Its that time of the year where the baby sales have started ... yes, this is my life, I know when the baby sales start now ;) In case you didn't know, Target has their baby catalogue out now at http://catalogues.target.com.au/catalogue/target-catalogue--baby/13899126488415.html#pageNo=0 as does Baby Bunting.

Here are a few items we have picked up for E and for B2... I may be severely limited in my purchases for B2 not knowing the sex but that doesn't mean I can't make the most of E's last season fitting the babywear section!




Target was my first port of call (online of course) and I bought the final pieces of E's (already extremely extensive) winter wardrobe - don't you love the navy neon yellow grey marle colours?, some singlets for B2 - I'm a stickler for singlets under clothes for newborns thanks to my mum and granny, newborn nappies - you can never have enough and its one thing I don't want to have to be ducking out for with a toddler and newborn, a couple of neutral rompers for B2 - E lived in Bonds and these Target suits when he was born and they wash so well - and .

I also bought a few necessities from Baby Bunting including the Babylove Ezy Combo booster seat for E. With B2's arrival we have decided to use our Maxi Cosi capsule again then pop baby in E's convertible till 4 years seats and get E a new seat. The Babylove Ezy Combo is suitable from 6 months to 8 years and along with the Infa Secure, it has the highest safety rating for its category on CREP. On sale at the moment, its a steal for $189 given you can spend over $500 for lesser rated seats.

E has a lot of beautiful classic books we and friends and family have bought for him but S and I made two special purchases before he was born with the intention of reading them to E from birth. We bought Love You Forever and On the Night You Were Born and have read them to E almost every day since we came home from hospital. He loves books and these two especially, settling next to us straight away for them or bringing them to us and sitting in our lap. While B2 will be able to share E's book collection, we want to find 2 special books we can share with baby in the same way we have for E. I found this beautiful Baby Bedtime by Mem Fox (love all her books) which is perfect and am also considering Kissed by the Moon by Alison Lester or another Nancy Tillman book like The Crown on Your Head or Wherever You Are. I will probably get all 3, earmark one for B2 and share the other 2 between our children.

We've also decided to buy a second  video monitor for B2. We love our Oricom Secure 710 video monitor we use for E and have decided with the move to transition him to his own room, we would prefer the peace of mind of continuing to use the monitor in his room to reassure ourselves he is okay without having to get up to check on him. With this in mind, so that I am not potentially carrying two monitor units around the house though (I'm clearly dreaming imagining I will have both asleep at the same time), we have elected to buy an iBaby monitor that is compatible with my iPhone and iPad devices for B2. A friend uses both monitors for her 2 children and finds they suit her family's needs well and give her good peace of mind.

I haven't done a wish list in a while (which could have a lot to do with getting most of what I wanted for Christmas) so here are a few things I have been wishing for... given my birthday is 8 months away and I was more than a little spoilt at Christmas, I don't like my chances of being gifted anything in the near future but a girl can live in hope right? Oh, and Valentines Day is coming up in a few weeks... we shall see.

I attended a friend's baby shower over the weekend and the subject of a shower for me to celebrate B2's impending arrival came up as a result. A few were quite enthusiastic about the idea and assumed it was a given. A few others suggested a Sprinkle instead of a shower. I have noticed the rise of the Baby Sprinkle in recent times for second and subsequent pregnancies - it's basically a baby shower on a smaller scale for those of you wondering.

Age: 
19 Months ... I'm in shock, where on earth did 19 months go? My baby is a real little boy now and developing a very strong independent personality that has us varying between hysterics (laughter) and exasperation.

How far along? 23 weeks already ... and after today's appointment, maybe only 14 weeks to go! 

A new update in my series to prove bloggers, instagrammers, facebook users, tweeters ... have less than perfect lives despite accusations of only sharing the perfect moments of their lives. Here goes with my ongoing confessions to a not so perfect life:

This week one load of washing was 'washed' three times and 'rinsed' twice before it got hung out - in fairness 2 washes and a rinse were because S decided to be helpful and put my orangey red scarf in with the blacks. Cue red fibres on everything!

