Snow Day

A couple of weeks ago we had snow.  I regretted so much that I didn't get any photographs I actually wished for more snow.  You see, where we live the last time we had snow was two years ago, the time before that was ten years ago.  So when I missed the opportunity to take photos of the children building snowmen and playing I really kicked myself.

Seems this morning my wish for more snow came true. At sunrise I was out taking photos, the fields and sky glowed red, it was beautiful.

The children were quick to get dressed to go out to play.  By nine o'clock everyone was outside busying themselves in the garden with shovels and tools for scooping snow.  Who cares about lessons on a day like this.  This snow bunny appeared in no time at all, with forecast showing rain at lunchtime everyone knew the urgency.

 

 

This is our park, not 'our' park but the village park.  The one where usually you sit and look out at the sea soaking up the view, while the children play.  Today was different, the only sitting involved was sitting on a sledge.

Down the hill towards the park at quite a speed, screaming the whole way!

If you steer just right you can sledge your way down and under the climbing frame, its important you duck otherwise you will get a sore head.

The toys get a go on the sledge too.

 It gets to a point where everyone is cold and wet and its time to go home.

 

Another Birthday and A Sticky Patch

Here we are two days past Toni's birthday, she is now ten years old.  True to form the birthdays in our family always have a little run of bad luck.  Toni shares her birthday with the anniversary of the death of my mother. It is sometimes hard to not forget about how my mum died on my daughters 5th birthday, I try my best to put it aside for Toni's sake.

The day was boringly uneventful.  Other half had an idea inspired by the latest series of The Apprentice, so in a bid to get some inspiration we visited a neighbouring town and its market.  In the years gone by my memories of the market are a buzzing lively event, but sadly on Saturday it was dull, small and lacking in pizazz.  Anyway we had a good morning looking around, Mag bought himself a winter hoody and the kids were more than happy looking at the toys on offer.

Toni had raised the point that she didn't like the icing on shop bought birthday cakes and requested that I would make her cake for her.  Better still she later asked for big swirly cupcakes which to me are easier to make than baking and icing a birthday cake.  I have done the kids cakes before but they are usually a two day event and I am never 100% happy with their outcome.

Earlier in the week I had taken the girls shopping to Belfast and got all of the kids pretty much kitted out for the winter.  We had a great day and are planning another trip later on this week to get some shoes for the boys as that was about the only thing I couldn't get.

The girls enjoying their shopping spree.

Oh, and something funny to add.   Sol has a huge sense of humour, she just makes everyone smile everywhere she goes.  As you will know from the blog posts I write she has to wear a patch on her eye for a number of hours every day.  These patches are sticky and pretty, Sol likes to stick them in memorable places as she hates to throw them away.  It is now a standing joke that everywhere we go she leaves a patch behind on a pillar or a fence.  At the shopping precinct in a nearby town she has a few patches dotted around.  She sticks them on the rear sides of the parking pillars usually and checks them each time we visit.  One particular patch was stuck on the pillar near a bank, it was stuck there for a couple of weeks and it looks as though someone found it. It was unpeeled and stuck onto the window of the bank much to our amusement.  Three weeks later the patch was still stuck onto the bank window!  This shows that the bank people do not clean their windows.  You can just about see in the photo, it is worn but still there. 

Train Ride and Photos

I had to pop this first photo in even though it doesn't really fit with the rest. We took the train to Larne from Bangor one day recently. Not necessarily a trip to Larne but more the experience of the train and changing at the big station in the city and such like.


We all love my friend Lorraine, she lives in a town called Cucumber! Well not really that's what the children call her town, its actually Comber in Co Down. Anyways we took some photos in her garden as it is so pretty there, I realised afterwards I didn't get any with Lorraine in but the photos were fun.

Funny Faces

Thing about Sol is that she likes to pull a funny face now and again! Lately she has been doing it each time I have my camera out, I have some amusing photos which I sure she will be awfully embarrassed about when she grows up.


Look carefully at this photo, I didn't notice while I was taking it that summer was laying under the stone pulling faces.

SUNDAY SUMMARY, Birthday, desks and sleep

Okay, I HAD planned on doing a "snap Shot" Sunday  but it turned out to be more of a photographic summery of my week .....

Here goes

Monday night the children asked for a sleep over. When we went to check on them this is what we found.


I spent most of Tuesday (between swimming lessons, and running the kids to summer scheme, and childminding) trying to tidy the house.
I have to say my husband has the most annoying habit in the world, his newspapers. He buys the Sunday Times every week but never gets it all read. I don't know if you know the Sunday Times but there are 60 supplements with it, and now he has started buying yet another newspaper. If he doesn't get one read he keeps it, and each week this rolls on till he has stacks. I am not allowed to touch the papers, if I were to throw them out he would come looking for a certain article or something. What annoys me most is the fact he stores them next to the bed, oh and the newspaper print stains our white painted floor. Thing is most of the stuff in the Sunday paper we have already read or heard about during the week on the NEWS funnily enough.

