I’m trying to get more organised with my poor neglected blog.. I quite like this new design although its far from perfect.

I’m really enjoying settling back into our winter routine.. baby R has lunch and then goes down for a nice long 3 hour nap where I ignore all housework and productive tasks and snuggle on the couch under my nice knitted blanket and catch up on quality TV, knitting and blogland. Ohhh its hard being me some days.

I’m updating my links and hopefully soon my recipe index… I like this whole being organised thing for a change. It’s nice. In the mean time.. check out my blanket I made.. I love it..

[raveled here]

I always have so many amazing ideas about making all these incredible presents for everyone and wowing everyone with my DIY skills, unfortunately every year my DIY efforts are more like DIYfails…

This year I’m as un-organised as ever (if not more so) and frantically knitting away some Christmas stockings, baking like a crazy woman and trying to cross things off my list.

That’s my token (yet unfinished – how timely for this post) gingerbread house for this year, next year – use a template! Cut more carefully! I’ve finished a ginger and cherry panforte and need to complete the white chocolate fig version as part of my handmade Christmas efforts. Then, some jarred mincemeat and mince pies…… oh yeah, need to buy presents too!

I’ve had some of the best two weeks of my life. I feel so blessed to be in New Zealand with my baby, relaxing, catching up with old & new friends and generally just loving my life. Time passes so quickly especially when you have a baby and responsibilities and it’s too precious not to love every moment of it and everyone in your life.

This face. I love. So much. What a freaking cute boy.

Mine started out fab. Reuben & I had breakfast, he had a huge nap, I drank lots of coffee and did some knitting, we went out to browse a knitting shop and have coffee with some gorgeous knitty friends and gorgeous babies,

happy happy

and then

get home, Reubey is playing so happily, I’m knitting in the lounge and he crawls off into his bedroom and I stay put, can hear him crashing around with his duplo and stuff… 20 mins or so later he crawls out all smiley

and then

OOOOOOOOhHHHHHHMMMMMMMYYYYGOD there is POO EVERYWHERE. He has somehow managed to undo one side of his nappy resulting in complete poomageddon. Did you read the bit above where he had crawled from HIS BEDROOM TO THE LOUNGE??? yeah. with half a nappy on. And poo everywhere. Ohh. Funn. Then it dawns on me that this is my child… and I’m the one that has to clean it up. Haha. Glorious Mum moment.

So shower/bath/30 mins later OKAY So he’s clean. Back into his room, try not to cry while seeing poo smushed into new carpet … room looks like some kind of crime scene with duplo covered in poo…  he had obviously taken his walked and rolled it back and forth over the poo.. anyway.. I digress from the next moment in my day… So I plonk him onto his change table and unwrap the towel from around him…

Reubs is coooooooovered in  rash. Slight panic.
/skip the boring trip of my day/
MEASLES.

Oh joy. That was a surprise. I like to think I’m pretty in touch with how wee man is feeling etc as we are quite joined at the hip for a good portion of every.single.day.. and he hasn’t been acting terribly out of sorts. Last week I had to go to hospital after I had a miscarriage (that’s a story for another day) and then again for an oral surgery appointment for my jaw so we spent a good amount of time in that disease ridden place…. and I’m sure he picked it up from there. Apparently 7-14 days from infection to rash so that would work out.

Sigh.

Trap him in a corner of his room behind the couch while I deal to the aftermath of poomageddon…. except I hadn’t trapped him, he had crawled off and slithered out into my bedroom.. prceeding to empty everything from 2 drawers of a bedside table.. containing all my makeup.. yay!!

Carpet is clean. Room no longer smelling 110% of excrement. Now like 50% poo 50% wet carpet. Go baby hunting… aha! Reach for baby and step on a square jar of moisturiser and roll my ankle, almost fall onto squishy baby…

and so on and so on

rah rah rah.. day didn’t get much better for me or reuben poor boy developed a bit more of a fever and spent a lot of time snoozing on my tummy in the evening. oh well I ate lots of cake……. wait that’s not a good thing either :<

but seriously, at not one point in this day did I feel unhappy or despair (until my husband got home, but thats another story .. f**king cricket) .. because I love my sweet little poo making baby.. and I feel so bad for him that he’s all uncomfortable with the measles… If I could have it for him I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Loving on my stinkster squiggle machine…….. Lau x

Cath Kidston mugs making me happyyyyy inside

baby R helping me fix my laptop keyboard (fixed!! more blogging action hopefully *should* be taking place as a direct result of this)

lots of happy hooking time has been taking place and baby R’s blankie is coming along very nicely!! so exciting!

the sun is starting to shine more and It’s lovely having my sister in law staying with us for a few months too xxxxxxx

Loving lazy Tuesdays… relaxing on the couch with some tea (herbal) and some new cookbooks (Nigella of course).. listening to the sounds of the dishwasher doing dishes for me. Dreaming of hooking up some cushions with  my new found crochet skills.. maybe later.

