Twinkles and Sprinkles

:: After a couple of interesting days at work, it’s time to return to the rest of the weekend routine, so while MrGT is snoozing away on the sofa, I thought I would share some images of the last couple of days with you :: Firstly the ‘undressing’ of the Christmas Tree, from a local church, which was adorned with fabulously spangly things produced by the artists that I work with ::

:: And also the paper chains that criss cross the studio (just slightly) above everybody’s heads, made from the yearly accumulation of unfinished or unwanted work ::

:: And lastly the beautiful Christmas Cards that my eldest daughter has made to give out to her friends :: I am constantly amazed by her ability to create things : A little silly I know given my career path! But all the same : A four year old with sponge shapes, glitter and glue just before bedtime and after a long day could have spelled abject disaster ::

:: With a little direction, and a sprinkling of encouragement, she managed to maintain attention long enough to make sixteen of these little beauties, and then she dully fell asleep with glitter still in her hair  - ahhhhh ::

:: Having just talked the little girl up, I just found her bedraggled form on the stairs landing :: Utterly distraught! :: So there am I thinking stomach upset, virus, cold, nightmares and Lord knows what it turns out that she just needed the loo, and as a girl who is still yet to be dry at night, she was dumbfounded that something as trivial as needing a wee has roused her from her slumber! Incidentally not roused her that much as she fell off the toilet after falling asleep! :: Is this the face of things to come – can I finally kiss the bedtime weepants goodbye? Okay not kiss, but you know what I mean! ::

:: I will take her timely awakening as a cue to leave the world of blog behind, and make my own way up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire :: maybe I might get a few rounds of MrGT’s Christmas hat knitted… So goodnight all, sweet dreams, and make sure that you go to the loo before you fall asleep or you too might take a tumble off the porcelain *hee hee* :: xxxxx

Advent at last….

Following a brief interlude, transmission should return as usual, several trips to several hospital of late has put my spare time at a premium and the blog has had to take a back seat….

::So before it all gets torn apart I thought that I would share our very very simple advent with you this year::

:: So suddenly I’ve become acutely aware that the contents of my bookshelves is available for all and sundry to peruse, I don’t think that there’s anything that I’m too worried about in there! ::

Very simply, just manilla envelopes, with star tissue paper glued on :: and self adhesive stars to brighten it up a bit :: and some stamped numbers ::

:: Just peg them onto some ribbon et Voila! :: As you can see there is a larger envelope behind them all containing Christmas Eve’s surprise :: A DVD of Raymond Briggs The Snowman, of which the Tallest has the vinyl story which she love love loves :: but she’s never seen the film :: I’m so excited! :: oh and there’s a packet of buttons and a fudge for the Tallest and Smallest in that order to enjoy whilst we all watch it ::  YUM ::

Hope your evening is as peaceful as mine is turning out to be…xxxxx

Always the way…

That’s just the way it goes I suppose! :: You get some half decent weather a bit of late Autumn sunshine, and then they both go down with rotten stinking colds and the day is spent indoors:: Too ill to be playing outside but not quite poorly to not want to do something:: but there you go thats their prerogative and the Tallest is just old enough to know how to feel sorry for herself ::

So for her benefit as well as yours *grin*, her is a little picture of a couple of her lovely creations with the wonderful girl herself too. definitely time for a new camera I think, as I just can’t get it to focus on what I want:: What do they say about a bad workmen blaming their tools?

I hope your day is not as ‘runny’ as mine is :: yuck ::

Happy Halloween

These are our offerings for Halloween this year, Dora is the Tallest’s favourite, the face is hers also and I did the haunted house – the jack-o-lantern is behind bars as the only available room is behind the fire guard on the hearth, but like the Tallest said it’s that scary that it has to be kept in a cage!

We missed out on Trick or treating this year as the Smallest had what I believe is stomach Flu yesterday and it is only a matter of time before the Tallest is struck down with it – and the friends she was going to be out with have already had a dose recently so we had to content ourselves with some house bound activities.

I had thought that we would see some children tonight but I think that the foul weather has kept them away.

Happy Halloween

from the GT gang x

A bit of a Do…

The Smallest decided to give us all a fright yesterday buy dissapearing off down the bottom of the garden and helping herself to a handful of fungi.

Two hours at the local A&E and a good nights sleep and she is none the worse for her little misadventure, thank goodness that they were in the garden and not walking the dogs in the woods, I don’t forage for mushrooms so I don’t know where she learnt it from, but her not having left any for positive identification we had to take her to be on the safe side!

Nothing like your kids to keep you on your toes!

Decorated Hairslides

I actually had time to sit in front of the sewing machine for an hour this afternoon, while the Tallest is at Nursery and the Smallest has a monster afternoon nap. And this is the result…

I think that I know what all the little (and not so little) ladies in my life will be receiving for Christmas gifts this year!

And not just buttons, I’m thinking toadstools, flowers and strawberries appliqued for starters, ooh I love little projects like this they’re so much fun.

(please excuse the photo – it was done on the phone  GT)

Sunflowers in full bloom

As you can see the Tallest’s Sunflowers have come good in the end. We should of had four stems, but the Smallest when through a faze of pulling the heads of plants shortly after they were planted into the new border against the house! So only two survived.

She’s not sure whether she wants the leave them for the birds to enjoy or harvest them – I’ve yet to convince her that they are good to eat! Maybe we can all share.

The other stem is obscured by the car that is up on axle stands in the driveway. Poor MrGT has been spending any of his ‘free’ daylight hours taking out the old and putting in the new clutch, only to find last night upon close inspection that he has been sold the wrong part!… Will we make it to our visit to Clacton on Saturday? I think we might be taking the bus!

Did I say I was overzealous?

Okay, so leading on from my last post, I was extoling the virtues of having a mini-me on hand to help with all the sowing that has to be done at this time of year…what I omitted was the anecdote that goes along with the last lot of peas.

The Tallest and I were out in the garden, putting one pea in each module, she was having a whale of a time, poking her finger in the soil and then putting in the pea ready to cover them over with a little compost afterwards. Pretty straightforward you might think…

The Smallest then decided (before we had finished) that naptime was over and it was about time that someone let her in on the action. So I leave Tallest to it, saying “Remember Sweetheart only ONE pea in each square “Alright Mum!” comes her ‘of the moment’ reply and I exit upstairs to deal with a disgruntled baby, and to be disgruntled myself with the contents of her nappy!

So a few minutes later the Smallest and I come down into the garden to see the Tallest gently patting down a little compost over the module trays, and fetching her little can to water them in.

“Oh my, what a wonderful job you’ve done” she’s been SO proud of herself and quite rightly so…checking the compost isn’t too dry everyday after breakfast and nursery she has been carefully nuturing her seeds.

Until finally comes germination at long last…I’ll let you guess which tray is hers and which is mine…

I suppose I can’t complain about the germination rate!    I think a little transplanting is in order.

Convalesing

After a good week of having things come up and out, it was nice for the Tallest to get a bit of the sun while I was busy in the garden. (I just wish I fitted into the wheelbarrow as well!) The heat of the sun was glorious and it did the her the power of good.

Stomach bug doing the rounds…again!

Just to say if theres no posts over the next few days, its because I am busy mopping up accidents and changing bedclothes and sheets…the joys of parenthood!