Onwards We Go

Oscar decided it was a fine time to start the day at 4.50am this morning. We thought we would talk him back to sleep (sometimes it works), but by the time an hour passed and he was pleading for breakfast, we knew the day had began. I don't often see Duncan in the morning because he leaves by 7am and on the whole Oscar, and in turn I usually snooze until 7.30am-ish. While it was nice to commiserate on the earliness of the hour together, we would both have swapped for an extra hour in bed without a doubt. It wasn't all bad though, because Oscar noticed that the moon was shining in the bedroom window, and as cute as can be, asked us all to stand in the moonshine together.

By the time I yanked my nightgown off and threw on a dress it was 8am and I/we had been up for over 3 hours, yawn. I can see we have a long day ahead of us.

We have some crafting to finish off from yesterday and I have a mountain of little guys to knit...........

I have a wise man knitted but not sewn up, so only 2 more wise men, 3 shepherds and the baby (Je as we affectionately call him in this house, pronounced Gee). I expect I could find patterns for animals, but I think that livestock should wait for next year, and we can raid Oscars farm set for the required ensemble. Ah well, time to stop hiding behind the laptop and address the fact that I have allowed my child to eat peppermint bark at 9.15am (it is Christmas you know).

------------------------------

A Mixed Bag

Today has been a real mixed bag of activities and emotions. Oscar was up at 7am, crying in the dark for a bottle of milk (I have set his 3rd birthday as the rough time to withdrawn the baby accoutrements, whew, ain't looking forward to it). When we wake I usually fetch him a drink in our bed, pull back the curtains and we watch the sky changing colour together. It is a peaceful start to the day, blighted by the sudden memory of a chocolate advent stocking hanging up downstairs.

I still think the littlest one is not getting enough sleep and in turn neither are we (his middle of the night wakings and lack of daytime nap are to blame). It makes the highs and lows in a day too numerous to document. He looks quite sad in the picture above, but here he is dancing and twirling and being very joyful just a moment later.

And that pretty much sums things up. Up and down, up and down. We made some star cheese scones (RECIPE HERE), which were very easy to make and very tasty.

I would say they were a 50/50 success because one lump of mix was thrown on the floor in a temper (because he couldn't get it out of the cutter and didn't want me to help), and he then refused to eat them but licked the butter off and said they were 'yucky' (which they weren't).

By the time Daddy got home the mood was tense to say the least and dinner was a disaster because we were all tired and grumpy. The weather isn't helping. because the wind and rain is back again with a vengeance. This is what I could see out of the window tonight.

Not a lot except some blurry lights and slashes of rain

Strangely enough though, Oscar's mood picked up greatly after bath time and he ran around being silly before going willingly to bed. I tried to photograph his rather fetching ensemble for bed (mis- matched PJ's, sunglasses and his tatty pink vanity case), but it proved more difficult than I expected.

I am looking forward to going up to bed tonight, if for no other reason than a change of vibe. On wet winter days I seem to tread the same circle on the ground floor, the lounge the hall the dining room the kitchen, the lounge, round and round all day.

I don't have a bedside table just now, because the bed is a super-king-size (6ft wide and 6ft2 long), and to fit everything in was impossible, so on the bedside chair I have this waiting for me.

I fully intend to put on a nice cosy nightgown and crawl in to my giant bed (with tea and a bit of chocolate) long before the clock strikes 9pm and not come out again until we pull the curtains back again to watch the sky tomorrow, (although I expect the wind howling all around the house will break into the peace a bit, brrrr).

PS I want to give a warm welcome into the world to a beautiful little lady, arent December babies just wonderful (says a December baby lol). LINKY

>BR>

Beating The Blues

Its no secret that Mondays are my most difficult day of the week. I find it almost impossible to spin it into an exciting brand new day in a brand new week, where the possibilities are endless, although I really do try to. Mondays were previously called Blue Mondays (by the Victorians), as a reflection of the amount of work needing done after the weekend, namely the laundry (I hear you on that one). Maybe I have a residual passed on from mother to daughter down the centuries, telling me Mondays are to be dreaded? Ok, so probably not, but you never know, there are stranger things out there.

Yesterday as I sat sipping my morning tea it occurred to me that we are half way through the month to Christmas. I generally love December even though it can be quite stressful. In our family it is peppered with other events, my birthday is the 3rd, my late Grandma Rose had her birthday on the 14th, my Mum and her brother have their birthday on the 18th and my Aunt (who is also my Godmother) has her birthday on the 31st, and not forgetting, Duncan and I were married on my birthday in 2005 so its our wedding anniversary too. Throw in some trips to see pantomimes and at least one Christmas party and it was quite a whirlwind of fun. Things are a bit quieter now we have a little one again (although I cant wait to take Oscar to his first Panto, maybe next year when he is 3, almost 4), but we are finding joy in the wonder that is a child's eyes. Oscar is absolutely delighted with all of the trimming and crafting and every image he sees which is Christmas related, its an amazing thing to be a part of.

Once I had mulled this over I decided that Monday or not, I should make the effort to lighten my mood. After all, it will be grey January soon enough, and with the sparkle of Christmas behind us and spring so far away, it may feel like a Monday all month long. It actually did help.

PS, our late afternoon cooking turned out not too bad. The lasagne turned out well (and very tasty), and quite huge.

