Cupcakes and the forgotten one.

I am attempting to do "something" with Hannah each day while Toby is having his morning nap. Usually I would be finishing up some cleaning, sitting down for a break, doing some photo editing or sewing, having a shower... and Hannah would be entertaining herself, following me around chatting, watching TV...

It isn't really fair on her. She gets lots of time with me when Toby is awake, but I am always distracted, or there are meals to be prepared, nappies to change, etc. By the time Toby goes down in the afternoon I am tired, and not usually at my most patient.

So now I am moving Hannah time up to the morning.

Today we made cupcakes! From the outset my plan was to make them as bright and colourful as possible so they would look good in a photo. *blush* sad, hey. But we had fun. Hannah got to serve them to both Nanna and Daddy (and actually managed to limit her consumption to only 2 for the day!). Oh - plus the beater licking.


And the forgotten child. Poor Toby. He gets a bit lost in his sisters wake. At the moment he is trying so hard to move around. He burst into tears the other day because Hannah and I were crawling around on the floor, and he was not able to follow us when I chased Hannah into another room. He had rolled over onto his front, and was up on his hands and knees rocking forward and crying.

So. Here he is, in all his post-lunch glory. Scuse the odd bit of food... some areas were a bit hard to clean up in photoshop. lol!

Hannahmania is open for business... again!

Well, it has only taken... ummm... ages. Hannahmania has finally re-opened.

I stopped sewing back when I was pregnant with Toby. Too many complications, it was just too hard to know if and when I was going to be able to sew.

This time around, all items will be sold through the shop. Custom orders were getting too much last time. I will be selling a number of new designs/items as well as bringing back the very popular striped pants.

Sneak peek of the first item added - more to come over the next few days!

Something a little different.

Have you ever seen anything this cute!




From Knitspirations at WAHMania. There are other designs in their store, and some seriously cute beanies as well.

I am in the process of preparing to re-open my own store, but I keep on adding new designs/items leaving a pile of almost finished items behind me. lol! With any luck, I will have enough ready to list by the end of the week.

(Photos swiped off the WAHMania site with permission of Knitspirations)

The beach and the river

Yesterday I was itching to get out and take some photos of something non-kid related... so I convinced DH and the kids to the beach for sunset.

It was supposed to be Brighton Beach, but we were running late, so I had to be happy with St Kilda. More people around than I would have liked, but at least the sun put on a rather lovely display.



On the way home, we stopped at the lookout at the top of Yarra Blvd. I did not have my tripod, so this is a little shaky, but not too bad. I had to spend ages editing out the streetlights from the Eastern!
Going back a couple of weeks ago - Our Corowa trip. I still have not edited all the photos, but these were a couple I took of the kids by the river (on the dried up river bed). Hannah found a rusted trolley that had become exposed with the river dropping so low, which she seemed to enjoy sitting in.

So long!

How slack!

Well, I really could not justify not posting today. I had my first competition results at DVPS last night. I was fairly happy with the images that I put in, and was hoping for maybe a merit or two.

Well.

My absolute favourite photo (the one that had been untitled, which I ended up just using the girls name for), the one that I was sure would do fantastically, was given 9/15. I think the lowest score given on the night was an 8/15, so really, not a great score. I was a bit disappointed, and given what he said about the image, I was a little surprised it scored so low, as he seemed to only really have one negative, everything else was quite positive.

But, that is life.

The one of the baby feet (Wished for child) and the one of Hannah both scored 10/15. Neither were perfect shots, so I was happy enough with those scores.

The last one up was the one of Toby. He had picked out a couple of slight faults with the image, and after my last three, I was expecting about an 8 or 9 for it. Well, apparently I was in for a bit of a surprise when, not only did it score 14/15, but it also got first place!


Now I have said all that, I really did actually like the judge. He was really nice, found great comments about all the photos, and I think he did a really great job, even if a couple of the results were not what I expected.

