Up up and away

We have very sweet kind and generous neighbours who thoughtfully brought us some paper lanterns for The Princess to celebrate her first day of school.

We waited until Saturday night to release them so she could stay up a little later than normal so it was dark enough to see their flame pass above the rooftops.

I intended to take a photo but someone* had switched my phone to video and I caught this moment (literally a moment so don't blink) just after take off.

We watched it float across the sky, in the direction of her school and we decided we would look for it on the playing field today certain that it would have come down there. We didn't find it.  So she decided it had landed at her old nursery by mistake.

*the Big One

Joining in with Mobile Monday over at CakesPhotoLife

Saturday is Caption Day

The last day of term has come and suddenly there are 40 39 days laying ahead (not counting, really). I am certain they will be filled with the sound of children's laughter. Perhaps not my children, but somewhere out there, children will be laughing.

Before they broke up, the Princess had a couple of hours in her reception class to meet the teacher and a few other children before she starts school in September. I captured this moment when I went to pick her up.

Please impart your wit and add a caption in the comments before heading over to Mammasaurus for lots more giggle worthy photos.

The £1 Dress

I love a bargain.
I also love a rummage.
I love creating things.
I love sewing.
I love the smile on the Princesses face.

So can you imagine the skip in my step when I delved into my local charity shop and came out with this little cotton top for the bargain sum of £1.

It was the fabric that drew me to it. I loved the bright blue and orange print and a little bit of me hoped that the top would fit me. [I can't ever bring myself to try clothes on in a charity shop. It is the smell you see].

It didn't. Too small. Must diet.

So instead I cut it up. Or partially deconstructed it like this.

Then I had to wing it.

I wanted to keep the yoke section and then have the dress attached from that leaving it sleeveless.
I took in the side seams of the dress and then gathered the top of the front and back of the body to fit the width of the yoke.
I then cut bias strips out of the excess fabric from the sleeves to finish the arm holes.
I attached the yoke front and back and then finished the edges of the yoke.

Not the neatest of jobs I have to admit but for a £1 slip-on dress I was chuffed.

And the Princess? Well she doned her model pose and declared that it was lovely!

Am I alone in wandering charity shops looking for things to cut up?
I'm going to start my own club.

Snap Slappers - From Sulky To Silly

Based on a really dull and sulky sort of Monday I felt the need to perk myself up a bit with silliness!

The Princess was in a strop yesterday, for pretty much the whole day. There was a brief interlude of smiles around about the same time as we finished off the Wee One's birthday cake. Coincidence? Possibly.

No idea why she was being so moody. She had a good nights sleep, she had a generous dose of cbeebies, she went to the shops and chose a new book and got to adorn me with stickers, lucky girl.

The day ended in a standoff. Proper bottom lip sticking out, arms crossed and stamping feet. And that was just me. The Princess has a good teacher and managed all of the above plus screams. Screaming with your bottom lip sticking out is not easy. I have tried and I am here to tell you it takes a lot of practice.

All is now quiet. I have wine and chocolate and a little photo editing to ease the tension. I suspect there may be more sulking tomorrow when she catches a glimpse of what I have done to a photo of her I took over the weekend but I'm prepared to risk it for the minutes of pleasure it provided.

Before

After a little therapeutic editing!

Hopefully tomorrow is a better day :)

Have you got a gorgeous photo made even more gorgeous with the aid of a little editing? Then link up and cheer up my day.




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Saturday Is Caption Day

It is that time again when your wit and humourous bones are required to do their stuff and add a giggle to this picture.

I cannot imagine what you will come up with!

Happy captioning over at Mammasaurus!

Snap Slappers Week 12

I can't believe, given I am snapping every single day in the name of 365project, that I had to resort to some old photos to get my Snap Slappers inspiration this week. Tut!

But indeed I did. Back to the sunny summer of 2010! Actually it was quite nice to look at some sunny pictures as the snow heads our way. But I digress as usual.

There she is, paintbrush in hand ready to get started on her new masterpiece.

And here you can see her just putting the finishing touches onto "Sunflowers" in the style of Van Gogh *cough*.

Please call to discuss your own commissions!

Don't forget to grab the badge and link up. You have until Friday to do it ;)



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Silent Sunday

One picture, no words.

Saturday Is Caption Day, Obviously

It is time to present you with a photo from the album. Bless her. She's a little older and maybe slightly wiser now but that expression is so her!

Think up a caption and post in the comments below. Then head over to Mammasaurus for more caption-astic fun. Tell her I sent you. :)

Tattoos

The Princess tiptoed to me and whispered that she wanted a tattoo.
A rose perhaps on her hip?
A Love and Hate across her knuckles?
A dolphin on her ankle?