And to satisfy a small boys cooking needs, we attempted some peppermint bark. I have had it in my bookmarks for months and months since I spotted it HERE and when KAT made hers it reminded me to look it up. The recipe (if you can call it that), is HERE, but as you can see below, we didn't have enough white chocolate, so ours is white, dark and milk chocolate. Oscar didn't seem to mind in the slightest.

Slowly Preparing

We have been slowly preparing for Christmas here, but it feels like one step forward 2 steps back at times. At the weekend Oscar went out with his Aunty and his big cousin to the Wildlife Centre to see Santa. The plan was for us to rip through the cleaning and Oscar to not miss out on an annual trip to see Mr Clause. Unfortunately the que for Santa was 2 1/2 hours long and despite best efforts from the adults with him it was just too cold to wait in an outside que for that length of time (they took turns for over an hour then gave in). Meanwhile Duncan and I were both so tired we only got through 2 rooms and managed just a small dent in the gigantic laundry pile.

In other news, I have run out of two different kinds of wool and had to order 1 more ball of each (which means paying extra postage), so I can finish 2 gifts for Christmas.

We also woke this morning to find we had run out of bread, cat food and washing up liquid and milk. With no local shop within walking distance its just a nuisance. Oscar and I wrapped up well and took the bus to the Lidl (you gotta love Lidl), and since we were there, picked up some yummy chocolate and the ingredients to make a lasagne (I love home made lasagne and haven't made it in soooooooooo long). So not a total bust then.

I have made out my shopping lists for the next 3 weeks worth of groceries, bought 99% of Oscar's gifts, made plans for my Mums birthday (next Sunday 18th), and planned my Christmas Day Lunch (for 8 people this year).

So things are slowly pulling together, I think, I hope.

Home Made Victorian Christmas Cards

Today we decided to continue our home made Christmas theme (we are trying to make as much as we can), with home made cards. Since the Victorians are generally recognised as the founders of the Christmas we have now, I decided some Victorian style cards were in order.

We used -

1 - Some coloured card - I used a pack of blank cards and envelopes, not seen here, but £1.50 from the works. Oscars card was actually thick paper from the ELC.

2 - A packet of Paper Doilies - Ours were from the Pound Shop, we bought a pack with 3 different sizes (see also Thursdays snowflake post).

3 - Printed Images - We found some Victorian images on Google and printed them out on A5 sheets of cream/off white paper.

Not In The Picture - We also used

4 - A Hot Glue Gun

5 - A Rubber Christmas Tree Stamp

6 - PVA

7 - Glitter

8 - Pens

9 - Green Poster Paint

For Oscars cards, we glued the doilies to the card (or paper folded in a card shape), then we glued the image to the centre of the Dollie. Oscar then dabbed some PVA on the image and sprinkled with glitter.

(Don't worry I glued the loose ones down again)

For mine, we stuck the images down first onto cream cards. We cut the centre out of the smaller doilies, and glued the doilies over the images. It was traditional to have a blank space on the front of your card to write merry Christmas yourself (I used a photo editor to do it but you could always glue a small blank piece of paper onto the image).

On the inside we used our rubber stamp and green paint to stamp our image.

I bought the stamps months ago on Ebay, but if you are handy with a potato and a cutter I expect you could make a simple stamp of your own ( a star maybe?).

We had fun making them, and although they may not be the most professional looking cards in the world, I hope they will be appreciated.

No Snow Flakes

Oscar is still fairly disappointed by the weather here. To be more precise, he is waiting each day for the snow to arrive with no sign of it so far. He tells me it has to come for Santa to get here, so I only hope we get a few flutters in time for December 25th. Being a good Mama I engaged him in some snowflake making this morning to detract (try and blot out), the gale force winds, black skies and torrential rain, going on outside the window. He is still finding cutting pretty tricky (normal for age 2 right), but he enjoyed opening up the snowflakes to see the shapes. They made us both ridiculously happy, and that was the point of the exercise.

SERIOUSLY? (rant rant rant)

Have you seen the new ad campaign coming out in America? It is aimed at new parents, warning them on the dangers of co-sleeping.

Can it? Me and a meat cleaver are imposing the same level of threat? This kind of thing really bugs me. I remember my Health Visitor warning/checking I wasn't sleeping with Oscar, and it made me quite uptight about the whole thing. I used to make Duncan watch us while I napped so that I wouldn't accidentally kill the baby. Then I talked to some ACTUAL CO-SLEEPING MOTHERS, who advised me on safety issues and where to go for further information and we haven't looked back since. It seemed so alien to me to try and separate myself from my little infant, especially when he was trying to tell me the same thing 'stay with me Mama', his cries said it loud and clear. Here is a link to Dr Sears guide to co-sleeping, just in case you want a quick look, but there are hundreds of safety guides on the net.

LINK

* - I am well aware that tragic co-sleeping accidents do occur, but they also occur in most other aspects of life. Last week when I bought the teaset in the charity shop, the lady who served me and wrapped the china, told me about her grandson. He had somehow managed to get himself tangled in the cat net his family had put on the crib for his own protection. Devastatingly he was strangled and died, he was 7 months old. Would he have been safer by his mothers side? I cant answer that, but as I said, accidents do happen.

I sincerely hope this kind of scare mongering does not cross the Ocean to the UK, I am appalled by that image (and the 2 other similar images in the ad campaign).