nappy out of the house though for much longer as she has been getting really upset when we are out and she has to go pee. I tell her it is okay because she has her nappy on but she gets very agitated. She did it at gymnastics this morning so I took her to the toilet, took off her nappy and she did a pee on the toilet. Then I had to put her nappy back on! I might have to just bite the bullet, start taking her out in her undies and deal with the consequences! Poos are another story though. She hasn't mastered the pooing in the toilet yet. The problem is is that most of the time she either poos as soon as she wakes up or right before bed when she already has a nappy on. We will keep working on that one...

Since the days are quite warm now it was time to get out the little paddling pool in the backyard so that is what I did yesterday. Mia had a blast!! Here is just some of the fun...

I think that is probably all for now. I am hoping to start getting some more scrapbooking pages done over the next few weeks so I can TRY and get a bit more caught up on Mia's photos before this baby arrives. Unfortunately I am only up to Mia's 9 month photos and she is 2 1/2 now...not sure how I will EVER catch up!!

In the words of the character at the end of Sesame Street that Mia likes to copy..."Peace" everyone!

Four Corners - Premature Babies

I just finished watching Four Corners and tonight's show was about babies born at 23 weeks gestation. Wow what a show. Not only did it show a baby being born at 23 weeks and then after a few hours losing it's battle but it also showed a story about a baby girl born at 23 weeks who eventually at 5 months old was able to go home. The debate is so touchy - do you resuscitate a baby born at 23 weeks or not? The Dutch position for example is that they don't . There is no debate, no negotiation - it is policy that babies born at 23 weeks are given to the parents right after they are born to die in their arms. In places like England and Australia on the other hand they leave the decision up to the parents. The show debated on whether that was the wrong thing to do or not. Grief stricken parents being given the decision to possibly save their baby. The stats are staggering - only 9 out of every 100 babies born at 23 weeks will survive. 6 of those 9 will be severely disabled and only 1 out of those 9 will go on to live a "normal" life.

The debate of course centres around $$. Where should funds be allocated? The position of many is that it is not "worth the money" to try and save these babies when most likely they will die anyways. The baby girl I mentioned above that got to go home after 5 months of being in the hospital was given AUD$155,000 worth of care and there are many that say it was not worth it to spend that kind of money when resources could have been better spent/used elsewhere. There is no clear cut answer. There really is no right or wrong. As a mother I couldn't imagine having to make that decision. Do you give your child a chance at life or are you doing more harm than good if they end up being one of the 91/100 that don't end up surviving and have had to suffer till the end or end up being one of the 6/100 that are severely disabled. Or you could be the lucky 1/100 and have a child that makes it through and thrives. I don't have any answers or even an opinion to be honest. I really don't know what to think or say. The problem arises as well in  the English system (not sure how it works here in Australia) that these premature babies are given all kinds of care up till they are 18 (physio, therapy etc) but once they hit 18 they are on their own. All the funding stops etc which I think is horrible. I will leave you with this...they had an adult on the show who was born at 26 weeks and has severe disabilities and she said something so powerful... "if you are going to spend all this money to keep me in this world when I was born, then you should be spending all the money you need to to keep me in this world until I die".

Toilet Training...and A Bloody Nose

So yesterday I "officially" started toilet training Mia. She just turned 2 1/2 so I thought I would give it a go. My ultimate goal is to have her trained by the time this baby arrives but I am just going with the flow and if it happens it happens and if it doesn't it doesn't. Yesterday there wasn't too much success. We only had her toilet training for probably about 4 hours or so but in that time she had 3 accidents. Then, late in the afternoon we finally had a successful pee in the toilet. I must have looked ridiculous bouncing around like a cheerleader squealing and cheering for her as she laughed at me while on the toilet! It is incredible when you become a mum how different you are. Who would have thought I would have been THAT excited about pee in a toilet!! So today we trained again. I had her nappy off from about 6am this morning and it only went on when we had to pop out to the shops and then during her nap. The rest of the time we were nappy free and training. What a GREAT day she had today!! 2 successful pees in the toilet and NO accidents!! I was so proud of her! She gets a car sticker for every time she goes and sits on the toilet (regardless of if she actually does anything) but when she does have a successful pee/poo she is rewarded with 2 of her "special" stickers (which for her are her Charlie and Lola stickers). It seems to be working and she is doing great!! When I put her to bed tonight 2 times before she fell asleep she called out to me through the monitor that she had to pee but obviously she was in her nappy so I just told her she could go to the toilet in the morning. Lets get the daytime training done before I even THINK about night time!! LOL

