Easter Hats (Again!)

It’s that time of year again when I’ve had to raid my arty-crafty supplies in search of things to make Easter hats with.  Luckily this year my mum supplied the straw hats and Easter chicks as she found a shop selling them off at the end of last year.  I still had a dig around and found Easter ribbon, shredded coloured paper, feathers and even more chicks, oh and some stickers and sequins and fabric pens.

Here are the results

First up, Oliver.  I had trouble getting him to stand still long enough to get a photo.

 

and now Danny’s, he insisted I took a photo from every angle.

They’ve taken them in to school today for the Easter Bonnet Parade this afternoon.  The weather has turned cold and grey today, so really hoping it doesn’t rain as we’ll all get soaked watching them parade around the playground.  It’s also quite windy and I’m not convinced the ‘nests’ and chicks with stay on the hats very well!

The weather has gone a bit crazy lately, the last couple of weeks it’s been really warm and sunny.  We had our first BBQ of the year, the boys were playing in the garden and I was wearing my sandals.  This week, as I’ve said above, it’s gone really cold and Wintery again, they’ve even had snow in parts of the country.  Hope the Summery weather returns for the holidays.

Another Catch Up Post

I really have been awful at keeping this blog updated lately.  I think the reasons for this are firstly, I haven’t really done very much and secondly, I hardly ever use my laptop as I have an iphone and do everything I need to do on there. Must try harder.

I always seem to post after school holidays for some reason, probably because I’m enjoying some peace and quiet.  The boys have gone back to school after a week off for half term.  All 3 of them have been ill at various points throughout the week.  Dan started it with a temperature and a disturbed night – he asked me to sleep in his bed with him, he has a high cabin bed, so that was fun. :-s He seemed to recover quite quickly, was just left with a nasty cough.  Then Ben had a raised temperature and his breathing resembled Darth Vader, he was also off his food, so took him to the doctors.  Turned out he had an ear infection, so was given antibiotics.  He’s all better now although still has an awful cough.  Then it was Oliver’s turn to have a temperature and to give us a couple of disturbed nights, like Dan he’s now just got a nasty cough and isn’t eating as well as usual.  Hopefully this is the end of the lurgy for a while.

I’ve been painting a few pieces of glass over the last few weeks.  I had a commission for 6 wine glasses, which I completely failed to get a decent photo of, but you get the idea.

I also painted a vase for our lovely friend Rhi, just because she’s lovely.  :-)

Since the New Year I’ve been teaching myself to crochet, I bought a book that was recommended on the Omlet forum, Crochet Unravelled. I found it brilliant and easy to follow, it’s also been very handy to have nearby when following other patterns and want to double check the stitch.  I’ve managed to crochet a few flowers and 5 granny squares so far.

Think it’s going to take me a while to have enough to make a blanket.  I need to search around for some more brightly coloured wool, mum gave me some that she had in the attic, but it’s all quite thin. Might have a wander down to the Range and have a look there.  The pattern I used for the bottom two squares, I got from Attic 24′s blog.  It’s a brilliantly colourful blog and she does fab things with crochet and explains what she does in easy to understand instructions.  The pattern for the flower granny square is here .  Need to find time to do more crochet – I also need to do it when hubby’s not here, as I seem to go wrong if anyone talks to me!

It’s an exciting weekend coming up for Cardiff City fans – they’re off to Wembley to play Liverpool in the Carling Cup Final!  Hubby is taking Dan, who is incredibly excited, although I’m not really sure he understands where he’s going.  Oliver, Ben and I will be watching on the telly at home.  Think it’s going to be a very long and tiring day for Dan, but hopefully he’ll sleep in the car coming home.  He’s got school and his first piano lesson the following day.  Bluuebiirdsss!!!

Keep Meaning To Say…

…Father-in-law has started a blog – Chris’s Caravan Adventures.  As the title suggests it’s about caravanning and the places they’ve visited.  So if you enjoy camping, caravanning or travelling, have a read

Happy New Year!

Few days late I know, but this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down with the laptop for weeks.  The boys have gone back to school today, hubby’s gone back to work and currently Ben is asleep so I’m enjoying a bit of peace and quiet.

We had a lovely relaxing Christmas and New Year.  Thanks to the weather being awful we didn’t get out and about very much, but we still managed to have a nice time.

