French Knots

Love is ................

When you ask him to mow the lawn but to leave the patch of daisies because they look pretty.......

 

..................and he does!

Happy 21st Wedding Anniversary Mr FK xx

Welcome!

We are now a family of 5!

Welcome to Benjamin Alexander, born 1st May. 6lb 7oz of perfection.

 

nearly, nearly

 

Primula denticulata. When I was growing up we lived next door to a lovely retired couple Mr and Mrs Milsom, I remember going round to visit always being told to ask if 'it's convenient' and spending time with Milly and Mr Milly. He was a keen gardener and I remember being about 9 and and working on a project for school, a project on flowers. Mr Milly told me the proper name of purple pom poms and for some reason it embeded itself into my brain for evermore. Primula denticulata such a lovely spring flower.

Tomorrow is a big day, THE big day, I go into hospital and our family grows. Surreal really, whilst I have a bump that could house a baby elephant, have seen and heard the baby there is still a lingering feeling that it's all too good to be true. So I can't wait to meet it, those magical first moments falling in love, fierce piercing mother love. I'm also looking forward to seeing all three children together as they get to know the new baby. So I'll be back some time next week. Thank you for all your good wishes and kind comments over the last months.xx 

Just in time

 

Way, way back at the beginning of January we ordered a new small settee and sofa bed to replace the old settee that we have had since we got married ( 21 years ago next week!). As we don't have a spare room now the sofa bed was for visitors, with a deadline for it to be used when the baby arrives - so planning ahead, plenty of time we thought. Sadly Habitat had other plans, inefficient, lack of communication blah, blah, blah. Eventually they sorted themselves out but I'd just about forgotten what the blummin things looked like! 

Just in time they arrived, fitted in the room and needed making homely. So a spot of rummaging in the fabric mountain resulted in a few new cushions.

 

Just managed to squeeze myself in behind the sewing machine!

Easter Hols

We've had a lovely two weeks, lovely but exhausting when v v pregnant! Thank goodness the weather has been so good, the children have enjoyed playing in the garden and I have enjoyed sitting in a deckchair watching them.

 

We decorated our Easter Tree, made some gooey chocolatey cakes, had an Easter egg hunt and stuffed ourselves with lots of eggs.

As the sunny weather continued we barbecued and chilled out in the garden.

 

Family visiting, bits of DIY for Mr FK who long ago learned to dread the words ' I've been thinking...'!

I had to change my car, the final remnant of my old working life - my beautiful pale blue beetle convertible. Totally impractical for two children never mind three, but so lovely driving along in the sunshine with the top down! Ah well, I now have a Scenic in a colour described on the details as beige....beige.... I can't drive a beige Mum's Taxi - I'm calling it stone instead as that makes my toes curl less! It's actually a great car, well designed for it's family market I think.

 Today is a day to just get through, when my thoughts are focused on my Mum. The sort of Mum she was and how the things she did gave me my blueprint of how to be a mother, baking, cooking, gardening, growing, nurturing, creating the heart of our home as we were growing up. Our safe haven.She made me who I am.

Image from Grow'em Plant Propagation Database.

This and that

Well thank you for all the good wishes and blog recommendations, lots of new ones to add to my list, which was handy last week as I was taking it easy (backache/sciatica) so I was kept entertained reading and being inspired. So much connects us all around the world and reading through a blog's archives is like finding a really great book about my favorite things.

My Little Helper acted as random number generator and chose the number eight which is Lina so the little parcel will be on it's way when I can waddle down to the post office. 

I thought I'd show you my new spotty slippers ( the plan is I don't need to bother trying to bend to put socks on with slippers to keep my feet cosy instead)

 

Hmm what's the big boulder doing in the way??

Goodness I think I must be growing an elephant, 34 weeks. Thanks to My Little Helper for his photography help!

I've finished the sock yarn jumper, my first knitted garment with seams - socks are easy to finish off but this needed to fit together. I read up on matress stitch but as usual just winged it in the end.

 

A cute little jumper, all I need now is a cute little baby to go in it!

Pottering week

A low key half term for us, bit of baking, park visiting, some crafting and dvd watching. Naturally we had to buy HSM three and watch it several times, we also bought Sky High which was really entertaining. In fact My Little Helper would have done nothing but watch it all week! Throw in a growth scan ( all well, just the size it should be for 29 weeks) and the week off was gone in a laid back and pottering flash!

    

I finished sewing my little squares together, I'm glad it is a pram blanket and not a king size - some of the seams will not take close inspection!

