Callaloo Soup

20 Weeks

* He is rolling over! See demonstration above.

* Crying during tummy time is a thing of the past. He has the perfect head up, back arched form now!

* More and more interest being shown in his toys and just about everything he sees.

* He reaches out constantly to touch and grab things, including our faces, hair, and Lucas' beard, and he's grabbed Lucas' glasses off his face. Oh and he was headed towards my bowl of cashews too!

* The bathroom floor is always soaked from his splashing around in the tub.

* I can tell that he is really going to like being able to sit up by himself. He loves it when we hold or support him in a sitting position so he can play with his toys. And his feet.

* He still really loves being in the wrap and continues to be a great traveler when we go into the city.

* He petted Mozaique (our cat) for the first time yesterday (with a little help from Lucas!)

* He is more and more curious when we are out, to the point where people always remark on how alert he is.

* He is getting more attached to his doudou, Sleepy Time Bear, which hopefully will make for calmer nap times and night times. 

* He has mostly figured out how to work this Jittery Fox toy that my friend Paula sent. He's got the pulling down, just needs to work on the letting go!

* We're getting more and more bursts of laughter now. But we never know when to expect them so we end up laughing too.

* Long naps are a thing of the past, these days I'm lucky if he sleeps for an hour twice a day.

Basically he keeps me hopping all day long, and it's great!

New Camera Strap and Microblogging

I've wanted to jazz up my camera strap for a while and I got around to it early this week.

 

(please excuse the crappy camera phone photo, yikes!)

I followed the instructions found here, because I didn't just want to use a slip cover, but actually change the strap. To simplify matters I made the strap from the insert that came with my TracyJoy camera/diaper bag (now on sale!), which I never use (the insert, not the bag. The bag is constantly in use when we go out with Kieran). The insert was already double sided with interfacing inside so I just cut it down to size using the original strap as a pattern. 

Et voila!

Microblogging

Yes, there is Twitter, but is it flexible enough? Apparently the folks at Typepad didn't think so, and introduced the new microblogging feature. Alsways one to jump on a bandwagon, I set up a new blog called Fran's Whimsies to share all the random links I find online, like I have done in two previous posts.

I know what you're thinking. "Where is she gonna find time for that?" Where indeed? But Typepad makes it very simple with a Blog It button that I installed in my browser toolbar, I just click it, add a catch phrase and hit publish. Sounds pretty simple. Plus I will post a daily "ahem" photo of Kieran to mix it up a bit. So pop on over to check it out. Of course Callaloo Soup will remain my main blog for posts with more substance and meaning. When I find some time.

On my screen recently

I tend to watch TV shows while breastfeeding Kieran. Here's what's been on my screen recently.

 

Mad Men: The dresses and cool furniture almost make me want to live in the 60s. Almost

 

Weeds:No one can get the best of Nancy Botwin!

 

The Unusuals: What a cool cop show! So pissed they decided to cancel it after one 10 episode season!

 

True Blood: I figured I'd jump on the vampire bandwagon and see what this was all about. One episode in I am loving the characters, I think it'll be a keeper.

What shows do you love and can recommend?

A la campagne

1. to market to market, 2. little boy in a big chair, 3. Sitting up, 4. a table!, 5. red hot chilli peppers, 6. Too cute, 7. Summertime, 8. so pink, 9. The Wall, 10. Relax, 11. Cousins, 12. Munchin, 13. Hello there, 14. At the pump, 15. Chillin, 16. Pump it

We had a great time. Click on the links to see individual photos.

4 Months Old

This post should have gone up on Tuesday when Kieran actually turned four months, but it's been one of those weeks!

* He is showing a lot more interest in his toys, and can really reach out and grab a hold of them now

* But he is happiest when we are holding him, or playing actively with him. He likes it when we make his stuffed animals sing and dance

* He breaks out into laughter occasionally. It's too cute! Even cuter is the fact that he surprises himself when he laughs.

* He always grabs at our hands when they come close to him.

* He loves being in a sitting position

* We noticed that he is really attracted by the TV. Ooops!

* He loves looking at himself in the mirror.

* Now that he is interested in toys he takes his bath with rubber ducky!

* He loves kissing and bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt noises. Also being kissed on his belly!

