I almost forgot to show you...

This is my slightly late Mother's Day bouquet of flowers, we were away on Mother's Day so I only got a card on the actual day. The card is always the most important bit but a little pressie is always nice isn't it! Especially after all the sleepless nights I've had recently...!

But Ray came home the other day with this gorgeous bunch, didn't he choose well!?

Look at the size of the carnations, amazing!!

So, if your reading this (he does tune in occasionally!) then thank you very much my lovely xXx

I went on my first bike ride of the year today with Rose whilst Daddy was at work and was shocked at how much more difficult it has got to ride with little miss heavy lump on the front! The last time I rode with Rose was around October time I think and Oh my! She has definitely grown! 

I've given myself the target of going for a ride at least once a day if possible, I Need to get fit! I do walk a lot but I felt sooo un-fit trying to peddle up those couple of hills today. We live very close to the city centre so there's no reason why I can't run some errands with Rose on the bike with me, as long it's not when she's due a nap... napping on the front of a bike isn't that easy, so I've heard..!?

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Giveaway goodies through my letterbox!

A little while ago I won a giveaway over at Rosie Hearts and then forgot all about it until I got a very exciting email in my inbox saying my my prize was on it's way to me in the post.

I'm completely over the moon with my new sunglasses case, it's sewn together perfectly and look how neat that freehand writing is! Amazing!

My glasses have gone straight inside it and I'm glad to have got rid of my old scuffed case. :-)

Thank you very much!

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Ta-dahhh! Rose's knitted dress.

I finished knitting Rose's dress whilst we were in Wales (lots of photo's to follow!) and I've had it on the side ready to take some photo's of since we got back, I only just got my act together and took the photo's today though! 

It's knitted using this pattern from Ravelry and it was really quite a simple project. Sometimes it's nice when a pattern is so easy to follow because then I enjoy the whole knitting process a whole lot more. Plus I can't be dealing with counting millions of stitches when I'm trying to keep an eye on the little munchkin as well! :-)

I got a whole lot of this lace ribbon for a really great price and also the buttons while we were there too, so I was able to completely finish it off.

I'm really happy with how it's turned out. It's still a little big for Rose but will be perfect for her in the Autumn and that works out well because it's more of an Autumn/Winter dress anyway. The yarn is Debbie Bliss Fez, I got it at a bargain price when it was down to half price just after Christmas. 

I still have some left over so I'm trying to think of what I can do with it... I've got so many odd 50/100gram balls of wool that I need to use, does anyone have any idea's for some nice knitting/crochet patterns that only call for 1 or 2 balls..?

So, what do you think..?!

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An afternoon in the park.

After going into town this afternoon to get a few things done, Rose and I took a little de-tour and went to a lovely gardens here in Chichester. 

There wasn't a cloud in the sky... I wonder how long this lovely weather will last for. My garden's looking a little thirsty, it could really do with some overnight rainfall! I'm not complaining though as we've been soaking up as much of the sunshine as possible. We didn't get into town until the afternoon due to us both having a nice lazy morning at home.. a certain little lady was up and wide awake from 1:30am until 4am last night. WIDE awake... I mean running around the front room shrieking awake. It doesn't make sense, the last two days she hasn't had her afternoon nap so I thought she'd be extra tired but it doesn't seem to make a bit of difference..! On the bright side I got to watch two episodes of Grey's Anatomy that I had recorded on the Sky box, they were very good episodes too. :-)

I thought it would be a nice opportunity to take a few photo's of Rose in the gardens... how can it be So hard to get just one photo of her smiling at the the camera!? She just giggles and runs around shrieking with laughter at me! haha

I like these photo's just as much or more though because they capture the real moments, not just a posed cheesy smile.

She's definitely becoming more and more of a handful each and every day! She's now really independent when we go to places like the park or playgroups, she'd happily wander off and get into all sorts of mischief! But she's now also become really affectionate towards me which I'm loving, she'll have a wander and then suddenly rush back to me and climb up on me for a cuddle. I suppose most toddlers go through phases like this now and again...

