Our Mini Holiday

Just recently Matt and I took Miss C on her first holiday, we went all the way up to Queensland to the Gold Coast to visit some of my friends. Miss C was so well behaved on the flight up there she hardly made any noise. We rented a car and drove to stay with some of my friends, who we had not seen since we had gotten married last year and they had not meet Miss C either. On the Saturday we drove up to visit My wonderful friend Tia-Louise and Her Beautiful Family to celebrate her oldest little princess's 4th Birthday, we also got to catch up with my other wonderful friend Tracy and her Husband Phil. I also gave Tia and her daughter Miley (Charlotte's Twinnie) a quilt that I had made for them. Matt, Miss C and I had a wonderful time but when we got back to our other friends house for a rest and to get ready for the next party I noticed that both Matt and Miss C where not coping with the weather there as it is a different heat to what they are used to. So we never made it back to the other party which was a shame because we had flown all the way up there just to attend the parties. Oh well.

Also we had some pretty bad luck on this trip the first was that Matt's Suitcase was broken and could not open it, we think that the plane company caused it but we have no proof, so we had to cut it open with some cutters and we ended up having to buy him a new suitcase, which was an expense we had not counted on.


The Flight back was pretty good expect I had to change Charlotte's nappy twice on the plane back, but that's just part of the fun flying with children.

Matt has said that we need to go back as there was a lot of stuff that we did not get to do. So it looks like we will go back one day in the near future.

Lots of Love


Kathleen


( I have decided to use my real name now instead of Adventure Mum and Matt is Adventure Dad)

Matt and Charlotte on the Plane to Queensland

Kathleen and Charlotte on the Plane to Queensland

Charlotte, Miley and Auntie Tracy

Getting Ready For Our First Christmas with Charlotte

I cant believe its nearly Christmas and this Christmas will be Charlotte's First. There are so many things I have to get organized, but I have been so slack. This week I will be doing my first lot of Christmas Shopping for presents for both AD and her, getting Christmas decorations organized, I think this year will put the Christmas Tree up on November 13th which happens to be the day Adelaide has their Christmas Parade when Father Christmas arrives in town.

I have just realized that this time last year I was already pregnant with Charlotte and I did not even know, as I look at her today I cant believe that this little Angel is mine.

Anyway getting back to Christmas, I know what to get Charlotte for presents but I have no idea what I want nor do I know what to get AD for Christmas (he says he does not need anything). I also have to get presents for my four brothers, my mum and dad and AD's mum. This is going to be an adventure.

I am hoping to get some stuff from WAHM's when we attend the Lollipop Markets in a couple of weeks.
I have already ordered Charlotte some more MCN's from Bonnibuns as part of her Christmas presents.

I will make sure I get a photo of Charlotte with Father Christmas so that can document this time.

Much Love

Adventure Mum 

Everything Girly

From the moment I was pregnant with Charlotte I knew she was a girl, I can’t tell you how I knew I just did so when I had my 20 week scan and the lady doing the scan said that there was a 95% chance that it was a girl, my heart soared. Picking out her name was the fun part because I knew I wanted to name her Charlotte (named after my favourite character in Sex and the City), but the hard part was choosing her middle name originally she was supposed to be Charlotte Grace Hazel Gill but we decided to change it to Charlotte Rose Hazel Gill. I chose the middle Hazel in loving memory of my late Grandmother Kathleen Hazel Shaw who sadly passed away when I was eight years old; I share the same first name as her.

Ever since I found out I was having a girl, I have bought her so many girly things, I can’t believe how much beautiful stuff there is out there for little girls these days.

She has so many pretty things and I love buying pretty things for her.

I have found many wonderful companies on Facebook that sell beautiful things for girls i.e. bows, headbands, clothes and lots more. One of my favourite pages is called Oooh Baby Clips, I love all her products, so much so that I have just recently bought a big amount of her bows on headbands for both Charlotte and myself (I am currently wearing one in my hair now), I would totally recommend this company to anyone and everyone.

Charlotte is the light of my life and my little angel I honestly cannot imagine my life without her.

As I type this blog today Charlotte who is 3 months old lying in my arms asleep.

Much Love

Adventure Mum

p.s. Last night Charlotte said her first word and it was Ma, it definitely made me smile and now AD is trying to get her to say Da. Haha :p  

Modern Cloth Nappies (My addiction)

As you all know I have chosen to you modern cloth nappies (MCN’s) for Little Miss Charlotte. I totally love Bum Cheeks Modern Cloth Nappies and Bonnibuns; I would have no other nappy on her Bum. I am seriously addicted to buying them; so far Charlotte has 8 custom Bonnibuns nappies with more on the way. I have to say if it was not for my lovely friend in Queensland who converted me to them, I would have never found these beautiful nappies in the first place. So I say Thank-you to her for help and I am truly grateful for this information, because if it had not been for you, AD and I would be spending a fortune on disposable nappies (which I have used on Charlotte and they give her nappy rash).

