Reading for Advent.

I love the run up to Christmas, its and extra special time to curl up and share some magical stories, enjoy time crafting and catching up with friends.

Our Advent reading this year is the Advent Storybook, the story of little bears journey to Bethlehem. The Christmas Mystery a journey through time and countries starting in 1950 in Norway and heading back in time to Bethlehem, to the time Jesus was born, lots of interesting facts added into the story. The an all time favourite, The The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe but the first time L will of heard it, we read The Magician's Nephew earlier in the year and she loved it. I have the BBC series and the film to watch once we have finished the story. We also have a basket full of other Christmas stories to enjoy.

I have enjoyed making some cross stitch Christmas cards and decorations.

I have had a lovely little German paper craft book for a few years and every year I will say I will make something from it, this year finally got round to it. Thoroughly enjoyed making this owl, though it did take a lot longer than I expected it too.

More paper craft fun, making a various different hanging decorations.

The design below, I have made a few times and couple of years ago I put together step by step directions to make this pretty snowflake star.

I have been busy knitting, our lovely local independent craft shop closed down in the summer, so I stocked up on some wool and other craft bits, L wanted some wrist warmers like mine so she can wear them when we play sport.

L chose this stylecraft pattern for the rest of the pink wool.

I have made this sirdar cardi  so many times, it knits up so nicely in whatever type of yarn I use.

L has moved up to the older art group, she was resistant to the idea of change to start with but now is enjoying the different projects we are working on. Last week it was using newspaper and card to make sculptures, L made a lovely dragon, we finished painting him at home.

Recuperating

Its been 2 months since my hip replacement surgery and so far things are going well. Its great to be able to walk up the stairs normally,without having to hang onto the banister and pull yourself up.  Physio is pleased with my progress and have lots of rehab exercises to do everyday and its great to be out everyday for a walk, with no limp. Be a while before totally pain free as still healing and body adjusting to new improved posture, my knee caused the most issues but everything I have read this seems to be very common problem and time and physio should sort it all out. Oh and Max and crutches is interesting, he spent the first week being terrified of them, then decided that maybe they were good to pounce on, not helpful but luckily only lasted a couple of days, then he decided they were best ignored! The staff at the hospital were wonderful, can't fault them, made the 4 day stay easy to deal with, though was glad to come home. No allergic reactions to any meds, yay, though was rather sick and ended up on anti sickness tablets for the first week, after that I was taking just paracetamol, which I am ok with and by week 3 didn't need anything. I am amazed at how well my body has recovered from this surgery so far, fingers crossed it carries on doing so, the only downside was finding out last week my left hip doesn't look that good and they reckon 4 to 5 years and that will need replacing too. Though at the moment it is only giving the odd twinge, which isn't bad considering all the extra work its been having to do over the last couple of months.

Now hubby had the first two weeks to care for everyone, what he wasn't expecting to do was end up cake making and decorating with L. She overheard us chatting about some of the ideas I had for different project work, one was making a sarcophagus, now not the normal cardboard box ones I had seen but a cake one. That was it, Dad was not going to get any peace until this had happened, I would say at this point he looked rather shocked and really not sure what he had been talked into! Anyway of to the shops they went to find some cake decorating bits and home to bake an egg free cake. A few questions and then all I could here was lots of giggles and chatter from the kitchen, if I say both hubby and L was pleased with the finish cake, that is an understatement and I have discovered after 22 years of marriage my husband had a hidden talent!

Slowly working on L's jumper, its called Rosebud, the body is knitted in a round and the split for the armhole shaping and neck, its a lovely pattern to knit, using a pale blue cotton yarn.

Have spent a lot of the first two weeks recuperating and binge watching way too many box sets and reading lots, then decided to get out this little embroidery to work on, I usually do cross stitch but loving the fun of a variety of stitches, might have to do some more.

