Birthday cards for 2018

I couldn't resist this beautiful greeting card book from The Works. It was only £4 and came with 24 floral themed cards included.

I've spent a happy afternoon transferring all the birthdays into it and popping in most of the cards from my little stash in my desk. 

The cards in the picture with the yellow envelopes don't fit inside my new book so they are going to a teacher friend who sends cards to all her pupils on their birthdays. 

When the children go back to school I will see if my favourite charity shop has anything tempting in their greeting cards box. They only charge 10-20p per card and if you buy several they will often do you a little deal. 

The Works also sell 10 cards for £1 And Card Factory sell them 7 for £1, so I will be spoilt for choice.

Roll on a more organised 2018!

X x X

Time to go

  With Christmas done and dusted for this year we are wasting no time in getting it packed away. I've spent the evening cutting up the cards into gift tags and wrapping the tree decorations in tissue paper. Hubby has been taking down the hanging decorations and window lights.
  We're currently in second place for council property, after years of waiting patiently. We should know if we're invited to view it on the 31st. Fingers crossed we can get the house and be nicely moved and settled by the time baby arrives at the end of March.
 Even if we don't get this house, one is just over the horizon so it's time to get a far ahead of packing and organising as I can. Hence yesterday's mugpocalypse.

 Cross your fingers and toes for us

X x

Lots of Mugs

I'm a member of several organising groups on Facebook. I've joined them over the past week or so to help inspire me to get more organised. 

Today someone posted asking for tips on culling a mug collection. 

The tips ranged from keeping 2 per person to recycling them into plant pots, pen pots and make up brush storage. 

I thought I had about 12 mugs, when I collected them together I actually had 26! How has that happened. 

I've been ruthless and whittled it down to 11.

5x initial mugs

4x stacking Simpson's mugs

2x CK mugs.

The rest are going to husband's work for staff and customers, or the charity shop (kiddie mugs).

In the process of finding them all I managed to smash 3 glasses! So I'll leave decluttering the glassware to another day 😂😂

Hopefully I'm done breaking things by smashing 3 together. Otherwise I have 2 more things to break. Eeek.

X x X

Boxing Day Bliss

DD1 has been trying out various projects from yesterday's gift pile. The morning was spent making a very pretty scratch art decoration for her bedroom. 

DD2 was all about Lego today and we build her new kit together. She spent a happy afternoon recreating the Rapunzel story, complete with magical flying horse!

Gman is obsessed with his new wooden train set. This evening we are going to take it apart and rebuild it in a new design. We are already researching other sets from the same maker so we could possibly expand it for his birthday in May. 

It's been lovely spending the day helping to open toys and setting them up ready to play with. 

X x X 

Merry Christmas Everyone

I've just spent a very peaceful hour colouring in my new book with my new pens from my new pencil case. 

It's been a wonderful, loud, busy and fun filled day spent with our nearest and dearest. I hope all my lovely readers have had an equally enjoyable Christmas day. Though maybe not quite so loud lol.

Tomorrow the clean up begins and everything can be found homes around the house. But for now I'm kicking back and enjoying a few of my gifts.

Merry Christmas everyone

X x X 

Perks of being frugal

One of my favourite things about being frugal is knowing I can pounce on a good offer when I spot one. 

For example we pay £10 by DD every week into the "celebration" account. The account covers birthday and Christmas gifts for the year, not just for immediate family but also any parties the girls are invited to or family weddings etc. 

Today we were picking up something in the poundshop when we discovered a whole host of Mr.Men and Little Miss stationary that would suit DD1 perfectly. She enjoys collecting the books and the soft toys. 

We found 6 things in the range that we think she'd enjoy.  A set of felt pens, crayons, colouring pencils, pencil case, notebook and stationary set (pen, ruler, sharpener etc). 

Clever hubby looked them up on Amazon quickly to check they were a good price and found most of the sets priced around £3-4 each!

We snapped them up for £1 each and have added them to the gift cupboard for a March.

I'm really glad we spotted them.

