Tree-Parkour?

So, we went to our local country park again yesterday, it was lovely.  No pictures, blogger fail as I forgot my camera and my phone is shamefully at capacity for images!  As I'm sure I've said before we don't get much time during the week to do much of anything as a family and when we do have that one day a week it usually rains (thank you England).  We had a little picnic, went to the park there, got icecream and got well and truly lost on one of the nature trails that was pushchair friendly.  It was just far too hot to be carrying Freya in the Connecta but we did find that the Babyjogger pushchair was just awesome on the rocky trails.  Saw a guy doing what I can only describe as tree-parkour... is that a thing?  Or is it just running down cliffs into trees and jumping off in a forest?  Well, either way it looked awesome, and brought me to shame huff-puffing up the hills through the forest haha.  I'm so unfit which I'm hoping to change very soon.  We're off on holiday in twelve days (and counting) which I'm ecstatically excited about - I promise I'll be taking pictures there.  After that a new leaf is going to be turned and I'm going to be getting super dooper fit.

Today I

Today I broke down at a Google advert.  Yup, I'm that person.  God knows, how our children are so precious.  And we're all somebody's child.

The events of the past few days have been harrowing to say the least - a young man, too young, lost his life yesterday.  He was essentially at the time a civilian walking along the street.  And by civilian I mean that he was just like any other person walking along and going about his business.  I'm sure we all know the details of the crime so I won't go into them but it really brings home how precious life is.  The men who committed this murder claimed that they wanted to start a war in this country.  There is no war.  There is no war here, only a handful of extremists, fanatics.  And it saddens me that there are people on the "other" side of the fence who are ready to retaliate.  Against who?  Against innocent people so far separated from the real criminals here.  For me?  I lump the two into the same category.  Those British people who are waging war against people who share a religion with the murderers may as well walk arm in arm with them as far as I am concerned.  They want nothing more than to simply hate and to find a reason, any reason, to hate.  I for one, will hold my children closer, and think of the poor child left fatherless, and then on to all of the children left parentless by mindless violence.

I'll hold my children close, cherish the days I have with my young family, appreciate my family around me and the friends that I hold dear.  I have some truly amazing friends and I don't spend enough time making memories with them or making it known that I love them.  Some true friends that have stood by me through the years through difficult times and good ones.  I'll think hard about what it is exactly I want from life, in addition to all that.  I'll think hard about what I can do to improve myself as a person, and put a little more good in the world where there is so much hatred.  I'll be spending time living my life to the full.

Little Things

I really need to go find me some dandelions.  It's such a strange thing to be caught between far too busy to do things and far too bored with nothing to do.  We're far too busy as a family - now that I'm working after maternity leave has ended and Tom's hours are a bit sucky too, we have one day a week to do things as a family.  The rest of the time us girls are limited to how far our little leggies can carry us or how far the bus goes if we're lucky enough to be let on (damn buggy limits).  I'd much rather do things as a family but for now we spend our time wisely.  I've never hated running errands so much as they take up far too much valuable time!  But yes, I'm going stir crazy with all our bad weather.  Hopefully summer isn't teasing us today and we'll be off out somewhere nice seeing things on our day off this week.

Our Girly Girl

Miss Katie Sofia:

Somehow a girl like me, a bit of a tomboy as a kid, ended up with a very girly first born.  Katie's got a massive thing for ballerinas and fairies right now, so all twirly looking dresses are ballerina dresses.  She does little twirls and kicks and has a love for Happyland fairies.  She also loves pink.  I do wonder whether Freya will be the same - I think all little girls look up to their big sisters.

Freya is doing much better now and has cut her very first tooth while propping herself up on all fours for the first time.  She's been practicing rocking back and forth, but I think she'll be walking before she crawls.  At the rate she's going she'll probably be walking before she actually sits properly.  She's just in such a hurry to go places.

