Instagram - August 2011

My life lately according to my iPhone! Follow me on Instagram @evenstarx :)

With love and light xo

Holiday

We've been a little busy for posting really - Mitch has been off work for the week so we've all been spending time together as a family and it's left very little blogging time. I'm also feeling a little stale with the blog, like there's not really much to talk about? Maybe it's time for a new photo series or blogging project or something.

Anyway, we had a really lovely holiday! Alice was an angel all week really, and was fantastic with the journey both ways - sleeping and playing and keeping herself occupied for 2.5hrs both there and back.

We went to the seaside for Mitch's birthday and she had a little paddle for the first time. No tears, but she wasn't quite sure what to make of it really!

We also spent a lot of time with the lovely baby Amelia. It's incredible how much more advanced she is, despite the difference of only a few months. It's really lovely that she'll have another little baby to see and grow up with :).

A lot seems to have changed in the past few weeks. She finally seems to be settling into her own routine - in the day she wants to be awake for 1.5/2 hours, then a 30 minute nap. In an ideal world she'd be awake for longer and sleep for longer but I'm just happy she now naps upstairs.

She is now going down at 7/8 in the evenings, meaning we get a little bit of evening to ourselves now. But, is unfortunately still waking 3-6 times a night, which does get a little wearing! But I'm quite happy to keep doing it as long as she wants to - we've been following some of the No Cry Sleep Solution and Dr. Sears techniques and they seem to be making a big difference.

We've also cracked bath time and it's a much happier time for everyone involved now. And when I say we, I mean Mitch - I could literally count on one hand the amount of times I've bathed her - not my job!

Every day we get more smiles. She responds to faces and voices, and wants to talk and join in with whatever's happening. She constantly wants to play and experiment with things (normally they reach her mouth) and gets incredibly frustrated when she can't figure out how to pick something up.

I can't believe she's 4 1/2 months now. If you could just stay tiny forever Alice that would be great.

With love and light xo

Instagram

We've had a lovely holiday, and I have lots of pictures / things to write about. But for now, here's a few snaps from my phone :). My latest obsession is the Instagram iPhone app so follow me for some more photos - username evenstarx.

With love and light xo

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

With love and light xo

Video - Hello Alice!

With love and light xo

Dear Alice - 4 Months

Dear Alice,

We seem to have been incredibly busy this month, especially with moving and putting up furniture / unpacking, and it seems to take forever when we have to keep stopping to feed and entertain a baby! But you are smiling all the time now, making it perfectly acceptable to spend 45 minutes playing "Where's Alice?!"

You love playing games with us, and you make the most gorgeous little noises. When you're awake now you chat to us pretty much constantly, getting very frustrated if we don't reply straight away!

We've had a rough few weeks with sleep - you'd been getting up 7 or 8 times a night then finally waking for the day at 5am. I think it was making you grumpy, and it was definitely making me grumpy! So we did a little reading, and tried a few of the methods from Dr. Sears and the No Cry Sleep Solution. We've established a sort of routine, although I hate that word! More a sort of order we do things in when you give us the cues. The past few nights it's worked really well and we're all sleeping a lot better.

We had our first case of the worries, when you had a really sicky day and just weren't yourself. You got worse throughout the day and we ended up at the out of hours doctor, but they think it was just a late reaction to your last set of jabs. Poor little owl!

You have been using your Bumbo and getting much better at supporting yourself in it. You also spend a lot of time on your tummy, and you can hold your neck up and look around at the world. After a while you give up and face plant but you are getting stronger every day.

You still love being naked, and it's a pretty much guaranteed smile if we strip you off, no matter how grizzly you are!

You are constantly gnawing away at your hands / blanket / cloth / whatever you can get your hands on. You have a little nub of a tooth that seems to bother you on and off, and you grab my hand to try and push against your tooth! You also now dribble over everything. Yum!

You are going on your first holiday tomorrow! You are very excited to go for walks and see lots of new things in Cambridge. We're going away for your mama's big birthday, and I'm sure you will get lots of cuddles.

