Last Monday was the Peanut's Birthday

and we spent the day doing whatever she wanted to do from tea party time to building a bridge with blocks. She helped to bake her birthday cake and ate all of her dinner (scrambled eggs, toast and bacon with watermelon slices, as per the peanuts request) and still had room for cake. We frosted the cake with lime butter cream with cherry jam filling and decorated the top with three of the juiciest raspberries from our garden iced with chocolate frosting dots to look like ladybugs. It was a great day and a little sad too because now at 3 the peanut is no longer a toddler but a pre-schooler, next year I won't be able to call her a baby anymore. She had her birthday party this weekend, followed by a BBQ party at our friends place. All in all it was a busy weekend and I think I need a nap...

While I'm sharing, did you check out the amazing give-a-way from last week yet? I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I win the grand prize.

If you're interested in finding some great new blogs to read here are a few of my favourites:

Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom is a new one for me, I've been following Mrs B on Twitter for a while but only recently stumbled across her blog and boy am I glad I did. She has links in her blog to some other wonderful blogs as well as recipes, art, pagan parenting, kitchen witchery and of course some wicked product reviews. In amongst all that fabulous stuff is the odd give-a-way, on of which is for the most amazing Tarot Decks ever. full of retro 1950's housewife images it's just too kitschy cool.

With my own recent addiction to caffeine in full swing, and my obsession with following creative blogs, I started following Caffeinated Frenzy way back when I started my own. Frenzy was one of the first creative blogs I encountered and I've been following her ever since. In addition to writing about her adoration of caffeine, Frenzy also blogs about her knitting and other random things that she just can't help but share. She's a good read and I have to say that I have been known to covet some of her sweaters and hats.

I went to a fancy dress up party of Saturday night

which is something I never get to do on a regular basis. My husband plays Bass, he's in a band that plays together pretty regularly, he's made some terrific friends out of it and that's saying something. Both of us are fairly introverted. At parties I tend to lurk in the backgrounds not sure what to do or say, especially where I don't know a lot of people plus since the addition of the peanut to the family I never know what to do with myself when she's not around, especially if I'm in a gathering full of people I don't really know all that well.

The odds were high for this party that I'd probably end up doing the same and I'm proud to say that I only did the wallflower thing about halfway through the evening. I bought a new dress from for the night and gussied myself up as best I could and tried to picture myself as a bubbly witty person surrounded by admiring people who couldn't wait to find out who I was and fortunately the guests of honour are super friendly and super extroverted and the people I did know took the time to chat when I approached them. Once the band started to play though the wall flower in me came out and I hung out in the corner and watched my husband be a rock star with his cross-dressing band mates.

While we're on the subject of sharing, here are two more blogs that I think should garner a read from you; plus a really exciting give-away from a blog I've just started to follow:



mikiepillustrations has a fabulous shop on Etsy full of the juiciest and most adorable illustrations, eerie photographs of cupie dolls, sculpture, ACEO's and other cool stuff that I can't take my eyes away from my screen because I want to take it all in.

Right now Mikiep is having "The Mother of All Give-A-Ways. It's soo good in fact that I don't want anyone else to enter so that the odds are higher in my favour to win it.... Nah, that's not very fair of me, go now and see how to win what could possibly described as the best prize in the history of blog prizes ever; a custom illustration featuring you as your most favourite superhero in a childhood memory that you treasure the most.



All Things Tangled is always good for a fun read. Joan is a magician who creates things with yarn, hence the reference to things tangled. Her posts are shore and sweet and full of references to her knitting projects and of course which books she's been reading. The latest, We'll Always have Parrots sounds so good I'm going to go look it up at my local library.

cabin + cub is another of my favourites. Valerie is a fellow Vancouverite who regularly posts about herself, or stories she has hear supported by her fanciful retro inspired collage works. In addition cabin + cub also includes posts illustrated with her beautiful photographs. My favourite from this week is her post on the fuzzy donkeys she and her husband saw on the way home from berry picking.

Today is the Peanut's 3rd birthday, and I think it's time for some cake and a big crumb and frosting filled hug and kiss.