Sketchbook Club ::

Back at Blogtacular in June, I met the lovely Jennie Maizels, who was telling me all about her sketchbook club. I had already been following the Sketch Book club on Instagram and admiring everyone's fabulous work so I so was so excited about being able to take part online.

I was especially excited when Milo decided he wanted to join in too. We spent a lovely Saturday afternoon together working on our pages for the first theme of the course (houses). It was such a nice way to spend time together, his chat throughout was just joyful. We both finished up so proud of our work. Milo even declared at the end of the day 'I've learnt today that I'm actually quite good at drawing, I thought I was rubbish'.

Jennie provides great inspiration, via videos, printouts and gorgeous examples. You can purchase each module individually for £7 or the whole course for £20. I believe there is also a second course in the works. Details here.

One Year ::

So it's actually been over a month since miss Effie made that big milestone of one. The last year has been so wonderful, of course it's gone by in a flash and yet feels like a million years all at the same time.

To think that I didn't even know I wanted a second baby, really didn't feel as though I wanted a daughter and couldn't possibly imagine how I could love another as much I love Milo before she came along. 

Effie's first year has been a hundred times easier (for me at least) than Milo's was, though I fear she will make up for it in the future. She is quite feisty, very adamant about what she wants and has a terribly mischievous streak. 

For the most part her and Milo get on very well, he dotes on her and she on him. I love seeing them together. She doesn't have many words yet but 'ilo' has emerged quite loudly this week.

Other words are ::

Tater - water

Daddy - daddy

Minmin/mama - milk

I think that's probably it, notice no mama meaning mama yet (humph!). She signs for food and milk and will give you an enthusiastic head nod for yes, she doesn't shake her head yet but if she doesn't nod she means no! If that doesn't work she'll bat you or it away very forcefully! She also waves and claps and points. I think she may be a bit behind in communication, we're working on it and I'm confident she understands a lot, she just doesn't feel the need to tell us much yet.

She's also behind in terms of weight. She was born quite big but has slid further and further down the weight chart since then. I'm not concerned I think she's just little, but was born big. However the health visitors are so she's having frequent check ups. 

Things she loves include, books (especially the Gruffalo!), cuddly toys, animals, throwing food on the floor and kisses.

I can wait to watch her grow and change and become the person she will be.

7 Months ::

I'm a little behind with this, as Effie actually turned 7 months back on the19th April. It's all been a little crazy round these parts, what with me going back to work and the possibility of a house move drawing closer.
However 7 months this baby is and what a delightful 7 monther she is.

We've finally formed the basis of a routine. She'll go to bed at 7-8 after dinner and a bath, she has a feed, then down she goes. Sometimes she grumbles a little, sometimes a lot, unless she's crossed the line from tired grumbling to 'you've abandoned me screaming' we leave her now and she'll fall asleep pretty quickly. She usually wakes once in the night, the time of this massively varies, anytime from 11-5. Making it pretty tough for my sleep schedule but I'm doing ok. Then back down again until about 7. When we get up we play for a little while, then another feed and back to bed about 9. This is the magical part of my day where she sleeps for a good 2-3 hours. Without this sleep I would never get any work done. Up around 12.30. Some lunch, another feed a trip out of the house, then off for the school run. Another feed when we get home. Dinner at 5.30ish and back to the bedtime business. It can change and one day can be turned upside down if I don't get her down for her nap quickly enough. But it's something to build my day around.

As for milestones;

• still no teeth.
• she's mastered the sounds 'dada' 'at' 'ta' and is still the bestest raspberry blower in the west, but no 'mama' yet, despite my best attempts at teaching her! 
• she can sit without assistance indefinitely now.
• can crawl backwards, around in circles and lifts herself into the right position, but hasn't quite mastered forward motion yet.

Her brother is her favourite, but she loves people, has smiles for everyone and has started to recognise those we see lots of.

We're all having so much fun watching her little character develop.

I'm thrilled to have been shortlisted for a BritMums Brilliance in Blogging award! If you would like to vote for me, that would be super lovely. I'm in the craft category and you can cast your vote over here xxx

Goodbye April :: Hello May ::

Oh my gosh, I love this time of year. Summer is oh so close and everything is springing to life.

