I think this has to be one of the most disappointing weekends that I have ever spent. Tim and I have spent all the time on the Incapacity Benefit form trying to cover all our bases and say exactly why we think the decision to stop his benefits is wrong based on evidence from our daily lives. It is taking hours and is thoroughly depressing. No-one likes focussing on what they can't do which is what is needed and so it has been getting us both down. We are at the end of the weekend and it still isn't finished. It is so hard to catalogue all the ways in which Chronic Fatigue Syndrome affects Tim and his responses to different things are so variable that it takes hours to document fully.
Poor Alex has been left to his own devices more this weekend than I would have liked although he doesn't seem too bothered by it. When I have had the chance to play we have had the greatest of fun giggling and running round like crazy. We also went to the park which he loved, and although he spent much of the time pushing his pushchair round he also practiced his walking and splashing in puddles! I just so love being his Mummy and those giggles and big broad grins of his just melt my heart.
On Friday evening I insisted on having a little time to myself to craft and had fun completing this scrapbook layout. I am not very confident in working with paint but decided to have a go using a 'dry brush' technique and three different colours of blue and white to generate a wave/surf effect for the bottom half of the page. I supplemented that with some pen strokes using the sakura stardust pen and then added sequins and shells (most of which were collected from the beach. I chose the title of 'Natural Pleasure' to reflect the simple pleasure that Alex and I took spending time together on the beach - we didn't need any 'equipment', just being there was enough. The journalling reads 'Alex and I loved every minute of our time on the beach, West Wittering, May '08'.
The only other crafting I have done this weekend was to finish off an A5 zentangle (or doodle as Tim insists on calling it) while watching a little television. This I then cut up to form these ATCs and inchies. I have never actually made one of these before and found it quite fun, although it was hard to find a variety of interesting shapes to use for someone with my limited drawing ability! I am quite pleased with how they have turned out and hope they will be good enough for the swap that is happening on the CM&PC forum later this year. 
More soon, and I hope I will be able to report that we have finished this wretched form!Love,
Caro
x
Spending time with Alex in the evenings has been a life saver. He is so much fun and yesterday we spent about 20 minutes with him giggling madly over some silly little thing I was doing. I just love that infectious laugh...it makes everything so much better and worthwhile. He is still into playing the ‘Dat’ game; wanting to know what everything is. For some reason me stacking bricks up and counting while pointing at each brick in turn was the funniest thing in the world this evening. It amazes me what he finds entertaining at times and he is now able to explain what he game he wants to play by either a word ‘down’ – which means I have to say ‘up’ in a high voice when he is standing up and then ‘down’ in a low voice when he is crouching down, or by pointing at a particular thing or moving his toys in a particular way. It is great to see him improving in his communication skills in this way. 
Although helping Tim with the benefits form has taken quite a lot of time this week I have managed to make an ATC for a competition being held on the CM&PC forum. This one was entitled ‘recycled’ and we had to use recycled things on it...I had great fun making mine although I have to say I don’t think that I stand a chance of winning as it looks like something that you would make at school! I also managed to make this quick and easy card for Susie’s wedding. She was my bridesmaid and we are going down to her wedding in Devon next weekend. Having done dry embossing on Tim’s card I liked the effect so much that I gave it a go for Susie’s and combined it with corner punches and peel offs. 
I have also messed around with my new colour wash inks, this time using them on mulberry paper and stamping and embossing the images as before, then scrunching up the paper and re-opening it before spraying the inks over it and then re-scrunching. Finally I ironed over scrap paper to remove the embossing and was left with the batik looking effect...this is much more like batik material. I then turned these into ATCs. I would love to know what you think. More soon,
Well despite everything we decided not to completely ruin our wedding anniversary so still had a lot of fun. On Sunday we went out to the Butterfly House near Worksop which is lovely. It is contained in a smallish area so is not too difficult for Tim to wander round and we are able to feed the different animals which meant that they came nice and close for Alex to be interested in. He was most fascinated by a crazy rooster which came up and pecked at his pram and crowed right next to him. 
The ducklings were probably second favourite, especially when being fed. As usual I am sucker for pigs, sheep and goats and so had a lovely time feeding them.
Apart from behaving well for his grandparents Alex hasn’t been having the best of weekends... needing constant attention and inclined to yell and scream at the slightest thing. He hasn’t been sleeping well so is probably overtired, although we don’t know why he isn’t sleeping well. We only pray that he gets better and gets back to his normal happy self. The times he is happiest are sat on my lap playing with my things (pens, pencils, rubber, ruler etc) which somewhat hampers my ability to craft or compute as he tends to hit the computer keys. 
We did get to the park in between the rain showers today and although we were slightly damp Alex did enjoy the swing and slides, although best of all was pushing his pushchair around. He even ventured some walking unaided there today. He can now walk the length of our kitchen plus extension some 40 steps which pleases him no end. Tim has also taught him a new trick, of making a noise and rubbing his hand across his lips to make the noise wobble. This he finds most amusing and it makes him giggle, especially when we do it too.