On Christmas Day, as expected, all the children were up by 6am *yawn*.  We made them wait until we were all downstairs, then allowed them to open what was in their stockings.  I’d thought ahead and put in a few little things that would keep them occupied for a while – a Peppa Pig DVD for Olly, Dr Who quiz books for Dan and a colour-in Santa decoration for both of them.  Typically it was the toy car keys that Ben had that they were all arguing over, apparently the ‘bleep-bleep’ noise the keyring makes, is the sound the TARDIS makes when it’s locked/unlocked.

Once showered and dressed we all headed off to Church.  Within 5 minutes of getting there I’d already chased after Ben down the aisle a few times, it was clear he was not going to sit and play with the toys I had taken with me, so before the service even started hubby took him back out again.  They ended up visiting my mum and having a cup of tea.  Dan and Olly were extremely well behaved though and even joined in with the Christmas carols that they knew.

Back home, we all received the rest of our presents from Santa.  He must’ve made a special visit whilst we were in Church  The boys all seemed very happy with what they were given, although the excitement was too much for Ben who went for a nap and opened his presents later on.

I discovered afterwards that both of us failed to take any photos apart from Ben sat in a box

and Dan trying out his new skateboard.

We had a bit of salad and various nibbley bits for lunch and then hubby cooked for tea.  So overall a lovely, relaxing day.

Hubby was off work for the whole week, but as mentioned the weather was terrible.  We did manage to get to Tredegar Park on one dry afternoon, Dan took his skateboard and Olly took his new scooter.  Dan kept losing his temper though as the skateboard wasn’t doing what he wanted it to, sure he’ll get the hang of it eventually. They all had a play in the playground although there isn’t anything much there for Ben’s age, not even any baby swings.

He looked very cute in his new waterproof snowsuit and boots though.

The only other place we got to was Roath Park Lake on New Years Eve, we met up with friends and their children and walked around the lake.  It was pouring down though and we were all soaked by the time we got back to the car, still nice to be out in the fresh air.

We had a little party at teatime on New Years Eve, just us and the children.  Basically an excuse to eat a load of party food, the duck spring rolls from Tesco are gorgeous, although for some reason they don’t have the fresh ones at New Year only Christmas.  We got the boys to bed at their usual time, luckily the fireworks that were going off didn’t keep them awake.  Hubby and I played a few games on the Wii, then went to bed as usual.  Hubby stayed awake listening to the radio, I drifted off until just before midnight and heard all the fireworks.  New Year is pretty much a non-event for us.

Glad to be all back to normal now, with Christmas back in the box in the attic.  Looking forward to finding out what this year holds for us, I’m hoping it includes some decorating of most of the house and hopefully some good weather.

 

An Exciting Day

Back in May Hubby and I attended a charity lunch for Ty Hafan along with our friend Rhi (post here). At the lunch Hubby and Rhi bidded on an auction item for 4 people to attend a Cardiff City training session and a Q&A with the manager.  Rhi won it and it was agreed that hubby would be one of the people to go with her.

It’s taken quite a few months for Rhi to organise a date with Cardiff City, but eventually they went on the Friday of half term (28th October).  Hubby decided to take Daniel with him as he’s been really getting into watching the football and now recognises a lot of the players.  Rhi took her friend Haley (@haythebluebird on Twitter).

They all met at Vale of Glamorgan Hotel, where the training ground is, in the morning.  They were then taken into the players dining room where they were given tea and toast, while the players all had their breakfast. Then they had a tour of the changing rooms and facilities before going out to watch the training session.

They got to meet a lot of the players after training and had photos taken with them.

Then they all went back to the dining room and had lunch.  Danny was handed a stack of photos of the players and told to go and get them signed. Hubby said it was like playing human snap, Dan was holding up the photo, spotting which person it matched, then going to get it signed.

It sounds like they all had a fantastic time.  Hubby said Malky (the manager) and all the players were very friendly and welcoming.  Haley has also written a blog post of the day, going into far more detail – she actually knows the players names

Hubby, Dan, Rhi & Haley with Malky

All Done!

It’s that time of year again, it’s the Church Christmas Fayre on Saturday and I’ve been busily getting all my glass painted.  This year hasn’t been such a mad rush as last year and for once I’ve got a few days to spare.  I’ve got quite a good selection this year, although I’ve made sure I’ve got a few tealight holders as they seem to sell well. (Click on the images to make them bigger).

I’ve also got a few other pieces that I did earlier on in the year and haven’t sold (yet!).

They should all look really pretty when they’re on the table together.  Must remember to get a photo of my stall before the fayre starts this year.  Really hoping they all sell as I’m running out of storage space.