I have a pile of bedding (quilts, pillows, throws etc) sitting in our entry hall waiting to be vac-bagged and put away. I will get around to this one day... or maybe one week is more accurate.

I would happily eat mac & cheese every night because a) I like it, b) I couldn't be bothered thinking of what else to cook.

I gave E a cup of lite milk with his breakfast one day this week ... we ran out of the whole milk he normally has and I couldn't get to the shops till later.

I bought overripe bananas to bake with then forgot about them/never got around to it then insisted S use them and bake muffins while I was at work even though a) he has never EVER baked anything b) I didn't even have a recipe ... I told him to google. Luckily he humours me when pregnant and went ahead and baked banana sultana muffins - hooray, someone else in the house to make the sweets.

I pretend to pour drops of my drink (juice, soft drink etc) into E's cup to avoid tantrums.

I used pregnancy to get out of a dinner invite but insisted S go ... and I'm excited for a quiet night in and microwave popcorn for dinner ...once I get E down for bed of course.

I adore my boy and my husband more than anything and value every second I have with them but right now my idea of heaven is a weekend at a hotel on my own ... This may be because B2 and the soon to be realitity of two under two is getting closer and closer.

I always find it handy and interesting to read meal posts from other blogging mummas, particularly as toddlers seem to have a constantly changing palate that guarantees as soon as you've figured it out and mastered the art of sneaky vegetables, it shifts again and all the favourites are out the window.

I blogged months ago in September (http://goldcoastmumma.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/healthy-eating-for-little-people.html) about our healthy eating options for E so I thought I could follow up with what is working now and what are the necessary accessories in our house for meals.

Overall Ethan eats a pretty healthy diet and I do put a lot of thought into his meals and the choices we make with regards to his food. Its really important to me in this day of convenience and poor diet to instill a love of flavour and good fresh food in him with the hope of him developing a healthy balanced attitude towards food. I have never been one for diets (I'm just not that disciplined) and nor is Scott. We both enjoy almost everything in moderation and neither of us are huge sweets fans. We go through stages where a packet of chocolate biscuits can stay in our pantry untouched for months. Cheese would be our one big weakness and we love every kind available.

With what I believe is our own balanced attitude towards food, we plan Ethan's meals with consideration to everyday/all the time foods, sometimes foods and special occasion/treat foods. A few examples of what we practice:

• We don't keep or have sweet biscuits at home (unless I have been baking) but my mum gives him Tiny Teddies or hundreds & thousands biscuits once a week when she has him. 
• We go out for breakfast or morning or afternoon tea once a fortnight and on this occasion E is allowed to share my chocolate thickshake ... we often put it in a small cup for him to have his own. We often find that while he enjoys the treat, he loses interest after a few sips.
• We don't eat jam generally and if its in the house, its for baking but my mother or mother in law will often give him a small piece of toast etc. that he enjoys.
• We will share hot chips with him if out for lunch or dinner (maybe once a fortnight).
• If we are out for dinner for a celebration and have dessert, we will share a few bites of ice cream with E.

We are not completely rigid about sugar etc as this possibly makes us seem but while I don't want to deprive Ethan of foods, I want him to understand the difference between everyday, sometimes and treats.

Ethan still suffers quite strongly from his silent acid reflux and while the Losec keeps it at bay for the most part, acidic foods are still likely to aggravate it and cause a flare up. For this reason we still keep his food relatively plain with no tomato based sauces or additives and minimal citrus and yoghurts. Scott and I traditionally eat a diet heavy in tomatoes so we've reduced that significantly so save on having to cook two meals a night in some instances.

E eats 3 meals a day and usually 2 snacks depending on his nap length and its timing.