Katie's doing brilliantly too, she's taken to drawing (not on the walls just yet though, give her time!) and loves drawing faces, zig zags and circles.  She's doing really well with her reading considering her age - she can read numbers 4 and 5 and the letter x.  It's something!  I keep trying to get her to write the letter K but she's probably a bit too young as she's not having any of it.  She's started counting all the way up to thirteen, misses a few then counts from sixteen to twenty.  Clever sausage.  I'm very proud of both of my clever little girls.

Poorly Pud

Our dearest, darling little baby daughter Freya fell ill on Wednesday suddenly. With her temperature soaring to 40.5 degrees she was hospitalised with a nasty infection. I've never quite felt so helpless as when my little girl was hooked up to a drip and crying and clinging to me for an entire night. I spent a lot of time rocking, shushing and holding my baby close, and watching helplessly as she was prodded and poked with needles. My heart broke a million times over as she looked at me crying with those pleading eyes. She's most definitely on the mend now thankfully.

And there is that word, "thankful". Staying on a childrens' ward for a few days has truly opened my eyes to just how lucky I am to have happy, healthy children. I can't imagine how hard it must be to have to keep returning and know that your child may never recover from a condition or illness they may have. I'm most definitely going to make the best of all the time I have with my children, and in my life in general from now on.

She's been allowed home for the first night in four nights but we're back to the ward tomorrow first thing for a scan and some blood tests. Fingers crossed that it's good news and she can be discharged and come home properly!

Life and Such

Ahh, I can almost smell Spring on it's way, but not quite.  I'm sick of grey skies and rain and sudden temperature dips.  Freya is ill, bless her.  I'm not sure exactly what she's got but she's running a horrible fever and sleeping a lot.  I think I'm at a turning point in life in general and things are a little bit fuzzy.  It's touch and go.  I need to motivate myself a little (lot, hell of a lot) more and get moving and do everything that ought to be done.  I've been thinking about accomplishments and thought about entering the Race for Life this year and then using the excuse of unfitness (horribly unfit!) and putting it off til next year.  My name is Captain Procrastinator.

Catching up

Wow I'm a really bad blogger!  I daren't even look at what the date was the last time I wrote something.  Is it a sign life has been hectic?  Well things are certainly changing here.  A new schedule for Tom and I've just returned to work after being away on maternity leave for nine months mean we're missing out on a lot of time as a family which is really sad.

I finally got my name banners finished for the girls only to find that I've got requests for them!  Yay!  So far I've done seven of them and I'm actually starting to really love stitching and embroidery.  It's really surprising as I'd always hated sewing because I was so bad at it.

You can catch my designs at Apple Felties, I've got big plans for my rather large felty stash - thinking up all sorts of ornaments!

A little bit of everything

So while the blog still lies in tatters because of  "DON'T TOUCH IT, IT WILL BREAK", I thought I'd carry on blogging away.  I've become well and truly hooked (I know, I know, I used that one before) on my blanket and am knocking out the rows faster than you can say "potato".  Except not.  It's now taking me around forty minutes to do a single row, as it's essentially one big granny square, but I intend on carrying on til I run out of yarn even though it's currently around the right size for a pram blanket for Little Pudding.

I was messing around with Tom's DSLR again so here's another progress shot!

It's very addictive to see it coming together, all the symmetry, those beautiful bright colours, aaaah!  I'm already planning all the other projects in my head, I'm going to be swamped in blankets before I know it.  I want to do a granny stripe, a proper granny square blanket, a ripple... I'm going to end up with a serious RSI with all this hooking coupled with making jewellery!  I'm eyeing up all sorts of inspiration around me and exploring colour schemes in things around the house.  Even looking forward to Spring with all it's delicate flowers and things - I usually hate the Eastery kind of colours but I think they'd look beautiful in a blanket.

This is the view from the window at the moment.  This used to be a wasteland kind of scene when we moved here, with evil looking bare trees scattered around the building site.  We actually have a few new neighbours as you can see!  The snow is pretty to start with but I'm getting stir crazy stuck in the house with the kids (of my own choosing, I'd prefer them to be warm at home than out in the cold so much).  We spent a little while making a rather deformed snowman and discovering the joys of neighbouring cat poop under the snow (bleugh) but it's time for the snow to go away now!  I can see you there in the clouds waiting, off with you!

