soooooo tired

Did I not blog last night? I'm sure I did but oh well. Think my brain is asleep at the moment which my body really wants to be!
Cameron had an amazing birthday so very happy Mummy here :) More on that tomorrow though as my bed is calling to me, quick share of a layout I did for scrap our stash challenge which was this sketch and colour board.

This was my take, 'Maiking friends' Camerons not one who loves the sun, so when we went to Turkey a few years back rather than spend the whole day in the pool with the girls he would often take his DS and sit in the shade nearby. It was out of season when we went and was really quiet so the staff would often sit and chat with him. By the end of the week he was like their little mascot and they would bring him drinks and snacks while he played. :)

Not a huge fan of this one, if I redid it I would make the strip down the side smaller and move the photo and everything higher up the page. But never mind :)

Little protector :)

Busy weekend spring cleaning here :) Managed to sell a few bits on facebook too so yey!
Had an odd experience tonight though, :\ Scamp is usually a big softie, we joke that if anyone tried to rob the house Scamp would roll on his back for a tummy rub lol. Tonight though I was out walking him when a man crossing the road fell. I started towards him and asked if he was ok and he went mad at me! Shouting at me to go away and gesturing really angrily. Scamp, who had been fine up to this point went mental! Barking and growling at the guy. Think that shocked me more than the rude guy yelling at me lol. 2 minutes down the road away from him Scamp was back to his waggy tail self but was very surreal lol.
Odd events over with I've been scrapping a little today. Still have loads of my counterfeit kit left but really want to try a new one so might do a couple more and pack it away for another day. Before then however I did the Sketch challenge over at Scrapmuch?. This was the sketch given.

and this was my take :) Doctor who fans might spot the title is a twist of 'I wear a fez now, fezs are cool'
Every year Mark gets a hat for our holiday. I've no idea why, but he says its not a holiday unless he gets a hat. Fair enough. Few years ago in Turkey Cam borrowed his hat while Caitlin was playing with hats at a market so I snapped a few photos :)

Love all these little embellishments in the kit. Theres loads of them left and I've already done 5 layouts. Its like a never ending box of bits!

Well theres a half finished layout calling me, maybe share that tomorrow :)

Around here......

This months challenge over at Challenge YOUrself was 'Around here'. The idea was to record some of your daily blessings, snippits of a normal day.
I decided to kill two birds with one stone and use the sketch I set for Jess and I this month.

Unfortunately I didn't have any photos I thought would go with this idea at first. Then I remembered a plaque I'd seen a while ago saying 'In this house, we do love, sorry, etc etc' so I decided to use that. Still covers the challenge I think as my family are my daily blessing :) Though sadly being at Disneyland isn't really a normal day.

Close up of the journaling, and another little flag lol.

Well its 20 past 7 and Im ready for bed lol. Can't even say its been a busy day because it has been really chilled. Cleaning this morning, PTA meeting then took the kids swimming. Home, microwave dinner and now Caitlins watching some dreadful programe called Lalaloopsy. Maybe my brain is rebelling and shutting down lol.

Avengers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you tell I'm excited :) Today was finally the day I got to see the new avengers movie. Mark and I are both huge Marvel fans so when the tickets went on sale back in March I booked right away. So I woke up in a very good mood.
This got even better when Jess txt me saying 'congratulations' Was confused until I saw the photo she had attached from this months Scrapbook magazine!!

Yey!!!! So quick unschedueled trip to town to buy my own copy then it was time for the movie.
Those who know me know I LOVE ice cream, particually ben and jerrys. They've recently started doing Ben and jerry milkshakes at our Odeon so I was looking forward to getting one. You can imagine my dissapointment when the ice cream section was closed. :( Mark asked a member of staff if it was broke and was told no but they don't bring it out until later. :( The lady must have saw my face and offered to take my order and bring it to me in my seat so I didn't miss the movie :) How lovely!!! Went online and gave very good feedback for her.

I won't post any spoilers but the film was amazing :) Just as funny, action packed and interesting as the first. I was a bit sad when it ended as you could tell the next ones will be different but can't stay the same cast forever I guess. Can't wait for the dvd. :)

Stuck?! Nope :)

I love sketches so Stuck?! Sketches is one of my fave blogs for inspiration. The first sketch challenge this month was this one.

