Grandma's visit

Grandma is visiting and she's having a great time with Romily and Tristan. She arrived last Tuesday and is here till Friday. It's been wonderful having her here - an extra set of hands to hold a bub or another captive audience member for Romily's antics. She's also vacuumed, folded clothes, ironed, done lots of dishwashing, etc. Nothing like having your mum around! I'm so pleased she could come for a good length of time to see her gorgeous Canberra grandkiddies. She has four more grandsons in Melbourne, whom she sees far more often, so we're very happy to have her here. Dad flies up from Melbourne on Thursday and will head back down the Hume Highway with Mum on Friday afternoon. A short visit for him, but blokes don't tend to find 6 week old bubs quite so swoon-worthy!Tristan is doing very well indeed. He is starting to stretch out his feeds to 3-4 hours, and is still sleeping a lot. He's growing right before our eyes. I took him to be weighed and measured yesterday (5 1/2 weeks). Here are his stats (birth stats in brackets):
Weight: 4.755kg (3.580kg)
Length: 56cm (51.5cm)
Head circumference: 38.5cm (36.5cm)
Not bad! It's gratifying to see where all that breast milk is going!!

Precious little crafting is going on here - although Grandma is doing a very cool embroidery for a cushion. I did cut out some fabric for a jacket for Rom, but that's about as far as I've got in the past week.

I did finish the top for Marina's quilt, which is now waiting to be sandwiched. I have to get an essay done first (it's due next Tuesday)...drudge, drudge!
I also have to get moving on my EB Quilter's doll quilt for the swap - it's due to be sent by the end of October, so I have a month. I've got a good idea of what I want to do, so it's a matter of working it out, getting hold of the fabric and getting it done. Sounds simple! Now I just have to find the time...

One month old!

I can't quite believe it, but Tristan is one month old today. Here he is, on the gorgeous Winter's Garden quilt my online quilting group made for me...er, him!

Time has flown by and he's growing by the day - I'm about to 'retire' his newborn size clothes (0000 or 55cm for Nicolette!) and break out the 000's (62cm).

He's such a good little fella. Eating (drinking) very well, although still chucking up far more than his mummy appreciates, and sleeping very well. He's in a great night sleeping pattern, only waking twice a night still, which I can just about handle! Romily is still delighted with him, and is the ideal big sister (so far). She's also settled into our new routine very well. Carl took her to her first 'big girl' swimming lesson yesterday - up until now she's had him in the pool with her. As of yesterday, she's in the water all by herself (and very proud of herself too!). I went shopping with Tristan - it was nice to have some one-on-one time with my little man :)

Tomorrow is her last session at playgroup - it's the end of term break-up, so a big morning tea is on the cards. We put down cupcakes for the food we'd bring. We had a lot of fun making and decorating them today!
Romily, of course, loves to lick the spoon :)

I also got the borders on Marina's quilt this afternoon - it looks great. I'll blog it in the next day or two. I haven't had a chance to photograph it yet.

I can't quite believe it's Sunday night. The days when Carl is home go all too quickly! I hope you all have a lovely week.

Finally something quilty

She crafts! I have made some good progress on the lap quilt I'm making for Romily's playgroup leader - Rom's last session is on Monday and then next term she'll go up to playschool, where we'll drop her off and pick her up - it will be her first time away from us (other than when my mum and a couple of friends have kindly babysat), so it's a pretty big deal!
Marina has been really great with Romily, and she likes pink, so I think she'll like this lap quilt when it's finished. I like how the fabrics are working so far. I still have to sew the blocks together, put two borders on it, as well as sandwich, quilt and bind it, so I don't think it'll be ready for Monday. We'll give it to Marina on the first day of the next term - Rom can pay her a visit - her new class is in the adjacent room :)

The gorgeous pressies for Tristan keep arriving. This one is from ChookyBlue - it's a size 00, so a bit big for Tristan to model for you now, but will be a perfect sleep suit for cool summer nights. Thanks very much Donna :)

And today I bought a couple of new bits of clothing for Romily, who is growing like a weed. She has suddenly grown out of all her pyjamas - the summer ones from last year are all way too small. I discovered In the Night Garden PJs in Target today, so got one set from the girls' section and one from the boys'. I hate it how the clothing is so stereotyped in these shops - I usually buy Rom's PJs from the boys' section, as the girls' ones are just so prissy! She loves her Iggle Piggle pyjamas, as you can see!

It is tough being a baby

Especially when you get your first cold/cough at less than four weeks of age. Poor Tristan. He has come down with the lurgy that we're all suffering with. I have been crook as a dog, and, being a breastfeeding mother, unable to take anything other than paracetamol. My throat's been up for nearly a week now, and I am keeping Butter Menthols in short supply across Canberra. We finally remembered yesterday that we had a jar of Vicks Vaporub in Romily's cupboard, so all of us (except Tristan) got that smeared across our chests and throats last night - it really helped! I am feeling marginally better this afternoon, so let's hope we're all going to improve...and soon.

So, life is tough for Tristan - he has a terrible cough and has been sleeping only in my arms for a good part of the day - he's been very hard to settle between sleeps and I've had to swaddle him for day sleeps as well as night sleeps. He's still feeding quite well, so I'm not too worried about him. He's too young for any medicine - the best I can do for him is keep feeding him whenever he looks like he might take a feed. Thankfully the projectile 'possets' have decreased in number - although I did cop a huge blert right down my top this arvo!

