Aims

Look at my happy doggy, look at my pain in the butt, so annoying happy doggy lol.
We gave him this toy this morning, within 5 minutes he'd ripped it open. We sewed it back up, lasted almost 10 before needing repairing again. This time less than 5 before the whole arm came off.
I put it in the bin, Scamp sat beside the bin crying *rolls eyes* He's worse than a baby sometimes!

I think he was still in a mood with me later that day. Mark and I had tried everything to clip his claws but he was growling and snappy and wouldn't stay still. Caitlin comes in and suggests rubbing his tummy, 'I don't think its that simple' I reply. Caitlin rubs his tummy and he lies perfectly still while I clip all the claws.
I could almost hear him thinking 'I like her better than you, you threw away my teddy'

So I said last time I blogged about setting some aims for this year. I've done it the past few years and besides reading aim I dont think I've met any of the others lol. This year though I seem to have a different kind of outlook on things. I honestly don't know why but I feel like I have a new determination this year.
So I have a couple of personal aims (debt and weight) that I won't blog about here, I have apps to help with those, but books I've read and layouts I've done I will. :) Another thing I want to keep track of are freebies/money earned. This might sound like a weird one but I do questionnaires and surveys and test products and Marks asked me to keep track of what I actually get out of it in a year so doing that one too.
Im also going to keep track of the kits I kill. I don't really have an aim for this one, rather I'm just interested in how many I manage to use in a year.
So using up kits leads me nicely to this layout :) One of my kits came with pages of stickers. These were pretty but quite translucent which I always struggle with because you can see whatever patterned paper is behind them, being square I struggled with these even more.
Then I found this photo of us at the Bear hunt last year with my fave bear. This was a huge moasic bear made from all different types of tile and mirror.

A grid layout went perfectly with the photo and I managed to use up almost all of the stickers too. Bonus.

So my aims are to finish 365 layouts this year, read 60 books and keep track of how many kits I use up and how much I earn though questionnaires.
Sounds easy enough lol.

Scapbook layouts - 50/365
Books read - 7/60
Kits - 2
Money earned - £93.68

Half term fun

This month seems to be going sooooo slow, which is weird because we've been really busy and that usually speeds time up.
This week has been half term, and among sleepovers, swimming clubs and friends visiting we've barely stopped. One activity the kids did was 'No limits adventure day' Its run by a local scout group and they spent 4 hours in the woods, foraging for food, building fires and dens and cooking hotdogs and fish over an open fire.

They loved it! The group leader had to actually stop Caitlin from setting all the fires and let someone else have a turn, she also was more than happy to get stuck in gutting fish. She is so my child lol.
As its half term I havent had a huge amount of time to scrap, I've started doing some pocket pages recently to try and use up scraps and all the little bits and bobs I've got. I'm not a huge fan of these but I love using up scraps on die cut pages like this one. It take ages but looks really affective I think.

I love this photo of us, we were just at a playcenter and I took a selfie on my phone. It's usually the only time I get into the photo.

I've decided to set myself some targets this year again, but i'll post more about that tomorrow as the kids are calling for food lol.

A, B, C, D

Well plan A today was to do some ironing in the morning, then meet my Mum for coffee and shopping this afternoon. However my poor Mum is now laid up with a bad bug so plan B was crafting this morning and ironing this afternoon. Then I went out to the garage for some bread (we have a freezer out there) and found some of Camerons Nerf darts on the floor with parts nibbled from them. So plan C was spending the morning pulling out all the stuff dumped the garage, tidying up, chucking bits, making a 'donate' pile, advertising stuff for sale on facebook, and putting traps down.
I've now got an hour left before I need to go get the kids and no ironing done yet lol.
Next week is half term though so plenty of time to chill out I guess, we have a few day trips planned but hopefully a couple of nice and cosy days at home too. Though today is a good example of how well my plans tend to go!
One plan I reallllllly need to get started on is sorting out my layouts. The past few months have been amazingly productive in terms of scrapbooking, to the point where I'm almost up to date with my photos :O However I am very behind when it comes to putting my layouts in albums.
Thing is albums are so expencive and papers are cheaper and so much prettier to buy I just never do it, so layouts end up in a pile which is a shame after the work I put into them.
*sigh* Anybody want to buy me a load of albums then come sort out my layouts? I'll pay you in cookies and coffee?
Im scrapping a lot with white backgrounds recently. My friend Jacqui only uses white backgrounds so she certainly has inspired me with the fresh, clean way it looks. Here I used a mix of old papers and embellishments and some of my Shimelle papers I got for Christmas. I love how bright it is :)

The photo is from when we went to Birmingham in Summer. We took the train down and stayed in a hotel overnight so we could do the 'Great bear hunt' that they were putting on at the time. We've been on trains quite a lot now after going down to London a few times and both kids love it. It always surprises me when I think about how different my childhood was, I dont think I went on a train until the kids were born and we went to London to catch the Eurostar to Disneyland. They are so well travelled compared to me and Mark and I love it :)

Right I better bite the bullet and go and get the ironing done. I'll finish with a conversation that made me giggle yesterday though.
Me - Cam there’s a form in your bag you were supposed to fill out and give to the schools digital ambassador by today.
Cameron - I didn’t know how to find the digital ambassador!
Me *points at his sister who is wearing a badge saying digital ambassador’
Cameron - Oh yeah.

It's still not spring.

Nope, still not spring. If anything it's colder! Weather man says it's going to be like this for the rest of the month. Hopefully this cold winter is a sign we're going to get a nice warm Summer.
Well I can dream.
This weekend I wasn't too bothered about the weather though, as my Mum and I spent Sunday in a hotel with wine, books and food, and Monday at a spa :) We went to the spa back in July for my birthday but they messed up our booking so gave us a voucher to come back free at a later date. We certainly were not going to pass that up!

Was back to earth with a bump though, poor Caitlins been having problems with some girls at school so came out in tears (teachers sorted it now) and the new dogs next door were barking from 4am to 6 am. I was a very grumpy bunny on Tuesday morning let me tell you!
So yesterday we did a bit of shopping, then I had a nap and felt much better lol. Today was cinema day. I was very excited to see this.

It wasn't quite what I expected, more The sixth sense than The others as I thought it would be, but still really good. I may have jumped a few times lol.
Think I'm going to get a hot water bottle, cuddle up under a blanket and craft. Why do humans not hybernate, I think bears have the right idea.