We made this really simple recipe from Rachel Allen's book Rachel's Favourite Food.
6oz Plain Flour
4oz Butter
2oz caster sugar
Pre heat oven to 180Celcius
Rub the butter into the flour. Then add the sugar. Bring mixture together to make a dough. Roll it out to half centimetre thickness and then cut away! Cook for 6 - 10 minutes or until golden brown.
I love Rachel Allen and have all of her books. The food she makes is so simple and these biscuits took no time to make and Isla loved making them. I got some fab gingerbread men cutters and she cut them out and decorated them herself with red and blue icing, silver balls and sprinkles. I really want to continue cooking and baking with Isla as she seems to really enjoy it. The only thing that sometimes puts me off is the time it takes to clear up all the mess! Oh and she also has a tendency to want to eat mouthfuls of flour and butter, that isn't so great either!
Here's the end result (excuse the haziness of the photo - think I got butter on the lens!), I think she did a pretty good job and they were tasty!
We're well into weaning now. I'm slightly wishing we hadn't gone for pink when we got Isla a high chair and if this photo showed a bit more you'd also see him using Isla's old pink cup and pink spoons!
The last dedicated Noah post was at 7 weeks. I can't believe how we've got to 6 months this quickly but life is just so busy with 2 children.
I have to say that the first 4 months with Noah were actually quite easy on reflection. He slotted in so easily and I had a lot of help from our mum's and Isla goes to nursery 2.5 days so I hadn't felt too swamped with having Isla and Noah to look after all the time on my own. I'm very lucky to have such supportive family and since having Noah I really have a lot of respect for mums who do it single handed or those who don't have family on the doorstep.
Since 4 months though my darling boy has really taken to the early mornings. I think he may have been doing this pre 4 months, but it's only in the last 2 months that it's really starting to grind me down. He regularly wakes around 5am (at worst could be 4.30am or at best could be 5.15am) and unless I jump into bed on the dot of 10pm I feel terrible in the morning, especially if he's also been awake in the night. I'm not handling it all that well and I've been pretty miserable in the mornings, regularly in floods of tears as my OH heads off to work at 5.30am. Pretty much my mood improves as I get a cup of tea and then when Isla gets up at around 7 I've become more human. The more I get told that this won't go on forever the more fed up I get. I KNOW it won't go on forever, I mean when he's 15 I'll be crow barring him out of bed I'm sure but at the moment, I feel like SH1T.
I also know that things could be worse, I get told this a lot too and when that happens I feel bad for bemoaning my lot, after all I have two healthy children - what more could I want? When you feel hard done by on the sleep front it really can make you think irrationally and get easily stressed over things. Well I do anyway. The littlest things really grate and minor comments from the OH can cause me to get a bit shouty. I've also found that my periods have really affected my mood more than they ever did pre-kids. I mean I used to get a bit moody but now for days before it arrives i feel rubbish - I say all the usual things - I'm fat, I haven't got any nice clothes, my skin looks awful, this house is too messy, wish we had a bigger house, wish we had a better car, repeat to fade.... This list goes on and on and as I go into a downward spiral. My brain becomes over loaded and I feel like I have too much to think about.
So that's me. What about him? Well he's into rolling over and over and over. He's eating like he's eaten all his life, there won't be any leftovers with him around. He's a lot more whiny than Isla ever used to be (he doesn't have a dummy - not for want of trying!) and is far more into mummy than she was. If he's being held by someone else he will always want to be with me if I'm in the room and he can hear my voice. It's nice to be loved but I can see how boys are a lot clingier to mummy than girls and when I go back to work in 3 months I see him being more upset about it than Isla was. Two of his favourite things (after me of course!) are Isla and Bobcat (sorry Daddy!). He follows both of them round the room, his eyes gleaming with excitement whenever they are near. I love this. It makes me feel so happy as it feels like he has fitted in so brilliantly with Isla. He stands in his activity station and Isla pretends he is the shopkeeper and she 'buys' things from him. Of course he doesn't have the faintest idea what she's on about but smiles and really loves it.
He still continues to be a 'beefy' baby, he's only 6 months, weighs 24lb and is in some 9 - 12 month clothing already. He's been a bit of a sicky baby - regular pukes after milk and had really terrible painful wind in the early days, so I'm hoping with the weaning will come less of the puking.
We had a fabulous photo shoot recently and this was my favourite photo of Isla and Noah together. They really are beautiful children, I know I'm biased but they are and I'm so proud of them and hope that they continue to thrive and make me feel like my heart could burst.
Photo's by Sarah Jones
I love a bobble hat I do! I got this one from Sweetheart Knits. Noah must have a really big head though as it is a little bit snug and on putting it on Isla it seems his head isn't too far off the size of hers and she's 2 years older!!! Still looks a cutie in it though!
So today I've actually not managed to take a photo of my kids at all! A new high in my attempts to take a photo of my kids every day. When I started I really didn't think it would be that difficult but it's harder than it seems! Anyway, this picture really captures how these munchkins have INVADED my home. Look, where has my grown up living space gone. I've gone storage box crazy since we had kids, but I still need to pay another trip to Ikea to cage these toys......