Despite having a clingy boy I have managed to make a couple of scrapbook layouts this weekend. This first double page spread uses as many photos as I could of our various trips to West Wittering Beach. It is ages since I have made a page which used so many photos of different sizes so it was quite a fun challenge. I kept it simple with stamping the title and subtitle, putting a journaling box on the page and only decorating with peel offs and shells picked up on the beach. The journaling reads ‘ Alex loved every aspect of the beach; playing in the soft sand, crawling on the hard sand, splashing in the tide pools, crawling in the sea, growling at the waves and of course trying to eat everything! In fact he loved it so much we went back every day of our holiday as shown by these photos.’ I would love to know what you think. 
This next page is of Alex and Tim rough-housing happily together on our sopha at home. The page is entitled ‘Rough and Tumble’ and the journaling reads ‘ Alex and Tim have so much fun during their games of rough and tumble. Alex’s giggles and happy squeals of laughter are wonderful to hear’. Sadly the handwritten journaling went a little wrong, but apart from that I think that this page is quite fun. 
Finally I have made two sets of inchies. They are very quick to make if you keep them simple and about the only thing I can manage to do with a small boy sat on my lap. These two are both Disney, one is the ‘Princess’ set, and the other ‘Cars’. I like the contrast of the truly pink and girly with the cars. Have a good week everyone, More soon,
On a positive note the evenings with Alex have been lovely, although sadly I had to work late a few evenings this week so haven’t spent as much time with him as I would have liked. He can now walk really quite well (up to about 20 paces round the room before going plop onto his bottom), although he still insists on trying to carry massive objects such as his toy bus when doing so! We have had the usual fun of building towers of bricks and knocking them down, chasing a football round the garden, and asking what everything is by pointing to things and saying ‘Dat’. One of his favourite games at the moment is for me to hold him in my arms and open and shut the door really fast so that it generates wind which blows in his face...this makes him giggle like anything.
Crafting wise I haven’t done so much this week as I have been so busy. I made this Fathers day card using some of Alex’s drawing for Tim. As you may have gathered, Tim is really into his computers so this image which I drew for my PhD these about 7 years ago seemed appropriate when highlighted with Alex’s drawing.
My poor aunt is really ill with Shingles at the moment and it has got in behind her eye apparently. Well I decided that I would make her a necklace to try and cheer her up. It is ages since I have done beading and I really enjoyed getting into it again. She often wears blue so I hope she will like this.
Apart from that I have made just a few inchies as they are so quick and fun to do. These ones were made using some background paper I made for some ATCs a while ago using the resist technique, I then added Oriental peel offs and coloured them using glitter gel pens. I hope you all have a nice weekend,
At the park he has been hillarious, as all he really wanted to do was spend the time pushing his pushchair round the playground with the occasional foray to chase his new ball. As a result he has got loads of exercise and is getting better at steering even when he can't see where he is going. He did go on the swing and into the tunnel too, but the pushchair is definitely this weekends favourite toy!
Crafting moments have been snatched in the busy times, but have been fun resulting in a couple of sets of inchies. These first ones are entitled 'space' and are simply fun stickers on a glittery blue background. Tim loves them and wants me to make him a set to stick round his computer monitor!
This second set is a real mixed bag using old stickers, gems, sequins and sakura stardust pens. I would love to know what you think of these.
In the meantime at home Alex is still not eating properly and spitting out anything that has the remotest hint of a lump (unless it is toast or cheerios that he has put in his mouth himself), which is proving very stressful all round. Things are improving slowly in that he is at least eating a range of foods again and not just fruit puree, but he still isn’t back where he was a few weeks ago either in terms of quantity or variety. Before this latest batch of not eating I had been stressing that he wasn’t progressing with his feeding, but have since been reassured by a friend that her son refused to eat anything with lumps in until he was 2 and it didn’t hurt him in anyway, so maybe I don’t need to worry too much. At this stage I am just glad he is eating again. 
In other ways Alex is developing very well...he is still tottering about (we are up to about 12 steps as the record), although as he is so fast at crawling he may not be as quick to improve his walking as some children are. He has developed a fascination with lights and looks up at the ceiling lamps and points at them and copies us when we say ‘light’. He also likes it when we switch the light off and on while telling him the appropriate word. This is definitely the latest craze as far as he is concerned. 
In terms of crafting I have been feeling very short on mojo recently and although I have managed to make my father’s day cards, each Dad is getting the same and I don’t feel that they are among my best work (although I am pleased with the little origami shirts!). 
I have completed this scrapbook layout of Tim and Alex playing in Alex’s baby gym when Alex was only 9 days old. I just love this photo and entitled the page ‘Daddy playtime’. The layout follows last weeks sketch from Pencil Lines and I decided that the photo said enough without me needing to add any journaling. I would love to know what you think. More soon,