A friend kindly showed me how to crochet an edging, now I have the crochet bug and see some granny squares in the near future.

The robot was eventually stuffed, (once the bag of stuffing had been unearthed - the sewing room is undergoing a transformation into a new bedroom and smaller sewing room so everything is goodness knows where ) and sent off along with a couple of kind contributions from friends too. Whilst I know giving money is probably the most practical way to help it feels good to send tangible evidence of our concern.

Hope your week has got off to a good start, the children were surprisingly keen to get into school this morning, must have had enough of my company!

Lovely white stuff

You can tell from the glow behind the curtains that the magical snowfall has turned the world white. I love the way it illuminates the sky and paints the landscape fresh and bright. The children were out in the garden before school making the most of it, we only have a few inches here but certainly enough to enjoy.

The morning chorus of children passing on their way to school had a different sound to it, giggles and laughter as a selection of brightly coloured woolly hats made their way past the window. Snowballs whizzed across the playground and there was a holiday atmosphere as the children enjoyed the novelty of proper snow.

   

Yes it makes driving hazardous and slows the world down, seemingly to halt in some parts of the country, but I love it. Soft, powdery and new.

 

Sun at last

A lovely sunny day here has put me in the mood to get things done. As yet another dose of illness had me under the weather again last week (after months of one thing after the other and a total lack of appetite I now weigh the same as I did when I got pregnant 24 weeks ago) , a veerryy slow computer and typepad eating half written posts put me off writing anything for a while today was the day to get back in my groove. The sun just seems to lift my spirits and give me some energy, much welcome after grey damp days.

Thanks for all the photo love on my last post, they were taken at Beaumaris on Anglesey between Christmas and New Year on a freezing cold but wonderfully bright day.

Have been doing well with my cost control goal apart from a little blip in the wool shop

    

Such amazing, zinging colours had to come home with me! At least they were in the sale, it's silk and really soft to the touch and no, I| haven't a clue what I'm going to do with it.

Other than that my spotty jug keeps me on the straight and narrow

I stuff all the household shopping receipts in it and than have a grand tally up at the end of the month. I did this all last year too and it reinforces how much is actually spent, handing over a debit card still doesn't feel like spending money. Once I've got my monthly total I divide it by the number of days in the month to compare on a like for like basis ( I know, how sad....must be hankering for the days when I was working and a ran a £40million budget!) I aim for £10 per day for food and household stuff which is about right for us I think. I stockpile when things we use a lot are on special offer so my pantry is groaning under the weight of cartons of orange juice and passata at the moment.

Right might just fit in a walk in the sun before collecting the children...... hope the sun is shining on you too.

2009

 

I love the New Year, an empty year stretching ahead waiting to be filled like the pages of a new journal. One of the reasons I love blogging is the record it makes of family life, the small everyday things that are so easily forgotten but are so precious.

 

Once the flu had passed we had a lovely family Christmas, visitors and visiting, lots of food, new bike riding, new guitar strumming, film watching and just hanging out together. 

Today feels like a fresh start as the decorations come down ( I'm a bit superstitious so even though the tree came down at the weekend (thank goodness for wooden floorboards that are easy to sweep) and I've taken the rest of the decorations down today, 12th night. So the house is relatively clean and tidy, as long as the doors to the children's bedroom doors are shut! All ready for a fresh start to the year.

2009 promises to be an exciting year as our family grows and we welcome the new baby in the spring. Knowing it will be a challenging year I'm not going to set myself up for failure with a raft of resolutions but I have some goals that I'm going to keep in mind this year

Allotment - I'm not expecting too much this season as bending will be a bit of a problem in the spring (!) but anything we grow will be a bonus. The children really enjoy it, they think it's a bit like Time Team digging for treasure and are really excited at all the bits of china and clay pipe that they dig up. My Little Helper wants to grow potatoes so he can make chips! Hmm not quite the healthy approach I had in mind.

Crochet - 2008 was the year I learnt to knit properly and 7 pairs of socks later my enthusiasm has not waned. So this year I want to learn to crochet, I see a ripple blanket or granny square blanket in my future.....possibly quite a few years in the future!

Simple living - drive less, walk more, get back into meal planning, tackle the clutter hotspots (like the tottering pile of papers on top of the fridge)  no spend days and to address the cash trickle, you know when you get £30 out of the cash machine and somehow it trickles out of your purse without you really knowing what you've spent it on.

Happy New Year to all of you. May 2009 bring you peace and happiness.x