Magic Moments - I Can See Clearly Now...

You know that song, by Johnny Nash....you know...this one, yeah, that one!  Well it refused to leave my head yesterday.  Point blank refused.

I know it's hideously British to carp on about the weather constantly, but yesterday morning Wiggles and I went for a walk together and ladies and gentlemen, after what feels like an eternity of never ending driving rain and impossible wind it was sunny.  Actually sunny.

In fact the sun shone on our faces as we walked and all but melted away the memory of it ever being any different.  It was exactly what I needed.  We went up hill and down dale and came back pink cheeked and cobweb free.  It feels like so long since I've felt a little too warm in my coat, I've missed that.

I looked up and I saw this:

I looked down and I saw this:

Wiggles was in her pram, jabbering away to herself about cats.  I hummed the above mentioned tune to myself in eternally optimistic fashion and Pearl the Pug trotted along beside us.  I had one of those rare and beautiful moments when I just felt so thankful for the small, sometimes over looked things which surround us.

It struck me that, yes, I could focus on the fact that one of the things I can see ahead of me is a dog's bum hole.  But I refuse!  I choose to see sunshine.  I choose to see a smiley kiddo and I choose to enjoy the fresh air and ignore the bum hole.  I think that's a pretty good philosophy to have in life.  Ignore the bum holes my lovelies and enjoy the sun!

Happily linking up with Jaime and Magic Moments.  Happy Monday one and all!

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Magic Moments - Three Little Words....

I actually can't believe my last Magic Moments post was all the way back in October. Surely that can't be right? I'm pretty positive there's been some magic between here and there, what a shame I haven't recorded it here! Still my big big rule with this lovely link up is that I only join in when I have plenty of time to get round and visit the other blogs that have joined in. And luckily both magic and time have coincided this week. So here goes:

It was Saturday night when it happened. It had been a bit of a dull day with nothing at all remarkable occurring. Because we'd been to the supermarket Mr Husband had bought doughnuts and had promised our tinkers that they could have one, as a treat, if they ate their teas nicely.

Biscuit was taking HOURS as usual, but Wiggles had powered through, scoffing up her peas with a spoon and nomming down great shovelfuls of potato. 

She finished and I stood up to cut her a doughnut in half for her treat. Not entirely sure she would appreciate it, or even like it (I hate doughnuts) I asked her "Do you want some of this, darling?" And I showed her the sugary cake over her sisters head. 

And then she said it. Three words. Three. Little words. All in a row, nay, in a SENTENCE! Perfectly constructed, succinct and to the point. She bellowed back at me "Yesh peease Mama!" 

Her first unprompted sentence! And with a "please" in it! I was so proud I nearly gave her the whole doughnut. But I didn't. I just gave her lots and lots of kisses for being so clever. My little girl does sentences now, whooooo yeah! Magic that!

Have you entered my giveaway yet?  If not, click the image below to be in with a chance of winning a selection of fabulous crochet gifts, good luck! 

Magic Moments...A Game of Two Halves

Little Baby Biscuit visits the Mothership with Daddy....

Mr Husband is a football fan. A huge football fan. Before we met I was firmly of the opinion that people who followed football did so because they were incapable of reading books. Of course, I was quite wrong. Mr Husband is an actual genius (in my opinion) not least because he completed an Open University Degree course in his spare time, despite having a small screaming baby and frazzled wife to contend with. He got a first. A Magic Moment in itself!  But in addition to being a genius he is also a football fan.

He's usually quiet and sweet and thoughtful (and gorgeous, grrrrr) but when there's a match on, something comes over him. He gets very, erm, passionate....it's pretty much the only time you'll ever see him get aggressive or raise his voice. He loves it. Absolutely loves it. I'll probably never really understand it fully, but I try my best to be supportive.

On Saturday Mr Husband went to a  football match in London. His team were playing at home. For him a long trek by car and train and underground. He doesn't go that often, but I know that he loves doing it.