One of the things I have found out using MCN’s for Charlotte is that she does not get any form of nappy rash from them, which I think is great because I can’t seem to find a nappy rash ointment that works well on her. The two I have tried were sudocream and a chemist owned brand but neither of them helped whilst she was in the disposables, but as soon as I put her in MCN the nappy rash cleared up right way.

I have been ambitious to try other MCN’s on Charlotte, but I can honestly say that I no other nappy holds a torch to Bonnibuns and Bum Cheeks. The other brand no longer fits her and they leak as well and they are supposed to last her till she is toilet trained, but we have stopped using the other brand and now are completely Bonnibuns and Bum Cheek nappy supporters.

Also I love the fact that both Bonnibuns and Bum Cheeks are run by mothers [(WAHM) Work At Home Mum’s], who live in Australia and the products are made here too, which means that I am supporting Australian People, buying Australian Products and supporting their families.

Much Love

Adventure Mum

The First Two Months

Hi Everyone, The First Month was pretty eventful after I got out of the hospital I was determined to breast feed Charlotte but I hit a snag in that idea as I got Gastro and was not allowed near her to feed her. AD and I did try to express my milk but I was so sick that we could not get anything out, so at 3 am on the Monday morning after I had come out of the hospital AD decided to get formula for Charlotte and she took it really well, we had a home visit from a midwife who worked at the hospital where I had Charlotte when we told her that we were giving her formula she understood why we had to make that choice and we were told that the formula that AD had picked up at the local petrol station at 3 am was the best formula around so we were happy with that choice. Also in the first few days at home Charlotte was crying so much that AD and I were at our wits end when I decided to call my parents and they came over and looked after her whilst we got some sleep, which I really am thankful for that support.

The Second Month has been really interesting so far. Charlotte is constantly changing and surprising both AD and I. She is smiling so much these days I just love seeing her smile, it makes you forget all your problems and it makes you smile too. Charlotte is also trying to sit up by herself and if we put her on her tummy she does try to crawl which is so cool to see. She is the light of our lives. She loves her grandparents so much, she gets to spend a lot of time with them too.

Much Love

Adventure Mum

Charlotte's Birth Story

my labor officially went for 9 1/2 hours that's what the hospital said but i had been having braxton hicks contractions since about 5.30 am on Wednesday morning, my show started at about 7am, I rang the hospital and they told me to take some pandol and have some sleep as I would need my energy for labor, so my husband and I went back to bed and slept for a while, I was still bleeding when we woke up so i rang the hospital again and they advised me to come in for a check up this was at about midday, I had my check up and was told that my show had started and to go home and try and get some rest as my labor could start soon as in the next few days or as the doctor said I could be back that night, so we went home and got dinner organized this was around about 5ish, then I started experiencing what I thought where real contractions so my hubby started timing them but they were a bit irregular but they were intense so I rang the hospital to be told that they where braxton hicks so I should take some pandol and have a bath to try to relieve the pain, so I did but I was in so much pain that I was in the bath screaming my head off in agony and my hubby could not take it anymore so he rang the hospital and told them that he was bringing me in as the contractions were getting worse this was about 8pm so they said to bring me in to find out what was going on, so we rang my mum who was my other support person to tell her we were heading to the hospital and we picked her up on the way to the hospital, by the time we got to birthing suites it was nearly 10pm the midwife checked me and I was already 3cm dilated so I was moved to a birthing suite and given panaden forte for pain relief and was told that they would check me again at 2am. The pain started getting intense so I was given gas for pain relief, at about 12am I had the urge to push the midwife asked me how strong the urge was and I said it was really strong so checked me and i was already 8cm dilated so they broke my waters manually, i asked for an epidural but was told it was too late. By 1.30am I was pushing and at one interval I stopped pushing to catch my breath, the baby was crowning a this stage and the midwife said to my mum and husband to have a look as the baby was moving herself out while I was regaining my strength, so by 3.02am I had given birth to my beautiful baby girl named Charlotte Rose Hazel Gill.

