Terrifying.

You know when I said I was planning on having kid, everyone told me about the sleepless nights, no free time, no money etc, nobody warned me how absolutely TERRIFYING it could be! Yesterday morning Caitlin woke up with a fever and violently shivering. Cooled her down and gave her neurophen and she slept most of the day so just kept an eye on her.
Then this morning at 2am she woke up crying that she had a headache and her neck really hurt. So fever, sore neck and headache, my mind went right to meningitis. I remembered that I read somewhere that you should ask children to put their chin to their chest which Caitlin could do no problem, her feet and hands were also warm and I remembered cold feet and hands were another symptom so I breathed a bit easier then.
Medicine, a fan, cuddles and My little pony on TV calmed her down and she managed to doze off for a little longer. I however was wide awake and looking for spots, just in case lol.
Obviously our picnic is off today. Cameron was such a little star. We were supposed to be going to a local theme park and he was gutted when we told him we couldn't go but when we explained Caitlin was poorly he fully understood. He's since been running about getting her drinks and teddies and even rubbing her neck a little when it hurt again.
Such a little sweetheart.
So no picnic today, I did get my pj drawer sorted yesterday though so thats something, and I killed that kit!!! So today will be opening the new Like forever kit, quite excited lol.
In the meantime I still have a couple to share from the old kits. I loved this paper from a recent Like for ever kit, so didn't want to do too much to it. Some mists, sequins, washi, vellum and bits from my bits box and I was happy with it. :) Love layouts that come together easily.

This photo is Caitlin last Christmas. When I was a kid my Mum bought me a storybook which had me in the story. Santa was hunting for letters and me, my sister and my cousin had to help him.
I thought it was amazing, my name, birthday and everything was in this book! I treasured it,long after I stopped believing in santa lol.
With that in mind, as soon as I saw an advert that Asda were doing the same thing but with Disney stories I knew I had to get one for Caitlin. Her face when she opened the book and realised her name was in it was priceless!!

So obviously todays plan is out the window. Hoping to get a little crafting done when Caitlin is napping but I should really give up planning by this point lol.

Too much stuff

Do you ever look around and just feel completely overwhelmed by how much stuff you have. We have a small house anyway so any clutter is really noticeable. I've been decluttering for the past month but swear its made no difference lol.
Once the kids go back I'll set about tackling the loft but until then I'll need to just keep plodding on and chucking out as much stuff as Mark and the kids wont miss lol.
On the note of declutting I haven't allowed myself to open a new kit until I've killed the one I'm working on. So at the moment my desk looks like this.

I don't know how you class a kit as 'killed' but to me its when there's no pieces of paper larger than 12x6. This kit seems to be going on foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Almost done with it though. :)
Used a few embellishments on this layout. Did plan on adding more but I quite like the cleanness of it.

The picture is an old one of Caitlin at easter. I loved this dress and had it on her as much as possible lol. Gutted when she grew out of it.

So my aim this weekend is to kill that kit, plus sort out my pj drawer (I have a thing about PJs) and hopefully have a picnic tomorrow, weather permitting. I probably won't get any of it done you know that lol.

Going back to bed

Ugh, last full week of the holiday and I'm poorly.
Luckily we've not had much planned so me resting a lot of the time hasn't really been a big deal, so I've mainly been doing easy housework, online shopping and photographing the pile of layouts sitting in front of the tv lol.
This is one of those layouts. I admit I struggled with this triangle paper but while its not one of my fave layouts I don't hate it either.

As soon as I saw this card in a kit I knew what photo I wanted to use it on. Caitlin is NOT a morning person and even on holiday she can be a nightmare to get out of bed. if you need her out of bed by 8 you need to start waking her at 7:30. Seriously she takes after her Daddy. I can be up, fed the kids, fed the dog, done the dishes and put a load of washing on by the time Marks made it to the bathroom to brush his teeth lol.

So one more week and the kids are back at school. As usual I'll miss them but looking forward to getting back to normal. Even they're looking forward to it. The Summer holidays are just too long and they get restless by the end of it. They're bored of all the activities, but also bored of everything in the house lol. Hands up I'll admit I'm looking forward to starting (OK continuing) my Christmas planning too. The kids going back is the start of me planning the craft activities and all the fun things we'll do in December. I can't wait!!!!!!

London scavenger hunt.

Every Summer holidays we have a big day trip. This year the kids picked going back to London so on Saturday that's what we did :)
This time we wanted to see more of the sights, and as Mark struggles with walking we booked tickets on one of those open top buses. Turned out to be a great way to get more pictures for the scavenger hunt :)

14. A traffic signal
Plenty of these about.

5. Architectural columns
Loads of these about too lol, but picked The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square in the end.

