Four Things: Songs for my Baby Sister's Birthday

This week is my youngest sister, Rosie's birthday, so I wanted to write a blog post dedicated to her. I like to think of these music posts like little mini compilation tapes (there's a modern reference for the kids...) that I can create for special people and to remind me of special times. I think with youngest children in particular it is always hard to get past seeing them as being a little kid all their life, but my little sis is now an amazing woman, with a home and a husband of her own. In some ways she's probably more grown up than I am! I always call her a Tiny Tiger because she is so determined and feisty, she's someone who always achieves what she sets her mind to and never lets anything beat her. Here are four songs that always remind me of her:

1. The Cat Empire, "Hello": In her gap year before going to university, Rosie went to Australia for the best part of a year, and I think this is where she heard of The Cat Empire, who are an Australian band. Years later we managed to get tickets to go and see them for her birthday and it was such a great night. This is real party music, super sunny and upbeat, ideal for parties, barbecues and festivals. I always think of Rosie whenever I hear them, and particularly the "Hello, hello, hello" refrain of this song.

2. Ben Folds Five, "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces": Ben Folds Five are a family favourite in our family, and Rosie really loves them. I could have picked almost any BF5 song for her, but picked this one since we often tease her about her "anger issues" - which is probably what makes her so angry...

3. Barenaked Ladies, "If I Had $1,000,000": Barenaked Ladies are another favourite of my little sister, and a band who aren't as popular in the UK as I think they were in the USA. I'm not sure how Rosie got into them but they are a band I always associate with her, and this is one of their catchiest songs.

4. Jeeves and Wooster Soundtrack, "The Blue Room": When we were young, our Dad had the Jeeves and Wooster Soundtrack on a tape and we used to listen to it all the time in the car. It is hilarious, and now hard to get on CD (but available to download). We knew all the songs and bits of dialogue in between them, and invented elaborate stories to go along with the instrumentals from the series. But the reason I particularly wanted to add this song isn't just because of its childhood associations. It is also because this is one of the two songs that Rosie sang at our wedding ceremony. She is a trained choral singer who has sung professionally and her voice is a remarkable instrument. Dan and I are not religious (though Rosie and her husband Paul are very involved in their church) so we chose to have a registry office wedding. Because of this the music we used couldn't be religious. I really wanted Rosie to sing at our wedding, but the civil ceremony meant that her usual church music repertoire was out. I asked her to come up with something secular but appropriate and this was one of the songs she sang. It was a magical part of our wedding day that she performed, and a brilliant gift that only she could give us.

Happy birthday little Raad, I love you!

My Instagram Week: Double Edition!

Hello friends! We just got back from our holidays today and I thought you might like to see some pictures of what we've been up to. This is a special double edition since I got so many pictures I love when we were at the seaside I wanted to share lots of them with you. The weather wasn't great but we made the most of a sunny day on Tuesday to take baby Joe to the seaside for the first time. All the pictures above are from our afternoon at Lulworth Cove, which is a beautiful little seaside village with a fantastic sheltered beach. As you can probably tell, the pictures above also gave me a chance to try lots of iPhone photo apps for different filters and effects. I am always amazed at the great photos you can take on a phone these days, and since we lost the battery charger for our camera, my phone became our only source for holiday pictures.

1. Lulworth Cove beach
2. Locally caught crabs on sale at the beachside fish shop. We bought freshly caught local plaice and had them for our dinner that night.
3. The fish shop blackboard
4. Me almost getting my feet wet in the sea.
5. You can't go to the seaside without getting an ice-cream cone. I hadn't had mint choc chip for years!
6. The amazing cliffs at Lulworth, which is part of Dorset's Jurassic Coast. The scenery is incredible and there are lots of places to go fossil hunting - I think Joe will love this when he's a bit bigger.
7. The Lulworth Bucket Tree. I have no idea of the story behind this tree but I love it! They have a collection box there to raise money for charity as well.
8. A scallop shell found for me by my two boys.
9. Those same two boys having a paddle in the sea. What a handsome pair!

1. The picturesque village of Corfe Castle. I put this through a miniaturise filter but even in real life it looks like a model village.
2. Corfe Castle, an amazing ruined castle you can visit. We come here every time we are in Dorset, it is so brilliant and atmospheric.
3. Dan and Joe exploring Corfe Castle.
4. It was a rainy day on Wednesday so we took Joe to a soft play centre in Dorchester. He is only little but he loves to climb!
5. Swallows Cottage in Bere Regis, where we were staying.
6. Joe in the ball pool at soft play. It was nice to do something just for him, so we all got to do our favourite things on holiday.
7. On Thursday night we banned TV and laptops, so we listened to Adam and Joe Show podcasts from their old BBC 6 Music show, which never fail to make us cry with laughter, and did this Kings and Queens jigsaw puzzle! It turned into a really funny night and reminded me that it is good to force yourself to have some screen-free quality time together.
8. Joe has started really walking properly in the last few days. This is him in the pub with Dan's Mum, having so much fun walking like a big boy. We left Dorset on Friday and had a few days with Dan's parents, who live in the neighbouring county of Somerset. The pub up the road from them is the Five Dials in Horton. It is really great and family friendly, Joe had lots of fun meeting all the regulars and trying the local cider! They also do great food, including probably the best triple cooked chips I've ever had, I would definitely recommend a visit if you're ever in the area.
9. Milk and Alcohol! (Do you know the Dr Feelgood song?)

