Pom Poms

I wanted to make something for the baby's room to hang above his changing table. Something for him to look at and keep him entertained during all the nappy changes. I came across this tutorial online and bookmarked it back when I was pregnant.
I knew I had a multicoloured pack of tissue paper somewhere - I just had to track it down!
While my Mum was here (a few weeks after baby was born) we found it and decided to give it a go.

The tutorial suggests using sheets of tissue paper 20 by 30 inches but I wasn't convinced I had enough tissue paper for that so instead I started with a couple of 5 by 7.5 inches. They come out quite small but are so cute!
We made a green and a blue one this size and then decided to try something a bit bigger (10 by 15 inch sheets).
I didn't have enough of the same coloured red tissue paper so we used 2 shades and alternated the colours. This one came out so well that we alternated yellow and orange to make another small pom pom.

And finally the piece de resistance  was a rainbow colours (well almost rainbow colours - I had run out of red tissue paper) pom pom!
My lovely husband taped them up on the ceiling and they have been a huge success - getting lots of smiles and chattering from my baby boy :-)

(The black and white images just above baby are the ones you get on Huggies newborn nappies. I just cut them out and stuck them on the wall).

Birthday awesomeness

It was my birthday last week and I was spoilt rotten! I thought I'd share some of the cool things I got :-)

From my baby boy I got a cookie jar with a photo of him on it and he filled it with Jaffa Cakes as well as giving me some jelly babies and a marzipan chocolate (all from the British food shop)...yummy!

From my mum I got some money, now I just need to decide what to spend it on! She has also posted a parcel but it hasn't arrived yet.

From Graeme's mum I got the new Cathy Kelly book and I'm looking forward to sitting down and reading it. I think I've read all of Cathy's books - with a lot of help from Graeme's mum who realised I liked then and has bought me quite a few of them for presents!

From Graeme's aunt, uncle and cousins I got a gorgeous oil burner type thing! It's in the shape of a woman holding a baby and you pour lavender oil in the little heart shape bowl and it soaks through the statue.

From my lovely husband I got 2 CD's - the Great NZ Songbook 2 and the soundtrack for The Boat that Rocked. He also got me some cute journals from http://www.gadanke.com/ - I've already started filling in the Something Silly/Something Serious one and can't wait to get started on the You are Loved which is a baby book. He also made me tiramisu which was DELICIOUS. (No photos of the tiramisu because it was scoffed too quickly!)

So there you have it. I am a very lucky lady that got lots of lovely presents :-)

Today:

I am eating: LCM bars for breakfast, have a French loaf in the breadmaker and Roast Chicken and Stuffing sandwiches made ready for lunch

I am drinking: water and trying not to think about the cans of Diet Coke in the cupboard (must avoid caffeine!)

I am listening: to the baby chatting away in his cot and I'm wondering if he will settle himself to sleep* or am I just dreaming?! I might put on one of my birthday CDs soon. Graeme bought me The Boat that Rocked soundtrack and The Great NZ Songbook 2. They are awesome.

I am wearing: leggings (from Marks and Sparks - my mum sent them over when I was pregnant), my purple baggy top (bought from a secondhand shop in Australia a couple of years ago) and my sparkly shoes (from Next in the UK).

I am looking at: the beautiful view through my front window. It's such a colourful view - whoever planted our garden did an awesome job.

I am thinking about: tidying up the clutter and laundry in the lounge ready for our Plunket visit this afternoon.

I am watching: nothing at the moment but planning to watch Emmerdale at lunchtime. I have developed a strange addiction to it!

I am loving: being a mummy and a wife. Sure, it has it's ups and downs but overall it's pretty awesome. Never thought I'd be content with such a simple life but there it is.

I am missing: my mum. Love you mum :-) Looking forward to your next visit!

I am looking forward to: Christmas - it'll be baby's first one and hopefully we may have some family here to celebrate it with us.