April has been a blast, so full and so joyous and so so sunny. We had Easter, a birthday and lots of ice cream and sunshine. I went back to work, got shortlisted for a BritMum's Brilliance in Blogging award (you can vote over here, I'd be extremely honoured if you voted for me-I'm in the craft category), found myself involved in lots of exciting new work projects and have been taking up new hobbies.

But May to September is totally my favourite and I'm so excited about summer. 

May sees the lido open, Cheltenham Jazz Festival, Giffords Circus comes to Winchcombe, Wychwood Festival and (with all the fingers crossed, maybe, possibly, hopefully) the buying of our very own, very first house! Wish us luck.

Six ::

Last Tuesday, Milo turned six. The passing of time is such a strange thing, in so many ways it seems like yesterday we brought that little bundle home from hospital in others it seems like a million years ago.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered an old video of him, probably around 3, singing and dancing and playing the drums. He was such a little one, super cute and bossy and with the sweetest little baby voice, things change so gradually and yet so quickly, there was never a day when he just stopped talking in that baby voice, I didn't even notice it happening. We celebrate all the firsts in our children's lives, but the last's go by completely unnoticed. Looking up at the sky last week, Milo pointed up and said to his sister, 'Look Effie, there's a helicopter', I don't know when it happened but at some point he said 'hellyhoptaper' for the last time and managed the correct pronunciation without any assistance. They just keep growing and growing and getting better at things and I guess there just isn't anything we can do about it!

Talking of firsts, the day before Milo's birthday he lost his first tooth. It had been wobbly for a good 2 weeks and I was doubtful it would ever come out. However Johnny mentioned that the tooth fairy may bring extra treats for those whose teeth fall out on their birthdays and Milo wobbled and wobbled that tooth with sheer force. Our lovely neighbour (Stitch and Spool) gave Milo his birthday gift from her a few days early as it was this tooth pillow. Personalised on the front with his name, in glow in the dark embroidery (so the tooth fairy can see it of course) and a diagram of all his teeth, so we can record when each one falls out, on the back there is a little pocket to store your tooth and for the fairy to leave your money.

So Milo awoke on his birthday to a tooth fairy visit as well as all the usual birthday shenanigans. There were a pile of gifts to work his way through before our birthday tradition of rainbow pancakes and berries. After that his annual lego building marathon, then it was a gorgeous sunny day, so we headed out to the park for some cricket (set from his Dad as a birthday gift). For dinner he requested gyoza and sushi, so we took him to Kibou Sushi. We'd never been there before, but it was really lovely, the food and atmosphere both. I'm sure we'll be adding it to our favourite Cheltenham restaurants.

Print by Happy Cotswold Print Co

All in all it was a perfect way to turn six (move onto another a hand as Milo has been declaring).

I've made a little video of his day as part of the Capturing Time Capsules course I've been taking with Xanthe Berkely. I'm loving making these little videos and already know how lovely they will be to look back over in years to come.


Milo Turns Six from vicki brown on Vimeo.

Easter :: Part Two ::

You can read part one of our Easter adventures here.

A picture heavy post for this one.

Sunday we took part in the usual Easter Sunday activities, a morning walk around the beautiful Bruton, an egg hunt, a trip to feed the ducks, a few games of pooh sticks topped off with a delicious roast lamb, before heading back to Cheltenham on the train.

All in all we had a perfect Easter time! I hope yours was just as fabulous.

Easter :: Part One ::

Hoping you all had a glorious bank holiday weekend. Ours was indeed just that. We headed down to Bruton in Somerset on Saturday morning, to spend a couple of days with Milo's Great Grandparents and Grandma, as has become a bit of a tradition for us. It's a beautiful and not too long train journey from Cheltenham, with just a quick change at Bristol, we arrived in time for lunch.

After which we decided to head down to Bruton's new addition the Hauser and Wirth. I was really eager to go and check it out, but Milo was much less convinced. After a little bit of googling however, I discovered they were holding a special event over the weekend. The House of Fairy Tales were going to be there presenting The Giant Ogulon Egg and the Egg Edifiers. So instead of asking Milo if he wanted to go see an art gallery I asked if he would like to go and see a giant egg that had been discovered just down the road. Of course he did!

