mmmm...cupcakes

yay for lurid cupcakes! arthur chose this card for sam's birthday and we were inspired to surprise daddy with his own array of headache inducing cupcakes for his birthday tea last night. no prizes for guessing which ones we made...

bappy

in direct contrast with last week, (which if you've read the last two posts, you'll know was a complete nightmare) this week has been pretty good so far. a large amount of last weeks misery was due to my generally sunny natured 2 year old son arthur turning into a completely uncontrollable monster. why? because he didn't want to wear clothes. which is kind of funny really. i'm sure when the pain and humiliation fades with time, i'll find it a hoot. but while it's still a little raw, it makes me shudder. it got so bad (screaming fits when i went near him with any form of clothing, practically strangling himself to undress when i eventually manhandled him into a tshirt...kicking out...hitting out...basically a small, snotty, red faced, bawling, angry young man with his willy out all day.) anyhoo, enough of all that, it's over and done with now, someone came in and took away that monster and replaced him with my sunny natured little fella. he keeps looking at me and saying "i'm so bappy with you mummy". which i'm taking to mean 'happy'. although i suppose it could mean 'crappy'. oh. i hope not.

anyway, this week i've been steadily working on the ely piece...the above pic is of 16 more pieces in their 'raw, just stitched' state. tomorrow i should finish it completely (if my mountboard order turns up) and i really want to try to get a good photo of the whole thing. if i manage it, i'll give you a nudge ;)

and actually, this day has just got a little better...i've just found out that 'cold case' is back tomorrow night for a new series...my idea of tv bliss...ashes to ashes on beeb one, then turn over at 10 for some sitting-on-the-sofa-sleuthing. sad and pathetic? yep. bappy? totally.

face painting

i was asked to do face painting at a party frank was invited to on sunday. the mother of one of frank's had heard 'i was artistic' and they couldn't find a face painter anywhere, would i do it? of course i would! i quite like face painting although i'm not that marvellous at it...the left hand side of the faces are always better than the right, i always find. never mind, it was fun anyway. these little drawings were made so the kids could choose from 4 designs; any more choice and 1) it takes them forever to choose and 2) it was easier for me to get my head around just four designs. i went on the web for more face painting tips, and i found one i'd never have thought of; always check each child carefully for head lice before painting their faces. hmmmm. i'm afraid i was somewhat rubbish at that rule. if i'd found any, what could i have done? yelled at the top of my voice "YUCK! YOU'VE GOT NITS! GET AWAY FROM ME CHILD!" no, i didn't think so either.

mad busy

i've been super-busy this week with a deadline for a super-secret project...i'll tell you details and give you peeks at a later date. so now i'm at a weird loose end after a really frenetic few days...the kids are at school, i'm enjoying a bit of daytime tv and i'm waiting for ups to pick up the aforementioned super-secret artwork and whisk it away to it's new home.

in other events...yesterday, my mum unearthed her wedding pics and in amongst them was this amazing wedding greeting telegram from the 1970's. how gorgeous is the above illustration? so lovely. on closer inspection, it's a piece of work by albany wiseman, a well regarded watercolourist. i did a search and found out that he has illustrated a children's book called tommy atkins in the great war. i'm thinking this might tie in nicely to this weekend's trip to the imperial war museum with the boys...it's frank's choice, he's obsessed with london. the other thing he wants to do is visit the globe theatre. do i have another shakespeare on my hands?

beany

now, i'm not a fan of baked beans, to the point of practically fainting when i see them (i'd love to find out why...some terrible childhood trauma that i've pushed to furthest corner of my mind, i'm sure) but i am a fan of frank's little baked bean people. (so called by me because of his inability to realise people have heads and bodies) this evening, while i was washing up, i was presented with this teeny tiny person with one single strand of hair, drawn on a little circle of paper. awww.

