February 28, 2007

WIP Wednesday!

Well its a work in progress everyday really. So here is the start of the massive undertaking of knitting a patchwork blanket and also learning to follow some patterns at the same time. This is proving rather tricky and I am still baffled for the knitting language. But I am happy with my progress so far and I am quite chuffed I have managed the texture one. The balls of wool give you an idea of the colours I am using, although I do need to get some more creamy colours in there I think.

Posted by Maxine at 08:44 PM | Comments (1)

Noclulars

Emily and I made the most of some left over toilet roll tubes yesterday and made these great binoculars (its really funny hearing Emily pronouncing that word!). She really LOVES them and won't take them off. She says she is saving them for when she goes on a mission. Bless :)

Posted by Maxine at 08:37 PM | Comments (2)

February 24, 2007

Finally A Little Craft

Its not much but at least its a start at getting back into the swing of crafting. Last night my friend Susan and I had a craft-bee, its been a very long time since we got together to be creative. We have another ladies craft night booked in for the 16th March so we thought we better get cracking with some ideas. The ladies loved the easter craft we did last year so we thought we would incorporate some easter festivity.

I have to say that the above picture was taken at about midnight after a couple of glasses of wine and lots of giggles. I had such a good night and was in a very silly mood! These are our first attempt at some bunny egg cozies/pouches. The egg kind of fits snuggly inside the bunnies. Susan actually managed to make some felt and make the bunny from the felt in one night - this is the blue bunny. So we may even be able to fit some felt making into our ladies night. There are a few tweaks to make and variations of the bunnies that we would like to do but at least we are on the way.

We also thought we would do a few more simple traditional egg cozies to offer a choice and give people some ideas, especially for those people who are not too good at sewing. I really like this one and the simple shape could be decorated or appliqued in all manor of fashions.

Finally just a little photo of Emily creating a sea picture the other day, when we spent all day in our pyjamas!

Posted by Maxine at 04:56 PM | Comments (3)

February 18, 2007

Happy Chinese New Year

Emily celebrated Chinese New Year last week in school, with singing, dancing and making musical instruments. She really loved the whole concept of this and asked if she could make a dragon when we got home. So here she is making her very own dragon. I have never seen so much glue and glitter used in one go! I am still trying to clean up and everywhere I go I see little pink sparkles. I fear the house is glittered beyond repair!

Today we went to the Chinese New Year festival in Belfast and it was a really great afternoon. I didn't expect it to be as busy as it was and it was completely packed, I could hardly get the pram through the crowds. There was lots of chinese craft, lovely food and market stalls and entertainment. Emily made a little piggy and we sat and watched different dances, singing and of course the dragon dances - which Emily was really excited to see. I typically forgot my camera so I don't have any photos to show. I was really impressed to hear that the whole entertainment side and the show part of the festival was performed by a group from mainland China who had only performed locally before and apparently it was their biggest crowd so far.

We even managed to fit in a trip to the zoo yesterday, to add to this fun packed weekend. We have never taken Emily before and I certainly can't remember the last I went to a zoo, probably when I was young too. I have mixed feelings about zoo's. I know they play a part in conservation but the thought of seeing animals in such confinement just saddens me, but the thought of Emily being able to see the animals is such a big thing. To be honest we were a bit disappointed as a lot of the animals were indoors, probably because of the time of year. We did manage to see quite a lot though but there just wasn't a very positive atmosphere in the place, but then again, maybe its because its winter and also the zoo is all up hill which is hard going with a pram. I still felt a bit uneasy about seeing the animals and I have to say that it was the chimpanzees that really moved me. They just seem to look so knowingly at you and it made me so sad, I almost cried. Zoo's are such strange places I just can't make my mind up about them. When I was pregnant with Emily I was pretty obsessed with watching the programme 'Monkey World' which is a monkey rescue sanctuary based in Dorset, they do amazing work rescuing monkeys from around the world. In fact Warren adopted me an orangutan called 'Gordon' for my 30th birthday, 2 days after Emily was born! I am getting all sentimental now...!

FInally a couple of pictures of my own little monkeys:

Posted by Maxine at 09:16 PM | Comments (1)

February 14, 2007

Oh Valentine

I had all the intentions in the world to do some Valentine creating for my lovely valentine but after a topsy turvy week and getting sick yesterday my plans went out of the window. I think it is the first time I have had nothing to give. Like Ella Fitzgerald the only thing I had to give was love. Sorry for being so rubbish my lovely boy.

Warren left me a lovely card and heart shaped box of chocs to discover under a pile of Harrison's things. Such a romantic at heart. God knows I need chocolate right now!

He also sent me this interesting news story about breastfeeding if anyone is interested go read it:

Breastfeeding 'aids class status'

Posted by Maxine at 05:31 PM | Comments (2)

When Things go all Wobbly

I wasn't going to post this, as my posts are not exactly full of the joys of spring lately. But you have to take the good with bad I suppose and I can't ignore things really. Also some day soon I will be able to look back and feel so much happier that I got through the harder times!

