Ballet Recital

My daughter has been doing ballet for about two years now, starting off at preschool just having fun pretending to be fairies and butterflies. Now she's almost at grade one level, and still loving every moment. She had her dance recital today, it was a long day for them with two performances back to back, but they all enjoyed it. It was called "Around the World in 80 Days". My daughter was a tulip in Holland. Here are a couple of snapshots!

Arriving at the theatre.

The Gardener, an Ice-Skater, and my Tulip!

Waiting to go backstage...

The babies (Snowflakes in Austria) with the big girls...

I could just eat them up!

Finale!

One Week Old!

How cute is this little guy? We've named him Toby, until he goes to his new home in August, where he'll probably get a new name too. He loves lying on his back with his belly in the air!

The two tabbies can often be found cuddling each other. Stripy's eyes are almost completely open now, so he's looking quite sweet. We're calling the other one Tigger, for now.

And our little Tilly. My daughter named her in the end, and I couldn't like the name more if I'd thought of it myself!

Master Tigger, 260g
Master Toby, 240g
Master Stripy, 250g
Miss Tilly, 240g

The Furbabies

Three posts in one day! Just a quick update on the kittens. It looks like three boys and one girl, the tortoiseshell being the girl. She's the one we want to keep, so now we're trying to think of a name for her. The mum was almost going to be called Flicker, until my daughter asked if we could call her Rosie, instead. Being her cat, I let her change the name, so now I am leaning towards calling her kitten Flicker. My husband likes Fudge. Their umbilical cords have dropped off, their eyes aren't open yet, but it should be any day now. They are getting quite vocal, and they are becoming quite the little fighters, when it comes to getting in each others way of their milk! In the top picture, they are actually lying in their birth order. Closer inspection of the photos I took shows tabby-white-socks was first, then the black-and-white, then all-tabby, then the tortoise-shell. Oh they are sweet things!

I Love Knicknacks!

In my very first post on this blog, I mentioned how my husband nearly killed himself putting this shelf up. We had decided that a floating shelf above the telly would be perfect to display the wedding invitation art from our friends in Cape Town, along with a few of my knicknacks.

Well, he started drilling the first hole, but the wall is super tough, and even with the hammer drill he was really battling. He'd gotten it about 1cm, then stopped, and suddenly asked me "Do you think the electric cables run up from this power socket?" In a straight line down from where he was drilling, were all the telly and phone and internet plugs.

So of course, we couldn't exactly continue and just hope for the best, so we threw the kids in the car and headed down to Homebase, to get one of those detector devices. Came back home, raided the Spider-man walkie talkies for the batteries, switched it on and Oh my Goodness! It squealed with the highest pitch alarm right over the hole my husband had been drilling. He felt quite giddy after that. A few inches to the right, and the coast was clear, we did finally get a floating shelf up above the telly!

I love how it looks, with the birds, my Willow Tree children, an old college etch that I recently found the perfect frame for, my wooden family, and a bunch of sweetpeas from my garden in a gorgeous vintage milk jug I found on Sunday!

Teddy Bear Festival

Our local parish community have a wonderful festival every year, inviting schools, preschools, groups and individuals to enter a Teddy Bear or sometimes Scarecrow in a competition. The Bears/Scarecrows are arranged around the church and grounds, and the community all gather to vote, try their luck on the tombolas, have burgers and Pimm's under the trees, and generally have a lovely family day out. This year, my son's preschool (known for their wonderfully creative entries) entered their Pearly King and Queen Bears. We had been asked to donate as many buttons as possible earlier in the term, but I never would have guessed what they were doing with them! The Mother and Toddler group I take my son to also entered a bear, we named ours Percy the Gardener, and we all thought he looked rather sweet. Of course, Pearly Pete and Peg took the prize by a huge majority, and ours came second!