For his 30th Birthday, as well as taking him on a surprise trip to Barcelona (serious Wife Points) I wanted to get him something lasting and more permanent. By happy accident his team were selling personalised plaques set within their home ground. I chose (and paid an arm and a leg for) a large stone, inscribed in gold with his name, a cannon and the words Happy 30th Birthday.  It happily sits just outside the club's shop doors.

On the evening of his 30th Birthday we travelled to London together. It was dark, raining and very, very cold. I wore a long faux fur coat in an attempt to survive the match minus hypothermia.  I'd been sent a map with the rough location of our stone which I smuggled into my bag. Thankfully I'd had a last minute brainwave and took a small rechargeable torch with me. We arrived and I sent Mr Husband into the shop whilst I searched valiantly for his stone, on my hands and knees on the ground, with a tiny, pretty much useless torch in my teeth, amid throngs of people (some of whom took pity on me and helped) in the pouring rain. 

By the time he emerged from the shop I was stood, soaked to the skin and triumphant, holding aloft a pathetic, spindly little torch in an act that I hoped made me look like a sort of sexy Statue of Liberty, planted on top of his personalised stone. He initially thought I'd gone potty, but was chuffed to bits when he clicked what was going on. He visits that stone, that very special stone, that took so long to find, before every home game to bring the team luck. Must have worked this weekend, they won by a mile! It was a pretty flippin memorable night, and pretty bloomin magical, I tell thee!

Have a great week everyone!

Love, love,

Magic Moments.....My kingdom for a hat....

We are lucky enough to have been invited to another wedding this weekend in London. My very dear old friend Berg is marrying his gorgeous girl. Berg & I have each other a very long time and he's always been someone that I trust and look up to, I value his opinion and he sees through all my rubbish. He does not like being woken up on holiday by Tallulah and I gleefully jumping on his bed. This I have learnt.

Travelling to a wedding throws up a whole host of logistical problems. Do we drive? Get the train? Drive part of the way then get the tube? Stay in a hotel? Ugh! So many things to think about! 

However we get there, I've decided what I'd like to wear. Obviously my first port of call is always Vivien of Holloway, my favourite dress shop in the world. I'm going to wear this dress:

Their beautiful 1940's dress in Valentine Rose. One of the wonderful things about it is that it doesn't crease, so however we travel, hopefully I won't look too squashed.

I love the hat that this model is wearing, and tried so hard to find something similar, but to no avail. I trawled Etsy but as I only had a small hat budget, it proved a little difficult. In the end I had a brainwave! Proper middle of the night flash of inspiration stuff....

I invested a whole £7 in a very plain hat from Etsy, complete with veil. It's very simple hence the low price.

Here's how it looked on...

Bit worried that if the dot falls in the wrong place I might look a little, erm, Hitler-y, but I'm just going to have to hope for the best on that front!

I used the hat as a base and armed with a glue gun I'd sneakily borrowed from my friend Bob I added some paper roses that I was given as a Christmas present ages ago. I've never really known what to do with them...

I spent ages deciding on the best position and arrangement, then glued them onto my hat and whacked in a few carefully placed leaves for good measure and....voila! 

The result!!! Complete and perfect match for my dress for a princely £7! 

What do you think? Bonkers or brill? 

I'm chuffed as a chuffed thing from Chuffingham! Now pray it doesn't rain......

I can't be the only person to have fashioned accessories from bits and bobs laying around....tell me your tales!! 

Love, love,

Magic Moments.....#12

Just a short post this week, to share a truly lovely moment. On Saturday we went to the most beautiful wedding. I thought every single aspect was perfect. And I can't tell you how much I adored the Bride's dress!

I'm afraid I only have one photograph of the Bride and Groom, as they have small children who were, understandably, in many of my photographs. I thought it was unfair to post those, so instead I half inched one from another guest. I do love it though, Bride & Groom, laughing, smiling and dancing and enjoying their day. 

