And So I Don't Forget...

Launceston and the Tamar Valley

After catching the Spirit of Tasmania Monday evening, Mike, Milly and I have been exploring Tasmania. Our first stop - Launceston and the Tamar Valley.

We had no real plan (life with a 3 month old made making hotel reservations seem like a major accomplishment) and just drove and stopped wherever seemed interesting.

Moores Hill Winery - our first (delicious) cheese platter of the trip.

Grindelwald Swiss Village - an odd little place.

A 50 minute boat cruise of Launceston on the coldest day of the year so far. We had the boat to ourselves.

Josef Chromy Tasmania - our second day of the trip and second cheese plate. More wine purchased here too.

Selfies with Mum, photobombing with Dad.

It's certainly been a different experience travelling with our little miss - our luggage requirements have increased exponentially! - but we all seem to be enjoying ourselves so far.

Simple Scrapper: A Month from Bump to Baby

Using a sketch template from the Simple Scrapper membership collection, I created a two page layout to document my A Month from Bump to Baby photos. However, I've counted the photos on the layout 4 times now and there seems to be only 28 of them. No idea what happened to photo 29! 

When printing the photos, I used the editing and dimensions from when I blogged them and resized the photos smaller before I had a design in mind. Arranging them on paper, I decided a 15x12 spread (9x12 on left and 6x12 on right) would suit best. With so much colour in the photos I kept the embellishment small and simple, cutting icons out of patterned paper, some stamped dates and couple gems.     

 

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

In 5 Minutes Before Bed

It's been a long day.

Little miss wasn't particularly troublesome, beyond waking up and/or crying every single time I tried to place her down in the bassinet this evening. She is high intensity at the moment - a major Mummy's girl who takes only short naps and wants constant entertainment - which is fine when she begins her nighttime sleep around 6pm. I can have dinner and a couple hours free before her 9:30/10pm feed and my bedtime.

When she will not sleep anywhere but my arms all evening - I finally got her down at 10:45pm - it makes accomplishing anything all but impossible and for one very long day. 

Oh yeah, she also threw up all over me. The joys of motherhood. Good thing she's a cute little munchkin!

Goodbye April, Hello May

April was...

• 916 photos and videos.
• Meeting the brand new tiny little twins, Spencer and Madeline

• Attending friend Dani's 30th birthday. Her partner Pat said some lovely things about her in a speech and got everyone to sing 'Happy Birthday'. Only problem, she was in the toilet the whole time!
• Travelling into the city with Milly to have lunch with a friend and visit my work. Ready to head home on the train just at the peak of rush hour, I decided to wait an hour and discovered an amazingly delicious donut shop.  
• Discovering my pottery class was cancelled (major disappointment! and I only found out on the day because they'd taken my money but not registered me) but with my mother-in-law organised to babysit, I booked in for a Gravity Float session. Mike had given me a voucher for 3 hour-long sessions for Christmas. I had no idea what to really expect but it's basically sensory deprivation. You float in a pod filled with body-temperature water and 600kg of Epson salts. It was relaxing, but I also enjoyed using the buoyancy to do some stretches and slowly bounce off the wall. They recommend coming back within the month to 'build on your experience' which I found a little amusing. However, I've been back again since and the hour seemed to go by so fast. As Mike teased me, I got better at floating!    

• Weekly meetups with Nicole and her little April. We've met at her house, a shopping centre, been to storytime at the library and, when I managed to forget my keys in the nappy bag which was locked in the boot of the car, we've walked to the Gloria Jeans coffee shop near my house too.  
• Our getaway to Anglesea.

• Little Miss getting her first series of immunisations. There were screams - she has a set of lungs on her! - but both her parents survived.    
• A lovely evening to myself in Richmond while Aunty Jenna babysat. I had an early dinner at Fonda Mexican, continued on to Gelato Messina and finished the night with a yoga class. Apparently Milly behaved perfectly for her Aunty Woody, who had two questions when I returned. How do you go to the toilet with a baby? I told her I'd let her know when I worked it out. And something about the ick factor of testing the temperature of breastmilk.       

• Documenting another Day in the Life, this time when Amelia was 10 weeks old. I'm currently, slowly, typing up the notes I recorded and I'll share more when it's complete.  
• A very social weekend when we had dinner at the home of Sean, Di and the twins on Friday night and then then had brunch with Tanya, Dave and Max on Saturday. Instead of heading home, we detoured to visit cutie niece and nephew before having dinner at my in-laws house.  