No a butterfly on her hand.
And a spider on her arm.
And another butterfly on the other arm.
And another butterfly on her other hand.

My artistic abilities have been tested but, the face paints and dodgy brush aside (always blame your tools), I don't think my efforts are too shabby.

Her reciprocal tattoo on my hand however could be interpreted in many ways.

And not to be outdone....

His Wee-ness

Can you tell what it is yet?

So Proud

With a brief like "Something you are proud of" for The Gallery, I have only one choice and that is my beautiful, amazing, sometimes annoying, and more often gobsmackingly awesome children.

Every day there is something, a little thing, a massive thing, that makes me so proud of who they are and what they will become.

The Big One is everything a big brother should be, caring, bossy and thoughtful with a small dash of cheekiness thrown in. The Princess will be protected by her brothers, but will forge a path all for herself and will look after them in her stride. The Wee One will be mischievous, make me gasp at his nerve and will have courage beyond his fears.

Together they are invincible.

The Gallery is the brainchild of Tara at Sticky Fingers.

Toy Heaven and Hell

The Big One was 7 yesterday and with that comes presents much to everyones delight. He was sneaking about in the morning trying to sniff out his presents and stupidly we had trusted Princess (3) to hide them under her bed. Well they were under her bed but she sort of forgot that presents were a surprise so told The Big One a) where they were and b) what they were. He did a good job of looking surprised though.

In my world toys fall into 2 camps: Heavenly toys that kids fall in love with, entertain them for hours and require no adult intervention (important point that) and Hellish toys that are messy, fiddly, noisy and require adult participation.

As children get older I have found that the list of heavenly toys is getting longer and hellish toys shorter, thank goodness, but at younger ages (just like Princess (3) and the Wee One who is rapidly appraoching 2) there are far too many hellish toys and activities around. When is a mother supposed to recline with a cup of tea and sewing and gaze adoringly at the little mites playing trains? In my experience, for about 30 seconds maximum but only after spending 45 minutes constructing (and reconstructing) train tracks on her hands and knees sustaining on average two injures from kneeling on small objects, normally lego which inexplicably have migrated to the train track box.

My shortlist of hellish toys is as follows:

1. Playdough. They see endless possibilities of model monsters, sausages and pretend peas. I see dough trodden into carpets, dried up between floor boards and endless hours of model making. Please don't misunderstand me, left to my own devices with no interruptions and no children, I could happily spend an hour making play dough monsters.
2. Glitter. Arrrggghhh! It gets everywhere as does the glue and a top always has to fall off sprinkly glitter into every crevis and corner. Your toast for days to come has a hint of iridescence about it and no matter how careful you are you will always be sporting a glittery forehead on the school run.
3. Board games. The ones where a dice is rolled repeatedly to facilitate counters progressing along a predetermined path that leads nowhere fast whilst trying to obey a long list of pointless rules that only serve to encourage cheating.
4. This toy.
   
   The music drills into my head and that bear in the middle that spins around can be held on to and it makes a noise not dissimilar to a pneumatic drill. We have had it since the Big One was one and it refuses to die despite many attempts.


5. And this book: 
   
   
   It is lovely, beautiful in fact. They story is charming and the illustrations gorgeous. But there are lots of little cardboard dressing up clothes that *ahem* hang onto the mice. If you had sticking tape, a stapler or super glue, possibly they would stay in place, but failing that expect hours of dressing up and for goodness sake don't sneeze!

But on a happier note my heavenly toy list is here:

1. Lego. Hours and hours of imaginative construction play. The only downside is that we invariably run out of wheels but I can think of worse problems.
2. Playmobil. Brilliant stuff that gets the kids into characters, rescuing dolls from burning dolls houses with the helicopter set, preventing terrorist attacks with the aeroplane set and sitting by the paddling pool in the garden while a celebrity photoshoot is underway in the house set. Ok some of those plot lines are made up but you get the picture.
3. Pens pencils and paper. As a child I was easily pleased and would amuse myself for days drawing and writing. I am glad to say that the Big One and Princess seem to have inherited that gene and despite many attempts by the Wee One to sabotage their artistic endeavours they persevere and our art wall is growing daily.
4. Cars. Lots of cars with a few props like carboard boxes, books as ramps and lego houses and your skirting boards can be wrecked with dents and scuffs. But small price to play. Just be careful of the stray cars abandoned at the bottom of the stairs. 
5. Balls. No, not an unsolicited insult! The spherical variety. Kick them, roll them, knock things over. Simple pleasures.

What toys belong on your hellish list? Want to swap?
Anyway, I must be off to play with my lego.

Saturday is Caption Day

Let the wit and hilarity commence!

Tis Saturday and I have a picture that desperately needs a caption. Please help!