We had a wonderful time on our holidays but we were all glad to get home today and back to normal. I have been brainstorming lots of ideas for this blog over the coming months, and am in the process of a move from Blogger to Wordpress. I'm still working on getting to know WP, but I'll let you know once we're ready to make the big transfer. Have you made the move from Blogger to self-hosted WP? I love to hear any tips you might have!

Yeah, that's my sister!

Some of my favourite blogs are one where they are created by a group of friends. In particular, I am always so inspired by the way sisters Elsie and Emma work together on A Beautiful Mess. I have two younger sisters and I am really excited about hopefully getting them involved in some of my blogging projects. Today I met my sister Sarah (the middle sister) for lunch and we talked about doing some exciting blog projects in the next few months. She was also wearing a particularly nice cardigan and asked if I'd like to feature it here so I thought, why not?

Sarah and I are only 15 months apart in age so we've always been close. But I'm sure lots of you know what it's like, as you grow up and move to live in different towns, get busy jobs and busy lives (and then one of you gets married and has a baby!) it gets harder to spend time together. Sarah is trained in textiles and now teaches food technology at secondary school and works incredibly hard all through the school year. With both of our busy lives we don't get to hang out as much we used to, so I am really excited about the idea of working together on this blog as an excuse to spend more quality sister time together. Also, Sarah is really creative and has her own flat full of lovely things and rooms to photograph, things she and her talented friends have made, and a kitchen for baking tasty sisterly treats! I think it will add so much to this blog to have her involved since in some ways we are very similar, but in other ways our styles differ: Sarah is much more into a co-ordinated look while I am always a little more haphazard, and she is great at arranging things and making them look just so. You just wait, I'll show you soon!

Incidentally, how cool is her cardigan? It is fully reversible, so you can wear it with the grey side or the black side out (without having all the labels and seems sticking out!). She got it from a French Connection outlet shop near to where she lives. It is super-cute and just her style.

I know I keep saying it but I can't tell you how excited I am to collaborate with my lovely sister on some new projects, things are always more fun with two! I hope I will also be able to introduce you to our youngest sister, Rosie, soon too. Look out for some great sister posts in the next few months!

My Week in Instagrams

What I did this week:

1. Saw some beautiful blossoms illuminated in the street light.

2. Baby Joe got his first party bag.

3. I celebrated my second Mother's Day and got this fabulous Rob Ryan book.

4. My Mum gave me a new T shirt from Gap sale. I love the print.

5. It was my Dad's 60th birthday.

6. I wore a nice cardigan (!). I loved this pattern clash between the retro floral T shirt (a charity shop bargain bought this week for £2.25!) and my Sarah Lund style snowflake cardi. I'm resolving to get braver about outfit posts - and self-portraits!

7. The adapter arrived for the macro/wide angle lens I bought and I had fun testing them out with Joe in the garden. I'm sure these will be featuring in future blog photos!

8. We ate muffins for breakfast.

9. My lovely husband made a pork pie birthday cake for my Dad. Doesn't it look great with the candle!

I hope you had a great week whatever you got up to, and are enjoying a relaxing Mother's Day today.

A 60th Birthday Surprise

Hello! We made it, another weekend has come round, phew! I hope you've had a great week this week, and you've been busy with interesting things.

This week I have been working really hard on a special project my sisters and I have been working on for our Dad's 60th birthday next week. We are making him a photo book based around music, which has always been one of his greatest loves in life. As long as I can remember my Dad made compilation tapes, for each year's family holiday, for weddings, for birthdays, for each of us girls whenever we went away by ourselves. We asked his friends and family to send us photos of them and dad, and to pick a song that reminds them of him. They also sent us a message to include.

My youngest sister, Rosie, has been responsible for dealing with all the correspondence, and then this last week I have been laying out the book pages, adding extra images and song lyrics. Its been a great project to work on, reading all the wonderful messages for my lovely Dad and seeing all the old photos. As always I should really have started work on it earlier, and I wanted to get it ordered by Friday so it would get here in time (hopefully) so the last few days have been a bit stressful trying to get it done while not neglecting my baby too much! 

I'm so pleased with how it looks and I know it will all be worth it to see his reaction to the book this time next weekend - its so exciting! We are also making a compilation CD of all the tracks that people have chosen and that will be added to the book too. I thought I would also add a CD with all the digital photos that we've used in the book, since there are some that Dad doesn't have. On the last page I added these lyrics from "The End" by The Beatles, his favourite band. I thought this was a great sentiment to sum up the spirit of the whole book, which is just bursting with a lifetime of love and friendship. I hope in another 30 years I will be as well loved and highly regarded as my Dad.

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PS. I got most of the extra images I used on this project from Fuzzimo, an absolute treasure trove of free digital resources.