Woman of many talents (maybe?)

So my quest for saving money has taken me to a new level. My husband has lovely thick red hair which grows super quickly, it needs cutting every 6 weeks which costs about £15. So I decided to try and do it myself. We brought hairdressing and thining scissors from boots for £8 and I attacked my brave husband's head last night. 

This is what his hair looked like on Sunday 

Starting to get a bit long and thick for work (he has a sensible grown up finance job!) 

This is how much hair I took off (2 separate piles!)  I have to say my husband was super chilled about me doing it- I'm not sure I would have been so trusting!

Luckily we have a Dyson animal vacuum made for picking up dog  (/husband!) hair. 

And this is the end result 

Not perfect but I was pretty pleased with the result. 

I mainly just used the thinning scissors to reduce the volume in the hair. And then tidied up the ends. 

The weathers here has been fantastic recently and we got a swing for the garden for Nemo. He's been really enjoying it and has kept him happy when I hang out the washing!

Nemo is now moving around so quickly it's mad. He climbed up a step yesterday and he can stand on his own for a couple of seconds.

He and Poppy are making quite the team, no drink is safe! 

Here's one last photo of Nemo in his hat- he looks so cute :) 

Stocking up

Ever since I got pregnant I am always trying to spread any impending cost in regards to Nemo so that I never had to spend lots of money at once. 

A few weekends ago realising that Nemo was now definitely in the 9-12 month clothes we went to another second hand baby fair for his 12-18 month clothes. We were really successful and got approximately:

4 jumpers,

6 long sleeved tops, 

5 t-shirts,

3 dungarees,

2 shorts,

4 trousers, 

8 long sleeved vests,

2 sleep suits,

1 wet suit type swim suit,

1 romper and

1 body warmer.

This came to a grand total of around £25.

Together with a few other bits I'd already gathered and I'm pretty much sorted.

Nemo's rapid change into an all moving baby has made us realise that he's growing out of his baby baby toys and perhaps needs to start to move onto older toys. We already have a few bits I've found including an ikea train set my brother and sister in law got Nemo, some mega blocks I brought cheaply from my local charity shop,

So far me and my husband have probably enjoyed these more then Nemo! 

We also have this fisher price play thing (?) that I brought second hand several months ago. It was such a good buy, I was a bit hesitant because I think it was about £10 but of all Nemo's toys it keeps it entertained for the longest. It has balls that you drop around the track, lights and music, Nemo's latest favourite thing to do it drop food into the tunnel. I discovered this after I found Poppy sniffing around it!

Wanting some more older toys for Nemo for a few months time we went to a new childrens fair in Ubley. I heard it was good by a friend because it's such a posh area. It was a 50 minutes drive but the drive was really beautiful. 

Ubley is this quiet beautiful posh village in lovely countryside so I didn't quiet expect what happened when we got in. We were accidentally very early and ended up in the front of a massive que (about 30 minutes before there were at least 30 people there). When we went in there are all these woman pushing past me grabbing things, one woman knocked me into the table. I was in disbelief. A lot of the woman seemed to be grandmothers and surprisingly there weren't many prams around, I never believed Grandmas would be so determined to get the best things for their Grandchildren! 

Never the less the items at this sale were good and I was happy with our purchases. 

These lovely wooden puzzles were £1 each.

 This was the most expensive buy at £3 it plays songs, has drum noises a microphone and keyboard. This is probably one of the most annoying toys made so I'm sure Nemo will love it!

At 50p this phone can record voices and play back which I thought was sweet!

£2 this pull along telephone has got more advanced then the one I had as a child is has a moving mouth and talks to you in again quite an irritating voice so again Nemo loves it! 

A 50p classic! 

A final bargain at 50p. 

I was pretty pleased with our selection for just over £10 we have some things for Nemo to grow into playing with. 

I cannot believe how fast he has grown, I did some salt dough hand and foot prints with him this week and was amazed at how big his prints were.

 After the fair we popped into the park with some friends and Nemo enjoyed playing on the swings

Nemo's not been very well, you can tell he's not great because apart from just having a cough and cold Nemo is off his food which is almost unheard of (as my mum will tell you she was amazed that he loved eating her Thai red curry last weekend!)

I made him some noodles but he wouldn't have any and just played with them instead- I don't think Poppy minded though!

Nemo's moving... Lots

So in the past 2 weeks Nemo has changed from a baby rolling around and almost crawling to a crawling standing and babbling machine. It was like Nemo turned 8 months and a light bulb went off. 

I have really enjoyed watching him crawl around. It does mean that now I see the house in a new light (although having a Labrador the house was already half baby proofed). The upside of having drinks knocked over regularly by either the baby or the dog is that Nemo can keep himself entertained for longer and I can contemplate doing non- Nemo activities.

Nemo makes two sounds (aside from moaning!) these are "wah" and "bah" I'm not sure what I can contribute this noise to, perhaps I could pretend he's trying to say banana? (a staple in our house) 

Over the last two days though he has a couple of times made a noise that sounded a bit like "mah" so I'm hopeful he might be saying mummy soonish!

Nemo and Poppy are providing to be a bit of a team. Poppy circles Nemo like a shark at mealtimes for Nemo's disgarded food and Nemo how likes to share his food with Poppy! 

