Happy Birthday Your Majesty!

It's the end of the Long Weekend and I'm watching Heston Blumenthal putting four poor amateur chefs through the wringer on Masterchef while I type. 

It's been a wet, windy and relatively cold weekend, but we're tough Celts and it doesn't stop us!  We've done a wee bit of indoor stuff and the Wii has had a bit of a workout, but Dog and Mummy need to get out for fresh air!  We dodged the showers yesterday and had a good look around the HMAS Newcastle.

 Smallest Boy has decided he would like to join the Navy so that he can climb right to the top of the ship. 

At the end, No2 Boy was delighted to be given some pop out models to make when we got home.  We reckon he'll be an engineer or architect as he loves making/building stuff!

This morning No1 Boy had an extra piano lesson at his teachers house as he has an exam on Saturday.  It gave me half an hour to sit in the car with my crochet, listening to my cd's in peace.  How lovely!  After lunch we rugged up and took ourselves to the beach for, what turned out to be, a very windy walk! 

There was the usual jumping, digging, burying, and racing,  along with some chatting and coffee and ice creams. 

How cute are these two?

And these two?

When we got home we warmed up with hot chocolate and marshmallows - soo good! 


I had to bribe Miss M to do a bit of modelling for me, she was not in the mood and it took some persuasion to get these pics. 

I'm always surprised by how green her eyes are when the rest of us have blue/grey. 

The pattern for this beanie is in The Happy Hooker and I made it a bit smaller by using a 5mm hook.  I have been asked a couple of times to make some beanies as customers at Make Space have been requesting them.  Thankfully they are pretty quick to make - I do love my instant gratification.


And I'd better not forget my "Guardian Alien" built for me by Smallest Boy...

Back to real life in the morning!

Doings and Makings

Thank you for all the lovely comments on fb and here about Smallest Boy's birthday cake.  It was certainly time consuming but well worth it.  I am going to need to do some kind of course though, as I make the same mistakes every time and still can't work out how to avoid them! 

Well Smallest Boy is quite determined that he is still 2.  I'm not sure what the problem with 3 is but frankly he is sticking with 2, thank you very much.  He received a parcel from our Fabulous Fairy God Mother in Scotland today.  She has a gift for being able to give just the right present (in fact I received a truly gorgeous one from her myself yesterday).  Smallest got a sticker book of cars and trucks.  I had only twigged to the fact he likes vehicles 2 weeks ago when I took along some books to read during music lessons.  He ignored all the ones on animals, jungles and insects and went straight for the one on trucks!  Gold Star Auntie C! 

We spent a long time outside sticking and repositioning! I was in trouble for thinking that when he was finished, I could use his book to prop up my camera to play with the self-timer!

I finished off a Bamboo and Wool scarf for a friend's birthday, then made up a few of these little face washers, inspiration found from Catherine here, pattern found here.  I made them up really quickly in an organic cotton.  I'm thinking 7 of them tied up with a ribbon could be a cute present. 

I must head to my bed.  We all have to be out of the house by 7.15am, packed lunches for all, not to mention all the football kits and music books that will be required after school and need to be ready before we all leave.  Good night all xx

Cricket and Crochet

Today was the last cricket match of the season for No3 Boy.  We have mostly enjoyed our Saturday mornings together, although neither of us were particularly keen on the 8.30am starts. 

We started off trying to take everyone plus Dog but quickly realised that it was not fun for any of us.  Instead I get up with No3 Boy and take him, with my bag of yarn and hooks or a good book, while Dad (who's not much of a cricketer) has a bit of a lie-in and the others watch some cartoons.  Then they tackle the house and garden to earn some pocket money and we come back 3hours later to a lovely tidy house!  It has worked beautifully!  Unfortunately the Football (soccer) season will be starting soon and that WILL involve us all being up and about and goodness knows where in the Hunter Region at the crack of dawn all winter!  Having only one car (see this post) it really gets interesting!

Anyway, this morning was very hot and humid!  The boys did very well and won again - they have only lost one match all season which is great for a little team that were flung together at the last minute.  I am still clueless about 'Overs' and "Wickets' , "No balls' and "Dot balls" despite having tried to listen to the scorers.  So I chat to the other parents and read or make stuff.  This was where most of my Christmas decorations were made and a fair number of scarves and neck-warmers.  2 hours is just the right amount of time to do a neck-warmer!

Taken by No3 Boy over my shoulder!