Boobs

My brother (via my mother) got Freyja a mermaid costume for her birthday. It consists of a tail and sequined bikini-style top. Freyja was very excited when she opened it - her exact words, said in hushed, awe-struck tones, were: 'It's got boobs'.



She spent this afternoon wearing her mermaid costume, until bedtime when she went into her room to get changed into her pyjamas. After a while I called through to check her progress.

Me: Freyja, are you getting ready for bed?

Freyja: Yes, mum. I'm just taking my boobs off.

This made me laugh almost as much as the time in Sainsburys when she spent a while contemplating some rather large molded-style bras before suggesting she and Daddy might buy me some boobs for my birthday....

Vintage Kit

I discovered Vintage Kit through Achica. Gorgeous, gorgeous children's clothes in vintage-y fabrics. Sadly, even on sale they cost a little more than I really feel comfortable spending on clothes for my children. But if you don't mind splashing out a teeny tiny bit then you get something very pretty, unique and a little bit special. I'm also fairly sure most young girls would happily sell their My Little Ponies to wear this stuff - even though it's not too pink and frilly.




I love the Bambi dress and the Alice in Wonderland skirt. I may yet convince myself to get one for Freyja



And the boys stuff is pretty cute too.

Knight and Princess

Theo and his friend Lola stop winding each other up long enough for a game of 'Knight rescues Princess'. And when she left, Lola told me that Theo was Prince to her Princess. Awwwwww.

Banana Muffins from Forkd

I've just made my friend Rowan's banana muffins from Forkd.


Super quick, easy peasy and yum.

(I used 2 (large) bananas and didn't need to bake them for as long - 15 - 20 mins only.)

Tots 100

I'm not entirely sure how, but I've made an appearance in the Tots 100 again - just sneaking in at No 100! Cool.

And it's all been jazzed up with a great new Tots 100 website, making finding new and interesting blogs even easier.

The Gallery - Children

I had so many options for this weeks Gallery, mostly involving my kids looking cute, but I just kept coming back to this (dark and not very good photo).

It is my recently widowed brother and his two children, sat on top of a sand dune at midnight on New Years Eve. They are about to enter 2011, a year which their wife/mother didn't live to see.



All children need their mother, but not all children have one anymore.

Ballet

Freyja in her beautiful blue ballet dress, ready for her lesson:

Manga Party Portraits

A little while ago I read this post over at Babies who Brunch.

If you are looking for something a little different for your child's birthday party and would like to give a lasting going home gift, then I can highly recommend these Manga portraits by Sonoko.

I'd been in touch with Sonoko already about doing portraits of my two nephews. They are absolutely stunning, and really capture their faces accurately. Harry and Max were delighted to receive them at Christmas.


I then booked her for Freyja's 5th birthday party, to do Manga portraits of my two children and our 3 party guests.

Sonoko is brilliant with the children - I had worried about whether the girls would actually want to sit down for long enough, and had planned to put sweets out to entice them to sit still (big mistake - Theo ate them all and went crazy), but those worries were completely unfounded as they were all really excited about their turn and they all loved their pictures.


This is such a great party activity and gift to give out at the end. I would definitely recommend it - of all the things I spent money on for Freyja's party, this was the most worthwhile. The girls all loved it, it was a lasting gift to take home and we also have pictures of our own children.


There's more information about it on Sonoko's website here.

Why, why, why?

This infuriating phase pretty much passed us by with Freyja. She would of course question things (still does) and ask why (still does), but it was never irritating. I used to smile as if I understood it when people mentioned the annoying 'why' phase, but really I didn't.

But I am now being slowly driven mad by Theo's incessant use of the word. It started toward the end of last year and he will now respond to every single thing with the word 'Why?' Sometimes he'll happen to see me and ask 'Why?' for no obvious reason at all.

My friend gave me a good technique for responding. If you just reply, there is always room for more and more whys. This is fine if they want to know something reasonable but for everything else - or in response to a prolonged attack - I am to ask 'why do you think?'

Ha! I look forward to hearing Theo's take on things.

But Mummy, how will I stand on my toes...?

Today, Freyja had her very first ballet lesson.

She has been on and on at me for about 2 years, so I decided that it was actually something she wanted to do and booked her for a trial at the same place that her friend Ruby goes.

She was slightly resistant to the blue ballet dress that this particular school has, but agreed to try. This morning, while getting ready, she asked what shoes she would wear. I said she would just go bare foot for her trial and if she liked it we would buy ballet shoes. She looked at me distraught and asked how she would be able to stand on her toes (with attempted demonstration) if she wasn't wearing ballet shoes?

A brief explanation of 'en pointe' and we were back in business and on our way.

Of course she loved it, we are signed up for a term and, alongside her swimming on Saturday afternoons we have given in well and truly to weekend clubs.

Music Boxes for Boys

Freyja nearly ended up with three music boxes for her birthday. My mum got her one, her friend Ruby got her one, and we got her one - but we didn't give ours in the end.

The two she has are both Trousselier music boxes. One is a large jewellery box and the other a simple trunk. She likes to listen to the music before she goes to sleep.

The other person who really likes the music boxes is Theo. He loves to watch the little dolls go round and listen to the music. Tonight he asked Freyja if he could borrow one at bedtime so he could listen to the music while he fell asleep.

Which made me wonder if they do these things for boys.

And of course, Trousselier do. Lovely ones for girls, boys and both. They even do one with a little spinning prince.


But I like the Knight & Dragon one, with a spinning fire-breathing dragon, and will put it on Theo's birthday list.

Running Jump

Freyja progressed to running jumps into the deep end of the pool while we were on holiday.

RunningJump
Originally uploaded by LondonLightly

And I also noticed the benefit of her lessons in her confidence with putting her head under the water when swimming.

