Today I have been a very busy housewife!
I made some yummy soup for our picnic, bread rolls and white chocolate and apricot cookies (which are HEAVEN SENT! I will put the recipe up as it is easy peasy and great for the small ones!)
Dan went to the supermarket to get some bits and pieces and came home with a surprise for me. A pumpkin!
I had planned on getting one, but didn't fancy carrying it home from the market. So whilst the bread was baking in the oven, I scooped the guts out and carved my pumpkin. Here is my little buddy, pride of place on the mantlepiece for the next few days. I love halloween, I always have.
Louie has been a spectacluarly wonderful little boy today and let me get on with stuff and played beautifully. He rolled the pumpkin around the kitchen, played with pots and pans all sorts :) He is a joy.

So cute!

Jack O Lantern 2010

Catching up on projects, nonsense and rants!

 I went to the tourist information centre yesterday and bought this book. It is so detailed and I can't wait to start practicing some of the walks. :)

Yesterday Mom and I spent AGES trying to figure out the sewing machine. It must have been an hour to get it to do a zigzag stitch, running stitch was okay mind. We had the wrong thread and all sorts. I have had to settle for white cotton because we don't have any pink but its okay, it doesn't look odd.

This morning, my buttons and lavender came, so I can start on my lavender bags now. I have lots of scraps of muslin left over from when I made Louie some sheets in the summer, so I am going to make little pouches for the lavender then sew it inside the hearts. Best plan of action I think.

So here are some pictures of how we have been getting on.

A gift from a friend, my new sewing bag as the old one was too small!

Tomorrow we are going to Twycross Zoo with Anna, Sam, Nade, Paul and Emmanuel. I am SO excited. I am making soup to take in a flask and am going to make some bread rolls and apricot and white chocolate cookies. Mmmmm!

It has been such an interesting week!
I really don't understand why people fight on the internet. I have a freedom to express my opinion and get slated when I don't want an argument. I have not been rude or offensive to the other party and have received a large amount of abuse back. When are people going to learn to stop taking things so seriously and behave like adults. I am happy and secure in my judgments and choices in my life, and don't wish to force myself upon anyone. I live my life for myself and my family and friends. If you don't agree with me or like my choices, you don't have to get involved. Turn your cheek and look away.

Home Alone

Well, not completely alone!
Last night was Louie's first night without his mama. We went to see a production of Hot Stuff at the Curve, Leicester. It was amazing, as usual! We have seen it every time it has played out since I was about 7.
My Mom's work friend, Julie stayed to look after Louie. We weren't gone long, and had it be in the daytime, he would have been fine. They get on great!
I gave him milkies just before we went, just for some comfort, then left a bottle of expressed milk. As I suspected, he wouldn't take a drop. It is disheartening, as it is such a chore expressing milk, for him to just turn his nose up.

I wasn't too worried about leaving him, as we would class ourselves as being very attached, and I thought he would be confident enough without me. Apparently he was fine for a little while but then noticed we were gone and gave a full search of the house to find us, when we weren't there he got upset :(
He enjoyed his bath though and he went to sleep with Jules at 8:50 (only about an hour late) so I don't think it was a bad job.

Would I leave him again? Not in a hurry
(Although I am going to see UB40 next month and he will be with his Papa)

Today has been such a lovely day, I feel that I have wasted it. The sun has been shining brightly and it hasn't been too cold, despite the thick layer of frost this morning.
Today has been a very fruitful day of housework. I hoovered, sorted clothes out for going into the attic and some for charity. Sent off an application, did a (big) load of nappies, finished off prepping for the sewing machine, cooked, cleaned . Its been a busy day!
Louie fell asleep on my back in the ergo whilst I was hanging the nappies on the line, it was very cute. However he didn't stay asleep for long and we are paying for it now. Early bed for small boys!

My wonderful washing line!

I love walking in the woods, I would say it is one of my favourite pastimes. I often think that it is wasted on me as my knowledge is so poor. I can tell you a Silver Birch but that is about it. I have asked for a guide for christmas but last night Dan and I were looking at our bookshelves and he found this. A 20 year old readers digest book about Woodlands. It was one of his Great Grandma's that she gave him when she moved to Spain. It is a lovely book and I really enjoyed reading it last night. I understand more about structures of the woodlands and I learned about coppicing and pollarding, of which we see often in our local woodlands.
It was a lovely find!

