Explore

Jasmine is two weeks old today. I feel like 200 years old! Thankfully that doesn't show up in the self-portrait! I don't take a lot of self-portraits, although I'd like to, especially ones that don't involve a mirror. I've yet to work out what to focus the camera on if I use a tripod rather than a mirror!

The lack of self-portraits doesn't mean I don't scrap pictures of myself. Gus is always ready to take photos of me which I can scrap. In fact, I think I need more photos and layouts of Gus!!

Creativity is at an all-time low and has been since the start of the pregnancy. Or maybe even before that. Total lack of energy through the pregnancy meant I did very little scrapping, although I did create a few digi LOs. I'm hoping that once a routine has been established with Jasmine, I can get back into scrapping again. At the very least I have a new topic (and a gazillion new photos!) to scrap!

Having said that, I'm trying to remain positive and hope that I can learn to manage my time (and the baby) and my energy levels so that my creativity will come back! I'm actually very surprised at how optimistic I seem to be lately. Is it still pregnancy/new baby hormones? Or perhaps my OLW for this year - {Positive} - IS starting to have an effect on my way of thinking. That would be awesome.

I hope I can at least finish this new class from Shimelle - Explore. I don't really know what we are exploring, but the word alone conjures up adventure and journeys into the unknown. That alone sounds exciting! Will you join me? There's still time to sign up - click here.

*hugs*

Monday Giggles

Yay! Monday Giggles is back. I couldn't leave this off for too long. It's fun hunting around for things that make me laugh, or giggle!

Enjoy!

Three men were discussing at a bar about coincidences. The first man said, " my wife was reading a "tale of two cities" and she gave birth to twins."

"That’s funny", the second man remarked, "my wife was reading 'the three musketeers' and she gave birth to triplets."

The third man shouted, "Good grief, I have to rush home!"

When asked what the problem was, he exclaimed, " When I left the house, my wife was reading Ali baba and the forty Thieves"!!!

Source: A Joke A Day

*hugs*

Introducing . . .

If you've been wondering if my conspicuous absence from this blog means that I've gone and had the baby, then wonder no more (and yes, I do realise some of you have been stalking this blog awaiting the news!!!)! Let me introduce you to...

Little Miss Jasmine!

Over a week and a half ago, on Tuesday 5 July, little Jasmine entered the world at 1.36am after mum laboured for about 10 hours (completely natural birth, no interventions although copious amounts of both nitrous gas and much appreciated encouragement from hubby was required at times).

Weighing in at 3.9kg (8.6lbs) and 51cm in length, she wasn't a small baby! Upon taking her first breath of fresh air, she immediately let us all know that her lungs were in perfect working order and that being naked and cold and out in the big wide world was most uncomfortable.

Dad was immediately smitten by this new little being. Mum was a bit too exhausted at the time to really take it all in and just wanted to close her eyes and sleep!

Once she had been weighed and measured and cleaned up a little, she was returned to the care of mum and dad. All three were then lead out of the Birthing Suite to one of the suites in the Maternity ward for some much needed rest.

Three days later, it didn't look as if we were going to be able to leave the hospital just yet. Jasmine developed jaundice from not getting enough fluids (mum's milk was slow in coming and in short supply). This is where things started getting distressing, moreso for mum and dad than baby herself. Due to the high levels of bilirubin (toxin associated with jaundice) in her body, there was no choice but to undergo Phototherapy (UV light) treatment. However, the weather last week was very cold, and severe wind storms had even taken out the power to the hospital on two nights (airconditioning cannot be run on generator power, so for those two nights, we almost froze!). Hence the midwives weren't taking any chances and Jasmine was put into a Humidicrib (incubator) just so that she didn't freeze to death as she had to lie under the lights completely free of clothing, even her nappy. Watching her sleep in a big, noisy machine under blue lights was not pleasant at all. (Several other events lead to even more distress and anxiety, but I'll spare you all the details - thankfully nothing was really that serious.)

Thankfully God had His firm hand on the whole ordeal, and a little short of 24 hours later, the bilirubin levels had dropped to a manageable level and the Phototherapy was no longer needed. We had to stay in hospital one more night for monitoring and to make sure that the bilirubin levels stayed down, but at least we were over the major hurdle.

Finally on the morning of Sunday, 10 July, Jasmine was given the all clear and we were able to take her home. We still have the breastfeeding hurdle to overcome, but hopefully that will sort itself out over time.

