Arthur is now a walking 1 year old!

Arthur is no longer my little baby, he is fast becoming a walking toddler!

This video was taken a week before his 1st birthday on the 2nd of December and he's much more confident now, he's walking all around the house.. following me everywhere!! He can turn corners now without toppling over so Rose hardly ever has a moment of peace without him following her and trying to wrestle her! They are definitely ones to enjoy some rough play, if I hear Arthur crying out I'll go into the room their in and check no ones hurt and Most of the time I catch him being rougher with Rose than she is to him. He's finally getting some pay-back time are being pushed around for months by his big sister! 

I've been finishing off a few more craft projects...

I crocheted these maybelle flowers aggess ago with the intention of making them into a garland and then for a month they sat forgotten about while I got on with other things, then when I returned to finish off the garland I decided I'd actually prefer the look of them as a cushion instead. I turned the flowers into the Maybelle squares and then added a slightly floral red backing fabric and I love the way it's turn out. It now has pride of place on my sofa.

I finished off the little cardigan I was knitting for Gem's bump... it's supposed to be unisex as they don't know the sex of the baby but the blue buttons are quite floral.. Oh well, I think they look lovely. Even if the baby is a boy, a little bit of prettiness never hurt anyone! 

I came across my Best ever charity shop find the other day. I never come across items like this usually but I was obviously having a very fortunate day! This crocheted granny square throw/shawl was put in the charity shop by some crazy person and it was priced at only £7.50! I absolutely adore it and it's made with 4ply yarn so must have taken forever to make, I can't believe someone got rid of it!

Last night I finished Rose's Maggie rabbit that I'm going to give to her on Christmas day. I'm super chuffed with her because I'm not very experienced with hand-sewing but the pattern was really detailed and it was actually pretty simple! I love her... 

Our house isn't looking very festive at the moment, as we are currently going with a brown box Everywhere theme this year... we are moving on the 3rd of January (back to Dorset!) and so we are having to pack everything up in the next couple of weeks. We're going to stay with my family for a couple of day's over Christmas so at least we'll enjoy a bit of Christmas cheer there instead!

I'm so exciting about moving but also a little terrified. It feels a bit like I'm going to be starting all over again with the whole making friends thing, I hated not knowing anybody when we first moved here to Chichester but I need to remind myself that it's totally different this time. Now I have the children as a way to meet people and I'm pretty chatty, so I should make some friends quite quickly.. I hope! We have a couple of friends that will live about a 15 minute drive from us but I'd like to get settled and meet some people that live directly in my area too.. Finger's crossed. Wish us luck!

xxx

Granny's favourite.

We managed to take some photo's of Rose wearing her new cardigan this afternoon. I had the cardigan blocking on the floor just outside of the back door and she kept going to check if it was dry yet or not, she'd been desperate to have it on to wear ever since she saw me pinning it out early this morning.

 

In the end she actually only wore in for 10 minutes before saying "Mummy, too hot!" I did warn her it was too warm today to be wearing a cardigan but she wouldn't listen.. she is a very stubborn little girl!

The pattern is available to buy here on Ravelry and the yarn I used was Rooster almerino dk in colour 213 (cherry). I bought the yarn when I was back in Dorset from Bridport Yarn which is a gorgeous shop. I originally planned to knit a jumper for Arthur with the yarn but then I realised the colour was much more suited to Rose and I had other idea's for items I wanted to knit for him anyway. It was Amazing to knit with, glided over my needles and is so super soft now it's knitted up.

 

I've really got my knitting mojo back now...  I can't believe that there were Months when I was pregnant with Arthur that I didn't knit a single stitch! All of that time that I wasted where I could have gotten lovely things made.. ahh well, I must have felt Really tired if it meant that I couldn't face my knitting needles!

xxx

Lots of knitting going on around here...

I've been doing a whole lot of knitting recently. Mainly due to the fact we went away for a week and I had time to knit! Well, more time that I usually get anyway... I went through a few months near the end of my pregnancy with Arthur where I just didn't have the motivation to craft very much. I felt a lotttt more tired than I ever did when pregnant with Rose but that's probably because I was having to look after a Very lively toddler this time round!

This was a slouchy beany hat I was knitting for my Mum for Mothers day. I've finished it now but only took a rushed photo on my phone as I just wanted to get it off in the post to her.. The yarn is Noro Silk garden which I got from this lovely lady in the craft swap shop at the Instagrannies meet-up that was organised by my good friend Sarah. Aren't the colours just gorgeous!?

Isn't it horribly bitterly cold outside at the moment!? It's supposed to be Spring for goodness sake! So anyway, I'm attempting to make the inside of the house seem spring-like by having pretty flowers indoors. 

I just cannot believe the difference between the weather this time last year and now. Come on sunshine, please shine!

I knit a sweet little maroon pebble vest for a lovely lady on Instagram who asked for a vest for her little boy, she's received it now and is happy so that's a relief!

I thought I would quickly show you the granny square cushion cover I finished a few weeks back. I only realised today that I hadn't actually taken any proper photo's of it, so I've done that now and it's gone onto my Ravelry page. I really need to update my projects on there... will have to do it when I get a spare minute!

