love in a lunchbox

I had the idea yesterday to fill up the little ladies lunchbox with a veritable feast of valentine inspired treats. 

Of course it was about 2am ish the night before that I had this idea and so had to make do with whatever I could find in the cupboards. I cut her sandwiches into hearts. Lucked out with a packet of mini Jammy Dodgers and found some decidedly heart shaped strawberries. 

As I was excitedly scribbling a little valentines card for her I pondered at what age things like this go from adorably sweet to mildly embarrassing. 

When will me doing things like this become an eyerolling irritation for her and invoke the teasing of her peers? 

After much thought I decided probably not until she is about 23.

Have a loved up weekend x

knittery bits I will one day finish # 1

pinky pinkiest pair of pink leg warmers that ever there was....

Last year, during a brief infatuation with ballet I started to knit the little lady a pinky pink pair of leg warmers. They didn’t take too long to knit and gave a warm contented sort of bliss in the making of.

Shortly after the harmonious clackety clack of the needles had started to dwindle so too did miss Ellas ardour for the love of dance and quite unexpectedly one day the mere mention of pointing ones toes in the good/naughty way invoked a tantrum of epic proportion and a steadfast refusal to comply.

Reluctantly, I hastily put away all things ballet including the so very nearly almost finished pair of pinky pink leg warmers.

The other day, during a tidy-sort of my new workroom {star jump  star jump!} I found the forgotten leg warmers hidden at the bottom of the bulging “knittery bits I will one day finish” bag. And so, quite unprecedented, and even shocking my self let alone those around me....I finished them! Yes, done and dusted. Tick. Voila. Hooray!

Do you have knittery bits you need to finish? I’m looking forward to a stitchy gathering with friends this weekend and I’m hoping to sup tea, eat cake and stitch together an enormous pile of grannies from long ago! 

chocolate cheerio cakes

We’ve recently spent some quality time at our local Little Cooks cookery classes. 

The little lady has delighted in putting her pinny on and doing some baking! And of course there is always the added bonus of scoffing your creative culinary delights which you just can’t do with a finger painting!

In fact we’ve been doing a spot of baking at home too, although there really isn’t the space here so have had to wing it somewhat with me whipping up a dough mix or cake batter in the kitchen and the little one completing the most important task of rolling and cutting cookie shapes or spooning mixture into cake cases at the dining table. 

But this suits my neurotic baker ways and helps keep kitchen trauma to a minimum!

Anyway, despite having a stock of cookie dough batches in the freezer for rainy day cookie baking {gosh, doesn’t that make me sound organised...?} I decided today that we would make chocolate crispie cakes because I remember them so well from my childhood, and well, they really are totally simples and just a bit yummy, aren’t they?

Although we don’t eat Rice Crispies in this house.....or Cornflakes for that matter....so Cheerios it had to be!

This is how we made ours.....

Chocolate Cheerio Cakes

100g milk chocolate

75g Cheerios

50g unsalted butter

4 tbsp runny honey {or you could use golden syrup}

50g dried blueberries {or similar}

Melt the chocolate, butter and honey in a bowl over a pan of simmering water until smooth and all melted.

Mix the Cheerios and blueberries in a large mixing bowl and pour the melted chocolate mixture over. Mix until all combined.

Spoon into cake cases and chill for about 40 minutes...or not...if you can’t wait, then scoff immediately and revel in your rebellious ways and sticky fingers! 

This is easy and fun for children to make, except, of course for the melty chocolate bit which should be done by a grown up.

Washing up can be fun too.....although best done in the garden and always a good idea to check everything before putting it back in the cupboard!

✴ to sleep, perchance...??

It would seem my little princess has a pea the size of a 'waterlemon' {her word} under her mattress judging by the amount, or lack of, sleep we have been having this week. 

We have been awake all night. No, really, ALL night! I managed to sleep for one hour before the princess awakened from her sleep of disrupted enchantment and decided enough was enough, why bother waiting for morning...