Yesterday morning I got up feeling rather grumpy to say the least. So when I picked Emily up from Playgroup at 12 I decided to go and treat us to a lovely lunch at my local frequented child-friendly cafe. When I got there I was pleased to bump into a friend who I haven't seen lately, so we joined her and her kids and had lunch and a good old moan. I really needed company so it made me feel much better.

We then decided to go to an indoor soft play park, so the kids could have a run around and we could avoid the the chores that awaited us at home. So there I was standing chatting in the play park when I felt my head go all woozy and I started to feel all wobbly. I realised I was having a vertigo episode (I suffered with this for a while a couple of years ago but I haven't had anything since). I had to sit down, I couldn't move my head around without feeling really sick, its a really awful feeling. I had to call my husband to come and rescue us as I didn't think it was safe for me to drive the distance home. I couldn't believe it and I think it was the worst episode I have had. I have no idea what set it off at all.

Meanwhile my friends boy, didn't make it to the toilet and by the time she got him there he had poo everywhere. She had to strip him down, leave him with me, (while I practically sat with my head between my knees!) while she went to buy him pants and trousers. When she got back she was so flustered that she had left the trousers at the check out! Nightmare!

So as you can see it was one of those days. I feel much better today, just a little queasy. Hopefully thats the end of it.

Oh and thank you for your kind words on my last post I really appreciate it. I mean to reply to all my comments and hopefully I will get around to it, but if not at least I can thank you here.

Posted by Maxine at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

February 11, 2007

Rollercoaster Ride

Lately I have felt that my life is just one long rollercoaster ride with no stops. Everything seems just so relentless and intense. Don't get me wrong, I am not spending my days miserable, most of the time I am in pretty good form, but its hard to see the wood for the trees when the days are spent trying to balance the demands of very chatty and busy toddler and an extremely hungry baby. I don't know how some of you do it, or maybe you feel like me too but never mention it. Sometimes its hard to see when there will be a break or how I can fit in me time or even 'us' time for my relationship with Warren. By the time the evening comes I am just so pooped that it takes enormous effort to do anything except watch TV.

I have started to knit the squares for my blanket project and so far have one done! So as you can see its going to be a slow process. I also tried attempting a pattern. This isn't going so good. Just when I thought I had learnt to decipher the knitting language it well went a bit wrong and ended up nothing like it should. I know I am obviously interpreting it incorrectly, but without someone to ask her its hard to know. So I am going to finish the current square and move onto plain stocking stitch (thanks sal) again until my brain can handle the complexity of knitting patterns! I will take a pic and show you how things are going soon.

At least I managed to get out round my friends house on Friday night. My first night out alone. It was just heaven. Grown up chat, lovely nibbles and lots of lovely sparkly wine. I will have to do that again very soon I think.

Keep thinking positively and everything will be fine.

Posted by Maxine at 08:38 PM | Comments (7)

February 08, 2007

Chocoholic

Extra chocolatey cupcakes. Yum.

I just can't get enough enough chocolate these days, so Emily and I made these extremely yummy and addictive cupcakes, then sat down to a cup of hot chocolate with chocolate cookies while they were baking!

Posted by Maxine at 08:08 PM | Comments (2)

February 01, 2007

Squeezing it in

Somehow I have managed to squeeze in a couple of activities with Emily over the past couple of days. This may not seem like a big deal but let me paint you a picture. I think Harrison is going through a growth spurt ( I hear it can happen around 12 weeks and he's 11 weeks). Last night I was breastfeeding him for 3 hours solid and when I say 3 hours I mean it - no break, no falling asleep on my boob pretending, just shear guzzling the whole way - there is only so much I can do and I had reached the end of tether at 3 hours! Today hasn't been much different and every time I leave the room he cries and he's not happy unless he is feeding. I have fallen asleep 3 times today whilst feeding him and Emily has woken me each time with 'Why are you asleep mommy?', 'Mommy there is someone at the door!' and 'I'm hungry'. I am so completely drained.

Anyway yesterday we managed to make pine cone bird feeders. These are so easy to make and a lot of fun. Simply tie some string to a pine cone, cover it with peanut butter and roll in bird seed. It couldn't be simpler.

We also got some small pots and potted up some baby daffodils for Daddy to take to work.

Then today we had a short exercise in concentration. Emily is still a scribbler, sometimes she draws shapes but mostly she doesn't have the focus and scribbles away. I don't mind about this and I am an advocate of letting children find their own way through creativity, drawing and painting so as not to suppress their imagination, but I thought Emily needed to learn a little focus and concentration. So I sat beside her and drew various things, involved her in what was going on and encouraged her to do a drawing too, one step at a time. This is a man walking a dog on some grass with a lovely sunshine. I think she did well.

Posted by Maxine at 05:34 PM | Comments (3)