Cupcakes, Cards & Flowers

Life in the Davies household is busy as always. At the moment there seem to be a lot of cupcakes around thanks in part to my sister who bought me an amazing cupcake recipe book for Christmas! The butterfly cakes are part of a batch I made for the last school cake sale. I do like making sparkly butterflies! They are edible by the way!
These are banana & caramel cupcakes. I made the caramel sauce which I was quite impressed by! The boys took some of these cakes in for their teachers who raved on about how delicious they were! I was pleased! :o)
This one is a lemon meringue cupcake! My favourite cupcakes so far made from the recipe book Helen gave me. I made lemon curd for the filling too. I love the way the meringue piped onto the top of the cakes! The boys said they looked like ice creams.
I also made fudge cupcakes. I think the icing was too thick (I followed the recipe exactly though) so I shall change that next time. These are delicious too. I am being very generous giving away lots of cakes- our waistlines will not cope if we eat them all!
Creativity has stepped up a gear here too. This is Luke's thankyou note to Grandma & Grandad for his Christmas presents. It reads 'presents Luke thanks' but should of course read 'thanks for my presents, Luke x'!

Timmy drew a thankyou picture. I think it's obvious, but in case it isn't he has drawn himself playing with the wooden train track. Rather good don't you think?

Jordan has re-discovered all the art & craft supplies in the house & has developed a flair for designing cards. This is one he made for his best friend Hallie to invite her round to our house for tea. Inside the letter A it says 'you're a star'. :o)

This is what he wrote inside. Very cute! I love how he spells 'nag'. His misspelling of friend prompted a big discussion at the tea table one night. Timmy tells me he knows how to spell friend because his teacher told him to remember it by thinking of someone burning their bottom!!! (Fri End)!!

This is the card I made for my friend Marie & her husband's 13th wedding anniversary earlier this month. Marie likes pink although I am not sure if her husband is quite so keen on it!! I used recycled packaging to make the little hearts too. I do like to be thrifty!

This is the thankyou card I made for Annie-Joy to say thankyou for all her dedication gifts. I had a lot of fun making them although I don't think the photo does it justice. I like the black felt bookplate & all the little bits making up the whole. I love this photo of AJ.

I made this card & one similar for Mother's Day. I gave this one to my Mum. It was good to use the fabric flowers that Lee's parents bought me last year for my birthday & some of the gorgeous patterned paper that Lee bought me for my birthday last year. I have decided that my art supplies are for using NOT looking at (as gorgeous as they are). It's fun experimenting with new things.

These are the pink tulips that AJ chose for me for my birthday. Tulips (any colour) are my favourite along with yellow roses.

AJ showing me the sweet little teddy bear that Timmy bought me for Mother's Day. He chose it himself for me & I love it! It sits beside my bed.

The children gave me more tulips for Mother's Day in a posh bouquet. Lee did an excellent job of organising the kids to get me gifts for my birthday & for Mother's Day. With mine & Lee's birthday as well as Mother's Day within 2 weeks of each other our mantle piece has been constantly displaying a wonderful array of handmade & bought cards this month! And we have used a lot of birthday cake candles too! Great fun!

Well, that concludes the blog entry for today. Honestly, I will try not to leave it so long between posts but this year just seems to be racing away with it's self, don't you think? Hope all who read are well & enjoying the week. Have a great weekend. Till next time! :o)

Ipper Dipper Do Da!

Earlier this month Lee, Annie-Joy & I went to watch Jordan's class assembly. It was all about goals & fulfilling your dreams. It was fun to watch & see all the hard work the class had put into dramatising & acting out their story of Leo the Lion, the late developer who just couldn't quite do what everyone else could but tried really hard until one day he succeeded! I loved the hand jive dance they did to S Club 7's song Reach For The Stars. Jordan has written his own version & can often be heard singing it around the house at the top of his voice! Annie-Joy adores her room mate & big brother! Can you tell? She is wearing the necklace she made at the school's Family Fun Day at the beginning of March. She also made a matching bracelet. It has tiny silver Hello Kitty beads on it amongst other things.
Annie-Joy made the whole class say 'Aaaaaah!' as she ran to hug Jordan at the end of the assembly when the rest of the school children had left the hall. She had fun playing for a little while with Jordan & the great crowd of girls that always seem to follow him everywhere!

