Sarah's Blog

A melting pot of "stuff"

No one thing springs to mind today so here is a mish-mash of bits and pieces.

Floyd. Moulting. Big time. He has very thick fur and, clearly, he has decided that spring is springing and that thick fur is starting to fall out. I brushed him today (or, rather, I chased him round the kitchen TRYING to brush him while he rubbed up against me, the comb, the washing machine ....) and a HUGE amount came out. He was purring so I guess he enjoyed it thoroughly.

Tacos. Had them for dinner last night, now the house REEKS. What is it with tacos?! Nothing else we cook has that affect and we cook some pretty pungent food sometimes!

Crafts. I have works in progress - so many in fact that I am starting to get slightly panicked every time I look in the direction of my craft box. To name but 2 - a tiger for April (I've made the head and made the body but the 2 have yet to join happily together) and a crocheted spring bag for me which needs to be felted in the washing machine and stitched together.

Homeschool materials. Rosie and April are about to start new topics and this resulted in me spending most of yesterday printing, laminating and cutting out Montessori materials to go with those topics. I was fair sick of it by the end of the day.

Builders. Of the annoying variety. I can do no better than to copy and paste exactly what I put on my facebook page: "Another day with the builders next door making on helluva racket. They've been here for WEEKS and are likely to be here for many more .... I'm sick of their noise ... I'm sick of the fact that they keep dumping stuff in our garden .... I'm sick of the scaffolding that's been put up that is partly IN our garden ... I'm sick of them listening to Radio 1 (which I LOATHE) .... I'M SICK OF THEM!!! Do you know what I want to do with one of those scaffolding poles? Do ya?......." Nuff said.

Rosie being silly about a scotch egg. Again (and I apologise for this laziness - I should re-write using different words) I shall lift from facebook: "Tim picked up Rosie from guides last night and her first words after coming in were "shall I tell you today's GRIPPING news?!" ... ok, sure ...... "there was a GIGANTIC scotch egg in one of the car parking spaces at the Guide hall!!" ...... riiiiiight...... Apparently, she wanted Tim to drive over it but he wouldn't ... the spoilsport!"

New car. Gorgeous. Going well. Love it. The lovely clean floor mats have already been christened with dirty footprints from our boots after being at the stables. Tim had a bit of an issue with the lights the first (early!) morning he went off to work. He couldn't turn some off (normally, he backs out the drive with the lights off to avoid disturbing the neighbours too much but he couldn't!) I pointed out that maybe the lights are on all the time like a Volvo. Anyway, he contacted Mazda who told him they are day running lights and are on all the time .... like a Volvo. EXACTLY. :)

Bye for now :)

Photo heavy!

Helloooo!

I thought I'd be reappear before everyone thought I'd gone for good!

Ok, quicky update on the website. I have added another craft to the crafts page and I've got several recipes that I'm in the process of writing up to add to the food page. There WAS another page that I was umming and aaahing about doing but I've decided to put that on hold for the time being. This is largely because I don't ever seem to have the time to sit down and do it! It's one of those projects that I'm hoping to work on over the next couple of months or so.

So what else? Here come the pictures!

There has been .....

Work on projects - this is something April did for her animals in winter project. She made a folded book ....

 

 

 

 

Ploughing through GCSE maths (with the help of the very splended CGP video lessons)

Baking of glittery cupcakes (yum yum) by my good self

Crocheting of dusters (again, by me)

I also made April a fun bunch of stuff about alliteration :)

The first crocus of (early!) spring ... more please!

... and, finally, April doing some really funny daddy-related things. Firstly, paper dolly daddy! Can't say I entirely like the thought of him wearing an orange and green stripey skirt but hey-ho *laughs*

.. and this is really funny - daddy at work!! Stick man daddy shown doing various things (that actually did happen!)

Top left: Daddy driving the van (although it looks, for all the world, like he's crashing into a tree!)

