Five minutes of Fame For Mag

Yesterday the 19th July was Roy's Birthday. I had been out shopping on Thursday twice, that's was another story, and got him some gifts and a card or two. One of those cards was a radio ...

Cool isn't it?

The next night, which was Friday, Mag, Toni and myself were hidden away upstairs in my craft room wrapping presents when I came across the card in a bag. I had forgotten about it, so hadn't tried it by this stage. We opened it up and realised it actually worked, we tuned in to our favourite station Cool FM . We often listen to Cool, especially in the mornings and have entered many competitions and won a couple too ... so knowing that there was a good chance Roy would get a birthday mention we decided to text a birthday mention in. We Said "Hi, Conner (it was Conner Phillips) we are listening to your show on a radio which is actually a birthday card. From Mag PS the birthday card is for my dad whose birthday it is tomorrow". We sent Toni down stairs to tell Roy to switch the radio on and listen in, hoping Roy would get a happy birthday. There was nothing at the end of the song that was playing then out of the blue my phone rang! It was a private number but I answered it anyway, a voice said "Hi, is that Mag?" I stuttered knowing who it was and said "no, hold on" handed the phone to Mag saying "oh my, its Connor Phillips". Connor Phillips was live from the Odyssey Cool Pod.

Connor spoke to Mag for several minutes while he played two songs back to back, he chatted and made Mag feel at ease. He said Mag sounded nervous and gave him a few 'radio' tips. He then asked if he would like to go live! Mag said yes! He gave a 20 second countdown for him then ....

Mag was live on the radio and Connor was chatting about the fact that not only do you listen to the show on the radio but now on birthday cards. He asked Mag who was there with him. He asked his dad's name, and his mums name gave us a cheer. He asked Mag what his plans were for the weekend and other chatty things. Then he said "just for your dad and your mum I am going to play the new Cold Play single"

Roy had tears in his eyes as he listened to Mag on the radio, so impromptu and unrehearsed he was touched that we did such a thing for him.

After the 'live' interview Connor said the live good bye and played the song, he stayed on the line then Connor came back and told Mag how great he was and said good bye to him properly.

We sent a message of thanks over to Connor later on, telling him how touched Roy was and that we really DID enjoy his show.

Busy Day Saturday - SNOW?!

Saturday 12th July

The 12th of July was actually a holiday day here where we live. With it being a holiday and people headed down the coast to see the demonstrations we figured that it would be a nice quiet day to go out.

Our neighbours, who we are very good friends with came with us. We headed to the Marina in the next town ...



We walked along the coastal path past the marina and round to the kiddies play park.




The two girls are great friends with our children - I took this photo not realising that Toni and one of them was holding hands. awwww











We had a lovely morning then lunch and ice creams before we headed home.

Did I tell you it snowed while we were out?



Just Kidding - someone put a bottle of bubble bath inthe water fountain




That afternoon we went to a barbeque then home again for tea time. It was hard at the barbeque, Roy and I already knew we had an evening invite back at our neighbours for dinner -they were going on holiday and we wanted to spend some time together. So we let the kids munch their way through the barbeque food while we politely pushed a salad around our plates.

Thursday 10th July

It was a busy time the last few days.
Last Thursday found me 'popping' out to get some new dinner plates. I mean every day dinner plates not the sort you put out for guests, the sort the kids can drop and you wont cry too much. I actually liked the cheap earthenware ones in a catalogue shop so I ended up getting two sets.
Here they are ...


Whilst we were in the shopping centre Toni noticed a girl getting her ears pierced in the jewellery shop, she stood and watched with a mixture of envy and curiosity as the girl cuddled a bear during the procedure. The last few months she has been asking what pierced ears felt like, asking about different ear rings you can get. One of her little friends had her ears done too which added to the curiosity. So we had a few minutes and went in to look at the set up. The girl in the shop was lovely, Grace explained everything to Toni and made her feel at ease. We went for a walk round the other shops to talk and ponder over the fact it was fairly simple to get her ears done, Toni decided to go for it. Back in the jewellery shop, she found her self perched on the chair clutching that same teddy bear and me filling out consent forms. GULP. Then she backed out, and that was fine by me.

That evening at home the conversations about the ears came up again, so a brave Toni with new found confidence wanted to go back tot he shop. With a promise that it wont be a wasted journey we went off to get her ears done. Another girl was in same the chair when we arrived and she too managed to survive the procedure, Toni was reassured by this. Meanwhile the mum to the girl just stood with tears in her eyes and her hands clasped tightly over her mouth. Smiling, not knowing what lay ahead I reassured her.
Toni being brave hopped on up and gave the bear a big hug, Grace and another lady pierced both ears at the same time so there was no backing out for her. For a few moments I was thinking "Oh my God, my little girl, I let them put holes in her ears!" Now I realise it was Toni's choice to get her ears pierced and that I am not such a bad mum after all. We chose a little gold stud with a fuchsia colour stone, small and dainty.
You can just about see them in this photo...

Scrapbook Pages

A couple of scrapbookpages, I have 100s so perhaps I will share some more.

TOPPERS

Just some toppers & tags I have made for cards :)
I thought my fellow card making and scrapbooking firends might like to see.

