Yummy

-Pancake tastic! Jasmine likes pancakes, given half a chance she would have had them off of our plates aswell! Steph whipped them up in a typically dairy-free fashion, using rice milk as the substitute. They didn't taste half bad, naturally sweet as you might expect.

All was going fine until halfway through her night bottle. We'd stopped for a quick burp and Jasmine was coughing with some phlegmy gunk in her throat ...within the blink of an eye she had up-ended the contents of her stomach and her dinner was staring up at us from the floor. A few more heaves later and she was completely empty.

Always good fun when you'd thought she was just about ready for bed. Let the cleaning commence >.<

We're still not sure whether it was the coughing, something in her salmon dinner, or being too indulgent with the pancakes. Either way, she was happy as larry afterwards, and it's worth noting her skin looked amazing following the 'release.' The skin improvement didn't hang around too long however, come the morning she was more flarey again, and her cheeks a little weepy.

She's due to have the salmon for lunch/dinner again today, so we'll keep a keen eye on events

Teeth, Grrrrr....

Since Jasmine's party we believe that there are a couple of cheeky little teeth that are determined to cause a little trouble. This, combined with the fact that it appears to also have caused/coincided with a moderate flare-up naturally results in maaaaaany sleepless nights. So we have a very itchy and grumpy little monkey who's in an unreasonable amount of pain >.< *joy* ....though looking at the pic above, you wouldn't believe it ;) That being said, and despite her parents being exhausted, when we're not trying to get her to nap/sleep she's in a fine mood. whizzing around the place like a crazy thing, soon she'll be chasing the dog!


She has also started to 'cruise' :D Tentatively at first, but with the fearlessness of a just-over-a-one-year-old she soon picked up pace. Grandma's walker is now showing it's true colours as she happily waddles across the living room, expertly guiding it in an 'almost' straight line. She'll get to one end of the room and bash the walker against whatever she has run into until someone spins her around! hehe.


Now she can't help but pull herself up on practically everything, usually choosing something that is most unstable, has the sharpest edges or otherwise scares the wits out of her tired but proud parents. She particularly enjoys flirting with the TV :D


Last night was the worst yet for her teething escapades. She decided to wake herself up a few hours after being put to bed, choking on the gunk that is currently rattling away in her chest. She was all hoarse and was unsettled enough for us to bring her back downstairs for a bit of comfort. naturally within seconds she had perked up to her usual monkeyish self, I think she enjoyed being in the 'big bed' downstairs!


I couldn't help but put this pic in. Jasmine in her pyjamas sporting her groovy 'keep my trousers up and stop me getting my legs in the other leg' knickers. It seems to be working a treat as we've not had Jasmine lacerating the back of one leg with the toenails of the other ...and who knows, she may start a new fashion trend!

Party!

Saturday...

After a fairly good night we got her up (read: she got us up) early in a bid to get her as relaxed as we could to prevent any flares. We were determined to get some un-flarey pictures of her for a change! :D We were letting her romp around in a sleepsuit until just before the party kicked off in an effort to keep her kit as clean as possible :D From the time she got up at about 6am we were buzzing around the house, stuffing the car full of party goodness and trying to finish off all the other preparations. Steph had arranged to use Leamington's spiritualist church as the venue in return for a small donation which worked out perfectly as it comes with kitchens, tables, chairs, toilets, space etc... All in all a great venue.


We arrived at the church at 10:30am and following a key related emergency had to take a detour to a friends to grab a new key (new doors on the church). At 11am we got in, slightly stressed and a little bit flappy. Grandma turned up shortly after and was promptly put to a feeding Jasmine her lunch, allowing us to do a whirlwind decoration and food layout. Down went the ballpool, up went the tent, out spread some toys and for the piece de resistance... out flopped the bouncy castle.


It was only a small gathering of Jasmine's cousins, Grandma, Uncle Sam and Claire with her two daughters, but that was plenty for us! :D I think most of the balls left the ballpool in every which direction within the 1st 5 minutes to a chorus of excited squeaks and shrieks. Males were definitely out-numbered! With platefuls of food in hand we soon got the bouncy castle inflated and the older girls quickly took full advantage leaving Jasmine and Eloise to amuse themselves without getting squashed!! After a short while we had a little baby time on the bouncy castle and that went down a storm! Jasmine adored it and falling flat on her face only seemed to add to her amusement hehe.


After a few more trips to the food tables by everyone uncle Sam was on DJ duty for pass-the-parcel (the parcel painstakingly wrapped by yours truly). Sam was new to this and had to have the theory behind the masterpiece that is pass-the-parcel explained and how to tactfully stop the music so each monkey got their relevant present! All to a pre-conceived plan of course ...I had NO idea how much work it was as a kid!


Following the parcel shenanigans we quickly moved onto the bringing out the cake to a hearty round of Happy Birthday. Jasmine, sat on the floor, looked poised to join in and was quite excited at the whole event. She soon splatted her hand into the cake ...heartily encouraged by myself naturally! :D I always thought that your 1st birthday cake should be eaten off your fingers!! :D


The party came to a close, and the party bags (very professionally composed by mummy) were handed out and well received. Following a whirlwind tidy-up everyone made their way back to their respective houses, Grandma coming to ours for some babysitting hi jinx ;) We had waiting until we got back home before opening Jasmine's loot :D and as we had hoped, she had received a massive array of new outfits, a good haul indeed!

