Willow Mae

I recently discovered Willow Mae by a friend on Facebook, and fell instantly in love with a pair of bloomers and their matching singlet.

Does Eliza look spunky in them? I know I am biased, but who doesn't love ruffles on a little girls bum?

Mon lovingly hand makes every item she sells, which is why she only sells during market nights. To find out when they are you will need to follow her on Facebook. Seriously, even though you will possibly have to wait for a sale, you won't regret it, her creations are spot on, and of supreme quality. I received so many lovely comments on Eliza's outfit that day.

(Willow Mae have no idea who I am, nor that I have written this post. It is purely my passing of information to you, as I know you all love cute things)

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Birdie Keys

You know how there is always one person in the household who is always losing their keys?

That person is me in our household. I even always put them on the kitchen bench, but still manage to lose the darn things.

So when I saw this keyring with its own docking station on The Design Life Shop, I had to buy one. I attached two magnets to the back and stuck it on the freezer. Hopefully this will solve the little problem every time I need to leave the house.
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Teepee

Social media has a lot to answer for. Not only does it keep me up to date with friends that live 5 minutes away so that I don't go and visit them, it influences my shopping.

Hippity Hop Kids had a competition going where you could win a teepee. It looked like a cool thing to have, so I googled it and found out it was made by Banana J Creations. Whilst I enjoy shopping, I love being able to buy handmade goodies by other mums who are making a living doing what they love, so BJC had me won over from the start, then I started looking at the designs and fell in love.

Can someone remind me to buy one of these for next Christmas?

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I am teaching her early

Eliza and I do a fair bit of shopping, however it took me until she was 6 months to go on her first trip to Bunnings! She was a huge fan, and has since demanded that I take her fairly regularly.

Who am I to argue?

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To Buy or Not To Buy: Towels

See this basket here? It is full of towels for Eliza. Hooded towels, plain towels, extra fluffy towels, and close to a million facewashers. And there is another basket in the bathroom. And a few on the clothes line.

To be honest, I wish I never brought any myself, as we got given majority as gifts, which was lovely, don't get me wrong, but we only ever use the same three towels: the pink hooded towel on top, a normal towel that my mum embroidered for Eliza to lay on whilst getting dressed/undressed, and a spare hooded when the pink one is in the wash. I tend to use the rest of them for drying my hair!

My advice? Save buying towels until after the birth, or if you must, only buy one or two beforehand. A regular bath towel is just as good too.
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Whisky

Dan Murphys

I was recently looking for a bottle of whisky to give for Fathers Day and come across this beauty. I love both my husband and my stepdad (who I was buying it for), but there was no way I was buying them a $10,700 bottle of whisky!

I am pretty sure it isn't a big seller either, who buys (and then drinks) a $10,700 bottle of grog?
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To Buy or Not To Buy: Pumps

Despite not wanting to, I seem to have brought A LOT of baby stuff. Somethings have been great, others not so great. I always found other peoples reviews interesting, so I thought I might have a crack at it too.

In the first three months, we loved our Medela Swing breast pump: I ummed and ahhed over buying or hiring a pump, and eventually decided to buy one. My chemist has a 90 day exchange policy, so I figured if I didn't use it within 2 months I would return it and get my money back. I figured that was a decent length of time to either get breastfeeding established, or to have thrown the towel in and be using formula (nothing wrong with either, just my preference was with breastfeeding).

Within three days of being home the box was open and I was pumping away thanks to an oversupply of milk. I now use it daily to express a feed just before bed, which becomes our freezer store. I like that the speed is variable, so I can increase pressure as needed, as well as the let down mode to gently get things moving. I also liked that there is a firm and soft cup in the box, as I preferred the soft cup in hospital.

Every now and then it throws a hissy fit and won't suction properly for no reason, but I find that turning it on and off again fixes that problem. It was expensive, however it is money I don't regret spending, as it has saved my behind more than once in the last few months, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. That said, if I wasn't sure I wanted to breastfeed, or knew I could breastfeed, I would hire one. It was the long refund period that had me sold.


