Thursday, 8 December 2011

The Xmas Advent Adventures 2011 Day 8 & 9

Hello world!

On the 8th day of xmas my advent said to me....

Do some festive cooking!

I was a bit pressed for time so I made choccie crackles. Whats that I hear you say? "Thats not very festive!!!" ahh but it is when you pour white chocolate on it and top it with a little red m&m - the it looks just like a mini xmas pudding :)

My friend did this last yr with marsbar slice moulded into little pudding shapes ( I presume with an icecream scoop or measuring spoon on smthg similar to create a semi sphere!) and it was so cute I stole the idea but with choccie crackles (cos they are soooo easy to make!) and I repeated it yesterday - I really should have tried it with mars bar slice recipe but forgot! Maybe next year!

On the 9th day of Christmas my advent said to me:

Go to your Mummy's group Xmas party!

Why thank you advent, what a brilliant idea, I think I will!

Chewing on her friend F's lizards tail! She played tug
 of war over the lizard with her bestie Z for a while too!


Best shot I got of her in her outfit - loving her spotty shoes!
Secret santa time -
Pie's first christams present!

Trying to get the card off proved difficult!

Tearing the paper was great!




Theres a gorgeous Snuggle Pot and Cuddle Pie counting
book in there!
Then enjoying her first bon bon

Clearly it was delicious!

And the crown was a perfect fit ;)

See?

Then she managed to swipe a 2nd bon bon to chew on!

Mummy and Pie - terrible photo taken while she tried to steal
the camera out of my hands :)
Jodi xo

How cloth has changed my life!

Hello world,

As you all know, I love using cloth nappies but I was thinking tonight, it really has changed my life!

Its saved me money - even tho we have bought some nice nappies and have a sizeable stash I've still saved on what I would have paid for sposies. And Pie is only the first of I hope many babies (well probably 3 cos I don't know if I'll have many more pregnancies in me than 3!) so its only the start of the savings.

I feel good about leaving less impact on the environment - I feel good knowing that we are doing our part for a better future for our beautiful girl. I feel good knowing we are raising her to see the importance and ease of reusing, to not be caught in the throw away mentaility that our society has somehow come to.

I love how happy and comfy my Pie is in them, she rarely gets rashes now that we use cloth and she looks adorable in it!

MCN Lovers R Us - what a life changing experience that has been! I feel so proud of having made something that has turned out to be so successful already, I feel good knowing that ppl come to my page for help and they get it! I feel good when I see what a happy community it has become! And I've taken the online cloth adventure one step further and co-founded Unite for Cloth - a group encouraging people to be cloth advocates by providing the information, handouts etc to make it easier to speak up for cloth. Its only 4 days old but I can't wait to see how it grows!

But the way that cloth has changed my life the most is the amazing women I now call my friends - none of whom have I met!

I have 2 Christmas cards hanging on a piece of ribbon strung across my lounge room window - they are both from women I have never met but I call my friends now and our shared love of cloth bought us together!

When I check my email now I'm often emailing back and forth with a wonderful lady who I'll call L - she makes such beautiful nappies and has such a kind heart, she lives in SA. Or it'll be one from C who lives in Melbourne and has such an amazing spirit! She works so hard and gives without any thought of take! Or it'll be comments of my blog from E who is the ultimate Mummy/business woman combo - she really understands and values family and she is also one of the loveliest women I've ever encountered! She lives far far away in WA! When I log onto facebook my notifications are always packed! There is K who is like a soul sister, we send parcels to each other swapping all sorts of little nic-nacs and my baby girl has dollies named after her baby girls! Or A who has the most fun spirit of any person I have ever known and makes awesome Xmas decorations! There are J and J who I can always count on to share the Mummy joy whenever I put up a photo or a post about my girl! And thats just the start!

These new friendships are so wonderful! During my pregnancy with Pie I had to give up my job (at 16wks - so very early!) and my independence and I lost alot of self-confidence and I got somewhat forgotten about by alot of my closest friends - suddenly I was pretty well housebound or needed my husband to drive me to places, get out the wheelchair and push me around - it was a lot of work PLUS we had next to no money and I was in pain so it quickly became too hard for my friends and I to really see each other and 9months on my confidence is still shaky and my friendships are still not the same as they were. BUT meeting these wonderful ppl reminds me that there is a whole big world out there and that things change for a reason!

Cloth has changed my world, how has it changed yours?

