Continental Style

The continental market came to town. It was a lovely sunny day today so we decided to go and check it out. I only took Toni, Seb and Sol with me, we left the pup at home with my oldest child who is currently studying like a mad man for his exams. When we arrived in town and got out the car I just took one look at Sol. Well, it was funny but not funny at the same time ... Sol was wearing a wrinkly old coat that I save for the garden for her. I made her take it off and go put it in the car, but of course then she was cold. We ended up going to the clothes store in search of something warm for her to wear. I started rummaging through the sale rails and found a cute little coat for her for only £7, so the pain was lessened.

We spent the next couple of hours just wandering about then I took the kids for lunch at the KFC. I cheated and bought them snack boxes instead of kids meals, they didn't notice lucky for me.

 

Sol showing off her new jacket on the beach this afternoon.

 

Posted with Blogsy

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. 

Cupboard Love

I need to throw a few updates at this page, however this one couldn't wait.

In our house we have a spare room, we call it our 'wee room'.  Wee being a word that the people from Northern Ireland use in front of just about every object or person they are talking about.  Wee, is a term of affection or simply just just a word when no other words will do. ("Do you see that wee man walking down the road?" this does not mean do you see that little man walking down the road, it simply is a less formal way of calling the man a man.)


Anyway our 'wee room' as we call it is actually a laundry room as such.  I use it to store bed linen, ironing, spare towels, winter/summer clothing, holiday stuff, surplus food, cleaning supplies and small electrical appliances, DVDs and I loads more. Everything goes into our wee room and its many cupboards and spaces.

The children often make dens in the wee room, especially when the weather is bad.  the other day Sol and Seb decided to set up a boys play area in the room.  Sol has been going through a stage where she pretends to be a boy and plays with boy toys.  This elaborate game lasted for many hours and spilled into the evening.  Sol and Seb made makeshift beds on upturned storage crates with cushions on top to soften them.  This rolled on to a sleep over and the children had no trouble in going to sleep in their new comfortable (not) beds.

We left them to sleep but around midnight I started to have second thoughts about their comfort and safety  and we lifted the sleeping children into their own beds.  It was really funny in the morning when Sol woke up and she had no idea she was actually in her own bed, she was not impressed.

Jack of Ducks

 

This is cute, I think it is anyway.   Toni and Sol are creating a deck of cards by drawing each card and gluing it onto backing card.   They were studying some regular cards and commented how the Jacks were holding swords and how they looked a bit dangerous.   The girls decided to draw a pair of ducks as a jack and instead of swords they are holding lollipops.

My Teenage Plank

My teenage plank.  Mag is a bit crazy, there are times he just likes to muck around and today was no exception.  He thought it would be funny to be bounced about on a see saw whilst remainging in the perfect plank position.

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.

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.

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THIS IS NOT MY WEEK

This is definitely not my dining table. This is not paint and it was not put on the table by my children. The paint is not still there despite several days of scrubbing.

Wasn't my child who went to find his chef's costume, couldn't find it then turned up to help make dinner wearing just his underpants, a chef's hat and a mile wide smile. I did not wish I had taken a photograph. ---
It's not me who is loving my iPhone, and it's not me who can't work it without my reading glasses on. I am definitely not getting old. --- It was not my two youngest children who got locked in the bathroom this week. The lock did not fail while they were in cleaning their teeth. It was not the five year old who had to open the window after gentle persuasion. It was definitely not skinny ass me who had to climb through the bathroom window with my 12 year old in tow. It actually wasn't my other half who couldn't get his legs high enough to get in the same window. It wasn't me who had to take the pins out of the hinges of the very solid bathroom door in order to lift it out of the door frame. I did not damage the paintwork in the process. --- We did not have to buy a new lock for the door, and we don't have to repaint the door. --- It wasn't my husband who decided to try out the new lock the following morning whilst I was not in bed sleeping. He was not in his boxer shorts and he absolutely definitely did not forget to put the handle on the other side. He did not get locked in the bathroom himself, no way you cant tell anyone! --- It was not our wedding anniversary on Saturday. My husband definitely did not 'forget' to buy me card, he did not use the excuse that he did not get a chance to go to the shop. I definitely did not point out to him that he is in the local shop every single day, and they do not sell cards - no, none whatsoever. I also do not have a craft room filled with card making materials amongst other things, he could have gone into it at any time and got the kids to make something. My husband did not some 24 hours later go to the shop to buy his Sunday paper, (no he would never forget to buy that) and he did not buy an unfunny card with a monkey on it. When I read the card I did not notice that he had failed to sign the card. He did not tell me he couldn't find a pen, we do not have oodles of 'school' materials in our house, and we don't have a fully stocked office and craft room either - nope not us not a single pen or pencil in our house.

DEVIL RABBIT

Dougal was out all night it seems. I mean OUT loose in the garden with the driveway gates open onto a road and foxes roaming about.

Roy swears both rabbits were in the hutch last night when he fed them so there is only one other explanation ........

Dougal is a devil rabbit he must have opened his hutch, got out, then bolted his hutch again so that Zebedee couldn't escape. After THE GREAT ESCAPE he merrily had a feast on my nasturtium window boxes which were on the ground.

NOT MY CHILD MONDAY

It wasn't my eldest child who accidentally broke the window in our porch this morning.

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.

Tigers At Large

Sol was playing with her bread crusts! Here she is showing off her 'teeth' while wearing a sun dress and a woolly hat.

The same girl playing football

If You Don't Ask, You Don't Get

Last night was Seb's last night at Boy's Brigade, this is his first year otherwise known as the Anchor Boys. It was his award night where all the proud mums and dads get to go see their little boys getting their awards.