I know I should be napping now, while she {finally} is. But the problem is I just can't;

{1} a couple of hours just won't cut it and I'll feel even worse, I know it, 

{2} the chance of some quality time on the stitch with glorious peace and daylight far outweighs the bliss of sleep. Really. I know. I'm bonkers.

I made this 'Princess and the Pea' for her the Christmas before last, her first ever one. I'll admit, it was initially met with an expression of what am I supposed to do with this...?

However over time she learned the simple pleasures of flinging the mattresses to the far corners of the living room, or even at a passing cat. And now, we are almost a very grown up two and a half, we have fun with tucking the princess up into bed and kissing her 'night, night'.

It's not even finished {gasp, shock} I had wanted to embroider 'the princess' on the blanket and I was never that happy with how my princess turned out! We have seemingly lost the pillow and a couple of the mattresses {probably under the sofa or hidden by the cats}.

Despite this and although it took a little while, she loves playing with it now. I think children adore to sort and stack and this seems to fit the bill perfectly. There is nothing worse than spending time and love with every stitch of a handmade toy for it to be pushed to the side in favour of some cheap plastic tat!

{'princess and the pea' pattern from More Softies }

✴ the torment of inconsistent raisin distribution...and winners

I don't know what it is with baking with my little one that turns me into a highly strung, perfectionist mumma. 

Fanny Craddock crossed with Hyacinth Bucket, but there it is....

"Noooo.....Let mummy pick that up....now, careful, ooopsss...we'll do that bit again.....I'll finish that bit off........shall I do it??........"

I'll happily sit back and let her paint splodges with carefree abandon.....squidge play dough into mounds of nobbly wonder and dig up parts of the garden with a stick {ok that last one, not that happily...}, but I come over all wobbly when I see a gingerbread leg ripped mercilessly from one and pressed onto the tummy or head of another. And don't get me started on raisin distribution....

I need to get over myself....obviously, the one legged, 3 {raisin} eyed man is going to taste just the same as the others...! Maybe even better!

And so, as we happily scoff our gingerbread walking wounded for afternoon tea, we had a moment to scrunch up some names on paper {including those names wiped from the comments by the mischief making of blogger!!!}, tip them in a small mixing bowl and pulled out three at random.

The winners of Ediths Brooch giveaway are...

Tracey :: Seaweed and Raine :: Lyndel

Well done ladies, I will be in touch.

Apologies to everyone else and thank you all for entering and for indulging my ramblings with your sweet comments aplenty. 

Check back here as I hope to offer up a bit of a freebie for all in the next week or so.

✴ happy monday

Goodness, I haven't been here for a whole week. I hate when time runs away like that. Especially when you look back and wonder what on earth you managed to achieve.

It's been a tough week with a little tearaway monster in tow. 11 years too early for the teenage chatback and stroppy tantrums so I assume we are not quite finished with our teeth growing and am blaming the wide awake nights and hissyfits on sore gums and irritation.

Not just a toddlers wild ways I have been trying to tame, but with the recent sunny weather the overgrown jungle garden has been crying out for some pruning and a stern talking to.

Last year I eagerly planted some ranunculus bulbs....a year later there has been not even the merest hint of a bloom. At the same time I planted some anemone bulbs and a year later...the same sorry tale..or so I thought. 

However the other day I spotted in amongst the weeds, a couple of beautiful purple/pink anemone. 

How utterly thrilled I was. Delighted pride and joy in the small miracles of gardening, the pleasures, the pains, of successes and failures, the thrill of new discoveries and that life will always find a way....and then bewilderment, and subsequent devastation that those two brave little flowers had somehow found themselves unearthed by small toddler hands and were being thrust in my direction, roots attached and stems bent, 

"Here you go, mummy".

It's so very difficult to get cross with the gift giver {flower thief} when she smiles so sweetly!

