It's been a while because I have been on staycation! My mother is visiting so I took a week off work, and took Aviana out of daycare for the whole week. Chris still was working so it wasn't really a whole family staycation.

First of all the weather was awesome. We lucked out there! We were able to get out and about without being roasted by the sun because the previous few weeks we had weather in the over 100F climes. Eughhhh!

It was lovely to spend quality time with Aviana because sometimes at the weekend we just need to get admin stuff done and that quality time is shorter than I'd like it to be. She also 'recovers' from her lack of sleep during the week at daycare and naps for much longer at the weekend. This week of staycation we saw some amazing progress in Aviana's milestones, which was cool…..these are her new grooves…

• Aviana has started to take steps walking whilst we hold her hands. Ummmm I'm not ready for this kind of movement just yet!
• She has become more vocal and varied in her words, dada, mama, Gaga and haaaaaa….which she uses when she sees the cats. It's sooooo cute.
• She can really chew now and does quite well with her solids including minced and steewed beef!! Show her a piece of bread and she'll be your best friend forever ☺️ this staycation enabled me to try new recipes from the baby cook book that adults eat too, giving me a whole bunch of food to freeze for lunches at daycare and dinners if we need something quick. She loves ice lollies, we found some fruit and veggie ones she will devour! A real treat for both her to eat and us to watch her eat!
• No teeth yet, although when we look at her bottom gums it looks like two are just hanging out there waiting to pop!!! I wonder how she will deal with it when they do decide to make an appearance!

I nursed Aviana the whole week and at first her distracted nursing was getting on my nerves and my patience was wearing thin, but after a few days we both got back into the swing of it. Occasionally I had to nurse her in the car or go somewhere quiet whilst we were out and about. But apart from that overall I loved nursing her more often and has made me miss her more this week now I'm back at work 😔

We have taken advantage of granny staying with us and so started our big project of paving and graveling our vegetable garden!!!

We've also had a couple of nights out too for date nights. Woohooo!!!

This staycation has been fun! I need to do more of them. In fact because I get more annual leave than Chris generally I should plan to use it up seeing the sights and sounds of the local area! And so this is our new way of life with a baby…and I feel so lucky I get to have it that way ☺️