Desperately seeks caption!

Leave your ideas as comments and then hop over to the amazing Mammasaurus where there will be many more captionless pictures in need of your assistance. Just click on the Saturday is Caption day badge.

Rosemary Loaf Cake by Princess

Princess has been baking.

She likes nothing more than to don her apron over her pyjamas and get mixing, squishing, licking and dolloping with her wooden spoon. As was evidenced this morning.

A friend had told me about a recipe for Rosemary Loaf Cake by Nigella Lawson so we decided to give it a go.


"Roll up your sleeves, give your hands a wash
With slippy dippy soap, Splish Splash Splosh.
Have you done your hands? Washed and dried.
Sleeves rolled up. Apron tied. 
What can you do? I can cook!"

Thank you Katy!

You will need:
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 large eggs
200 castor sugar
250g unsalted butter, softened
1tsp vanilla extract
2tsp finely chopped rosemary needles
approx 4 tbsp milk
1-2 tbsp Rosemary sugar or castor sugar for sprinkling on top

And a loaf tin 23cm x 13cm x 7cm greased and lined.

Preheat over to 170c
Grease and line your loaf tin.
Cream butter until very soft (or until a little girl can stir it easily) then add the castor sugar and continue to cream together until pale and fluffy.

Sift flour, baking powder and salt together into a separate bowl. (More washing up but sadly necessary for the light fluffy cake. Also great for creating a flour cloud in your kitchen thus causing much hilarity for some and grrr factor for others).
Beat in 1 egg at a time adding a tbsp of flour mix with each egg. (Little girls are very good at this bit).
Add the vanilla and mix. (And lick the spoon).
Fold in the rest of the flour. (A little girl may not have the best technique for folding. She may create another flour cloud and beat the cake to death. Possibly).

Add the chopped rosemary and fold together. (Pinching fingers are great for adding the rosemary).
Add enough of the milk to get a soft dropping consistency. (Mixing milk in makes a great plopping sound and can splash milk up your arm, we have found).
Pour into the loaf tin and sprinkle with the additional sugar. (Pinching fingers again).
Cook for about an hour. Test to see if it ready by inserting a skewer into the cake. If it comes out clean it is cooked.

Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack for as long as you can resist. (Not very long in our house. In fact not time enough for me to get a picture of the whole cake turned out).

And there you have it. Delicious.

Now then Katy, what was that song about washing up?

Little Photos From Little Fingers

Well blow me down and call me Persephone if I wasn't tagged by Actually Mummy to send the kids off with my camera (Careful. No not that way up. Not down the toilet. Delete that one immediately) and let them have fun pointing and shooting.

The Big One has had a little trip into the blogosphere with his (yet to be completed) School Holiday Alphabet Countdown and to be honest, I wouldn't see my camera working again if I gave it to the Wee One, so Princess, Come on downnnnn!

Let me set the scene. Saturday. Seeing friends. Lunchtime that drifted on till 5pm. Me, a couple of glasses of wine, just to be sociable you understand. Princess in charge of camera to capture the event.

I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

It was a lovely occasion but we will probably be using a different photographer for our next event.

As tradition dictates, I must now tag another 5 bloggers to carry the torch forward.

@somethingblue_2 dare you to let jw loose!
@mummytoboo because we've only just tweeted
@motherventing because she could write a novel about it
@ministryofmum For kicks
@mrsslummymummy For more kicks

Go and see what other little fingers have been up to at Mammasaurus

How not to have a perfect family afternoon on the beach, and other helpful holiday tips.

Rarely do I feel the red-faced burning embarassment that I felt recently on Brancaster Beach.

The last time was on a return flight from Barcelona with the Big One at about 6 months old. He started screaming as soon as the fasten seat belt sign was illuminated. I assumed it was a reaction to changing air pressure, and having read the books, I knew the best thing to do was feed him. I tried a bottle at first which he had just started taking, but when his thrashing about became a little too violent, I switched to breast foolishly believing he would settle down. Several bruises and bite wounds later a fellow passenger offered boiled sweets.

Erm, thanks but he is a bit too young.

As we landed, he quietened down nuzzling against my neck ready for a little doze. Great timing buddy. Have you ever tried to get out of a plane holding a baby whilst trying not to wake him? Screaming all through baggage claim and to the bus stop to get our car was the longest walk ever. Again he just settled down as we were about to get on the bus. Predictably the screaming started again.

At this point I was beyond embarrassment. Or so I thought. A lady on the bus said, "Were you just on the Barcelona flight?" A weak nod from me. "Yes, I thought I recognised the screaming." Cringe.

So to Brancaster.

As we got out the car with all the bags, wind breaks, towels, buckets, spades, fishing nets, picnic, I asked, "Does anyone need the loo?"