Our day starts at 6am on average so E eats breakfast at 6:30/7:45am. A typical breakfast is a piece of fruit, usually a pear if in season otherwise it might be mango, blueberries or kiwi fruit (a huge hit) followed by a piece of raisin toast or vegemite or peanut butter toast and then a weetbix mixed with full cream milk and a mashed lady finger banana. He almost always eats the lot give or take a few slices of pear or mouthfuls of weetbix. On the weekend breakfast might include homemade pancakes with mashed banana, an omelette with mushroom ham and cheese or french toast. I'm looking to start E on breakfast smoothies too this month for those fussy mornings when he won't eat much and plan on trying out the blueberry, banana and fine spinach combo first - will let you know how it goes.

Morning tea is served around 9:30/10am and as I mentioned, due to his reflux, we limit yoghurt to a children's squeeze pouch every second day. We stick to vanilla as it tends to be the lowest in sugar. Other morning tea foods include watermelon, apple, cheese sticks or rounds, children's rice wheels, a couple of pretzels, dried apples or apricots, sultanas, sweet muffins or muesli slice if we have been baking - Scott made banana cinnamon sultana muffins this week.

Hopefully nap time is around 11/11:30am in which case lunch is 1:30/1:45pm and if at home, it will be a vegemite or peanut butter sandwich cut into fun shapes, a cheese toastie, a couple of mini quiches (see my recipes page), a homemade chicken sausage roll or a tin of tuna and some crackers followed by fresh fruit - he can't get enough of his fruit.


We serve up afternoon tea around 3:30pm and given E eats dinner around 5:15pm, we keep it light with a cracker and some of what he didn't have for morning tea (dried fruit, fresh fruit etc).

Dinner ... Scott and I have been trying to be more organised so that we can eat together around 3 times a week as a family ... this means stretching Ethan's dinner out to 5:30/6pm and us eating up to 90 minutes earlier than usual but it is nice to start this tradition of eating together and socialising after a day of work. Ethan prefers dinner at 5:15pm and tends to get a little temperamental if we veer to far off this schedule he has set in which case I always have frozen portions of food in the freezer. A normal dinner for E is a handful of steamed veg (a combination of 3 - peas, corn, carrot, broccoli, beans, cauli), some plain pasta shapes (I buy the dinosaur shapes for fun) which is hit and miss with him and a meat portion. The meat portion lately might be a fresh crumbed chicken tenderloin or bbq marinated rump skewer from our butcher, a pan fried lamb cutlet or lemon/garlic marinated piece of white fish, two chipolatas or two homemade mini rissoles packed with grated veg. This month I'm trying him on tuna mornay (making a batch tonight) so will be sure to post that recipe if its a hit. Dinners are always finished with his beloved favourite food of all, frozen mixed berries (raspberries, blueberries, blackberries) - I just buy whichever type is on special that week, rinse them frozen in a cup to thaw slightly and serve. He loves the cold treat and will scoff as many as I will allow him, meticulously selecting first the blueberries then the raspberries and finally the blackberries.

I will note, we vary our bread each week from wholemeal, grain, rye and a little white thrown in all from the local bakery and E is not a fan of pasta or rice in any form (boiled, sauced, fried style) much to my shock and we don't eat a lot of potato so I trust he gets his good carbs from his bread and cereal intake. Not every night is perfect though... I also keep some chicken breast dinosaur shapes and crumbed vegetable sticks in the freezer as backup for when supplies are low and I haven't made it to the shops.