Since kids move around a bit while you're trying to take photos of them I thought I'd use this little lady as my model.  Her name is Mayu and she's an Alice du Jardin Pullip.  They're gorgeous little things with such attention to detail.

If only they made such gorgeous clothes for us eh?  Well they do actually, but I think I'm a little too old to pull off the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright look.  I suppose I'll have to live vicariously through Mayu for now.

And finally Freya's Cath Kidston teddy.  It's really tiny and cute.  I've done Amigurumi before (I'll show you another time) but these stitches seem so precise.  I'm not sure how I feel about mass produced things masquerading as handmade unique items.  I know there was a period when high street shops seemingly trawled through Etsy systematically plagiarizing designs.  Oh my big words.  Anyway, this bear is still cute as anything and I'm still a sucker for anything Cath Kidston so meh.

Excuse the mess!

I may have broken the blog a little bit and had to start all over again.  Maybe.  Possibly.  The good news is I managed to salvage my posts so all is not lost.  It doesn't look too pretty and I'm without any kind of image editing software at the moment - I've changed computers and all is nightmarish!  Hopefully I'll be able to get everything back to normal (or better) soon but until then you'll have to endure weird titles with fuzzy outlines and a strange layout :D

A confession

Yes, sometimes I just don't blog because I don't take good pictures.  Remember what they always taught you in school?  "Don't judge a book by it's cover."  Well, they were wrong.  I need to take more pictures.  In the meantime while I knock the dusty cobwebs from the DSLR, I photoblog with my fuzzy iPhone camera in bad light at Blipfoto.

Stalled

I'm sure you know, it's snowing everywhere in England.  Tiny sniffles mean we're not out enjoying the snow but never mind because I'm waiting in for a VIP (read - very important package) ;)  It does sometimes feel like everything is grinding to a halt when it snows - I'm not sure how a pushchair would fare and I'm not too confident about babywearing in the snow.  I can just imagine toppling over the squishing poor little Freya.  It does look rather grey and dull though - I guess we've got a lot more snow to come!

I'm progressing well with the First Blanket as it will now be known but I'm not all too sure when to stop.  I'm indecisive like that.  Do I keep it as a baby blanket?  Make it bigger so it's a toddler blanket too?  Make it into a throw?  So many options.  I suppose I'll know when I get there!  I haven't made jewellery for quite a long time now but I'll be getting back into that soon thanks to a Mothers' Day craft swap I'm taking part in.  It's my first ever craft swap so I'm quite excited - I've already been asked for my favourite colours (by my secret crafter).

Hooked

See what I did there?

The pretty wool finally arrived, and just in time for the event of me finally mastering the granny square!  I hadn't got anything in mind specifically for this wool so it's all a happy coincidence.  I've got straight to work on a blanket,  my first one and so far I'm really pleased with the progress.  I've had the wool less than 24 hours and already have 19 rows complete.  I tend to get a little addicted when I start something and can't drop it 'til it's finished.  I guess that was always the appeal of jewellery, it's so easy to finish a piece in a couple of hours at most.

Busy, busy!

I've most definitely got the crafting bug again.  I've got a lovely project in the works for my girls involving felt and letters, more on that later, but I'm also conjuring up all sorts of plans for using the rest of the masses of felt I have for this!  I've also got a package of beautiful wool winging it's way to me soon, so I'll be getting the crochet bug again soon.

I've decided to give photography another go - I think I gave up a little when I discovered how easy it is to Blip from the iPhone!  Anyway, I'm fast discovering that kids are hard to keep up with when you're fiddling with the focus on a lens, but practise I'm sure will make perfect.

Freya aged 5 months

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how this one turned out!  I'm getting slightly frustrated at how much the camera depends on a natural light source though, I'll have to investigate that further.  Watch out for updates on my little project - I need a few bits including sequins and ribbon - watch this space!