I realised there's a back entrance into the gardens which is really close to our house so I think we'll be popping back there a few more times while the weather is this beautiful.  :-)

I really should go to bed now, just in case we have a repeat performance of last night!

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Friday afternoon fun.

We planned to have a barbecue this weekend as the weather is so lovely here on the south-east coast of England at the moment but we still hadn't got our own one for this garden. So in a spare moment from work at lunchtime ray popped down and picked us one up. As you can see, Rose was in heaven having the thing in a million pieces on the front room floor... she gave it a good go but in the end Daddy had to take over to put it together.

We had my some friends round for a BBQ yesterday afternoon and it was really lovely. I took some nice photo's but when I went to look at them last night, I realised I had made the ultimate photography mistake and hadn't put the memory card in the camera! SO annoying!

We're having some of Ray's family around today for Another barbecue... it seems we've caught the barbecue bug! But it makes sense to be out enjoying the garden as much as possible whilst it's so warm and sunny. We've constantly got the french doors open to the garden at the moment and Rose is loving exploring everything out there.

I've been busy on the sewing machine sewing a few bibs for Cuckoo. I'm really happy with how their turning out, I hope she likes them! :-)

Right, I'm off to start preparing for today's BBQ! I hope your all having a lovely weekend and the weather is nice wherever you are...

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A week away so time to catch-up.

We've been away for the week and only just seem to be getting back into routine now even though we got home on Sunday night! 

It doesn't help that Rose is suffering with teething at the moment (sorry if it seems like I'm constantly going on about it!), I swear she's got about 4 different teeth all trying to come through at the same time. I've tried all kinds of things to relieve some of the pain for her but nothing seems to make her much happier at night time. Someone suggested Anbesol but Boots is out of stock so we've ordered some online, desperate measures for desperate times! Last night she woken at almost exactly every hour and a half.. finger's crossed tonight is a different story.

This was my Mother's day present for my Mum, it's a bookmark in case anyone was wondering..!

She said she really liked it, so I was happy with that. My freehand sewing on the machine definitely needs some practise though!

I found this cute little red heart button in my button collection and think it makes it look quite cute.

These were my daffodils from Sarah which she gave to me before we went to Gems for lunch last Monday. Aren't they gorgeous?

I love the way daffodils seem to bring the Spring inside your home when you have a bunch of them in a vase somewhere and their such good value for money usually. 

I thought I'd show you the house plant my Nan gave me when she came to stay, isn't the colour lovely..?! I was very relieved to see it hadn't died on me when we arrived back home on Sunday night, fortunately I had remembered to water all of the plants well just before we left...

The garden's looking a lot more 'alive' these days, it's lovely having a bit more colour out there.. I'll miss this garden so much wherever we move next, I think it's just because it's my first proper outdoor space but according to Nan she's going to help me move Every possible plant with us to our next garden so at least I won't have to start our all over again! haha

Right, time for bed! I'd reallllyyy love a whole nights sleep, nothing would make me happier in fact!

Time at the beach and a bloggy friend meet-up!

Good evening everyone, I hope everyone's had a lovely day. 

It's been beautiful weather here the last few day's and we've been out making the most of the sunshine. 

Yesterday after our Sunday lunch, Rose (and Ray!) went down for an afternoon siesta and strangely they both woke at exactly the same time. The weather was still really great outside so we quickly packed a bag, made a flask of coffee and we headed down to West Wittering beach.

We haven't been down to the beach with Rose for quite a while, not to this particular beach since September when she wasn't even crawling yet! It was so enjoyable to just watch her exploring and taking it all in, the day's of eating handfuls of sand seem to have passed thankfully but she still managed to get it all around her face while attempting to chew on a pebble or two! Yummy!

We've got two wedding's coming up that we're going to and Rose's party dress is red so we wanted to see if we could get some shoes for her that would look a little better than her scuffed-up pink toddler trainer type shoes. We ended up going to Clarks to see what they had and thought we may as well get Rose's feet measured again whilst there. Well, they'd grown! She's not even 14 months yet and she's got size 5F feet! Somehow I think she may be quite a tall girl when she's older..! She now has some very pretty mary-jane shoes that look far too grown-up for my liking!