Simple Scrapper: In This Together

Teamwork is the theme for Simple Scrapper's Story Starters for June, and with these photos taken the night before Amelia was born, there was one particular story I was inspired to document. We had no idea what we were in for with parenthood, but I'm so glad we're in it together. 

Journaling reads: 15 February 2016. At my Obstetrician’s suggestion, one last night out for an indulgent dinner – at Captain Melville and the Pancake Parlour – before I was to be induced the next morning. Unsurprisingly, we talked about what life would be like with the new addition to our family. What we were looking forward to, what the challenges would be, how life would change and ways in which we hoped it wouldn’t. But really, we had no idea. How could we?  I didn’t know that seeing him love and care for our daughter would make me love him all the more. I didn’t know how much I’d need to rely on him, for the simple things as well as the big, or how important it would be that he makes me laugh. I didn’t know just how truly insurmountable parenthood would seem if he wasn’t by my side.

I used a packet of old chipboard letters to create a very bold title, balancing the colour with little pops of teal in two other spots.  

 

The Premium Membership at Simple Scrapper provides skills and shortcuts to help you simplify and find more meaning in your memory keeping.

Currently

Watching episodes of Studio 60 on Sunset Strip via YouTube.

Drinking ginger beer.

Smelling like chlorine after taking little miss in a swimming pool for her first time today.

Appreciating having two hands free and a baby who is sleeping peacefully in her bassinette. 

Hoping for a better night's sleep than last night.

Wanting Milly's current I-want-Mum-and-only-Mum-and-will-scream-for-anyone-else stage to be short lived.

Loving seeing her learn and discover and be delighted.    

Wrapping a Mothers' Day present.

Needing to clean my desk. There are a couple of important papers in there somewhere amidst the piles. 

Buying photo paper and this singlet. 

Reading The Obsession by Nora Roberts.

Planning a holiday to Tasmania for the three of us. 

December Daily 2015: Days 20 - 23

Although I did declare that my December Daily was complete, I didn't get a chance to post photos of my final pages before the arrival of our little miss. These events were only a few months ago, but wow, is life different now! Continuing on from Day 19 where I left off... 

Day 20 - Our annual Christmas celebration with Dad's side of the family. For the last few years I've aimed to herd everyone into position to take a group photo, and I decided to print the photo big to cover the spread. I did play with the cropping in Photoshop Elements but unfortunately Mum still ended up with a hole punch to the side of the head. ;)  

Day 20 continues with a second spread. I collaged six photos before printing and added some old textured white cardstock with sewing for texture. On the right side I printed directly onto a large tag before adding a rub on for embellishment. 

Day 21 - I backed the tag with a photo and added a wood veneer star that I had embossed in gold. Another of the wood veneer stars was cut in half for the right side of the spread and I've also embossed the 'december gratitude' stamp from Ali Edwards.

Nothing particular happened on the 21st, so I printed out an email exchange I had with my sister. This sort of 'real life communication' is one of my favourite things to include in my December Daily. (Eg. here, here and here.)  

Day 22 - For the left side I printed my journaling on a little label which I added to a full page photo. The right side includes a background of wrapping paper, a favourite from my selections this year, and a calendar journaling card from the December Daily mini kit by One Little Bird. A couple of enamel shapes and acetate stars are simple embellishment carried across both sides. 

Journaling reads: My Christmas mugs aren't unpacked but these baubles still give me a dose of merry each morning. I haven't paused much this December - seriously, how is it 3 sleeps til Christmas! - but seeing the wreath and lights twinkling always makes me happy. 

Day 23 - My last day of work for the year! And to celebrate we went post-dinner grocery shopping, stocking up for Christmas day feasting at our house. ;)

I used my shopping list as the background for the page, adding a pocket on top but attaching it in such a way that it can be flipped up to read more underneath. I slipped a gift tag and receipt for our Christmas Day ham into the pocket. The photo wasn't anything special, just quickly snapped on my phone, so I placed the date and a sentiment right on top. 

You can find all my previous December Daily pages here - this was my 6th year! - and I'll aim to share the final few pages soon. :)