Baby Entrechat

 So last week or so I wrote a blog post about a little cardigan I had started for martha called Entrechat  

Well I finished it in 3 days, and the were working days too, I am seriously chuffed with myself.

You can see my project on Ravelry here

It is the cutest thing knit.

I got a couple pics of Martha wearing it, not the greatest ones but good enough. 

She was very concerned about something on the floor. 

But its so cute, i made a little mistake on the sleeves, it should have had a garter rib on the sleeves but never mind. 

The back has a little flare to it but nothing too fancy 

The textured stitches are so fun, i really enjoyed doing them. 

So because I have enjoyed making this for Martha so much I cast one on for myself

You can have a look at my project here

I have used the most beautiful Malabrigo in English Rose

I looked at so many others, I could have made this for peanuts frankly, but for my size I only needed a couple of skeins so went for this beautiful colour. 

And as with Martha's it just flew off the needles, the yarn from Wool Warehouse arrived in about 18 hours, I love fast delivery i really do and I worked and worked on it. 

This is Saturday night, and i started Thursday so I'm really pleased. 

I worked it on my lunch hour this week as well.

And a couple of the evenings, I am hoping to finish it pretty soon so i can get wearing it. 

And coz this popped in my album by mistake a little pic of my cutie.

2 Years

 Yesterday we celebrated our 2 year anniversary, its funny how it feels like 2 minutes ago and ages ago at the same time. Lately with Martha's birthday approaching, i have been playing a good old game of 'this time last year', i fear i will be playing it for the next couple of weeks.

So last anniversary I was 2 days off my due date and pretty darn massive, we managed a walk/hobble to the place we got engaged in Roundhay Park and that was about it. 

Yesterday we spend the day with friends and our gorgeous little girl, so much chances in a year with a baby, she wasn't here this time last year, 2 weeks off coming actually yet look at her.

She can say mama and dada and move around and is all kinds of awesome. 

so i felt a little collage was needed. 

In the evening we went out for a meal to Reds in Headingley, neither of us had been before but we had heard good things. 

With my slimming world hat slipping slightly i got a burger and rem 2 portions of fries. 

Rob got a donut burger, yes 2 burgers in a donut, yak! 

he seemed to like it. 

We crashed pretty quickly after we got in as we are both struggling with a cold at the min and lovely early mornings aren't helping martha lily!

Today, Rob was off again yay!

The day thankfully started at a nice sensible time of 7.15 so we had 10 hours sleep yet we both still felt rough. 

This is Marthas concentrating face its brilliant isn't it, her daddy pulls the exact same face. 

We are trying to focus a little more on the fun lately, as we find when rob is off we spend a good portion of our day just doing jobs and not going out and having 'outside fun' fun thats not just sitting in the garden, as nice as that can be, you always think, well i should be doing the dishwasher or XYZ.

So we just packed up a few things for martha and headed out for a hour or so to Roundhay Park.

We took martha on her little trike. 

She helpfully carried the picnic blanket. 

She thought the birds were great, they were very loud and she loved it.

She waved at them all. 

We made our way up to 'our bandstand' but the photos completely failed here and there was a wasp nest but you can't win them all. 

We did nip over to the other bandstand. I remember taking a photo standing in this exact spot with a very very big bump.

So thought it would be fun to recreate it. 

I foolishly didn't take my wedding necklace off from the night before but martha thought it was brill. 

And as we are reflective here is a little comparison again of how far we have come. 

A whole new world

If this picture could talk it would tell you after 7  l-o-n-g months Martha appears to be sleeping in her cot in the day. 

I try not to get too 'deep' on my blog as i like to keep it light hearted but for every day time nap Martha slept on me, or Rob if he was home, for 7 months.

I felt i daren't complain coz she is a little super star in her bed at night for that i am very grateful. But literally i would sit mainly in the dark for 3 hours every day in silence. I couldn't answer phone calls, i would dread the door bell going, i couldn't make any afternoon plans as i was stuck on the sofa or in her 'rocky' chair. Whilst i realise that some people have this much much harder when you are going through something tough it feels like the hardest thing in the world.

She just wanted her mummy and thats fine but jeez it was hard. 

