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

Happy new year (or: 'the one in which I have a birthday')

HAPPY, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL YOU 

BLOGLAND LOVELIES... 

...and I hope 2012 is being kind to you so far.

We've had a busy, busy holiday - but it's been busy in a good way, not a crazy, stressful, manic way.  Life up to the holidays was just bonkers and I felt like the treadmill was defiantly stuck on full speed - something had to give or I'd have ended up in a little, soggy heap on the floor, sobbing into my wine glass - and so I just stopped blogging for a little while to create a bit of space in my crazy, hectic days.  So now, with the presents distributed; school plays dutifully observed and copious amounts of food consumed, I am back in the land of blog - three lbs heavier and another year older than last time I was here, but I'm here and I'm happy.  Hurrah!

I have ta-dahs to share with you and ideas to run by you (I rely on you talented gals for inspiration, you know) but for the moment, before I have another sneaky birthday drink (who'd have a birthday on New Year's Day, eh?) I'm going to share some photos from my fabulous, shiny, new Christmas present camera with you (thank you, Mr N, you really can take a hint...):

 The first one I ever took with my new 'baby' - so far, so good...

 Hmmmm....not too bad, a bit blurry perhaps, but okay...

 Ohkaaaayy...I really don't know what was going on here, but I will just say that it was New Year's Eve.  

(Note to self: alcohol does not improve performance as a photographer.)

 Hmmm...now, these two photos are proof of two things: 

1) I really need to get myself on a photography course; 2) my children actually do jump on each other's heads.

Here's to 2012 and hoping that it brings good things to you all x

Fruits of my labour

Life in the nut house (pppfff.  Can't believe that's the first time I've written that) has been pretty frenzied lately.  Big N had a great birthday - cake, Pizza Express, Kung Fu Panda II, over-excited friends, Lego - what more could an eight-year-old boy want in life?  My mum paid a visit for a couple of days; our time-share dog paid a visit for a couple of days (at the same time as my mum, conveniently); we had lunch dates with friends, nights out with other friends, birthday parties...  Madness.  In amongst all the social-butterfly-ery, there have been the usual not-so-thrilling domestic duties chomping at my heels and I am proud to confirm that I have, indeed, finally cleaned the bathroom.  Great.  That'll keep us going for the next six months, then.  I've also managed to spend a bit of time in the garden - middle N and I were surprised and thrilled in equal measure to find these two beauteous strawbs on the plants by our front door.  I say surprised, because despite daily checks on the ripeness of said strawberries, the bloomin birds always seem to be one step ahead of us when it comes to eating them at just the right moment.  We were at home on our own when we discovered them, so we ate them quickly before the others got back.  (Ignorance is bliss, and all that...)
And as for the blackcurrants:

After four years, I finally got a large enough crop to make a crumble.  

I'm aiming for two next year...

And my lovely sweetpeas are starting to flower - hurrah.

I've got about a squillion WIPs on the go at the moment - so many, in fact, that my head's getting in a bit of a muddle thinking about what I'm going to finish first.  Which reminds me - I have a pressing need for Mollie Makes' lavender-filled strawberries as I seem to have a bit of an issue with moths eating holes in my clothes. Anyone have any ideas how to get rid of the blighters?  I always thought they lived in old people's houses and ate fur coats, but it seems they live in middle-aged people's houses and eat John Lewis cardigans too.  Must dash - I need to Google 'how to rid your home of clothes-eating moths' x

Eggciting stuff!

I unintentionally got a bit side-tracked yesterday (can you get intentionally side-tracked?) for some reason I got to thinking too much about baby nut's crazy diet, when really what I should have been focusing on was all the loveliness about our day on Sunday.

There was a bit of starry theme to the day with Emma Bridgewater and Cath Kidston both featuring prominently (start brainwashing them at a young age, that's what I say).

 

The birthday bunting got its first official outing:

And I got to test my new apron:

It was a day of spending time with family, playing with the children and generally just unwinding (and, after all, isn't that absolutely what Mother's Day is about?)
The past few weeks have been madly, crazily busy - at times it's felt like we're on a treadmill that's got stuck on full speed.  Imagine my delight, then, when I turned the calendar over to this week's page and found that we have precisely NOTHING planned.  Deep, deep joy.  I really can't explain how great it is to just have a week where I can potter around the house, doing a bit of baking, the odd spot of cleaning (it is about a month since the beds have been changed - really) and just generally enjoying all things domestic.  

