I know...it's a shock isn't it? I'm back blogging and only 4 days have passed.

I just wanted to share some photos from the weekend of costumes and haircuts. Matthew has a class assembly this coming Friday in which he is a policeman. We do not have a Police costume, so Saturday afternoon we went into nearby Ringwood to buy a police helmet and a costume. The hat cost us £2 - brilliant, but the only costume they had was £18, er how much? As you may know from past posts I love making my little guys dressing up outfits when called upon. So I put my thinking hat on and yes, I did try on the police helmet - purely for brainstorming purposes you understand!

A little while later I gathered up the following items from around the house and might I add at no extra cost;

• 1 white t-shirt (already purchased from Woolworths before they closed down)
• Scraps of black and white polycotton (handy to have so many different coloured fabrics, these were left overs from making bunting)
• 2 x black buttons (would have used silver buttons, but only had flowery ones, which Matthew refused)
• White rub-on numbers by Making Memories
• Velcro
• Black and white thread

In one evening it was complete. I made a tie and two lapels out of the black polycotton and two collars sections from the white. Matthew helped me with the number rub-ons on the lapels, choosing 5 - his favourite number and 6 - because he will be six on his next birthday. I sewed the lapels onto the t-shirt attaching one black button on each lapel. This was the easy part, as I then realised that if I sewed a pretend collar onto the t-shirt the neck hole wouldn't be able to stretch over his head. So I sewed the collars to the tie and added velcro to both the collars and tie and to the t-shirt - problem solved. When worn with his school trousers and school shoes he really does look the part and very cute.

One happy little policeman; PC Boland reporting for duty.

Onto haircuts. For Christmas I gave Jeff some clippers and this weekend we opened our very own little barbershop in the kitchen. The boys had been quite excited about Daddy cutting their hair and we thought we'd make it special for them. My dressing table mirror was put on the toybox and a stool positioned in front of it. Matthew and I made a red and white barbershop pole out of empty toilet rolls, white paper, red pen and a kitchen roll holder - yes very Blue Peter! We had a cape which came with the clippers, a brush to sweep up the hair and most importantly sweeties as a reward for good boys.

Have a good week. x