And there we have it. Her 1st birthday complete, and a roaring success may I add!

Happy Birthday!
Happy Valentines!
Happy Anniversary!

A good day!

Happy Birthday!

Well, It's been some time since I've last done a brain dump. Quite a lot has happened so this could be a fairly sizable post hehe :D

I was away on business for most of last week so Steph had to cope solo with our itchy bundle of fuzz. Tiring to say the least, but more so because of her broken sleeping pattern, never helped by the fact that she had started to teethe again. Steph pulled it all off brilliantly despite trying to pull off the conservatory door requiring my brother to come to the rescue in my absence ;)


Friday the 13th! Jasmine's 1st birthday! Naturally Jasmine couldn't give 2 hoots, but she did enjoy a few new things to play with, namely some plastic pots and pans (£1!!!), and some great wooden stackers and shakers from her Brasilian Granddad.


She loved her mini pram, and immediately demanded to help her walk about with it ... we soon had to hide it though to avoid the tantrums when we tried to get her to open more pressies instead. We also bought her a little bubblecar garage, but she had already reached newtoy overload by this point and it barely got a look-in!

Her birthday adventure was to go to Jam-Jam Boomerang, a soft play facility for kiddies. It was amazing, a little chilly to start with (particularly as Jasmine napped in the car on the way), but she soon got into the swing of things: Bouncing on the rocker; racing circuits in the big bubble cars; splahing around in the ball pool; chasing mummy and daddy around the assault course on the upper level and wooshing with mummy down the slide. I think mum and dad enjoyed it as much! ;)


After an hour or so she was beginning to slow down and we head home for her birthday dinner, a yummy mince and mash followed by her 1st ever cupcake! ..sporting a candle of course! Jasmine was fascinated with the flame but didn't quite get the idea of blowing it out. so we hid the candle and gave her a little cake ...she then dutifully stuffed the rest in as quickly as possible! ...we have successfully taught her how to eat cakes properly! :D

Steph spent the next 5 or so hours baking her little heart out in preparation for the party on the Saturday. More cupcakes and a great marble cake decorated with Steph's creative genius to the design of a friendly lion.


Naturally all this yumminess was made dairy and soy free. I should add that my contribution was to make the butter icing ...and then lick the bowl (after Steph iced the cake of course!) :D

So Itchy

I wish we could take the infernal itch away!! The poor little mite just can't help but scratch :(

Her skin is a little like a yoyo at the moment, flaring with the heat from being indoors and massively calming from the cool open air. We're noticing more and more that her flares and overly itchy episodes coincide with eating or having just finished a meal. I don't think this necessarily indicates that there is a nasty in the food she has eaten exactly, more that her tummy has an issue and reacts inappropiately :(

Short of trying to appease her symptons we're convinced that diet is the key. On that note we're trying to follow the best diet in accordance with Candida. We've yet to have the diagnosis confirmed by an allopathic doctor but i'm not sure what difference that would make, unless we can get some wonderfully toxic uberdrug on prescription or something.

The '2 rusks in her milk' thing is an ongoing experiment. If we can get any wind out as soon as possible after her last feed then there's a good chance she'll give us time enough to grab dinner and take a brief time out. ...If however she gets a bubble stuck, then it's pretty much game over for the evening until she is that tired she just zonks out, normally some 4 hours later.

Tonight we seem to be on a bubble free ride :D ....

Snowed in!

Jasmine's 1st week at the child minders was cut short today as snow got the better of us. But we put the time to good use by donning our snow gear making a snowman and going for a nice country jaunt :D It seems ages since we've had snow that's good enough to play with, and we have more forecast for tonight giving us an excuse to add more snowmen to the garden!

It's always nice to get out and about with the family and we've started naming the walks around the local countryside. Today's jaunt featured the 'Bog Walk' and we narrowly missed losing our wellies!!


I think Hazel enjoyed running around in the snow like a crazy thing, even if she didn't quite get the concept of catching a snowball in her mouth.


As always, Jasmine's skin soon improved by being outside. It has been a little flarey for the last few mornings. We suspect teething as this could also account for her temptestuous nights at the moment. We've taken to add rusks into her last feed to see if that will stodge her up enough to go more than a few hours into the night. ...We only added 1 in last night and there was no great change, so tonight's bottle had 2. ...here's hoping!!!

A good start...

Well Jasmine's 1st day with the childminder seemed to go without any major hiccups. She was dropped off at 8am in a flurry of snow, and was soon in Lisa's arms. A call at lunchtime confirmed everything was ok, that she's had a 45 minute nap in the morning and had just polished off her lunch.

I left work earlier than usual under the threat of being snowed out and arrived at the childminders just before 5pm. Jasmine still hadn't had her dinner (we're used to feeding her at 4pm), but despite this she appeared in a great mood. Babbling away and generally being very nosy at all the comings and goings, with all the other parents collecting their little monkeys.

Her skin looked great, much better than any of the times I had collected her from nursery There was little to no redness to her cheeks, and although it was still apparent where the rougher patches were, her skin looked relatively beautiful.

Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. Maybe nursery wasn't as attentive as a single childminder, who knows? It's early days, but we remain optimistic!