Crafting

My workstation

I am really getting into this whole making presents lark!
I am now 100% ready for the sewing machine and hopefully we can get it out some time this week. As there is nothing else I can  hand stitch, I have been playing around with some scraps of fabric.
Both of my pockets are pinned and ready to go now.

I decided to attach some bits onto the pocket to make them look a little cuter. I found this patch of a fairy which I have trimmed to put on Emily's pinny. I think it looks very sweet! I need to wait for the machine to attach this.

And I appliqued on this heart, and a smaller on on top (after I took the photos) and it looks very sweet. This one is ready for the machine too :)

Idle fingers with nothing to do!
I have bought some dried lavender to make some lavender bags. Next year I will buy a lavender plant and harvest it myself, but this year, I was just too late. So some people will be getting some lovely lavender bags :)

Shopping List

Ribbon - pink, floral? patterned!!
Buttons - lots of different types and colours
Fabric glue

Recent photos of my little star

Louie showing off his Very Hungry Caterpillar bib!

Louie's zoo

My clever little man

Wooly boy! I love this nappy!

Custom Wee Notion - Beautifully Perfect!

Christmas Presents, Part Four

Last night I was able to get quite a lot done.
I finished the sewing of one christmas present, of which I can't give too much away ;) But here is a sneaky taster!

Then I managed to finish sewing the ribbon onto the small pinny, then sew all the ribbon onto the big pinny. Then I cut out and pinned the pocket for the small pinny, ready for sewing with the machine (Which I am dreading!).  The camera has decided to be a pain though and has 'unrecognized file format'd the photo of the big pinny so you will have to use your imagination on that one!

So really, I don't have that much left to do. Once I blow the dust off the sewing machine, I will just need to sew on the pockets and the waistbands and that is them finished! And some ribbon to finish the other project and bobs your uncle! With plenty of time to spare and make some other lovely gifts. Now to get my thinking cap on!

Best Intentions!

Well today I planned to start my training for this walk I need to get ready for. The ergo arrived yesterday and I was super keen. The weatherman said that it was going to be a wet and windy weekend but I looked out of the window to the glorious sunshine and said sod it and went out!
Oh how naive! After about 10 minutes it started spotting, then a few minutes later oh it poured! Louie was loving it! He was laughing away, talking to the trees (as he does!). He loves being outdoors and really embraced the rain. I'm so proud he is outdoorsey. And he made his first animal sound! He was 'Oooooooo Ooooooo'ing at the cows!
Such a proud Mama!

So we decided to take a shortcut back to the car. We did 20 minutes, which is better than nothing I suppose. I was worried Louie would get too cold in the rain, I need to stop being a wet blanket, he would have been fine really. Even still, we both had a really fun time!

Ergo

Thankyou so so so much to the lovely chaps at Ergo for sending my Ergo Performance Carrier!
When I wrote to them for advice, I never dreamed they would offer a carrier to me, and now, here I am with my very own ergo. I know they are such a highly respected name in the carrier business which is why I wanted one of their carriers. They suggested the performance carrier as it is designed for active wear and has certain features which would be preferable to someone undergoing my feat!

This means that I can now start my training for the mission that I will be trying to achieve, be it Snowdon or the Leicestershire Round. I am hoping to get out twice a week to train, starting with tomorrow (if something else doesn't crop up). I will start out small and work up my lengths of the walk and the difficulty. I think the outwoods is a good place to start as it is a 1.8m walk over varied inclines. Then I will do Beacon Hill, then Bradgate and so on and so on. I really cant wait!

Here are some photos of our first try

Busy Bee!

Today has been a busy day!
Last night Louie got nappy rash. BAD nappy rash :( So bad it bled quite a lot :( Yesterday he broke a rattle and the beads got everywhere, including in his nappy. What I think has happened is that it has rubbed against his poor little botty and broken the skin (in three places). I feel awful for him the poor little lamb. He wouldn't even sit down in the bath it stung so bad. So this morning he has had plenty of nappy free time!
Last night he wore a disana wool soaker. It is lovely! Really soft and I think he prefered it. He did wake up a little damp but I hadn't lanolised it yet so I think that is really good going! My wool cure hasn't arrived yet  but will use it again once it has been lanolised. This morning, the postie bought my ecobubs wool pocket nappy. I LOVE IT! It is so soft and fits really well. I really think it is beautiful! Even Dan commented on how lovely it is.