I absolutely had to make some of this - it's the yummiest, easiest banana bread ever - and we all love it.  (I really would love to post the recipe for this, I just need to work out how to have a separate page that you can only get to by clicking on a link...)  I actually caught big nut with a knife, cutting slices off this while it was still inside the tin and stuffing them into his mouth.  I told him to leave some for his dad, but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears (I was probably drowned out by his chewing)
And after one of those 'whaaaa....huh?.....nooooo, of course I hadn't forgotten that you had to take a blown, decorated egg into school tomorrow.  What's that you say?  It has to be done in the style of a royal figure from history?  Noooo problem' moments, I sat down with the two bigger nuts to get on with some impromptu egg decoration:

And even if I say so myself, I think the finished results are pretty darn eggcellent.  ho ho ho

I've never blown eggs before.  I actually thought my head was going to burst.  x

Double-whammy

Yesterday saw a double-whammy celebration in the nut house - it was Mother's Day and baby nut's first ever birthday (I can't believe it - one already - gulp). 
The two spotty parcels at the front of this picture were for lucky old me.  I got a lovely floral apron from a recent craft fair at my boys' school and a HUGE box of chocolates (I would have taken a photo of it, but unfortunately it's half empty and hey, I wouldn't want you to think I was greedy or anything). 
What do you think of the Easter slash birthday decorations?  I do love a bit of accessorising:

I think baby nut really enjoyed her day - she quickly got the hang of the important business of unwrapping (with a little help from her two willing assistants):

She absolutely loved the dairy/wheat-free crispie cakes I made (obviously her mother's daughter - it's chocolate all the way for us girls!) though just shook her head when we tried to give her the raspberry rabbit jelly.  I was just relieved that it came out of the mould in one piece - that was a nerve-wracking moment, I can tell you.  I just couldn't get the candle to stand up in the jelly, so after a bit of head scratching, I came up with this - what do you think? 

 

For some reason I felt a bit sad about her birthday (apart from the fact that she's my last baby and she's growing up so fast) - I felt that she was missing out somehow by not being able to eat so many things.  It's silly, because she has no idea how limited her diet is, but I just would have loved to have been able to make her a lovely cake.  She's at an age now where she wants to eat what we're eating and she understandably gets frustrated when we won't give her things, but how can you explain to a one-year-old that something will make them poorly?  x

Snippets

So, a bit of a mish mash post today - just snippets of my week.  A bit of this and a bit of that. 
Tuesday saw baby nut having a fine old time with a mixing bowl full of water and a straw.

There was rather a lot of mopping up/drying off/stripping off of wet clothes that ensued, but it was totally worth it - she had a brilliant time even though she couldn't for the life of her work out how the straw made bubbles when I had it, but didn't when she had it.  Bless her cotton socks.
On Wednesday I got almost tragically excited about this little treasure that I found in a local vintage/antique/junk shop:

It's the perfect solution to my birthday cake dilemma.  What do you make the child who can't eat any of the ingredients in a cake?  Why, you make her a birthday jelly.  Natch. 
Today saw some new arrivals at the house of a good friend:

Hello girls - hope you don't get eaten by the fox like your predecessors! 

I am so desperate to get some hens, but really we just can't fit them in our garden (which is actually more of a garden slash football pitch) so I just have to satisfy my henly longings by popping round to visit these ladies occasionally.
And finally, my current interim project - bedroom bunting for the daughter of another good friend.

I'm using my favourite yarn - Rowan handknit cotton, and have been following a pattern that I adapted from the inspirational Crochet with Raymond blog.  I say adapted - actually I thought I was just all-out copying it, but it turns out I didn't read the instructions for the edging properly and so ended up doing my own thing!  The result looks fine, and I'm really pleased with it so far - just the blocking and a bit of embellishment left to go.
Right, now I need to get cracking on the preparations for baby nut's birthday on Sunday.  Jelly anyone?  x

Escapism

Is it normal to fall in love with a piece of wrapping paper?  Is it normal to crawl around on your hands and knees photographing said wrapping paper?  Is it normal to confess to other people that you get just a teeny bit thrilled every time you see these little pictures?

In my head, I actually live in a world that looks like this wrapping paper.  I have a pair of little wings and a floaty frock, and we eat only cup cakes, and I even have a little crown that comes out for special occasions.  (Sigh)  Or is this just denial when the reality actually looks a lot more like a bomb site?

Oh well, there's nowt wrong with a bit of escapism, is there? x
PS - I actually did all that ironing today.  I feel a small round of applause wouldn't be inappropriate...