Having spotted the toilets just by the car park and knowing we would have a trek to find somewhere to sit I thought it would be a good idea to get that little job out of the way.

"No"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Really sure?"
"YES ALREADY"
"Okay".

A 15 minute hike later we settle down and start erecting wind breaks, laying picnic blankets, unpacking picnic and the Big One says, (you so know what's coming dont you?) "I need a wee".

"*^%$"***"
"Okay, Come on." Pauses for a second.
"Princess, you come too because I don't want to have to take you in 10 minutes."
"No"
"Yes, come on. You can play when we get back."
"No"
"Now come on. You must need to go and it wont take long."

I should have conceeded but my blood was already boiling because the Big One should have gone before, so I stupidly (stubbornly) decided that the Princess was going to the toilet and nothing, but nothing, was going to stop that happening.

"Come on. You are coming with me."
"No"
"Yes"
"No"

I took her hand and tried to steer her in the right direction.

"NOOOOOOO"

At this point I remembered how easily sound travels across that beach. Glancing at other families nearby, I realised we were fast becoming a spectacle.

"Princess. Come with me now."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Considering what would be more embarrassing and making the wrong decision, I passed the opportunity of giving in and looking like a mother who had no control over her children, to instead, looking like a screaming fishwife Mother who had no control over her children. I physically picked her up, and yes, she was upside down for a little bit, and manhandled her across several hundred yards of peaceful, playful, family smothered beach with her screaming all the way. Yes heads turned, fingers were pointed and visions of social services turning up were at the forefront of my mind. I prayed she would actually scream "No MUMMY" so that observers would know that I wasn't abducting a little girl from the beach.

And no, she didn't have a wee when we got there.


On the way back, we passed another family. They were sipping Rose wine from glasses. They were playing boules. They were running through the shallow water laughing and splashing. They were the perfect Boden family. I was expecting the director to step out and say "Can we try that again, ladies and gentlemen" and makeup ladies and hairdressers would step out and adjust their perfectly tousled sun-bleached blonde hair and I wanted to weep. George and Henry and Fruitella and Nutella (as I christened them) wouldn't scream or shout or stamp their feet or embarrass Mama or Papa. I studied my feet on the walk back to our spot.

The next spectacle (you didn't honestly think there would be only one did you?) was trying to invite/cajol the Wee One out of the water having failed to dress him appropriately in anything even remotely resembling beach attire. His nornal nappy swelled to the size of a small infaltable whale, his shorts drooped sorrowfully round his ankles and his t-shirt would be best thrown in the bin. Much screaming later (and I mean much, like 15 minutes of full on toddler tantrum on a quiet beach so the sound is magnified 10 fold) we undressed him and partially reclothed him just a sweatshirt lest he should suffer hypothermia.

I hid behind the windbreak shamefaced and mortified at how loud and screamy my family was, wondering how we had got to this stage? Repentent and stunned at my stupidity for being so darn stubborn, I vowed to relax and let the urchins run and be free and if they needed a wee, well so be it. If they ran into the water fully clothed, to provide warm clothing only when their lips went blue.

And then the Wee One did a poo, on the sand, in front of the Boden catalogue family. And I shreaked (out loud) "Oh no, he's having a sh*t".

We went home soon after.

And if you happened to be there, sorry for disturbing your afternoon.

Upcycle Butterfly Garland

Feeling a teensy bit creative.

It was decided (by me) that we (I) would make a cute butterfly garland for The Princess to hang in her bedroom.

Take one sheet of (used) wrapping paper, scissors, thread and paper glue.

Cut out as many butterflies as you wish (can be bothered to). It does help to have a steady hand and ensure that there isn't anything on TV you want to watch. Watch out for those tricky antennae (or whatever the correct anatomical name is for butterfly's sticky up bits).

Cut a length of string or ribbon (or in my case embroidery thread because the chances of me ever doing any embroidery are slim to nil).

Apply glue to the wrong side of a butterfly and lay the thread down the middle.

Find a matching butterfly. Ideally do this before you have applied the glue or, as you try to delicately turn the glue covered butterfly over to remind yourself what colour and shape it was, you will cover your worksurface and yourself with glue thereby increasing the degree of difficulty of the craft exercise by a factor of 10. I also recommend (from experience) that you do not try to do this on the garden table, as the slightest breeze can make it a tad tricky to keep your butterflies from flying off in all directions.

Apply the second butterfly directly to the first matching up the symmetrical shapes. (Did I mention that it helps enormously if the shapes you are cutting out are symmetrical so that when you stick them back to back you haven't got ugly edges sticking out).

Repeat with more butterflies at approximately 10cm intervals.

Allow to dry and hang decoratively at the window thus.

I thank you.