Much Love

Adventure Mum

Disposable Nappies Vs Modern Cloth Nappies

One of the many choices that AD and I have had to make in regards to our child is what kind of nappy to use on her. At first we thought that disposable nappies would be a good idea because the only other choice we thought there was was the old fashioned cloth nappies that required folding, liners, pins and hours of soaking in a nappy pail, which to me seemed liked to much hard work (let alone dangerous when she started crawling and getting into things). Then one day I was talking to an old friend from high school who is a mum and she told me about Modern Cloth Nappies which are completely different to the old fashioned cloth nappies and so much easier to use, but when AD and I saw the cost of the nappies we apprehensive as they seemed so expensive for just one nappy. So we were back to thinking that disposable nappies were the better choice money wise for us. There was a baby expo coming up in town and we decided to go to it and much to our surprise there were companies talking about and selling these Modern Cloth Nappies, so I dragged AD to as many booths as could to gather more information on these nappies. One of the companies that we came across was called Baby Beehinds, they explained their nappies to us and tried to sell them to us but we told them that we wanted to think about it before we made any purchases. I personally thought that were too much hard work as you had to buy different sizes as your baby grew and also the fact that they needed a cover on them. We got a lot of information about Modern Cloth Nappies that we decided that they would be a better option environmentally and would be a lot cheaper in the long run as they lasted until the child is toilet trained and could be used on future children. I was still wanting more to the nappy that we were going to use on our baby's bum, so I decided to talk to my friend about where she got her nappies from and she told me about a company called Bonnibuns, when I went to the website for the company I realized that I had found the right cloth nappies for our little one. I showed AD the nappies on their website and he too thought that they were good too. So we decided to buy some when we could afford to buy a big bundle of them. Now while we were saving up to buy some and decide what ones we wanted, Bonnibuns had a facebook charity auction raising money for a sick little girl, so we decided to have a look at what was on offer. We found a couple of mcn's that we decided to bid on. So when the auction started we placed our bids on the ones we wanted but most of them we got out bid on but we did win one of the nappies we liked so we were happy about that. The nappy that we won in the auction was from another company called Issy Bear, once it arrived in the post we liked it so much we went to their website and downloaded their catalog and found out that offered a bundle on their nappies that seemed like a good deal so we decided to wait until we got the baby bonus to get their bundle. In the mean time I had also found another company called Bum Cheeks who makes the most cute jeans version of mcn's. I was on facebook one day and noticed that Bum Cheeks had one of their jeans nappies reduced so asked AD if he liked it, which he did so we purchased it. Once the nappy arrived we were so happy with our purchase that we showed it off to everyone that we could think of. One day whilst I was on facebook doing my daily check I noticed that Bonnibuns had a special deal going on their Workhorse Nappies were you could get 7 nappies for the price for 6 so I rang AD and told him about the special and he thought that it was a great idea, so we purchased our first lot of Workhorse Nappies and we have not looked back. We are now working with Bonnibuns to create some one a kind nappies for our little one that will especially hers. I am going to keep these a surprise and I will tell you about them and our experience with Modern Cloth Nappies as we go on this journey.

Much Love

Adventure Mum

37 Weeks Pregnant

Well the 36 weeks leading up to this point in time have been eventful to say the least. Maybe I should start at the beginning of this amazing and life changing journey that we have been on. It all started when AD and I decided that we should start trying for a baby, now that was a adventure in itself but that does not matter, it took a while for us to conceive our baby. I remember that a friend of mine got pregnant around the same time as we were trying and she was so worried that the fact she was pregnant and I was not would upset me, but to be honest I was thrilled for her and little did I know that I was pregnant as well. To me the first sign that there was something going on was when went to Melbourne for a week, my first inkling that I might be pregnant was the fact that I threw up on the plane flight over to Melbourne, now some might think that it is not a hint that I might be pregnant but I beg to differ as I have flown so many times before and have not thrown up on the plane before it led me to believe something was going on with my body but at that stage I did not really think that I was pregnant. During that week in Melbourne I was so sick I felt that it was not fair as AD and I had been planning this trip since July because I had bought two tickets to Britney Spears in Concert, which I still managed to attend even though I was so crook. I spent most of the holiday in bed at the hotel as I was so sick, one of the times that I was asleep at the hotel AD went out and looked around and to my surprise he bought me a new handbag. The day we were leaving Melbourne I threw up in the hallway of floor we were staying on but I also managed to get back into the room and threw up even more in the bathroom. We flew home that afternoon arriving back home in Adelaide, we decided to wait until the following morning to do the pregnancy test. I was so nervous doing the pregnancy test as we had done so many in the previous months that came back negative that I did not want to get my hopes up, but to my total surprise the test was positive, AD was standing outside the toilet door waiting for me to come out, when I walked out I told that I was pregnant his whole face lit up with pure happiness. The next few weeks past without too much hassle except I did manage to get gastro which made it really interesting. My second trimester went very smoothly, there was a couple of very important things that happened during this trimester that stood out the first important thing that happened during this time was when the baby first kicked whilst I was on the phone to AD (which made his day) and the other important thing that happened during this trimester was when I had my 20 week ultrasound which was when we found out that I was having a girl (its a 95% chance but there was no definite signs it is a boy), that made our day. We went to the local shopping mall and we spent some time looking at all the little girls clothes, AD was having so much fun picking out all the cute girly clothes he could find in the shops. My third trimester has gone pretty smoothly, we have had countless practice runs to the hospital for a number of different reasons, the latest one being because I thought my waters had broken but they had not, but the doctors do not know where the fluid that had leaked had come from. So who knows whats going on with my body. All I know is that my little girl is healthy and very much loved by both me, her dad, her grandparents (my parents) and her four uncles (my brothers).

Much Love

Adventure Mum