Ta-dah! Mini quilt for my Nan x

Finally I have finished the mini quilt made for my Nan's birthday and it's in the post to her, so she should get it today when they return from having a few day's away.

I hope she likes it, I've sewn a few mini curtain/blind rings on the back for her to hang it up somewhere. I've said she can put it up somewhere that people won't have to look at it too much if she wants! 

I used a paper-piecing template that my auntie gave to me and used fabric that I had bought at The Make Lounge, it did take quite a while... but that was solely down to me being lazy and putting it aside about a hundred times!

I did my best at embroidering a label to go on the back of the quilt for her but the handwriting wasn't as neat as I would have liked but then again, I'm not a very experienced embroiderer!

Rose is becoming a bit of a bean-pole, she seems to be getting taller and taller every day. She's already the same height as my friends little girl that is over two now. I always remember being quite tall when I was a child though so she'll probably end up the same as myself. We had a bit of a disturbed night's sleep last night, as she seems to have caught a bad cold. There was a Lot of runny noses at the Wednesday toddler group that we go to, so I suppose she was bound to catch it off of somebody there..!

Right, I'm off to package up some parcels. I've been having a bit of a clear-out and have sold a load of clothes and things on eBay to raise some funds. But now it's the boring bit of having to get everything ready to post... not my favourite job in the world I have to say!

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Fox's are really going for comfort these day's...

Hi everybody,

It's been a little while since I've shown you a few photo's of what's happening in the garden so  I thought I'd do a quick post with a round up of what's growing out there at the moment.

Due to the mainly rainy and windy weather, it's been quite difficult to get out there to do any real gardening as I can't have Rose out there with me when she's going to get cold and wet.

Last week I was able to spend a good few hours doing solid weeding out there and it was starting to look tidy and under control until we started to get a little (actually quite big!) visitor every night/early morning.

A few mornings ago I came downstairs and opened the curtains at our french window doors to see a huggee fox sleeping on our sun lounger! I tried to scare it away but within a few minutes it returned completely un-fazed by my crazy self jumping, waving and shouting at it. It then began to dig up my flower beds right in front of my eyes! Since then, every morning I come down to find huge holes in my flower beds where it's been digging up my plants and masses of soil knocked down onto the paved ground - just perfect for Rose to traipse back in through the house! (we have cream carpets, very practical! haha)

So I was just wondering, has anyone else has problems with pesky foxes? Is there a way to discourage them from coming into our garden, we don't even have any bins out there for it to be attracted to... I guess I'm just wary of letting Rose go to play outside in the mornings like she usually does when it wasn't scared of me At all! Especially after hearing these kind of stories a while ago...

 

I've finished the mini quilt that I've been making for my nan's birthday present, so I will try and get some photo's taken today before I send it off to her and get a post together showing you the results. :-)

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Oh how time flies!

These day's are just flying by at the moment, I'm shocked every time I look at the calendar and realise we're almost at the end of June. I am now officially 16 weeks pregnant and have a midwife appointment in a couple of day's which I'm really looking forward to as it should be when I hear the babies heart beat for the first time. :-) It's strange not having heard it yet as I had the chance to hear Rose at just 11 weeks last time, after having a bit of a bump in the car and going to A&E to check everything was okay.. which it was thankfully!

Rose is looking so so big these day's... she's even totally got the hang of doing a proper 'high-five'! Sorry about the state of my hands, I'm desperately attempting to grow my nails again but they're still pretty stumpy looking!

We've been enjoying a couple of day's of sunshine in the garden, I'm so grateful we have that outdoor space for her to play in even if it's not a lovely big lawn to roll around on! That day will come along soon enough and at the moment I'm just happy we at least have our little courtyard garden... it must be very difficult when people live in flat with no outdoor space. I think I'd start feeling quite cooped up very quickly..!

Rose is now 17 months old and seems to be going through a phase of early terrible two's behaviour, usually she's such a happy cheerful little girl but recently has been playing up rather a lot. 

My close friend has a little two year old girl that I look after quite regularly (we take it in turns to give each other a little break) and usually the girls are great and play together perfectly so I actually get to relax a little because Rose has someone to play with and isn't bored by herself. 

But then the last two times Rose has been so unlike her usual self, she's been so overly protective over her own toys and not sharing at all, chasing her friend and hitting out/pulling hair - I will add that she wasn't the only one misbehaving at times - I find a lot of the time recently that I just don't know how to deal with her in the right way and for her age. I don't want to be shouting and telling her off all of the time but then also, I don't want to not discipline her enough and then she'll carry on behaving in that way. I mean, how do you make a 17 month old really listen to you and understand that what their doing is wrong. Is it a phase that most children go through? 

It's strange because I was never ever worried about being a good mother when it came to giving birth, caring for a newborn, breastfeeding, being up alllll night... but now that Rose is growing up into a proper little girl I've really started to question what kind of parent I want to be, especially knowing she'll have a brother or sister by the end of the year! I don't want to be a miserable moaning strict mother but then I don't want to be so soft that she doesn't respect me or listen to a word I'm saying. So many things to think about...

Okay, right! Rant over... That's my therapy session over for this evening!

I hope you're all doing well out in blog-land. Tonight I've set my mind to catching up with email replies and blogs that I need to read and comment on.

Lots of love xxxxxxxxxx

A quick peek at what I'm working on...

It's my Nan's birthday soon and I've been busy trying to finish her present in time, I just don't seem to have as much 'get up and go' at the moment and sometimes struggle to find the motivation to get working on things. I have so many WIP's at the moment that I need to get finished!

I started this paper-pieced patchwork quite a while ago now from a template that was given to me by my auntie, I'm making my first mini quilt to hang up on the wall and am struggling to decide how I will quilt it all together.. hhmm...