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Happy Lab

On a recent shopping trip I ventured into Happy Lab in Highpoint Shopping Centre. I wasn't sure what it was, but it looked interesting, and lets face it, I like food, so any store that sells food is a winner in my book.

It was a pretty funky store, set out like a pharmacy, where the shop assistants wear lab coats and the chocolates come in test tube bottles.

The chocolate was pretty darn good, which was a suprise, as I expected cheap tasting chocolate, but this was well above decent, bordering on fan-bloody-tastic. And I got to keep this funky jar (I brought one of the triangle tubes in the bottom of the second picture) and fill it with my own chocolate when I ran out. Bonus!

Apparently they are opening more stores around Australia, so if you happen to walk past one backtrack and walk inside. You won't regret it.


PS - Happy Lab have no idea about this post, I am just sharing the love for free. Pin It

You have gotta spend money to make money...

But do I need to spend $1350 to save money?

Even I, who uses the line "but the Aussie dollar is so good right now" more times in a day than I change a nappy, can justify that!
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Sock Monkeys

Or in our instance, SockKitty!

From Super Sock Monkeys

I love his cheeky grin, she is a real Cheshire Cat!
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Pretty Blankies

Eliza is very lucky, and was thoroughly spoilt when she made her slow entrance into the world. She received so many beautiful things, but one think that gets many comments is her cream pram blanket that my mum brought her.

It is amazing, and really does look like it was handmade. I love it so much. Am so tempted to buy one for a friend who is having a baby soon.
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Christmas Planning

So it is only August but I am thinking of Christmas already. There are a few blanks that need to be filled in, which I need suggestions for.

Husband: (meh, he can work that out himself)
Eliza: a SmartTrike

Parents: A personalised calendar and a framed picture of Eliza

Niece 1 (4.5 years old)
Nephew 1 (3 years old): some cartoon DVD's and some books
Nephew 1 (2 years old)
Niece 1 (1 years old): Cocoon Couture beanbag

Any suggestions for the blanks?

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Things I love

Or rather this post should be titled "Things in Eliza's room that keep April from going mental at 3am".

Eliza's iPod with Sounds of Silence playing. The track 'White Noise' stops her crying instantly.

(I now have it loaded on my phone and in the car, and often find myself humming the tunes of the classical lullabies)

Also in the above photo is the GroEgg. I quite like the egg, as I can tell if it is too hot or cold in Eliza's room from bed based on if it is blue (cold), yellow (just right), orange (bit toasty) or red (turn off the heater). If we had brought a monitor I probably wouldn't have bothered with it, but I quite like it.

Finally, Nursing textbooks. So terribly handy to raise the height of the cot at one end to help with reflux. And honestly, what else does one do with Mosby's Medical Dictionary?

(Clearly $200 well spent given I am not a nurse. Least it is being used though)

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Artwork Gifts

I have quite a number of pregnant friends, all of whom I am most excited for, as we are becoming mummies are the same time. And because it means that I have more people to buy baby things for :D

I am currently eyeing off these prints from Galerie Anais. I just need a certain friend to let me know if she is expecting a baby girl or boy.
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So Bright

I am convinced that one of my friends is having a baby girl, and have been stalking Etsy for the cutest little girl things for a newborn, and I rediscovered one of my favourite shops So Bright Designs.

Loving their new goodies.

I am so royally screwed if she has a boy though!!!
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The War Has Been Won

Remember the Great Debate of 2011? Not the one over Julia's Flood Levy, or the one about whether the drought was better for the farmers than the floods. The one about a pram. Oh wait, that debate only happened in our house?

Well it was won. 

I am happy to announce that I won the debate and got my Bugaboo Chameleon. There was a bit of a compromise though. See, just prior to Christmas I won a brand new iPhone 4, a phone which I already owned. So I decided to sell the phone on eBay, and use the funds towards getting the pram I really wanted. I then managed to find a 1 year old pram on eBay for a price that was far to good to be true.