Unfortunately our illness coincided with my father-in-law's visit this past weekend. He was very happy to finally meet his much-longed-for grandson, but we were not exactly scintillating company!
Romily of course loved having him come to visit. She loves all of her grandparents :)
Very little in the way of crafting going on here. I did manage to start cutting up some of this Amy Butler Midwestern Modern fabric for the throw.This Moda Porcelain fabric is destined for throw #2. Hopefully I'll get a bit more done in the next few days. The deadline for throw #1 is Monday, so I have a week!
And last, but definitely not least, look what the postman delivered this week! Helen made this gorgeous miniature wall hanging for Tristan - it is a beautiful as it looks. The stippling is TINY! Helen it's wonderful and Tristan loves looking at it on the wall above his change table while I'm getting down to the business end of things! Thank you very much!

Best dressed boy in town and Happy Father's Day to Carl

Tristan is certainly going to be the best-dressed boy in town! He has been well and truly spoiled with lots of lovely outfits. Look what arrived in the mail from Little Starfish! Isn't it gorgeous? I can't wait for the warmer weather and when he's a bit bigger to show this gorgeous onesie off. Thank you Gabrielle - you are very kind!And my auntie sent me this adorable little outfit - Tristan wore it today for our Father's Day outing today (life's tough when you're a baby, isn't it?). Romily, Tristan and I took Carl out to his favourite cafe for brunch, which was very nice (apart from the useless idiot taking our order - he managed to muck it up three times! But the manager stepped in and helped to put things to rights - somewhat redeeming the newish cafe's reputation!!). Then Carl went and did the grocery shopping and had some much deserved time out. Yes, grocery shopping on Father's Day - he really is a wonderful man :) Happy Father's Day to my gorgeous husband.

I made some brownies for playgroup tomorrow - that was the big achievement for today! I seem to spend most of my day either feeding Tristan or cuddling him. No wonder I don't get much else done! But, as we know, that's the most important thing I need to do every day. That and give Romily as much attention as I can. She's got a bit of a cold at the moment - caught from her dad, who managed to catch it on his very first day at work - )it didn't show up until Thursday, but we are attributing it to being back in airconditioning again!) so Romily needs a bit of extra TLC at the moment. She's settled down into the new regime pretty quickly, so we are feeling very blessed right now.

Anyway, enough rambling. Time to go wake up the sleepy baby for a feed before hitting the hay for the night.

Guzzle guts

Hello! We are still alive and well and all is going very well with my two children :)

I haven't been online much this week though - our computer blew up last week! I was upstairs trying to have a kip when I heard 'crack, bang, CRACK' reverberate up through the floor. I leapt out of bed and ran downstairs to find out what had happened. I came into the 'office' (spare bedroom which also houses our computer and peripherals) and there stood a dazed Carl standing in a room that smelt like gunpowder. Turns out that the power supply had exploded when he tried to turn the computer on. We were unable to have it looked at until Saturday, when the technician was visiting Canberra for personal reasons. Let this be a lesson to us to arrange for local technical support next time! It was all very exciting at the time. Fortunately we lost no data!

However, being unsure when our pc would resume operations, I had to rewrite my assignment, which was due today, from scratch. Not so easy when you're sleep deprived! Fortunately I could remember most of it and had taken plenty of long-hand notes, so it wasn't too bad, and I submitted it in time. I don't think I'll repeat the excellent results I achieved for the first assessment, but it should rate a pass!
On to more beautiful things - Tristan continues to thrive. We had our home visit today from the maternal and child health nurse, who checked him out from head to toe and declared him a very healthy little bub. He is still slightly jaundiced, but only a little. That will continue to clear over the coming days, as he's feeding like an absolute champion!

In fact, he's feeding so well that he's already above his birth weight. Not bad going for a 12-day old baby :)

He's also settled into a most welcome nighttime feeding pattern - waking around 1-2 am and then again at 4-5am. He then sleeps till around 9am! What a star! It means I can just about cope and am nowhere near as zombie-like as I was with Romily. Makes a big difference - especially when you have an overexcited 3 year old in the house!

Romily is just wonderful with Tristan. She is so gentle. She, of course, has turned into a sneaky little devil around Carl and I - getting up to all kinds of mischief - mostly involving playing with water in the downstairs bathroom...BUT I would much rather her acting up be directed towards Carl and I than Tristan. I am learning not to lose my temper with her, which is causing her to be even more sneaky - I'm just trying to head her off at the pass and distract her with less messy pursuits! It's been a huge couple of weeks for Rom - Carl also went back to work yesterday, so her world really has been turned inside out. She's actually coping remarkably well!

Of course nothing remotely crafty is going on in this house, but I hope that will change over the next week or so, as things start to settle down. I did manage to slip into my favourite fabric shop yesterday, as I owe a birthday FQ to one of the girls in my online quilting group (sorry Kylie!). While there, I managed to pick up some 30cm strips for two lap quilts I want to make - one for my father-in-law's companion, who's recovering slowly from major abdominal surgery, and one for Romily's playgroup teacher - Rom's going up to 3yo playschool next term and I thought it might be nice to give Marina a parting gift, as she's been really good with Romily.

I'm going to use the same Denyse Schmidt pattern I used for the table runner I made for mum for Mother's Day, so both lap quilts should come together really quickly. I hope!

I hope you're all well out there in blog land - I'll eventually get onto Bloglines and manage to catch up with all your news! And thanks again for all the lovely comments on the arrival of Tristan :) You really are the loveliest bunch of ladies!