Cupcakes for Clara

dear matilda

Last week you turned one. Wow. One. How did that happen? 

Everyone told us that it would go too quickly and boy were they right. It doesn't seem long enough ago that you were a squishy little thing, just born and helpless.

And now look, you have shed your baby skin and blossomed into an amazing little girl. 

Oh what big beautiful eyes you have! 

You amaze us every day with all kinds of wonderful things. It isn't always a big thing, but there is always something. 

The way you smile. And giggle at the strangest things, like wriggly toes.

Waking up in the morning and throwing your arm around me, planting a big kiss on my lips, and then grabbing daddy's phone to see the screensaver photo of yourself. 

The way that blowing bubbles makes you eat more food.

How you can walk perfectly well by yourself but much prefer to hold one of our hands. 

That you love Octopus Socktopus and Elephant Wellephant so so much.

The voice you have only for when you are reading books out loud to yourself. And the way you love to turn the pages and not let daddy help.

That you love to cuddle and really squeeze tight as if it is your favourite thing in the world. 

The way when daddy said that the stairs were too steep for you, you proved him wrong by taking them two at a time.

The way you try and climb out of the bath because your wizzy frog makes you nervous.

Loving little yellow ted so much since your first day of nursery when we sent him in with you, but never before. 

That you only just started putting your toy phone to your ear to speak - you usually put it over your eyes. 

That you do everything with such gusto. You put your all into everything.

How you seem to have developed a fascination with trying to put lids back onto their bottles.

That you say baby whenever you see a photo of a baby, or an actual baby.

The way you dance to music all the time especially to your favourites like Ray Lamontange, Tom Petty, Django Reinhart, and Billy Joel. And to your baby walker when it says let's wiggle.

And that you smile and chatter and giggle and shout and talk and bash things and get cross and dance and bounce on the bed and walk and eat bananas all the time.

My dear sweet Matilda you truly amaze us. And you make us smile every day - what could be more wonderful than that? 

Happy birthday my little one  x x

space

When the project becomes too big for the dining table, it's time to move to the floor.

The thing is I don't think that the project was actually too big, maybe just that I'm not entirely good at keeping things neat. I like to think that I'm neat. And organised. But it's slowly dawning on me that it really isn't true! 

Although I do try and keep my moleskine at least a little bit tidy. 

when breakfast and art meet

... crayons end up in the porridge.

nearly finished

holiday crafts

Woop Woop! Look what arrived through my letterbox this week.

 

The 2009 issue of Holiday Crafts magazine. 

And would you like to take a peek at what's inside?

 

You can learn how to make your very own Christmas pudding fattie. I had done the work so long ago for the magazine, that I had almost forgotten it was going to be published. It's an American magazine that's part of the Better Homes and Gardens group. If you are a UK-er like me, I'm pretty sure that you can pick up a copy in Borders. 

Happy fattie making! 

And if you don't fancy making a pudding fattie, I do believe that you can buy a very lovely one here!

catching up

There have been so many posts I have been meaning to make lately but alas they haven't made it onto the screen. We've all been poorly with a nasty tummy bug (of the vomiting variety) and so the poor old blog has not been top priority. 

Unfortunately the bug coincided with Matilda's first birthday. We had taken a pre-birthday holiday to Kenilworth. We got ill on the second day and couldn't make it home for M's birthday. But all of her presents were at home, as were the pre-booked Chester Zoo tickets for our special day out. Instead, poor sweetheart - oh what a birthday - poorly parents and no presents. 

It turned out fine of course, and we made it home the next day. But on the actual day we had nothing except for two presents (thank you funny granny, grandad, and joss), a paper tablecloth,some napkins, and a whole bunch of bright drawings we stuck around the room. You know what - she loved it!!

Unfortunately even the birthday crown I had made was still at home. So what could I do but make a speedy paper version!

Oh but look, I've wandered from the point. I just wanted to say that I'll be posting the posts I'd planned to write anyway, even though they are a little late. I think that I'll put them all up over the next couple of days - so expect lots of catching up! 

teddy bear

This little bear turns one next week. Can you believe it? I certainly can't. 

We wanted to do a small something to celebrate, so we're having a teddy bear's picnic birthday party. And what do you need for a birthday party? Why, invitations of course!! 

They were ever so simple to make, and if you're interested I could make a downloadable template. 

Another little lady is in the celebrating spirit at the moment - her christening was this weekend. I wanted to make her a keeping gift that had a feeling of the invitations. 

 

It's a door hanger for her bedroom. Look carefully at the door handle that it is hanging from - actually the lack of door handle. That's our living room door. The handle fell off about a year ago and we can't get it to stay back on. We still use it to open the door, it's just that now it lives on the stairs or, more recently, the dining table! 

Let's hope Eliana has more luck with her door handle!