My friend has just had a beautiful baby and myself with a couple of other friends went round to hers for lunch. I was to provide something sweet for an after lunch treat and I made a chocolate fridge cake... and I have to say it went down Very well! I'm in denial about how many pieces I had myself but it's not I eat it everrryy day.. I would if I could get away with it though! Yum yum... :-)

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend..?! It was a nice sunny one here which makes a change to the Constant rain we've been coping with!

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May round up - Part two (even though it's nearly the end of June!)

Well I'm now 15 weeks pregnant and definitely looking like I have a bun in the oven... rather than just looking like I'd been eating my weight in cake! Everything is going well so far, fingers crossed! Although yesterday and today I am struggling to do anything with my left hand as my wrist feels about as strong as a twig... even typing at the moment is pretty uncomfortable but I will get a blog post written, even if it kills me!! Ray thinks I may have a spot of Carpal tunnel syndrome related to this pregnancy so I'm going to get myself a wrist support tomorrow, it's only in my left wrist at the moment but then again I broke that wrist when I was younger so maybe the bones are still lined up a bit funny..!?

Here are the rest of the photo's from our trip to Dorset, which feels like agggess ago now. Once I publish this post, I will get started on my most recent one which I already have the photo's for...

Nan had Rose for a good few hours on one of the day's when we were back in Dorset so we made the most of the opportunity of a bit of 'just us' time and had a lovely lunch out next to the beach followed but a nice walk.

We were So lucky with the weather and I think our minds went into shock at not having to constantly watch Rose and we both dozed off laying on the beach in the sunshine... very responsibly neither of us had any sun cream on and I burnt my arms quite spectacularly. No tan for me after it all just peeled away! 

We had a lovely walk around Langdon hill and got to enjoy all of the gorgeous bluebells, it was lovely to just be walking with one another on our own for a change as we end up talking about other subjects apart from the usual baby/toddler/rose related things... although, Rose still features in most of what we talk about!

On one of our day's away we drove half way down to Cornwall to meet up with Mum so we could spend a bit of time with her and she could have some quality time with Rose. We had a lovely picnic in the park enjoying the sunshine, it was so hot that we even went paddling in the stream along side the park to cool us down a little. It's really difficult living so far away from Mum when I'd like her to see Rose a whole lot more but hopefully it won't be long until we're living a little closer to her and in the mean time, we get to look forward to a visit from Mum in July. :-)

Our friends Matt and Amanda got married and their wedding was just perfect, absolutely beautiful. Rose was with Nan and Grandad for the whole day and evening so Ray and I really got to enjoy every moment without struggling to keep Rose under control! It's very difficult to get her to stay still and in any one place for any good length of time these day's.

Rose and I had a lunch date around Sarah's a couple of weeks ago and as it had been so lovely and sunny they still had their swimming pool set up. Sarah gave Rose a chance to dip her little toes in the water and she got a taste for the water... 5 minutes later she was in a swimming costume and walking around the pool with myself trying desperately to keep my shorts dry, I was having to stand up very straight!

Ray and I have had a bit of 'date day' instead of 'date night' today as my lovely friend Danielle has kindly taken Rose for the day and in return I will have her little girl on Friday, the girls love having one another to play with. So we've been to the cinema together (Ray has the day off after working the weekend) and I'm now enjoying the piece and quiet before my little girl comes home. :-)

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A quick photo round up of May - Part one

Even though I haven't quite got around to blogging much this month, I've still been taking quite a few photo's so I thought I would get a good load of them on here before they get swallowed up and forgotten in a folder somewhere in my laptop.

I have a really good friend here in Chichester who has 3 kids and her youngest is around 7 months older than Rose. The girls get along like a house on fire, which makes it really handy when either of us needs someone to watch the others child. Rose seems to want to copy everything that my friend's little girl does which makes her try loads of new things faster which is great, I suppose it's similar to when children have older siblings to learn from. It's so funny hearing them have one of their conversations as Rose hasn't really got the 'talking' thing down yet so it all sounds like gobbledygook to anyone listening! The other day at the swing park they were both so impatient to let each other go on the only available swing first, that they ended up going in together. Fortunately they safely wedged each other in and absolutely loved going in together, Rose was actually holding her around her shoulders... so sweet! :-)

Ray had a few days off work so on one day we had a lovely picnic in the park and had a trip to the beach in the afternoon. When we got to the park Rose was sleeping in her buggy and I thought we'd have trouble with her running away from us as soon as she was up and active but fortunately she was more interested in playing peek-a-boo from behind the big tree we were sat next to. :-)

I now have to hide the lens cap from her if I'm attempting to take any photo's though as it seems one of her favourite games is trying to replace the cap whenever I'm pointing the camera at her! Very cute at first and then it gets a little frustrating...!

Here are a few photo's from our afternoon on the beach, it was the first time we went to the beach where she actually just enjoyed playing with the sand rather than eating it. I bought a bucket and spade for her from the Pound shop and it was the bet £1 I ever spent... she must have been playing with that bucket and spade for almost an hour straight!!

It's the perfect kind of beach to take small children to because the sea is really shallow for miles, so you don't have to worry that they're going to get dragged out to sea when only going down for a little paddle. Well that's what I thought until there was a really sad case a week after we were there where a man drowned saving a little girl that got into trouble in the sea. So sad... 

On another completely random note... I don't seem to have been blessed with this whole 'pregnancy bloom glow' that every one goes on about yet. If anything, my skin on my face has gotten a lot worse! I'm starting to feel a bit rubbish about it and was wondering if anyone can recommend the best foundation and cover-up to disguise my current spottiness?! I'm willing to pay a little more than usual if it helps me feel a little better about my skin!! (Sorry that this blog isn't one that only talks about the nice pretty things in my life!)

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