And this was my take. Lots of Christmas bits again and a photo of Caitlin unwrapping gifts at my Mums last year.

I cut the baubles out of a sheet of patterned paper, and made another little flag with a toothpick and washi tape.

The next one I found a little trickier. I didn't have any photos small enough to fit so tried to adapt it a little to larger photos.

After lots of faffing, and adding then taking away embellishments this is my finished layout. Not one of my faves but did my best :)

This week is a nice relaxing week. :) Which is good as next week is back to hospital appointments and blood tests lol. Met Mum up town for a coffee today and must say, was a little surprised at Costas new cookies.

Apprently they're jellyfish, not my first thought when I saw them! lol

Pokemon party

Yesterday was Cams pokemon birthday party :) His birthday actually isn't until the 29th but his best friend is on holiday this weekend so we had his party early so he could come.
As it was a pokemon party the kids played pokemon trainer themed games. First I had a large bowl of dried pulses and they had to pick a pokemon card, then hunt in the bowl for a pokeball and their pokemon. I made a note of how long it took each child to find it and gave them points based on how quick they were.
Was very grateful for my hoover after this game lol.

Next they had to 'Catch' their pokemon. I'd made a large target in the garden with points for getting a slingshot ball through the holes. Each child had a minute to get as many points as they could. It was harder than I thought it would be!

Games done I added up the points and the winning trainer was announced.

All trained out the kids added toppings to the pizza bases I had made earlier. The decorated their party bags which calmed them down, slightly, lol.

I had asked Cameron beforehand what he had wanted to do and he wanted some games and the rest of the time to play on the computer with his friends. Part of him growing up I guess, too old for kiddie party games :(
The party boy gets his way though :) So after stuffing them with doughnuts, hot dogs, pizza etc they played Mario kart and super smash brothers. OMG the noise boys make!!! My friend Gemma had come round to help as was too much for Mark bless him, anyway we were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, and having to txt each other as we couldn't talk over the noise!
An hour (which felt like a week) of games later was time for cake and home :)

Ignore the gap around the edge, I took that photo in the morning before I bought more biscuits and forgot to take one after I'd finished it later lol.
My Mum came round later for cake and coffee and asked Cameron how it had gone, 'perfect' was his answer :)

Feeling good :)

I always feel best when I feel prepared :) Last night I made a list of all the things I needed to buy and what I needed to do before the party on Sunday. Compared to how much I usually do its really quite small :( Sign of the kids growing up I supposed. Cameron doesn't want loads of party games and themed food, still doing a themed cake though ;)
So this morning was a trip to Asda where I managed to get everything on my list (woohoo) plus some new PJs in their sale. I love new pjs. Nothing better than curling up in warm snuggly new pjs and reading or watching tv.
I'm still working on Pokemon decorations and bits for the games so here's another one I did the other day.
To be honest this sat on my desk half finished for about a week until I forced myself to sit down and do it. In the end I just stuck it down and there you go. I wasn't too fond of it at first but its growing on me.

More old embellishments used. got this reindeer in a swap a few years back.

The photo is from Birminghams German Christmas market. Mum, Gran and I go shopping each year but this was our first visit there. Booked for this year again so you can guess we had fun :) The market was HUGE but as we got there early we managed to get around it all before it got too busy. Around 3 the shops were heaving so was time to rest our feet and enjoy a cherry mulled wine and some hot dogs before the bus picked us up. Can't wait for this years trip!

Crafting and cleaning

That has basically been my day today. Yesterday was MOT and some quick shopping before pick up so today I'm staying home and getting stuck into housework before the weekend. Joy.
It's not all bad though, between jobs I'm working on a couple of craft projects and photographing the ones I've done :) Including this sketch challenge from The studio challenges blog here.

I wasn't sure on this one when I looked at it as it had more white space than I usually have. Then I remembered this paper I had in my stash :)

I LOVE this photo of Scamp the first year we had him. :) He looks so teeny under the tree. I wanted to make that the focus of the page so used the bling to draw the eye to him. He's not that teeny now!