16. A panoramic view, taken while standing someplace high in the air
Quick shot taken on top of the bus while stuck in traffic. Never used this setting on my camera before love the result.

10. A college or university
Kings college london. Saw a few schools on the way round but this was the only one I was quick enough to snap.

11. A cellular tower or television satellite dish
I did want to get the BT tower for this one, but the kids were getting bored and hot bless them so we missed that part of the tour. Did see all these on top of a building though :) One of them is bound to be for tv! lol

8. Someone "plugged in" to social media
Remember how I said kids were getting bored? lol. Kept them occupied a little longer. Caitlin is actually playing a game where you race around London. The irony was lost on her.

Alternative C: A rocking chair
I was struggling with this one so I may have got a little excited when I saw this in Riplys believe it or not lol. The plaque said it was a giant rocking chair built in the 1970s to advertise a resturant and was over 3 meters tall. :)

Was an amazing day out :) The kids loved Riplys and I enjoyed the bus tour far more than I thought I would. The beautiful weather didn't hurt either! Still a few things on the list left to find, seriously struggling with '15. A flag pole with at least three flags on it' though. :\

Crazy household

This morning Mark and my Dad took the kids to their muddy mondays class to give me a bit of a break. I didn't realise how much I needed one until they had gone lol. In 2 hours I had the house scrubbed, a huge load of muffins baked and frozen and a second lot of washing on the go. Nothing else to do I scrapped but more on that later :)
The kids ended up having a brilliant time! Today they made mud faces on trees (as you do)Cameron loved the boiler suits they needed to wear :\

Got to love the faces lol

After the kids came home Mark was shattered so he rested while I fed the kids then took them outside for some crafting.
We made clay models, a wooden car and then decided to make some of that cornflour mix thats hard/liquid.
Then it all went wrong lol. The kids were playing with it, but Cameron was being a 'girl' about the whole thing and kept saying it was gross. Me, being me, told him to stop being a baby and put some on his head :p So started the great cornflour fight of 2015 lol. Our screaming woke mark who took pictures and got covered himself lol.

So everyone showered I retreated back to my room to finish a layout I started earlier. I'm trying to use up my scraps as much as possible so used my circle punches to do this :)

Love this photo of Caitlin chilling out on holiday.

Guess what me and Mum are doing later this week? Can't guess? Its August, so obviously we're off Christmas shopping!
*runs away before people can hit her*

Sweet and lovely

Hello again :)
I know I know more AWOL, but its been so busy! Classes and sleepovers and parties, Cameron was so tired the other night he asked for a hug then fell asleep! I've also been crafting and reorganising my stash which I think always kick starts my mojo :)
Todays event was a very special birthday party for a special little girl and boy. My friends son was 1 a couple of days ago, and her angel daughter would have been 3 today. Her and her husband made the very brave decision to have a joint party today and invite everyone for a big BBQ. They had a swimming pool, bouncy castle, sand pit, the lot. The kids had a great time and I had lots of baby cuddles so I was happy. Amazingly so was Caitlin! She usually cannot be bothered with babies as they are too loud and generally annoying lol. Until they are old enough to walk and talk she cant be doing with the hassle. Imagine my surprise when she was absolutely smitten with the birthday boy! Seriously she was feeding him, playing with him, even when I was having cuddles she was telling me how to hold him and how to play lol. Anybody would think I've never been around a baby before *rolls eyes*

So home now and I think the week is catching up on me. Its 7:20 and my eyes are stinging I'm so tired. Before I mainline the coffee though I'll share another layout. This time for the July sketch on our facebook group Sketchy scrappers.

This didn't turn out quite how I pictured it in my head but it grew on me, I love the background paper and it kind of reminded me of a dawning sky with the stars and different shades of blue, so thought this photo of Caitlin sleeping would go well.

So got to take Scamp for a walk then hopefully I will stay awake long enough to sort out some swaps I'm in! Wish me luck!

Shiny new things

Im on the ball this month with the sketch challenge over at Sketchy Scrappers. We've had cooking lessons in the afternoons this week which are great as I get to relax with a coffee while the kids cook dinner :D As a result I've more spare time when we come back so I've been crafting more :)
This months sketch was very open to interpretation.

and this was how I interpereted it :) I had a lot of photos from the kids opening gifts on Christmas day, and like others who got the Like for ever kit this month I was trying to use up the sheet of glitter words we got.
I originally thought of doing the one layout below saying 'We love shiny new things' However I didn't like the impression it gave that we were all about the gifts in our house.