Happy week and roll on those bank holidays!! x

✴ happy monday

It always makes me chuckle, that no matter what kind of paint brushes, rollers, stamps, sponges and other fancy schmancy painting tools we have....there is nothing quite like swirling your finger in a dollop of paint and daubing it on the paper!  

It takes literally seconds for the paint to come out that little keen toddler fingers {hands...elbows...toes...} get completely covered and, as we all know it's a short hop, skip and a jump before everything else within toddler reach gets covered too. 

And so, with warmer weather we are doing our painting outdoors. And how lovely it is too...

"I like painting..." the little voice says..."I like hands..."..."I like cats..."

Watch this space, it's only a matter of time before I find a grumpy purple cat {or two} on my doorstep...

Happy, colourful week! x

✴ dough balls

On cold days indoors needing entertainment for my little teenage toddler there is no finer distraction for little fingers...umm..and big fingers.....than play dough.

Play dough is easy to make. My mum made it all the time for me and my sis and now I make it for Ella.

She loves it. Of course you're never going to distract a toddler for very, very long, but it just about keeps her quiet and creatively focused for me to have a breather. Although actually I usually spend that breather moulding and sculpting said play dough and then getting a bit carried away with my dough sculpture and imagining that the Tate might just call offering me exhibition space....

Finally, daydream broken, Ella grabs whatever I've been making and lobs it across the room. Children really are the harshest of critics.

Here is the recipe I use;

½ cup of plain flour

½ cup of water

¼ cup of table salt

1 tablespoon of cream of tartar

1 tablespoon of oil

food colouring

{double ingredients for a larger quantity of same coloured dough}

Mix the flour together with the tartar and salt in a saucepan {preferably old pan}

Add the water and mix until smooth.

Add a tsp of food colouring {or more if deeper colour required}

Then the oil and stir until combined

Put the pan over a medium heat and keep stirring until the dough comes together to form a ball.

Allow to cool, then play!

Keep dough in a zip lock or freezer bag and place in a box or tin to prolong it's life. 

Play dough will dry out and it's highly likely that in a very short time, your lovely neat coloured dough balls will end up looking like this....

✴ learning how to walk (and other minor incidents)...

I've been elsewhere, preoccupied, caught up with stuff, you know how it is...

I don't know where the time goes I really don't! There has been a lot of stuff happening. 

Like walking for the first time (not me, I grasped that a wee while ago, although there is still room for improvement...)

I'm feeling a bit like Dee Wallace (the mum) in E.T. Most specifically the scene in the kitchen when she is completely unaware that a small hobbling alien is following her around everywhere she goes...Well a bit like that...Although my alien is much cuter than E.T and of the girly toddler variety.

Here is what I have learnt recently;

1. Never leave the buying of a husbands birthday gifts to the last minute, (likewise, the last minute rule also, and possibly more importantly, applies to impending deadlines...)
2. Avoid bragging to friends and family of the 13 hours of sleep your child is currently having, because it's bound to put a jinx on this run of good sleep fortune, and then you'll be sorry, yes you will...
3. Don't even bother thorough vacuuming of carpets during breezey cherry blossom blowing season (yes that is a real season...)
4. When offering your small child a tiny taste of chocolate cake for the first time try to be aware of the incredible similarity in looks to the freshly laid compost in the garden...
5. Obviously, a never worn before white dress, new shoes, an unsteady walk and a polished kitchen floor is bound to end in tears, and a cut lip, and a bloody mess.... (again, I don't mean me...)

And the most important thing, when all this other stuff is going on?

Never ever skip afternoon tea.

It's ok really to forget about breakfast (despite what all the nutritionists say...)

But it really is quite bad to not have that 4pm cuppa and big slab of cake, or muffin, or biscuit...

Honest!

✴ my creative space

Here is my creative space this week. Because of a horrible cold, which thankfully is now on it's way out, there hasn't been any pushing out of pram and mama tea and chat. But there has been much staying in, cbeebies, crochet and chasing an adventurous and stir crazy one year old!

