On Wednesday we had kinder duty. Chocolate cupcakes with yellow flowers and the Happy Birthday hat.

Thursday was the day and we had a chocolate swirly frosted love heart cake with glace cherries and a vat of spaghetti sauce. Because they are his favourites. Four articulates demands. Loudly and frequently.

Saturday was party day.

I was pretty heavy handed with the icing and sprinkles.

And I was totally insane as far as the cake was concerned.

You’ll forgive me though, as this is the last four birthday in our family. A fantastic afternoon was had by 30 small children riding wheeled things maniacally around the Traffic School. With mini Four on his brand new bike.

He has already started planning his Five birthday.

A big stack of invitations. I can feel a party coming on!

Someone’s about to turn 4! I do believe there’s an “I can’t believe my baby’s 4″ blog post beginning to brew. This is a pretty momentous occasion, we’re going to celebrate with bunting and cupcakes and sausages in bread and lots of bike riding. The little guy’s been counting down the days. I hope it doesn’t rain. It is winter after all.

I wish I was more organised and managed to ever take some before shots. If I had, this would be much more impressive.

These were little home made chairs that were sitting around my grandparents-in-law’s house. They were originally stained (a very pine-y yellow gloss) and had mustard yellow vinyl covers with these strange high backs. The new upholstery is a Moda Home fabric we sell in the shop, very durable heavy weave. I just love how they turned out (the kids are pretty happy too!)

As weak as it is- I do believe this constitutes an Ikea hack. Some Dulux spray paint in Volcano Orange and I’m very impressed with my glossy little kitchen accessory/ extra chair.

This one I did quite a white back, I just don’t think I ever got around to blogging it. I found the lamp base at Mill Markets in Geelong -oh how I love that place! The shade was a plain white one I bought for $2 (super bargain basement price) from Kmart which I recovered in some yummy Amy Butler Wildflowers fabric from the Daisy Chain range. It now graces the sideboard in my dining room.

It appears that I’m not the only one. The little guy has been painting to his heart’s content and is super keen to practise his newly acquired skill of turning one’s painting into a stamp (where you turn your painting face down and rub the back so that you get a mirror image). Only thing is, he doesn’t always have the paper lined up underneath.

Needless to say we did end up with some lovely reverse paintings directly transfered onto the table top.

Wee one turned three last week. Now not wee so much- maybe more midi. I think I’ll keep working on a new nickname.

We had a lovely party for him on the weekend to celebrate. Bouncy castle, helium balloons, gourmet Greek food as far as the eye could see (courtesy of my mother in law) and a Makka Pakka cake (as requested by the wee one himself) and lovingly- if not skillfully- made by me.

As always, it’s not a proper party without my Nigella cupcakes…

We were so busy with the party we didn’t take many pictures. Luckily a special friend deployed her husband to be our event photographer.

Super sale stash.

Also recently decided that the new Red Letter Days and David Walker Rockets ranges were far too yum to disappear without hacking into them for my own stash. The result?

A cute kinder nap time binkee for my pumpkin…

Tomorrow my wee one turns three- full of attitude, sleeping in a bed and giving up his dummy all by himself.

No more babies.

Sigh.

Driving to pick up daddy, they were both drawing with their magnadoodles in the back seat (incidentally, they’re a great thing to keep in the car to stop fighting and complaining- generally! Like until one decides to use the pen to poke the other one in the eye or the string to garrote him with!)

I digress…

The wee one was drawing swirls semi-in-time to the music and he said: “Look mama, look. My drawing is dancing.”

I tell you, I’m coming off a fortnight from hell. It’s so important to find at least one gem in every day. Thank you to Poppysmiles flickr project on 365 Days of Grateful, which I first read about in Frankie I believe and then in Notebook mag. I try to keep it in the back of my mind- to remember to be grateful for stuff. I frequently forget.

Also, I love them little tootsies!

… and the great vintage fabrics I bought…

And I just threw this in for cuteness factor. An early morning baby cino date at my local.

Hope your Monday was similarly chilled.

