Bath time reminiscing, new 'Baby by Earthwise' products...and a giveaway

When we had our first baby Amelie 6 and a half years ago I read Gina Ford's 'Contented Baby' book- a little bit of it when I was pregnant, and a lot after I had Amelie. She recommended a bedtime routine of feeding baby around 5, then doing the bath, then feeding baby again around 7. So we did as the book said and it seemed to work with us even though Amelie screamed blue murder from the second she was taken out of the bath until she was fully dressed but we kept it going because it was a way to keep her up for a bit longer before 'bedtime' and hey maybe the screaming wore her out so much she went to sleep easily...who knows but she was a good night sleeper from reasonably early on! So we stuck with that routine for her, and then for Stella and then Jack as well.  Probably because to be honest we were scared to change anything as whatever we were doing seemed to be working but also it is nice to have them all clean and smelling good at least once in the day! It's taken a lot of effort over the years, we have hardly ever missed them having a bath, I remember getting to a bach for a holiday when Amelie was about 6 months old and the hot water hadn't heated up in time for bath time so we filled up a plastic container using the kettle just so she could have her bath...I laugh now that we bothered -we must have really been paranoid that if she didn't have her bath she would somehow not sleep well all night! Anyway now that all 3 are older we still do the bath every night, it is the only time Jack is clean in the day and the 3 of them do have a good time in there most nights. There are certainly a lot of times when we really can't be bothered but I guess the routine is so ingrained in them now they just automatically get ready for the bath after dinner so they would probably spin out if we said no bath tonight (well Jack would anyway!) It's a hectic/loud/crazy time in our house and we are looking forward to them just being able to jump in the shower but I bet we'll still miss their little faces all squeezed in the bath together too :)

So when Hayley from Earthwise contacted me about reviewing some of the new plant based Earthwise Baby products I jumped at the chance- I already use their lavender laundry powder which I love. And I like that they are NZ based, environmentally friendly and have been around a while now- Earthwise was actually started 45 years ago! So here are the goodies I was sent to try out- the
Baby bath wash, Baby shampoo, Baby bubble bath, hair detangler, sleep spray, baby soap, plus some samples of their other soaps, bathroom and general use wipes, and their laundry and whitening powder.

From the Baby by Earthwise press release "Earthwise has developed their new range to be gentle on the skin, the result leaves skin and hair feeling divine with the love and nourishment Mother Nature intended.  The products are also gentle on the environment, all ingredients in Earthwise products are ethically and sustainably sourced, carefully selected to provide gentle natural cleaning properties while maintaining our earth. Baby by Earthwise is free from parabens, artificial colouring, toxic petrochemicals and laurel sulphates, it’s not tested on animals and made in New Zealand."

The kids loved the bubble bath- I don't actually use bubble bath very often so this was a treat for them, well until there were tears about who had the most bubbles and arguing over who got to sit in a certain place in the bath to get the most bubbles...but as bubble bath goes it has a nice subtle scent, plenty of bubbles and is a good price for the amount in the container- $7.49 at Countdown for 275mls

The bath wash and shampoo were great too, again a nice subtle scent, cute containers and a reasonable price for the amount you get.

The hair detangler has a been a big hit- I mentioned on Facebook that I went hunting for this a while ago and could only find one with a very strong strawberry scent so this one is much nicer!

The sleep spray was popular with the kids as they liked spraying their pillowcases themselves although they did go a bit crazy with it and ended up with rather damp pillowcases! It would be nice to freshen up a baby's bassinet or cot sheets or even the actual bedroom.

So all in all I will definitely be buying these products in the future, on price alone they are the same if not cheaper than what I normally buy, and much cuter too!

So if you would like to win your own pack of Earthwise baby products just leave a comment here or over on my Facebook page either telling me what you do for bathtime in your family or just leave a comment saying you'd like to win the prize- but be quick... you've got until midday tomorrow- Friday 27th Sep to leave your comment. This giveaway is for NZ readers only sorry. I will be giving the winners details to Hayley at Earthwise and she will be sending out your prize :)

Megan 

Finger foods for babies

I was talking to a mum a few weeks ago with the same age baby as Jack (nearly 9 months) and we were talking about feeding, solids, finger foods and all of that stuff us mums talk about.  Her baby was into his mashed solids but she hadn't started him on any finger foods and was wondering what I gave Jack. Jack has gone from being a baby who wouldn't eat a thing to what my step dad calls a 'boa constrictor'- he would eat all day now and especially loves finger food- that was how we actually got him to eat in the beginning as he preferred that to purees. So I thought I'd share the finger foods we feed Jack so if your baby is at this stage so you can get some ideas or maybe just find a new one you haven't tried.  I was a bit nervous starting him on finger foods earlier than the girls in case of choking but in the beginning that was all he was eating so we didn't have much choice (he eats mashed food now as well though). And a friend lent me a book about Baby Led Weaning which gave me lots of ideas and reasurrance on starting them early on finger foods.  Also, Jack doesn't have any teeth yet  but can eat all of these foods without any worries (pays to keep an eye on them though of course!)