Now to the bloody nose part of my post title. Mia had her first bloody nose the other day. Not quite sure what happened actually! I was in the kitchen packing the dishwasher and she was in my bedroom. All of a sudden she started crying so I went in there to see what was going on. She was up on my bed laying on her stomach near the base of the bed. She sat up and wanted "cuggles" and when I looked at her face she had a little bit of blood coming out of 1 nostril. So off I went with her in tow getting a wet washer to clean her up and getting her "cold bear". Now her "cold bear" is a little ice pack (not frozen though it just stays in the fridge) that we always get out when she has any bumps/scrapes etc. Whenever she hurts herself now she automatically asks for "cold bear" so that is what we did. Within 5 mins she was back to normal and the bleeding had stopped so crisis averted. It barely bled at all so that was good.

Other than that we did a fun craft yesterday with our melted crayon drawings. For the details of how to do it including pictures check out my Craft Ideas tab and you will find it all there. It was tons of fun and Mia loved it!! We went out and bought some more paint today as I had basically none left so I promised her that we would do a painting craft this weekend. I am thinking bubble wrap painting will be the order of the day tomorrow...

The BIG 30!!

Happy birthday to me!! I turn the BIG 30 today. Although I have had a lot of people tell me the 30s are the new 20s so I guess I will find out now if that is true!! Not much planned for the day. Mia and I just went out the Cheesecake Shop to get my birthday cake! I splurged this year! Normally I just get a cheapie one from the supermarket but seeing as this is a "special" birthday I got 1/2 a blackforest cake and 1/4 strawberry cheesecake. I wasn't going to get the cheesecake but Mia insisted that she wanted a pink cake so she can have the cheesecake (and I might have a little too...) Other than lunch and then some cake we will probably head off to the park this afternoon since the weather is SO nice!!

Big week ahead. Mia has her gymnastics class on Monday, swimming class on Tuesday and music class on Wednesday. Then we are planning a play date with Deb and her son Nick for later in the week! It will be very busy!

Mia and I did a new type of painting yesterday! It is a variation off something I saw on Playschool. I didn't have golf balls so I used tennis balls instead. It involves coating the tennis/golf balls in different colour paint, rolling a piece of paper and putting it in some kind of tube then putting the balls in the tube, sealing it up and shaking away to make a painting! I didn't realise I was so low on paint colours so unfortunately I had to use black as one of my paint colours which made the paintings a bit dreary but you get the idea!! Here is how it turned out...

2 In 1 Week!!

Wow oh wow!! I am actually blogging 2 times this week!!! **gives herself a pat on the back**

It is a miserable day outside today - rain, rain and more rain. Luckily Mia and I had to go out this morning to the Qld Ambulance Service to have the baby's capsule fitted into the car. We have our own capsule (so we weren't renting one from the Ambulance Service) however they have a free service that will fit your own car seats for you. Since it had been a while since we have used that car seat I thought why not have them do it and know that it is done properly. What a heck of a time the guy had getting it into the car! The seatbelt wasn't cooperating and it took him what seemed like forever to get it all hooked up! Luckily I brought morning tea of grapes and watermelon for Mia so that kept her busy almost the entire time. At least it is done now so we don't have to worry about it.

Other than that it has been a quiet day. I am still trying to get over this cold that I have had for over 2 weeks. I am so exhausted - it is really taking its toll. I think it is finally on it's way out though so fingers crossed for some relief and soon!!

One thing I didn't mention in my last post was how Creations by Crystal is going. It is going really well!! I have wonderful fans and have had a lot of orders to keep me busy! I have now also been able to branch out into pattern designing as well which is SO exciting!! I have my patterns that I have done so far listed on Ravelry and on Etsy and I have had about 35-40 patterns sales already!! It is great! I am getting some great photos of my products done by wonderful photographers!! Here are just a few of my designs...

Bye for now!!

Oh Me, Oh My...

As my daughter would say, "holey moley"!! It has been a LONG time since I blogged. Geez - I feel so slack! I know I said it my last post that I was going to straighten up and get back into this whole blogging thing but I really let you, my poor old blog, down. For that I am sorry and all I can say is that I plan on making more of an effort to update you at regular intervals.

With that being said, time to recap what has been happening...

1. Mia is growing in leaps and bounds not only physically but also in terms of her personality and intelligence. I swear this girl is an absolute sponge. She learns so quickly and retains information so easily! She comes out with all these funny and new phrases almost every day! Here are some of her new ones...

"Hmmmm, it is a mystery."
"That is strange!" (she says this whilst putting her finger on her chin and putting on a "thinking" face).
"That is fantastically fun mum!"