not my best effort

well, the combine harvester cake is terrible, i'm too ashamed of it to show any more of the above. i apologised to frank when he got home from school. he took one look at it, and said, "you say it's not very good mummy, but it is good, and you've even got a spout and a seat!" (to those not familiar with combine harvest terminology, the spout is where the grain shoots out in to a trailer, and the seat is erm, well, where the driver sits) so as long as frank is happy, i'm happy. although i'm slightly worried i'm losing my mind; i went all over town (actually not that hard, it's a small town) looking for vanilla frosting to colour yellow for an authentic combine, and completely forgot to colour it and had already frosted the cake before i realised. doh. there probably aren't that many cream coloured combines in the farming world, not a terribly practical colour to have ;) the little chocolate flakes are my artistic interpretation of bits of mud!

anyway, happy birthday to my brilliant boy...i'm off to play party games :)

this time 5 years ago...

i was the size of not just a whale, but a whale family...my biggest little boy is 5 tomorrow. five. five years old. i can scarcely believe it. anyway i might be light with posting tomorrow, i've got a combine harvester shaped cake to create (with chocolate frosting, couldn't find vanilla to colour with yucky yellow; "doesn't matter mummy, brown is fine, it'll look muddy", bless.) but i'll try my best to take a pic of the cake masterpiece (hmmmm...)

in other news, i had a run on sketchbooks yesterday in the shop so here's a peekof two more that have just been listed...'once upon a time' in brown & 'come to stay' in red.

another stack

nothing exciting to report today, just listed this sketchbook, called 'pieces' in the shop. that's it. my whole day has been pretty dull. arthur's been a pain in the bum and has taken to saying "no, i'm not." to everything with a really stubborn note in his voice, which is driving me bonkers. oh yeah, and biting his brother hard enough to break the skin. so yeah, fun times.

but...there is light at the end of the annoying toddler tunnel...tomorrow is thursday, and the day my lovely mum takes over all childcare responsibilities. yay!

remember, remember...

...don't eat too many chocolates or you won't eat your dinner...

i thought you'd might like to see some family pics of our little 'do' last night...(well, you might not, but my brother paul occasionally reads this, so there's at least one person interested ;) top photo is of my two nieces molly and anna and the fella with his hand in the choc tin is my frank. and below that, a rare pic of yours truly with arth who looks like he's trying to ingest his anorak. do you like my pink coat? i bought it on a sweltering day a week ago in portugal, along with some winter jumpers. it was a very strange experience, but i'm so pleased with my coat, even if it's an a-line swingy style...i'm just waiting for someone to say: "i didn't know you were expecting another! when are you due?"

packages...

it's been a bit quiet on the blog front because i'm frantically making orders for door plaques for not on the high street. they are now all packaged up (done whilst cooking last night's dinner, i'm getting good at multi-tasking, but then, i am a woman) and ready to be enjoyed by the recipients. i hope. i never stop worrying that people will hate what i've done, or i'll have made an obvious spelling mistake...actually i'm going to stop worrying now, otherwise i'll be ripping open all these packets to check. off to stop obsessing, and for some breakfast. happy saturday chaps, i've got a lovely day of making...the kids are off making a bonfire for tomorrow night's farm firework display. woohoo. (frank doesn't want a guy, i think he's a little freaked out by the idea of putting a 'person' to burn on the bonfire...actually, i see his point ;)

enclose, encircle, envelop(e)

new cards printed on the insides of old envelopes with new blocks, up for sale later on this evening in the shoppette. gotta fly, big, big arguments involving two small boys.......gah!