Underwater
Originally uploaded by LondonLightly

Tea Party Madness

Turns out it makes little difference whether you invite 3 children or 33 children to a 5 year old's birthday party. My vision of a quiet little tea party for Freyja was, in reality, a completely mad, sugar-fuelled brawl.


The girls did their drawings, they decorated their biscuits and ate all the party food that I had lovingly prepared but all at high pitched, ear blasting volume. And Theo, who had managed to consume an entire bowl of jelly sweets before anyone arrived, sped about the place alternatively laughing manically and bursting into tears.


Note to self - you need half the amount of sugary food that you think you need. And I think next time I may try food first, games/activities later as they were all starving by the time I fed them at 5.30pm (and had eaten a fair amount of the biscuit decorations....)


But we all had lots fun. And the Manga portraits I had arranged to be done were a huge success and deserve their own blog post.

Christmas 2010

We had a lovely Christmas. Being the first one since my sister-in-law died, we wanted to make it as enjoyable for the boys and my brother as possible, but also not sure how it would actually be.

As it turned out, Christmas was fine. New Year was harder. We let off 4 lanterns for Anna at midnight and then Nikolas, Harry and Max spread some of her ashes down the dune, the one that she has climbed up and sat on each New Year that they have camped. It was beautiful, touching and utterly miserable. And it's still almost impossible to actually understand the fact that she really is no longer here.

But Christmas day was actually fun. My brother and his boys stayed at my parents with all of us on Christmas Eve and the children were up early and very excited. 8 year old Max allowed himself to be carried away on his younger cousins' excitment about Father Christmas, and even 10 year old Harry was starting to wonder if actually Santa did exist...

My children were very spoilt by their grandparents, family and friends. Adrian and I didn't go too crazy, as we didn't want to have to bring too much back. Freyja asked Santa for some Melissa & Doug (who do the best toys ever) cupcakes and Theo (with a bit of guidance...!) asked for a Camper Van (Playmobil).



Both were huge hits. In fact we had to wrestle the camper van off Harry. Know what to get him next year....!

We also got the kids a Zhu Zhu pet each (thanks Rowan!) which they absolutely love - pink Jilly for Freyja and green Shamrock for Theo. And we got Theo a soft toy medieval castle (bought from notonthehighstreet) and I got Freyja a fab wooden fairy house from Ebay for a tenner!

Adrian and I agreed not to get each other anything as we hope to get our kitchen done this year. Though he did cheat and buy me a cupcake decorating course, which I've been wanting to do for ages. Apparently it was a New Year present...

Good food, wine, family and friends. It was a great Christmas.

But Anna, we missed you.

Butterfly Biscuits

I'm holding a belated birthday tea party for Freyja after school tomorrow. It's just 3 of her friends coming round and one of the activities I have planned is biscuit decorating.

So I've been baking batches of butterfly shaped biscuits today. Now my baking, much as a I love to do it, is rather hit and miss. But I used my new Biscuiteers* book, which I mentioned buying a little while ago, and I think they have turned out rather well.



The process was a little longer, but the results make it worthwhile. They are crunchy and delicious.


Let's see how the girls decorate them tomorrow!

* Handy tip. When Biscuiteers say your biscuits will keep for 4 months if you don't open the tin, then don't open the tin. I somehow misunderstood and thought I could just open the tin for a look inside, with the result that all my Christmas biscuits were stale when we got round to decorating and eating them. Bah.

Oops...

In my continued search for a hotel, I've somehow managed to buy a Win Green playhouse. Adrian is going to kill me.

But I've wanted one for ages, it's so pretty....and more useful than a playhouse in the garden as we can use this one inside and out....and it was a real bargain too, on sale with a further 5% off at check out and free delivery.

I tried to choose a more unisex one, but the fairy cottage is just so pretty. Freyja will love it. And Theo* likes fairies too.


Yay, I have a fairy cottage!

Gah....

*they do a very lovely wigwam too...

Lapin & Me

While browsing the internet for a hotel to stay in on my husband's 40th birthday later this month, I somehow stumbled across this very cute little shop called Lapin & Me.

What I particularly loved were these rabbit candles (from their notonthehighstreet shop).


And I also like this Bambi dress (also available as adorable PJs), but sadly my daughter is now too big for the biggest size.

Tangled

While on holiday, we took Freyja, Theo and their two cousins to watch Tangled, the latest Disney animation which is about Rapunzel.


Well, it was brilliant. I loved Rapunzel, she's a great Disney princess and has possibly knocked Ariel off the top-spot for me. Freyja loved her on account of her pinky-purple dress so we may get a break from Sleeping Beauty for a while...

The film was amusing, not too sugary/princessy, with plenty of humour for the grown-ups, enough action and male characters for the boys (Theo, Harry, Max and Adrian all loved it), and a female lead character who does more than just sing with woodland creatures. Plus there is a really funny horse who was one of the best characters in it. And if all that is not enough, the lead male character - who is not rich or a prince - looked just like our builder.

But there's a darker side too, in the witch/mother character whose manipulation and verbal bullying of Rapunzel to keep her in line was quite frightening. She was one scary lady.

I'd definitely recommend seeing it in the cinema - the scene where hundreds of lanterns are released is magical and I reckon best seen on the big screen. It was also quite poignant for me, because in early December my brother let off loads of lanterns for his wife, Anna, at their annual 'carols in the desert' event, something which she used to organise each year.

We didn't see Tangled in 3-D, which you can and I'm sure looks amazing. In fact I'll probably go again and see it in 3-D if I can.

That is how entrenched in my daughter's Disney obsession I now am...

Sand Angels in the Dubai Desert on New Years Eve