Another Week...

Another week down! I can't believe how fast the weeks are going now that Mia is in school! Again, not too much to report this week. Mia had a big week at school as it was her 3 day week. She cried on Monday and Tuesday a bit when I left her but Wednesday she was fine. I'm so proud of her and how she is doing at school. Her teachers have told me that she uses her manners, loves her art and craft and loves playing with her friends. I love picking her up at the end of the day and spending the next half hour hearing all about what she did, who she played with and what her favourite bits of the day were. All the while her throwing in the phrase "I missed you while I was at school mum". Melts my heart!!

Eve and I had a pretty simple week! I got my regular cleaning tasks done but Eve was a bit out of sorts still being a bit sick so we just took it easy. I did manage to get some sewing done and did a passport/travel doc holder for me to take when the girls and I go to Canada in a few months. Here is the finished product..

Other than that my crafty stuff was on the backburner this week!! We have been enjoying some family walks lately and Mia LOVES pushing Eve in the pram. Here she is being such a good big sister!!

Also, my new stroller arrived this week!! The one that I ordered to take to Canada on our upcoming trip. This stroller is AWESOME!! It is called the Quicksmart stroller and it is an award winning design! It folds up so small, comes in a carry case and is made specially to fit in the overhead lockers of planes so you don't have to include it with your checked baggage!! LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!

And a few more pics of our week...

Until next week!!
Crystal

I'm Late...

No I'm not late in the way that I KNOW you are thinking...what I mean is that I'm late with my blog post for last week. My sincerest apologies to you all!! We have been struck down with sickness in our household...well Eve and I have been anyways!! Luckily our little schoolgirl has escaped unscathed as has her father!! Lucky them! Eve and I are still struggling to get over it. Mine was almost gone and it has now flared up again!! Now onto last week...

A fairly uneventful week overall. Mia did SO well with school drop offs. No tears at all!! I was one proud mumma!! Only a 2 day week at school for her last week. She had a great time and did lots of crafty stuff!! Wednesday the girls and I went to our first music class for the year which was lots of fun. Singing, dancing, instruments etc made for a great morning out. Then on Thursday Mia had her first play date with her new friend Chloe from school. Mia has done nothing but talk about Chloe since school started so I thought it would be nice to invite them over. The girls had a great play together, her little brother Lachlan and Eve had a great play together and Helen and I had a lovely chat! We hope to catch up with them again soon!! Here's a few pics of the girls from this week...

I managed to get some cleaning done last week, a bit of knitting and a bit of sewing.

Talk soon!!
Crystal xx

Mia The Schoolgirl

What a HUGE week this week!!! My baby girl (who certainly isn't a baby anymore!!) started her first day of Kindergarten!! She had 3 days at school this week (Mon-Wed) and overall she did so well!! Monday was a bit of a rough day (for both of us) as Eve and I dropped her off at school, stayed for a little play and then had to say goodbye. Mia cried but the teacher picked her up and distracted her enough for me to leave. I was TOTALLY lost the entire day! Even though I had Eve at home with me the house felt so empty and I couldn't stop thinking about Mia, wondering how she was going, if she was eating the food I sent, if she was making friend etc. I got nothing done all day!! lol.  When Eve had her sleep I even sat in front of the tv and didn't even turn it on...that's how out of it I was!! There were tears on Mia's part but also on my part once I got back into the car after dropping her off. I felt this sense of loss...my baby girl is growing up and leaving the next so to speak! When Eve and I picked her up that afternoon the teacher said she took a while to "find her groove" but once they moved from outside play to inside play she was more settled. Tuesday drop off was even worse tear wise for Mia. She cried quite hard and REALLY didn't want me to leave. But when I picked her up at the end of the day the teachers said she did really well and settled much more quickly and didn't ask them nearly as many times when I was coming back to get her. Wednesday was more tears but not as bad as Tuesday and about 2 mins after I left another parent came out of the school, saw me in my car about to drive away and told me that Mia was happily playing. So the fact she settled within 2 mins of me leaving was very reassuring. Wednesday was by far MY most productive day lol.  I came home after school drop off, played with Eve, put her to bed, cleaned both bathrooms, put on slow cooker beef stroganoff for dinner and did some sewing. I know both Mia and I will eventually "find our groove" with this new thing called school but it has been a very emotionally draining week (for both of us!). Mia seems to really have enjoyed herself though and loves to tell Eve and I all about her day when we pick her up. That in itself is reassuring. It is now Friday and she has already asked a number of times yesterday and today when she gets to go back to school so that's a good sign! Only a 2 day week for her next week (Mon-Tues) so fingers crossed the crying subsides even a little bit more!! Here are pictures of my big school girl!!

Other than school starting this week not much else has happened. I've managed to do a bit of sewing and am trying out a new pattern and a new technique (ruffles) to make a pair of pants for Eve. Mia saw the fabric and now wants a skirt out of the same fabric so I'm now working on that too! Here is the start of Eve's pants...

That's it for this week! Talk to you soon!! xx

Hmmm.....

Oh my goodness...it has been about 9 months since my last blog post!!! Talk about SLACK!!!! I REALLY need to get back into this because I see it as the best way to keep track of everything that happens in our house from kids getting teeth, visits with family and friends etc etc etc!!! So my goal in 2013 is to blog AT LEAST once per week just to keep track of everything!!

I don't think there is any way for me to catch up on everything that I have missed in the last 9 months so I'm not even going to try!! lol  With that being said I will start with this last week...

