On the 10th of May

Once again I'm a little late, the tenth seems to pass me by each month!


At six months old, she is sitting on her own for a short while until she gets distracted or tired. She intentionally reaches out to grab things and bring them to her mouth. And by things, I mean everything. My coffee cup, Isaac's hand, Andy's hair...


We started weaning this month and I think we hit it right on the nose. I'm amazed how quickly she's developed the appropriate skills. We're doing baby-led weaning again, as we did with Isaac. (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, google it. It is so fantastic to see your child reach out and feed themselves, even at this young age.) Within two weeks, she is purposefully bringing food to her mouth and gumming it. She loves to drink water from a sippy cup and she steals Isaac's drinks given half a chance!


And these two? It melts my heart to see how well he cares for his sister. He shares his food with her and thinks it's hilarious when she accepts the drink he shoves in her mouth.


She's not rolling yet, though she's making good efforts with kicking her legs and pushing her bum off the ground. She stands with minimal support (this photo was posed & I blame Andy for giving me the idea).


She's just gone into 6-9 month clothing and, to my distress, it fits beautifully. On the other hand, she can now wear all the lovely things I bought her ages ago.


She shrieks and shouts and babbles to herself. She's an attention-seeking lady; if you leave her alone for 5 minutes, she communicates her displeasure. And when you come to pick her up from a nap, she beams from her Moses basket. She has collaborated with her brother so now they nap alternately and I miss my me-time most days. She goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps beautifully until about 2am when she wakes for a feed. And then she's up again at 5 or 6 for the day. She naps at half 9 and again at 2ish, given half the chance.


She likes to sit in the middle of the action. She has a favourite toy: Sir Prance-a-lot! A gift from my sister & her husband for Christmas.


And she loves labels so the Taggie that Isaac dismissed has been a great hit. All in all, she's delightful and happy. We have a wonderful time together.



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On personalised frugality

I would love to make every single card I give by hand, individually tailored to the special person who will receive it. Partly because I object to paying £3 for a mass-produced piece of paper with some sparkles added. And partly because the people I send cards to are very special indeed. But I live in the real world, with a husband, 2 children, 2 cats, a very untidy house and a verging on unhealthy need to play with paper & photos on a regular basis. (And I'm not that inspired when it comes to card-making.) So I have recently developed a compromise:

I make cards using scraps and sketches or lifts from cards I love (mostly taken from scrapbooking blogs). Sometimes I add a sentiment, sometimes I leave the front blank. I tend to make 2-4 of the same basic design at the same time. They live in a cupboard in my scrap storage until I need them. And then, when I suddenly remember that it's my nephew's birthday or I want to send a note to my daughter's godmother or I realise as I'm going out the door that I'm off to my friend's new house for the first time (all true examples), I run upstairs, grab a card and put a couple of personal finishing touches to it.
The photo above shows 3 cards that I'm in the process of making today. (My crafting gets done in small chunks around all the other activities that raising a family & running a home entail.) The left one is cut but not stuck yet. The middle one is stuck but not personalised. And the right hand one is finished & written, ready for my friend's daughter's second birthday this week.
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ETA: Those cards are a lift from this post on the American Crafts blog and I've used old Sassafrass Lass papers, some Paperchase washi tape and AC Dear Lizzy Thickers.

On a very special day

This is my favourite professional shot from our wedding day - I think it was an accident but the sunflare, coupled with our positions & expressions just lifts my heart.  I don't remember this bit of the photo-taking, before we moved down to the grass and the trees.  The weather was almost perfect for a wedding & the mass of photos that go with it.  And the two days of torrential rain made the grass glorious!!

Looking back today, I see two young people, in love & optimistic about the future.  I can see exhoes of this day in our photos from more recently.  Five years & two children later, I still lean on you and we still laugh together.  I hope we never lose the joy and comfort of just being together.  I love you more today than I did then and for many more reasons.  I'm excited to look forward to our future together.  April 2012 xxx

Back in February, I had some 5x7 photo credits going out of date so I ordered reprints of some of my favourite photos from Isaac's early days and our wedding.  This shot is the only wedding photo we have on display in our home - must do something about that! - because it's my absolute favourite.  From a distance it's stunning but almost anonymous; when you get closer, you can see the little details that make it representative of us together.

I stuck to a colour palatte of grey, yellow and white for this page as part of challenge 4 from Shimelle's scrapbooking weekend.  Initially, I tried out navy, blue or purple as my third colour but I couldn't find anything inspiring in my stash.  I had some bright ideas for white accents and found some vellum printed with text from 1 Corinthians 13 to use as well.  After that, it came together pretty quickly and I used up quite a few things that I've had hanging around for far too long!

On real life

I wanted to take a photo with me & the kids - looking through our photos, there aren't enough with me in them.  But Anna couldn't sit properly & Isaac wanted the camera so I have some bad photos with me laughing & Isaac diving to grab the camera from Andy.  Sigh!

And another inspired by Shimelle's online scrapbooking weekend - challenge 15, rubbish photos!  This year I'm trying to take more photos of me with the children.  As I'm the one holding the camera, I'm very rarely in the pictures so I have loads of photos of Andy with Isaac and/or Anna and practically none of me.  This little photo shoot was a bit of a disaster - Isaac loves cameras.  He likes to see himself in the viewscreen and holds the camera up to his nose to 'take his picture'.  And he's just starting to figure out that what's on the screen is what's in front of the camera.  It's fascinating to see the wheels turning in his head.

This page is very me in terms of design but I tried to stretch myself a bit with the big cluster of 'stuff', using a range of different bits from different manufacturers.  I like how it turned out and I'm glad I'm scrapping recent photos using products that I love.  Happy scrapping day!

On the back step

March sunshine - sitting in the back garden - feeding the baby - watching Isaac play - wearing sandals for the first time this year - dinner on the patio - flipflops, ladybirds & sunhats - Isaac in shorts - avoiding direct sunlight & trying not to get cold in the shade - the cows are back - lazy days togethers - <3 27th March 2012

I LOVED this challenge!  Create a scrapbook page with four unique sections.  I was going to do 4 5.5x5.5 sections but my leftover papers didn't quite work.  And then I cut something the wrong size and I ended up with this layout.  Originally, the skinny sections were both on the left but I did the butterfly first, then the photo and then the journalling card.  Then I realised I had nothing to add to the apples section apart from decoration and I didn't like how it looked with all the content on one side and just decoration on the other.  And actually, I like the off-set nature of this page.  And I really really like the idea - I think I'll probably do this again.  I made each section individually but tied them all together (figuratively) buy repeating some related elements and using the same ribbon on most of them.