Dinosaur appliqué t-shirts

To go with the dinosaur taggie toys I appliquéd a dino design onto some striped t-shirts I picked up in the sale an age ago. Had me some lovely hand stitching time whilst watching Wimbledon :) 

Beach bags/totes at the ready

Next week 'we're all going on a summer holiday' - cannot wait :) 

I came across a great tablecloth in a charity shop the other week which I thought would be fab to use for some beach bags. 

For the design I used inspiration from a couple of bags pinned on  my bags to make board. Thanks Liz for the construction tutorial  and Delia for the idea on how to add texture to the handles. 

 You can't really tell from the photos that the handles have been top stitched about six times , in real life I love how they look.

I added two pockets inside and as I interfaced both the lining and the outer fabric the bags have a nice thickness to them.

Oh I made two, one slightly smaller. I think I'll go and buy some scotchguard to make them a little more water /stain repellant - don't want to be too precious about them getting wrecked at the beach :)

 Can't wait to use these next week :)

Dinosaur taggie toys

I found this cute dinosaur taggie toy pattern from Bubbles and Bobbins found here and as there have been a few baby boys born in my neck of the woods recently, I had some fun running up four of them this week in production line fashion (I ran out or stuffing so the fourth is yet to be completed).

It's always satisfying having all the materials you want at had. The stripy ribbon was wrapped around the pyjamas, the boys got for Christmas and the fabric is from a vintage duvet cover. I added a bell inside for noise value and followed the advice of Grandmother; toy making success is found in the quality of the stuffing and the features, so stuff it well and make sure the features are friendly.

 Steggie 1

Steggie 2 (with one less tag, having evaluated Steggie one)

Steggie 3

Giving three away and keeping one in the bag for baby.

To see the Olympic torch we went..

Good spot located.

 Wave flag patriotically (though really what I want mummy to do is take the flag of the stick so I can use it as a sword)

There's the torch - now you see it...

 ... now you don't :)

The countdown to Christmas has begun

Baby McNee the third is on it's way :) We're so excited. 

We found out about six weeks ago, though we like to keep it to ourselves until we've been for the first scan. I've been lucky with each of my pregnancies not to feel sick and, the only real symptoms I have are a lack of energy and that feeling of needing a good cry most days. So at the scan it becomes real, there is a baby actually in there :)

Baby is due on the 20th of December (the date was moved forward from the 25th :)) and hopefully will be well behaved and come before Christmas. Looking forward to a Christmas baby, the perfect excuse to do very little.

Nathan, came out and said; 'Well it's a boy isn't it?' 

'Why?'

'I saw something'

'Nathan, those bits haven't even developed yet'

'Well it looked like a boy'

'I think at this stage they all look pretty much the same love'

It has to be said I am honestly equally happy with a boy or a girl. Of course it would be lovely to have a girl, I think Nathan would love a little Daddy's girl but boys are so fun and we make such cute boys why would we not be happy to have another blue one?

We picked the boys up and told them we had a surprise for them.

We sat them down in the sofa and gave them the photo

Joseph: 'What's that?' 

Me: 'It's a baby!'

Joseph: 'A baby! (he laughs)

Me: We're going to have a new baby for Christmas!

Joseph: Oh,.... but I wanted some toys (said sheepishly).

LOL

When we explained that he would have a new baby and still get the soldiers he'd like for Christmas he was over the moon ( you've got to love the honesty of the boy). Ben just laughed and wanted to kiss the scan picture - cute.

Joseph then went on a phone marathon telling the family our news

'We're going to have a new baby.....for Christmas!.....I'm still getting my soldiers too'

Father's day

My boys are so lucky to have the dad they do. He is kind, fun, so helpful and supportive to me, a good listener, diligent, hardworking, friendly, a great example of doing his duty for his family and in his calling whatever it is. 

 In some ways  it's true, he is  a child at heart  which totally benefits the boys. He knows just what little boys like; cars, more cars, did I say cars, super hero figurines, lego kits, oh and cars :) On Saturday he decided what he'd like to do was take the boys out to buy a first lego kit and then make it with them. 

He then went over to Huddersfield to watch Tim graduate from seminary, the last of the six, 17 years worth of seminary in the McNee senior household completed, something to celebrate :)

On Father's Day we made him breakfast in bed and then after church we went over to Grandma and Grandad's for mince and dumplings (very tasty). After dinner, Amy had the task of taking photos of certain groups that Carol wanted. Talk about hard work, not that it was our two playing up. The main challenge was getting Nathan, Josh (award for most difficult model of the day) Tom and Tim to smile/look in the right direction/look natural at the same time. The whole group photo was done in one shot.

