Breast!!

I know, I know, here she goes again!!

This is my entry for the Folksy "Make The News" competition;


You can see it and all the blurb here. The brief was to handcraft an item that was inspired by a news item. The story that has struck a chord with me of late is how Facebook have been deleting pictures of women breastfeeding their children from profile pages as they have deemed them 'pornographic' and 'indecent'. You can read more here. I know I always bang on about the same old shit but at least I am consistant!!

The deadline for entries is midnight tonight and voting (as far as I know) is over the weekend. I will be back tomorrow with a link to the blog post on Folksy. I am assuming it will be the same as the Folksy Angel comp where votes are cast by leaving a comment with the name of your favourite. Don't think I'll be as near the top as last time, some of the entries are fab!!

Where have you been all week? I hear you all ask (or not as the case may be)!

Well, I have been stomping around with the pram in the cold burning off all those extra Christmas calories and doing school runs and running a breastfeeding group (a bit quiet this week but it was the first one and we're hoping we'll be busier in future), meeting with Elizabeth's teacher (she's having trouble with her confidence when it comes to maths and I've got some reinforcement work to do with her at home), struggling with a double buggy and two small boys (pics will follow) and singing and playing at assorted playgroups! I have also been highly deprived of sleep as Nathaniel is very unhappy at the moment with his teeth. Nothing seems to be combatting his pain and he cries alot! Still, only four more to go and then he has a full set and hopefully we can get some sleep.

Our bedroom is looking wonderful and we're just waiting for a plasterer and then hopefully we can move back in (and off the futon in the spare room) and then soon after the children's bedroom can be organised and redecorated, woo-hoo!

Daisie xxx

A Good Remedy.....

.....for cold bones from stomping to school and back and playgroup and the supermarket in the sub-zero temperatures; a big deep bubbly bath;



Followed by ten minutes wondering just where does the water go when it leaves the bath....?



A busy day tomorrow as I have an early, half eight meeting with a teacher at school (must make sure I am up early enough to shower and dry hair and find clothes without snot on) and then the very first meeting of "Bosom Buddies" starts at 9am!! Our breast feeding support group is finally underway, am very excited indeed! My CRB is done. Everyone is briefed. Just have to hope that we get some Mums dropping in to chat!

Will be back tomorrow with tales of how it all went...

Daisie xxx

My Life Is Brilliant

My life is pure (ok, stop choking on your coffee!).

I've had a brilliant day today. We all managed to get up and washed and dressed and out of the house on time for school and I didn't shout once! And what is even more remarkable is that I managed to dry my hair rather than sticking it to the back of my head wet!!

Nathaniel and I stopped by the children's centre to wish everyone a happy new year and to pick up the fliers for boobie club which starts on Wednesday. It has been a long time coming and I am really pleased that we can start supporting women in our community to breast feed their children.

Nathaniel has been lonely today and kept going to the stairs to shout for his sisters or his Daddy.

But the upside of this is that I have my cooking buddie back now that there is nobody doing something more exciting in the other room;

I have vaccummed all of upstairs and sorted through the children's drawers and stored away all clothes that don't fit at the mo but may fit one of them in the future, done two loads of washing and hung them up to dry, prepared tonight's tea and done tomorrow's shepherd's pie and put it in the fridge, made the beds, snuggled my son and played boo for far too long and have baked some 'Mummy has really missed you today girls' cupcakes;

And all the while I have been doing this I have been bopping and singing away to music of my own choosing (hence link in title). A little Blunt, a little Morrissey, a little Madonna and the best bit is that Nathaniel is not old enough to object or pass comment as are the rest of my household, hurrah!!

Nathaniel snoozing now so I am just catching up with other blogs and scoffing a big prawn sandwich, mmm!

Some ironing to do and I want to walk up to school this afternoon so the girls can stomp back in the snow, well, sort of a light crusty dusting to the pavement, but this is exciting stuff when you are only 4 and 7! Poor Simon peeled his eyes open this morning hoping there would be at least four foot of the stuff! Poor disappointed boy :-(

Daisie xxx

Recycle, Recycle, Recycle....

What a brilliant day I have had! The children and I pottered around this morning and then made our way to see my friend Alison. Thomas is a little older than Elizabeth and they are great friends, Hannah and Francesca are the same age and are both pink and princess mad! And with her lovely husband around to bring regular refreshment and entertain Nathaniel what more could a girl ask for?!

She gave me all her Christmas cards (she too has done the removal of decorations and a mega clean), I'm hoping for many more bundles from people. I cut the nice fronts whole to make the tags for next years presents and nick the embellishments for new cards, tags and Christmassy collages.

Here's what they looked like when Francesca and I had finished with our scissors;



There's even a musical disc in there too! Wonder which unfortunate person will get that next year?!

And while we were chatting Alison was sorting the washing and she went to fold a pair of her hubby's undies to find that the seat of them was see-through! Now the urge to laugh was huge and we both succumbed to hilarity (especially at this point as Phil was complaining about things in the kitchen cupboards, a thing a man should never do), I felt bad as I'm sure that some of the remnants in Simon's undie drawer are circa 1976! Anyhoo, the laughter brought the man in question in to see what was soooo funny. He went to put them in the bin and I demanded to know if they had a button on, and if so, could I have it? There was a small pearly blue button that is now mine :-)

This prompted Alison to go and get a bag of 'spare' buttons from her bedroom. You know the ones that come in small plastic bags on the inside seam of your posh new cardi/blouse/coat etc. You cut it free and put it 'somewhere safe' only to be unable to find it when said garment loses a button!!

