Aye ho aye ho it's off to work I go

So you can probably gather considering my silence that I have returned to work. My life is now feeling very full trying to add four days of working of being a social worker in with everything else :) 

Nemo has done amazingly well with his childminder who seems to have superpowers. She manages to do lots of activities with Nemo (I see photos so I know she does it!) but Nemo is nearly always immaculate when I pick him up. Within 30 minutes of being back home Nemo is messy again. You see I'm the kind of person that gets covered when I decorate but my husband can decorate in his normal clothes. I bet the childminder is a clean decorator!

Nemo is so chilled he has settled really well and has made it so much easier to leave him. I still miss him though and find Tuesday mornings the first morning back really difficult! 

We are so excited about Pebble's arrival and I have been trying to squeeze in some crafty for her. 

This is a blanket I have crocheted. I still need to sew in some ends on the other side and block it but it's almost there!

Some booties :) 

And matching hat!

And a cardigan. It still needs blocking- and washing as a dirty mark has appeared! 

We have had a nice bundle of clothes from my brother and his wife from their twins and we have also been to a baby fair to pick up some bits. There was one stand where I have never seen so many expensive baby clothes, they we all monsoon, baby gap, mama and papas etc even the baby grows were all designer. I got a couple of things I couldn't resist! 

Mamas and papas cardigan

 

A cute joules hat 

A mama and papas dress and cardigan. 

I got all these plus a couple of extra things for £10. We thought that this was quite expensive but I dread to think what it would have been new! 

Nemo continues to grow before me eyes. He's walking around now. He has also taken a liking to the home phone and has managed to call my parents twice now by clicking the redial! 

Nemo's been really unwell over the weekend, the weirdest thing was that he woke up in the early hours of Saturday morning throwing up. I went to bath him and my husband went to clean up to find out that our dog Poppy had also had the runs and thrown up. Nemo has barely eaten which is really unusual! He's been really tired and has wanted these huge hugs so it has it's upsides :) 

Here he is having fallen asleep holding his current favourite toy :) 

Unfortunately hubby has come down very sick this evening which makes me the last man (woman!) standing in our household! I feel as though I'm being slowly cornered by sick people! 

Oh well better get on with things! 

:)

Pink or blue?

So I appreciate that my blog title is very gender stereotypical however me and hubby could not think of any good titles that were more politically correct! 

Besides baby clothes definitely do not reflect an open minded approach to gender with mothercare almost without expection having three colours for newborn clothes, blue, pink and cream! 

So my lovely husband for a treat brought us a gender scan so we could find out the sex of our child early. 

So its all a bit posh, firstly I've been told to have a full bladder and also 20 minutes before to have a chocolate bar and sugary drink- this is so baby is active in the scan to get a good view! I did do a very good job of filling my bladder and although they only ran about 10 minutes late I was suffering!! 

We went in and the bed had a comfy furry cover on - still had that kitchen roll type tissue on top though! There was a massive plasma TV screen in front of you to see the baby on. 

So the sonographer showed us the head first then the arms and legs and I just couldn't wait to get to know the sex. She kept on looking for quite a while to get lots of views to make sure and then she told us .........

It.........................

Is........................................

A...........................................................

   

                                                                                             GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We already feel incredibly blessed to be having a other baby and we are very excited to be having a girl as it means we can get nice girly things!

It was such a treat to see baby pebble, we even got to have a little look in 3d, this gestation isn't a great time for 3d but the sonographer managed to get a good view of the baby's face (even if pebble is a little skinny looking at the moment!) 

Then pebble got camera shy

So the inevitable happened- after the scan we went to Mothercare....

 

Girl clothes are just so sweet- I did notice that it was near I possible to get a newborn outfit that wasn't pink so we got a pack of 3 baby grows with some peach in too and a creamy pink outfit! 

So excited!!

My little Nemo turns one

I can't believe it, my little Nemo (named when he was this goldfish sized person inside my tummy) is now a whole year old!

Nemo's was due on Prince George's birthday but was 2 weeks late, his birth by emergency c-section was after a 3 day induction and I'm really hoping I little Pebble makes a smoother entrance into the world! 

Nemo is such a character now it's hard to remember how little and helpless he was when he was first born.

So I have to indulge in some reminiscing! 

This is the first picture I ever took of Nemo, it was the night he was born and I was so tried but couldn't sleep. I wanted an excuse to hold him so waited for him to make a little whimper and then called a midwife so she would give him to me! 

