Ella's 3 Months Update

1. How old today:  3 Months / 13 weeks

2. Current weight & length:  She was 5.4kg at her 10-week vaccs, she must be around the 6kg mark now. Not sure about length!

3. Recent milestone reached:  She started laughing out loud last week, it's the most beautiful sound ever!  She's also starting to grasp things, very cute. She's managed a 7-hour stretch at night a couple of times, hoping it will become a habit!  She loves being pulled into a sitting position, and often puts her legs straight and stands for a few seconds. Strong baba!

4. Next milestone:  Getting more control over her movements.  More new sounds.

5. How is baby sleeping at night?  She's been giving us a good stretch from 9pm til 3 or 4am, which is really great - although the 4am one is difficult, coz by the time I get her back to sleep again just after 5, I have half an hour to sleep before the alarm clock goes off.  Hoping she'll stretch that 4am piece to 5am soon!

6. Day naps?  She sleeps after an awake time of around 1.5hrs, for around 2 hours, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Sometimes she goes to sleep easily, sometimes she fights it.  We’re not in a set routine yet, just taking it as it comes.

7. How is feeding going? Combination of breast and bottle feeding.  Last weekend I thought it was the end of breastfeeding, the way she was refusing to feed. My boobs got so full and hard and sore! Luckily after two days it went better again - but now she fights the bottle that she gets after her breastfeed - and she needs it, the breast milk isn't enough... Battles battles!

8. Feeding times?  Every four hours, on average.  Sometimes a bit sooner, sometimes a bit later.

9. What has been the recent baby highs? I just adore her smiles, laughs, and little chatting noises she makes.

10. And baby lows? When she fights sleep!

11. How is the rest of the family doing?  Everyone's really adjusted well to being a family of four.  Mia loves giving her sister kisses and love, I think she can't wait for more interactions from Ella's side.  Wyn helps so much with our evening routine of juggling the two girls at bath and bed time.

12. What has been working best recently, baby-related?  Taking me-time and going to the gym! I get a bit frustrated sometimes if I'm struggling to get her to feed or sleep, so it's nice to hand her over to the nanny sometimes.

A 90-Day Challenge!

Today is the beginning of a 90-day challenge that I signed up for two weeks ago.  I'm super excited about this.  Basically it's an online programme with eating plan guidelines, exercise plans, and lots of motivation and inspiration to be found through the group on Facebook.  It's called 360XBT - and it's exactly what I need to help my weight loss mission along, but not only that, to set a good foundation of healthy nutrition habits and a fitness regime to help me be the best me I can!

My goal is to lose 10kg in these 3 months.  I know it's do-able.  And can't wait to be 10 kilo's lighter!

But together with this plan, I've also set myself a few more goals, because this feels like a "spring-cleaning" of my body, I feel the need to do the same for the rest of me and my living space:

 - Look after my skin: exfoliate and mask treatment every week!
 - Look after the rest of my skin - moisturise, and stop picking at my arms and making scabs, this has become a terrible habit and it's going to leave scars if I don't stop now!
 - Do hair treatments and colour my hair so that I feel better about the state and condition of my hair
 - Declutter: the bathroom cupboards, my dressing table, the laptop desk, and the study!
 - Make an inventory of frozen foods and use what I have before buying new goods.

Today is Day 1, and slowly but surely all the info is being shared in the secret Facebook group, I'm loving the positivity and vibe in the group, everyone is very helpful with questions people have, and info being given on what, why, how is really awesome.

My sister helped me take all my "before" pics, and although it wasn't very fun to do, I do look forward to seeing the transformation in 90 days' time!

Yay!
xx

Mia's Winter School Holiday in Pictures

Two weeks of holiday went by way too fast! It was wonderful to not have to get up while it's still dark to prepare a lunchbox, to be in a mad rush juggling a baby that needs to be fed and getting Mia dressed and breakfasted in time!

This is a few of the things we got up to:

She's finally understanding the memory card game, so it was fun to play with her! She just didn't grasp the concept of "taking turns" - so she won the game, because for each turn I get, she got 3 turns! ;-)

 

She and I both went for a haircut.  So serious. ♥

 

She had a sleepover at Aunty Boo's house. She loved it!

 

We baked pink cupcakes with pink icing. Love these lil handies at work.

 

A visit to the dairy farm.

 

She tossed a coin into the wishing well, and she wished for summer! Bless!

 

A fairy in the garden!

 

We went to the movies, always fun, think I enjoy these movie outings even more than she does!

 

Sister love ♥

 

Icing marie biscuits for great-grandfather. It's his favourite treat.

 

Presents that Pappa brought the girlies from overseas.

 

And back to school this morning!

Mia says to Ella...

"When it was just mommy and pappa and me... I wished for you."

Oh my heart!
I got such a lump in my throat.
Even now just remembering it. 
An amazing special bond is forming between these two sisters! ♥

No electricity, 10-week vaccs, and bulletproof coffee!

Goodness, what a week.

On Monday afternoon our electricity went off.  The substation where we get our power from was vandalised and set on fire.  It only came back on again during the early hours of Thursday morning.  Three nights of candlelit cold dinners and night feeds ain't fun!!

Luckily we could go to my sister's house to bath, we have a little gas stove to boil water, and on the second night Wyn borrowed his uncle's generator to keep our freezers frozen.  Gosh, it was really quite stressful, just silly things like not having instant hot water, being able to sterilise bottles, having the tv to entertain Mia, and keeping my phone in the car to charge from there.  Luckily clever Wyn set up some LED lights on a battery, which gave better light than candles. 

Mia enjoyed the first night of walking around with a torch, but the novelty quickly wore off!  I was terribly aware that I couldn't hear Mia if she called me - we rely very much on the sound monitor still, so I kept going to her room to check up on her - luckily she slept soundly!  Ella of course was blissfully unaware of any effect of having no electricity! ;-)

I have new appreciation since the power came back on - each time I boil the kettle or switch a light on I feel grateful!

On Wednesday I took Ella to the baby clinic for her 10 week vaccinations.  Lil star that she is, only cried for a short while.  She weighs 5.4kg, growing nicely! She really hasn't had any bad side effects from the vaccs, but poor body does have a sniffly nose again. I'm so over these winter bugs!

I've lost 2.3kg in 3 weeks.  Happy with the progress!  Haven't been to the gym since Monday morning as their electricity was also off, will hopefully make up for lost time this weekend.  Something that I feel is helping the weightloss, is that I have a bulletproof coffee in the morning, and then only eat around 11am.  The bulletproof coffee sounds very odd, but it's a nice creamy taste, I like it! 

I make my bulletproof coffee with one spoon of Jacobs coffee, one teaspoon of coconut oil, and a little less than one teaspoon of Kerrigold butter. I sometimes add a pinch of cinnamon or a pinch of cocoa powder. Fill the cup about halfway with boiling water so that it doesn't mess while I blend.  I blitz it with a little handheld milk frother until it's creamy and then top up with more water.  It's really a nice taste, although a little rich, I definitely wouldn't want more than one cup a day.  It doesn't give me a burst of energy like I've heard it should, but I definitely don't feel hungry until late morning!

Yay, it's weekend.
xx