Here they are;

Some of them are very bog standard dark simple buttons but some are very fancy indeed. There is a beautiful mother of pearl one that is just begging for a brooch to sit on. There are also some tiny bags of spare sequins (Alison is very posh!!) and beads too.

These and the little ribbons from the neck of new garments are my very favourite crafty find.

Recycle, recycle, recycle, that's what I say!! And thanks Alison!!

Daisie xxx

Shallow, me?

Just a quick one tonight.

I've been taking down the tree and putting away cards and cleaning surfaces that haven't seen the light of day since the beginning of December! But now the sofa cover has been washed, dried and is back on, the floors have been vacced and mopped I can sleep easy in my bed knowing that I'll be getting up to a lovely shining house in the morning!

I just wanted to share with you all two things that made me smile this week and warmed the cockles of my heart. They sound very silly and shallow but they cheered me up no end!!

Firstly I got a random email from facebook to say that someone had sent me a message (I got myself a facebook page under much pressure from my much younger sister and haven't really looked at it since) so off I went and logged in to see who it was and what they wnated. It was some random guy who had found my page whilst looking for someone else. This is what he said; "You are smoking HOT !!!!! xx" Well! If I could frame it I would!!! *blush* It made me go all girly and giggly!! Simple things make us fat old mothers feel good!

And secondly......... we bought ourselves a Wii last christmas as our 'all family' present and it's brill. This year we got a Wii fit to go with it. Simon, the love has bought me my own 'yoga suit' and some non-slip socks :-) We all piled on (one at a time, they are only small) to be weighed and measured and to take part in silly balance challenges to find out what our fit age is. Simon is old but his Wii age is unbelievable (he did consider taking it back becasue it was faulty). No it wasn't that bad really! The children confused it as it's meant for 'grown-ups' really so just added 20 years to their age. They of course didn't mind in the least. I went on last. It told me I was too fat, this we already knew (although not quite as fat as I had feared). I then went through some terrible balancing tricks that were just tragic and very very hard. I shut my eyes, crossed my fingers and sucked my gut in (like this would make a difference?) while it calculated my fit age. And guess how old I am.........31!! Wooo-hooooooo!!!! This is precisely the age I will be in around three months time! So physically I'm only three months older than my cronological age! Not bad for broken sleep for nearly eight years, several years of nursing night shifts and a bad skin care regime! All that walking to school and running round the park really paid off!!

Can't wait to see how old I am on my birthday after three months of yoga training!

Daisie xxx

Oh, and I almost forgot, Francesca wanted to know what yoga was so I told her very simply that it's a kind of exercise that stretches your muscles and makes them stronger. She looked confused and said; "I thought he was a little green person?" How we laughed! Still bringing a smile to my face!

The First Custom Order For 2009!!

Yesterday saw a lovely chilly walk through the park;

Francesca managed to trick Simon into a little ride;

Nathaniel had a go too (but he only has little legs);

It was a great opportunity for Elizabeth to keep her neck warm with her new scarf;

Blimey, it's like looking in a mirror!! Very scary indeed, she really is a mini-me!

We had fun searching all the trees for their 'secret' carvings. I really like this chick one;

And I recieved a custom hottie order this morning. And here it is completed and ready for delivery;

The pictures a bit naff, I have been practicing with the 'flower' feature on my camera but think it's the awful light quality that is letting me down at the mo.

I trimmed all the pieces over breakfast this morning as we were off to a play centre this morning with Elizabeth's friend Myah and took them along with my pins, scissors and other sewing treasures in one of the best christmas presents I have ever had. This cute little sewing box;

I saw this when shopping with my friend Claire in the run up to Christmas and said how much I liked it. And there it was on Christmas morning under my tree!!

Here's the inside and you can see the yummy baby boots I made just inside;

And here's hoping for many more orders in the coming year!!

Daisie xxx

A New Year, A New Skill

Happy New Year!!!!

I feel like I have been neglecting my blog these last few days but festivities (and a killer migraine) have stopped me getting to the computer. Oh, and the fact that Simon bought me some beautiful bamboo needles! Charlotte bought me some yummy yarn and the rest, as they say, is history!!

Elizabeth has learnt a fabulous new skill. I have been trying to teach her to knit with needles but she finds it so hard and being a bit of a mad perfectionist (don't know where she gets it from) is always disappointed to tears by her efforts. Then I found this and she loved it straight away. She followed the instructions all by herself. Firstly I made her do it with one strand of quite fine yarn without fluff so she could see what she was doing. She has turned this practice piece into a necklace with some ribbon embellishments.

Then she attacked my stash and found a deep purple 'bumpy' yarn and a pink eyelash and knitted them together;



Elizabeth did however stop for a quick snuggle with baby Noah who came to say hi. Am all broody again!!



She continued to knit after tea last night but Nathaniel and I went to bed before six as my head was pounding and the nausea was just too much for me and he was tired not having had a sleep during the day.

Simon was unable to advise on casting off so she resumed this morning;




She did a last few rows to finish the ball of fluffy yarn (didn't see much point in keeping 2 metres) and finished it off!

Ta-Dah;

She has already been back into my knitting bag and is eyeing up some more yarn for another original Elizabeth creation. I fear I have created a monster! A big thank you to Lucy Jackson!!

Have fun whatever you are doing on this very first day of 2009!!

Daisie xxx