I was so impressed by the whole event The House of Fairy Tales had put on. The staff were so enthusiastic and Milo loved the whole thing. To be honest I think they had tried to do a little too much, but we were only there a couple of hours, we could have easily filled our day with all the experiments and spell making that was required. The general premise was; a giant egg had been discovered, thought to have risen from the earth and had been laid by the Ogulon, which had travelled here from another planet, choosing Earth to lay it's egg because it heard it's beauty through the sounds of the planets. At least I think that's the story, as Milo has described it to me.

The whole thing ended at the egg itself, which was housed in the centre of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, which is a really interesting thing in itself. The egg had been decorated with clay by all the children (and grown ups too no doubt) who had visited over the weekend. As we visited right at the very end of the last day we were lucky enough to see the egg in all it's decorated glory. It looked wonderful. Milo, being not the most artistic creature, turned his piece of clay into a slug, which was proudly placed at the very top of the egg.

Milo loved it all and was so convinced by the whole thing that he keeps asking why the Ogulon hasn't been on the news and when we'll know if it's hatched. I haven't had the heart to tell him it's mythical yet.

Part two of our Easter adventures is here.

Baby Led Weaning :: At 6 Months ::

We've been at this weaning business for about 4 weeks now. We started earlier than I had hoped at 24 weeks, because Effie was just so eager and ready to get at it.
For a good week or more before we started, we had her sitting at the table with us with a spoon and empty cup, so she could start to learn what it is we do at mealtimes.

Before we had Milo we were terrible 'eat on our lap' types, but now we eat every meal together when we're all home, at the dinner table. I love it and though getting a meal on the table for 5.30 whilst looking after two children and attempting to get homework done and all the other million jobs that seem to need doing between 3.30 and 5.30, means I've come to really dislike cooking dinner, I love the time we all have together. Sitting round the table eating and talking about our days, is a wonderful thing made even more so now Effie can join us.
If you haven't heard of baby led weaning before, you can read more about it's principles here, but basically it's the concept of allowing you child to choose the food they eat, versus spoon feeding them. So your baby is presented with some easy to handle, easy to gum, foods and you leave them to it (supervised of course). There are so many benefits to this way of weaning and it is currently the method recommended by heath visitors.
One of the best benefits to me is; less work! Effie just has a little of whatever we're having. Holding off the salt is the only difficult thing I found about this. Moving the salt I use for cooking away from it's usual spot has been helpful in stopping me adding a sprinkle every time I boil a pan.
Last week for instance we had a roast, Effie sampled everything accept the meat and the gravy. Meaning she ate, sweet potato, parsnips, celeriac mash, broccoli, green beans and yorkshire pudding. And she loved it!

The other benefit is the baby gets to experience all the individual flavours and textures of different foods. Rather than just one generic texture; puree. I don't know if there's any evidence to prove this but my theory is that this makes for less fussy eaters. By experiencing all the foods early on, I assume children will be more willing to accept new textures and flavours as they grow.

It also helps develop muscles in the mouth and tongue, through the act of chewing and moving the food around in their mouths, which means they are able to create a wide variety of sounds sooner. Which is believed to aid earlier communication.

The biggest pro for this way of weaning for me is, it's fun! Oh so much fun! For all of us. We love watching Effie choose what she's going for next, struggle to get a grasp of it, then congratulate her when she manages. She loves feeling part of what we're doing, watching everyone else and mimicking our chewing actions.
It also means I can actually eat my dinner now and whilst it's still hot. I've spent the last 6 months eating one handed with a baby on my lap, more frequently attached to my breast. If I was spoon feeding, eating would still be a one handed endeavour for me.

Everything about this form of weaning is perfect for us. I'm passionate about it's benefits and so glad that it is now the recommended weaning method. When I had Milo it was still a little bit of a strange approach for some. But we did it our way then and I'm so glad we id. At (almost) 6, Milo is the least fussy child I've ever met when it comes to food. He'll eat anything and is always so eager to try new things.