Meanwhile, the subject spent the 2 1/2 hours that I was out at home screaming for his father. As it turned out, the poor boy just wanted his mummy to come and put him down to sleep. Poor daddy having to deal with the screaming child for all that time! I have promised that next time that happens I will come home, but being my first competition AND getting first place, I did not want to miss collecting my certificate just to go home to look after an unsettled baby when there was a chance that he would just continue screaming for me instead.

Conversation/monologue of the day from Hannah:

"Mum, you get up please and come downstairs and help me. Help me downstairs. I need you for only 3 hours. No mummy stop being funny [laughing]. You need help, mummy."

Only a mother...

can get so excited by another persons toileting habits.

We put of TTing Hannah for a LONG time. First because I was pregnant, then because we had a new baby, were moving, were putting all our spare time into doing up the old house... There were so many excuses.

Honestly, she could have been TT'd just after she turned 2. She was able to use the toilet when she was interested in being in undies. We just were not interested in the extra hassle.

But last week I finally decided I had run out of excuses. We were home for a couple of days, nothing on that was going to cause any major interruptions, and she is definitely ready.

After a couple of days of asking for a nappy, she has since given up, and is going really well. We might get an accident once a day (often, but not always, poos) usually when she is tired, but generally she is doing fantastically! We do have a bit of an issue with her playing instead of getting down to business... seriously, you take everything else away, and she will still find ways to play! Singing, playing with her feet, twitching around... *sigh*

The big moment that has brought me to posting though... most of the time I am taking her to the toilet, telling her when she should be going. A few minutes ago, though, I was sitting on here chatting with her dad on MSN, and suddenly I see her going past my door saying "I just going to the toilet mummy!"

By the time I got downstairs she was sitting on the toilet in the middle of a wee! I was so excited, as was she! Because she took herself, she even got 2 stickers. lol.

Meanwhile her bedroom door is starting to look quite pretty. She has a laminated chart that has 5 circles on it, and when the circles all have stickers, she gets a small prize (usually a choc-drop, although I am planning to get some face painting bits, so I will start painting a flower or something on her cheek instead) and then all the stickers go onto her door.

My sick boy.

I was going to come on and post some photos of our trip to the miniature railway yesterday, but instead I have spent the day looking after a stroppy sick baby. :-(

Toby felt a bit warm when I got him up from his nap yesterday evening, so I took his temp - it was 39 degrees! So off to the Dr today, and he has an upper respiratory tract infection, and is on antibiotics. Poor kid is so miserable. His temp was up even further this arvo - 39.5 degrees. I felt awful for holding off panadol until we got in from the Drs (cos there is nothing worse than showing up with a sick kid who appears perfectly healthy thanks to a well timed dose of panadol).

Anyway, might try to post the photos later if Toby sleeps well enough.

We has a tooth!

I was just giving up on them ever coming through, when I noticed something sharp when Toby was chewing my finger earlier!

I swear this tooth has been cutting for about 3 weeks now. He has not been bad with it, but he has been grizzly and a bit fussy/unsettled. Last night he was up every hour or 2.

Only about 15 more baby teeth to go!

Photo lull...

The only image that I have taken in over a week. My photo entries for the DVPS comp (Open Subject) I was a bit stuck for non-child photos, and with a sick household I have not had much chance to take anything new.



From top to bottom:
"I sitting for photo - I have my lolly!"
Untitled (any suggestions?)
Wished-for child (the meaning of the babies name)
Toby

Since there is not much of interest in the post, I will add in the conversation I had with a tantrumming toddler earlier...

"Hannah, come into the bathroom and wash your hands please!"
"No! I go to Toby!"
"Hands first, then you can go play with Toby."
"No!"
"Hannah you are so exasperating!"
"No! I NOT exaspeRA-TING!" *add foot stamp and pointed finger*
"Hannah, believe me, you really are." *trying so hard not to laugh at her*
"NO!" *bursts into tears* "I NOT exasperating. You're exasperating!"

I cracked up laughing, and gave the poor kid a cuddle, at which point she decided that it was a good joke too, and proceeded to perform for the video on the phone.

I am just loading some bits off my phone, and I could not resist sharing some of these. For a child who hates cameras, she LOVES being recorded on video on my phone!





She was a bit nuts when I took this one...