There has been lots of crochet. In the evenings, after dinner, while watching a film, lovely. There has been some more grannies, obviously!

And there has been some flower crochet, which are then to be beautiful brooches, hopefully, eventually.

There has been some stitching of a birthday gift, shh..... don't peek! Which should be hurried as deadline is looming!

And most importantly, there has been much admiration of Miss Ella's first doodles on her thank you cards.

Isn't she just so creative? I especially love the colours she has chosen. There are 12 of these! Mainly done during her 'da da' period. Whilst chewing on a rice cake. And then the pencil......!

My creative space is back! Pop along to Kirsty's to see what she and everyone else has been up to.

✴ while she sleeps...

Today is a good napping day. Probably due to the early wake up call, but Mr H dealt with that while I slowly buried myself under the duvet, joined by a naughty Olive.

The weekend cold is still here, numbing my senses and making the day too fuzzy to actually get on with anything productive and necessary, i.e housework. Bleaugh!

So it's a cup of hot water with lemon and honey - I always forget how good this is until the uninvited arrival of a cold prompts the making of this refreshing and 'a good way to start the day' (so we are often told) drink.

A bit of crochet, so relaxing to do. A perusal around blogland, so inspiring to do and a look at a few online shops, so expensive to do!

Reading Homeshoppingspy and there is a post about the V & A's upcoming quilt exhibition  which, totally being out of that 'gallery/shopping/lunch' way of life, had no idea was on so I'm quite excited about that and even more excited about the selection of limited edition fat quarters inspired by quilts in the exhibition. Such striking prints, and yet another incentive to get making that quilt this year!

'Rose' Limited Edition fabric. Image here 

✴ some kinda one-derful

Last weekend was all about the number one. In this new decade which the powers that be ( whoever they may be) have named the 'one-ders' (!?) my little Ella reached that most important of milestone birthdays.....The very first!

Just like the Queen she celebrated it twice. Oh, get her!

She had a party on her actual birthday for her fellow one-ders and then a second at the weekend for family and close friends. Needless to say there was much baking and culinary creativeness for both!

We had sugar-free birthday buns for the baba's and sugar full birthday cake for the mama's (and papa's) and colourful cupcakes and sweet treats to thrill!

In a desperate bid to alleviate that gloom and doom of 'post christmas decoration pulling down syndrome' of which I suffer badly from each and every year, we had birthday paper chains, balloons, fairy lights and baby food jars (saved last year for some impromptu jamming sessions) filled with a selection of pink flowers and tied with pink ribbons...So pretty!
Much fun was had by all. Especially by a new one year old.

Happy Birthday little one.

xxx

✴ hello holly!

Look who has arrived in the mail all the way from Australia. It's Holly the Cardi Bunny who I was lucky enough to win in Beck's giveaway on her fab blog Dandelion .

Ella was most excited as we opened the package and the hidden treasures of dried lavender and an 'S' vintage style scrabble piece was such a lovely surprise.

Isn't she lovely. I think she is a little bewildered at the snow as I expect she has never seen it before and it was very hot where she came from!

Ella bestowed her with many loving squeezes and cuddles but fearful of drenching poor Holly with too much dribble on her very first day in Blighty I have put her amongst the other cuddlies in Ella's room with a good view of the slightly melted and crunchy snowy Surrey landscape.

✴ peepo

The past few days have been a breath taking cold white blanket of beauty and a reminder of Christmases past, of sleighing, snowball fights and building the best snowman.

Looking through the bedroom shutters in the morning, it's the sort of day where hopping back under the duvet and watching a good film with a large mug of tea, a couple of chocolate biscuits and cuddling a hot water bottle while wearing thick woolly socks and two pairs of pyjama's (darn those 1930's house draughts!) is by far the best way to spend the day and avoid those totally unprepared travel operators ( I mean, really? It's Britain not the Bahamas, is it that much of a shock??!) and slippy ungritted paths.

Alas though, it would seem an almost one year old has a whole other idea of how to spend the day.