Jodi xo

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

The Xmas Advent Adventures 2011 Day 3 - 7

Hello World!

Day 3: Put up the outside lights - still need to do that, its been raining!!!

Very simple, we also have a light garland that says
Merry Christmas too. They get the message out
tho - Merry Christmas to you, from us!



Day 4: Add your special decoration to the tree...

Now you will have all seen the baby Piper and the Canberra Raiders decs on our tree - I got a bit eager and added them to the tree when we put it up - wooooops! But we did get some very special ornaments in the post on day 4 so we added them instead:

K is for Kev

J is for Jodi

And P is for Pie :)

thank you Amy for the beautiful gift! You have no idea how much it means to me to get something so special in the mail!

Day 5 : Write and send the Xmas cards:

This is still a work in progress 2 days later!
Cards from vista print, photos of Pie by my sis!
And before we moved on to the next day Pie and I enjoyed 5 minutes under the xmas tree:

Seeing the lights up through the branches of the tree is pretty
magical, you definately should try it! Pie loved it!

Day 6 : Unwrap something special from your stocking!

As unwrapping is a little tricky and I didn't want the something
special to get damaged I just put it in her stocking!

A Mr Men Christmas book - Yay!

Reading the back to see what the books about!

Really enjoying the story!

And finish off with a bit of showing off to the camera!

AND a bit more!

Day 7 : Visit Santa!

Heading towards the Santa circus - how cute are those volleys!
 We couldn't take any photos at the Santa exhibit because apparently the meaning of Christmas is the $17 they want you to spend on a Santa photo and therefore cameras and mobile phones are banned. I didn't want to cause any probs by taking pics of the face she gave Santa but it was a good one! We don't want a Santa photo because a) Piper really doesn't like the guy much - when he waved to her today she wiggled back in her stroller and gave him the stink eye - and he was a good 15 metres away, and b) I'd prefer our christmas photos to be ones of our happy smiling, crazy bub, not of her terrified sitting on the lap of a stranger! So we just went over close, I gave him a wave, she gave him a death stare and we continued on our way. If she's keen to go near Santa I'll certainly do it, but so far, she isn't!!! We did run in to Mrs Clause tho and she gave us....

A Gingerbread man tattoo!!!
Not sure if Pie will be getting a temp tattoo this Xmas tho.



And here are a few more snaps of our day cos I'm in the mood for photos:

Pie wasn't too impressed when I busted her
doing some sort of dance in the backseat today!

But I got a pic from the other side and she
was far less cranky!

And ofcourse, the new crazy smile!!
(how do I rotate photos on here???)

A very tired Mummy and her gorgeous Pie xo

And here is a page from the special photo book
I had made for Piper for Xmas!

Dancing to Aunty Sharni's music on Nanny's
table - this girl loves pop!

Then we got a special parcel from Mary-Beth when we got home

Daisy Duck rocks Xmas!

Straight in the mouth - clearly gets the Piper seal
of approval! Thanks Kel xox

Oh and one from earlier this week - the only time its been hot
enough to rock her xmas dress I made!!!
Jodi xo

Friday, 2 December 2011

The Xmas Advent Adventures 2011 Day 1 and 2


Hello world,
On the first day of Christmas my advent said to me:

Put up your Christmas tree!

Pie wasn't too sure what was going on -
there are spikey green plasticy things everywhere!


Exploring some lights while having a dinner break!
Typical kid, let Mum and Dad do all the work!

Wow!

And on with the special ornaments:
Baby Piper at 5 weeks old

And one for hubby - clearly a fan of the green machine!
The battery went flat on the camera!
But here is the finished tree :)
And then comes the attempts to pull down the decs!
"Nearly....nearly... just stretch a little further..."

"Wahoo!!!"
Good job wiggling on that cute butt Missy!

"What?"

Me and my girl - not a great pic but the only one where she
wasn't trying to eat my nose or pull my hair!!!


On the second day of Christmas my advent said to me:

Write a letter to santa!

See - there it is in my messy hand writing :)

Poor kid, was too cold for the usual topless
painting so she had to wear a smock!

Getting busy on her Santa letter:
This year she decided to communicate artistically!

Really getting the message across to Santa!
Taking an inspiration break on her 2nd piece of art

The finished letter:
What she said is clearly between her and Santa.

"Yay! I wrote my first Santa Letter!"

"Oh and Santa, PS...."

jodi xo