Vic Firth Kidsticks

One evening last week when we arrived home from work a parcel from Amazon was waiting for us; addressed to Eve. I racked by brain and thought it was weird as we hadn't ordered anything. There wasn't a note inside so we didn't know who they were from, but the coolest present was inside.

Vic Firth Kidsticks are specially weighted drumsticks for children. As soon as we opened the box we gave them to her straight away and she started hitting them together and banging them on her high-chair. Sam has had a digital drum kit for many years and is often in his studio playing the drums. I learnt drums when I was at school, though I'm afraid I didn't get much further than paradiddles - it turned out that I wasn't very co-ordinated. However, my slight claim to fame is that I have one of Pantera's very gnarled up drumsticks on a shelf at home, from a gig I went to in the 90's.

Eve, after we first handed the sticks to her

My sister, Claire is an incredible drummer. She plays a variety of percussion instruments. She has played the drums and steel pan professionally over the years. Eve has some good teachers nearby which is great.

Along with the drumsticks came a little cardboard slip that held them together, on it gave details of a free online drum lesson, which I thought was a great idea for older children.

http://www.vicfirth.com/product/buynow/product.php?button=KIDS

Everett "Vic" Firth is an American musician and the founder of Vic Firth Company that makes percussion sticks and mallets.

Founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, the company bills itself as the world's largest manufacturer of drum sticks and mallets. In 2010, the company merged with  Avedis Zildjian.

Thanks to Facebook we found out that it was our lovely pal Teeny that sent the drumsticks to Eve - Thanks Teeny, you little legend! We have so many lovely friends and we appreciate them so much.

I know that Eve is going to get a lot of use out of these drum sticks, they are definitely a big hit :-)

The nursery girls kindly emailed me a photo of Eve decorating a pancake for Shrove Tuesday yesterday. Sam and I were most amused by this photo. Looks like she enjoyed herself.

Eve showed me her pancake in the evening, 

moments after this photo was taken I had demolished it. Mmmmmm!

Creative play

Eve starts nursery in a couple of weeks so I thought we really should let her do some painting before she goes there. Thankfully our bathroom floor is dark lino (easy to clean) so we just let her 'go to town' and then plonked her in the bath once her art work was complete. She had such a great time and really enjoyed herself.

Eve loves playing in Daddy's studio whilst he is working on his music. She is a big fan of the bongo's! 

Banging on pots and pans with wooden spoons is also one of her favourite past-times.

Now that Eve is crawling around so well she loves investigating in the studio - in particular she loves a bit of digging! The girl has good taste in music already...

We had the most fantastic weekend, painting, playing, walking and eating.

We enjoyed another exploration of Arno's Vale Cemetery yesterday, through some pathways that we had not been down before. We all had a lovely time - especially Eve who had a good sleep in the rucksack!

A rather lovely canopy of trees held up by a grave stone

Very sleepy after the fresh air and wondrous sights

There are so many fascinating and beautiful memorials in the forest cemetery.

It was such a gorgeous day we decided to wander down to The Star and Dove pub in Totterdown to try their sunday roast, which we have heard very good things about for years. Now that we are in the area we thought we really should go and try it out. We were not disappointed and had an incredible lunch. Eve slept through the whole thing which was brilliant, being able to eat our meals hot whilst having a good chat and a laugh. We hadn't been out for a meal in ages so it was a welcome treat!

It's just fantastic and boasts being Britain's first Gastro pub. It is really 'our kind of place', we felt like we could have stayed there all day and all night.

http://www.staranddove.co.uk/

Eve woke up at the end of our meal and had a great time eating her lunch with a fig for dessert of course...

Wearing a new Nuby Dribble Bib that I won from a box of Organix baby readybrek style cereal

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuby-Art-4275-Bandanna-Paisley/dp/B00LOMQXRC/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1412583834&sr=8-6&keywords=nuby+bandana+bibs