Sunshine on my window

I am utterly unashamed of my absence from the internets this last week; the weather has been glorious and as this is/was our summer it seemed only right to enjoy it to the full.

Being on maternity leave and looking after Kitty is the very best job in the world and I wouldn't swap a minute of it but it can have it's own challenges, not as intellectually demanding as my paying job I grant you, but perhaps more physically demanding with nights interspersed with the adrenaline rush that hits as soon as a little whimper comes through from the nursery, not to mention the serious biceps I'm building humping around 20ish pounds of wriggly child.  But every now and then we have a day so fun that it clears away all the sleepiness, days that it's going to break my heart to miss when I go back to work.  And so it was that we ignored the dishes waiting to be washed in the kitchen, shut the door firmly on the ironing pile and spread a quilt in the back garden for our playtime.

Needless to say, my little outdoor girl is a big fan of the garden. She wriggled around on her tummy until she could tickle her toes with the grass, and rolled over to see the birds and the tops of the trees and the one helicopter that skittered across our little patch of sky.

I don't quite trust her not to eat any flowers, and as I'm almost certain that tulips are not on the edible flowers list we just admired them from a distance and played with a very chewable flower instead:

It giggles too!

And while littlest miss enjoyed her teddies and the great outdoors I picked up the needles for the first time in a while.  Kitty as you see, found this ever so exciting and can be seen making a bid for the yarn; once she's got hold of it she'll stick her little fingers straight in and wiggle them about - H thinks she's trying to knit.

The knitting in question was my Clara shawl in the Soccusu-X which Alice sent me as a prize for naming the colourway - JMW's Rain Wind and Wool (and yes the pun was totally intentional)


It's a sweet pattern with special significance and the yarn is just divine; it's soft and lovely and there's cashmere ...(all together now say "oooooooh"). Clearly I'm not the only one with good taste in yarn as it attracted this little fellow along the way.

Given that ladybirds are considered to be a symbol both of good luck and motherhood it seemed like a good omen for one to land while I was playing with my daughter.

The shawl is now finished and even blocked but as the beautiful sunshine has deserted us, and I even think I heard thunder earlier it's staying safely inside until I can find a good time to take pretty pictures.

I've got one more set of pictures from the other day, especially for Kitty's GodDaddy and Miss L who gave her the cutest, cuddliest little bunny for Christmas called Blossom:


Now that looks like a yummy little ear...

chewing teddies is fun

Needless to say Miss Blossom is Kitty's favourite friend.