Contented

Happy New Year!

Hello there! How are you?  I thought I'd just pop by quickly before the end of the year and update you on our Christmas.  It was very low key as usual, but we like it like that.  We've always been very lucky with the kids in that they don't wake up at the crack of dawn Christmas morning, and this year it was almost 8am before I heard them moving about!  William goes into Joe's room and they open their stockings together and I love listening in on them and hearing their excited voices as they open each gift!  We then troop downstairs together and the kids wait outside the living room while I turn on all the Christmas lights, then they file in with eyes shut and have another lovely surprise of seeing all the presents under the tree for the first time.   We got a good balance of presents this year - not too many toys but they were both really happy with everything they did get.   The rest of Christmas day was lovely, delicious Christmas dinner, then spending the rest of the afternoon just chilling out in front of the TV - the highlight being Doctor Who, of course!   The rest of the week has been very much the same - eating too many sweets, watching too much tv, playing too many computer games!   I have managed to finish a pair of wrist warmers for myself, using up left over sock yarn, and very cozy they are too!

 

Yesterday we ventured out to Tunbridge Wells and were rather amazed by how un-busy it was.  I had half expected that we'd have to turn back due to big queues at the car park but it was absolutely fine.  Whether this was because of the credit crunch, or just because lots of people had gone back to work, who knows!  I normally avoid the sales like the plague - we were only there because William still had some vouchers and money from his birthday that he wanted to spend, and he manged to get two more games that he wanted, so he was very happy.

Tomorrow the kids are going to my mum and dads because we are going out for New Year's Eve for the the first time in I don't know how long.  I suspect that the last time was before Joe was born!  I hope you all have a good time, whatever you may be doing, and may the New Year bring you everything you wish for!  Thanks to everyone for reading my little blog, it really has meant so much to me that people even bother to comment, and I feel like I have made many new friends.  So thanks to you all, and Happy New Year!!!!

Just dropping in...

...for a quick post before we get carried away with Christmas!   There's not a lot to report, actually.  We're just taking it fairly easy, but I have managed a little bit of sewing - mum requested a little felty bird ornament to go with the owls we gave her for her birthday, so I made this:

 

and I have finally started quilting my Ava Rose quilt:

 

I'm really excited about this one, I just love the fabrics so much.  I think the quilting bug has bitten, I'm already planning more quilts to make next year!   There has been some baking of course, and then quite a bit of lolling about in front of the TV - but at least then I get to see little scenes like this:

 

two brothers who adore each other, despite the bickering! 

So, now I just need to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

See you in 09!

R x

End of term

Tomorrow is actually the last day of school so today I have putting the teacher gifts together.  I mentioned yesterday that I would be making chocolate fudge - it went from this:-

 

to this:-

 

to this:-

 

and finally, to this:-

 

Luckily, there was some left over for us too!  It's so delicious and very easy to make - it's the chocolate pistacio fudge recipe from Nigella Express.  Usually this is all I would make - I tend to keep our teacher gifts fairly low key, after all, they could be receiving 20+ other parcels of sweets or cookies, but for Joe's teachers I did want to do something extra, to show our appreciation of the extra help he's getting, so I made these:

 

Little felty robin ornaments, made using a kit from one of my favourite web shops.  And a couple of little simple fabric bags to put them in.  I hope they'll like them.  I was back at school yesterday afternoon just to sign a couple more consent forms for the referrals for Joe - I had a wasted trip to our GP yesterday morning (not the doctor's fault, to be fair), so the school AEN lady is making the referral herself - although she said there could be up to a 40 week waiting list!!  But they are already doing things to help him in class and I am just so impressed with how quickly they've got on the case. 

Enjoy the rest of the week!

R x

Collection

Following on from this post, and in the absence of anything crafty to show you, I thought I would share my little collection of Poole pottery with you today.

 

I think all these items came from my Nana's house (note to self: check with mother about this kind of thing before starting to type next time!)  There's the little jug you saw last time, a cute little vase and two little bowls. 

 

The trough shaped item at the front is also intended for putting flowers in, with the stems cut very short, almost to the flower head, but I have no idea what you would call it! 

 

And finally, there is Nana's marmalade jar, which was pretty much a permanent fixture of the breakfast table at her house:-

 

This is the item that holds most sentimental value, as it is a very clear memory from my childhood - even though I never ate marmalade!  I love all these pieces though, the pretty, soft colours used and the lovely feel of the pottery too. 

Now I have to go and make some chocolate fudge for our teachers, and hopefully next time I'll have something a little more seasonal to show you!

