Dropping naps

I must say that I have been super fortunate with Isla's napping since she was about 3 months old. It took work ( a lot of it) to get her napping, but she did and has been really good about it. For the past few months she has been on two naps a day: one at 10 and one around 2. Generally, she would sleep for an hour or so for each one. Recently, she starting extending her morning nap to 2 hours (sometimes more). This is great because I enjoy the "me" time and the chance to shower and quickly organize the house a little bit in the morning. However, she has decided that she is not sleepy at all for an afternoon nap... I can't blame her! So tomorrow (she woke up early today so I decided to give her 2 naps... not a good choice as I have heard her playing for the last 40 minutes) we start transitioning to one nap. 

I am going to attempt to do it gradually, as I think I will get a battle if I attempt to all of a sudden keep her awake until 12:30. I will keep her up until 11 or 11:30 tomorrow and then go from there... move it in small increments every couple of days and see how she does. 

Hopefully, this is what she needs and it works out!!

My little graduate

Isla had her first graduation today: swimming lessons! She (and Sean) passed with flying colours. She can go fully under water for 5 seconds, dive under water, jump into the water, kick her legs, float on her back and roll over. Pretty impressive for an almost eight month old!


We decided not to sign up for summer classes as we likely won't be around much, and will probably just do lessons in Bolton come September. Brampton lessons were fab, and highly recommended, but it is a bit of a trek for the little one. Wednesday night bedtimes have been routinely horrendous. Isla's normal bedtime is 7pm... that means ASLEEP at 7pm. By the time we get home from lessons and have a bath (must clean off the chlorine/salt water), it is closer to 7:30 or so. Either she is so tired from a) swimming and b) it being way past her bedtime, or she ended up sleeping on the car ride home (like tonight as I was on my own and unable to continuously poke her while driving), that she is a mix of over-tired and wired. Going to lessons that are literally 30 seconds from our house will be much less chaotic!


Here is a pic of Isla and Daddy... she came such a long way during the lessons and I just LOVE how much she enjoys it. I smile the entire 30 minutes :)

DIY Fabric Tutu

So I am a bit of a Pinterest addict. I absolutely love all of the cute ideas, especially the DIY category. It always gets me thinking, "I can totally make that"... and then I don't do it. Well, this morning, I came across a pin showing how to make a scrap fabric tutu. Easy enough and looks absolutely adorable! 


I went down to our basement and grabbed the box of fabric that I had purchased months ago for DIY baby shoes (which I also saw on Pinterest) that I never actually got around to making. I had to be honest with myself, I would never get around to making them... too much work... but this tutu, I could do! 


I cut the fabric into long strips and threw it all into a pile- I didn't want to have a pattern to my skirt, so I wanted to be able to just grab a piece of fabric and put it on. 

To make the waistband, I just used elastic which I grabbed from the dollar store. I busted out the trusty sewing machine to make sure it would stay put. Keep in mind that the elastic totally stretched as I made this... definitely should have cut it on the smaller side!


Next, I stretched my loop of elastic over one of my kitchen chairs in order to have a good working space. This made it super easy to attach the fabric with a simple loop. 

This was a super easy tutu to make. I mixed in some tulle and pink ribbon along the way to jazz it up a little bit. I had two trusty helpers... although Isla helped a lot more by going down for a nap shortly after I began!

And once it was all finished...  tada!!

I am super impressed with how it turned out. I will post pics of my little niece wearing it once I give it to her. I think she will absolutely love to twirl in this!


I can't finish my post without posting one more pic of my cutie. She will be eight months in 2 weeks, and is developing such an amazing personality. She cracks me up on a daily basis. We really are blessed to have such an incredible being in our lives. 

Month 7

Isla turned seven months old yesterday! That means that we are now closer to her being one, than we are to when she was born. Time sure does fly!

Isla seems to have mastered the army crawl. She is surprisingly quick if there is something across the room that she is interested in. I used to have my mom "skype sit" her for a minute or two so I could run to the washroom or get her a bottle ready. This involved Isla lying on the carpet and my mom singing to her. Worked out very well :) Now, Isla realizes that this is her time to escape and she shuffles away from my mom as soon as I'm gone. hehe. Silly little girl. 


She is also getting really good at eating on her own. She loves to pick up fruit and puffs- and is quite good at actually getting them into her mouth. We are working on peas, and she is pretty cute when she is that focused in her high chair. 


Over the last little bit, Sean and I have definitely remarked about how "energetic" Isla is. There is no doubt that she is an active little baby. We will definitely need to channel that energy into sports and activities when she is a bit older! 


As for activities, Isla is still swimming once a week in Brampton. She is such a little fish now, and has the greatest time. I am looking forward to the summer when she can enjoy the lake and little baby pools. We will definitely make it a habit of going to a public pool at least once a week so that she continues to be comfortable and enjoy the water. 


It is getting towards the end of June, and I am super excited for our first summer as a family. Sean got onto the volunteer fire department in Bolton, so many of his weekends until mid-July will be taken up by training. The beauty of being teachers, is that we are off- so it doesn't really matter. We will likely be spending lots of time between here, North Bay and Wyevale. Sean's parents live just up the road from Georgian Bay and the beach is beautiful. Hello sandy diaper! 


