Sweetie pies and cupcakes

   During a previous play date, Sweetpea and my cousin's young daughter spent an entire Saturday afternoon 'baking' some felt cupcakes in her play kitchen. They would mix imaginary dough in a tiny mixing bowl, stick the cakes in the oven for a while and then decorate their creations with the most splendid, invisible frosting and sprinkles. A tea party would follow, and then 'washing' of the dishes, and then they would start all over again, delighting me with their chef-ly conversations as I listened in from the kitchen.

   They had such fun that I couldn't wait to see what they would do if they had the real thing to work with, so about a week later we invited L over for some bona fide cupcake decorating!

Just after lunch and as soon as ArrowBoy was down for his nap, I set up the picnic table with everything they would need...

Bowls of yummy butter frosting in girlie colours...

...and a muffin tin full of goodies for each.

Two super-excited little chefs just itching to get started...

And then they were off!

Some of the creations...

And the very BEST part:

YUM!!

And of course I couldn't resist and had to join in...the Dad was quite happy with that when he tucked into these after work that afternoon.

   As you can well imagine, Sweetpea had a fairly intense sugar rush after all this, and she and I spent the remainder of the afternoon playing running games in the garden to get it all out of her system!!!

Drum roll, please: I am back!!

   It feels SO good to sit here and type up a blog post again...I have really, really missed these late-night writing sessions, a cup of tea next to my keyboard and the quiet hum of the computer.

   I do apologise for the sudden disappearing act, but trust that you will understand when I say that I haven't been feeling up to much of anything  in the past three months, because...

  Yes, God in His infinite grace has decided to bless my womb once again and I am almost 15 weeks along in this pregnancy!! Yet, delighted as we all are here in the Joyful household, the first trimester has been very hard for me, with severe nausea and exhaustion. BUT, as with my last pregnancy, all that disappeared like clockwork the day I hit 13 weeks, and I am so relieved to be 'back in the saddle', so to speak, especially for my children's sake. I still suffer from back aches and really struggle to sleep at night, but I'll take that over the nausea anytime!!

    Thanks for all the caring e-mails to ask if all was well - it is good to be back!