Birthday Gifts

Happy Birthday gifts to take with us to see special people tomorrow.
My homemade gifts challenge is proving challenging but I am enjoying making them. I think it has motivated me somehow to get the sewing machine out or whatever gift I make and getting on with it instead of putting things off and dashing out to the shops at the last minute.
I do owe a gift for my Daddy but as he is understanding he wont mind waiting until it is made.

I am going to tuck little people into their beds and then wait for Hubby to get home, well atleast there is a man who sometimes appears at the breakfast table and I am sure he lived here once over but for some reason someone called "Work" seems to be taking him away from here.
On a good side I get to have the remote and watch my TV without moans of "What are you watching this crap for ?" ha ha ha..

"Magic"

My son asked me ages ago to make him a cape fit for a Magician. I just so happened to have the perfect fabric for it so just needed to get some plain black for the outside. I used an old Asda cape we bought for Halloween a couple of years ago as a template to get the right size. The only problem was the purple fabric stretches and slips around so I found it difficult to sew and so is not quite as perfect as I would have liked but hey the magician is happy so that is all that counts.

Here we are and every self respecting Magician knows he has to wear Ben 10 jarmies with his cape.
Even with magical purple sparkly stars

The purple fabric has gold sparkly bit on and they are quite bumpy in texture, not sure that my sewing machine fully appreciated them and its protests were heard.

Happy Magicians all round.

I am sat here this evening on my own, everyone is tucked up warm in bed apart from me. There is no noise or distractions just me, the dog and the lap top. I had a conversation with my Mum today (on my beloved phone) and she was telling me that my uncle has aksed if I would like to have his oil lamp which belonged to his late wife. This got me talking about my childhood, I used to go with my Dad for a walk that seemed such a long way for such little legs (but was infact just up the road) to go and get parrafin to be used in the lamps at home. I was only born in 1975 so I am not exactly old, LOL.. Our home didnt have any electricity at all so we relied on these lamps for light. Now when I see a lamp or smell the smell of parrafin I am yet again about 5 years old walking with my Daddy. I cant wait to get this lamp from my Uncle, it has certainly come to the right home and will be treasured and used forever.

I feel the urge to add more simplicity into our life, I think that things have got a little crazy around here recently. I feel that the children are in need of more quality time with their parents to learn and experience things that with the day to day busyness of our life are getting put to one side. I want to teach them things that they wont learn in school, I want to lay back on the grass and watch the clouds float past, to cook, bake, sew and tell stories to one another. I am all too aware that my daughter is getting older and I want her to look back on these days and say "Yes, we did that". My son needs to get out of the house on a daily basis, he has so much energy and he needs to work it off. He loves bird watching so we need to spend more time just sitting back and watching.
Both of the children like to help out in the kitchen so we have been cooking up a storm. We decided that on a Wednesday evening the children could cook dinner (with supervision), I may change the day later but it is fitting in quite well at the moment. On Saturday I am going to teach my daughter to knit, I have tried a couple of times but we didnt get very far but this time I know we can do it. I will be back later with pictures.

"Operator"

Just look at the loveliness that is my new toy.. It is the real thing, not a replica but an original 700 sesries telephone complete with the original "Ring, ring" of childhood days. I keep drifting back to my Nanny's house, sitting by the fire watching... probably Emmerdale, listening to the tick tock of the clock when the phone "Rings".. He he he... My parents also had one but it was one that hung on the kitchen wall. The sad part is that I keep ringing it from my mobile just to hear it ring...



It takes forever to dial a number on it, no speed dial and it is SO LOUD when it rings.. Oh but so much fun. Can you still dial 100 and get the operator?

Here is a picture of my Belle, I think that she looks a little dazed in this photo but she has just tasted her very first frozen ice pop so was probably on a sugar high or something.

In other news I have shrunk my Hubbys newish expensive wool jumper. Do you know what the bad thing is? The first thing I thought when I took it out of the wash and realised it would fit a barbie doll was "Oooooo project". I mean what kind of wicked wife would see the good side in shrinking ones Hubbys lovely jumper? Especially when the project would be of some kind of crafting thing.
Thank you to the lovely Melanie for this award.. I have to nominate seven blogs but this is the hard part if you ask me. There are so many wonderful blogs out there that i find it hard to narrow it down.

Periwinkle

Green Twins Mummy

Cakes make the world a better place

Smilernpb

Faerie Nuff

I Wanna Be Crafty

And I am going to send it right back to Melanie (probably breaking the rules but since when have I followed the rules?) Ok I give it to these blogs as they inspire me in so many different ways.