So I did the second one :) Saying 'but the details are most important' The journaling reads how we love to give and receive gifts, but things like going Nannys for a big family breakfast, then down to Grannies where she gives out the little bags of tablet she has made every year since we were babies, those are the things that make Christmas :)

Was a fairly simple layout as there was a lot of photos, but tried to give it detail with the embellishments.

Quite pleased with it :)
Well certainly won't be crafting tonight as have my niece Evie staying over so house is a bit crazy lol. Tomorrow kids are making chicken tikka in their lessons though so hopefully some crafting time tomorrow night ;)

Xwing excitement

Ok so I'm a bit behind in my layout sharing lol. This one I did almost a month ago based on this sketch over at boys rule blog.

I still had some scraps of my old kit to use up but the colours seemed to blend into each other so I mounted them onto black cardstock first. I dug out some old green alphas and used them as my main embellishments.

Fairly simple layout of Cameron and Mark at Disneyland but I admit I like it :)

Challenge YOUrself

This month over at Challenge YOUrself the challenge was to create a layout using the quote 'Keep calm and....'

I admit I usually struggle with challenges which specify a title or theme but I knew exactly what I wanted to do, so I came up with;
Keep calm and close the door.

Whenever anybody asks how I am or if everything is ok, I always say it is in my house, lol. While there is always drama with my sister or the people I help out everything within my little family is usually ticking along fine. :) So the journaling reads 'No matter what drama I'm dealing with in the outside world, I know I can come home, close the door and everything is ok.'

This is one of my favourite family photos too. I was lying in bed with Mark and Caitlin came in, cuddled up and asked to take a selfie. Cameron heard and ran in to join in, Scamps 'hug' radar must have gone off so he came running in too! Family selfie :)
Cant wait to see your take on this challenge :)

Scavenger hunt

Well today has been crazy lol. Started with me deciding to declutter the house a little, my friend is doing a thing where she gets rid of a carrier bag of stuff a day so I thought I'd start in Cams room. Went well until we realised he couldn't find his case with his DS games, all £400 odd worth. We searched the whole house and couldn't find it, in desperation we phoned Butlins and it was there! They're posting them out to us so we have a very relived and happy little boy. Honestly cannot fault their customer services.
Anyway after that Caitlin had a friend round to play then it was dinner, baths bed and I relaxed with some crafting :)
I'll share that another day however :) While we were away I managed to get a fair few photos for the scavenger hunt!

6. A metal bridge

While we were driving down to Skegness I saw this bridge coming up, I started shouting at Mark 'Take a picture of the bridge! The bridge!' I love that he didn't bat an eyelid, took the photo and simply said 'Scavenger hunt?' lol, the man knows me so well. :)

Alternative B: Someone holding an umbrella

There was a play area where they had over sized beach paraphanailia, so thought this one would be ideal lol.

1. A bouquet of flowers

OK I'm taking a bit of creative license with this one lol. Does anybody else remember that tv show with the lady who thought she was posher than she was? Her surname was Bucket but she told everyone it was Bouquet? Anyway my Mum used to LOVE that show so whenever anybody says bouquet I now think bucket lol. So here we go, a 'Bucket of flowers' :P

9. A tent

We're not going camping this year so was very pleased to see this circus tent :)

7. A turtle

Was thinking this was going to be a hard one so as soon as I saw this in the swimming pool I knew I had to get a photo of it! I thought I would look like a crazy person however, so I made Mark do it :)

20. A natural body of water

You can't get more natural than the sea, unfortunately while there I completely forgot about this one while I was there! So lets pretend Caitlin isn't there and it's just the sea ;)

Still a few more to go but very pleased with the progress!

Butlins!

Yesterday we got back from an amazing weekend! We haven't been to Butlins since Caitlin turned 2 but as we were staying in the UK this year we thought it would be a good idea as everything is sorted and you don't need to travel anywhere for entertainment.
To be honest I don't know what I expected but I didn't expect it to be as good as it was :)
I've got a photo of me as a baby next to this statue so had to take one of the kids lol.

The weekend was a blur of craft classes, shows, swimming, fencing, archery, golf, bowling, laser quest and lots of other activities.

Now the kids are older they were quite happy to go off and do the classes, leaving me watching from the sidelines with a coffee and kindle in hand.

The staff were so helpful and couldn't do enough for us :) Was so weird too as one class we went to Caitlin sat down and started chatting to a little boy. Turned out he lived across the road from us! Small world.

Honestly the weekend just flew by! The kids were wiped out (as was Mark) so they all slept in until lunch today. I typically was up at 7am so made the most of it doing the washing, bills etc. Just going to have a chilled out day today as off to a fun day tomorrow, weather permitting!