Music Star

Today Kaydin delved into the musical side of his personality. He has always been into music be it listening to music (songs and instrumentals) singing away himself or playing instruments. Today he found a Ukeleile (sp..) and started strumming away. Then i had to sing various nursery rhymes while he played the music. Once some other children had joined us he went and got more musical instruments and we had quite a neat little band playing with children from 7months to nearly 5yrs. we had Ukeleile's, triangles, drums, xylophones, clarinets. it was really delightful to see. (photos to follow once i've found time to upload them)

Right from early though i've noticed and tried to encourage his interest in music. a friend of mums plays in a band and we went to watch them perform and he just sat in his pushchair absoloutly spellbound. The cutest has to be one day when we were driving i heard this little singsong voice in the back happily singing "Happy birthday to me, all-by-myself. Happy birthday to me, all-by-myself"

Hopefully when he starts school he will be able to learn more about music as i have never been any good and havn't been able to extend his learning. Right now i think it would be great to have a budding musician in the house but im sure when he's a teenager with a band pounding music in my garage i may not be so convinced :)

Birthday Plans

Kaydin's 5th Birthday is coming up (still a wee while away yet though) and he decided months ago that he wanted a Dinosaur party. So i've been thinking of ideas for the party, games and food ideas, i managed to buy some easter eggs to put in a nest for a 'dino nest hunt' instead of a treasure hunt. The Cake idea progressed from just a Dino shaped cake to a Erupting Volcano cake nad now his dad had an idea for an egg cake that when Kaydin cuts it open it will have plastic dinos inside "hatching out". However he did leave the way to make it up to me to figure out. But i have a couple of different ways to choose from so we will see how it goes. I found dino invites which last month so i've already got them organised, just have to write the list out. Looking forward to it actually being close enough to start impleting these plans and hoping the day (and cake) goes well and will definatly put up photos after the day

Knitted competition entries

This is a doll i knitted for a women's institute competition although it didn't get a placing.
I knitted it from a pattern i made up using i cord for arms and legs, it had a maximum length of 30cm which is why the legs are so short (and curly).
The dress pattern i managed to find in a book for dolls and simply used much smaller needles.
It is sitting on a small floor mat i also knitted for a competition which received a 2nd place. it was knitted out of a satin type material (ripped into lengths and tied together) with a red 8ply wool.

Harry and his bucketful of Dinosaurs

These dinosaurs i knitted for Kaydins Christmas present 2008. They were from a pattern book with only 4 types of dinos a t-rex, a long neck, a pteradactyl and the short long flat one so i had to customize them to make a stegasaurus and triceratop so i think just having the right colours makes it easier to tell who they are

Orange is Trike the Triceratops
Yellow is Pterence the Pteradactyl
Red is Taurie the Tyranasaurus Rex
Blue with pink spikes is Steggy the Stegasaurus (my fav.)
Pink is Patsy the Apatasaurus
Blue with Yellow spikes is Syd the 'some type of dinosaur'
(excuse my poor spelling)

Knitted Blankets -2

This is the first ever bit of knitting i did. I started learning to knit in 2008 and practised the different stitches (garter, stocking, ribbing, moss, basket) as well as adding on colours and knitting with different types of wool and then Grandma crochet them all together into a blanket. Its very bright and lovely to touch the different squares i made it particularly to go on Kaydins bed but it now sits in the lounge or my bed. A great way to get someone started in Knitting, its not as boring as a scarf can be for a beginner because each square can be done quickly and they can move on to learning a new stitch

Knitted Blankets -1

This first blanket i knitted from an easy square pattern, you can use whichever wool and needles you need to make squares the size you want.

Cast on 55st
knit 1 row
knit 25, k2tog, p1, k2tog, knit 25
knit next and all alt rows
k24, k2tog, p1, k2tog, k24
k23, k2tog,p1,k2tog,k23
continue decreasing 1 at each end of every 2nd row until only 3st remain then knit those 3tog and tie off

(you can knit the pearled stitch in the middle but by pearling it you make the diagnol line stand out more)

I'm (finaly) back!

I've been away for so long, (ahhh facebook) but now im back and hopefully soon will be posting recipes and craft patterns/items as well as Kaydin's progress.
Kaydin has to go to Hospital to have surgery on his teeth on May 18th. Because of Noonan's and the heart condition he has to be put under general anasthetic so we will go in and either his dad or i will have to hold the mask over him and then we have 45min to an hour to wait (depending on what they find they need to do when they get in there) and then wait while the anasthetic wears off before we can go home.
And also finally getting him enrolled in school, he starts in June but i suspect it's taken me this long because subconciously im objecting to sending him away 5 days a week when im used to having him 24/7!