Nemo and Poppy also bond over their mutual fascination with the vacuum cleaner. Nemo likes to chase after it and Poppy likes to watch it suspiciously following it around like the enemy. 

Today Nemo stood up unaided briefly for the first time ever! I have a feeling he'll be walking before too long as he can already walk a little with his hand held. 

Crafting fever

So Nemo's been able to entertain himaelf for a bit longer now he's almost 9 months old and he's also started having longer naps so I've been able to do a bit more crafting. 

I've really enjoyed getting my sewing machine out for the first time since Nemo was born. I made him some harem trousers out of a t-shirt and my knitting a waistband with spare wool. I was pretty happy with them- it's my first time making any baby clothing! 

Rowan wasn't very happy being made to model! 

 

Inspired by something I saw on pininterest  I made this for Rowan from bits of material I have stashed away and a plain baby vest. 

 

My crochet blanket is getting bigger:

 

And I'm also using another pininterest idea of crocheting using material to make a rug (?) maybe!!

Just a few things to keep me busy! 

Catch up!

So much has been happening I have struggled to keep up on blogging. 

Bye bye wisdom teeth!!!

Firstly I had my 'special' wisdom teeth removed at the beginning to March. I'd had a hard time trying to negotiate with the hospital  beforehand to have Nemo and my husband to be with me. I didn't have the best experience of hospital when I had Nemo (long story!) and I really didn't want to be on my own. Also Nemo is breastfed and outrightly refuses bottles. 

When we turned up to the hosptial the first nurse we met said "oh YOU'RE the woman with a baby" which made me a little nervous but I was quite relieved that I had another nurse who was really friendly. The procedure took much longer than expected as they were having difficulty with one of the teeth. The anaesthetic had a really strong affect on me and I dosed for hours afterwards- the woman who had her operation after mine left 2 hours before me! The hosptial had been strange about me breastfeeding Nemo after the operation saying that the policy is not to feed for 48 hours afterwards because of the drugs in your system. This is understandable but medical research states that a long gap is unnecessary if you have certain anaesthetics. I had practiced giving bottles of expressed milk to Nemo for weeks before but had no luck getting him to take one. Luckily the anaesthetists were really knowledgable and were happy for me to feed Nemo when I felt ready, despite what the nurses kept saying about hosptial policy! 

What was amazing was how quickly the nurses changed their mind about the policy when they watched my husband struggle for ages giving Nemo a bottle whilst he screamed on the ward. When I fed him Nemo my nurse was pleased and said  "that's really what he needed". 

The recovery was pretty rough. I couldn't taste anything for about 25 hours apart from this one bit on the side of my tongue which was really weird. The swelling wasn't too bad to begin with but got progressively worse over the days following. It then was replaced by bruising which made me look like I'd been beaten up. It then spread to my neck which made me like I had been strangled. I'm not showing you a photo of my face- it was not pretty and you might be eating breakfast!

First holiday 

So not thinking it through very well I forgot that we were due to go on a week holiday to Northumberland the day after the operation. We spent the weekend with my parents and they really helped look after me and my boys :) 

We went up to Northumberland on the Sunday night but it was less then 12 hours before I was at the local Berwick hospital for more painkillers! They were amazing at the hospital and we were seen before we even sat down in the waiting room! Even the receptionist was lovely having a giggle at me attempting to give my details with a very swollen mouth :)

On the Monday we walked around Berwick and went to the Green shop. This is a fair trade shop we go to every year. I always get my Mums Mother's Day present from here and they remembered I was pregnant last year and are excited to see us with Nemo. We went home pretty quickly because I felt quite unwell.

On the Tuesday we went to Alnwick. This is were we got married and it a special place for us. We went to Alnwick gardens were we had our wedding reception it was so nice to bring our baby to place with so many memories. 

 

On Wednesday we went to seahouses to have fish and chips for lunch then went to Holy Island in the afternoon (after a little nap!) 

We spent the afternoon walking around and letting poppy get rid of some energy. 

My mum would approve of this picture, she has a bit of an obsession with boats! 

In the background is the castle. The lobster pots remind me of my childhood, I had one we found years ago in my sea themed bedroom :) 

This was our view as we headed back across the causeway. 

On Thursday we went for my favourite beach in the world- Ross Sands. I don't know why but I just love it there- it's always pretty deserted I suspect because you have to walk about a mile to get there. 

 

Poppy and Nemo are developing such a bond, poppy follows him around everywhere and Nemo always reaches for her!

Nemo's mighty steed!!!

Me and Nemo Ross sands March 2014

Vs

Me and Nemo Ross sands February 2014 (just started to get a bump!) 

On Friday we went to Bambrugh castle - somewhere in all the years of going to Northumberland I've never been in to. I have to say I wasn't overwhelmed by the inside although the outside (which you can see for free!) we fantastic. Maybe the cold strong winds didn't help! We had a good day there though and it was nice to be inside. Nemo got lots of attention as my husband carried him around in a sling. 

(I felt a bit sorry for this cannon!)

On the Friday night we had saved our monies to go to Alnwick Treehouse for dinner. It's a really special place for us as out wedding reception was held here. The manager of the restaurant even recognised us and gave us free drinks which made us feel important! 

We had a beautiful and yummy meal and it was so lovely to bring little Nemo with us :) 

Well that's me for now! 

:)