Soooo cute!!!!!! 

So the day before Nemo's birthday I was busy trying to make him a cake which would be special for his first birthday :) 

This is how I did 

Overal I was pretty pleased with the cake, I was a bit disappointed by Nemo, I made the colour by adding food colouring to ready made fondant icing and this seemed to have the affect of reducing its ability to keep its shape so I couldn't keep the oval fish shape as well as I would have liked. I wonder if I had added in icing sugar if I could have counteracted this affect?

During the day we met up with Nemo's friends at soft play and and had fun eating cake. Nemo was so tired by the end of the day he went to bed without his  usual nighttime bath. 

I've felt very emotional about my little boy turning one it's made me even more excited about Pebble joining us! 

Just to finish here's Nemo with his daddy :) 

Naughty shopping trip

So I have been trying to not spend money but had to hit the shops today to get Nemo his birthday present. 

Of course it was Prince George's birthday this week and it made me laugh because the 22nd July was Nemo's due date, he in fact came 2 weeks later but I remember in the intense heat of July last year how annoying I found it that Kate had her baby on my due date! I would not de co end late pregnancy in the middle of summer (especially when you go two weeks overdue!) to anyone. I think I have planned it much better this time having a winter baby! Someone else told me that a January baby is nice because by the time you're settled and starting to reemerge into the world after having your second baby the weathers turning warmer again. 

Anyway having had big debates about Nemo's birthday present, because quite frankly he has more toys then any one child needs we chose to get Nemo a toy garage. It seems a slightly more grown up toy for him to grow into. 

After lots of deliberations I got this one:

This was on the basis that it had a ramp and a lift! 

However I fell into the trap of being in baby shops and got a couple of sneaky extra things as well:

This is a little all in one for baby pebble made out of pyjama material. It was on sale in mama and papas from their Christmas range but will be good for a January baby. As I said to my husband being a second time mother I should know it's not the most practical clothing for a newborn (Nemo lived in sleep suits and vests for the first 3 months at least!) but it was nice to get one little cute thing for pebble! (Plus it does popper all the way down so it's not entirely inpractical!)

I also brought this outfit for Nemo:

It's a Lily and Sid shorts and t-shirt combo and I love their cute clothes but they are sooo expensive! At half price the outfit was still on the pricey side but much more reasonable and Nemo did need more shorts.... (This is my justifacation to myself!) plus isn't it cute?

I also got some half price shoes as well as Nemo is doing more walking now (he took he first step on his own on the weekend although only Grandma got to see it!) 

Aren't I naughty!?!

We are visiting Nemo's aunt and uncle in Cambridge this weekend and I think I will get Nemo all dressed up in his outfit for the visit! We are also doing a flying visit to my parents on the way as Cambridge was a bit too far in one go for Nemo! 

Nemo was spoilt over the weekend by Grandma who came to see our new house, my Mum went all soft and bought him this ride on:

Her blog on the weekend is this: http://nicemurderknitter.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/night-before-pill.html

We had another scan last week as they were unable to get the measurements they needed first time round here is pebble last week:

In the second photo Pebble's having a stretch and you can see the legs! 

Well I better start packing for the weekend, the only potential hiccup is that Poppy is not very well (you don't want me to go into details!) I hope it doesn't stop us going! 

Opps we did it again!

So amongst all the other chaos of moving house, CFA, family holiday we also have had some news:

Number 2 is on it's way! :D 

This is baby Pebble due January 2014

I am really looking forward to being massively pregnant in winter rather then the middle of summer like I was with Nemo.

Obviously the hospital stay a few weeks ago was largely due to the morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum if you're being posh but the gastroenteritis didn't help! 

I had an early scan whilst I was there to make sure baby Pebble was ok and here is it - just over 3 weeks before the scan above:

The change was unbelievable, in the first scan Pebble looked like a little gummy bear with a big head, tiny limbs and a flicking in the body (the heart beat) whereas in the second Pebble looked like a proper little person! 

Inspired by Pinterest I wanted to be more creative with Pebble's announcement on Facebook. After a lot of stress and 3 different photo sessions this was the end result. 

I was pretty happy with it but it wasn't exactly what I was aiming for! I have hundreds and hundreds of failed photo attempts here are just a few:

I am so excited to be having another, albeit it a little nervous too! 