Here are just a few more photo's to show you of our time at the beach... as you can see, I'm still loving my camera's as much as ever. I don't know what I'd do without it now..! I'm looking into different lenses I could get for it now, I really love the photo's I see on people's blogs where the background is blurry behind the figure in a photo. I think this is called Bokeh..?! Can anyone tell me what kind of lens I need to get this effect? My camera is the Canon EOS 550D... I'd be ever so grateful for Any advice! :-)

Rose and I had a lovely day out today, Sarah came to mine first and then we headed over to Gem's house where Annaboo was also waiting for us with their children. I say 'waiting' as they really did have to wait quite a while for us to turn up... Trust there to be a hugggggeeee stand-still traffic jam on our way there, a journey that should have taken 35 minutes took us 2 hours and 20 minutes!! Rose actually coped really well with being strapped in all that time, usually she's not great on long car journeys and I was so grateful to have Sarah next to me to chat to! :-)

Gem had put together a delicious lunch and we all had a great time chatting, we'll definitely have to do it again sometime soon but without the traffic jam which would give us a little more time together! Thank you for having us Gem xxx

I don't think I'll ever be an early-bird!

Unsurprisingly I was up and downstairs at 5:30am this morning, this is actually an improvement on how long Rose has been sleeping. The last few weeks she has woken up at least once throughout the night and has been difficult to get back down again. The fact that we have new neighbours who think it's okay to lock their dog outside barking away for hours on end until it wakes up Rose doesn't particularly help though! 

I keep telling myself her current sleeping habits are so bad at the moment due to teething, but these day's it's hard to tell whether it's a cold she's got or just a runny nose from all of those big teeth poking through..! It will be a Big relief when this stage of her growing-up is over... just the teething part, everything else is lovely! haha :-)

So after an hour or so of me sitting on the sofa staring into space with a larrgge strong cup of coffee in my hands, I finally got myself motivated to get on with a few thing's that needed doing. I'm knitting the last few flowers to go on the second tea cosy I'm making, so that's nearly done. Then I got on with a little Mother's Day sewing... we're visiting my best friend on Tuesday night and won't be back until the end of next weekend, so I need to get these things finished.

The post came early this morning which was a pleasant surprise and look what was waiting for me on the doormat! :-)

I haven't completely loved the last few issues to be honest, as I don't really love the hundred's of adverts throughout the magazine and sometimes I don't find the section where they show someones home very interesting. I love looking at the photo's when they're bright and colourful and show lots of crafty things but not so much if it's just someones normal home with nothing relating to craft in the photo's... I don't mean to sound like a complete moaning minnie!

This issue is full to the brim with gorgeous photo's and craft idea's. How cute is this baby hat!?? Awww..

Right, off to get on with a little housework before we head out for the day. I hope everyone has had a lovely start to the weekend and maybe some of you have had a very enjoyable lie-in..!? I think today will be a coffee-fuelled one for me!

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Family, gifts and wool for sale.

My Nan's been here for a couple of day's giving me a hand in the garden so I haven't really been on the Internet much so I'm catching up on a bit of blogging today whilst Rose has her nap upstairs.

It's amazing to think that last year when Nan first came to help me with the garden, I only had a small baby bump and now this year, Nan was constantly followed around the garden by Rose. It was as if she was glued to her legs, wherever Nan went... Rose went too!

We live 2 hours away which means I don't get to see my family as much as I would like.. but in a couple of years when Ray finishes his training we'll move a little further back towards Dorset and I can't wait. :-)

My Mum sent me a gift in the post...aren't these hand warmers gorgeous!? The colours are so beautiful and they're so so soft. I've worn them every day since I received them, thank you Mum xXx

My auntie Lettie has her own blog, Poppy Cottage and she is selling some beautiful organic wool for her friend. Please take a moment to pop on over and read this post. Thanks xx

We've been spending time in the park almost every day recently, here are a couple of photo's for you to see..

We don't have grass in our own garden so Rose seems find being in the park really exciting. :-) I'm so looking forward to the warmer weather when we can spend hours there at a time and she can run around to her hearts content.

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