When good friends get married, and when you feel truly, truly happy for them, it's a magic moment. 

Congratulations guys! 

Magic Moments.....#11

Good Monday Morning my lovelies!

I hope you all had marvellous weekends?  I am very happy to linking up with the gorgeous Jaime at  The Oliver's Madhouse for Magic Moments again.

I thought I'd share with you some bits about the WI Garden party we were lucky enough to attend last week.  I've not been a Women's Institute member for very long, so this was my first garden party.  I wasn't entirely sure what to expect, I was pretty sure that there wouldn't be any vodka, so not exactly my usual kind of party, bet hey, in for a penny, in for a pound!

The ladies had insisted that I bring both children along, which was fine with me, as they wanted to meet them.  So we all donned our pretty dresses and headed off.  It was held at my friend's lovely farm and involved cake.  Lots and lots of cake, and a bring and buy stall - where I was lucky enough to get my mitts on a brand new ladybird backpack for Wiggles which will come in very handy!

The garden party was lovely, very sedate!  We all sat in the sunshine and drank tea from beautiful vintage cups, which in itself was a magic moment, but not what I wanted to share with you.  Nope.  In fact the magic moment wasn't even watching my lovely friend The Farmer's Wife expertly milk her very compliant goat....

In fact the Magic Moment I wanted to share with you was when the very sweet and very kind Farmer took Biscuit with him to collect the eggs from their chickens....

She was, understandably, a little cautious to begin with as she wasn't sure if chickens could bite or if they had teeth.  You have no idea how long the chicken's teeth conversation turned out to be, but that's another matter....

Anyway, she dutifully followed all The Farmer's instructions and popped her head into the first chicken run.  Which was empty.  I could tell she was upset at the lack of eggs but she carried on to the second chicken run.  Again, empty.  Uh oh....

She stuck her head into the third and final chicken run and made one of the happiest sounds I ever have heard, yelling "An egg Mama, an EGG!!!!"  It was lovely, she was thrilled to bits.  

Of course I insisted on taking a photograph, which did make her a bit cross (see above) because she was convinced that my camera might somehow break her one and only, very precious egg, but nevertheless I promise you she was very, very pleased with herself.

Who'd have thought a simple egg could bring so much happiness....

 

Magic Moments........#10

It's been a while since I last linked up with The Oliver's Madhouse for the Magic Moments series.  It's not been because I'd gone off the idea or anything crazy like that, it's just that I feel for a moment to be truly magical it shouldn't be manufactured specifically to fit into a link up.  Of course we can look for magical things that happen all around us in our every day lives, these things, although precious, are not always worth sharing...  For example, I think it's pretty magical that my little girls will regularly hug one another at varying intervals throughout the day, but I can't imagine that's terribly fascinating to the wider world....

And a LOT has been going on around here, so I've been enjoying the moments, but not necessarily recording them, which I will probably have to start doing retrospectively I think, after all, that's what this blog is all about really!

Anyway, a magic moment happened the other day and I wanted to share it, record it and preserve it for all time.... it may be mundane and ordinary, but to me it's magical.

I'll set the scene a little.....

It's the weekend, it's tea time and we're all sat around enjoying our meal.  Wiggles has pretty much eaten hers already, but to keep her amused whilst we finish off I give her a baby fork and some peas.

We carry on eating, I look up and see this:

My clever girl, it was MAGIC.  Glad to be back guys!

 

Magic Moments....#9

Good Morning one and all!! I trust you've a had excellent weekends?

I'd like to link up with The Oliver's Madhouse for the Magic Moments series once again. Here goes!

I'm sure I've shared the details of our living arrangements in vague terms before, but I thought I'd take this opportunity to explain our set up properly....

When Biscuit was fourteen months old we all moved to the little village that I'd grown up in. We rented a lovely little cottage right beside the church, about a five minute walk from my Mum, Dad and Brother. 