No photos from Wednesday, much to my regret! We had early morning swimming lessons then on to our home education day. It was a tiring day, but very successful so well worth it.

Thursday, after swimming, summer schemes, and child minding, Hollie and I set about making some jewellery. This is the bracelet we made which we have since given to a friend.

Okay, so the desks are not really from Friday but I will share the photo anyway. We got them in Tesco's, reduced from £49 down to £12.25 which is a steal. They are MDF and just slot together in two minutes, the kids love them and they are ideal for their crafts and colouring. I am sure they will enjoy doing their skool at them too.

Saturday was my birthday, 21 again! We had Moet & Chandon champagne mixed with orange juice for breakfast otherwise known as bucks fizz! I didn't do anything else for the day, just sat around and rested after another hectic week.

BIRTHDAY GIRL

Just a few photos of our day. We had our four children, the two children I am looking after plus another. The boy's weren't having their photos taken (rolling eyes) but never mind here's the girls.

My two extras!

IT'S NOT ME MONDAY

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.
It's not me that bought myself a new pair of Sketchers shoes whilst out shopping for my husbands birthday present.

It's not me who has hidden said shoes in the corner of the bedroom, it's not me who will put them on one day and pretend I have had them for months and told him about them ages ago.

It's not me who is too lazy to pair up all the socks, and makes the children have competitions to see who pairs up the most.

It's not me who ate all the ripe cherry tomatoes from my next door neighbours tomato plants.

It's not me who ate the largest piece of birthday cake this evening. It wasn't even that nice a cake, football pitch, bright green food colouring YUCK.
It's not me who was stupid enough to hang her washing out side to dry just moments before the rain came on.
It definitely wasn't me who dropped my 6year old's plaster cast of her hand. The same plaster cast she made last week and painted silver and stuck it to a paper plate.

BURNT OFFERINGS

Last week where we live the weather was very pleasant indeed. This fair weather unusual for our area, last year we had two good weeks of nice weather in May then it rained virtually every single day until October! So when the sun shines we tend to take advantage of it.

We got ourselves a new picnic table - both our old ones had seen better days.



This meant we didn't have to sit on the ground to eat our burnt food!
My husband's cooking, kidding, actually not kidding he cooked it but technically it wasn't his fault (so he says) the sausages got burnt! (And I believe him too!)

Photo Time

Just messing around with the camera today!

Mag In Portugal

Zoo Marine

We visited Zoo Marine, the day started overcast so it was perfect to
ensure we had no sun burn casualties.
Poor Toni, she was so sick today.
We saw various shows, the two I liked most were the dolphin show, and
the sea lions.
There was a 4D cinema there, it was really funny as during the
film there was breeze and water droplets blown over the audience. Poor
Seb almost jumped put of his skin when a 4D shark came swimming up!
We also had fun on the theme park rides, most of them were geared for
younger kids. We got soaked a couple times on the water rides too.
All in all it was a good day, took loads of photos which I will post
when we get home.

Sent from my iPhone

Elvis is alive - 16th May

Elvis is still alive, I knew it all along.
This is us blogging from the Algarve. The weather is fabulous, you
have to forgive us sharing that as our friends sit back home in the
rain.
The apartment hotel we are staying at is superb and worth every one
of the four stars it has been awarded. Despite the stars, the pool
is a bit chilly, the children don't seem to mind that so much.
We had a non eventful journey except for me getting a random search
at the airport - sigh.
We have been exploring the area where we are staying and tonight we
decided to head into the old town. What an interesting place
Albufeira is, we experienced many a strange thing here ... Elvis,
did I mention he is alive and well sporting a very nice sun tan. We
saw a one armed fire eater. A man with a White painted face who
wore a gown which looked like one of those dresses the toilet roll
dollies wore.
&
What was most interesting was the huge open air escalators leading to and from the beach.

On a more serious note Sol has been I'll, she was sick today and has fever of 102. We are considering contacting a doctor.

Trip To The Wetlands

This is the first of two blog posts about today.

We visited the Balloo Wetlands Nature reserve today. This was it's official opening, its a new reserve where The Wildlife Trust have turned boggy waste ground into a haven for wildlife. Although its only been there about a year already there are birds and pond life establishing themselves. As you will see from the photographs the weather was very kind to us also.

The opening day was marked with various activities - here are the photos!

The Mayor, Leslie Cree, was visiting to help mark the day. There were a few photographers and a camera man filming, they wanted a child to sit beside the mayor for a photo shoot. So wouldn't you know, not one, but two of my children got in on the action! They ended up in the newspaper that week.

This was Seb pond dipping. He caught quite a few living things which we looked at closely before throwing them back.

Watching the pond dipping.

Two swans have already made themselves at home, along with a couple of different breeds of ducks.

~In the bird hide

Summer enjoying some tadpoles which were on display.