Well Cameron has sewing club after school today. Out of all of the clubs he could have picked I have no idea why he picked that but there you go lol will see how he gets on :)

Half finished

If you could see my blog template page you'd see lots of 'draft' posts, where I've started a post but then somethings happened and I've not finished it. Look I'm finishing one now and its also the first day the kids are back at school. Might be a link there! lol
Saturday night I started a blog post about how I was giving up scrapping until after Cams birthday as I had no mojo and was likely to be too busy. I never got a chance to post it as never finished it but funnily enough the next day my mojo seemed to come back and I managed 4 layouts :)
First was for Sketchy scrappers. This months sketch was set by Jess. I admit at first glance I wasn't a fan as a lot of the photo was covered. But thats the great thing about sketches, you can adapt them :)

So this is what I came up with :) This is a pretty recent photo from Christmas just gone. My Mum works in Primark and had bought my Dad one of the dreadful jumpers they had there lol. It's a running joke in my family that no matter what my Dad eats he never gains a pound, with this in mind my Mum picked a Santa with a very stuffed tummy. :) Mark thought it would be funny to pose with my Dad and show his stuffed tummy, but without the jumper lol.

It's my aim over the next week or so to use up most if not all of my Christmas stash so I was pleased to use a few old bits in this layout. The papers and brad here are 5 years old I think!

Yey I finally started and finished a blog post on the same day lol. Surprised to be honest as its been very hectic. Had shopping to do, party planning, cleaning, then after school Caitlin had choir, a party and rainbows then I had my first Pilates lesson since I had the kids lol. I used to love Yoga and everything but you know what its like, you have kids and you're lucky you get time to have a bath let alone leave the house for a lesson in anything. FX Mum and I can make it a weekly thing :)

Today was a good day :)

Today my Granny and I went on a coach trip to a local market and garden center. Over the course of the day I think I got a lot of 'Ok that lady is crazy' looks lol.
First of was for taking this photo. How cool are these sinks in the public toilets!!!!!!

Second was when I found these cup holders (in a garden center?!) and got very excited! Squealing and running across the room to grab one. In my defence I've wanted one for ages! Though I admit I didn't need to walk around the whole shop with it clipped onto my bag because I couldn't be bothered carrying it. Ignore my messy desk lol.

Third was when we were in Costa and I was wetting myself laughing at a funny photo my friend Fiona sent me. My iced caramel latte was yum though :P

Forth was when we were in the Works and I found this little bundle :) When I took them to the tills and the woman asked if they were for my kids I think my 'No they're mine' might have been a little forceful lol.

Fifth and finally was when I got home to this happy mail :) I entered an Easter egg hunt online and this was my prize. I was very excited when I opened it but by now only Mark was there to witness this and lets face it, hes used to it lol.

So all in all I think my new card sums it up pretty well. :)

Cuties and casts

Today was the loooong awaited day for Caitlin to get her cast off :) Since harm term started shes adapted a lot better to it and isn't weepy anymore, but things like dressing herself, bathing herself etc she still needs help with. I admit I can't wait to move the bin bags and duct tape from our bathroom!
First thought we went to Pets at home to play with some fluffy pets :) Every school holidays we make a 'bucket list' of things we want to do. On short holidays like this everyone gets to pick one thing and Caitlin had originally picked the far. Last weeks rubbish weather stopped that so I booked her into a class to play with pets and learn about them instead :)

Caitlin loved it as I expected, but I was very surprised how much Cameron enjoyed it too. The boy is a sponge when it comes to learning but I didn't think bunnies and things would capture his attention as much as they did :)
So with two very happy kids we then went to the hospital. OMG it was packed!! I've seen theme parks less busy. There were even people directing traffic to parking. I found out later it was visiting time so think that was why. Almost 3 hours later we were out and had a Caitlin without a cast! She was very brave and though her eyes filled when they cut it off she kept smiling, squeezed my hand and no tears fell.
Quick stop at Asda for shopping and we were home! I hate hospitals so was very pleased. Tomorrow I'm taking my granny out for the day so looking forward to that.

Fun, frantic, fast!

