Birthday party!

I can't believe that Alex is 2! Where has the last two years gone? We had a family party today at Tim's parents with Alex's cousins so yesterday we spent the day doing the usual Saturday routine of shopping, cleaning, cooking and going to the park. We had a lovely time in the park even if the wind did make things rather cold.

I also baked and decorated Alex's birthday cake and he helped me make the icing...there was icing sugar all over the kitchen!

Today we were up nice and early and headed down to Kennilworth where Alex was given a Ninky Nonk train by Granny and Grandpa Pete, which he loved...it was an instant success.

A little later Alex opened his other presents,

ably assisted by Sam and Tom.

We played inside for a while

then Sam drew a picture while Alex and Tom played the piano

before Tom decided to try the guitar instead.

As all three boys were full of energy we decided a game of football was in order before lunch

Everyone got in on the act...

running, kicking and playing chase!

Lunch was a delicious stew served with Alex's favourite...peas and mashed potatoe, and desert was his birthday cake and yummy warm apple and blueberry cake. Alex was slightly puzzled by the singing and candles, but enjoyed it all the same.

He loved the chocolate cake

but made a complete mess with it

Crumbs everywhere!

After lunch it was out in the garden again where Alex insisted on carrying the most enormous tube

Before being distracted with the little ball.

Granny then decided to set the bubble machine up,

which was popular with all the boys who happily ran through the bubbles.
Sam then wanted to have a go at blowing bubbles

and blew them for Alex

Alex also wanted to try and be like his big cousin, but didn't really get the idea and the solution went everywhere although he was happy enough with the container and wand.

Finally we attempted to get all three boys to sit together for the compulsory cousin photo...

with varying success! All in all it was a wonderful weekend and a great birthday party for Alex. Have a good week everyone.

Love,

Caro

x

Weekend again!

Poor Alex was up a lot of last night crying and we couldn't work out what was wrong and then this morning he developed diarrhoea, so the poor lad must have had an uncomfy tummy. He has been tired most of the day and hasn't eaten much but despite it all has been playing gently and nicely. We have had some nice gentle games of cars and trains and he watched a couple of episodes of Chuggington this evening which he enjoyed while eating his toast...he has started trying to sing the theme tune which is fun.

I had yesterday off work and caught up with the housework before continuing with the nursery rhyme fatbook page swap. These four all use vintage images taken from the web which are enhanced with stamping (swirls and corners) and relevant embellishments (plums, stars, horse shoes, rings and eggs).

The reverse of them all are simple...the complete rhyme with an appropriate image and the swirl stamps.

I also made three ATCs for the vintage secrets swap. The rules of this swap is that there has to be a secret somewhere on the trading card. In my case you undo the bow and lift the scalloped oval to reveal the secret. The two brads on the left of each card are because the double sided sticky tape wasn't strong enough when you fold open the flap.

The secrets are all different, so I am only showing one here as an example. The idea behind them is that the secret is the secret dream of the lady on the front of the card. In this case she wants to be a blonde model...and the image on the back of the panel is of a blonde model. I hope this is the sort of thing that the swap host wanted. Have a great weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

x

BMS Conference!

Well I was in Birmingham on Monday and Tuesday at the British Microcirculation Society conference. It was a great meeting which was well attended with lots of interesting talks. I had to present two posters myself (in the photo), while my research team presented another three posters and I gave an oral presentation.... a pretty good showing from my lab! It was a conference of two firsts for me, the first time I have given an oral presentation at a national conference since Alex was born, and the first night I have spent away from him since he was born. Needless to say I was rather concerned about how Tim and Alex would cope, but they managed very well although Tim was exhausted by it. Alex was by all accounts a star asking for me, but then repeating 'Mummy work' as though he understood. I even spoke to him briefly on the phone and he was very happy which was a great relief. Alex was also telling Tim what to do in the morning 'food, tellas (shreddies), nappy, trousers, top, socks, nursery', which was fun.

On Monday night we went to the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham for the society dinner, which was delicious, and were entertained by a latin Jazz band which were very good, if a little loud!