Fruits and Vege's
* Banana's- I used to give them to him in slices but now I just give him the whole banana and watch him eat it a la Mr Boa Constrictor
* Canned peaches- great for 'desert''

* Steamed broccoli- he will chew on this for ages

* Cooked peas- tricky for him to pick up but good practice and he does eat them!

* Strawberries sliced in half
* Kiwifruit sliced longways
*Watermelon cut into small triangles
*Blueberries

Meat
* Sausages with the skin off and cut into really thin slices
* Lamb strips

* Shredded chicken from a roast or from the deli (this was the first meat we gave him and he really loves it.)
*Meatballs- we just break up our ones rather than making mini ones- he loves these too
*Shaved ham and luncheon

Dairy
* Yoghurt- I haven't tried the baby yoghurts with Jack - we just give him the same yoghurt as us
* Cheese slices- these were great with all 3 kids

* Grated cheese

Bread
* Rusks- he loves these dipped in hummus too

 

* Toast cut into fingers (or the crusts off his sisters' toast) and sandwiches sliced in fingers- spread with jam or marmite, just started giving peanut butter too. Hummus is a great spread too - thanks for the tip Nic :)
*Cruskits with cream cheese spread, hummus or marmite
* Rice crackers- these are the only crackers I give Jack as they sort of disintegrate as he chews on them rather than break off in his mouth

* Fruit sticks- they make a real sticky mess though!

* and my fav at the mo....Ginger nut biscuits- these are my go-to if I'm in town and he starts getting grumpy- the mess goes absolutely everywhere but one gingernut can keep him happy for at least half an hour!!

I also mix Farex into his pureed fruits and vege's to increase his iron intake- well I think that's what it's doing anyway ;)

And here's a link to the Watties finger foods charts which are really great- scroll down to Stage 3 Printables for Finger Foods 9 months +
http://www.forbaby.co.nz/All-Printables

Would love to hear of any more finger food ideas!

Megan

My creative space: a roll up busy book

 

Isn't it great having crafty friends to get cool ideas from? My friend Krista gave me this idea to make a roll up busy book as she was making a neat panel style book for a little girl to play with in the car. So I thought I would make something similar for a 1 year old but make it so it can be laid out on the floor to play with and then rolled up when finished with. And other than cutting out the 8 squares for the book the whole thing only took just over an hour to sew together- I did do pretty simple pages though! I sewed the front four panels together and then the back four panels together, then placed the 2 panels right side to right side and sewed around the whole book leaving a small gap for turning right side out (and popping in a little yellow flap), then top stitched around it.

For the first page I appliqued some animal print fabric and added a felt flap...

A clip for the second page...

Some cute Maisy fabric for the third page with some beads to play with...

 
and some taggie ribbons for the last page (don't you love the Hungry Caterpillar fabric!)

Here are the fabrics I chose for the back- two from Roz of Squiltz thank you again Roz :)

And here it is all rolled up - I stitched velcro dots underneath the little flap to keep the book shut.

So if you are keen to make a busy book but are a little daunted about making heaps of pages then this is a great option! 

For more creative spaces, head on over here. 

Megan x

A couple of baby shower games

My sister had her baby shower a few months ago now (she is now the proud mum of a baby boy so Jack has a boy cousin close in age which is great!) and I made a few games for it that I've been meaning to share here for a while now.  Both are nice and easy to prepare so they might come in handy if you've got a baby shower to organise soon.

The first one is a take on Pass the Parcel.  It's a great one to use as a bit of an ice breaker and to get to know everyone as well as hear a few stories from the guests. You wrap a little gift for the mum to be with the instruction "pass to the mum to be due to give birth on the ......." and then wrap layers with an instruction stuck to each layer - things like "pass to the person who had the longest labour", "pass to the person who went the most overdue" " pass to the person who has children closest in age" and others like "pass to the person who has the most brothers or sisters" or "pass to the person who was born overseas" to hopefully cover some of the people who don't have children so they don't feel left out!