The card  we made for Daddy (the boys looked cute and I did the editing - a collaboration :))

Here's the cards we made for 'The Grandads' inspiration from here

How very true, Nath and I are really blessed to have two amazing dads who in their promotion to Grandads are doing a fab job too :)

Why I blog #9

A few things I want to remember that I'm loving at the moment:

Having conversations with Ben. Ben has turned into a little chatterbox. It's like he's discovered the joys of communication. He copies things you say and it sounds so cute in his sweet voice. For example:

Yesterday he came and gave me a hug

Me: Ahh cuddle time

Ben: Cuddle time

Me: My favourite

Ben: My faourite

Then he coughed loudly

Me: Oh dear, coughy time

Ben: coughy time

We laugh and then repeat the same pattern again at least three times over :)

The things Joseph comes out with. Joseph has always been a chatterbox with an ever expanding vocabulary. There are still times though when the things he comes out with makes Nathan and I laugh as he sounds so grown up. For example we were talking at the dinner table, the subject escapes my memory, anyway Joseph's reply to a comment made was 'How interesting' 

He also loves to make up names for things; 'This is a snafflelapter, he's called Tonk and she is called Glandertink.'

Birdsong I am no fan of birds in the sense that I live in fear of one flapping too close to me or (let' s face it)pooing on me - very mature I know! However, I do love to watch them flying around  the garden, from the kitchen window and I especially love to hear them.It's one of my favourite things to do to relax, lie on my bed with the velux open and just listen to them.

 We are really blessed to have the large trees at the bottom of our garden which are part of a copse in the neighbouring garth, so there are lots of birds around including a couple of owls which can be heard at night. It's one of the many, many things I love about living where we do and one of the many things I'll miss when we eventually move. I was speaking to Grandma about it the other day, saying how I'll miss it and I don't think we'll end up any where like this. She said ' No, but you just have to think that you've been privileged to have lived by it.' What a great perspective to have. It's good to be reminded to enjoy the blessings you currently have whilst you have them and I intend to enjoy the blessings of living here in our little cottage whilst we still do.

Note - Whilst I am typing this the church clock has just struck 8 and I am reminded how much I love to hear the clock chiming through my window too.

So it's fair to say I love these peg bags

Had a little production line going over the past couple of days to make these four new peg bags. 

I have now got birthdays covered for the female variety of siblings, for the rest of the year - oh yeah check me out :) 

 It made it so much quicker than doing them one by one and my fave part was last night sitting down and hand sewing the washing line whilst watching ' The secret life of Bees' ( film drama, not wildlife documentary though bees do sound fascinating).

 This makes my total number of peg bags up to 8 see here, here, and here

I love this design from the Sew Fabulous Fabric book  found  here

and will no doubt be producing another load of them, just need to find some more female siblings :)

Ben had a birthday shout hooray....

we want to sing to him today,

One year older and wiser too

Happy Birthday to you.'

Ben had a great birthday. Great gifts: a scooter and helmet, disney cars ( a staple gift for our boys), duplo sets, clothes, insect collecting set ( Aunty Gemma and I were on the same wavelength there as I went and got the boys one this week too, now they don't have to share) and lots of lovely books. 

In the morning, we took them to see Chpimunks: Chipwrecked which they enjoy and we as doting parents endured :) Then in the afternoon we went to Tropical world at Roundhay. The Family McNee came and Granne, Grandad, Aunty Gemma, Uncle David, Jack and Charlie too. 

The boys loved wandering/rushing around the animal houses swinging from one relative to the next at will, each taking turns to chase after them as they could weave in and out of legs :) The Meerkats were the favourite sight, especially as there were 4 baby kits(?) Joseph didn't want to see the crocodiles or the snakes and covered his eyes, though he liked the Tree shrews, oh and of course the gift shop where he begged for a tiny plastic crocodile :)  

Jack and Ben are great pals and share their own definition of fun ie. hiding behind the grotty looking plastic door hangings (try not to think to much about what germs maybe clung onto those  strips)

Outside and with a plastic crocodile each, the three boys raced around the privet lined flowerbeds repeatedly. Challenging different aunts and Uncles to compete. Grandad McNee also joined in with a special racing step. 'Again' squealed Ben 'Again'. We headed down to the park for cake and drink, though disaster occurred when it appeared that in the hurrah of being flung in the air by Grandad Mc and Uncle Tim, Joseph had lost his plastic crocodile. The pavements were trawled almost in police fashion but unfortunately the croc had gone. Over to Grandad Hillary to patiently look with him and then in the end go back and buy him a new one - trauma averted.

As his birthday was over the Queen's Jubilee weekend, I opted for a Jubilee themed cake. Though Nathan would have preferred the red and blue to have been made up of peanut M&Ms, the strawberries and blueberries went down well. 

More racing around (and it has to be said sometimes through) flowerbeds, some diving on Aunty Alice and being weights for Uncle Josh who carried them two at a time like a 'world's strongest man' challenge, present opening and it was time to head home.

A lovely day, for our lovely boy.

Sweet heart

The other afternoon, Joseph was playing with his knights (they are the current favourite toy). I was watching a little of the French Open. In the ads the advert for Water Aid came on, I noticed that Joseph had turned to watch it, probably because he heard the word 'kill' and he knows I don't like that word. He looked so sad as he saw the children who had to drink dirty water.

'Mummy why do they have to drink dirty water?'

'Because they don't have any clean water nearby, they don't have taps that come into their homes like we do'

'That's not fair is it?' he responded.

His sweet heart just moved me. We decided that we should definitely do something to help those children and so in FHE we're going to find how together.