We'd lived there for about two years when my Dad asked us over for lunch as there was something he wanted to discuss. When we arrived that day he told us he'd woken up the night before with a grand plan that had come to him. It was an open secret that we would never be able to afford a mortgage on our household income and I know this pained my Dad. He firmly believes that renting is dead money. And in some respects I agree, but it never particularly bothered me. Certainly not to the same degree!!

My Dad told us that he had worked out that he could extend my parents home, then divide it up to create two separate (but joint) houses, one for them and one for us, if we would consider coming to live alongside them. 

This made sense in so many ways! We'd have more space, have an extra bedroom so could have another baby (hence the arrival of Wiggles a while later). We wouldn't be renting, we would be able to live in a house we would never be able to afford on our own and we'd have more security for our little family. We would be on hand to help out with caring for my older brother who has severe learning difficulties and will always live at home. We'd be company for my Mum during the week when my Dad often has to work away and in later years we'd be around to make sure they were ok.

What followed was my Dad drawing some very clever and detailed plans, submitting them to an architect to get them drawn up, Planning Permission refusal, some adjustments, Planning Permission acceptance! Finding the best builder in the world, a whole lotta rubble, packing up, moving out and moving in.   My Dad was very clever and utilised the existing buildings that they had, even turning the old garage into their new bedroom!  I am so proud of him for having such excellent vision.

This is our before picture, Mum & Dad's old garden and conservatory..

The conservatory down and most of the garden removed - although you can see where it used to be...

The garage - which became Mum & Dad's bedroom...

The new extension from the inside

Our lovely builders hard at work, and nearly there!

This is the final product from the garden, taken in 2012.  You can see the new extension on the right and the gararge that's now the bedroom at the bottom.  Oh yes, and Biscuit in her paddling pool!

We made a few adjustments here and there to make the place our own, but we've now lived this way for eighteen months now and it's great. It really works for us. Apparently living together as a family and pooling resources is is much more popular overseas than here in the UK, but with ground rules and common sense there's no reason that it it shouldn't work for others...

I love to see how close the girls are to their grandparents and Uncle and I feel really lucky to live the way we do.  And the live in babysitters are fantastic!!

I am so pleased that my Dad had this flash of inspiration that lead us to where we are today.  I suppose this was his Magic Moment really, but it really has changed our lives for the better and I love him for it.

 

Magic Moments....#8

Happy Bank Holiday Monday my lovelies! I'm sharing the magic and linking up with The Oliver's Madhouse for this week's Magic Moment.

It's a simple one.

Wiggles, my little whirlwind trapped inside a baby is eleven months old this very day. I am barely clinging onto "this time last year I was pregnant" and remembering things we did whilst she danced around like a baby lunatic in my tummy. I can't believe a year has passed already, and that we have such a happy, clever and mischievous little girl.

She's growing up fast. On Saturday morning I went into her bedroom to get her up. She was stood up in her cot in her little baby sleeping bag shouting "Hiya! Hiya!" with a cheeky grin on her face.

I may be a grumpy old bag in the morning, but face me with a greeting like that and I can't help but smile.

 

Magic Moments....#7

Happy Monday!!! I'm happy and chuffed to be linking up with The Oliver's Madhouse for this week's Magic Moment.

Today I wanted to share with you the tale of my two girls. Biscuit was always desperate to have a baby sister. When we told her another baby was on the way she was thrilled, but quite certain that it shouldn't be a baby boy. Obviously this worried us a little as we had no choice in the matter. We decided to find out what we were expecting at our 20 week scan. Biscuit came with us, together with a plentiful supply of lollipops to keep her quiet. She was a bit disappointed that the picture on screen didn't look like Dora The Explorer, but thrilled beyond words when she was told that a baby sister was on the way to join her.

Fast forward another 19 weeks to the day that Wiggles was born. Biscuit came to visit us in the afternoon, proudly wearing her new "Best Big Sister" t shirt. She came into our little curtained cubicle, kissed me, and asked if this was her baby? I said that it was and she knelt up beside the little perspex crib and whispered "Hello Sis, I've been looking forward to you!"