Well as usual I went to watch Seb, Roy stayed at home with the other children. The boys came in looking as proud as anything and sat at the front. There are three main trophies given out to the Anchor Boys, and unfortunately Seb did not get one. He sat ever so patiently while the three boys who were getting those trophies received them. Thinking hard about this Seb stood up, marched to the front where the two leaders were doing the prize presentation and asked when he was getting his trophy. Everyone was laughing, not in a bad way just that he was so cute. Me, I had my face buried in my hands in embarrassment.

The minister who was sat immediately behind me bent over and whispered into my ear "If you don't ask, you don't get", that just summed it all up.

The next stage of the presentation was the badges so the leaders explained that they had a very special boy who was their youngest member and gave Seb his first year badge. He was happy then and he sat proudly showing his arm band off for the rest of the presentation.

This morning on leaving Sol off to playgroup I met the minister's daughter in law, she was laughing about the trophy incident. She informed me that the leaders had said that Seb deserved a trophy for what had happened.

Funny thing kids do & say

Sol is a hoot! She says and does the funniest things every day.

Last week I sent her to wash her hands s she had been playing in the garden. She went down the hall and came back again quite quickly. I asked her if she had washer her hands and how she she did it so fast. Her reply - "I did wash them mummy, I used my tongue!"

Her other latest thing, and she says this almost every day "mommy your boobs are like two big Easter eggs", LOL!

decorating and gardening

I only wish I had taken some photos the last couple of weeks. Well I did take 'a' photo but I cant share it, its far too personal ... one of me wearing some new underwear that I had got. On that note I shall move swiftly on to the more publishable topics.

The decorating in the hallway continues, we cant go any faster because we are only doing painting at weekends. Well Roy is painting and I am keeping the children occupied mostly. I am hoping we will be done this weekend.

Gardening, we have done lots of gardening. Mostly we have planted things in containers for now, some to be planted out when they are bigger and some to keep in the containers. We would still worry a little about frosts so I think its best for now. We have tended to our trees, cleared the debris from under them and added a little peat. We have a fair amount of trees, some in the garden and a few young trees in pots waiting to be planted.

Summer has been one for funny quotes this week. You will laugh at this one, I was slicing up a pepperoni sausage, Sol our three year old is scooping the pepperoni slices as fast as I was cutting them. "Hold on Sol, we need them for our pizzas", "No mummy, I need them for my mouth!" what can I say.

They would get you into trouble ...

Kids that is, they would get you in so deep if you were not careful.

This evening I popped out for an hour. I needed to go stick my head round the door of  Mag's Boys Brigade club because they were kind enough to send him a card last week. I wanted to talk to them about what Mag can and cannot do when he starts back. Mag came with me to get out of the house, we had not planned on being out long but we ended up making a pit stop at the local shop on the way home.

While we were gone Roy was dealing with Seb, Toni and Sol were already in bed so no issues there. Seb is a different matter, for anyone who knows Seb he is an active, chirpy sometimes quirky boy. You cant leave him, he just is always on the go.

Seb was getting his pyjamas on while Roy ran up the stairs to switch on his computer and put the little heater on. He must have been gone for just a couple of minutes, when he came down stairs again he was in for a shock. In the dining room stood a very good friend of ours, he happens to be a neighbour too. He had popped over the wall to get something of his daughter's that was left in our house this morning when I was looking after her. Seb 'explained' to our neighbour that daddy was not there and that daddy had left without giving him kisses. On further quizzing Seb had announced that mummy wasn't there either. So our neighbour was stood there feeling a bit flummoxed by this, he was just wondering what to do when Roy appeared back down the stairs.

Let this be a warning - To all parents everywhere.

I am fully aware of the fact it is now the 9th of January and I still have not posted any Christmas photos or stories ...

Well here is a warning for all parents out there.

Back in November Argos and Tesco were competing with each other and had a massive sale on many toys. We took advantage of that and managed to get three of the children new bikes and they all got scooters too! For six weeks those bikes nestled in the garage, for six weeks they were cosy under blankets and other boxes. They lay undiscovered until Christmas eve ...

On Christmas eve night Roy went out to the garage and started building those bikes, each one a master-piece in its own right. Roy was so proud, never before had he made up so many bikes in such a short space of time. Come midnight with tools and cardboard discarded he wheeled the bikes and scooters into the house.

Christmas morning was started when Sol 'discovered' three shiny new bicycles in the dining room, from there on in the place was alive with screeches of excitement.

Weeks go by and the children are well trained at putting the bikes away when they have finished playing with them.

Yesterday whilst Seb, Mag & Toni were sat at the table doing a project we had a visitor. Out of the blue during this visit Hollie said she saw boxes for the bikes and helmets in the garage. Wide eyed I just stared at my visitor, "got out of that one!" she was saying to me whilst trying to stifle laughter.

Well ... I had to think quick and I explained that there were so many bicycles on Santa's sleigh that he had to put them in boxes, that Santa was worried the pedals of each bike would get caught in the next bike's wheels.

"But mummy, I thought Santa was Magic, and why would he leave the empty boxes in the garage?" Hollie puzzled further.

Well that Santa guy is a scruffy old man - he left those boxes on the driveway and daddy could not believe the mess he had left behind. Daddy put the boxes in the garage so that he could recycle them, but I am telling you that we will have to ask him next Christmas to to take his rubbish with him when he leaves.

So just let this be a warning to you all.

Ebay

If you are like me and a little 'Web Wise@ thwn you will have done some of your Christmas shopping on Ebay!

I have heard this song before but I still think it is funny!


EBAY by WEIRD AL

Feeling Washed Out

I wasn't going to post this photo but was persuaded otherwise!

It Wasn't Me!

This is Sol, moments after she emptied a bottle of baby powder on the bathroom floor. I walked in to catch her and she said "It wasn't me!"