It was such a relief to tell everyone as by waistline has certainly expanded a lot more quickly then it did with Nemo- it was getting hard to hide! 

Mass descend on Devon

So every year my family (that is my parents, siblings, their patners and as of this year their children) go on a holiday together staying in increasing large cottages. I am number 3 of 4 siblings, we all have partners and sibling 2 also has babies just a little you get then Nem

Last year I was full term with Nemo and my sister in law was about 27 weeks pregnant with twins so we were both sporting significant bumps. So this year there were 3 additions to the holiday Nemo and the twin girls. This made a total of 10 adults, 3 babies, 1 dog and 1 very small extra (!!???!!!) 

We staying in Devon very close to the boarder to Cornwall. 

On the first day we went to went to Bude and took Nemo to a proper beach. 

Nemo and Daddy sharing an icecream!

Nemo LOVED the sea, he just sat there happily for ages, we had to take him out when he started to shiver but I think he could have stayed there for hours! 

On day two the entire family descended on Gnome Reserve; a wonderful little place with gardens and woodland areas with thousands of gnomes. This proved a great photo shoot area for the babies!

Oh yeah you also have to wear gnome hats when you go around! 

You'll notice in the photos that little Nemo has a watery red eye, unfortunately his mummy trying to be responsible got a bit over zealous with the sun cream!

Yeah you get the idea! 

After doing the fairy garden quiz (!) Nemo was shattered!

:)

So day 3 we headed for Padstow, which is this gorgeous harbour town in North Cornwall.

 It has really cute little shops and if you walk for 20 minutes or so you get to this really cute little beach. The sand was so soft and the sea so clean and blue it felt like being abroad. 

We set up a little tent on the beach for Nemo to play with (even though I spent more time in it then he did!) he loved he sea again and again we had to drag him out! 

I love this picture of Nemo and Daddy crawling together to the sea! 

Again the day ended with Nemo wiped out in his pram!

 

Poppy had lots of people around to entertain her and the cottage was on a nature reserve so there were lovely dogs walks on the doorstep.

Day 4 we headed out with all the siblings to Port Issac which is another stunning harbour town where they filmed Doc Martin. 

My siblings and husband took part in some seagull feeding seeing how close they would let the seagull get whilst offering them food!

On the way home me and hubby dropped in with Nemo to Widemouth Bay just to make sure Nemo got his sea fix for the day :)

Guess who was tired again!!

On day 5 me and hubby went together on our own for an evening date without Nemo curiosity of my parents. This was the first time since Nemo was born and it felt very weird! 

We'd seen people crabbing when we went to Padstow and having not done it since my young childhood we decided to give it a try. 

So we got our fish and chips then found a spot on the harbour side to start crabbing. 

We started off well, we caught 11 crabs (and some of them were the size of my hand) however we 

lost ALL of them in the lift up the the peer. Even with our trusty fishing net we could get them quick enough. 

We decided that these crabs have been caught so much that they learnt to get easy food and let go before they had to serve time in a bucket being gawked at by hundreds of children! 

Sad face no crabs!

So figuring the peer was too high we moved to a ramp were the drop is much less. Did we catch a single crab.....no! Seriously these crabs are not idiots! After a whole of no luck we moved to a set of steps by the side. But again time after time nothing I decided we would have one last go and then..... we caught a crab and I caught it with the net on the way up. What a relief!! We proudly displayed our catch in our bucket on the peer and named it after our first born!!! 

I did catch one crab after that but it didn't make it into the net and into the bucket! It didnt matter though because our efforts weren't in vain, we may not have caught loads but you only need one! 

Happy face! 

Celebratory icecreams!

We released crab Nemo into the sea, said our goodbyes and walked to the beach as the sun went down, how romantic! 

It was such a lovely evening :) 

Day 6 saw all the family bar my Dad head to the Eden Project. 

It was a great way to spend the last day. Especially as it was the only rainy day we had whilst we were on holiday (I know lucky!) 

Nemo loved the Mediterranean dome most of all for some reason and spent almost the entire way making giggly and happy noises! I think it may have been all the bright colours. 

It was lovely to spend time with all the family. Things are certainly more complicated with 3 babies to add into the mix who are at different stages/ have different routines but despite the fact I don't think anyone got as much sleep as we did last year before babies it was definitely special. 

Nemo really recognises his Grandparents down and seeing Nemo react to my Dad when he came to help us move really showed how much he's bonded with them now he's a little older.