A creation by Calum (and the completed baby blanket)

Calum's class (9 year olds) are working in Literacy Circles just now. A group of them have to read a few chapters of a book and then they each have a different task to do. One of them has to write a brief summary of what has happened, another chooses some of the more unusual/difficult words and looks for their meanings, one has to write a few questions for the others about what has happened and the fourth person has to make some sort of art relating to the story.

Everyone enjoys the arty part the most as they have free reign as to what to do. Calum (and James when his class did this) has previously made a scene out of Lego for it.

This time Calum's teacher said they could even bake a cake connected to the story and so that's what Calum decided to do.

The book is about a boy who loves space and the moon, and so Calum made a cake decorated like the moon.

Didn't he do a good job?

I baked the cake (Victoria Sponge) but he did all the decorating himself, including rolling out the fondant icing.

The metallic shimmer comes from the spray below, which I bought recently but hadn't had a chance to try out.

Moving on.

Here it is then, the completed blanket, of which I am rather proud!

I even remembered to take a photo of it in the daylight to show the colours properly.

Calum wanted to test how cosy it was before we give it to his new 2nd cousin. That is, 2nd cousin as in the relation they are to each other, not his 2nd cousin as in the 2nd cousin he has, as he has more than 2. Confused? Perfectly simple.

This photo (and the one of me holding the blanket) also give you a glimpse into our family room, which used to be our garage until it was converted 3 years ago, and is still known as the 'new room'! That's where all the blogging happens!

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Weekend Fun

OK so we try and make every weekend fun, but not every weekend involves a visit to the beach, especially not at this time of year!

Saturday mornings are always taken up with shinty training for the oldest three boys and daddy the coach. Last Saturday when training was finished we headed off to watch a real shinty match.

First we had our picnic ('nic-nic' to Alasdair) lunch. We ate it in the car as it really is nowhere near picnic weather yet. That just added to the sense of adventure though.

When the match got underway, David and Calum spent the entire 90 minutes running up and down the pitch following the play and hitting the ball back to the players when it went off.

I should point out that as this was a really lower division match (I was told which division, and honestly I was paying attention, I just don't remember) the crowd totaled about 25 people. This was including the six of us and a friend of my husbands!

The pitch is right by the beach and so once the game was over, we went across to the sand. Alasdair had been eagerly waiting to build sandcastles all day and kept asking when we were going to the 'sea-side'.

In the car on the way home, there were some chocolate muffins to keep us going.

Sunday afternoon was spent at my husband's sister's house, where the highlight is always playing with Cuilean (coo-lan) the rather energetic dog!

And final news for tonight is that I am without my big boy until Friday!

This will be the longest he will have been away before. He is my right hand man when dad is working away through the week so I'm really missing his help! His brothers are missing his company too, especially his little buddy Alasdair.

School camp is at an outdoor centre on the West Coast. He phoned tonight to say he is having a great time. Last night they had a night-time walk and today he went abseiling and gorge walking. 

Fun doesn't even start to cover it!

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Make it Monday - Crochet Granny Square Blanket

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It's almost done.


While the boys were all watching a shinty match on Saturday afternoon (a few photos tomorrow), I watched from the car and finished crocheting my squares together.

I just have to finish off the border now. 

I didn't have a pattern for the whole blanket, but the granny squares I found here. It's a really easy square to make and there is a super tutorial with photos for any beginner or tentative crocheters out there!

For my blanket and it's border, in my head I saw a thin pink stripe in between a couple of rounds of the cream. But once I had finished the pink round I thought I might leave it there. 

Just to be sure though, I started another round of cream to see how it would look, and realised that my original plan was best and a final cream round will finish it off nicely. 

So, I'm half way through the final cream edge and should have it done tonight.

Then I can take a photo of it in the daylight tomorrow to show you all.

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Things I'm loving...

Some very simple things I'm loving this week, but so often it's the simple things that are the best aren't they?


Here we go.



Boys and their imaginations. I'm not sure what he was meant to be here, but with a light-saber and swimming goggles he had a blast defeating imaginary baddies.

Lots of music making. Calum the fiddle player has now started on accordion and is taking to it as naturally as he took to the fiddle.