Oh and the highlight of November so far was L had another food challenge, this time the garden pea, she isn't impressed with taste of them but managed to eat her way through 80g of them during our morning stay at the hospital. She started of with 1 pea, then 4 peas, slowly building up the amount she had in each portion, it does mean that she needs to keep eating them at least twice a week. Otherwise research has shown that she is at risk of becoming allergic to them again, something about the body recognising the protein but not reacting to it in the right way.

Introducing Max

There might not be any more human babies here at the moment but we have new fur baby called Max (named by L). At the moment he is at the lets pounce on everything stage, especially toes, so the girls have taken to wearing socks. He isn't causing any damage when pouncing on their toes but it is a bit unnerving so can see why they prefer to wear socks. So knitting is done while Max sleeps or upstairs as the movement of the knitting needle is causing too much interesting for a such a little kitten. He is too little to manage the stairs yet, though he is trying but hindered by no carpet just varnished wood, so a bit slippery and no fabric to get a hold of.

Maybe not the best photo but just loved the way he crashed out, absolutely exhausted after he spent an afternoon playing with visiting friends.

Now those that know L well, will know spending time with her is always fun, she has a great imagination and says what she feels. Today she finished her maths and announced "I've finished my sums Mum and marked them all so you don't have too." I managed a thank you, while trying not to giggle, now working out how to reply to that! Yes she does have a 98% accuracy rate but marking your own work...... A friend did point out that you have to just love her confidence in her own ability :) This followed on from a conversation at the weekend, well it was more of statement form L, having just tidied and cleaned the breakfast bar, L came in cheering and said "Yay that means we are doing science experiments." Honestly I do tidy and clean my breakfast bar daily not just when I am doing science experiments on it. But it does say a lot for L's interests, books, nature and science experiments. So not wanting to disappoint her, I found  out some iron filings, a piece of cardboard and different shaped magnets. Sprinkled the iron filings on the cardboard and used the magnets to draw pictures, I also got her to hold the different types of magnets we had under the cardboard to see the changing in patterns, we used a horseshoe, ring and block magnet.

We've also had more fun exploring motion, ramp building and seeing how far the car went, the speed it went etc depending on how steep the ramp was.

Ok the other part of this experiment was seeing whether you could get the car past the kitten or not!

Still using the same balloon from lasts weeks experiment, I got M and L to build a lego vehicle that could be powered by a balloon. At this stage Max had worn himself out chasing cars and was fast asleep, thankfully as pretty sure kittens and balloons are not a good mix!

Balloon is beginning to loose its elasticity but we still managed to create a hoover craft, using a CD, the push down top of a water bottle and a balloon. Using a glue gun to glue the bottle top to the CD, then carefully stretching the balloon over it, if you get it right, you can blow the balloon up, push the stopper closed, set it down and then open it up and watch it hoover across the table.

 Making the most of the sunshine, finally got up the allotment and we planted out onions and lots of carrot seeds, Admired the apple blossom

 and blueberry flowers.

The redcurrants have lots of fruit on them, so hoping for a good crop this year.

L busy planting out.

We then got very sidetracked as we discovered two slow worms, they were both out on the grass path for ages but was so busy watching them, I didn't think about taking a photo, you can just spot this ones head poking out. We then uncovered another patch and discovered an ants nest, they had made a loads of tunnels just under the matting, so you could see them really clearly, along with their eggs and larva, so L and I spent time watching the ants collect up their young and move them to safer home.

 Finished making another very pink baby cardi this wool has a sparkle running through it, not that I could get the camera to pick it up but have a happy friend so that is what matters.

 Now this little cardi sirdar 1816 is a real favourite of mine, there's very little sewing up as you knit the fronts and backs all in one and the join the sleeves in, so only need to sew the under arm and sleeve seam. The only downside is the amount of stitches needed to cast on to start with.