So today, I have been a super busy bee. I have swept, vacuumed, mopped ALL of downstairs which took me most of the morning, cleaned the kitchen, rearranged the furniture in the front room and opened the french doors. Phew! And made dinner, chicken casserole for the slow cooker!

Hopefully I will be able to get some sewing done this afternoon and sort the nappies out.
Busy Busy Busy Bee!

For Charity

For a while now I have been thinking about doing something for my Mom's good friend Glennis. She is the founder of a charity called Crazy Hats, raising money for breast reconstruction. We went to visit her when Louie was 17 days old and she asked me to do a sky dive... a SKY DIVE! I told her she must be crazy! Before I had Louie I wouldn't have thought twice about jumping out of a plane, but now I have too much to lose 'just incase' something went wrong.
In June, Mom climbed Ben Nevis. We went with her but I would love to actually DO something. Next year she wants to climb Snowdon. So I asked if I could join her.
I don't think anyone thinks I am being serious about this. I want to do it carrying Louie.
I have absolutely NO experience and my fitness is atrocious so it probably is a little bit of a high estimation of myself. But I really do want to do something to raise some money for the ward that my Mom works on.

My sling stash only consists of a close carrier and a WAHM Mei Tai, both which I love dearly and enjoy wearing every time. However, I don't think they would be up to the task.
So I decided to email Ergo for some advice. I know they make decent carriers and was just enquiring what would be up to the job.
I was ASTONISHED when they replied offering to send me the carrier of my choice, free of charge by way of sponsorship. I got the dispatch email this afternoon!

The only problem is that  I don't know if I am going to make Snowdon. I did think that I could walk the Leicestershire Round, a 100 mile walk. I could do it over a week and I think it would be a feasible charitable event.

So now, my blog will lay host to my training exploits leading up to whatever I decide to do!

Wish me luck!

Autumn Sun

What a beautiful day today has been!
After a lovely breakfast, I took Louie for a walk, to send him to sleep. I was sitting on the motorway bridge thinking how lovely the sun was and decided to get home and sit in the garden and do some sewing, whilst Louie was fast asleep in the sling.
So off home I popped and managed to finish my cross stitching whilst Louie was still asleep. Then when he woke up he was a wonderful boy and played in his walker (a safe way to play outside for now) whilst I managed to finish a component of a christmas present!

And I managed to recycle some wadding for this! This came in a pair of leather shoes for Louie from his Grandma Jo, I knew I would find a use for it! ;)

I was amazed to actually get something finished! Although it is only a part of the present, I feel accomplished! 

Then Papa returned and Louie was feeling adventurous. He crawled right out of the house and made a bee line for the garage to play with Paps.

Outwoods again, with Photos!

Today we went to our local Farmers Market to get a few bits and pieces for dinner tomorrow (and to get breakfast... yummy!)
We got a lovely beef joint, blackberry and apple pie for pud and some cakes for us to munch :) Oh and some black pudding for Papa because he likes it (eugh)!

Then we had a beautifully long drive to Outwoods - the sat nav took us the scenic route, which was fine by me but riled Dan a little. We only did a short walk today because Papa was being a wimp and didn't want to walk the whole way around.
But it gave me the opportunity to take some photos to show you how beautiful it is!

Midsentence, I look shocked but Louie looks happy!

Ladybird!

Mmmmmmm...

Our kitchen smells divine!
On the hob is a BIG pot of vegetable soup, and cooling on the rack is a loaf of hand made bread.

I love Autumn. I love wrapping up and eating homemade soup, with plenty of bread. Yum! Now I can share it with my wonderful son, it is his favourite too!
I must admit, its usually Mom who makes the soup, and we usually buy fresh bread but this time, it was all me! I am very proud (as you can tell). I just botched together the soup, well you can't really go too wrong with soup I don't think. The bread has turned out beautifully though, perfect size, perfect colour and absolutely delicious!
The soup wasn't half bad either, a little heavy on the sweet potato though. Went down a treat for Mom, Rog, Dan, Nade, Emmanuel and Louie!

Louie and Emmanuel were playing SO nicely. Nade had popped round to ask me all about cloth nappies. I probably overloaded her but I think she liked the Flips and the lusciousness of the Blueberry! And I think she might try some ebay bargains. I gave her a sheet with a list of things to look at and some good websites. Meanwhile, the boys were playing so nicely, Louie was giving E kisses and they were hugging and climbing over one another.
Emmanuel is 9 months old and Louie is 8 1/2. They see eachother often and always have done. I just never thought that they would be so good with eachother so soon! We usually go to coffee shops or restaurants but this time the venue was my front room. They were playing with the toys, crawling, laughing and singing. It was magical. I hope they stay such good friends for a long time, and that they include Emmanuel's new sibling when he or she comes along!