* he didn't settle so has been moved to the couch next to me instead where he is charming me with his smiles :-)

Scrapbooking: Coming Home

This is the second scrapbook page I've made featuring my baby boy.
The photo is him in his car seat coming home from the hospital. He was 3 days old. He looks so tiny compared to now!
I managed to use some supplies I've had for a while - the letter stickers, red and cream labels and metal car charm have been kicking around for a while. I chose grey and red papers and embellishments to match the colours on his carseat.
I'm really pleased with the end result.

And that makes my scrapbooking money to spend balance up to $4!

Stuff we love: Calendula Cream

I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the products/websites/things we love.
Most of these will likely have a baby theme but I may feature some other things as well.
These will all be things I am happy to recommend to others and use myself.

The first item I'd like to share is Calendula Cream. The one we have is from The Herb Farm (a local business which sells natural skincare and healthcare products). I love supporting NZ made products where possible - especially when they are just down the road!

When looking round the Herb Farm shop (back before baby made his appearance!) I spotted that Calendula Cream can be used for nappy rash and decided it could be good to have a jar on hand if we needed it. Given it's also good for dry skin, cuts and grazes and cradle cap I figured we'd use it up somehow.

When baby got nappy rash when he was only a couple of weeks old I dug out the jar and was amazed to see the nappy rash had improved between nappy changes. And it cleared up within a day.
Now I use the calendula cream after every dirty nappy and also after bath/before bed every night. And I'm pleased to report we have not had any repeat occurances.
I think I will make sure there's always a jar on hand to be on the safe side :)

Scrapbooking: First Photo

I love scrapbooking.

I love anything crafty really.

I haven't been scrapbooking as much as I would have liked up until recently. There always seemed to be something else to do.

But now baby has come along I have found I like to take some time by myself sticking things together and picking pretty stickers and papers to go together.

It also means G and baby can have some time together on a Sunday morning while I get elbow deep in paint and glue :-)

This is the first layout I have done in a long time and it's the first photo taken after baby was born. There's a tag poked in behind the photo with some journalling on it about how I was feeling when this photo was taken.

I decided to photograph it next to some of baby's clothes. A good way of seeing what he was wearing when I scrapped the photo :-)

I have a ridiculous amount of scrapbooking bits (stash) so I have decided I need to get lots of scrapbooking done to use up some more of my supplies before I can buy anything new.

I have decided that for every layout I complete I get $2 to spend on new scrapbooking stuff. But I want to accumulate a fair bit (and use up a lot of supplies) before I start spending again.

Also glue/tape is exempt as I need it to be able to complete the pages. And I need to buy a new scrapbook album and some pockets to put all the baby layouts in so that's exempt too!

Operation Christmas Child

It's probably a little late to inspire other people to take part in Operation Christmas Child this year. The deadline for box drop off's in New Zealand is Monday 25th October. And given that's a public holiday it's likely most of the drop off centres would require them before that.

But I still wanted to share what we've done.

Quite a few years ago when I was working in Glasgow our department got together and took part in Operation Christmas Child. A couple of weeks ago I came across mention of the NZ branch of this project and decided to have another go.

Basically you wrap a shoebox with Christmas paper, pick a gender/age group your box will be for and then fill it up with a selection of gifts. You then drop the shoebox(es) at your local drop-off point (there's a list on the website) and they are sent to underprivileged children who wouldn't normally get Christmas presents. It's run by a Christian organisation but you do not need to be part of the Christian church to join in.

More information can be found on the website and this page gives specific instructions for filling up the boxes.

Back in Scotland a group of us managed to fill a few boxes between us. This year I stuck to just one box and picked 'Boy' given I had a little boy this year! I was going to pick the youngest age so it would be closest to my little boy but that age group is 2-4 years and so many of the toys I was looking at weren't suitable for children under the age 3 so I went for mid-ground and picked the 5-9 years category instead.

In our box we included: stickers, crayons, colouring pencils, colouring book, notepads, sticky plasters, toothbrush, soap (coconut scented - it smells yummy!), a hat, some bouncy balls and some toy trucks. 