Rose is currently napping and Arthur is pretty content at the moment so think I will carry on 

knitting a little more of the teeny cardigan that I'm making for my friends baby due in May. I don't have the right size DPN's needed for the arms so I've had to learn the magic loop method through youtube today. I have to say I'm finding it a little fiddly but then I suppose I found double pointed needles fiddly in the beginning too, I just need to get used to them.

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A very soggy Saturday.

I have to say, the weather is starting to really get me down. It pretty much hasn't stopped pouring today and when Rose was awake from her nap and we could have gone to the park, it was raining so heavily that it would have been ridiculous to even attempt to get out the door.

We ended up staying indoors allll day, I can't stand those day's when we don't even get outside once. Keeping Rose entertained indoors all day was interesting to say the least! We had great fun making dens though with chairs and tablecloths which kept her happy for a nice amount of time.. the majority of the morning was spent with me doing housework and Rose having much fun wandering around with her toothbrush cleaning her teeth... she has a strange obsession with her toothbrush and if I even attempt to take it off her, she has a huge meltdown! 

These photo's were taken last week during a rare sunny (shock horror!) day... Rose has only just about gained enough confidence to go down the big slide all by herself, before now we've always had to give her legs a tug and hold her hand going down. She's usually always so excited making her way up there but as soon as she sits down she gets scared and changes her mind! So it was a real achievement to see her shooting down the slide all by herself. :-)

We cycled to the park the other day instead of walking and it was really overcast and chill so we were dressed in a few layers... next thing I know, within the space of 30 minutes it was brilliant blue sunshine and was boiling hot! Rose was sweltering so I stripped her down to have a run around... not the helmet though, she loved wearing it Far too much! haha What a funny combination... she's got style I tell you..!

I hope you're all having a wonderful, slightly drier weekend than what we're experiencing here anyway!

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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. :-)

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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

I Am here, really! :-)

I'm sorry my heart hasn't really been in blogging for the last couple of weeks... I've been reading most blogs but have been rubbish at leaving comments! I'm really sorry for that, I'm attempting to catch-up with that though..!

I've just been feeling really tired in the evenings and instead of being my usual night-owl blogger, I've been turning in early! Rose has been waking up most nights again as well which doesn't help matters! 

I'm putting a few posts together to put on my blog as soon as possible but in the mean time I will leave you with a little video of Rose's new found dancing skills.... hahaha. She came home with an old High School Musical toy microphone from Ray's parents house and it has been playing Constantly, it's not driving me insane at all...!

 It's not the best quality video and I'm sorry about the state of my front room, I was looking after my friends little girl and together they both wrecked the place!

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Oh! Just before I go... I was completely chuffed to receive a message on my Etsy earlier on this evening saying I've been included in my first Treasury! :-) My item's are the fabric coasters on the bottom row by the way... you can go and look at they real Treasury here: http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTI2MDkyNDR8MjcyMDIxNzk1OQ/happy-sunday

'Happy Sunday' by sasashandcrafts

Multicolor Soft Pouch egle $20.00	Happy Birthday Yay prettywhispers $1.99	12 Circus Animal Cupcak... KristinesCreat... $15.00	A4 Art Illustration Pri... caitlihne $12.00
Boho Magnesite and Cora... guadalupeferre... $58.00	Plush Giraffe Toy "... majababy $9.00	Cuff links "Anchor... VisitingCINDER... $24.00	Broken Vintage Jadite P... DesignedToChar... $20.00
Boutique Childrens Hair... RessieLillian $20.00	Vintage 80's - Brig... CharmingNature $8.00	Coral Color Burst Earri... WestiemomX2 $10.00	Balls of yarn 8x10 phot... reflectingbeau... $30.00
Blue and White Pearly T... acwmade $25.00	Easter Treat Pocket Gif... SissysPlace $4.00	Set of 4 fabric coaster... HomemadeCountr... $7.00	Polymer Clay Necklace ... MoobieGraceDes... $28.00

Treasury tool supported by website usability testing

Now that's a lotta stripes!

I'm currently half way through knitting the second sleeve of the little jumper for my friends new baby. I've never knitted stripes before but it's actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be... although having two balls of wool on the go at once, I do keep getting them all tangled around each other!

Rose had two of her friends around this afternoon for lunch, along with their mums who I'm good friends with. They all tired each other out, along with us Mums too! Rose went down for a nice long sleep after they left, I think I could actually have done with going down for a nice nap myself! I took the opportunity to get some sewing done though... my Mum's coming to visit tomorrow for the weekend (Yay!) and I'd like to finish what I'm working on before she gets here if possible.

We've been having a lot of family time together at one of our local parks... that girl Loves the swings! Whether it's on her own in the baby swing or on either one of our laps..!

We hadn't been to this park before and so Rose enjoyed discovering this purple tunnel to climb through... 

lots of new experiences every day!

We have some lovely neighbours and the elderly couple next door are always interested on how Rose is getting on, they gave her the sweetest little toy for her 1st birthday. I regularly have a chat with them when we're all out in our garden's (we live in a terrace house) and Rose can never quite understand how she can see someone through our fence in the garden. She always seems to get the giggles when I'm talking to them out in the garden and she spots them through the gaps in the fence. The other day she offered me some old toys and books that she used to have at her house for when the grandchildren came to visit, it was a lovely thought. :-)

Right, Rose is currently enjoying a little post-nap Cbeebies and a little pot of mini cheddars and she's nice and quiet... so I'm going enjoy a few more minutes of sewing!

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