Recipe; Chilli Con Carne (Own Recipe!)

Oh my gosh! I have just concocted the most beautiful chile ever!
It is easy peasy and is with a bit of a twist, its braising steak rather than mince. Mmmmm,
I've never written a recipe before and its very mish mash, I just chucked it all together really!

1 Packet of Braising Steak (ours had 3 pieces)
2 Cans of Chopped Tomatoes
1 Can of Red Kidney Beans
1/2 Packet of Chorizo
4 Cloves of Garlic
1 Onion
Chilli Flakes
Cumin
All Spice

Firstly dice the meat. I cut it into quite small pieces so that my son could manage it. Brown in a pan with a little oil. Whilst browning, put the tomatoes in another pan to simmer.
Once browned, put the meat in with the tomatoes.
Finely dice the onion and garlic, brown in the (meat) pan. Once cooked, add to the tomato pan. Do the same with the chorizo.
Add approx 2 teaspoons of chilli flakes, 1 teaspoon of cumin and all spice.

Transfer into a casserole dish and put in the oven (my oven was on full) for two hours. Stir every 1/2 hour. After an hour, add the drained kidney beans.

Serve with rice and soured cream.

Yummy!

Outwoods

Today, I took Louie on a walk to the Outwoods in the National Forest, near Woodhouse Eaves. I have seen it sign posted a few times but never really bothered looking in. After seeing it on the list of Top 5 Autumn Walks in The Green Parent magazine, I thought I might as well check it out.

Wow, its beautiful!

We walked the whole of the woods, the circuit that is 3k (1.8m) and it was truly stunning. The effects of autumn are starting to set in, so there were beautiful yellows on the trees. Not to mention the leaves falling off the trees! We got hit by a fair few branches!

The Outwoods is one of the oldest areas of woodland in Charnwood. It has rocks and minerals from the precamrian era (so pretty old!) and it was amazing to see such beautiful rocks there, especially the colours, I really feel silly for not taking my camera.

It was lovely to sit and just take in the air and the atmosphere. Really refreshing.
We will definitely be going back, I'd say its one of my favourite woods so far.

Christmas Presents, Part Three

 After a bit of a kerfuffle with the person I bought some fabric from on Ebay, I finally received my purchase. I'm sure I ordered 1 metre off the roll but I have a metre square, nevermind. It has messed up my plan slightly though, which is a pain.
A trip into town later and I have some more supplies.

I am now equipped with a large square of aida, some stripy fabric, a large length of lace and the stripy floral fabric (from ebay).

So, the small apron has half of the lace sewn on. I am sewing by hand and it is going well. I think I am only going to have to get the machine out to sew the pockets on and the waistbands. The stripy fabric I am going to use for the waistband and the stripy floral fabric I am going to use for the small aprons pocket and with the other fabrics for a patchwork pocket on the large apron.

I have started cross-stitching the detail for my heart designs. I found some beautiful pink thread in my *very* old sewing box which I am using to sew some words. I am now on my second attempt, the first attempt, I didn't cut the aida big enough *oops*. But that is going well :) That won't take too long to finish now :) Then I will just need to find some pretty ribbon to join them together. That will be one present down at least!


Not a homemade present, but Nana bought Louie's christmas present last week. It is a beautiful wooden shape sorter Noah's Ark. It is so beautifully made, and I know that it will last years and years and that it will be handed down through our family. I am so pleased with it.

Christmas Presents, Part Two!

Ahh the love of Pinking Shears!


So, last night, I finally finished hemming the first apron. This has taken me AGES! It really is difficult finding the time these days. I wish I could just sit and get it done but it isn't that easy.

I am still waiting for fabric I ordered which seems to have gotten lost in the post so I decided to start the smaller apron whilst i am waiting.

I used my noggin this time though, and used the pinking shears to cut it out, meaning I dont need to hem it!
Then after spending quite some time negotiating the lace, I asked Mom to pin it for me, as I was making a meal of it!

How cute is that!
I also pinked my hearts, as I have had a better idea of making them. I need to get some aida!