However this does include endless chuckling games of peepo with a magician style shout out of 'Ta Da' at the reveal, and who would have thought it was Miss Ella hiding behind that mucky bib??

It is a good way to spend a day indoors if you ask me!

Ta Da!

✴ on the first day...

Today was a bright, brand spanking, new day and we took ourselves off for a frosty winters walk in Painshill Park .

The last few days of the old year were grey, gloomy and drizzly. This day, the very first of this sparkling new year was bright and beautiful with a warm winter sun and clear blue skies over frost bitten rivers and sugar dusted hills.

We wandered through this park like being in a fairytale land passing victorian follies, gothic towers, giant cedar trees and a turkish tent high on a hill with a breathtaking view.

A large flock of geese pecked at the grass along the footpath because the lakes were frozen and no place for a swim or a sleep.

Hidden in between the trees we could just about make out various shapes of old ruined buildings and a surprising and seemingly out of place well tended vineyard!
Other than the squabbling quacking and hissing of the geese and ducks at each other and the occasional chirp of the birds in the trees the only other sound to break the peace was the gentle whirr and slushing of a water wheel.

Miss Ella for once, didn't try hard to pull off her mittens and hood because it was cold...very cold! Bbbrrrr...!

✴ sunday love...

It's the last sunday before home time, yes it is...Already three months away in Australia has gone 'poof', away! Suddenly we find ourselves saying 'oh one more time at doing that', or 'last time we go there'.....etc...etc...

So we drove up to Mount Tamborine, 'one more time...'. We headed on down to Ceder Creek Falls, like everyone else, and parked in a no parking zone at the side of the road, like everyone else. The idea was to do an quick half hour stroll on the easy route as outlined on the website, because it claimed to be pram friendly, but wasn't, not in the slightest, infact I would say the big warning sign reading 'this path is not suitable for wheelchair users and strollers' to be a big indication that this path was NOT pram friendly....Sigh.....

And it was hot, phewee was it hot. You know that slightly self-conscious feeling when you realise you are totally overdressed for an occasion? Well that feeling happened today, everyone else seemed to be walking around wearing nothing but a headscarf and a smile and I was dressed as Nanook of the North, with a pram.

So Mr H took the pram back to the car to pick up the Baby Bjorn which we had thankfully stashed in the boot and me and Ella took some quiet bottle feeding time sat under a beautiful tree in the picnic area, listening to the birds and hearing the distant trickle of a waterfall and people splashing in the lagoons...Lovely.

I first noticed Mr H returning to us because I was slightly bemused at his hurried nature, and then a little curious at his decision to cut through the bracken and bushes instead of walking around to the clearing, and then I noticed that he wasn't carrying anything, no Baby Bjorn.....Hhhhmmmm......Curiouser and curiouser.....

It turns out that the police were doing a parking check (slow crime day...) and handing out fines and Mr H had got back to the car just in time. What happened next was a speedy pack up of everything and a dash back to the car. All around us people were passing the word and then racing out to get to their car before getting caught! It felt a bit like being at an illegal rave that has been ambushed by the law (I imagine..)!! In reality, it was a bunch of thirtysomethings out for a picnic with their kids! Deary me!

We did eventually get to do the walk and NO it wasn't worth it, but never mind, let's focus on that quiet time sat beneath the tree.

Other sunday love moments...

Splashing about in the ocean.... well, more at the edge of the ocean...

An evening stroll along the beach, skirts billowing in the breeze...

A quick stop at the Beach House for a margarita (and some yoghurt for the baba)...

Looking at the fairy lights in the trees before heading back along the beach to put a sleepy baba to bed.

Nighty night...

✴ simple pleasures

Image here 

When I was nay but knee high to a grasshopper, (or something like that) my absolutely favourite things in the whole wide world  (which is actually quite small to a tiny tot) were eating banana butties and watching playschool.