R x

Finally feeling festive

I do love Christmas but it takes a while for me to get into it - I think I'm finally getting there.  I think the fact that this morning I braved the hoardes of shoppers and finished my Christmas shopping may have something to do with it - now I can pretty much relax and wait for the big day to arrive.  This afternoon we got the decorations down from the loft and the tree is now up and looking very pretty - and as I type the Muppet Christmas Carol movie is on in the background and they're singing "it feels like Christmas"!

 

We have one more week of school to go, which includes a church carol service on Tuesday which is always lovely.  I still have the teacher presents to put together but they're going to get parcels of homemade chocolate fudge so that will get made sometime this week.  I made some other little gifts for Joe's teachers, so I'll try and remember to take photos before it all gets wrapped up.

Yesterday I had the appointment with the behaviour specialist regarding Joe.  It went really well, the lady was very nice and we had a good long chat about it all.  She had spent some time observing him and remarked (amongst other things) that he seemed to be always fidgeting and very impulsive, then wondered if he could have ADHD - which had actually crossed my mind just the other week!  So she has suggested that I ask for a referral to a paediatrician to get that checked out, and in the meantime she is going to suggest some strategies for school and will see me again in the new year.  I have slightly mixed feelings about this really - I'm really happy that it has been acknowledged that he does have some issues, and that something is being done about it, but at the same time I do feel a bit sad that he might get labelled with something.  I'm staying positive though - even if he does turn out to have ADHD, I'm not going to view this as being something "wrong" with him - it's just part of who he is and won't change how we feel about him.  He's still the most adorable, funny, affectionate little boy and such a special part of our family.  We'll just have to wait and see what happens.  Must dash now, Strictly's on!

R x

All words and no pictures

The school Christmas Bazaar on Saturday was a big success!  William and I were there pretty much all day, from about 9.30am, helping to set up, through the actual event and then clearing up at the end and, I've got to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed it!  It was a really nice feeling, everyone working together and especially the way the kids joined in and helped too.  The year 6 classes had been set a challenge to think up a stall and run it, and then the class that made the most money would win a prize.  Well, William's class really got into the spirit of it - their stall was a "guess the number of sweets in the jar" competition - and there was a £5 note in the jar to entice the grown ups as well.  They made loads of posters, went round all the other classes telling them about it and even had someone walking round the bazaar wearing a sandwich board sign advertising it!  The other class had made gift tags to sell -  nice idea but not quite as exciting and they hadn't done any promotion so needless to say our class won!  It was great the way all the kids took turns running the stall and I think they really enjoyed it too.  Anyway, the bazaar made over £4000 - a fantastic result considering the credit crunch and, more importantly, all but one of my felt brooches sold!!  I've had a couple of requests from people for more too, which is great.  Maybe I will feel brave enough to take a stall at the summer fair next year!

I also got a call from school this week to say that the behaviour specialist will be coming in to see Joe on this Friday, and I have an appointment to speak with them too.  I'm very happy about this - I wasn't really expecting anything to happen before Christmas - but also a bit anxious too, just wondering what they might say.  I think I'm just stressing out about it a bit to be honest.  It's all so vague with Joe, it's not something you can put your finger on, but all the little things add up.  Bedtimes are still pretty hectic - I'm getting to the point where I don't want to put him to bed because he just acts up and then I get really grumpy and in a bad mood for the rest of the evening - a vicious circle really.  And this morning he was really reluctant to go into school again - he wasn't crying but I had to walk away and leave him with the T.A. which was horrible.  (Plus, it's that particular week when my hormones are wreaking havoc anyway, if you get my drift - SO not helping).  Sorry to go on about it, but I think I just needed to get it off my chest.   Hopefully, after I've seen the specialist I'll be feeling a bit more positive, so I'll let you know how it goes.

R x

Help!

Last week I treated myself to one of Bagladee's lovely zippered pouches,

 

See how pretty it is, with little twinkly red diamante "apples"!  Anyway, this has prompted me to have yet another go at sewing a zippered pouch myself - I would love to make little coin purses to go with my bags, and I also think it might be quite useful to have some smaller items in my repertoire.  This morning I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go and I did finally get the hang of using the zipper foot, and managed to sew the seams nice and close to the zip:-

 

and the inside looks quite nice too:-

 

but the corners? - oh dear!

  

that one's not so bad, but look how the other end turned out!

 

Yikes, that is not pretty.  Can someone please shed any light on where I am going wrong?  Maybe it is the kind of zip I'm using - the ends are sort of covered with plastic which made it really hard to get it all to lie flat.  Any advice would be much appreciated!

