Flowers and stars

Well, spring has well and truly been springing all over the place round these parts, as you can see from the lovely little daffodils tenaciously clinging to life in my front garden (as previously mentioned, this is just about the only place in the vicinity of my house that is safe from uber-violent footballing activity, although I have noticed recently that the two hooligans have taken to playing the odd game/wrestling match on the front grass - an unwelcome and soon-to-be-quelled occurrence).  I have especially noticed the recent springy-activity on the 'A' road back from my local John Lewis - this is a well-trodden route for me and is therefore a barometer of the changing seasons - if it all looks a bit misty green, as it does at the moment, it's definitely spring (if it's white, it's probably winter and if it's wet and grey it's almost any time of the year.)
In a pleasing coincidence of life imitating art (or, in this case, nature) the floral theme has been continued on the domestic-front too - my 'baby' has had a birthday party, though not an actual birthday, confusingly.  Unbelievably, she will be two in a couple of weeks, but as we'll be in Turkey (our first, ever foreign holiday as a family - all five of us are counting down the sleeps til we'll be on a plane) on her actual birthday, and as my mum is visiting us for a few days, we thought we'd have a little tea party for her royal highness this week.  I was lax and forgot to take a pictures of the cake,which was pink with Smarties on - I surprised myself with how girly I made it, but she loved it.  I did, however, take some photos of more cake-related goings-on that took place recently:

A large bowl of icing and a very muddy elbow - it would appear that some things are worth coming in from playing football for.

 Looking at this photo I notice two things: 1) I'm a stingy sprinkler - this is something I will be rectifying asap; 2) just look at the size of the blob of icing middle has put on his cupcake (top right of the picture)...

I may have neglected to take any cakey photos, but I have taken some of her big present from me and Mr N, which I secretly feel I may have bought as much for me as for her:

It's floral.  It's got stripes.  It's got gingham.  It's a wigwam.  I think I might move into it.

And can you see the little porcelain tea sets set up inside?  One of them is a Cath K one that my mum got her for her bday, and the other is mine from when I was a similar age to my baby girl.  I even have the original box still (deep down I know that very soon I am going to be heart broken when one of my oafish boys breaks the box/smashes a cup.  Maybe I should hide it away again for another thirty-five years, just to be on the safe side.)  I can't explain the thrill of excitement I got, laying all this out with my girl because I know how much fun I had doing this and I can't believe I get to do it all again with her.  (Let's face it, I still do it for real - a stripy tablecloth, a nice bit of cake and my Pip crockery - nothing's changed!)

This is my set - it's vintage dahling.

 And this is me taking a photo at the exact moment middle decided it would be a good idea to jump on my back and cling to me, koala-style.

 And this is the Cath K set.  Just look at teddy bear in the background - he must be a boy - look at the way he's sitting...

And finally, after getting as far as I can for the moment with my granny ripple blanket:

here is my latest wip:

It's my all star blanket, which I have just started making for middle after a tough process of negotiation over the Rico Creative Cotton colour chart - him: 'I want that one (orange), that one (red), that one (black), that one (grey) and that one (green)'.  Me: 'hmmmmm.....' x