Even now, the smell and taste of a simple sandwich with slices of banana in the middle conjures up images of childhood. Tiny squares of doughy, squishy bread with the crusts removed, obviously, and  lovely 'nana sandwiched inbetween....Mmmmm....Yum!

Probably with a glass of ice cold milk, and probably while wearing my nightie with my 'never, ever take off' snake belt....But maybe that's too much information....

So imagine my delight, this week when I was able to give tiny, wee banana butties to my Ella, and watch her devour them with the same gusto and delight that I probably did.

Ok so she is only 10 months old and most of it was thrown onto the floor or creatively spread across the tray on the high chair, but it's early days in the whole, 'feed yourself' regime...

I'm also not going to give up on the scrambled egg, which was ceremoniously spat out with sheer disgust this morning.

When I was little my mum used to give me a lovely boiled egg with toast soldiers in a variety of new and vintage egg cups which she still collects to this day ( remind me, I'll show you one day). The eggs were bought from the greengrocers in the village, in the days before supermarkets were the norm, and now sadly long gone. These eggs were special because they came from the local farm which had one particular infamous hen called Molly. Now, the way that the farmer could show which eggs were laid by Molly was to mark the base of each egg with a cross in black ink.

It became quite a ritual at our house, me and my mum checking the base of the boiled egg to see whether it was laid by Molly. Now, I guess, with hindsight I maybe should have questioned the incredible productivity of one hen - I never had a boiled egg that wasn't laid by Molly. Poor thing she must have been exhausted...

Ok, so I like to think of myself as slightly intelligent and a bit worldly wise which makes the revelation, only a few years ago, of Molly's existence, or lack thereof, something of a shock to my rosy little world.

Now, I'm not completely stupid. Even though mum still marks a cross on the bottom of my boiled egg, when the situation arises (sadly not nearly enough), I figured that Molly had died a long time ago and she was just continuing this tradition as a bit of a joke. Oh no, Molly was never even born...She never even existed!! It was all a ruse to get me to eat my eggs and one which, hat's off to you mum, worked a treat!

I know she is probably jumping up and down with complete excitement at the chance of doing it all over again with Ella, of continuing the lie...! But it's a good lie, so that's ok.

A bit like Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny, it's a tiny white lie that makes our childhood that little bit more lovelier, and so it is good!

✪ Hello Ducky...

It seems like Ella's first word is imminent, it's so close I can almost smell it (..or that may be something else...). We are already taking bets on what it will be. The shortlist is "Hello" and "Duck"!

Every morning when she wakes up, Mr H Brings her into bed with us in some vain hope that she may drift off to sleep again or have a little snooze so that we can both have a few extra minutes sleep. This seems like an idyllic situation but what really happens is that we imagine we are having extra sleep when in actual fact we are in a waking dream where we share our bed with a squealing, wriggling monkey who likes to pull hair and kick!

Anyway the other morning while this daily parent bashing was occurring, amidst the squeals and dadada's a sound emerged that was definitely reminiscent of a proper word, and that word sounded like "Hello".....or more accurately, "ell  owe"!

This managed to 'wake' us both up with a start convinced we had heard the possible beginnings of a first word!

Alas, this would then prove to be a one hit wonder as no matter how many times I uttered "Hello" at Ella she would look at me with utter bemusement, bordering on pity.

A day or so later I was delighted and chuffed to little mint balls when, after months of signing to her (ok, maybe not as much as I should have been...) she finally reciprocated, and while having her evening bath, signed the word "Duck".

This is not so a one hit wonder but more a daily flapping of the hands as she continues to sign the word for duck and has even muttered a duck, or "Dok" sounding word!

What joy, we may even end up with a sentence..."Hello Duck" .....oh dear maybe not!!!

I'm back

Can't believe it's been over a year since I last wrote on this blog.....I suppose I've been quite busy!!!

Ella is now 6 ½ months old and occupying almost all of my time but I'm hoping to get back to writing this blog and hopefully creating new pieces!! Wishful thinking!!!