Still kicking!

My goodness, I didn't realize how long it had been!

Things going well here. Motherhood and parenting is a tough tough caper. We have good days and bad. All three of us were sick for a week which was hard going! Asher has been teething for months and still no teeth! Makes her a grumpy bub and for a while she was waking up 3-4 times a night but she's back to going to bed at 7pm and sleeping til around 6.30 which is great. She's close to crawling, going backwards but hasn't quite coordinated the forward move! She's just over 7.5 months old now and at 7 months weighed in at 9.6kg so still a giant baby!

We went to Bali for a week in September and had a great time. Asher was a hit with the locals - they all wanted to hold her and kept saying his big she was! I got quite the complex on her behalf!

Weight wise. Ugh. I lost about 5kg on the Michelle bridges program. It should have been more but I found it hard to commit to the training with the weather being too dodgy to do the program outdoors and not having time to do it at home or gym. The program is great and I recommend it if youre not looking after a baby! Still haven't had any fill put in my band because I still struggle with keeping food down a lot of the time. I should probably go back and have a chat and a scan to rule out a slippage but dollars are pretty tight at the moment. I am trying to do some form of exercise at least 4 days a week. Now that the weather is fining up we've been trying to do the 7km river walk at least once a week and then I try to do two classes at gym when Craig gets home from work and once on the weekend. Best laid plans of course!

Speaking of dollars, the plan is for me to go back to work 3 days a week from mid January. As much as I love this kid, I do feel like it would be nice to have something else on my mind! I'm hoping to work one of those days at home and have my mum here to help out with Asher Basher.

Anyway better do some housework while I can! I hope you're all doing well I really do. I'm hoping to get back into blogging regularly and of course reading yours!

I'll try to post some pics, but I'm using the iPad and the formatting looks wonky hope it works!

Out the back sharing toys with Baxter last week

various pics from last couple weeks

Cranking out some shorts while weather is nice

Being Cheeky

Great parenting in Bali

Laughing at Dad

Being a baby is thirsty work

More bintang ? (in Bali)

Pretty in Bali

Perusing the cocktail menu

Striking a pose in a new bali outfit

Walking around in the heat is tiring! (also in Bali)

EDIT - ok posting pics from ipad is near impossible, must see if there's an app!

Long time!

Hey all,

It's been a long time between posts, I know! Hopefully I can find time to post a bit more now that I'm starting to get the hang of this motherhood thing! So what's been going on? Probably best to break this down:

Asher: She's just beautiful. I mean seriously a stunning kid (obviously I'm not biased or anything). She's getting there with her sleep too. She goes down at 7pm and usually makes it to 4am before needing a feed, this morning she slept til 6am! She's 17 weeks old and we've just started her on solids (well rice cereal). Last night she loved it, today she hated it. The look on her face was hilarious. She had her 4 month old vaccinations yesterday and was a little trooper. She's a "giant baby" as I like to call her. Weighed in at 7.8kgs yesterday, but she's also quite long. She's in the 90th percentile on the graphs. Here is a pic of her last week

Westie & Baxter: They're awesome little pooches (when not destroying things) and very good with Asher. They give her little kisses and are very gentle around her. When she's crying they lie by her door or us if we're holding her. Poor buggers are lacking in exercise with the weather being so poop lately and I can't manage the pram and two dogs (especially as Bax walks as if he's never been out of the house before!).

Weight/Exercise: I started the Michelle Bridges (trainer from Australian Biggest Loser) 12 Week Body Transformation about 6 weeks ago. I've lost about 3kgs which should be more except that we went to Melbourne for 11 days in Week 2/3 and I'm finding it very hard to maintain the level of exercise she recommends. I have just joined the local gym though so hoping I can get there when hubby finishes work, although they do have a creche ($5 a visit though) so that's an option too. I've been doing zumba periodically too but feel like an absolute knob!!! I haven't been back to have my band adjusted as sometimes I'm so restricted, I can't imagine having more fill in. To be honest, the shitty eating is mind related and I just need to stop it! 

Anyway, that's all I have time for today. Will try to catch up on everyone's blogs at some stage! Hope all of you are doing well!

A new chapter begins

Well well well... anyone still stopping by?

Forgive any spelling typos - I'm doing this with one hand as Asher is asleep on my chest!

So I had a baby! Ended up being induced on the 3rd March and after quite a traumatic 16hrs after the first epidural didn't work and they finally found an anethatist to put in another one so that they could increase the drip to progress labour - the last 4hrs of which I was awesomely numb from the waist down, Asher was born with the help of a vaccuum (I couldn't tell if I was pushing - I just made sure I was doing the noises!). Officially, active labour was 8hrs. Anyhoo she's just lovely.