You could stick a treat to each layer as well if you want.  I've made a google doc with the labels on it here (under the quiz questions and answers). You can use as many or few labels as you want the game to go for.

Amelie made some wrapping paper for me :)

I got the idea for this from when I was teaching- I used to play a pass the parcel game on the first day of term with things like "pass to the shortest/ tallest/ oldest/youngest person,  person with the most brothers/sisters/both, person with the longest hair, person with the youngest/oldest sibling etc- it was a great way to get to know the class. I've also done a version of it for a few hens nights- things like "pass the the person who ....has been married the longest/married the most recently/recently engaged/came from furtherest away to get here/known the bride- to -be the longest (other than mum/sister(s)!), has a funny or embarrassing story about the bride- to -be etc...

The other game is just a simple quiz I modified from a couple I found on the web. For this I just put everyone into pairs and gave them the question sheet which each pair filled in together and then I went through the answers at the end and gave a prize to the winning pair (you might want to have a few prizes in case there is more than one winning pair).  The sheet with the questions to give each pair is here and the sheet with the answers at the bottom is here

Quiz with answers on it and Pass the Parcel labels

Quiz without answers

And if you've got a baby shower coming up here are a few gift ideas I've found on Felt ...

Baby shoes Size 0-6 months from Miss Molly Coddle

Cheerful chap in Yellow Rabbit from Little Minx

Merino baby hat from Greenvalley Crafts

Peggy Square baby blanket from Peggy Square

Nappy clutch from Little Peanut

Yay for babies! And thanks again for the comments and advice on Jack getting started on solids on my facebook page- it was so helpful and reassuring. I have gone with the great advice of giving him finger food instead of pureed food for now- just rusks the last few days which he's been loving and tonight we gave him some roast chicken and he loved it- it was very funny watching him try to get it in his mouth! Am not even going to try pureed foods for a few more weeks now and have got a baby led weaning book from a friend too so he may just end up being a finger food baby which will be very different from the girls. Awesome to get advice so quickly from other mums that have been there done that with their babies:)
Megan x

my creative space: nursery art

I got a lovely email a while back from Melissa who reads my blog and is a primary school teacher in Auckland. (Check out her new blog here http://nzbusybee.blogspot.com.)  She sent me the link to Larissa's blog "mmmcrafts" and the tutorial for these these  cute 'momma bird' cards that she did with her class for Mothers Day. Aren't they gorgeous:)  And Larissa has even kindly made a pdf with the templates for each card- thanks Larissa!

I decided to make the bird art for Jack's nursery as I loved the look of the mummy bird cuddling her little baby. So I printed out the template and enlarged it so the pieces would fit into a frame I bought from Spotlight, and had fun choosing the card from my scrapbooking card stash. (I don't actually do scrapbooking but I love the card you can buy for it!)

The elephant mobile was a fun project too. My drawing skills are very limited so I photocopied the elephant from the Michael Miller fabric I used to make Jack's baby blanket, then enlarged it onto card to make a template. Then I just drew around it a few times on the same card I used to make the bird art. The mobile is one of those ones that is for hanging photo's from so it was easy to clip the elephants on instead!

Thanks so much Melissa for sending me the link. Also I just wanted to say a big thank you to all of you for reading my blog and the lovely comments I get- I really do appreciate them and love reading them (and sorry that I don't always get a chance to reply at the moment!) 

For more creative spaces, click here

Megan x

my creative space: a baby blanket/playmat

I made my first little baby blanket/playmat this week for Jack- he needed one as we only had one blanket that wasn't pink! I've been wanting to make a little quilt for ages after seeing this gorgeous one made by Joanna at Little Minx from this great tutorial from Cat Taylor.  I made my blanket smaller though so I could use it in the capsule or buggy or as a little playmat.

For the patchwork top I used some Michael Miller zoology fabric that I bought from Bernina before Jack was born and I got the other two fabrics and the printed flannel for the back of the blanket from the new Spotlight store that's opened here in Tauranga....definitely my new favourite store...I may have actually taken Jack there 4 times in the last week - he is getting well known as the baby with all the hair! 

For the blanket inner I used some 'needled cotton' (I'd never heard of that before but a lady at Spotlight recommended it and it's lovely and warm without being bulky which is good for taking out and about).