Now for the hard part – pricing!

Hello All

Thought I’d better pop on and say ‘Hello’.  They last post I wrote was at the end of the Summer Holidays, today they break up for Half Term (tomorrow is an Inset Day).

They’ve both settled back in to school very well.  Oliver is loving being in school all day, although it’s mostly a mystery to me what he gets up to all day. I think he’s finding it tiring though, as we’re having more tantrums than ever.  Dan is enjoying being in Year 2 and likes his new teacher. We had parents evening for him last week and his teacher had nothing but good things to say about him

I’ve been keeping myself busy whilst they’re in school.  I’ve been getting on with glass painting ready for the Church Christmas Fayre in November, still a bit more to do though.  I will take photos soon and post them, hopefully in the not to distant future. Ben in now toddling all over the place and is in to everything, his latest amusement is turning the telly off while the boys are watching it.

Amazingly I’ve already done a fair amount of Christmas shopping, all the pressies for Dan and Olly are bought.  I’m a bit stuck on what to get Ben though, as he plays with all the toys we have and we really don’t need any more.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a photo of Ben looking very pleased with his new shoes.

Nearly Over

The Summer Holidays are nearly over for another year In some ways they’ve really dragged, but now we’re near the end, they seem to have gone quite quickly.

Other than a week’s camping in Keswick at the start of the holidays, we haven’t really done very much. Hubby has been working and I don’t have a car, so can’t go very far afield (I can’t face a bus with 3 children).  We’ve met with friends a few times, and tried to at least walk to the shops every day.  The boys haven’t been too bad, but over the last week or so they’ve been asking to go to school.

My parents have taken us a couple of places eg The Barrage in Cardiff Bay and Roath Park Lake.  Whilst at Roath Park we visited the conservatory.  I hadn’t been in there since school, when we visited on an Art trip.  It’s really good, the boys really enjoyed it.  There’s a pond with huge fish, which you can buy food for, and terrapins.

Dan & Olly Feeding The Fish

Terrapins

There’s lots of free worksheets to get the children looking around the weird and wonderful plants.  Daniel chose to look for all the fruit trees/plants which included banana, mango and lime.  Oliver looked for plants with animal names, I can remember a zebra one and a snake one.

Will definitely try and go again.

Ben has been keeping us busy, he’s turned into a real climber.  He’s attempted the ladder on Dan’s cabin bed and if he has a cushion in the right place, he can get up on to the sofa and from there on to the windowsill.  Over the last few days, he’s been walking more than crawling.  I think the time has come to buy him some shoes.  Dan also needs new school shoes, so it’ll be an expensive trip.

Oliver goes into Reception when they go back to school on Tuesday, so both him and Dan will be in school all day. It’ll be strange, but I’m sure Ben and I will find plenty to do.  Will have to start thinking about Christmas soon

Keswick

Last week we went on our Summer holidays to Keswick in the Lake District.  We went with mother-in-law & father-in-law and sister-in-law and her two little boys.  The main reason for going last week was because it was hubby’s 30th birthday.  We had gorgeous weather the whole week apart from one day when it rained on and off. We stayed at The Camping & Caravanning Club‘s Keswick Club site

We decided to break the journey up by travelling to Harrogate on the Friday and staying the night with hubby’s parents, before travelling to Keswick on Saturday.  Unfortunately the traffic on the M1 was terrible due to an accident, it took us 7 hours to get there with 2 stops, instead of the usual 4 and a bit with one stop.  Ben mostly screamed the whole way

The journey to Keswick was fine, although Ben yelled, I think he just doesn’t like the car much. It seemed everybody turned up at the campsite at the same time, we queued for what felt like ages to check in.  Nevermind we managed to get ourselves a pitch next to hubby’s sister and we had quite a lot of space for the boys to play.

We’d bought a new, bigger tent for this holiday.  A 6 man, 3 bedroom Outwell, instead of our old 4 man, 2 bedroom Cabanon.  We had a go at pitching it before our holidays, but I was still a little worried we’d have difficulties.  Luckily it went up with no problems and we had ourselves sorted fairly quickly.  The boys had a good run around and Ben had an explore around the pitch while we were busy.

Our Set Up

For the first few days we mostly pottered into Keswick and explored things nearby, having a good look around the town and nosing in the shops.  Back at the site the boys fed the ducks and had a paddle in the lake.