If I had 3 words to describe my Easter weekend those would be the words I'd pick :) We all had a great time but it was over far too fast :( Still have a great week planned so lots to look forward to :)

Friday
Friday we had tickets to a local charity Easter party. Cameron was as usual reluctant to go but again as usual loved it when he got there. :) They kids were all very lucky and won a prize each on the tombola.

Considering the tickets were only £4 the party was amazing. There was a disco, easter egg hunt, games and visits from Anna, Elsa, Minions and Spongebob squarepants! The kids spent a happy afternoon running about and dancing while Mum and I caught up. The day was rounded off perfectly when Mollie won a prize in the raffle :) As it was a pirate makeover she kindly gave it to Cameron and I gave her some cash towards a computer game she wants so smiles all round.

Saturday
Cameron slept over at my Mums last night so was a Caitlin focused day today. Playing games, colouring, reading stories etc. After lunch we took Scamp on a nice long walk and stopped off for sweeties on the way home.
Caitlin bought some weird blue liquid in a deoderant roll on type bottle. Who thinks up these things!? She liked it though, and found it very funny it turned her mouth, tongue and teeth a vivid blue!
I however picked a much more sensible treat. I had settled down to enjoy it and read a chapter or two when Cameron came home with everyone else in tow lol. Oh well.

Sunday
Car boot sale!!!! Was the first we had gone to this year and the kids were actually quite excited :) My Mum had given them some money for Easter so think that was burning a hole in their pockets.
For once Caitlin got very little and Cam got loads! Cait spent 50p on a colouring book and 'My little pony' carriage, while Cameron got some Pokemon figures, toad teddy, 2 xbox games and 3 huge binders of 'Mr beans a-z of everything'
Guess what I got? :) Looooooook!!!!!

Ok so the egg wasn't from the car boot but look at all those hama beads!!!! £4 for the lot. Very happy easter to me :)
Had planned to do some housework when we get back but after visiting family, the kids went to play with their new stuff as soon as we got home. Next thing I knew I was getting a txt from my neighbour asking if we were still coming round for dinner. Woops!

Monday
Well today I started off feeling very sad and guilty. It was a beautiful day outside, everyone seemed to be off to the beach or somewhere else but as I wasn't too well we had to stay home :(
Actually ended up a really nice day :) Rather than sit inside we got the kids science kits out. You know the kind where you make bicarb volcanos or home made perfume etc. Toad joined in too lol

If any of the neigbours heard us (and they'd have to have been deaf not to) they probably have thought we were nuts. Lots of squealing, laughing, shouts of 'Don't do that it will blow up!' and 'Oh look it worked!' lol. A few hours later we had managed to make bouncy balls, 'blood crystals' and more :)
The rest of the day was filled with chocolate, dodgeball, swingball, cuddles and laughs. Perfect :)

Crafting for kids?!

For Christmas Cameron got some Minecraft figures. Basically they were cardboard push outs you had to put together yourself. The large cubes were easy enough but some of the animals and other bits were so tricky!

There was no chance Cam could do these himself so while he played with his friend this morning it turned into my job.

The wolf took me ages and I was very impressed with myself when I finished it lol.
As I was dealing with teeny bits of paper and folding, someone was banned from the bedroom as he kept standing on everything. Doesn't he look sorry for himself lol.

I'll take him on a long walk later to make it up to him :) First is Marks hospital check up which with two children in tow I'm not looking forward to. FX theres not too much of a wait this time.

Counterfeit kit :)

So its the first of the month which means a new counterfeit kit! I get very excited about this as I used to love getting kits each month so this is more of a cost effective way of doing it :)
This months kit is from 'A beautiful mess' here and I have to say I LOVE it! I love the darks and brights together and all the translucent embellishments, I would love to get a kit like this :)

I had a hard time picking just a few papers so I ended up with quite a large pile. I'm trying to use my punches and die cuts more so plan to use these to make more embellishments as I go.

As for embellishments I looks like I don't have much but there is quite a lot here. A almost full book of Snap simple stories cards, a pack of mini cards and envelopes, the new flair I got from hey little magpie and much more stuffed into the little packets.

Very excited about using this one up!