MaMa!

Yes, after more than a month of saying Dada (albeit with more das on the end and not necessarily associated with Tim) Alex has started saying Mama (mamamama!) which just melts my heart (even though he doesn't yet associate the sounds with me). Monday evening saw us putting up playpens, one in the study (actually his travel cot which is huge!) and one in the sitting room (a big wooden one) so that Tim has somewhere safe to put him during the day. Alex's main play area is still the landing, one of the biggest areas in the house, but it is good for him to have somewhere safe in the study so that we can all be in there together (there are too many little wires, screws, pens, etc and books that he can pull of shelves for him to be safe even when unsupervised for just one second). I am not a fan of playpens, but with Tim's ME I can see the need for them and Alex seems to be adapting OK to them. We now have our Mummy playtime out on the landing where we can roll around the floor, play with his garage, nuzzle, bounce and generally be silly together. I do so love those times in the evening.

The mamama's provided just the boost I needed this week because work has been completely manic so far. I spent a considerable time down at Hallam University which, while being very productive, meant that things were somewhat truncated in the rest of the week for the other projects. I have been asked to write a report of the work that was carried out on a project that finished last October, which meant wading through three badly written lab books to get the information, with a deadline for the report of tomorrow lunchtime. I also gave my first ever lecture to medical students in Sheffield today. The lecture, on designing sucessful research projects, seemed to go OK and I managed to get interaction from at least some of the students which is good. I was also caught up in interviews for most of this morning so today was somewhat stressful. I was very glad and very tired when I got home!

On a more fun note, I have been crafting in the evenings this week and have made a set of 6 ATCs on a similar theme, with the same background (K&Co paper) with a corner of Crafty Individuals paper, edged with green ink and stamped with a green postmark finished off with a dark red Angel kiss flower. Then each of the images (Crafty Individuals) are layered on top to give 6 different ATCs. Simple, but effective. Just the thing for the busy crafter!

I have also finally finished a scrapbook layout that I have been meaning to do for the past few weeks. This one is again based on a PencilLines sketch (# ) and uses some of my photos from Christmas day to give an overview of the day. The journalling in the bottom righthand corner reads 'Alex's first Christmas was the first time all the Staton's had shared Christmas Day since we got married. It was lovely to share this special day together and to watch the cousins interact'. The cardstock used was Bazzil, the stickers were freebies from a magazine and the circles were cut from BoBunny paper. The patterned paper at the bottom of the page was American Traditional Designs. This was quite a fun way of using photos that aren't strong enough for a single page to themselves.

I also received some ATCs in the post which was fun. I just love getting crafty post. The first one is from Emma Ryder, and is a tag which swings out to reveal another tag underneith...great fun. The other two are from Dawn Martindale, another of her lovely waterfall ATCs and a gorgeous shimmery Spirelli which I love. Thank you both very much! More soon,

Love,

Caro

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