So I bided on it, and surprisingly won it. The only downer was that I wasn't a fan of the orange canvas, and the other topping that came with the pram was the sand fleece. Sand on sand was a little blah for me - so I brought the orange fleece. And boy is it bright! I love it!

Now I just need a baby to put in my pram, as pushing a stuffed toy elephant just isn't quite the same ;)
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Baby Shower Gifts

We all know I love shopping, so I am more than a little excited that several of my closest friends are pregnant, and not only do I get to help shop for them, I also have quite a calendar full of baby shower dates.

Most of my friends have found out the sex of their babies, however they aren't telling the greater public, so it means I am on the hunt for gender neutral gifts. I suddenly realise how annoying it is when someone (ie me) doesn't know the gender of the baby, as it makes shopping a very hard experience.

I am currently loving these burp cloth and onsie sets from Mac and Me

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Nappies

A while back I mentioned how I planned to use modern cloth nappies, choosing to go with Bumgenius Elemental. Well it turned out I was a sucker for punishment, as I ordered them from the US with a mail forwarding company sending them to my house. Which was awesome - except the dickhead of a courier delivered them to someone elses house and couldn't reclaim them. I was less than impressed, especially when they finally admitted liability 2 days after my shipping insurance claim time ran out! Eventually I received a refund for the cost of the nappies, and with that back in my bank account, I vowed to only buy nappies in Australia.

So, along this saga which took place over almost 2 months, I changed my mind on what type of nappy I wanted to use, deciding on using Itti Bitti Tutto's

I still love how they can do from newborn (apparently) to 20kg. And they had awesome colours in minkie fabrics. *Swoon*

On a google search hunt, I came across Nurture Nappies, who offered the best special for bulk packs of Tutto's - $190 for 6 Tutto's with free postage - a massive saving of $32 which was almost the cost of one nappy! I was sold. So I placed my order, and continued on my merry way.

By the time I got home I had an email confirming my purchase, and another from Nikki stating that my chosen colours were out of stock. I had several options to choose between, I could wait out the stocking period, change my colours, or cancel my order. I was most impressed, as most companies only ever let you know these things when you ask. I decided to wait out the restocking period (10 days) as I really wanted these particular colours.

When my nappies came into stock, Nikki emailed me and let me know they had been shipped, and I would receive them within 48 hours. Yay! I expected a delivery on Monday or Tuesday, but when nothing showed up, I checked the tracking online. Imagine my shock when it said they had been delivered already! Oh no, not again!

I quickly emailed Nikki, who contacted the shipping company on my behalf. Turned out that I was outside their express delivery system and that my parcel had been forwarded to Australia Post for delivery. As it turned out, a further half hour after I sent my email my parcel arrived! Not something that was Nurture Nappies fault, as who would have expected the courier company to send it via Australia Post an hour from its delivery destination?

Nurture Nappies were so lovely to deal with, I couldn't recommend them highly enough. I highly recommend them to anyone who is willing to listen now, and look forward to shopping with them for my next nappy stash.

Oh, and just for interests sake, this is my current stash

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Changing Houses for Clothes

I am changing out my regular house stalking this week for clothes stalking instead, just in case you want a bargain too!

I recently started to think about packing my hospital bag, deciding on what to put in it. Don't get me wrong, I am diva who thinks that post birth will equal high society fashion, but I wanted something that I was comfortable in that looked nice too for photos.

So for my hospital bag I decided on some black yoga pants, some basic singlets and tops, and some cardigans. I am quite a fan of cardigans, and have many, but I wanted something new to wear that wasn't the same old thing I had been wearing for most of my pregnancy. Which was kind of handy, as good old Jeans West was having a sale on some of their styles - 2 cardigans for $50! How could I go wrong???

So I picked up the both of these,

(in peach and red) 

(in melon and cream)

So now my hospital bag is mostly packed, sitting in the office ready to go. The only thing missing is my new dressing gown that I am eyeing off for mothers day, and a pair of slippers from Peter Alexander.

And if you, just like me, are after something new and reasonably prices, hop on over to Jeans West and check out their sale, they had some quite nice things there for next to nix!
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