Here are a few of the foods Effie is especially fond of so far, if you were thinking of doing baby led weaning yourself these are great foods to get your little one going. I cut everything into chip shapes, so it's easy for her to get a grip on. I got myself a crinkle cutter, which I use to cut everything up, so she can get a little bit of a better grip on them. With the banana, I cut them into 3 pieces, then separate each length into 3 pieces, along the natural split in the banana, since discovering this tip our banana eating world has been changed forever!

• Melon
• Watermelon
• Mango
• Pear (nice and ripe)
• Banana
• Cucumber
• Carrot (steamed or roasted)
• Sweet Potato (steamed or roasted)
• Broccoli (steamed)
• Green Beans (steamed)
• Pepper (roasted)
• Rice Cakes

I recently found a post I wrote about weaning back when Milo was 10 months old over here if you're interested.

Time Flies ::

Oh my time is slipping away from me at the moment. I just wanted to pop in and apologise for this weeks silence. I had grand plans for blog posts this week, some Easter crafting, a join as you go granny square post and a little baby led weaning update, but somehow it's Friday already and Milo has now finished school for the holidays. Life has been a little hectic this week and there may well be changes in the works, but I promise to deliver all the above mentioned posts within the next week (now I've promised it, I have to do it see?!).

Here's my, later than planned Monday Mini Movie, inspired by Xanthe Berekely, from last weekend's happenings.


March 21st from vicki brown on Vimeo.

Weekending ::

A little bit of our weekend, in pictures in a mini movie ::

Monday Mini Movies :: March 15th from vicki brown on Vimeo.

Weekending ::

What a gloriously sunny weekend it was. It really feels like spring is here. It was so warm on Saturday we didn't even need our coats and I've even begun to hang washing on the line, pure bliss.

Due to the wonderful weather we spent a lot of time out and about this weekend, Saturday I took the babies to the library followed by lunch at Milo's favourite Smokey Joe's. Then on to meet Johnny at the barbers for haircuts for the boys.

Sunday morning we headed out early for the cinema, where we watched Planes, Fire and Rescue. You know, it was actually a lot better than I was expecting, I'm not a huge fan of those movies, though that may be due to the million and three times I've had the pleasure of watching the original Cars movie.
Followed by lunch at the fabulous Mexican place we've been meaning to visit for ages. It was so good and so reasonable too

I went for a run with Bex in the afternoon. It was super tough, I'm not sure why, but oh my it was. We've both been under the weather for various reasons the last few weeks and been missing runs here and there so I expect that may have something to do with it. I'm still keen to keep going though, partly because when we're not desperately trying to catch out breath it's lovely to see Bex and have a little gossip.

I've been joining in with Xanthe Berekely over on Instagram for #mondayminimovies inspired by the creating time capsules course. Making a little movie of our weekend to share on Monday. I'm really enjoying it, it's inspiring me to capture the little moments of our weekend and put it together in to a little 15 second clip. Here is this weeks ::


Monday Mini Movies :: March 7th from vicki brown on Vimeo.

World Book Day ::

Happy world book day to you, if you don't have children you may not be aware of this momentous occasion, if you do have children you will probably acquaint those words with the dread of having to put together a book themed costume for your little one. I actually really like making costumes, we're just not all that great at getting them ready any sooner than the night before. The other thing is persuading your child to go as a book character, not their favourite T.V. character. I won't lie a lot of mum's break these rules, I expect half the girls will be Elsa today, but I try to stick vaguely to them. 

Previous costumes have included, Charlie Bucket, Batman, one of Captain Hook's pirates and Max (from Where the Wild Things Are and my favourite).

This year Milo wanted to be Harry Potter. I tried to convince him to be the Gruffalo (he has a fab Gruffalo costume) but he wasn't having it.

So in the spirit of previous years we waited until after school yesterday to do anything about it. We collected a stick on our way home to serve as a wand, mended his batman cape and added a ribbon fastener, created a pair of glasses out of cardboard and decorated a t-shirt!

I had intended to hunt out a tie, knit a scarf and get hold of appropriate attire but well, time, baby and all manner of other excuses. However we were recently sent some Fruit of the Loom t-shirts from Buy T-Shirts Online, so I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to put one to good use. Using a lego minifigure of Harry as a guide I drew on the v of his v-neck sweater, the badge and the tie and Milo coloured them in with some fabric paints.