Interlude to check facebook, watch some videos of the grammys and realise that little man will still  be sleeping for another hour… bliss. If I could block out the noise of the rubbish truck outside I could almost pretend that I am on the couch in New Zealand..

Look at how big munch man is getting… Looking so grown up in his jammies from Aunty Julian too…yes that is the lens cap from my camera :/

Screw you white company… this is the blanket I have been searching for forever, you got my hopes up so high when I saw it was on sale, only for the gray colour to be out of stock.

oh wool rich blanket
how I love you
I thought you had some synthetic
but I found out you were wool/alpaca
then I loved you even more
then you were out of stock

um hello poem of the year.

I’m back in London after 2 amazing months in New Zealand… what a contrast…
dull and gray from bright and sunny
cold and wet from warm and humid
just us from family and friends.. I guess it’s this last one that makes the most difference. It has been such a fun time having all our family and friends around for the past few months, I miss you guys so much already.

It’s really weird coming home to our flat here, to be honest I had kind of forgotten what it was like after 2 months. It is nice though, Reuben’s room is so bright and cheerful – I just stuck up the R E U B E N letters from Erica too which are super cute.

And one of the best bits about coming home – My wonderful hubby bought me the best birthday/wedding anniversary/valentines day presents ever… I feel so spoilt. I got  a kitchenaid stand mixer and this amazing kenwood food processor. No excuses now to get out of baking

Of course Reuben is now over 9 months.. I feel like this year is flying by and soon he will be one year old! Can’t believe it. Sometimes I still can’t believe that I have a baby of my own, let alone a crawling handsome little charmer haha. His crawling is still on his belly, and he has just started pulling himself up on stuff. We gave him his first haircut 2 days ago, and he jammed his fingers in a drawer this morning

xx

My baby turned 8 months a few days ago and wow how time has flown. I keep meaning to update my blog but basically I’m too lazy. Anyway… Reuben is now “crawling” (body still on the floor but getting where he wants to go pretty quickly!) which is so exciting, I love seeing how determined he is to get places.

He still is such a good natured baby, always happy and relaxed and just goes with whatever is happening. He still is a great sleeper – although we have had many disruptions recently (to be expected – we are in New Zealand with my parents) – but on the whole fantastic he still sleeps 11 or 12 hours solidly at night and has 2 naps of 2-2.5hours each. I am in the process of weaning him from his third nap although I’m not too sure how ready he is for this yet.

His eating is going well – he has a very large appetite and I nurse him 4 x a day with 3 solid meals. I have struggled while on holiday to prepare homemade baby food like I normally do and we have resorted to using too many jars of organic babyfood. Oh well there is time to fix that.. A sample meal routine/menu for him is something like this:

Breakfast: Breastfeed & Oats/Fruit/Water blended/mashed. Sippy of water
Lunch: Breastfeed & Vegetable/Rice, sometimes fruit/oats
Dinner: same as lunch
Bed: Breastfeed

I pump almost every night before bed too which has been great as his grandparents (my parents) have enjoyed being able to feed him and I have enjoyed having such wonderful babysitters!! I want to write a review on my pump soon because it is AMAZING. But for now it is called Avent Isis iQ duo – Double electric pump – learns your rythm.

Rueben is a very curious and easily distractible baby so our nursing sessions are about 5-10 minutes long now. I haven’t had him weighed properley since we arrived in NZ but I took him on my parents scales and he is over 10kgs now (over 22lb).

All in all I love him an unspeakable amount times a million plus four and I hope he reads this one day and knows how much I love him

I am pretty awesome at multitasking. Especially compared to other members of my household. But anyway, sometimes this leads me to getting absolutely nothing done. For example – right now I was trying to print out a template to help me make a daily schedule. What did I actually end up doing? Hmm.. I should really reformat the PC. Oh – if I do that I’m gonna need to back everything up onto my external. Oh – it’s not plugged in. Oh – I need a NZ – UK adapter for it *Five minute hunt for an adapter*. Found. Oh – I should blog about how I never get anything done, because that won’t be the most boring blog post in all of the world to read.

I should really use baby nap time for something more satisfiying. Like napping myself. That template can wait…