The best thing about this blanket is that it was surprisingly quick to make (seriously!!)  Cutting out the squares didn't take long at all (there's only 16 squares on my blanket) so I did that one evening once Jack was in bed, and then sewing the patchwork top and then the layers together only took about an hour all up. It was great using my walking foot too as it made it really easy to keep the layers together.

You know what it's like when you make something new and you just want to make heaps more! The girls want one each now too so I thought I'd make them little lap quilts a bit bigger than Jack's.

And check out these pants that my friend Rosie made for Jack in the same animal fabric- aren't they cute! She used a pattern from Anna Marie Horners "Handmade beginnings' book and lined them with flannel so they are super soft and snuggly. Thanks again Rosie :)

For more creative spaces check out the new Our Creative Spaces page that Kirsty from Kootoyoo has put together here.

Megan x

Organised Home Project 4: The Nursery/Getting ready for baby

Well, this week's challenge has been much more successful than last weeks! The nursery is coming along nicely and I've managed to get a few things done in preparation for baby number three. It used to be our spare room but now it's all painted and we've moved the furniture around and I've unpacked most of the baby things. At the moment the room is looking quite plain as I am going to wait to see whether we have a boy or a girl before I start crafting a few things and decorating the room more.

I got all the baby clothes out and sorted them into plastic containers in the drawers. I sorted the clothes into bodysuits, nighties, stretch n grow's and outfits....

...and sorted the hats, socks/booties and bibs into containers in another drawer.

When I was pregnant with Stella I sorted the clothes into neutrals and girl clothes but this time I've just put them all together and will just take out the pink stuff if we have a boy!

I've used one of these hanging wardrobe organiser things for the baby's wraps, blankets, cot linen and muslins.

I've packed the baby bag for the hospital. 2 stretch n grows, 3 bodysuits, a wrap, a cloth nappy, 2 muslins, 2 hats, booties and slippers, a nightie and a woollen cardi. I put a couple of newborn nappies in too but the hospital provides nappies and wipes too I think. Probably far too much stuff, especially as I remember with my other two that we just used the hospital clothes and a cloth nappy for a wrap and barely touched the baby bag but at least there'll be something nice to wear home!

(After packing all this into a bag I left it on the bed...wondered why the girls were being so good and quiet...went in there and the bag contents were all over the floor, the bassinet had a doll baby in it and Stella was having a great time playing with the capsule and the baby carrier. Oh well, kept them quiet for a while!)

I haven't packed my hospital bag yet but I found this great checklist from OhBaby. Again, I remember not using even half of what I packed the other two times but at least I have a fair idea of what I'll use this time!

I've got a few baby toys out including these cute velcro balls from Clare at Greenvalley Crafts...

and I bought this lovely baby book the other day.

I've still got a few things to do but at least the big stuff is done now. I'm on the look out for another box frame so I can make a memory box like the ones I made for the girls when they were born.  I used their wrist band and bassinet label from the hospital, some cards they were given, newspaper birth notice, some ribbons from gifts, a little bootie and a few photo's.

and I'll also buy another box file to put things for the baby like their birth certificate, IRD and kiwisaver stuff,  bank statements, warranties for any baby stuff purchased etc.

I can't wait to get into crafting a few things for the baby. I've made a bit of a list of some of the things I would like to make (some are linked to some great tutorials I've come across)

* Ribbon mobile

* baby ball
* baby quilt
*playmat/baby blanket
*nursery bedding

* padded coat hangers

*crochet or knitted baby hat
*applique baby bodysuit
* baby bibs
* taggie toy
*oil cloth change mat

So there you go! Do you have any tips or hints for organising your baby's room, things that were really handy in hospital or in the first few weeks at home, more baby craft ideas or just general tips and ideas for newborns? If you leave a comment letting us know any of these things (or anything else you'd like to comment on!) you'll be in the draw to win this week's prize- a mousehouse waterproof nappy wallet- it's a great size for your handbag to keep some wipes, a couple of nappies, bib, cream etc. It's also good for a toddler bag to keep a change of clothes, a few snacks and some wipes.

The Linky tools seems to require a subscription now so if you have done any organising this week or linked up to my challenge please leave a comment with the URL of your post so we can all read it- you'll be in the draw too of course!

Next week's project...my wardrobe...maybe yours is in need of a bit of a sort out too? Mine sure is!

Happy organising :)

Megan x