I did kinder duty today and, not for the first time, was glad that I became a textile designer and not a kinder teacher. I tells ya, 26 rambuctious 4 & 5 year olds is REALLY exhausting. Especially when you take your two year old with you and try to keep him in line so he doesn’t disrupt the class. Whoooo, so pooped!

The wee one was so very sad.

He was playing in the playground at kinder, husband stuck his head in the classroom to pick up Pumpkin, came out and bunny was gone. Wee one was standing in the playground, eyes full of tears saying “…bunny…bunny”.

May we have a moment of silence out of respect for the loss of bunny. And (in related news) the loss of our sleep.

I’ve made a poster to stick up at kinder tomorrow. Finger’s crossed!

This afternoon we drove out to a kid’s boutique in South Melbourne (all four of us) rushed in and said breathlessly “Do you have any bunny teddies?” Almost $60 poorer we left with an orange stripey bunny replacement. He’s cleaner, fatter, brighter and he doesn’t smell. He’s manky bunny’s uptown cousin. He looks a little like this.

I don’t know if we one’s going to buy it.

WELL, the wee one obviously had other ideas, because when I saw this, I thought, “Oh how could I ever write about anything other than this?”

I’m sure that if you can make out what I’m going on about (’cause I know I’m not making any sense), you’ll agree. I hope these pictures speak louder (and clearer) than my words!

And yes, in answer to your revolted cry “Is that an ice cream in one hand and a bowl full of spaghetti in front of him, the answer is yes. What you can’t see is the handful of spag he’s just stuffed in his gob. Followed by a big bite of ice cream. And more spag. And more icecream…

]]> http://www.belsizesquare.com.au/blog/general/267/feed 1 http://www.belsizesquare.com.au/blog/general/197 http://www.belsizesquare.com.au/blog/general/197#comments Sun, 14 Sep 2008 11:25:20 +0000 Katrina Allegos http://www.belsizesquare.com.au/blog/?p=197 Yeay, bunny’s jumper got finished on the weekend- pieced it together and only had to unpick the sleeves once (because I forgot the sequence you use to piece a knitted garment together and did it wrong, and anyway bunny loveys aren’t like real people, well this one isn’t and he doesn’t have proper shoulders…)

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

This is bunny modelling it. I showed the wee one “Oh look, bunny’s got a jumper, what a nice jumper, lucky bunny…” you know the drill so that he would think “Hey my bunny is way cool in his new threads, rock on lovey bunny!” or whatever it is that young people say these days. Instead, he said (and all of this with a dummy clamped between his teeth) “Yeah” “DaDaaa” (which is wee one for jumper) and “Teddy DaDaaa”. Then I gave him Teddy in DaDaaa thinking, “Yeay, he likes it, this will stop bunny lovey from disintegrating thus making my life immesurably easier” when wee one pulled bunny in one direction and the jumper in the other and said “Teddy, DaDaaa opf”.

… I think you get the picture.

Amongst others, we have also ordered the delicious new range of quilting weight fabrics by Heather Bailey, Pop Garden.

That’s just on the shop front. On the home front, I have realised that the wee one’s bunny lovey is about to disintegrate. If this happens, it actually WILL be the end of the earth, so I have been knitting him a little bunny lovey sized bespoke jumper. Have just finished the last sleeve and am off to piece it together.

I think when bunny wakes up in the morning, there may be some time for a photo opp replete with jumper.

I think it went down well with our test group. Big one found it, took it to his room and told me he wanted it for him. The little one found it in his room and spontaneously cuddled it and made “Mmmmm” noises.

The ones I’m making for the shop don’t have button eyes so they are safe for little ones. I’ll be doing a few different styles, expressions and fabrics. I think they’re really cute little nursery additions!

These are now for sale at my fabric shop and they’re so “cheep cheep”…

Made wee ones as little devils never do more than lick off frosting and eat lollies off the top, so could have just frosted small rocks and they would have gone down just as well! What do you think, don’t think we’ll have any problems getting the wee one to go to kinder- he seemed right at home!

No posts last week as home with sick ones, so consequently no life.