We had to take a quick ASDA run last night to buy you some big 6-9 month clothes, as you are bursting out of your vests and sleepsuits. This makes me very sad as you have lots of lovely 3-6 clothes you haven't had chance to wear much!

I am a bad mummy and haven't had you weighed this month so I have no idea how much you weigh - but you are definitely a lovely lump :)

We have booked your Christening for December, so we get to look for a pretty dress for you soon!

And finally, last night you said Bye Bye to Uncle Peter, who has left for America today. We will all miss him very much <3

With love and light xo

Video - Alice Talking

With love and light xo

Dear Alice - 3 Months

Dear Alice,

Today you are 3 months old, or should I say Happy Quarter Birthday!

You were weighed last week and you now weigh 12lb 8oz, and were spot on for your age. You are completely in your 3 – 6 month clothes, and some of the trousers are actually a little short for you!

Over the last week you have found your thumb, and you are now loving a good thumb suck to comfort yourself – which gives me a little more time to do things without having to carry you round / put my fingers in your mouth all the time.

You are becoming more aware of your arms and legs, although you still have no co-ordination. However if you want something you flail around wildly until you eventually get it, when you look very pleased with yourself!

We now get many many smiles, and we almost get giggles – although they're more like little squeaks at the moment. You also talk to us, and coo and purr at us to express your amusement, generally at daddy because he's much better. Little baby noises are amazing!

You are feeding less often, and when you're awake you want to spend some time playing and cuddling without feeding. Unfortunately you are still waking up at night, and you've actually got a bit worse this month, having a few bad nights where you've been up 5 / 6 times. Most of the time it's 3 times a night, but you generally don't fuss too much and just want to feed.

You are trying to sit up and enjoy standing with support, where you are definitely trying to balance yourself! You don't really like being held like a baby anymore, and would much rather be propped up and looking around. You like looking at lights, faces, and the TV. I'm a bit torn – do I let you watch the TV already?! But you just seem to enjoy the lights and the colours.

You love listening to music and dancing with daddy, and you seem to prefer daddy's singing to mine unfortunately! Daddy would also say your favourite music is Fatboy Slim, and you do seem to enjoy that more than anything I play to you.

You're favourite thing in the world is being naked, and you spend hours of your day just kicking around being naked.

Your granddad and nanny bought you a play gym this month, which you LOVE. You spend lots of time kicking around on your mat, trying to reach the toy and scrunching the flower up.

We've moved house this week so you'll have plenty of room to grow and explore, and I'm already planning where we can put a paddling pool and a sandpit one day! You are also having a big space to play in the house, and I'm excited to get a big comfy rug for you to crawl round on.

This month was also both your great grandmas birthdays, with one being 70 and one being 80, so we've been to lots of parties and you've been admired and adored by lots of family! You are so lucky to have so many people around you who love you so much.

Talking of people who love you, mummy and daddy love you more than anything in the world. You are amazing.

With love and light xo

Big Move

We currently haven't got the internet, so I'm writing this ready for posting later. Hopefully the internet will be sorted from Saturday onwards, when normal blogging service will resume! I'll steal Mitch's phone to post this later.

The big move is done! It was a lot less painful than it could have been, mainly down to the amount of people we had helping us and moving boxes / unpacking / carrying. It's times like this that make me realise how lucky I am to have an army on hand when needed. We got the majority of the move complete on Sunday, with just unpacking and a few boxes on Monday / Tuesday.

The house is still somewhat in a state of disarray, but it's definitely getting there. Hopefully a visit to IKEA over the weekend will help us get a little more organized. I'm going to take some pictures soon, but I'm still sorting and faffing so I'm not quite ready. But, even though there are still boxes everywhere, we're already appreciating the extra space. I'm excited to sort out Alice's playroom, and there is just going to be so much more room for all of us. We're so lucky that we were able to move and rent the flat out, it's just the best of both world for us as we're still paying towards a mortgage, but we have a much bigger space.

Alice is one month old tomorrow, which is just both exciting and terrifying! So much has changed, but I'll try and find time to write an entry about her tomorrow.

So we're here, and we have somewhere to sleep and somewhere to eat. And it was the right move.

With love and light xo

Photos

Also, how cute are these!

With love and light xo