In other music news, James will soon be moving up from chanter to bagpipes. I foresee a lot of practice in the garden :0)

Loving big brothers who love to read stories to little brothers. And little brothers who eagerly ask big brothers for stories too.

And finally the simple satisfaction of seeing the pile of granny squares for my cousin's baby blanket growing. I'm now at the sewing together stage and aiming to have it finished this weekend. I already have my eye on my next crochet project and so am itching to get going on that!

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Bendaroos

Has anyone tried out Bendaroos?

A year or so you couldn't really escape the advertising for them. Even if you didn't watch tv, the adverts were also in magazines.

Our David (the least likely of the boys to sit down and craft something) was quite taken with the idea of them, but I was put off by the price and so we forgot all about them.

Then at Christmas time a friend of mine gave the boys a joint present, which turned out to be a box of Bendaroos!

The older three boys all spent a happy wet afternoon creating with them.

For the sake of anyone who somehow managed to miss the advertising blitz I should probably explain what exactly a Bendaroo is!

They are basically bendy wax strips, sort of like a pipe cleaner, only instead of being fuzzy on the outside they are waxy. Like a sealing wax. You bend the strips into whatever shape you want and then they stick to each other without the need for glue.

They will also stick to a hard surface as you can see James and Calum have done with the creations below.

They chose to decorate their bunk bed with them. James, with Captain America (of course) who has a clever fist sticking out towards you, and Calum, with wildlife (of course) and an equally clever shark eating his name.

Just last week I saw Bendaroos for sale in a discount store for less than half of their original price. Now that they are more reasonably priced, and since we had such a creative time with them, I think it's definitely worth stocking up on some more.

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Time for another animation

James is ready to start working on an animation for the short film competition at this year's local Mod. The Mod is at the end of April but films have to be submitted by the end of this month.

Last year he came second so he has a reputation to keep up!

Just this week I found some new software for him, which he has been trying out before we decided if it was worth paying for the full version.

The software I got him last year was good enough but didn't have many extra options. While it had a wide range of sound effects and allowed him to use the webcam to take the stills, it only allowed him one sound file at a time. It didn't have the option of adding titles and credits and so you had to export the file to another programme to add these.

There are plenty other extras to this new software too and it runs soooo much faster than the other one does. Your final film can be in a range of qualities from a basic one for viewing on your computer to HD.

The new software has been developed by someone who worked for Aardman Animation and is called Zu3D. You can find out more about it here if you have any budding animators in your home.

I certainly intend to buy the full version as I know it will be worth every penny in this house!

Enough chat though, onto the film. It's a goodie.

They always are though - I don't know where he gets his ideas!

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Things I'm loving....

I'm loving the creativity going on this week.

From the pictures made at Parent & Toddlers over the last few Friday mornings.....

Seo mise (shaw mee-she) - this is me

....to our first ever church ladies craft night....

Lots of knitting, a bit of patchwork, some jewelry making, beautiful cupcakes made by the hostess (my brother's wife) and me the lone crocheter. Those granny squares for the blanket for my cousin's baby are flying off the hook!

I spent the day wondering if it was wrong how much I was looking forward to a couple of hours un-interrupted crochet time that evening! 

From David's pottery painting that we did when my mum was down...

(notice my mum's scarf?)

.....and picked up this week now that it's been fired....

.....to James' Warhammer and Airfix building/painting

And finally, loving how excited the boys were by the present daddy came home from work with the other day.

 An Action Man army play tent!

In fact daddy was almost as excited as they were :0)

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First Gaelic Lesson - Saying Hello/Goodbye

Since I have been neglecting my Gaelic word of the day recently - not through choice, I just hit the publish button every time I post and then think, 'oh, I've forgotten it again' and then don't get round to editing the post -  and since plenty people have been saying they enjoyed learning a word or phrase of Gaelic, I thought I'd take things a step further.

On Friday mornings Alasdair and I go to the Gaelic parent & toddler group at the boys' school. My official title on a Friday is playleader, which basically means I set out the toys, organise the craft, organise the snack-time, lead everyone in some Gaelic pre-school song fun and then ensure that everything gets tidied up again. All the while with Alasdair as my little helper.

I also often make up sheets of phrases to give out to the parents, usually related  to whatever subject I might be basing the crafts/story/songs on for those weeks (like just now we are doing clothes followed by body parts), as most of the parents are just learning the language and not native speakers.