To keep meals relatively clean, comfortable and descending in to all out chaos, these are some of my must have products - many we have used from when E started solids:

• Tiny diner mat - these are absolutely brilliant and a must have for all parents. We use one at home at every meal and have another that goes wherever we do. Especially handy when out and the restaurant/cafe highchair has no tray or is pretty grotty looking.
• Boon bowl - a great size, not too deep, it attaches to the table and has a decent lip to catch spills. We are especially appreciating the lip now E self-feeds.
• Cutlery - we love the Boon set as the heads are flexible so great for bubs starting to self feed and learning how to angle the sppon/fork into their mouth as you can direct it before they start. We also have the small Hungry Caterpillar set and sometimes the only way we can get E to eat is by giving him cutlery.
• Plastic cutters for fruit and sandwich shapes along with large Target sandwich cutters - I try to make meals fun for Ethan by cutting his sandwiches, fruit, cheese etc into shapes and I do up little bento style lunch boxes for his kindy days. He really responds well to the shaped food with squeals of delight ... last week we had watermelon stars and he picked them up holding them high and sung 'twinkle twinkle'! It was the cutest ever. Cheese in car shaped got a similarly popular reaction with him brrrmming them along his place mat. Things like this take a couple of extra minutes of prep but the reward is well worth it ... a smiling toddler and an empty plate.
• Mocka highchair - I've spoken about this one before I'm sure. The Stokke and Leander were a little out of our price range originally but I loved the concept of having bub at the table and its multi-function. It looks great, E is happy enough in it and this one is under $100.
• Splat mat - a must have under the highchair from day dot of starting solids! We got ours from Aldi for about $10. 
• Ikea Antilop chair - my mum got this one for us and we keep it on our deck outside for when we BBQ or entertain. Its handy having two chairs for if one of my nieces is over and this one is as easy as they come to wipe clean or hose off.
• Mocka table and chairs  this was one of E's Christmas presents that I bought earlier in the year on sale. I love its simplicity, it takes up relatively little space and includes backed chairs. E eats at a table like this at kindy and at my mum's house so we are starting his snack times here at home and encouraging him to sit there for other activities like drawing. We've tried dinner and lunch there but so far its been a fail as he will eat a bite then get up and roam then peck again. Side note, my mum has a gorgeous solid heavy wooden pine set that is so sturdy but it just didn't work in our house.
• Smock bibs - another must have for starting solids and beyond. They save having to bath baby after every meal and are great when you're out and don't want to have to change bub out of a ruined outfit after the meal. 

My final weekend before summer holidays ended and it was back to reality and the office for me ... at least until April/May (not so bad really Scott tells me).

After a week at home with clingy cranky high needs toddlers, my sis and I were in desperate need of a time out and despite our promises to wait for our mum to get back from her holidays, we decided to go see Saving Mr Banks.

I preface my review by saying that I went in to the movie, totally biased and expecting to love it. Mary Poppins to this day is one of my all time favourite movies and I was sure I wasn't going to be disappointed. Guess what? I wasn't! I loved every single minute of Saving Mr Banks from the opening sequence 'Winds in the East mist coming in ...' to the very end of 'let's go fly a kite'.

The story, the cast ... it was all completely brilliant in my humble movie-goers opinion. I shed tears and possibly clapped a few scenes, it just inspired so much emotion. The little Australian girl was mesmerising, Colin Farrell was the tortured father and of course, Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks wowed as you would expect. It gave so much insight to a story I have loved forever and made me ache for its author and the childhood she lived through that controlled her adult life. With no special effects, action sequences or animations, the movie rested solely on the quality of its storyline and the cast's delivery and made a nice change. Its absolutely a must see and I would have to say, Oscar worthy for sure.

I also did a little shopping of course and picked up some bargain buys from plenty of my favourite stores ... you know, Kikki K, Country Road, Kookai, Peter Alexander, the usual haunts. Winter PJs at less than half price for E ($14 a pair), a monthly planner (to keep Scott on top of things), Fresh Jive tees for Scott at only $10 a piece (these wash and wear amazingly well), new tees for me for $12 at Kookai, back up EL mineral powder ($20 people) and pajama style pants at more than 50% off to fit my expanding bump.