GB and I are blindly feeling our way around this whole parenting caper after 5.5 weeks. Asher's had colic which isn't making things fun but she does have some good days! She's starting to smile now which is great to see. As she's formula feeding GB is helping with the feeds so we each get up once to feed during the night at the moment. In between when she's restless I tend to get up now that GB is back to work. It won't come as a shock to parents out there that we are absolutely exhausted!

Our furbabies are very protective of her, they sometimes get up at night while we feed and if she's crying they come up to see if she's ok. Very cute.

We also celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary last month. We finally indulged in the bottle of Dom Perignon we'd bought duty free on our honeymoon with an antipasto platter we made. So so so good!

Weight wise - I'm down about 10kgs from what I got to at the end of my pregnancy - but that hasn't shifted in a few weeks. My diet is shocking consisting of a big percentage of chocolate! I'm trying to get out each day for a walk with Asher, but sometimes I'm just too tired. Did a 1hr walk today though. My band has been playing silly buggers which is frustrating given I have next to zero fill in. I'm hoping it's just the crazy hormones playing havoc with restriction (I went about 5 days this week not being able to keep anything down) and not a band slip or the pouch dilation which is what I had before the wedding last year.

We've booked a trip to Bali in September so I want to lose at least 10kgs by then.

Anyway, I'll leave you with some more pics of Asher.

Introducing.…

Asher Keily Rose, born 4th March 2011 at 6.54pm weighing in at 3.315kg (7lbs4oz) and measuring 51cm in length. Whole family tired but doing well.

38+3 Still hanging in there!

Hi all,

Is anyone still stopping by here? Things have been a bit crazy and surprisingly it seems I have even less time to blog! In a nutshell, baby seems in no hurry to arrive - I'm on weekly appointments with the OB now and baby is well positioned (head down) but not very engaged yet. We have a couple of names shortlisted but won't decide on it until we meet her and see what suits.

Bandwise, not much change. Some days I can eat heaps and other days I still PB food or only eat a small portion. Very disappointed in the weight I've put on but I know I will get it off again and looking forward to getting into a regular walk/run routine after bub is born. I'm still doing antenatal water aerobics classes twice a week which is good - it's nice to feel light in the water! It's been far too hot here to go on any walks unfortunately.

Hubby went and got a fill a couple of weeks ago for the first time in 18months (0.25ml) as he was slipping into bad habits and had also put on weight. We disagreed about it because I know when he gets back into training for triathlons and marathons he needs the extra fuel and particularly needs to be able to eat in the mornings, but in the end it was his decision. He's had to re-learn the small bites & extra chewing that had slipped away over time, which lead to a few trips to loo and he seems to be having some night reflux so I'm worried that he may need some taken out again but will see how he goes.

I finished up work on the 28th of January so am having to get used to living on half pay!! Worked out that with my leave, work paid parental leave & govt paid parental leave I can get half my normal pay for the rest of the year -whether or not we can live on that will be another thing all together! But people do it every day right!

Anyhoo I will leave you with some pics of the nursery and of course our furbabies! I have 192 blogs to read - eek!

Baxter & Westie

Love our wall art

Pram, capsule

Ikea shelving!

Peekaboo mum!

Happy new year!

Hi guys,
Just a quick one. Hope everyone had a great festive season. Ours was pretty busy but nice.  All the sweets I'd baked went down well with everyone which was good.

Babywise - we're just over 32 weeks now so getting into crunchtime! GB painted the nursery during our break and we bought some linen so the room is coming together now. The blood tests I had with the GTT showed a was extremely iron deficient so am now on iron supplements. Have started to feel a lot better since taking them - I can nearly get through the whole day without needing a nap! The last OB appt just before xmas went well - the placenta was about 3cm away from the cervix so although not completely in the clear, that was a good step forward.

16 work days remaining till I go on parental leave. I think with my work paid parental leave plus the govt pd parental leave plus my long service leave I *should* be able to stay off work until 2012. We'll see of course, you just never know what's going to happen especially with interest rates and the cost of living going up!

Anyway, I have 79 of your blog posts to catch up on so better get to it! Oh yeah and work ... hahaha

Here's some festive pooch photos:

Baxter Chillaxing

Happy Bax

Baxter's first visit to the beach (he loved it!)

Can I haz corn?

Clean & groomed pooches

Professor Baxter

Happy Westie

Christmas Day outfits. Yeah they're not too impressed. The kilts only lasted about 10mins, but the bowties they kept on for a day.