I gradually managed to get her to do some naps in her pushchair in the kitchen and it was crazy, i could do things, not many but little things, not really eating as she slept in the kitchen which is a big factor when you can be pinned for up to 3 hours in one afternoon nap (you would think i'd be dead skinny, i am not).

And if I'm honest i was jealous of my friends posting 'ah nap time' photos and i wanted a bit of the action.

She basically would just cry as soon as you laid her down in her cot in the day but never at night, i bought book after book, i tried to become a ninja and do it slowly but alas she would wake.

This is how my days looked (this is my vague attempt at Project Life) , and yes cute little baby asleep on you doesn't sound so terrible but she woke up frequently and cried and cried so it wasn't restful for either of us really. If i sneezed i woke her, no calls, tv not too loud and god forbid Olive made a loud noise.

I read a lot which was nice lol. I tried hard not to begrudge her this time as they are only small one and all that. The days are long but the years are short my friend says, and i try to remember that.

We have given Martha a dummy since she was newborn but she would take it or leave it, really not fussed at all but with my sleep issues i tried every now and again and wondered what i was going to do when i went back to work, how would nursery workers be pinned for this time or even worse would they be able to get her to sleep in her cot where i had failed!

But lately she has really started to like her dummy so we head up to her room in the dark and have a cuddle, often with a bottle (but not always) and give her her dummy and sit for a little bit and then out her in her cot. 

And I am SO PROUD, that she is sleeping well, as i type she is on nearly 2 hours on her morning nap which is a tad excessive but i literally can't believe it, I'll be honest it was getting me down, i certainly didn't resent her but i was all blah blah blah i wanna knit, i wanna eat, i wanna go to the toilet etc

We are now 2.5 weeks in and she's still doing really well, some days she needs re settling but for the first time the other day she wouldn't have her dummy or her bottle but had a cuddle and went to sleep. And she is starting to need settling less, she often wakes on her sleep cycles (45mins) but the past couple of days she hasn't. And best of all she even slept in the day in cots at both of her grandparents house, it is hard to be pinned and needing silence in someone else's house.

I am still in the OMG stage and not really the great i can tidy my house, nope I'm like YAY I CAN KNIT!!!!!!

So my knitting mojo has returned. Im starting to have breakfast and lunch again which does still feel like a waste of my 'precious' time. And to be honest, I miss her, i don't miss being pinned but she is SO awesome right now, so happy and content that i just can't believe this is happening too. She is such a 'good' little baby that the sleeping was our only really issue at the moment and now that seems to have gone, well I can't quite explain.

Sleep seems to be a huge topic with 'mummy's' and its also taboo to say my baby sleeps well when so many people struggle with it, but after all of these months I am just so proud of the progress we have made that I had to share it. 

Im much happier when Rob gets in from work which helps everyone and Rob has been off this week and we are able to have some time together, mainly we have been doing jobs but some days we have been doing nothing at all during nap time, well knitting obviously but its just so different. 

And this is Martha literally 30 second after I had to wake her up so she's happy too and thats the most important thing. 

Sorry for the long post. 

Rach xx

Martha's 1st Christmas decorations

Hi all, sorry for lack of posts but alas I'm here now

So we have been slowly gathering some decorations for Martha. We are very excited about her first Christmas. So I thought I would share what we have. 

First up is this gorgeous decoration my folks got us on a recent trip to Scotland. Super cute right. 

I bought this a few weeks ago. Not strictly a decoration and it will go in her room once Christmas is over but another cute one. 

I got this one this week from M&S, we wanted to get her one from us and went for this one. 

The very next day I spotted this one in sale in Mamas and Papas so got that too. Our tree is big it can take it. 

They also had this lovely snowglobe in the sale so I got that too. 

Today I may have added this. 

Tiny and cute

I also finished Martha's stocking earlier in the month 

I'm really proud of it. The details are on my ravelry page. I can't link on my phone

And the back looks like this. 

So pleased to have this done. 

I used the snowflake pattern to make some hats for me and my girl

 

Cutes right?? 

If you are wondering. Martha is doing great. She's completely gorgeous & getting very big very quickly. 

She has been rocking the festive clothes. Naturally!

Yeah so she has quite a few. I am finding it harder and harder to take photos of her. She is so wiggly but again as u can see so scrummy!!