And I dissolved.

They've been firm friends ever since. I love these two.

 

Magic Moments...#6

Good morning one and all, I hope you've all had fabulous weekend's?  Mine has been busy as a bee, but I still wanted to link up with the wonderful The Oliver's Madhouse and join in with the Magic Moments series.

When I was thinking about this post I was listening to a compilation album in the car.  It wasn't a bought one, not a Now 7000019 or anything like that, just lots of the songs we already love collected together in one place.  The track Made Up Love Song #43 by Guillemots came on and the lyrics were kind of inspiring:

"I love you through sparks and shining dragons, I do,
now there's poetry, in an empty coke can.
I love you through sparks and shining dragons, I do,
now there's majesty, in a burnt out caravan"

When I put the two things together in my head I decided that I would link THIS POST this week as a reminder that something magical can happen, or can find you on even the most mundane and ordinary of days.  It's all about perception really isn't it?  If Fyfe Dangerfield can find majesty in an empty coke can, I can find the magic moment in this.

Hope you all have Magical Monday's my pretties....

 

And here's a picture from our weekend.  I  know the two things aren't connected, it's just Biscuit hugging a bloke in a  Kingfisher suit, but who cares, it's cute!

Magic Moments...#5

Good Morning!  Good Morning!  Thank you for stopping by and thank you for reading.  I am happy to be joining in with The Oliver's Madhouse and the Magic Moments series once again.

Today I wanted to share a Magic Moment that is ALL ABOUT ME!  ME, ME, ME, ME, ME!  Ahem, sorry about that.  Got a little carried away there....

Today is my birthday.  I'm not going to tell you how old I am, not because it bothers me, just because I think it would probably be rather silly to stick my date up birth up on the internet where any Tom, Dick or Harry could thieve it and use it to take over the world.  Not that I'm suggesting you are that a Tom or a Harry and I  am quite positive that if you have the good taste to be reading this you are definitely not a Dick. Unless you are actually called Tom or Dick or Harry, in which case I sincerely apologise.  You get the gist though, right?

So!  Happy Birthday to me!.  But surely the fact that it just happens to be my birthday isn't a Magic Moment, I hear you cry!

Indeed not!  For this week's magic moment I'd like to take you back five years, five years ago today, on my birthday I was pregnant with my first baby.  I was four days overdue and the size of small cow.  As much as I loved being pregnant I hadn't had a great time of it and had been pretty seriously ill with Deep Vein Thrombosis during the later stages.  This meant that walking was difficult and even sitting still was pretty painful.  I had to inject myself in the stomach with anticoagulants twice a day and it wasn't a great deal of fun.  Still I am a pretty positive person and five years ago I was happy just to be out of hospital and free to waddle around my little flat.

I remember my birthday that year particularly clearly because at fifteen minutes past midnight my waters broke.  I was in bed, laying next to my lovely husband who was sleeping soundly. Obviously initially I assumed that I'd wet myself, like you do, before I realised that actually it might be something a little more exciting than a wee soaked bed.

I woke Mr Husband Sir up and he did what all men in the same situation seem to do:  he panicked!  Not because he thought our baby was going to make an immediate appearance in the bedroom, but because he'd arranged a birthday surprise for me and he was worried that I was going to miss it if we had to go straight to the hospital.

So, in the early hours of the morning on the 15th April 2008 I waddled my way around our little flat with a belly the size of small hatchback, completing a treasure hunt organised by my wonderful fella.  I hunted down clues and solved riddles that led me to my wonderful and thoughtfully chosen birthday presents.  At the same time I was also trying to keep a rolled up bath towel wedged between my legs to avoid dripping amniotic fluid onto our rented beige carpets.  Possibly one of the most memorable birthdays I have ever had.  It sounds dreadful, but actually it was pretty flippin wonderful.

Two days later our baby girl was born.  And that's a whole other Magic Moment!  Have a great day everyone!