UPDATE: the cards are now available here

memories

this embarrassing heap of bin bags are full of clothes, being donated to charity. not all mine, i hasten to add, but a large amount. there are at least four bags of kid's stuff, at last i have got rid of all the babygros and vests and tiny weeny newborn gear. i did have to harden my heart during this process. i am not having more children, so i do not need to keep all this stuff. but it was actually quite hard to do. i kept back a couple of things i could not part with, one of which is a little pair of dungarees sam chose while we were shopping in boston (us, not uk) when i was pregnant with frank before we knew we were having a boy. (yeah, we found out with both of ours, and yeah, before you ask, i was the kid who couldn't wait for christmas day and knew exactly what my packages contained.) there is also one bag full of early 1990's style clothing belonging to sam. now, these are the clothes he used to wear out on our dates...and some things i really didn't want him to get rid of; levi shirts and jeans and a admittedly hideous brown leather jacket, but y'know, full of memories. he was probably wearing that jacket during our first kiss. i remember that 'suburbia' by the pet shop boys was playing on the radio. ahhhh, how romantic. and yeah, i know that i could ebay the levi stuff, it's practically vintage, but it's just too much effort. so anyway, to you it's just a heap of bin bags, to me full of memories...some lovely, some not so lovely. such as my size 22 pregnancy knickers, yes, you read that correctly size 22. i have kindly donated these to great ormand street hospital because, like sam says, you could house a family of 4 quite easily in those monstrosities.

label mania

awww...my little 'big' boy frank starts school tomorrow, it's the end of an era. the days of not getting dressed until midday are now sadly over. the days of shrieking at the kids to play nicely together are over until 3.15pm. the days of throwing the kids into the backseat of the car and jetting off to paris on a whim are now over, lol. anyhoo, the day of labelling everything in sight is now here...gym kit, shirt, trousers, pants, socks, lunchbox, drink bottle, forehead, behind ears, i think it's all done. and talking of labels, whilst i was buying frank's labels online the other day, i had some woven for myself as a little present. and they're bright pink, oh happy day.

chalking...

on the path outside our house. a bit grafitti-ish, but it'll wash off when it rains, and by the look of the sky right now that will be sooner rather than later.

happiness is...

a box of tractor 'mans'. ['men', darling, it's 'men'] well, it is when you're 4 and three quarters and you have no concept of the fact that they look *exactly* like homicidal maniacs, all the way down to the jumpsuits and the strange glint in their little plastic eyes. particularly the one in blue who is cross-eyed. scary.

the spoils

thought you might like to see the results of the bread baking adventure. look! chubby man shaped bread rolls! how cute are they? right, i'm off to rip the limbs from a delicious bread man for my breakfast. toodle-ooo!

making bread

i've been thrown out of the kitchen (yeah, i'm chained there all day long) because the men in my life have decided to make some bread. this is arthur covered in flour searching through the (new!) cupboard for the dustpan and brush. the whole kitchen is covered in bread dough. yuck. look at the bottom of his feet...yuck! i'm looking forward to the results though...

arthur's word of the day

i really hope the person i'm doing this for doesn't mind me posting progress of this piece...i've been careful not to show anything too revealing. just thought you might like to see today's progress, it was a funny day today. the kids were bored and snotty, the weather was crap and i really, really wanted to lock myself away in my workroom and erm, well, work. i got bits and pieces done, but there were constant arguments over the toy tractors and farm implements, both boys got sent to their rooms; arthur for throwing toys in a temper and frank for throwing his weight around and bullying his little brother.

in my eight things post i mentioned that my eldest son frank didn't speak until he was way over two, but when he did it was complete sentences. arthur is totally different. his second birthday is in a week's time and every day is another word in his vocabulary. (i know to some that might seem late, just pity the poor kid for having me as a mother; it's as much as he can do to get a word in edgewise) it's so exciting, it's like a little present each morning, and they make me crease up laughing, they're such random words. the day before yesterday it was 'cheese', yesterday was 'nice', and today we had two; 'book' and 'boys'. love, love, love.

sittin' in the sun, just me and my boy

' blue honesty'
' little person'
'red stalk'
'abstract'
'boat'

my mum (bless her cottons) took arth for a nice long walk to get him off to sleep yesterday, while frank (aged four) and i sat in the sun and did 'some work like mummy does'. it was excellent, and he was brilliant company. above are the results of both his and my work. how cool is his boat?

sink or swim

out in the garden today with the boys, the sun is shining on and off. the paddling pool has been filled, the boys are soaked and paper boats are a'floating. or rather they were until arthur-one-boot got his grubby paws on 'em.