So I thought, why not share some of these?

And I thought 'hello and goodbye' would be a good place to start.

First, you can download and print out your own copy of the sheet below.

I have the middle column as a sort of pronounciation guide but it really helps to hear the phrases too, so I rustled up a wee clip below that of me reading out the phrases to help you out a bit. It's a bit rough, but I was too shy to read it to the camera :0)

Hello and Greetings

Who knows, we might have pockets of Gaelic speakers springing up across the globe now!

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Make it Monday

I picked up a book of cute little crochet animals in the post-Christmas sales. Calum was one of the first boys to have a flick through it and requested that I make this wee fellow first.

He has added him to his growing collection of crochet animals.

Yes, that is a snail. He requested him from another book.

Now that 'Lumpy' is all finished and tucked up with his animal friends (and Calum) I can get working on my next project.

My cousin and her husband had their first baby, a little girl, last week. She is the first of my cousins on that side of the family to have a baby. If my grandparents were still living they would now have their first great-grand-daughter after 7 great-grandsons.

So since she will be bombarded by clothes, as first-borns usually are, I thought I would get making a granny square blanket for them instead.

But I just don't 'do' overtly pink things (just as well really!) and so have chosen these colours instead.

It also means that once the baby pink stage has passed the blanket can still be used!

Has anyone else been crafting this week?

One of these days I'll get a proper linky tool up and running. If you saw my post about eczema last week you will know what has been taking up most of my time! I'm pleased to say it's settling down a bit the last couple of days.

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Sore little hands (and arms, and legs.....)

I hesitate to put photos of eczema on here too often, as it really isn't the nicest thing to look at, but I also feel that my brave little (and not so little) soldiers need some recognition for what they go through.

I have said it over and over, eczema is so much more than just the dry, sensitive skin that many people think it is.

It affects many aspects of our daily lives, and has a huge impact on our sleep!

Even on good days it is always there. None of the three boys with eczema (or their daddy either, for that matter) have ever had a time when they have been completely clear of it.

I'm not sure if it is the weather just now, but the three boys have had bad flare ups over the last few weeks. I know the icy cold outside can't help. I can even feel my own skin drying up as a result of it! And then there is the contrast of the heating inside houses just now. Not the best combination.

Alasdair (2) is better this week than last week, at least the broken skin is drying over now and not so weepy.

He has really bad patches like this on his ankles, front of knees, back of knees, arm pits and torso just now too, although the torso is easier to keep covered up and away from little fingers.

He hasn't been so keen on his bath time these last couple of weeks either because all those cuts sting like crazy - and getting his creams on is no fun either.

Here he is showing the 'bandages' garment to keep the creams on his tummy and back.

If you have never experienced eczema, it's hard to imagine an itch so strong that you keep on scratching even once the skin is broken. The blood starts to pour out and it's like they can't feel the pain. Getting rid of the itch is the one thing they focus on. Their eyes will kind of glaze over and they forget about whatever else they were doing. It's horrible to see, and once that skin is broken it's going to take a lot longer to heal, as well as be a lot more susceptible to infection.

Alasdair's little wrists take quite a battering when he gets the chance. The skin there is softer than on his hands and so breaks more easily.

At the moment, when Alasdair wakes through the night there is no way I can just leave him to settle himself back to sleep. He will already have started to scratch in his sleep and so I try and soothe the itch by rubbing rather than scratching. It settles him for a while anyway, but he will still wake up at least twice, on a good night!

When he gets the itchy-bug through the day-time distraction is the key. I also keep  Mr Bump and Mr Happy bruise coolers in the fridge and we get them out and place them on the itchy part. The coolness helps, as does the distraction of playing with Mr Bump and Mr Happy. 

Even James (12) does untold damage to his hands through night time scratching (as well as day-time). So much so that today he was almost struggling to bend his fingers enough to hold a pencil.

At least he and Calum are long past the stage where they need help settling again at night, but they often wake in the morning having broken their skin through scratching in their sleep.

Gloves/mits aren't the answer either as they just make their hands hotter and heat is the enemy of eczema!

One of these days I'm just going to have to write that book on looking after children with eczema and food allergies.

When I get the time!

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