First week flying solo

So, because you were all so supportive and sweet when I shared my concerns about leaving The Baby and returning to work, I though I had better share an update of how we got on.

Well not only is my childminder great with the kids, she also appreciates capturing the everyday and has a special Facebook page where she shares what the kids are up to throughout the day. So perfect for a scrapbooker and anxious mother who is sat missing her little boy at work and then up pops a whole album to show what he has been up to. It is beyond amazing. 

So here is what he has been up to in just three days:- 

Lots of playing outside in the garden as the weather has been nice

Some sorting cups and looking at reflections

Some web surfing!

Some role playing

He even ate some banana (which was on the naughty list before)

Lots of giggling

Some falling in love (uh-oh!)

Making birds' nests

Chewing some toys

Munching on some toast

Napping (only the second and third day, clearly on Monday he was too enthralled by it all!) 

Playing with cars - apparently he was really trying to work out how the cars got past the bend. Future engineer?

Exhausted by all of the fun and asleep in the triple buggy

Making bird seed

Whole body painting!

Doesn't it look exhausting, but such fun! When I see these pictures my heart sings and I can see the benefit of it all for him. He loves his little buddies and follows the little one and a half year old boy around like his shadow. After day one he was barely crying and was eating and napping well. I am so proud of how easily he has adapted - especially since last week he wasn't very well and had been very clingy. 

Today (my first official 'day off') he has been clingier than usual and has napped a lot, but its been a hectic and slightly confusing week for him so I can fully understand that response. I now have five days off and plan to make the most of it.

I have enjoyed being back at work and it already feels like I've never been away (in mostly a good way); however I am totally exhausted in the evenings and have napped most afternoons or gone to bed really early. Dinner has been a really lazy convenient frozen pizza or tortellini and housework has been the bare minimum. I will have to find a happy medium, but for now I am proud that I didn't cry on Monday and the we're both enjoying our new ventures. 

What do you all have planned for the bank holiday weekend?

Project Life: Kirkstall Deli Market

So as I mentioned before I am going back in time and scrapping a month by month approach from July 2013 when my little man was born. I already had the envelopes of prints just waiting and so its been an easy and fun process.

I blogged about our little family renuion in September for The Baby's blessing. We were so lucky that is coincided with the Kirkstall Deli market as we love that place. Kirkstall Abbey has great significance to us as a family as we had our wedding pictures shot here and so when we were here my lovely brother-in-law staged a little photo shoot of our family of three. I also got some bump shots and so I plan to make a layout of the three stages of our married life there. 

Since this was autumn I chose an autumnal colour scheme of rusts, bronze, yellow and blue. I used some Becky Higgins 'Midnight' cards, the gorgeous Studio Calico woodgrain card from Copper Mountain and embellished with mini saffrass letter stickers, sequins, wood veneers from Studio Calico and the gorgeous puffy asterix' from the Copper Mountain kit that I would love like one hundred packs of.

We all joke about how The Baby's strong eyebrows look like slugs in this picture. I cut the heart from a midnight card and like to use some of the cards for this instead of the whole card - just like you would with a 12 by 12 sheet of cardstock. 

The colours on this layout are very pleasing to my eye and I feel that I captured the event well - even though it is several months later. More September layouts to come soon and The Baby's seven month photo shoot. Eek how time flies!

The Big Sleep...

I remember reading a blog post in the hazy days of life with a newborn where the blogger said she was composing a post all about sleep. Her husband looked over her shoulder and rolling his eyes said, "oh please! Who would anyone want to read about getting babies to sleep? You're obsessed." 
I'm pretty sure newly married-out dating my husband- busy as a full time teacher-me in my other life- would have had a similar response. But sleep and napping does become an obsession when you have a baby.
You see when they don't sleep, you don't sleep. When they don't sleep they become difficult and grouchy, when you don't sleep you become difficult and grouchy and dealing with them becomes ten times harder. 
So getting a good routine and getting your sleep becomes very important.
Important enough to write a blog post about.
Men, they just don't get it! 

Now in the early days The Baby used to sleep anywhere...

In his moses basket

On our chests...

On the sofa...on a chair...yes newborn babies sleep anywhere!

Now this post in not one spouting helpful advice on how to get your baby to sleep through the night. 
As somewhere around four to five months my baby became a reluctant napper and as we tried to introduce a new bedtime routine he also became a very reluctant sleeper.
In the early days he would have a dummy and this seemed to help him get off to sleep...