She amazes me every day! We are very busy girls lately with Mia doing a gymnastics class, a swimming class and a music class. She loves each one of them and it is so great to see her thrive. She loves crafty things and really enjoys baking. I enrolled her on the waiting list for Kindergarten in 2013 **sniff, sniff**. I can't believe it is coming up that quickly. I am sure she will have a blast but I am going to be a mess. At least I have another year to enjoy having her at home!!

2. I suppose in reality the biggest news since I last blogged is that I am pregnant. And not just newly pregnant but almost 28 weeks pregnant. Yes, it has been that long since I have wrote on my blog! I am due on 6th January and we are having another girl (yippee!!) but it is looking more than likely that I will be induced anytime after 37 weeks due to the complicated birth I had with Mia. I would be more than happy for this baby to arrive before Christmas. That way I don't have to be preggo OVER Christmas and deal with the stinkin' hot heat!! LOL  This pregnancy has been great. I am a lot more tired with this one than I was with Mia but I think that is because I have to run after a 2 1/2 year old all day! No morning sickess or any other problems. Just tired! I am seeing a different obstetrician this time and delivering at a different hospital. I am really happy with everything though and I am SO looking forward to meeting this little girl!!

Not really any other newsworthy things to write about. We have continued to do bits and pieces around the house (painting, organising etc) so that keeps us busy. David is busily working away on booklets to use in his music classes next year as the ones he was currently using were up to the standard he wanted. His books are looking great - very time consuming though!!

I will leave you with a few photos of my gorgeous Mia who changes all the time! She sure is a little girl now and no longer a baby!!

Dear Blog...

Dear Blog,

First I think it would be proper to introduce myself. My name is Crystal and I created you quite a while back. For the last 4 months or so I have been extremely rude to you not checking in, not updating, not...anything! For that I want to say I am sorry and I PROMISE that I will be better from now on. So much has happened over the last 4 months that I really think I am better off to "build a bridge" as they say, get over it and move on but I think it would be prudent not to highlight a couple of things that have happened over the last 4 months.

The biggest one I suppose would be Mia's 2nd birthday. I still can't believe she is now a 2 year old. She is blossoming into an absolutely beautiful young lady. I couldn't have asked for a better little girl. She is smart, articulate, funny, energetic, extroverted and above all she has spunk!! She truly is incredible and I LOVE every day that I get to be her mum. Here are a couple of pics of the young lady she is blossoming into...

The other thing I would like to highlight is how well my "at home business" is doing! Creations by Crystal has really taken off. I am loving being able to create wonderful products for people and I love it even more that people are buying them and are loving them. I have participated in numerous charity auctions and giveaways to help spread the word about my business and it really has brought me some wonderful fans. I can only hope that Creations by Crystal continues to blossom and grow and people keep enjoying my products! If you want to check out all my delicious goodies click on Creations by Crystal.

I have been sick with a cold/flu the last week and last night Mia seems to have caught what I had so I hope it doesn't take her as long as it took me to recover!!

I think I will leave it at that for now. Like I said, "build a bridge". And I PROMISE I will be back again this week to update things!!

Love Crystal

Creations by Crystal

Oh my goodness have I ever been SLACK with blogging. I feel terrible! I keep meaning to do it and then I forget and then I remember but then forget again!!! AHHHHH!! The vicious cycle continues!! Anyhow, I will move on from my slackness and FINALLY post something!!

Sadly David's holidays came to an end a few weeks ago so it is back to just us girls during the day. I shouldn't complain though. David has great holidays every year due to the fact that he is a teacher so we get to have him home quite a bit compared to most families. So to commemorate the return of just us girls Mia and I have had a great time hanging out, playing, going to Lollipops Play Centre, going swimming and all in all having a blast!!

I have been crocheting up a storm in the evenings right now. My friend Carley asked me to crochet one of the hats I previewed in my last post (the grey and green one) for her daughter Leila, which of course I was happy to do!! Then I had a couple of other requests for things so what did I decide to do?? Well I decided to start my own business!!! I am just so excited!!! You can check out my Facebook business page at

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Creations-by-Crystal/183280205038564 Come and check out my page and order something!!

And here is my business header...
I am doing all kinds of fun stuff. Lots of crochet hats, baby booties and other various things. Since I just started I am adding all kinds of things all the time. I have had about 6 or 7 orders so far so it is just so exciting for me. Being a SAHM is really difficult sometimes financially so any extra income is so appreciated!! Here are a few pics of some of the new things I have been working on...








Mia is doing great. She seems to change and grow all the time. Her vocabulary is incredible and we are having so much fun together. Here are a few pics of my gorgeous girl. I can't believe in less than 2 months she will turn 2!!!









Well time to go and do some more crochet!!!!