Friday, May 28, 2010

My Little Trend Setter :o)

We like a challenge in this house! Katie's nursery/school certainly threw that our way with this weeks Theme Day. The Theme being "The Future". To quote the letter home : "We would ask that the costume or accessory goes some way towards relfecting the futuristic theme: astronauts and aliens are fine; pirates and faires not so good! I would also point out we are envisaging a peaceful and co-operative future, so there will be no need for futuristic weaponry"

EEP!! How to cover that with a 4yo who definitely has yet to grasp "Future" vs "Present" and "Past"...

Well, we had a brief moment when daddy suggested "Princess Leia". Katie heard the Princess word and got excited... Mean mummy vetoed it! If you've ever seen *that* episode of Friends you'll understand! lol.

Ask Katie what she wants to be when she grows up and you'll get a consistent answer. She wants to be a "Archaeologist" (Specifically a Paeleontologist, but that's a little harder to remember that "I want to dig up dinosaur bones!" ;) )

So that's what we went with. The suggestion of wearing Wellies to Nursery won the day, this is apparently FAR more appealing to Katie than being a Princess! Hurrah for my daughter!! We developed the theme with discussions during the last week. I had her thinking about what she'd want someone who knew *Nothing* at all about her to discover.

And so our Time Capsule was created. We were limited on space (she had to carry it into nursery after all!). Some suggestions were wisely vetoed too. To represent Daddy she suggested a smelly sock!! For Daisy - a Nappy. That possibly prompted by my discussing with her how Daisy's nappies Won't be about in 100 years, but disposables will.. For me, ah, my jewellery - she never can resist a rummage through my jewellery box!

She dictated a letter to put in the time capsule, including information on her favourite book (Peter Pan), favourite Princess (Snow White), and favourite toy of the moment (Jilly, the pretend Hamster). We then added some photos of her and us, I even trusted her with what is currently my Only photo of Ed and I on our wedding day pre-reception!!! She Loves that photo, it was very important to her that it went in. Her Peter Pan book, a bird-spotting book, 2x mini my little ponies, 2x mini dinosaurs, 2x bracelets (hers), the soft rabbit toy (the one that propped up Daisy's ventilation tube), her Willow Tree figurine, and a baby hat I knitted made up the contents. We found her a gardening bag in ELC with proper metal trowel etc and put her in casual clothes and off she went!





On arriving, I'm proud to report, a friend informed me her little boy had insisted on coming as "an assistent archaeologist to Katie" he'd informed his mum he didn't need digging tools as Katie was going to tell him exactly what he needed to do! That's My Girl! He walked out behind us this afternoon with his dad, telling his dad all about how he'd been digging up dinosaur bones today lol. I later discovered another friends boy "wants to go as an archaeologist too next year". /Beams! When I left her this morning she was telling her teacher all about her time capsule and her digging tools!

There were also various space-men, a Dalek, a Barberella type costume with amazing silver hair-do (couldn't do Katie's like that in the afternoon let alone before nursery in the morning!!) and a Buzz Lightyear that I clocked... Katie had a brilliant time.

Now thinking hats on, we have a month to the next theme day, this time the theme is French. Suggestion is that they can come just in red/white/blue clothes, am wondering how fast I could knit her a beret....

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Special clothes for our special girl


At first glance it may not look particularly special or different, but look again. The dress is from her grandma, nothing unusual there. Grandma has been very generous and my girls have many beautiful dresses to wear :) It's the cardigan I'd like you to look at again. Closely.

My girls Great-Grandma was a prolific knitter. She taught me the basics. Were she alive today I'm sure her great-grandaughters would all have many beautiful cardigans, hats, dresses etc to wear.

Because of those basics she taught me I've spent many happy hours creating items for my girls! My needles are still at the moment, life is too busy. But I love seeing my girls in handmade items. So when I discovered this cardigan amongst the wreckage of our Ripponden house I smiled. Here it is, as good as the day it was made, for me, by her, now on my daughter. I'm sure she's smiling too...