Praire Mama

Matchy matchy!

So, for my birthday, I made myself a skirt.  I couldn't find what I was looking for in the shops for a price I was willing to pay and any excuse to sew is a good excuse, isn't it?  Once the machine was whirring away, I decided that I couldn't possibly stop with just me.  Ned needed a new party outfit, too!

The colour doesn't look quite the same in these photos, but you get the idea.  Isn't the little bird darling?!

The cardi and shirt were already in her closet, but I think they match so nicely.

Here's the big girl version (try to ignore everything that is going on in the background!)

It's such a bad photo - it was last minute as I was racing out the door! But check out this fabulous coat.

It was my husband's mothers coat.  She knows i've got an eye for vintage finds and this little number was at the back of her closet for decades.  Literally!  It's 40 years old, but she is so meticulous that it is in mint condition.  It fits like a glove and the rich plum colour is gorgeous.  I have to get a decent photo for you!  I think it is so much fun that my husband remembers his mum wearing it when he was little and so will our kids.  Love that!

Today I post and post and post

Some catching up is again in order! I'm not even going to make excuses... let's just skip to the good stuff, shall we?  Yes!

 

It seems great minds think alike.  It has been furiously winter here lately and windy days of temperatures below -20 C are not great for outdoor play (note poor Ned's longing at the window).  What days like these are good for, however, is curling up by our cosy, cosy fire with sweet little stories (more on that later) or a knitting project (more on that later). 

January, ahhhh, woollies and flannals and cups and cups of tea!  Really, is it so bad?  I've already whipped up three pairs of these fabulous little trousers for my littles!  The pattern is brilliant!  It's Anna Maria Horner's Quick Change which can be found in this book.  I'll show you the rest of them soon.

 

An action shot - not the best photo, I'll admit, but I love it!  Ned happy in her mama-mades and at her little kitchen. (What you can't see is the shelf above the kitchen.  The shelf is temporary, and coming down soon!  I've ordered a beautiful poster by Nikki McClure (I could paper our house in her work... but I have to practice a bit of restraint, ahem!); shelf will go, a smaller shelf and the McClure will replace it.  Presently, the shelf is covering up a big bit of roughness that we discovered when we took down a desk that previous owners had installed.  So the question at the moment is what colour to paint the kitchen.  And Husband has dreams of replacing our black countertops (Yippy!), so there will be some activity going on here in the spring.)  Do you see the red suitcase?  It is my most recent thrifting find!  There are two of them, actually.  Beautiful, red leather suitcases in great shape - they need to be vacuumed out... bit dusty inside... and then wiped down (you can see a bit of our vacuum in the corner of the photo)... but otherwise perfect!  Now we just need to plan a trip to take them on... somewhere warm and beachy?

 

Ned's Birthday and Some Catching Up

Alright - so I was hoping we were in the clear - but nope!  Wham!  We were hit again by various strains of whatever flu seems to be making its way around these parts.  Consequently, I have been one tired mama of late... But, it seems that if I wait until we're all 100%, I'll never get any more posts.  Couple that with my camera being on the fritz again and well... you know...

So, it was Ned's 1st Birthday a few weeks ago.  (I KNOW!!! I can't believe it either... it's happened much quicker with Ned than with Sascha.)  We had a party for her, of course.  In order to build up to the big day, I borrowed a few 'birthday themed' books from the library.  The littles LOVED this.  Our favourite was A Present For Toot - but who doesn't love Holly Hobbie?  (I have a feeling this one is going to find its way on to our shopping list and appear again as a present for someone next year!)  Between reading these stories and making the decorations (there were many!), Sascha was positively vibrating with excitement.

At last the day finally arrived!  Here are a few quick photos.  Next time I'll show you the presents.  I made them myself, but I have to try to get some better photos of them.

Sascha was all over these very simple cupcakes with pink cream cheese icing!  Bless his dear, secure-in-his-own-masculinity-pink-loving-heart he loves cream cheese icing as much as his mama.

 

The birthday girl and a couple of her adoring fans!  We had a cozy gathering of a few dear friends - lots of littles, so plenty of giggling and running around the house with helium balloons.  Balloons that eventually made their way to the most unreachable spot in the house - lots of clambering and laughing to bring them back down and serious cautions not to let them go again - which we all knew would go completely unheeded and there were lots of expeditions to fetch balloons that manage to wriggle away from littles!

However, these cupcakes are my favourite!  Thanks to a good friend who lives very far away for posting photos of her little girl's birthday party photos - inspiration!  Easy to make and the presentation includes lots of ooos and awwws - very satisfying.  Here's the trick - it's dispicable, because of the unreasonable amount of sugar involved, but it is a birthday, after all... and perhaps a morning-after-the-party breakfast perk for a sweet little boy! - cut mini-marshmellows in half on the diagonal and dip them in coloured sugar.  The sugar only sticks to the gooey part of the marshmellow, giving the petals those lovely white outlines.  Beautiful, aren't they?