foot in mouth....

Natalie's doing really well at eating, she loves carrot, swede, and baby cereal!

Potato she's not so keen on, and she makes a face as if I'm feeding her a lemon when I give her potato to eat (it makes me so sad, I love potatoes!!).

We gave her some diluted fruit juice too which she didn't like at first she eventually got the hang of drinking it.

However, Natalie's got a new favourite thing to eat, even more than carrot....her right foot!

At every opportunity she grabs it and shoves it in her mouth. Yesterday she managed to get her big toe in her mouth and her second toe up her nostril - what a talented daughter I have!

Here are some pictures of a present I made for my friend's birthday last week - I really enjoyed making it, I may have to make one for myself too!

Pete's been working really hard over the last month on a case study he has to submit to university in order to graduate as an architect (along with taking some written and oral exams). He decided not to work on it on Sunday but to spend some time with me and Natalie so we went for a walk in the woods near home. It turned out to be a really nice walk, we're thinking of doing it again on Christmas Day after dinner (yes, I know - I'm already thinking about Christmas!).

I cant wait until November when all of Pete's uni work is finished and I get my husband back! It's been pretty tough having him at work during the day and then working in the evenings and at weekends too - I know he's looking forward to getting his home life back too!

I've noticed recently that Natalie's become very interested in the labels on her toys, so I decided to use some of the many ribbons I have collected over the years and make her a tag blanket:

It's not quite finished yet - I need to sew up the corner that I left unstitched so that I could turn the whole thing inside out again (I never know how to do this neatly - I think I'll have to do some research to find a tidy way of doing it), and I'm going to quilt the square to hold it together better, but I think she's going to like it!

Pretty in pink (...and orange!)

I forgot to mention in my last blog the picnic I had on Friday with 2 of the other mums from JellyTots. We went to Christchurch Meadows by the river and laid out our blankets ready to eat our sandwiches and feed our babies, and along came a goose! It waddled closer and closer to us, even stepped onto our picnic blanket, so I got up and tried to shoo it away, but this just made it angry and it started hissing at us, so we gave up and moved to a new location. We were ok for a while, so we settled and I started feeding Natalie, when suddenly a group of geese started making a bee line for us! Tan and I both instantly stood up, whilst feeding our babies - impressive huh! - and Kate, the SUPERMUM, ran around like a loon chasing the geese away! Thanks Kate!!

Here's Natalie in a lovely new pink outfit she inherited from her cousin Lucy - isn't she cute! We normally avoid pink but we made an exception because we couldn't resist this tiny tank top!!

On Tuesday we progressed from baby rice to....

Natalie loved it! She's had a whole ice cube (defrosted of course) of carrot for the past 2 days and its gone down very well.

It has however changed the output product, and Natalie's nappies now look like they're full of puréed carrot! Lovely!

I got these great ice cube trays in Poundland for freezing puréed food- they work really well because they have lids so you dont have to wrap the tray in clingfilm.

I made some very simple brownies yesterday afternoon, in case it rains today and the trip to the pub on the river I've got planned with my friends gets relocated to my house.

I couldn't believe how easy they were to make, here's the recipe:

400g caster sugar
225g butter, melted
60g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 eggs
225g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
60g walnut halves (I used hazelnuts and dried cranberries instead)

Preparation method
1. Mix all ingredients in the order given.
2. Bake at 180 C / Gas mark 4 for 20 - 25 minutes in a rectangular 23x33cm greased baking tin.
3. Cool, and slice into equal square portions.

They're really tasty, we had some for dessert with ice cream! Yum!!

weeeeeeeeaning...

It's been a weekend of experiments...

On Friday I tried Natalie out in the baby bouncer we inherited from our friends - she was a bit confused by it because she kept spinning herself round in circles, so in the end she just hung there and tried to eat the front of the harness - maybe this one should be put on hold for a while until she's a bit bigger!

Then on Saturday we tried Natalie in dungarees for the first time (thanks for the hand-me-down Heze!), which looked very cute but may need to be teamed up with a girly top in future to avoid any gender confusion!

Also on Saturday was Natalie's biggest 'new' experience - solid food! Well, mushy food anyway - we tried her on some baby rice for the first time.

She loved it! Next week we'll move onto some fruit and vegetable puree - yum yum yum! I dont think I'd quite realised how messy she'd get with eating, I think we'll need to give her a bath every night from now on (instead of every other night), or we'll have a crusty baby!

Natalie got to spend lots of time with her cousins this weekend while we visited granny and grandad, and she loved all the attention she got (so much so that she's been a bit grizzly today with just mummy for company!)

Where's the week gone!

Sorry it's been a while, Natalie's decided that daytime napping is sooo last month, and has been demanding that she stay downstairs with mummy instead (where she generally falls alseep!)

So, here's a brief photo diary of what I've been up to since the last post...

We went to the park for a JellyTots picnic

I've been thinking of ideas of applique projects I could do (inspired by the flower on these dungarees)

Natalie's been wearing her new cardigan, knitted by Nanny B!

I've tackled a mountain of washing and sorting of clothes (and a few teddies) given to me by my friends that are moving overseas

Natalie's been enjoying Heze's old rocking horse (although she was pretty unsure to begin with!)

We tried Natalie in her new high chair, not long now until she'll be eating in there!

It's a bit warm still for Natalie to use her quilt that Nanny B made her, so we've bought it out as a playmat instead!

We said goodbye to our friends before they move overseas, we will miss you guys!

I got my hair cut

We went for a nice Sunday afternoon walk with Tim & Katherine, and subsequently booked a holiday together in the Lake District in October!

Natalie's been practising rolling over, she can go from her back to her right side, but then she gets stuck - where should that right arm go?

Yesterday I cracked an egg for my lunch, and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a double yoker!

Then I cracked the second egg in and it also had a double yoke - what are the chances!

I've been working on re-arranging the kitchen cupboards because I've been getting fed up with the things I need often being on the top shelves, out of my reach. It's a work in progress.

We've discovered the culprit of our nibbled lettuce - there are loads of them on our lettuce crop, so I think we'll have to dig it all up and start again!

So there, you're up to date with the life of the McWilliams! Righty, better go, there's a nappy that needs my attention.