In the meantime, we have the fun job of trying to work out some sort of routine, getting rest where we can (although I'm finding this is an almost impossible task!), but best of all, enjoying our new little bundle of joy. (psst - she already has daddy firmly wrapped around BOTH her little fingers. LOL)

I'll leave you with a few last photos and hope that this whole post has made sense. Very little sleep is completely addling my brain and ability to string meaningful sentences together! :D

Hopefully normal programming will return to this blog, although don't hold me to that! LOL


*hugs*

Monday Giggles

Wow! I can't believe it's Monday again already - where do the weeks' go?!?!

Here's another parenting fail I should definitely learn from.

Enjoy!

*hugs*

Weekend Wrap-up

I don't normally do a Weekend Wrap-up but this weekend was particularly pleasant.

I didn't want a Baby Shower - too much fuss - but a few friends of mine from work decided to have a "Baby-Shower-in-the-guise-of-a-get-together" anyway. :D We went to Lillianfels on Saturday for High Tea. You might remember we did this last October for our wedding anniversary so I'll spare you the photos of the delicious food. ;)

Instead, here's a photo of my friends' gorgeous little baby, snuggled up against Clancy (or was his name Claude? I can't remember now! Sadly, he had lost his name tag. :( ).

My delightful friends brought me lots of presents, of which I don't really want to show you as they are mostly practical items such as breast pads and disposable change mats and other such necessities for when baby finally arrives! What I can show you though is the lovely cake that was made for me:

I was very touched as I wasn't expecting this either - it's such a lovely cake!! I must explain however that since I wouldn't tell my friend the proposed name of my baby, she had to resort to "Baby Hua" instead. LOL

It was lovely to catch up with them, even though I've only been off work for two weeks. :D I'm also touched that they did travel all the way up here to the Mountains to spend the time with little ol' me! Thanks guys - mmwah!!

Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the rest of the weekend - just good memories:

• Saturday night dinner at Monte Bello in Katoomba where they have a most delicious duck risotto.
• After dinner coffee at The Carrington historic hotel, whilst sitting in front of a huge {fake gas} fire and enjoying the Yulefest (Christmas in July) decorations.
• Sunday breakfast at The Conservation Hut in Wentworth Falls overlooking a gorgeous fog filled Valley of the Waters.
• Taking the dogs out for a good run at a nearby park.
• Spending the rest of Sunday afternoon chilling out.

I hope you all had a good weekend too!

*hugs*

A Layout to Share

I love using sketches, and I love this new challenge blog (Once Upon A Sketch) that has only recently started up. Their challenges combine gorgeous sketches with great journalling prompts, which I think is great as I'm starting to learn to document the stories rather than just scrapping pretty pictures.

When I saw the sketch for the current challenge, I couldn't resist and knew it would be perfect for my growing tummy photos. Of course, being the procrastinator I am, the LO has taken me all week to do and I uploaded this at the very last moment! LOL (Thanks to Blogger, I unfortunately had to link to my Flickr page rather than this lovely blog post in order to make the deadline!)

Here's the sketch:

And here's my LO:

Credits: My Wonderland Kit by KLewis; Flower stamp from Spring Vine Borders by MWise; Title from Pregnancy Brush by AEdwards; Strip Templates by LWeifenbach; Tab Journals by JBullock; Journalling font - LD Soccer Mom by ScrapNFonts

Click on the picture to get a bigger view. The journalling reads: Here I am in the last 3 months of pregnancy. What a journey it has been! It's been quite interesting watching both my tummy AND you growing, and now it's almost time to meet you!

Apart from taking part in challenges on UKScrappers (which I haven't done now for a loooong time!), this is my very first entry to a Challenge blog. How exciting!

Thanks for looking! :D

*hugs*

Thankful Thursdays...on Friday!

Well, here we are with Thankful Thursday on a Friday! No thanks to Blogger giving me nothing but a "Bad Request Error 400" all of yesterday.

Today I'm thankful that even though I might not have the energy to sit at my craft desk and flit around my craft room looking for supplies, I still have a creative outlet through digi-scrapping. Whilst it doesn't quite have the same satisfaction level for me as scrapping with real supplies, it's still scrapping!! Unfortunately, I still procrastinate just as much with digi-scrapping as real life scrapping, perhaps even more so due to being able to undelete anything! Looking for supplies is not as easy either, but I must say that there is still some satisfaction in seeing a finished page. The good thing is that I tend not to go back to fiddle with a page once I've deemed it finished and it's been published somewhere, like on this blog!

(BTW, see next post for details on that lovely page featured in today's picture. :D)

Since you're reading this, you can safely assume that bubby still hasn't made her appearance. Maybe I should be thankful too that I have the patience to wait out these last few weeks? LOL

What are you thankful for today?

*hugs*