A time to thank our friends..even the imaginary ones!

KB baked her first batch of Christmas cookies.  We chose a Belgium Biscuit recipe - delicious and spicey, drizzled with a lemon icing.

It took all day from mixing the dough to cooling, baking then cooling, then icing.  As a treat she got to stay up a little later than usual with Mum to finish these off.

We chatted about giving thanks to those who care for us and for whom we care about at Christmas time.  This included her friends of course.  And she included "mmm", "yay" and "ha" - her imaginary friends.

A month ago these three appeared or at least became apparent to me.  You see I forgot to dry them after KBs shower one evening (I did not know they were there!!).

I have since learned that they are girls.  They are very small and can fit in KBs hand.  They are gorgeous as told in one of her palm stories (when our family are in places where there are no books handy we use the palms of our hands together to tell a made up story) one morning... "Once upon a time there were some girls mm and yay they were gorgeous and nice..."  Their front door is on the wall beside her bed - which explains the knocking that we hear in the evening.  They recently celebrated a birthday and quite a birthday party happened at our house with many soft toy guests and two different cakes.  KB is teaching them how to use the toilet and they help her too.  They get pushed on the swing.

Many people believe that imaginary friends appear to help a child get through hard times and certainly research seems to support this.  I thought this too.  I did some research and more thinking about when mmm, yay and ha appeared to my "eyes" and what times they appear to play with KB.

They seemed to appear not long after KB tried to initiate a game of tee ball with a four year old at play centre, with whom she had played a couple of weeks before.  The four year old did not respond despite KBs attempts at asking.  So I wonder if KB needs friends for reciprocal play and in her life mm, yay and ha fill this need between real friends.

Perhaps, they have appeared since KBs sister E joined our family.  KB loves her sister but cannot wait for her to play with her...sooo may be mmm, yay and ha fill this gap.

Or may be as this research suggests, imaginary friends are created by children with active imaginations.

What ever the reason - mm, yay and ha are a part of our family, friends to KB and this year will be getting a gift of thanks from her.

How about those names??!

On a roll...a crayon roll roll

Have you visited Skip to My Lou?  For crafting, creating and celebrating this blog is full of fun and fancy and worth a visit.

I have been creating crayon rolls for gifts for Kaea to give to her little friends as birthday presents.

In version one I followed the tutorial almost to the tee.  I made the crayon roll before buying the crayons and then discovered that I could not find a pack of sixteen crayons, so coloured pencils it was!

In version two I modified the design to fit twelve coloured pencils and created my first fabric yo yo on which to fasten the roll.  I found this tutorial on fabric yo yos to be very helpful for a beginner like me.

I know I would love to see my girls receive a gift like this, so I hope Eve and Emma enjoy them.