Mia was due to start Kindy (I know!!! The time flies doesn't it??!?!) on Tuesday but due to all the storms, flooding, etc her teacher wasn't able to get into the school and so school was cancelled for her first day :(  Mia was quite disappointed as we had been getting her all excited for her first day (including getting her special things for her lunchbox etc) so she was sad about it being cancelled but is really looking forward to Monday. She has a 3 day week next week (Mon-Wed) so that should really help her get adjusted to her 'new' life as a school-attending little girl!!

Other than the disruption this last week of floods etc there hasn't been too much going on. Yesterday I came down with a HORRIBLE head cold and Eve seems to be getting a bit of it today and is kind of cranky, high temps etc. Lets hope both girls don't get it as bad as I have it because it isn't fun!!!

I'll leave this post with some pics.  We had a WONDERFUL visit from my parents last Sept/Oct and had the lovely Kacey from Jae Photography take some photos of us and the girls which turned out beautiful!!

Woohooo....first week of blogging complete...lets see if I can keep it up!!!

Ok! Here We Go!!

Right...so....yeah...it has been a while. I am SO bad at keeping this blog up to date!! Everytime I post I say I need to try harder but I am not doing too well at it!! Oh well, here we go with a brief catch up anyways!!

Mia is turning 3 in 9 day!!!! 9 DAYS!!!!! It is crazy!! Her party is this Saturday. It is "rainbow" themed and Mia is SO excited!! I am doing a cake this year rather than cupcakes like I have done before. I have to make 5 or 6 half cakes in different colours to put on top of the other to make a "rainbow". Not too hard but a bit time consuming! It should look great though! All of the food and decorations are all going to be rainbow coloured. It is just going to be a small affair with family and close friends coming. Mia can't stop talking about it!! She is just blossoming into this beautiful young lady. She is so kind, considerate, funny, loving and the list goes on!! She is always telling me that she "so loves me" and she is such a wonderful big sister to Eve. She always wants to "pat" her and hug her, tells her she loves her all the time, "talks" to her etc. It is so nice to see! Here are a couple pics of my gorgeous ALMOST 3 year old!!

Eve is growing SO fast!! She just turned 3 months old and ALREADY she is super cheeky!!! She has about 1000 different facial expressions!! She has now "found her voice" and "talks" ALL the time!! Just like her big sister!! She loves Mia to death - always wanting to watch her, smile at her, laugh at her, talk to her etc! I just love seeing them interact!!!

And here are my 2 girls together...

David and I are doing well. I have been sick a few times with another suspected case of mastitis and a suspected case of food poisoning but I am on the mend! The days are long at the moment with David working at Uni as well as school so he doesn't get home most nights until almost 6:30 or later.

Well off to bed as Eve will be up in a few hours to feed!!!

Chow for now!

Baby Eve Annalise

Well she has arrived!!! Mia's little sister arrived on 22nd December at 4:31pm. She was 6lbs 13oz, 50.5cm long and her head was 34.5cm circumference. We named her Eve Annalise. The Annalise was because of my Grandmother. Her name was Anne and we wanted something that contained Anne in it. The delivery went fairly smoothly...

It was decided that I would be induced due to the difficult delivery that I had with Mia. With Mia they said if she was any bigger it would have been a c-section delivery due to my narrow pelvis bones. As a result, with this pregnancy we did a grown scan at 35/36 weeks to see how big the baby was because if she was measuring bigger we were going to induce to try and make sure it was a natural delivery. I went into the hospital the night before (the 21st) and they checked dilation. I was ONLY 1cm!! They then put in the gel and then the fun began. I had a HORRIBLE night. Massive cramping, contractions etc. I thought for sure labour was officially going to start. They gave me a sedative to try and help me sleep but it did NOTHING! First thing in the morning my obstetrician came in and checked how dilated I was. After ALL that suffering overnight I had only moved to 2cm dilation. She then broke my waters and we hoped the contractions would start coming! Unfortunately that didn't happen. I was walking the halls back and forth to try and get things "moving" but after a couple of hours of nothing my ob told the midwives to set up the drip to get things going. It was at that point that I decided I was going to have the epidural. Because we weren't sure if this would be another forceps delivery I made the decision to get the epidural early rather than wait and see what would happen. So they called the anethetist and he was there within about 20mins. He put in the epi (which BY FAR was the worst part of the labour experience!!) and then the drip was started. Because of the epi I was bed bound for the rest of the labour. The drip started working about 11:30am and my ob came back around 1pm to see how dilated I was. 4cms...ONLY 4cms!! I was sure I was going to be there all night at that rate!! They kept increasing the drip to bring on more regular contractions. By about 4pm I was feeling the more intense contractions (not painful but I knew they were there) and started to feel pressure. My ob arrived again right after that and checked and I was ready to push!! Yippee!!! 5 contractions later and Eve arrived. She decided to do things quickly though. Most babies will get their head out first and then on the next contraction the body will come out. Not Eve. She came out all in one push. Surprised everyone - even the ob and the 2 midwives! The 2 midwives were busy having their own conversation and didn't even notice her come out until the ob called out "ummm ladies, we have a baby!". It was quite funny really!! Within 15mins Eve was breastfeeding like a champ - a totally different experience to Mia!! I didn't get back to my room till almost 10pm. It took a while for the epi to wear off so they didn't want to move me till then.

All in all Eve is a wonderful baby. She sleeps quite well and feeds like a trooper. I am so excited for her to get bigger though because I want to see her play with her big sister and I am so curious to see what she will look like and what her personality will be like. In terms of comparing Mia and Eve as babies, the temperament is basically identical so it will be so interesting to see if Eve is like Mia personality wise!!

Anyways, here are a few sneak peaks of the pics taken by Jae Photography of my beautiful girls and Eve!

Oh and I just realised I am going to have to update my blog header now that I have 2 little princesses!!! :)

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!!