On a health front, I an an optician appointments the other Friday, they were a bit concerned and referred me to the hospital to have a thorough check out of the back of the eye, they use drops to do this, eye is fine and a huge sigh of relief from me. Fast forward a few hours later, I started to feel very itchy,flushed skin and hives, so took some antihistamines but they didn't seem to stop it. So called out of hours and as I am chatting to them started to feel breathless and voice was starting to become croaky, so they phoned an ambulance which was with me within minutes. Spent several hours in A&E and discovered the major problem with having an allergy to steroids and the treatment of allergic reactions, steroids are normally used, plus the fact I have several medicines I react to so they don't like to give you anything, just in case, which is good in one way but not when you are feeling very nauseous at this stage. Spent the next few days feeling a little bit emotional but will say M was amazing as she was with me at this stage, even though she said later she was really shocked how swollen my neck was, she kept her head, got the kitten out the way and watched out for the ambulance, let the crew in and got her Dad.

Busy!

I have this plan to blog at least every Sunday but then life never quite goes how you plan it, does it? So this is a bit of busy post covering some of our activities and outings over the last couple of weeks.

 L had her orthopedics appointment, have to say the consultant was wonderful, great with children. We were shown into the consulting room and had to wait for the consultant, so we carried on reading a story, he came in,introduced himself and asked if he could listen to the story. After a couple of sentence he asked her a couple of questions and then could he have a look  at her toys feet and legs, putting L completely at ease by the time he examined her, couldn't of wanted a better appointment. Anyway the outcome of the appointment was confirming my suspicions of flat feet and hyper mobility, as they aren't causing her pain or stiffness at the moment, just some occasional discomfort and annoyance at her bendy ankles as they make her a bit wobbly, they won't do any treatment, just something to be aware of. I've had a date throughh for my next appointment for my drug allergy, unfortunately its not till January next year, hoping they will have all the answers then if not this could take years to sort out what medicines and anesthetics I can use safely. Feeling somewhat frustrated at the long waits, very aware that adult allergy services in this country are few and far between and those dealing with drug allergies are even rarer but it does mean real delays in treatment and even surgery. Anyway back to happier things, we are of to view kittens tonight so hoping they are ok and we can have new pets in a couple of weeks, I have very excited children here to say the least, the girls are counting down the hours till we see them! In trying to distract them we have been having fun making different paper aeroplanes and looking at how we can alter their flight path. Different size paper spinners and seeing which ones, spin better,how size and different materials affects what happens.

 We also made a tissue paper parachute, much to everyone's amazement it really worked even if it did have a few cliff crashes, aka the chair we stood on to launch the parachute.

Demonstrating jet propulsion with a balloon and a straw, which we repeated again and again, amazed the balloon didn't pop! L thought it was very funny watching the balloon whizz along the string.

Hubby had a Friday of work, the original plan was to do some jobs round the house, not urgent ones luckily but as the day was so sunny we decided on day trip out to Beale Park. Lots of animals and birds for the girls to see, otters and meerkats being their favourite, also had a train ride round the park.

Mongoose.

 We watched the otters for ages and came back to see them a couple of times, they are so wonderful to watch and love their faces.

Hellebore in the Japanese garden at Beale park were stunning.

 I have only just started reading Jane Goodall's a Reason For Hope, she writes in such a lovely way you just want to keep on reading, at the moment she is talking about her childhood, the time when Jane was little and took a handful of worms to bed to study and her Mum patiently explaining that they needed dirt and wouldn't survive in her bed! There are several other stories of similar incidences and then she writes about how she was so lucky to grow up in a household with a mother wise enough to provide nurture and encourage her passions, that children should always try their best, that she didn't stifle Jane's passion or indulge in senseless discipline. Her mother understood the importance of discipline but she always explained why some things aren't allowed etc, she was fair and consistent. You can see how her passion was there from such a young age and how her family supported and encouraged her, a remarkable story. On a knitting front, I have 3 works in progress, 2 baby cardigans and top for L, finished of this little cardi sirdar 1325, hadn't realised that what I thought was a plain pattern stripe between the lace was actually every stitch knitted through the back of it, gives the plain knitting more definition, not sure if the photo shows it that clearly.

Some photos of walk we had when M was at her gymnastics class, these are all taken by L, I let her have my small camera and she had a lovely time taking photos of her choice. Its great to get home and load up the photos not really having a clue what they will be like or exactly of what.