It probably only cost about $20-25 to fill the box but it was so much fun to put it all together. We also made a small donation (they request $9) to go towards the delivery costs.

The last thing we added was a Christmas card with a wee message about why we had put the box together. I dropped it off at our local drop-off point today and it's exciting to know it will soon be on it's way to a boy aged 5-9 years who will enjoy receiving our parcel.

I hope to do this every year and once my boy gets a little older hopefully he will enjoy helping me decide what to put in it and include his own letter for the recipient.

Recipe: Baby Quiches

I should probably explain that these are not quiches made with babies or even for babies (mine is too young for any food just yet other than milk!) but they are baby sized :-)

I should also point out that I never have been and never will be an award winning chef. I struggle making dinner most of the time (which is why my wonderful husband makes a lot of our meals). But I do have little recipes - normally for cakes, muffins or savoury snacks - that I enjoy making and which seem to go down well with the husband, myself, visitors etc.

So, onto the recipe.

B*A*B*Y   Q*U*I*C*H*E*S

Ingredients:
2 sheets puff pastry (I use the Edmonds ready to use stuff that's already rolled out because I am a lazy cook)
Some wafer thin/shaved ham - I use about 6 slices
1/2 cup grated cheese
cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

And this is what you do:

• Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees (170 fan)
• Spray a 12 hole muffin tin with some oil
• Cut pastry into circles with a large cookie cutter (with the sheets of pastry I use I can get 9 circles on one sheet)
• Place pastry circles into muffin tin holes
• Cut/tear up the ham into little pieces and put a few bits into each pastry
• Divide the cheese between the 12 pastries
• Wash and halve cherry tomatoes and put half on top of each pastry (G hates tomato so I only put these on 6 out of 12 of the quiches)
• Whisk egg and milk together in a cup and then put approx 1.tbsp into each pastry
• Put in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until nice and golden brown on top

These are delicious warm out of the oven and also quite tasty cold later on.
If only making 12 you will be left with quite a lot of pastry - I tend to turn this into 3 pasties and fill them with whatever I have on hand - brie, grated cheese, ham, tomatoes etc. The pasties tend to take longer to cook - maybe an extra 5-10 minutes.

Enjoy :-)

Success!

My baby boy has been asleep in his cot for 30 minutes. I am calling this a success as it is 25 minutes longer than he spent in his cot yesterday during the day :-)
I am pretty lucky - my boy sleeps well at night so I really don't feel I can complain but when he demands attention all day long it can get quite tiring.

My second success for today has been having time to eat jam on toast and drink a mint hot chocolate.

It really is the simple things that can make me smile.

I spent some time last night scribbling ideas in my notebook for blog posts on this new blog. I have a list of recipes I would like to share so I have to get baking so I can take photos to accompany the recipes. I also have a list of stuff/things/websites that we love that I want to share. And some crafty projects I have completed lately or will be doing soon. So I just need to get busy with the camera so I have lots of pretty images to share with you and break up the words.

I have noticed that yesterday's post is dated Sunday 17th when in actual fact I wrote and posted it on Monday 18th so I am going to go and look for time settings in Blogger and make sure I am listed as NZ time.

The beginning

I've had the idea of forming a new blog running around in my head for a few months now.

I already have a blog but I've realised my life, my interests, my hobbies and my time is taken up by quite different things now in 2010 than it was in 2005 when the other blog was created.

In 2005 I moved from the UK to New Zealand. My time was taken up with researching NZ, travel plans, trying to sell my home, car and belongings, looking for a job and deciding where to settle.

In 2010 I spend my days trying to decipher what my baby's cries mean, changing nappies, feeding baby, baking, taking pictures of flowers and occassionally finding some time to be crafty.

So this is the new blog. I hope to use it to document my adventures as a mummy to the most gorgeous little boy. I'm hoping to share favourite recipes, crafty projects, things we use and love and daily happenings here in our home. I have lots of ideas for different posts so will start drafting them up during naptime (baby's, not mine!) and hope to post a couple of times each week.