Then he started rejecting his dummy and wanted to feed to sleep and to continue sucking on his bottle to help him get to sleep.
So, in desperation (for a bit of us time) and to get him off, we started wedging his bottle in with a blanket or toy and then he would happily drift off to sleep and we would sneak back in and remove the bottle when he was deeply asleep.
I believe this is what experts would describe as making a rod for our own backs. 

What would happen when he wasn't hungry?
The window for getting him to sleep became very narrow and we had a difficult Christmas and New Years with him only settling down about ten 'o' clock.
But yet he was still waking at his normal time of eight a.m and so he wasn't getting enough sleep.
We certainly weren't.
He was still waking 2/3 times in the night as well.

So it was time to re-introduce the dummy as a sleeping aid.
So now our routine was this:

• 6.40 bath time with daddy to splash around and use up his energy
• 6:50 baby massage and put into his pj's with mummy
• 7:00 go the nursery with mummy, get fed on the rocking chair and as he drifts off swap bottle for dummy
• When he wakes in the night try to offer him a dummy instead of always giving him a bottle

But do any of you find that dummies are like socks? They seem to disappear into the ether with no trace. Especially the favourite dummy. The cherry teat dummy.

So when Wauwaa (a baby and parenting advice website and baby retailer) sent me a Snoozebaby I knew that it would be the perfect solution to our problem.
The Baby has always loved clutching soft textures and especially tags and this toy has a coiled tail to capture and hold onto the dummy.
So now when he cries at 4 a.m and I am groping around in his cot for his dummy it is a lot easier to locate and often he is still clutching onto it.
The brand Snoozebaby was invented by a mother who had a premature baby who would cry and cry for hours on end. She found that he was soothed by soft textures and so designed a whole range of baby toys and accessories made from soft textures. 
My baby certainly loves things with tags and labels and soft textures. If you want to read more go to the link above.

What techniques do you use to soothe your baby and aid their sleep? Any tips to get them sleeping through?

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Disclaimer: I was sent this product to review by Wauwaa but all opinions included are my own.

January Project Life: Home and Away

So it's been a month and I am still going strong with Project Life. To the degree that The Belgian claims I am now more addicted to Project Life than instagram. Well folks, that is serious! 
I have completed most of January, but am now waiting to do a big Snapfish order to finish the last couple of weeks. I am finding  it useful to make notes each week and state which pictures I plan to use on the spread. I was going to take a monthly approach but have decided that a weekly approach may help me to be more selective with my photos - as January is sprawling on for spread after spread. It has been a busy month with a break in Belgium and a weekend in London with the Baby and sister. 
So my thoughts on creative a Project Life layout with holiday pictures? Just take the same approach as you would to any week otherwise you'll procrastinate producing it. I chose an orange and green colour scheme and just went for it.
It is also important to point out that at this point I had not yet raided my piggy bank and spent far too much at Hobby Craft so Project Life cards were in short supply. Instead I just cut up 12 by 12 papers and noticed that most American Crafts pads have cut apart pages with ready made journalling cards ready to use. I used mainly Crate Paper and Amy Tangerine on this layout.

I dug out my stamps and made good use of some sets I brought at Two Peas last year. The first is a Simple Stories set which includes the camera and 'Oh Snap' phrase. I think I will be using this stamp set a lot as cameras are my favourite and it works well with all of the little photos. The second set I was using are a Maggie Holmes set and they contain phrases like 'happy day' and 'oh so sweet' and I can see them being used lots on my Project Life pages too. 
My main embellishments here are Freckled Fawn enamel dots and washi tape that I purchased from ebay. I used my favourite free editing website - picmonkey to add text to the photo and I love this font too. 

My second layout is the 'home' part of January. I wanted to capture some of the more everyday moments of our lives - since its not all waffles and Belgian chocolate! So I got a sling selfie as we often go for a wander in the sling in the afternoon. I know there are more sophisticated means like a self timer app - but this does the job. I also documented our current obsession with Grey's Anatomy and captured the shot with our favourite snack - popcorn. I also included a photo montage that I created using an app on my phone - photogrid for the android. I printed these instagram pics with pologram which prints them in a poloroid picture style - which is super cute but I had to trim them to include them in this size pocket. I have also used origrami and was really pleased with the quality and effect and loved that you could get your caption printed onto the back of it too. 
I used lots of Dear Lizzie and Amy Tangerine and some of the Maggie Holmes Flea Market Project Life cards. The pastel colours fitted with the photos and the mood of the page. The bottom middle card I cut the word strips from a 12 by 12 sheet and then stapled them onto the card.

So I am still learning but felt pleased with how I used my existing stash to create these two layouts.

Have you found any ways to stretch your stash in a layout or Project Life spread?