Hedgehogs and Fruit

TODAY - well where do I start ... this morning I was rudely awoken by the day break! Getting up I braved a lovely hot shower and a vitamin drink! After the couple small pleasures of the day it was time to tackle more laundry, putting away all the boys things and managing my own, hubby's and some of the girls' clothes I realised it was almost 10am. My cleaner arrived to help me with my housework, ooohhh I do love my cleaner friend. She is a friend too but her job is a cleaner and she does mine woohoo happy dance. Afterwards we do get to sit down to a cup of tea and a gossip.

This is my princess Sol, when she hears the presenters on the radio talking about "the summer".


My shopping arrived this morning as scheduled so I spent the remaining part of the morning sorting groceries out and making space in the freezer. Lunch time brought on a sudden urge to make hedge hog buns with Ellis.

RECIPE

Ingredients
24 fairy cakes chocolate or plain
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
hot water
125g margarine
250g icing sugar
chocolate sticks like match makers
silver ball decorations
chocolate sugar strands
jelly tots or something similar size eg smarties, cherries

Instructions
cream the margarine until pale
Mix the cocoa powder with half a tablespoon of hot water, adding more if need be to make it into a paste.
Mix cocoa powder mix with the margarine, then add the icing sugar. Beat until mixed.

turn the 24 fairy cakes upside down on a baking tray - make sure the paper cases are removed of course otherwise this wont work.

cover the fairy cakes in the chocolate frosting - I just dipped mine in, but if they are too fresh they might crumble.

dip or sprinkle each frosted fairy cake with chocolate strands.

add silver ball eyes, jelly tot nose and broken up chocolate sticks as spikes.

here is our efforts - despite how these look they are fun to make and delicious to eat.



I did offer to take my cleaner friend home later in the afternoon and discovered yet again the car would not start. As luck would have it I had parked the other car in front of it last night so we were able to jump start it. This happens a lot and its pretty annoying when you want to go somewhere and you have to jump start your car.... so off I went to the garage leaving Roy in charge of two children and one came with me (the other one is still at camp). The man at the garage tested the battery and it is fine. As the problem is intermittent there was nothing more he could do for me at that moment, I have to wait till it wont start and call him out to the house. This is the point where I am banging my head on the wall. As the only time I know it wont start is when I get in the car to go somewhere, and the only time I get in the car is when I AM going somewhere which means I will have to drop everything one day and wait for a mechanic. Similarly if Roy is using this car, which sometimes he does as its a 'bus' then he will have to drop all instead of working to wait for the mechanic to come and rescue him. Its a pain!


On a more fruity note - we were out in the garden this evening and noticed our fruit trees are bearing fruit. Last year we had 16 apples, and our neighbour's little girl came in and picked them all while they were still small so we did not get any fruit! This year she has been warned - and the trees are a little bigger. We have loads of apples on two of the trees, some plums on another, and the cherry tree well it is pathetic and has nothing at all so far. We also have raspberries by the dozen and one single solitary strawberry, well we had three strawberries but Toni ate two!

The Boat Race

Yesterday, and I am saying yesterday ... I had great intentions of blogging last night and it wasn't to be. I spent the morning doing housework, laundry and sorting stuff out. It took me ages, and I think back to when it was just Mag and I ... hhhmmmm I used to get our ironing done in half an hour LOL. I even managed to organise a competition between the little ones - who can pair up the most pairs of socks. This was funny and they had a little wager amongst them selves, they managed 12 pairs each until they realised that mummy was probably conning them and went away to do their own thing.

Anyways the day wore on so I thought I oughta do something slightly educational and constructive with the children - We joined the Woodland Trust Nature Detectives weekly projects last year - I think it was something like £20 for all the children and that includes mailings, stickers, charts, and weekly topics on the Internet. We spent the afternoon doing the activity sheets that we had missed the last few weeks and coloured a few of the print off sheets. It was nice for us to sit round the table after being busy the last few days.

After tea we decided to take the children for a walk into he village. Roy had noticed earlier in the day some marker buoys set up in the water and had suspected there was something going on. As luck would have it when we got down the sea front there was a boat race on - the boats at this stage were close to the shore. Of all nights I fail to take my camera with me it just had to be this one as it was so picturesque. The race officials were standing around and called over to us to cover our ears - they sounded a loud horn to start the race. And true to form Seb went over to them to enquire what all the noise was about, they explained and he was captivated. The officials then asked Seb if he would like to sound the next horn which was the five minute mark. They unhooked the switches and brought them down to his level, when it came to the time he got a count down and he pushed the button to sound the 5-minute boat race horn. Seb was just the happiest boy on earth at that moment and I was thrilled for him too. Its such small things in life that make children happy, and getting to push a button made my son's day.

Then last night I went on line and picked up a cheap as chips printer from Tesco dot com just to keep in the dining room - saves us running up the stairs to the big printer every time we want to print something off. We have been looking at the wireless printers, and quite fancy the lexmark one that is an all singing and all dancing job but we are going to wait a bit till we get downstairs all decorated - I just don't have a designated surface for it just now, and there is no way Roy is gonna get to keep it in his office .... hmmm I might find a spot in my craft room but even then that's risky. The £14 tesco printer will probably get stuffed in a cupboard while not in use so will do its job for now.