Annie-Joy fell down the stairs for the first time two weeks ago. She grazed her nose badly & gave me & my friend who was visiting at the time, quite a shock! She was VERY brave though! AJ took great delight in looking at her nose in every available mirror when ever she saw one! She would look at herself & say 'My nose!' Thanks to the wonders of nature & some prayer (perhaps they are the same thing?) it is healing up nicely now.

Anyway, I expect you are wondering about the title for this post? I can't remember how we got to talking about it but at the tea table one night the boys started doing a choosing rhyme they learnt on the school yard. It goes like this;

Ipper dipper do da

It's not you La!

It made us laugh so much especially the thick Scouse accents that accompany it's recital! this morning Timmy told us another one which goes as follows;

Ip dip dip

My blue ship

You are

Not it!

Ah! School days can be fun eh? Which reminds me I had a go at Double Dutch skipping the other day. I was rubbish (but then I was trying to jump with AJ as well)! Jordan on the other hand was fantastic at it! Anyway, must go- sorry it's been so long! Hope to see you soon! :o)

And There On The Hill A Piggy-Wig Stood

During half term while Lee was working away in London & Timmy was holidaying with Grandma & Grandad, I took three children plus a bike, a scooter & a toy pram full of dolls to Sefton Park. I'm not quite sure what came over me as I have never put the bikes in the car by myself before but before I knew what I was saying I had suggested the adventure to the kids! Anyway, I had no problem getting everyone & all the bikes in the car. Getting them out at the other end was much trickier & for a moment I thought we might just have to turn around & come home again! Eventually I got Jordan's bike out & we went for a lovely meander around the park.
We all enjoyed a good look at the newly restored fountain with Eros (I think) on the top.
It was very splashy! I love the fish & the chubby cherubs cast in bronze.
We headed up to the new play area & had fun feeding the crocodiles there until Jordan fell & bashed his face & nearly knocked one of his teeth out! He was doing something I asked him not to do & it went predictable wrong. I hope I didn't do the 'I told you so' thing too much & that the lesson will be learnt now so we don't have to do that again! It gave us all a nasty shock I can tell you!

From the park we went down to the Bandstand. Apparently it is the thing that inspired The Beatles Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It too has recently been renovated. The original design for Sefton Park way back in 1866 was supposed to cost £85,000 to complete but it actually cost £147, 000!!!

Everywhere Luke goes he finds things to collect. I find a great assortment of little treasures in his pockets when I wash his clothes! On this walk he found alder cones which he calls cute pine cones.

Further on the children climbed up the Davies Tribe Chair. Jordan was a great big brother & helped the others up to the top.

Last summer all the lakes in the park were drained & cleaned out & the railings were taken away. Fountains have been put in everywhere, it seems. The boys were as puzzled as the ducks as to why they were there! There used to be two tortoises/terapins that lived in this lake. I wonder if they are still there after the clear up?

Over an hour later we could be seen wending our weary way back to the car up a very steep hill.

And there at the top of the hill a piggy-wig stood quietly munching away on the oak leaves! I wonder who left him there?

Rainbow Books

A while ago I saw some photos of bookshelves organised by colour into the spectrum (see here). I love rainbows (as I am sure I've told you enough times!!) & after some thought I decided to organise my bookshelves in a more eye pleasing way. I sorted my books into topic sections first & then order each section into ROY G BIV. I thought this would make it easier to find books within sections than if I purely organised by colour.
Some sections were more obviously rainbow.....
...than others but I like the randomness of it- it's very subtle!

In the red corner I have the Matryoshka dolls that Lee gave me to commemorate Annie-Joy's birth (there are 4 babies inside!)....

....and in the greeny blue children's novel corner is a tiny mallard duck that I love!

Having lived in this house for 2 years now I thought it was about time I showed you what it looks like inside! This is the living room area which is supposed to stay toy free but rarely does! I love our little tiny windows. They are like portholes on a ship only square!

We use the sofa to divide the large living area up into two sections. Behind AJ you can see the play area jam packed with toys & games. It is the only area in the house (except for Jordan's bookcase in his bedroom) where we keep toys though. we all love our 'new' hand me down sofa bed. It's great for snuggling up a family of six to watch films on Family Fun Nights & the like! AND it has 'secret' storage for blankets! Yippeeeee!

Well, I must go & sleep now. I am coming down with a cold & it's my birthday tomorrow! Hope all who read are well. TTFN!