Everyone had a good time relaxing,

chatting, having fun ...and my boss received an award for his clinical lecture (for which I provided him with a lot of the slides!). I was exhausted when I got home at 8.20 last night. As Alex was already asleep in bed I had to wait until this morning for my cuddles! He has been a complete star and took the whole thing in his stride so thank you to everyone who has been praying for us...the prayers were definitely answered. We have had a lovely evening together playing with his cars, dancing, chatting (non-stop!) and having a very wet and splashy bath. It is so nice to have lots of cuddles and giggles again. I have had the day off work today to spend some quality time with Tim while Alex is at nurseryand I have had lots of opportunity for crafting as a result which is wonderful. I have made the final bookmark for the swap, which is another Oriental one with the geisha on one side (not shown) and a dragon on the other, both of which have been highlighted with sakura stardust, edged with silver peel offs, stamped with an Oriental writing stamp and finished off with a silver eyelet and blue ribbon. As Alex's second birthday is this week, I have made his card using an image of the Gruffalo (his favourite book) and layered over some textured paper which I cut into the tree and grass. I finished this off with a lot of balloon stickers and the gold peel offs for the sentiment. My mother in laws birthday is also fast approaching so I made a card following the sketch from CPS, my new nestabilities labels one, laura ashley ribbon, K&Co paper and a Cuttlebug butterfly which I coloured with chalks and sakura stardust and finished off with the pearl stickers. I have also joined in a fat book page swap where I have to make 10 fat book pages with the theme of nursery rhymes. I have a way to go with this one, but have now made a start with these four pages. I decided to go for a slight vintage theme to the pages as all the nursery rhymes were written before the Victorian era so I brayered over the white card in Adirondack butterscotch ink and used a mixture of Purple Onion and Stamps Away stamps with ginger ink for the borders/edges. I then added extra embellishments in the form of hand drawn paw prints, stitching and mice, or sticker eggs and music notes, and in most cases decorupaged part of the image. For the back of these pages I wrote out the complete nursery rhymes and associated them with an appropriate image and then stamped round the edges and filled in my details. I am quite pleased with how these have turned out and would love to know what you all think. Have a good rest of the week.

Love,

Caro

x

Fun weekend

Well despite us all having a streaming cold we have had a lovely weekend. Tim and Alex played together in the morning while I went shopping and although the weather wasn't great yesterday Alex and I still made it to the park in the afternoon. where we had the playground to ourselves although we spent the majority of the time stamping in puddles! It was the hail that finally drove us homs, although by that stage we both had frozen fingers. Alex is enjoying his train set more and more at the moment and even put some track together by himself for the first time yesterday. We are also having more breakthroughs as far as food is concerned as well and Alex ate a sausage for the first time yesterday.

Today the sun is shining brightly and we have spent some time in the garden and more time at the park where Alex played on the roundabout for the first time in ages and went down the little slide a lot with huge grins every time. He has also been playing on his ride-on car a lot this weekend and enjoying being pushed across the kitchen floor by me while I am cooking. The giggles that arise are wonderful.

We have spent some time crafting together today and he has made a thank you card for Gran, to say thank you for his car which he loves so much. I now have to get a good photo of him sat on it grinning to send with it.

My nature photograph this weekend is of these lovely yellow flowers on a small tree/bush...I don't know what it is called, but it always gives a splash of colour early in the year and these ones are growing at the edge of the playground.

I have also managed some crafting this weekend and made this card for my Dad, so it fits with the cute card theme this week of making a card for a member of your family. It also fits with the My time to craft challenge of 'its raining men' as it features and man (Jolly nation decoupage) and is for a man! I made the background to the panel using two different cuttlebug embossing folders (swiss dots and bird song) and coloured them in using chalks and then mounted the decoupaged man on top. I would love to know what you think of this as it is the first time I have used a Jollynation image.

Finally I have made some ATCs for a 'fingerprint' swap where you are supposed to turn your finger prints into something different. For these first two I used a moonscape as the background and then turned my fingerprints (done in acrylic) into aliens and a flying saucer. I used a black pen and sakura white glaze pen to alter the finger prints and for the stars.

The next two used an underwater photo in the background and the fingerprints were turned into jelly fish, fish, snails and water beetles. I would love to know what you all think of these. I am off to a conference in Birmingham tomorrow for two days leaving Tim to look after Alex alone overnight for the first time. So wish us all luck and pray for them please! Have a good week everyone.

Love,

Caro

x

Phew!

Thank goodness its the weekend! I still haven't fully finalised my talk for Monday's BMS conference, but I am nearly there and am totally exhausted. This week has been manic, but at least it is over. Alex has been great fun to be with though and we have watched some television with his evening meals including 'Chuggington' which, for those of you who don't have young children, is all about trains. Alex loves it and has started trying to sing the theme song while dancing round the room which is very cute - I can't wait to catch it on video! We have been drawing, playing games of chase and generally having fun these past two evenings which is lovely, despite him giving me a stinking head cold.

I have managed a little crafting in the form of these two bookmarks for a swap I have joined in with. I will eventually put thread through the eyelets! The oriental one uses two different background cards stuck to each other and then the front has a Geisha image from Stamps Away, highlighted with sakura stardust and a small symbol stamped in silver. The back has a background symbols stamp in blue, then the small symbol stamp in silver and both sides are finished off with a silver eyelet and silver peel-offs round the edge.

The vintage one has the background of both sides brayed lightly over the brown card and edged with brown pen, a fleur de lys stamped in ginger and a dark antique eyelet. The front is quite simple as it just has the image of the lady on the stairs on it, which I love. I just hope it is detailed enough for this swap. The back has a background hand writing stamp in butterscotch, a swirl from Purple Onion in ginger and highlighted with gold pen and then finally the 'Dream a little dream' in cranberry. I hope you like these offerings and any comments are welcome as always. Have a good weekend everyone.

Love,

Caro

x