* He almost always wakes up in a good mood now, and we get big smiles once he's fully awake.

* We're using the Moby wrap more and more, it's a life saver!

And now for some more cute photos!

 

 

Have a great weekend!!!

Friday Eye Candy - le troisième

In going through my archives I discovered I have two other posts entitled Friday Eye Candy! One of them was just two weeks ago!

I am managing to get some good creative time in lately. Definitely not scrapping as much as I used to, but pages are getting done!

Here are a few done for Banana Frog

 

I love that large arrow and the alpha! The font is called Pharmacy. I use it a lot. This is the large version:

 

But I also like the original size.

 

I also did my August layout for Write.Click.Scrapbook.  This month's theme is Sweet Summer

 

Go on over and take a gander through the gallery. Seriously amazing work from the team as always.

During my week hosting over there I ran a messy scrapper challenge: Grab 5 to 7 things randomely from your desk or stash and use at least three of them on a page. Here's the page I did

 

I think it took me about 15 minutes and is the quickest page I have ever done!

Some more love for American Crafts (no, I didn't make the DT but I still love them!)

 

 

Not bad huh?

In case you're wondering how I am getting any scrapping done, (so am I actually!) here's how. With so little free time, I have now fully embraced  this philosophy. It's the only way I'd get anything done. Whereas before I was able to work on a page from start to finish in one sitting, I now scrap in bits and pieces. So I spend a lot of time turning ideas over in my head to use for later (and sometimes I even remember to write them down)! A few weeks back I had a block of time that I used to print a bunch of photos, so when I do have a moment I don't have to wonder what photos to work on. I spend a lot less time deciding what to use on a page, I don't second guess myself. Plus I am using up my scrapbook kits! It helps a lot to have pre-packaged stuff I can just pull out and work with. So I alternate my days between looking after Kieran and getting in some creative time. It's a lot different around here now, but it works!

How to win friends, influence people and have random conversations with complete strangers

Wear your baby in a wrap while going around town (super cool matching sunglasses optional), and you're guaranteed to get a smile from everyone, and have complete strangers strike up conversations with you like you're long lost friends.

16 Weeks

* He is interested in his toys now, as you can see in the photo. He can spend several minutes of concentration playing with Mr. Elephantus

* The nights are still hit and miss, but he did sleep for eight hours straight last Friday!

* He's working on his grasping, and can pull his pacifier out of his mouth and then get it back in. Not all the time though!

* I can easily pull him into a sitting position, and he still loves standing up!

* Tummy time is still a problem. but he has really good head control.

* His two bottom teeth are coming out!

* He loves having his butt in the air when being changed, and complains when we put the clean diaper on

* He talks a lot! He's almost always babbling when awake.

* He's very sociable and smiles even at strangers

* He loves being on his play mat because he's free to kick his legs and wave his arms.

* We've been out in the city with him in the Moby wrap and he is a great traveler!

* Most 3-month clothing doesn't fit him anymore, we're on 6-month now!

* He loves being held up high in the air.

* He's really growing by leaps and bounds!

Let's Par-tay!!!

The uber-fab Shimelle is having a rocking blog party this weekend to preview her Go To Press class. The class will be held on Two Peas in a Bucket and starts Monday August 3rd. Over the course of four weeks, Shimelle will show you how to make the most of your printer for scrapbooking, and provide you with 20 PDFs of printables.

So I was pretty excited when Shimelle asked me to play along and use some of her printables to create a project.

I got even more excited when she said that one of the sheets contained cupcake images. I've become quite obsessed by these little morsels of heaven and knew immmediately I'd do a layout about them.

I printed out the sheet and cut out the long journaling card, a cupcake image and and one of the pieces of word art. I added some Stickles glitter glue to the frosting part of the cupcake,

and decided to use the word art piece as my title block. You can see the layered effect this created since I used transparent letter stickers for the title. 

 

I dressed up the rest of the page with buttons, more stickles and beads to mimic the frosting and decorations on cupcakes.

(Note: You can click on the images to see them larger)

This was a ton of fun! Thanks Shimelle for asking me to play. Now don't forget to click over to her blog to see inspiration from a ton of wonderful scrappers and paper crafters!