Top right: Daddy twisting his ankle jumping clumsily out of van (and that facial expression is probably fairly accurate...)

Bottom right: Daddy in the New Forest being greeted by a 3 legged cat giving him a dead mole. Yes, that really did happen!

Bottom left: Daddy delivering stuff to a VERY grumpy, nit-picking chef. Mentioning no names obviously. Readers of this blog probably wouldn't know who it was anyway but the mushrooms being delivered by stick daddy are significant ..... *laughs out loud*

Love the way she always gives Tim incredibly curly long hair! His hair isn't this long OR this curly - he looks like Charles II!!

That's all folks!

The cabbage story and other things

Here is a pic of some of Rosie's birthday presents from us (including a terrifyingly expensive, difficult to get hold of, Gamecube game which she has since played to death) .... amongst these you will notice a cabbage (a Savoy Cabbage to be precise) which she insisted on having in the photo.

Why a cabbage? Well, I'm guessing this isn't going to be THAT funny to anyone but us (although it is QUITE funny), but here it is. Rosie gave us a list weeks ago of some of the things she might want for her birthday and we could choose items from it to get her. From that point on she pestered us daily (no! hourly!) with the same question ... "what have I got for my birthday?" In the end we started replying "a cabbage" so Tim, being Tim, decided it would be hilarious to actually get her a cabbage. So we did, and wrapped it up, cleverly disguised to it didn't look like a cabbage. The little joke went down rather well and she was most amused :)

Oh, and here is her finished birthday cake which, at her request, had a Smash Bros. Brawl theme to it (Wii game in case you're interested!) It tasted utterly divine but you can see I will NEVER win prizes for my decoration skills!

So, on to the other things. A little homeschool snippet here - April has been doing work on weather and covered cloud types and the water cycle (amongst various other things). I did love this snap of her concentrating on doing her water cycle picture (with watercolour pencils) - she worked very hard :)

.... and here's the finished work - with labels:

Talking of weather, we've been basking in the most amazing (and totally unseasonal!) warmth here! It's been a little unbelievable to be honest and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was still the middle of summer not early autumn. However, these are a dead give away :)

The other give away? Waking up to chilly, breath-condensating mist ... I took these at around 8.00 this morning when the sun was trying to force it's way through the early morning mist - absolutely gorgeous :)

A bit of this and that

Hello! :)

I have nothing in particular to blog about - this is just a mish-mash of stuff.

Firstly, my poor husband! He is currently on holiday but on his last day at work he had a bit of a mishap. He jumped out the cab of his lorry, landed awkwardly and sprained (badly) his ankle. Unfortunately, this was first thing in the morning so he ended up doing the rest of his shift on his bad foot and was really limping by the time he finished. He eventually got home and took his sock off and his foot was black and blue and VERY swollen - ouch! :( He spent quite a lot of the next couple of days with his foot in a bucket of iced water (grimacing). It's going down now and almost back to normal but he's still walking very gingerly as I think he's terrified of injuring it again!

Next ... Floyd! I got a couple of pics of my beautiful boy when he was having a kip in among my dead tomatoes (he's either there or on top the wheelie bin!)

 

he's trying to out-stare me in this next one!

 

Then we have Rosie-made colouring pages! She drew some pictures for April of Smash Brothers characters (a Nintendo game in case you don't know). I do love that she does these things for her little sis :) Here's April colouring one of them:

 

Next - muffins - blueberry mini muffins to be precise. I made these for tea the other day (shall start recipe page soon and put them on there):

 

Finally, 2 pieces of random "stuff and nonsense".

Firstly, this morning - Floyd was sat on the wheelie bin when he noticed a pigeon on the lawn. He went into "stalk" mode (you know that silly thing cats do where they crouch down low and wobble their bum) He suddenly leapt down and frightened the pigeon who flew off STRAIGHT into April's bedroom window glass. She was in there playing at the time and got one helluva shock when it smacked into the glass! Anyway, the pigeon, although stunned for a second, seemed ok and flew off up into a tree.

