Nice surprise

(or really dodgy memory, depends on how you look at it!)

I mentioned in this post that I was starting the Scrappy Round the World Trip quilt that blogland has been going crazy over for, well longer than I've known about it.  I'm always last on the scene with these things.  Anyhoo, I knew I'd chosen my fabrics, cut them into strips and had started to sew them together.  Now a little time had passed since I'd done that so I was CERTAIN that I still needed to sew the long strip together but when I finally got my butt in gear I discovered this .....

I've already done that (yay), (I've made one block just to get an idea in my head what my materials look like - it's VERY scrappy!)  Next was cutting the long strips/tubes into 2.5" strips/tubes and then unpick the short strips/tubes so that the blocks have the 'step' look.  Now that all the loops have been unpicked I need to sew them together.  That is tonight's task, well starting them.  Got 24 blocks to do and I seriously doubt I'll get them all sewn in one sitting.  Especially as they need pressed first and I've got to get the ironing stuff out then I really do the slightly large pile of ironing first.  At least then I can sew relatively guilt free!!!

My other minor obsession at the moment is Pinterest.  I (heart) Pinterest, doesn't everyone?  Currently my Pinterest obsession is the quotes section.  Some of them are funnies, some of them are motivational, some of them are inspirational.  I'm planning that I'll share one on every blog post.  (I was going to say daily, but really who am I kidding thinking I'm going to blog every day, need to be realistic here!?!?!)  So here's today's little bit of wisdom. 

Go on imagine it.  It works if you are upset or really annoyed, you'll laugh I promise.

Times they are a-changing!

Has it really been a month since I last updated anything?  What a quick month it has been!!  What I have been up to in the last few weeks. 

Well the Dude had a birthday, we now have a 4 year old who won't let me call him a baby :( 

His actual birthday was a Sunday but the festivities basically started on the Friday as he got a new 'big boy' bed which involved a complete rearrangement of his room, so it was sort of like a new room.

 Testing out his new bed for bounciness (goodness only knows how long the mattress will last!!)

Saturday was taken up with a small birthday tea party with family and this year I attempted a Rainbow Cake, really it should have looked something like this but I was happy enough with the results.  I do really, really need to work on my icing skills - fondant icing is not my friend!!

 Then on Sunday, the Dude's birthday, he got to choose what to do.  So after opening presents - surprise, surprise he opted for a trip to DeepSea World to see the 'sharks & fishes'.  It was our first proper outing as a family of four!  After seeing all the fish we headed over the Forth to South Queensferry for a meal at Frankie & Benny's or as it's now known, thanks to a slip of 4 year old tongue, 'Funky & Benny's'.

 

 (birthday boy with Daddy - who so hates getting his photo taken)

(me and Missy Moo, who wasn't in a very cooperative mood! (& I despise getting my photo taken))

Other than birthday celebrations, both kiddiewinks have had chicken pox - Dude much worse than Little Miss - at least they've had them so (fingers crossed) that should be it over and done with :)

Missy Moo is 15 weeks today :o  She is coming along great guns, started chatting in the last few weeks which is great (not so much at 2.45am but at least she doesn't scream the house down at that time!).  It's great to see how similar she is to how her brother did things but so different at the same time.  She's definitely a happy little soul, my little smiler.

Looking Back

Today I've been going through my photographs from last year (looking for a specific one for my sister which turned out I took it in 2011, so not last year at all) and I realised there's lots of things I didn't record in my blogging absence.

Some of things we got up to included visiting the Giant Pandas, Tian Tian & Yang Guang at Edinburgh Zoo

(Tian Tian, the female Panda, not really wanting to seeing anyone)

(Yang, Guang, the male, chilling!)

The male Panda was hilarious, this was the most animated he got - hanging over the side of his bed!!

We saw the Olympic torch as it went through our town (it's a rubbish photo - I realised too late I was on the wrong side of the street!)

Euan had a fairly impressive (if I do say so myself!) Pirate birthday cake

That's all for now!  I'll catch up on what else we got up to another time.

All about the Dude

Life is a whirlwind of nappies, feeding, cooking, washing and many other delightful household chores at the moment, seriously feels like if I blink another day goes by!  I once read someone say they were in the 'happy phase of sleep deprivation' - I can't say I'm happy about the lack of sleep but I do love the little moments in the middle of the night when it's just me and my little Moo Moo.

I'm also very happy that in the middle of all the chaos I've managed to get the Dude's quilt finished. 

I'm rubbish with proper details but the size is roughly a decent kid's lap quilt, not as big as a single bed quilt but good enough to sleep under when it's hot.  I'm also rubbish at remembering what material it is - my excuse is that I've had it for AGES so even if I did know it, I've forgotten it by now (my shocking memory is a source of many jokes for my dearest husband!), but I've loving the binding fabric, which was a gift from my sister - really cool paw prints in black and white.

After the Dude's quilt got my mojo, mojo'ing I also made up one of the blocks for my scrappy round the world quilt, just to give me an idea of how it's going to look.

It is very scrappy and is a combination of pinks, greens, yellows and some blues - the materials are mostly ones I've been gifted/acquired/stashed over the years but never actually done anything constructive with until now.  It's going to one of those quilts that you either love or hate I think by the time it's finished but I like that.  I'm cool with fugly stuff :)  So one block down, 23 more to go!!!

The last few days has also been busy/tiring due to No1 son coming down with good old chickenpox.  I noticed a couple of tell-tale blistered spots as he has getting ready to go to his new gymnastics class on Saturday morning (typically it only started the week before) and decided we'd be best not to go.  So Saturday morning he looked like this (one little spot on the side of his nose)

this was the poor little guy on Monday - miserable is an understatement!

I had the 'pox when I was 5 (on my summer holidays I seem to recall) and I've still got the scars to prove it but I don't remember having as many spots has he has, particularly on his scalp.  But we seem to be over the worst of it, he was running about outside as his Granda's today so that is a positive sign that he's feeling more like himself.

Normal service ....

... is slowly being resumed!  I can hardly believe that our little girl has been here for 8 weeks, those have definitely been the quickest 8 weeks of my life.  She has her own routine and we are gradually getting into a new routine which meets everyone needs.  Her longest sleep seems to be from 7/8pm until roughly 4am, which is a fantastic 8/9 hours.  However I would REALLY, REALLY love if her longest sleep was the other side of midnight through to 7/8 am.  I've tried doing a dream feed at 11pm but she still wakes at 4.30 so we're just going to have to continue our middle of the night wakings for a while longer.  But on the other hand I do get snuggly cuddles in the middle of the night and if I'm really lucky little smiles too! (she isn't smiley in this photo, but any excuse for a wee photo of my baby)

I have been slowly starting to make stuff again - yay!  Nothing exciting to begin with, more function, than frivolity, but still getting back in front of my sewing machine.  To make this lovely ............

peg bag!!  It's been on my to do list for goodness only knows how long and a new bag of pegs has been sitting in my kitchen for the same length of time.  But now it's made!  So I can hang my washing out and keep on with my peg OCD (honestly I have to use the same colour of pegs for each item of clothing - I'm weird, what can I say!).

The other thing I've started is adding the binding to a quilt I'm making for my son.  The quilt top has been a UFO, hanging about for ages (like many other things) so I've made the binding and pinned it to the quilt.  Just need to attach it now, maybe I'll get that done on Saturday night when Pedro's at work).