R x

Collecting

I've always liked collecting things, although I've never just stuck to one particular thing - when I was young I used to collect little boxes, at the moment it seems to be fabric and when I moved into my first home with Peter and became interested in all things housey, it was jugs (of the china variety!) that caught my eye.  Trashy was sharing pics of some of her collection of jugs this morning, and that has prompted me to do the same, so here are just a few of my favourites:-

 

 

 

The top one came from Whittards (the tea&coffee place), the middle one is from Poole Pottery and belonged to my Nana and the last is a Denby jug that I love the shape of.  Unfortunately, they very rarely get used, if ever, which is a bit of a shame really.  But they are at least on display in a cabinet and not shut away in a cupboard, so I do get to see them every day.  I'll maybe share some more with you in future posts.  I hope it doesn't send you all to sleep!  I do enjoy seeing what "things" people have in their homes, so I hope some of you do too!

In the meantime, here's today's creation - another fabric basket!

 

Enjoy the rest of the week!

R x

Basket case

Yesterday afternoon was spent cutting out big Christmas tree shaped signs from thick cardboard for the school's Bazaar on Saturday.  My cutting technique obviously needs improving - I was gripping the Stanley knife so hard that my right thumb went completely numb and it's still tingling now, a day later!  Luckily, it hasn't prevented me from doing other stuff so today I have managed to do some knitting and sewing without too much trouble.  I've been quite keen to do some sewing today, purely out of a feeling that I really ought to try and earn some money from my habit hobby, so I'm going to try and use up some of my stash and build up a little collection of things so that, if I do decide to do a craft fair or similar, I won't have to go into meltdown trying to make loads of stuff at short notice.  Anyway, today I had my first attempt at making a fabric basket:-

 

Not too bad for a first attempt!  I'll definitely be making some more of these as they look nice but are really quite simple to make and don't use too much fabric.  So, after finishing the basket and feeling quite pleased with myself, it then seemed like a good time to make some cakes!

   

Mmmmmm

R x

The countdown has begun!

Yesterday I got out our advent calendars, in preparation for this morning.  We have two - one is a fabric/felt Christmas tree with little numbered pockets, from which each day a decoration is taken to hang upon said fabric/felt tree, and the other is a cardboard, fold out stable design, with slots for all the different Nativity characters to be slotted into one day at a time.  Last year the kids would take turns, alternating between the two designs, but yesterday Joe decided that all the characters for the card calendar had to be put in straight away, and it didn't seem worth arguing over, so we now have a completed Nativity scene. 

 

Last week, school called me to let me know that Joe's case has been looked at and a behaviour specialist will be coming to do some proper observations of him.  I feel relieved that things are moving along, but it's still frustrating waiting, and also not knowing what the outcome might be.  We had a particularly fraught bedtime last night so I dug out my old copy of Beyond Toddlerdom and as I was flicking through it, actually started to wonder if he might be just a little bit ADD - some of the characteristics listed did sound remarkably like him.  Oh dear, this post has gone off on a tangent, this wasn't at all what I was going to write about! 

What I was going to write was that I've been tagged for a meme by emzeegee and the hungry three, who makes the most amazing cakes and also writes a superbly witty blog.  Apparently, these questions appear in The Age (which I'm assuming must be an Aussie newspaper), but there are almost 30 questions and I don't think my brain can work that hard, so I'm going to cheat and just pick out a few!

My first relationship was... with my husband!  I did go out with one other boy when I was 15 but it only lasted 4 weeks so it doesn't count!  I met Peter when we were both 17 through some mutual school friends and we got together a couple of weeks later at a school disco.  I think I knew straight away that he was the one - too slushy for words, I know, but true.

The last big belly laugh I had was... at the girly get together the other weekend.  We were at a friends house and, after we had eaten, the girl hosting the party demonstrated a game where you put an after eight mint on your forehead and then try to get it into your mouth without using your hands.  She then proceeded to raise her eyebrows up and down, wrinkle her nose and generally pull the most ridiculous faces while the after eight gradually slid down her face, leaving an attractive trail of chocolate behind.   I haven't laughed so much in years although actually, it was not so much a belly laugh, more hysterical giggles, laughing so hard that I could barely breath, let alone speak. 

At the moment I'm reading..The Wizard of Oz, believe it or not!  I read my mums childhood copy when I was a child, but the other day when I was in WH Smiths buying some books, they had an offer of various childrens classics for just £1 so I picked it up.  I've only just started reading it again, so can't really say yet if it is as I remember it, but I'm hoping that Joe might want to listen to it as well.

At home I cook... as little as possible!  I do the kids' dinners and the occasional roast or bolognese but, generally, Peter is the cook of the household.  Except for cakes of course - I am the dessert chef!

Ok, that's it for now.  It's really cold again today and my fingers are beginning to sieze up.  I think I need to go and make some cakes to help me warm up! 

R x