I'm actually pretty impressed with our handy work, yes it could have been better if I had done it all myself, there wouldn't be so many black smudges for a start, but where would be the fun in that? With some lipstick in his forehead he was ready and mightily pleased with himself.  

Half Term ::

Back at Christmas time, I promised Milo that we would go back to visit his cousins in Norfolk during half term. This all fitted in perfectly as my sister was due her fourth baby on Valentines day, which was the Saturday of the first weekend of half term. My sister had been told right from the outset of her pregnancy that she would have her baby early, since before Christmas she had been told at every midwife appointment, 'I don't expect we'll see you for your next appointment', so adamant they were she would deliver early. However as half term approached it seemed like we would make our back to Norfolk before the baby arrived. As much as I was looking forward to meeting the newest one, it wasn't going to deter us from spending a few days away and would mean I could help her out with child watching whilst she got some rest. As it was that baby obviously knew we were coming and made her way (very quickly) into the world at 12.30 am on Monday, we arrived at 5pm that same day, meaning we were lucky enough to meet her before she turned 24hours old and would get to spend the whole of our 5 days there cooing over the precious new baby.

We had a lovely time, as usual. Spending time with my Mum and sister and all my nieces and nephew. Milo loved being able to run around the garden with his only boy cousin, Aston and take long walks along the beach hunting for fossils.

The weather was fabulous whilst we were there too, lots of gloriously sunny days. All in all it was the perfect half term.

I've made a little video capturing some of loveliness we enjoyed as part of my Year of Creating Time Capsules course by Xanthe Berkeley ::


February Half Term 2015 from vicki brown on Vimeo.

5 Months ::

OK please stop rushing by now!

How can my baby girl be sitting up, desperate to try some food, jabbering away, spouting teeth and generally being much too grown up and gorgeous for her own good?

 As far as sitting up goes, she's pretty much got it nailed, but still often slides to the side, especially if concentrating on chewing on something and once she's down lacks the skills required to get herself back up again. On the plus side she's going to have some spectacular abs with all the attempting to get herself up she's doing. 

Teeth are coming, but slowly. One appeared a few weeks ago, I swear it was definitely there, I felt it in all it's jagged sharpness, but it seems to have since retreated. Meanwhile she's drooling bucketloads and chewing on everything. Current favourite things to rub between her gums are her little Sophie la Girafe and my gorgeous necklace from Chapter One. Teeth can be felt, oh so, close to the surface around her entire mouth, so I'm hopeful we'll see some soon, but I know they can take forever.

I very much wanted to wait to 6 months for weaning, preferably longer really. Having finally had the breastfeeding success I missed out on before I'm not really ready to start introducing the prospect of 'other' food, but Effie has other ideas. I will do baby led weaning, without a doubt, so I need her to be a little better at sitting yet, but she really wants to start NOW! She watches so intently when you eat or drink and has begun swiping at your food or hopefully lunging forward open mouthed. We've been having her sit in her high chair at mealtimes with us this last week and providing her with empty cup and spoon, which she does enjoy but I'm certain she knows she's missing out on the good stuff.

She is so much more aware and interested in what's going on, she seems to recognise familiar people now, though she's very much a people person anyway. Travelling to and from Norfolk over this past week she made so many friends on the trains with all her smiles and 'talking'. She loves blowing raspberries and taking sharp intakes of breath which make you worry she's struggling to breath!

She's pretty good at sleeping at night these days, going down sometime between 8-10 and sleeping through until 7-8, occasionally waking once in the night but going straight back down after a feed. Daytime naps aren't quite so regular, she usually manages one long one at some point, but we don't really have any routine yet, I'm trying to establish one, but finding it super tough, because I'm too much of a softie to leave her to cry.

Generally everything is great, we had a visit to the doctors this month, because I noticed she has one pupil massively different in size to the other, only really in artificial light, but it is very obvious, especially as her eyes are still pale blue. The doctor wasn't sure as she'd never seen anything like it before but the paediatrician reassured us it's perfectly OK, just one of those things some people have.

Can't believe she'll be 6 months soon enough, halfway to 1 year. It's been such a wonderful 5 months so far, she really is a fabulously, delightful baby.