We rounded off the weekend with two birthday parties, a 2nd birthday on the Saturday morning for a friend's little boy and my beautiful littlest niece Lillee's 1st birthday on the Sunday. With a 'You are my sunshine' theme and colours of yellow and pink, Karly and I were busy baking and prepping to meet the brief. Its not a 1st birthday without chocolate crackles so I whipped up some mini ones along with some number 1 hundreds & thousands cookies and fairy bread.



decorations came together beautifully and the birthday girl was an absolute delight for her party despite having only a 30 minute nap the entire day. E on the other hand was more than a little clingy, wary of the crowd despite knowing almost everyone and at least had a 60 minute nap that saved us from a potentially more difficult afternoon.

What did you get up to?

Planning Ethan's big boy bedroom and the actual reality of it has taken huge compromise on my part. I have had to reconcile my clean colour coordinated clutter free imagined room with S' input and the fact that I am a 'boy mumma' with a full blown BOY toddler who loves nothing more than trucks (diggers preferably), dinosaurs and all other manner of boy things. I had a win on the colour scheme and that's about it.

I had envisaged a simple white bed and was all set to buy the Ikea Brimnes bed, patting myself on the back for its multipurpose use as a double bed AND with storage underneath. This would be paired with Ethan's existing cube shelving for his books and toys, a blue patchwork quilt and toning soft furnishings, his navy leather glider chair and maybe some framed prints or wall decals. Perfect!

Enter Scott on holidays and it was there my vision went to boy toddler heaven/mumma hell.

With time to spare, Scott decided we should go bed shopping for E. Wait up one second, didn't you listen when I told you the bed we were getting for E? Nope, clearly not ... so I let myself be dragged around to 6, yes, 6! bed shops inspecting various single beds of varying quality and with the toddler himself in attendance. One key thing quickly became clear.... all the singles I liked (with trundles, drawers underneath etc) were way too high for my titchy little guy to climb in and out of unassisted.

Now this is a deal breaker because I want him to be safe and secure in his room with the ability to get in and out of his bed. His room has minimal furniture for this exact reason with everything selected for its safety - nothing he can easily climb on, get caught in or pull down on himself - I've heard far too many a horror story of toddlers and furniture.

Unfortunately every low bed was either a toddler bed (which we were hoping to bypass) or just too girly looking. I was ready to give up when Scott told me he had one more store for us to check and this should have rung the alarm bells... Beds 4 Kids. We walked in and E instantly squealed and made a mad beeline for one bed in particular and then it dawned on me... I'd been played ... just like I usually play Scott.

There were a few regular bed frames, some loft style ones we loved but age inappropriate and the rest? They were unashamedly 'kids beds' ... you know, the themed ones of racing cars, princess carriages ('Princess Kate Carriage\' anyone?) and fire trucks. And there was my little boy sitting up on the fire truck bed with a smile of pure delight turning the steering wheel telling me 'toot toot.' I shook my head at Scott and he knew he had won.

Early on he advocated for a themed bed and I quickly shut down the notion as wasteful, impractical, cheap and nasty looking... you name it. But when I looked at E's joy and actually, the practicality of it, I wavered. It had a lot of great selling points including being low to the ground, surprisingly well made and not at all cheap looking in person, enclosed with side rails negating the need for big plastic bed rails and fun! So Scott and I discussed it at length, did some research and came up with:

• Ethan loved it - so it could help with the transition to his own room
• Safe in height and enclosed
• We can expect to get about 5 years out of it before it is too babyish but it has good resale 
• E is only going to be little for such a short time and it can't hurt to indulge that

How far along? 22 weeks already ... only a maximum of 18 weeks to go and possibly as little as 16. The end is in sight! 

I'm finally back from a whirlwind break that started on Christmas Eve, included our annual family camping break at Lennox Heads from Christmas Day and a return home on the 5th to truckloads of washing, mountains of gifts and toys to assemble/find homes for and of course, Christmas decorations to pull down. Is there anything sadder than packing all the cheer back into boxes? That's why this year, my focus is on decorating for every season and holiday I can... Hey, I'll be on mat leave so I might as well make the most of it.

How far along? 21 weeks already ... More than halfway!