laurasaur

Well both of my children are napping so I figured I should do something on my blog! Our gorgeous girl is 8 weeks today and it’s high time to get her birth story done and dusted.

{My sons birth story is here}

A bit of background – We had been living with my parents since returning from living in London – our house was not quite ready and Christmas and my due date (the 26th) were rapidly approaching.  I’d been emailing a midwife (in New Zealand you get to choose your midwife and all the care is free – amazing right?!) who I found online who sounded just perfect – very pro homebirth and not into intervening without good cause.

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So it’s been a long time between posts! what’s been going on? Well… we travelled through Europe, USA and Fiji, landed home in New Zealand – where my parents sorted out an amazing house for us, helped them do some major renovations on it both inside and out, moved in, did some serious furniture and whiteware shopping, got our boxes from London, got our boxes that we had in storage from 3 years ago, semi unpacked the boxes, did midwife appointments, set up sky and insurance and stuff like that, caught up with friends and family, job hunted, and oh yeah had a home birth.

This is our gorgeous baby girl, long awaited and already giving us so much joy – Charlotte. So yes I’ve been busy but thanks to my awesome husband’s Christmas present (galaxy note 2!) And lots and lots of feeding time I forsee more time online! Xx

I made it to the 29 week mark today and we arrived at an amazing hotel in Barcelona after a few days in (a not so amazing hotel!) Paris. Travelling is definitely harder than I thought it would be while pregnant but still very enjoyable! I’m certainly getting my waddle on though.

Very bumpy and teeth still very black

(Outfit entirely from eBay – topshop leigh maternity jeans & mamas and papas maternity parka with accessories from TK Maxx)

Paris was cool although if I’m honest not as amazing as everyone had made out! My sense of smell is in overdrive and everyone and their dog smokes like a chimney there… after a few days I was over it haha. The Eiffel tower at night was probably the high point, Reuben got a bit scared at the top with all the wind and I got a bit scared in the creaky lift going up!

Belly button’s still in – although I do not ever remember seeing it this “shallow” last time, so scared it will disappear or worse pop out haha.  And some cute and very cheap purchases from the mall right next door to our hotel in Barcelona – the shop was called Auchan which from reading the label appears to be French! Haha. Never saw it in our travels in France! Might have to do some reading up on where to get maternity stuff here, everything is so cheap!

**My bad.. turns out my hubby reads my blog and the shop was actually called Alcampo.. like a gigantic amazing store of everything cheap haha. **

xx

So a few weeks ago I recieved a lovely package in the post from the founder of  Seraphine Maternity Cecile Reinaud, with a letter congratulating me on my pregnancy and gifting me this beautiful Breton style dress!

As you can see from my previous maternity posts I’ve got a bit of a thing for Breton stripes or stripes of any kind really.. And today I finally had a chance to give packing a rest and rock my new dress around Westfield on a final London shopping trip.

It is super comfortable, and flattering although I think I need to invest in some kind of belt that works a bit better than the one I was wearing with it. I think maybe a long long thin tan one wrapped twice would look amazing!

As you can see I’m exposing my bare pasty legs so I’m off on a mission tomorrow to get some amazing maternity stockings so I can wear this dress in NY in a months time as it will be pretty chilly! I picked up some gorgeous leather flats and new sunnies to go with my outfit from TK Maxx today too… oh TK Maxx how I will miss you so!

I’d never heard of Seraphine before they contacted but I’ve been browsing their website and loving heaps of the stuff. The catalogue they sent me is just gorgeous too, and they have 20% off heaps of their best sellers this week. Here’s my favourites from Seraphine at the moment… I’m very tempted by the breast feeding tops!!

The baby made me do it?! I’ve been clearing out our cupboards and came across my canned pumpkin stash. I LOVE canned pumpkin. When I was 8 or 9 my mum took me to her colleagues house for a thanksgiving meal (thanksgiving isn’t normally celebrated in New Zealand) and I had some delicious pumpkin pie, and we came home with a can of pumpkin. The can sat in the cupboard for a couple of years until I think we made something from it (worst memory ever!). Either that or it got old and my mum threw it out haha.

Anyway I’ve loved pumpkin pie ever since then and made it a couple of times with normal pumpkins – until I arrived in London and discovered our local Waitrose often stocks canned pumpkin!

This is a whole lot more delicious than pumpkin pie if you love cheesecake like I do! Excuse the cracked top, I made this in a serious hurry and messed up with opening the oven a bunch of times and forgetting our oven is realllly hot.

Pumpkin Pie adapted from [Paula Deen]

Crust:

• 150g biscuits
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 stick melted salted butter

Filling:

• 3 (8-ounce) / 640g packages cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 (15-ounce) / 425g can pureed pumpkin
• 3 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions