Car boot!!

Today is our 8 year anniversary :) So to celebrate, as you do, we went to a car boot sale lol. We haven't been this year at all, even thoguht they started a month ago because it takes cash which is something we havent had. However we managed to sell a few bits last week and as the kids clubs are all canceled for Easter we didn't need to pay out for those so decided to treat ourselves :)
As usual managed to get lots of bargains! Felt bad as most of them were for Caitlin but Cameron didn't see much he liked at all, sure we'll go to another another week and there will be more for him :) Lots of crafting kits, little figures and other bits and bobs. Mark got himself a Nerf gun but he's gone to bed and took it up with him, yeah seriously lol. Not sure if he thinks I'm going to attack him in his sleep or he thinks I might play with it and break it while hes sleeping. Both possibilities really ;)

Also got these for Caitlin which she's been playing with non stop since she got home. My Little Pony toys are So expencive, particually for what they are so this lot for £5 I was very pleased with :)

No craft stuff for me this time, though did get a butterfly frame to alter. Anybody who wants Hamma beads after seeing my SIPIDI the other day, try car boots! Could have filled the car with the amount I saw today!
So just planning to relax for the rest of the day and let the kids play. Hope everyone else is enjoying the weekend. :)

No mojo

Last night Mark went to his friends house, the kids were in bed and all was quiet so decided to try scrapping on Marks desk. I got my tools down, my scraps box and grabbed a random kit form my tote. Set up all my stuff, realised I was missing my photos, went and got those and sat down to start. 2 hours later I had one very simple layout finished lol. I just didn't have the inspiration and felt like I was forcing it. So ended up abandoning the mess and chilling out on Pinterest instead.
This was the layout I did manage to do though. The photos are from when we were at Disney last year. Honestly we have so many amazing, once in a lifetime memories of that holiday. This was on the last night. We had heard that Diversity were shooting an ad there that night so we made our way to where they were performing expecting it to be mobbed. It was so quiet! We stood near the top so the kids could run around and play and ended up chatting to another family who were there; Peter and Karen with their two kids. We ended up chatting throughout the show while the kids ran around and played. Karen was a huge fan of Ashley Banjo so we went and got right next to him and took some pics while the men stayed back with the kids lol. Was a shame we didn't meet them earlier in the holiday as the next day all the kids wanted to do was go to the swing park with their new friends, they weren't fussed about the rides at all! lol We exchanged email address' and are now all friends on facebook so kept in touch :) Love modern technology. So the title 'Best day ever' was we got to meet Ashley Banjo (lovely guy, so tall!) see Diversity dance, and made new friends. :) Disney magic at its best :)

Today we were planning on going to the farm but Caitlin said she was too tired. Starting to get a bit concerned about her as she is barely eating and sleeping a lot. No temp though and seems fine otherwise so no idea there. Mark made her a very sweet tea and that perked her up. She asked for a bubble bath so I indulged and let her play in there with her toys for a bit. Was looking at her toys and came to the conclusion that toys have changed! On the left is a 'Ariels little sister' doll I bought Caitlin 4 years ago. On the right is the same doll, but bought at Christmas time so the up to date version. Shes dressed a little differently!!!!

Tonight, to encorage Caitlin to eat I'm going to do a 'picnic' dinner and we can all watch Britains got talent together. I LOVE that show and the kids love guessing how many buzzes they will get lol. So lots of little bits, like pizza, veggie sticks, garlic bread etc then let the kids help themselves. All things going well off for an actual picnic tomorrow lol.

How I make a kit

Like most crafters, I have loads of stash I need to use up. I find I use my stuff better if its in a kit so each month I take part in the Counterfeit kit challenge here. I always fine it interesting to see how others make up their kits, so thought I would do a post showing how I did mine :) I'd followed the counterfeit kit blog for a while before I took part, the idea of putting together a kit from my own stuff actually seemed a little daunting. Everyone else seemed to have full packs of new stuff, like a bought kit, or papers really similar to the kit they were copying. Most of the stash I need to use up is either older trends, or leftover bits from bought kits, so no new boxes here! Once I got started though it was really easy and actually fun :) Space is a premium in my house, and as a result my stash is stored all over the place. Dies, inks and some punches in the garage, flowers, ribbon, cardstock and chipboard shapes downstairs and the rest in the wardrobe in the bedroom. Kits are idea for me as it means I can grab a kit, my tool bag and get to it.
This month instead of having a kit to copy the team have posted this. The idea being to make a kit using these colours and the 'evidence' elements. You don't have to do all of it, or use only those colours, the idea of which also put me off at the start. You could pick one element, or do it all, whatever you like :)

I'll start with picking the papers. The colours are actually my fave colours so by the time I'd sorted through my pile of 'odd' papers (papers not already in a kit) I had a huge pile.

I was told once when making a kit, or buying new papers from a range was to choose 3 heavy patterned ones, and 3 plainer ones. As you can see I picked 5 heavy patterned ones and 5 plainer ones. So its more of a guideline than a rule ;) Also lets me cross off 'patterned background' from the evidence list.

Next is embellishments. I always go to this first, my 'need to use it up' box. This is full of almost finished sheets of gems, journaling tags, sentiment tags and all the little stickers and rub ons that were the only ones left on the sheet. When picking embellishments for a kit I usually go by one of two methods:
- Things that would match photos I already have in mind.
- Things that match the colours/papers I've already picked.

I didn't have any photos in mind this time so picked based on colours, and bits that would go with anything. I always include some gems and journalling tags as I use them on pretty much all my layouts, and a fair few cardstock shapes as I have them coming out of my ears so need to use them, lol. So after browsing through the box I ended up with this pile to add to the papers. Crystals and buttons also crossed off the list :)

Next is onto this, see how I said my stash is all over the place! I bought this at a car boot sale for £1 and it holds all my fancier cardstock, die cut, glitter, etc, and also my fuller sheets of stickers, rub ons, transparencies and 12x12 strips. I also found a pack of polorid frames I'd cut a while ago.

So now have these to add to my ever growing kit. :) Frames and something sheer crossed off. :)

Almost done now lol. Onto my box of goodies :) I LOVE this storage box and you can find the story of how I got it here if you're interested lol. Anyway here I organise all my pins, buttons, wooden shapes ect. Basically all my smaller bits.

From here I just picked a selection of things I use often. Flair badges (how cute is that owl!) twine, paperclips, and wooden shapes (thats wood crossed off) As I knew I'd be adding flowers I selected some brads too as I use them to hold flowers together.

Quick trip downstairs to grab some flowers and chipboard. Flowers crossed off :)

Added some alphas, large and small and I'm done!

To me the mark of a good kit is that I don't have to reach for anything else besides tools while I'm using it, so I add a LOT of embellishments. I've seen others who have very few and use more patterned paper, it's entirely up to you :) Now I've made the kit I probably should make an attempt to use it, with it being the easter holidays though can't see that happening soon! ;)

Ugh

This morning I had a meeting with our social worker to start the assessment in the case of my neice coming to stay with us. Was surprised how in depth it was tbh. I can understand with foster parents etc but with Evie being my niece I didn't think there would be so much. When she said she would have to contact the police and the RSPCA to check nobody had made a complaint about Scamp I laughed. I'm not worried, sue everything will come back fine but its just time again to get all the paperwork processed and put through etc.
Well after that I decided to meet Mum for coffee as I had some bad news for her. After meeting her, as I had Caitlin and she now had Mollie we decided to skip coffee and go to a nearby family pub so she could have a drink and the kids could play in the playground lol.

Well we ended up staying there untill nearly 7 lol. My dad came up with Mark and Cameron and we all had a big family dinner which was really nice and just what we needed. :) Fingers crossed tomorrow is better!

Rio 2

Today I took the kids along to see Rio 2. They loved the first one so made sense to try the second one! Amazingly the cinema was dead considering it was school holidays and buy one get one free day. Worked out well for us though as we got to pick our seats easily. :)

The film was actually really funny, few odd singing numbers but otherwise better than the first I thought. Cameron actually sat through the whole thing and enjoyed it which is rare for him and a movie.
Once we got home Cameron wanted to go enxt door and play with his friend who recently moved in. I used to go to school with his mum so we sat and had a coffee and it was really nice catching up, will be nice having neighbours I can chat to as though the others are really nice they'e also older than my granny so we don't have much in common lol.
Well tomorrow I have a visit from the social worker to start assessing the house which is nerve racking to say the least. We have a very tiny house so not sure if that will count against us but fingers crossed it will go well.
Will leave with a funny comment Caitlin came out with. While watching frozen, Caitlin asked why there was a ringing noise when Elsa was knocked out
Me - if you hit your head, really hard it makes you hear ringing
Caitlin - oh, I thought she had little bugs in her ear and it was their fire alarm.
Huh?????

MOT

So this morning the car had its annual MOT, I always panic about this in case they find something really pricey I didn't consider. Luckily it all came back fine :) Woohoo! As we already had the kids out I thought it best to try and get as many jobs done in one hit, gets all the 'Ohhhhhh, do we HAVE to?' out of the way at once ;) So Asda, B&M, Gransa and petrol station all done we were home just in time for Mollie to be dropped off.
She usually stays at ours once each school Holiday, usually on a Tuesday night as we go cinema the next day (Orange Wednesdays) and Marks friend is usually free so he can go to his house for a while. He struggles with too many kids in the house bless him. Was a good job really as the kids wanted to watch Frozen again, and it turned into a very loud, quite out of key sing along lol.

Don't think poor Mark would have coped very well lol.

SIPIDI April

See told you I was on the ball for this month. I don't mind admitting I'm dreadful at making cards, so when I saw this on pinterest ages ago I thought it was worth a shot as looked simple enough

The original pin should be here.
So I tried the gifts with Caitlins hamma beads but they didn't turn out great, the top bits of the bows are too far apart on the board which means you need to iron the rest, then somehow attach the other beads off the board which can be tricky and is why the purple one ended up looking like some off square butterfly lol. As well as those I thought I would give a camera a shot

Which I think worked out a lot better :) Think I might use the camera on a layout at some point as with the beads being flat and quite lightweight they are great for scrapbook pages :)

Who knows, with the thousands of Hamma beads Caitlin has might see a lot of these on layouts and cards in the future!

SIPIDI

Ok so I'm a little late on See it, pin it, do it, for March but I have Aprils all ready to blog tomorrow so I'm really early on that one so it evens out doesn't it? ;) Thought I'd try another cooking one as besides TV shows and crafting thats all I really pin. So I picked this recipe for caramalised onions.

If you want to try it yourself the original is here but really its amazingly simple. Cut up a load of onions (recipe said 4-5 large ones, HOW large are their onions! I used about 12), shove them in a slower cooker and cover them with oil or butter (I used fry light spray) and put them on low for 10 hours. There will be a lot of liquid by this point so if you want a thicker consistency take the lid off and cook on low for another 2 hours or high for 30 minutes. Worked out great! I had some on a burger at lunch :) Yes it is half a burger, it wasn't mine Caitlin had two bites and decided she didnt want it. This is why I don't bother making myself meals lol. Even though they don't look very appetising (Caitlin said they looked like slugs) they were very tasty and would go great in a gravy.

Will def be doing this again but might cut the onions a little bigger next time, and maybe use red onions as I think that would be even nicer :)

Girly day

Morning all :) Thanks for the messages about yesterdays post, means a lot. Today will hopefully be more positive. Marks friend Eric is taking him out for the day to give me a beak and Camerons at Mums so just me and Caitlin today :) Weather doesn't look the best so bike riding is out, think crafting will be on the cards instead. Last night she sat on my bed and coloured while I sorted out papers for an upcoming class I'm doing, was nice to just be in the same room together, just chatting and no chaos. When Camerons about things tend to be a bit more hectic lol.

Felt bad for poor Scamp last night. Kids went to Mcdonalds for dinner and got balloons which he was just fasinated with! He spent ages chasing it about, pulling on the ribbon and watching it float back up, he loved it! Was adorable to watch.

Then the inevitable happened and it popped. Scamp wasn't bothered by the bang but was very confused why his toy didnt move anymore. He pawed at it for a moment then tried to eat it so it swiftly went into the bin!

Self pity post

Don't say you wern't warned! lol. This is going to be a very much self pitying post. I don't do this often, or maybe I do and I don't realise but I try not to anyway, but the main reason I blog is to make an online diary to look back on in the future so suppose I need to blog the bag with the good. So on that note......this year is gonna be crap, I mean really, really rubbish. Early on in the year I had a feeling it was going to be bad and everyone was telling me it will be fine it was just a feeling. So driving around one day I asked my Granddad for a sign, is this year going to be ok or as bad as I think, at the second a hearse drove past. Seriously Granddad!? He was never known for being subtle but that was a bit much! Not long after that we found out Nicola was pregnant, so we all have the fallout from that to look forward to in September. Before that however we have my 30th. OK, ok I know, age is just a number, but to me it isn't, it's a huge milestone showing my life is still at a standstill.
I'm grateful, I am. I have a roof over my head, a husband who loves me and two beautiful children, but unless you have been on benifits you will never know the stigma attached to it. You're constantly bombarded with all the media calling us spongers, lazy, chavs, the reason kids are so badly behaved because we don't instill a work ethic into them, look at the whole benifits street chaos! Everyone thinks you're sitting about with a cigerette in your mouth, can of stella at 9:30 watching Jeremy kyle while the money pours into your bank account. Who are these people with all this money btw? I read about people on benifits getting thousands each month, how?! I'll never forget when they announced a £500 a week benefits cap and someone asked me how much I would lose, um NOTHING! God we don't get anywhere near that! Anyone who thinks we're well off needs to look at my 3 credit card statements I juggle each month (hope to be paid off by September lol) And then there's the fear, every time I get a brown envelope in the post I panic and think this is it, thats going to say he's not entitled anymore and they're gonna try and make Mark get a job which obviously he cant so I will need one to support us all but who's going to watch Mark and the kids while I do that?! My Mum says of course they won't as obviously he can't work but you read so much about Atos making people with no limbs or months left to live get a job so you never know do you.
But this is my life, and it will be my life until Mark passes. Now don't get me wrong when I say this I adore my husband but sometimes it feels like I'm just waiting for him to go. I can't work while he needs me and yes caring for him takes up a lot of my time but sometimes he just sleeps all day and I'm left sitting and thinking 'is this my life?'. I've been his carer since I was 22 years old and it feels like the kids are growing up and getting more independant but Mark won't he'll just get sicker and need me more so I'll just keep doing this until hes gone and the next phase of my life starts which will be god knows what.
The worst part is is that I did everything 'right' I got a job as soon as I could and saved every penny. I went to college and got good marks, I even won an award because I managed to do day college, night classes and hold down two jobs to ensure I could get into, and pay for university. Then I went to uni, I worked weekends, went to classes during the week and volunteered at night to put something extra on my CV to make sure I could get a good job. Which I did. By the time Mark and I got together I was working in a school helping kids who needed a bit extra due to disabilities or home life. He had a good job in retail so we were set. By the time Cam came along we were married, owned our own home and had savings just in case, everything was going to plan. Then Marks illness got worse. Fast forward to Cams second birthday and Marks been sacked, gone bankrupt and we're in a council house and struggling to make ends meet. Fast forward further to Camerons 7th birthday at the end of the month and things are much the same lol. I suppose I just feel like by 30 I really should know what I'm doing. you go to school to go to college, go to college to go to university, go to university to get a job, get a job to pay until you retire and then that's it. But what do I do? My qualifications are so out of date now they're useless and I can't get new ones due to cost and time so it's just a matter of plod along until the next phase comes then just get whatever factory or shop work I can find to get me through to the end. God thats a bleak outlook isnt it. To top off allllllll these good feelings , when Mark first got the transplant the dr said he expected it to hold out for 5 years until he would need a new one, well its 5 years this year. So on top of fear about benefits, fear about my sisters situation, general fear about my kids growing up in this crappy world I've got the constant fear Marks going to start losing his mind big time again and I don't know if I could cope with that a second time. :(
God thats a depressing post. I did warn you. Heres a cute picture of Scamp to cheer things up a bit.

Frozen!

Today Mark was having a headache day so after making sure he was ok for a bit I took the pups for a walk. I love how they're friends, so cute!

Tonight we're having movie night at home. I LOVED Frozen at the cinema so as I had some Amazon vouchers I splashed out on the 3D blu ray. So excited to watch!

Gift tags

Well this morning we were supposed to be having a social services meeting but it's been moved to two weeks from now, where nobody, and I mean not one member of the core group can make it. Sensible isnt it?! Ugh, so caught up with a few jobs and met my Mum for coffee.
Still trying to use up all my scraps so made a load of gift tags with the little bits and bobs. BUtterflies for the girls and cogs for the boys. So glad I bought that cog die, used it so much for boy type things which are really hard to do otherwise.

So not much to blog about today, Cameron made me laugh though, I was walking about downstairs thinking out loud:
Caitlin - Are you talking to yourself Mummy?
Me - Yep.
Caitlin - It makes you look crazy
Cameron - Lots of things make mummy look crazy
Dont sugarcoat it love!

Prison orange is not my colour.....

I saw a thing on Pinterest a while ago saying something like 'Sometimes the only way I get through the day is my mentally chanting Prison orange is not my colour' I dont know what prisoners in the UK wear, could be black for all I know but its definetly been one of those days where I've been chanting that. Seems to have been one of those days where I need to learn how to say 'f**k off' in a polite way, if there is a polite way of course.
Anyway off my angry, wine fueled ranting! Since I came back from my retreats my stash has sat on the bedroom floor along with the many other projects I need to finish/start. The fact my room looked like a tip, and I needed to go across an assult course to turn the TV on was starting to get to me so I sat last night and spent 4 hours trying to catch up. This is what I started with.

and 4 hours later I had 30 of these

and 30 of these for my niece to give out on Friday when she leaves her school. She seems ok about leaving which is good as obviously further change isn't something we take lightly at the moment, a few of my friends have kids in her year and they seem excited about her starting so fingers crossed she makes friends soon.

Scamp seems to be improving :) Still have pus coming out of the wound but the swelling is pretty much gone. We have an another appointment Monday so hoping she will say its sorted. Caitlin on the other hand still the same :( I spent some time with her last night making some models out of Hamma beads which she seemed to enjoy but was still very clingy and weepy today. Tomorrow is school photos so really want her to go in but will wait and see. Hoping if it is a bug she can make it through the rest of this week then she has a whole fortnight to rest and feel better. Fingers crossed!
Tonight is making gift tags and boxes, I WILL see my bedroom floor by the end of the week! lol

Whens it half term?!?!

Good god is it not half term yet?! I don't know if this term has been more busy, or longer or what but the kids are just exhausted! Camerons been weepy for a few days now but over the weekend Caitlin barely ate then this morning was very clingy and wanting to stay home. She didn't seem ill so I sent her in but told the teacher how she was. Bless her she did have a bit of a meltdown Saturday night. Mark put her to bed and put a dvd on for her to watch for a bit, a little while later I went to check on her to find her crying her eyes out under the covers! After calming her down it turned out she was terrified of the film. I span round to see what it was, ready to shout at Mark for putting some horror film on for our 5 year old to see she was watching.......Santa paws :s a group of talking dogs try to bring the magic of Christmas to a poorly little boy. NO idea why she was so terrified but took her into bed with me for a bit where she cuddled in and told me she felt safer whenever she was near me. Awwww. So no idea if shes tired, coming down with something or just missing her Mummy. Will keep and eye and wait and see :)
Well assuming I don't get a call to come collect Caitlin I'm hoping to do some crafting today! I have lots of little projects that need doing and im soooooo behind on!
Need to do some soon as these are the last of my layouts I did on the retreats at the start of the month. This one was done with an old Sarahs cards kit. I was struggling with it as I wasn't fond of the dark papers but thought they went well with the photo of Cait in the vintage looking clothes. Thrilled with how it turned out considering how worried I was :)

And last one! Veryyyyy old photo of Mark lifting Caitlin to put the star on the tree, he'd have no chance of lifting her now!

Mothers day :)

Happy mothers day to all the Mums out there :) Hope you're all being spoiled rotten. I was very lucky and got some chocs, wine and some new kindle books from my babies plus some lovely cards!

The one with the puppy on the front is from Scamp :) We had planned to go to the farm today but Cameron really didnt want to so we just took them round the park instead. The weather was amazing so we took their bikes with us :) They were both a bit worried at first as though they can both ride the bikes were bigger than they were used to so it took a little while for them to get used to it again. Took them a little while and a few falls but they were soon off again/ Turned out quite a nice day despite it all going wrong again lol.
Almost finished sharing all the layouts I did at the weekend so better get scrapping again soon! More elf on the shelf PL layouts :)
8 - Playing Magic the gathering with Eeyore
9 - Brought decorations for the kids tree
10 - Brought a dvd and some goodies to enjoy with it.
11 - Made a snow angel from flour (no photo)
12 - Brought some elf doughnuts (cherrios covered in chocolate and sprinkles)
13 - Hiding in the fridge in my hat!
14 - Brought some magic elf beans (jelly beans)
15 - Elf beans grew into candy canes!
16 - Swinging on the swing she made

17 - Brought tickets to Frozen for me and Cait and some goodies for the boys (no photo)
18 - Hanging on our christmas reef
19 - Star made breakfast (No photo)
20 - Wrapped the kids uniforms and book bags
21 - Christmas countdown!
22 - Watching tv with some treats
23 - Brought some new PJs and a dvd for Christmas eve
24 - Brought a note to say good bye and kids opened their PJs
25 - Made barriers so the kids couldnt sneak out and see Santa!

Bittersweet

One year ago today we lost my amazing, funny Granddad :( One year later we all still miss him and think of him often, partiually today which is very bittersweet as it is my cousins wedding day. Obviously he booked it before last year and while it will be very difficuilt it provides a much needed distraction.
So this morning found me wearing a dress and heels, VERY unlike me of course but what can you do. My Mum took photos so none to share atm but the wedding was beautiful, so many little touches that I'm guessing came from pinterest lol. Rather than a traditional guest book at every seat there was a photo of the guest made into a postcard. The idea being that everyone wrote a message then they would later be made into a book. I knew just what to write:
Life is short, but love is long, stay together where you belong.
My Granddad wrote that in my wedding book 8 years ago, seemed fitting to pass the advice on :)

Fancy dress

Thanks for all the concern for Scamp :) Took him vet this morning and she thinks a super strong round of anti-biotics and antiinflamatories (SP) should do the trick so fingers crossed! They have the oddest doses though, he needs 75% of on tablet 2 times a day, and 45% of another once a day! How do I make a teeny tiny tablet into 45% lol Going to have to just guess I suppose.
Tonight is the schools fancy dress disco. Caitlin wanted to go as Cinderella but her Cinderella dress is getting a bit on the small side so convinced her to go as Merida instead. I think she looks adorable :)

After the disco we went round to see my Mum who was celebrating her 52nd birthday today :) Didn't do anything huge, just let the kids play while we sat and chatted. Was a nice night really :)

More PL style pages :) These are ideal for 'Elf on the shelf' photos. I took one almost each day so will be fun to look back and see what Star did each year.
1 - Elf on the shelf arrives! Brings a book and a special north pole breakfast :)
2 - Santa says hi spelled in marshmallows and sweets
3 - Star brings a gift for the kids

4 - Star tps the tree!
5 - HI in the bath with bubble bath
6 - Warning letter for Caitlin for temper tantrums!

To be continued ;)

Poorly puppy again :(

Mark often says I overreact, which to be honest is true but a lot of the times I'm right! Today Scamp didn't seem himself to me, Mark said he was just tired but I didn't agree. 2pm came and I went to give him a cuddle, he rolled onto his back like he always does and I noticed a huge purple lump on his tummy, that wasn't there an hour ago! So rushed him to the vets and turned out hes reacting badly to his internal stitches. We knew he had had a reaction as hes had a hard lump there for a while but we were told that could take up to 6 weeks to go down, the purple lump however was full of blood and pus so the reaction was worse than they expected :( They drained it and told us to come back in the morning for the senior vet to see. He might need another op or hopefully just stronger antibiotics to fix it. :( Poor pup pup.
As well as that drama we had Cameron friend Jack, and Mollie round for dinner tonight. That was a daft idea lol. Looking forward to a bath and a martini tonight!
Still haven't had a chance to scrap yet so more layouts from the weekend away. I still prefer doign 12x12 layouts but I do like the results from the PL style layouts.

I took SO many photos around Disneyland doing a 12x12 for each of them would keep me busy for months. Besides theres only so many times you can scrap another view of the castle, or another photo point from around the park lol.

Great to use up little random bits too :)

Mums birthday tomorrow so will need to find some time to do a birthday card!

Shopping

Today after Mums drs appointment (what a waste of time that was!!) we popped to Asda to get some shopping. I had only planned to get a few bits but as we walked around I remembered more and more things we needed and ended up spending £130!

As you do when spending all that money on food I treated the kids to a Mcdonalds for dinner lol. At the moment they have Super Mario toys so we're collecting them for Cam. I remember getting mario toys from Mcdonalds when I was a kid too, funny how some things never change :)
More layouts :) I love these photos from when we first got Scamp. Hes got so much bigger since then!

Wasn't too sure about this layout when I started it but quite pleased with it now :) My Mum and I went to a Next sale last year and we ended up buying the same t-shirt for Mark, Brian and Cameron. How cute do the menfolk look! lol.

Layouts

Today tbh was nothing amazing to blog about lol. More jobs, more housework and meetings at the school. The kids took in the invitations to their birthday party so they were excited about that :) Mollie visited the class she will be going into after Easter and loved her teacher and made a friend too so that's a weight off all our minds!
As I haven't done much to share thought I'd share some layouts instead :) This was one of the last layouts I did at the Twilight retreat so was using the last of the scraps I had lying about. Loved how it looks in the end as theres lots of colour like on fireworks night which is what I was aiming for :)

This was a simple one but I LOVE the little button tree I did in the bottom corner. I saw it in a copy of scrapbook magazine a while ago but never got around to trying it.

Tomorrow is meetings, puppy sitting, drs appointment with my Mum, shopping then taking granny to church. Glad I filled the car with petrol the other day lol.

Hectic!

There is not going to be enough hours in this week. Between appointments, meetings, housework, projects I need to do etc etc. Tired just thinking about it! Hopefully Mothers day on Sunday will be nice and relaxing though ;)
Today was about housework, ironing and sorting out the kids wardrobes. Whenever I go to the Next sale I buy a load of clothes in the next size up so I'm ready when they have an unexpected growth spurt. Saturday was the only sale since they've been born I haven't gone, :s Felt wrong! But I have to be sensible as we just can't afford it and I hadn't checked to see what they needed so I know I'd have ended up buying things they didn't need in the end. So to prevent that happening I dragged all the clothes out and sorted through what fits, what doesn't what can be donated etc. Poor Cameron came home to find his room looked like Next had exploded! Bribed the kids with a picnic dinner to try on all the clothes and 3 hours later I had a huge bag for charity, a bag for the bin and 2 wardrobes full of new clothes :) Caitlin needs nothing, her wardrobe is stuffed! Cameron needs some shorts and t-shirts but thats it. Love having the wardrobes full of clothes for them, feels like something ticked off the list iykwim :)
As we had spent so long trying on clothes I agreed to let the kids stay up a little later to watch a film. 20 minutes in this was the result,

You can't see Caitlin well because shes leaning against me but shes asleep too lol.

Funner comment from Mark this morning.

Walking to school this morning talking about the fancy dress party at the school Friday.
Me - so what do you want to wear Caitlin?
Mark - why don't you wear your blue frozen dress
*i give him a horrified look*
Caitlin - do I have a frozen dress?! Did you buy me one mummy?!
Me - no daddy means your green Merida dress! *hisses at mark* the frozen one is for her birthday, she doesn't know yet!
Give me strength.