Last week we finally got some air conditioning installed. As our second floor is essentially a converted attic, it gets incredibly warm up there. I felt pretty bad expecting Isla to sleep in that heat, and it was only going to get worse as the summer began. They still need to finish up some of the duct work- so at the moment we just have holes in the ceilings and floors, but the air itself is going and is pretty decent. It is supposed to feel like 41 today (flashback to days in Qatar), so I am thankful that this is in!


Here is a cute pic that I just had to share. It may be one of my absolute favourites. I am a lucky girl :)

6 months old

The past week, Isla has decided that she needs to wake up around 4 or 5 am. I will feed her and try to put her back to sleep, but that just doesnt seem to cut it. The other day I decided to bring her into bed with me (Sean was sleeping downstairs waiting for a supply call) and it seemed to do the trick. She did her little tilt the head to the side and snuggle down. I love that little move. She fell right back to sleep as that was exactly what she wanted. So when Isla woke up again last night at 4:30am, I skipped the feed and just put her into bed with me, and we both slept peacefully until 7:30. Waking up beside this little nugget is one of the best feelings and I absolutely love these few morning hours to cuddle with her. I know they won't last forever, so why not take advantage of it now?!? Habit or not, I am under the impression that you need to live for the moment with babies and love them every second... that can never be wrong in my opinion :)

Today, Isla turns six months old. That is proof of just how fast time flies and how I need to treasure every little minute I have with her when she is this small. Isla has started to become a very energetic and active baby to say the least. She loves her carpet time to roll absolutely everywhere and begin to crawl. So far she is able to get her bum in the air and push herself forward. She is very determined when she sees something that she wants, and she will get it! It is a combination of rolling and pushing to get from one end of the carpet to the other, but she can do it. I can't leave anything around the living room anymore, or she finds it! I love her determination and energy, and the budding sense of humour that she is starting to develop. 

Isla is also loving her food. So far she has had cereal, bananas, apples, pears, sweet potato, avocado, squash and mum mums... not sure mum mums really count as a food...but they keep her entertained in her high chair long enough for Sean and I to eat dinner usually :) This week I picked up some prunes and peaches to try out. I think that she will enjoy those!

Last week, I took Isla to the park with her friend Cameron. I had put her into the swing awhile ago, but she just kind of hung there with a confused look on her face. This past weekend, she absolutely loved the swing. She had a gigantic smile and even let out a few laughs. I had to bring Sean back to the park with us after dinner so that he could see how much she enjoyed it!

Swimming has also started to go really well (keep your fingers crossed that the same happens tonight). The past few weeks have brought little to no tears, and even some smiles and "happy kicks" (when Isla is really happy, she does these cute kicks with her legs when you pick her up... one of my favourite things). She can go under water and do little dives- quite impressive at such a young age. The car ride home is usually a different story as she is tired and it is bed time, but I usually give her a free pass on that one. 

This weekend, we are headed to Melody's third birthday party. It is rainbow themed, and Isla has a cool new rainbow dress to wear that she picked out. It is also my first real Mother's Day. Every day pretty much feels like Mother's Day as I am so lucky to have Isla in my life- truly a little miracle :) I know that she had a few ideas for gifties that she was telling Sean to pick up for her. I wonder what she decided on. haha. Truly, the only gift I need is the little smile and gurgle that I get every morning when she wakes up :)

Happy 6 months, Isla!

Daily Activities

One of the most important things I have learned as a new mom, is the importance of getting out and about. I try to do something with Isla every single day- as I think we would both go insane if we stayed in the house for the entire time. 


We are pretty lucky, in that we have an Ontario Early Years Centre just up the street. Isla and I have been going to "You and Your Baby" for over a month now and have met a lot of other babies and moms. We just started going to "Infant Mother Goose", which is stories and songs, and it seems like it will be a great program. Isla wouldn't know as she slept through the majority of the first class. I just had to clap and sing along to a sleeping baby. I clapped very quietly. 


Starting after March break, I have enrolled Isla in her first set of swimming lessons. I am super excited for this, as the centre looks fantastic and if Isla has as much fun as she does in her little bathtub, it should be a great experience. The classes are in Brampton (not too far from Sean's school), so that means Sean has to leave work, drive home, pick us up, and drive right back. Not the best, but since it is for Isla, I am sure he is happy to do it! Plus, he will get to be part of the swim classes as well, and I know that he will absolutely love the chance to spend time with her in the water. 


Isla and I have also frequented many of the malls in the area. It is so handy that they all seem to have big family washrooms with good change tables and nursing rooms with comfy couches. When you look around at the people shopping on a weekday, it is 90% moms and their babies, so I guess this makes sense! Isla is a fantastic shopper in that she sleeps the entire time and allows me to make all of my purchases without worrying that she will begin screaming any minute. She even allows me to eat lunch while she snoozes, and often requires me jostling the stroller a little bit to wake her up and feed her before we leave. Can't get much better than that. 


When Isla was a few weeks old, I remember how scary it was to take her out in public on my own during the day. Of course, I managed to get her car seat stuck in the stroller that day while in the Shopper's Drug Mart parking lot, and began having a minor meltdown thinking I was going to have to walk around the drugstore for another hour until Sean was off work and could come and help us out. Luckily, I freed the car seat and got home without a baby meltdown, so the trip was a success. I guess we have come pretty far from that day, and now I can look back and laugh at myself and how much of a "newbie" I must have looked to passerbys. 


I have come to the point where I am completely relaxed taking her out, and actually enjoy the opportunity to show her new things out in her community. I am looking forward to when she is a bit older and can really benefit from playgroups and even going to the community library to read some stories. 


:)