Secondly (and I must apologise for this - it's just my silly sense of humour - it tickled me), I did some washing up, filled the sink and went off to do something else for a bit. When I came back some of the bubbles had popped and gone down revealing this:

... it's a dinosaur egg-cup! This sort of completely random silliness makes me laugh sometimes :)

 

Daddy and Mummy ... by April

Seen this in a couple of places - you have to ask your kid/s the following questions about you and their daddy. Here are Aprils answers!

1. What is something daddy always says to you?

"night night mummy, night night Floyd, night night Rosie, night night bun-bun"

2. What makes daddy sad?

his foot being hurt

3. What makes daddy happy?

being lazy (hahahahaha!)

4. How does daddy make you laugh?

when he plays Playmobil with me and takes their hair off

5. What was daddy like as a child?

don't know

6. How old is daddy?

70 (hahahahaha!)

7. How tall is daddy?

tall.

8. What is daddy's favourite thing to do?

sleep in bed (just about sums it up!)

9. What does daddy do when you're not around?

play scary games

10. If daddy becomes famous, what will it be for?

playing music

11. What is daddy really good at?

playing music

12. What is daddy not very good at?

curling his tongue

13. What does daddy do for his job?

drive a lorry

14. What is daddys favourite food?

pasta

15. What makes you proud of daddy?

When he comes home with lovely things for me (um....er.....)

16. If daddy were a cartoon character, who would he be?

Link

17. What do you and daddy do together?

read bedtime stories

18. How are you and daddy the same?

we have the same colour eyes

19. How are you and daddy different?

different voices

20. How do you know daddy loves you?

he kisses me at bedtime

21. Where is daddys favourite place to go?

Hengistbury Head (I'd have said bed!!)

... and now for the same questions but with me!

1. What is something mummy always says to you?

"chubby cheeks!" (heehee!)

2. What makes mummy sad?

when cooking goes wrong (ahem)

3. What makes mummy happy?

Hello Kitty (??)

4. How does mummy make you laugh?

pulling silly faces

5. What was mummy like as a child

don't know

6. How old is mummy?

I always thought 90 but maybe 50 (absolutely CHARMING!)

7. How tall is mummy?

medium

8. What is mummy's favourite thing to do?

use the computer (ahem)

9. What does mummy do when you're not around?

make dinner

10. If mummy becomes famous what will it be for?

sewing

11. What is mummy really good at?

cooking nice things

12. What is mummy not very good at?

mario kart wii

13. What does mummy do for a job?

house cleaning

14. What is mummys favourite food?

carrot cake

15. What makes you proud of mummy?

she's very cuddly (I'm not sure my child understands the meaning of the word "proud"!)

16. If mummy were a cartoon character, who would it be?

Tom Nook (TOM NOOK?!!!!)

17. What do you and mummy do together?

have races

18. How are you and mummy the same?

we both have long hair

19. How are you and mummy different?

our noses

20. How do you know mummy loves you?

she gives me big cuddles

21. Where is mummys favourite place to go?

looking at clothes (don't know where she got this from - SO not true!!)

Aren't kiddies funny?!!

Moses and Noses

Got an email today from a homeschool list I'm on - it was announcing a new file folder game they had. It wasn't really of interest to us but I was telling Tim about it - it was called "Making Ten with Moses". Obviously, a Moses themed maths game.

This conversation then took place right after I said "Making Ten with Moses":

April: Noses!

Me: Pardon?!

April: *laughing* - making ten with noses!

Me: *laughing*

April: why would you want to make ten with noses?!

Me: *laughing even more* - no, no, MOSES! ... making ten with Moses, not noses

April: *looking confused* - what's a mose?

I know some might be shocked that my 6 year old daughter didn't know who Moses was but I just found it really, really funny!

Cheesy?! How dare they! ;)

You Belong in 1989

Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.