Danny paddling

On the Monday it was hubby’s birthday.  We decided we were going to have a game of crazy golf in the park in Keswick, but first we had a bit of a walk.  We followed a path from the campsite, through a field of sheep, along the side of Derwentwater by the landing stages for the cruises, and then along another path to Friars Crag

View from Friars Crag

From there we followed the path back to the road, then it was a short way to the park.  Hubby and boys went and got fish and chips, while I relaxed on a bench and gave Ben his sandwiches.

The View From The Bench

Once fed we got onto the serious business of crazy golf.  Unfortunately Ben was grumpy and didn’t want to just sit and watch, so I ended up taking him for a walk while hubby and the boys played.  They thoroughly enjoyed it and Danny really started getting the hang of it.

After an ice cream we started making our way back to the campsite.  Danny started moaning his legs and feet were aching and by the time we got back it had progressed to a headache and dizziness.  We took him to the in-laws caravan where he could lie down in the shade and gave him some Calpol as he was feeling really hot.  He spent the night in the caravan with granny and grandad looking after him and luckily he felt much better by the morning although very tired.  We think it may have been too much sun and not drinking enough.  He was most upset that he’d been ill on daddy’s birthday though.

The following day we decided to take it easy.  We went for a picturesque drive around Derwentwater and accidentally ended up in Cockermouth, the boys did all have a sleep in the car though.  We had our picnic lunch at Ashness Bridge which was surprisingly quiet, there was only one other family there when we arrived.

The following day we went to Whinlatter Forest Park. It was gorgeous here and I can highly recommend it.  There’s a number of footpaths of varying difficulty, there didn’t seem to be any leaflets giving details, so we just chose a colour (red) and followed it.  It was a little difficult at times with the pushchair, but we managed and were rewarded with some stunning views.

Picnic Time

There’s a Go Ape! course there, with zip wires and things running through the trees.  So occasionally you’d hear a lot of screaming.  There’s also a really good children’s play area, suitable for all ages.  The boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  The car park was really busy by the time we left, so probably best to get there early.

The Boys Go Ape!

Thursday was the rainy day, so sister-in-law and I escaped into Keswick for a bit of shopping and a pub lunch.  I was most successful and bought new walking sandals, a tshirt and a lovely soft fleece.  We had lunch in Oddfellows, sat outside under a large canopy, the food was really nice.

Whilst we were spending money, hubby took the boys for another game of crazy golf.  They did even better this time and both got at least one hole-in-one.  I’m sure the rain added to it.

Friday, our last day.  We got organised fairly early and headed for the nearby supermarket, Booths, for a breakfast of bacon sandwiches for a treat. Then we made our way to The Pencil Museum. I wasn’t sure if the boys would enjoy this or not, but I needn’t have worried.  On arrival they were handed a sheet each, and their free pencil, on which they had to draw the sea creatures that they had to search for around the museum.  I was also handed a quiz sheet, the answers for which were all inside the museum, I managed to answer them all  Once we’d had a good look around, read everything and watched the video, we went in the drawing room, where the boys happily sat and coloured and experimented with the water colour pencils.  I think they would’ve stayed there all day if we’d let them.

We took our picnic to nearby Fitz Park where there’s a really good children’s play area.  It was obviously the place to be as it was quite busy with lots of other families having picnics.  After we’d eaten we went for a drink in Oddfellows (and to use their toilet).  We also had a look around the shop for The Cars Of The Stars museum, which has sadly closed and relocated to America.  Such a shame as the boys loved just looking at the model cars and posters that were for sale, seeing the real cars would’ve been even better.

We had a fantastic, if exhausting, week and we’re looking forward to going camping again next year. Hopefully it’ll be a little easier as Ben will be older.  Probably won’t travel quite so far either, there’s plenty of sites nearby we want to explore.

Oh, by the way, a lot of the photos were taken by hubby

Hasn’t It Flown By?

Today is Ben’s 1st Birthday

I know everyone says they grow up quickly, but it really does feel like the last year has shot by.

It’s hard to believe he has gone from this

to this

in just one short year.

He’s not walking yet, but, as you can see, he’s standing without holding on to anything, so I don’t think it’ll be long.

Just for comparison, here’s Danny at one

and Oliver at one

Think he’s definitely going to be more like Danny!

We haven’t really done much today, the boys went to school as usual.  It was meant to be Sports Day, but it was cancelled due to bad weather.  We’re going to have our traditional birthday tea of Clarks pie and chips followed by birthday cake.

Happy 1st Birthday, Ben