X x X

Finding the beautiful

It's not been the start to the week I was hoping. DD2 is back at school but now DD1 is off. 

A trip to the Dr has revealed a upper respitory infection, so there's not really any treatment. Just rest and over the counter cough medicine. 

Unfortunately the coughing fits are making her retch and on Monday morning she did exactly that in front of a teacher. Any vomiting means they are off school for 48 hours minimum.

She'll be back tomorrow with a note from me to try and stop it repeating. Fingers crossed.

I snapped some beautiful pictures on both of the school runs. It reminded me that there is beautiful things around us each and every day. Even if life does feel like a huge slog at the moment.

X x X

Festive Family Fun

Finally everyone is healthy and rested enough to go out! 

We started our day with a naughty treat from Greggs and a visit to see Father Christmas. The girls were very happy to hear he'd received their letters safely and had the elves working hard on their requests.

Sadly DD2 didn't want to be in the photograph.

Next we went to a local garden centre to enjoy their Winter Woodland Walk. For many years it has been free but in recent years they have had to start charging due to vandalism. At £2 for adults and £1.20 for children it's still a very affordable place to visit and the effort they put in is incredible. All the money raised is donated to the local neonatal unit which is a nice thought as you walk through. 

They also have reindeer, donkeys, goats and pigs to look as you queue up for the walk. It makes waiting in line so much easier for the children. Especially when the two donkeys were squaring over a bucket and playing tug of war with it. DD2 was trying to scold them for not sharing nicely. 

Finally we risked a quick peek in the Christmas shop. Usually I try to wear blinkers in there as it is all so tempting and pretty expensive. But I couldn't resist these gorgeous little teddy bear jars! I bought 3 at £1.99 each to fill with jelly beans for the children. They'd be lovely to bring out each year and tuck into the stockings, a good investment I think.

I'm feeling really festive now after today and I'm so pleased we fitted in some festive fun together after all the germs and yuck of last

Week.

Merry Christmas readers 

X x X

Long ginger hair tied with a bow.

Poor Aurora! Shes been played with so much over the past week her yellow spotty bow has come off. 

We love reading Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson. We have several of the character toys and DD2 enjoys acting out the story as we read it together. 

Plaiting her hair and sewing her bow back on took only a few minutes, but it's one of those jobs that can easily be forgotten. With soon to be 4 children in the house I don't have any "later" to come back to. I need to start remembering that old adage - "don't put off till tomorrow, that what you can accomplish today"

Definitely wise words.

X x X

It's been a long week...

The two tinys have been suffering a horrible bout of hand, foot and mouth :(

We've not had the pleasure before.

I thought it was chicken pox at first because Gman was the first to show symptoms but then DD2 started and she definitely had chicken pox.

Then while Gman recovered DD2 picked up impetigo and needed antibiotics. All of this has taken a full 7 days. Everyone is tired and grumpy, we've done next to nothing Christmas activity wise other than a few films. 

It's not felt very festive around here at all but hopefully by Monday we will all be rested and healthy once more.

X x X

Christmas reading

It's been a busy but lovely day. I'm to tired to even attempt being coherent so I'm off to bed with a festive read.

Let's hope it doesn't inspire me 😂

X x X

How much?

I popped into Waitrose on the school run for a quick peek at the reduced shelf. I found it stuffed full of these Chocolate and orange pots. They looked quite inticing and I loved the little pink ceramic pots they came in. Similar to Gü puddings but much more generous portions.

At 35p each I snapped up 4 (one each for the children and for me. Poor hubby is working). They were the most delicious and decadent thing  I have eaten in forever! 

I would be highly tempted to buy them again or try others in the range, but then I saw the original price! £2 each! 

My 4 puddings tonight should have cost £8. That's crazy! But rest assured I will be snapping them up if any others are reduced to less than 50p each. Possibly a single full priced one for my birthday lol.

X x X 

Messy Hair, don't care!

I usually make my own detangler spray, not only does it cost a lot less than store bought , I can also add a few drops of tea tree oil for headlice protection. 

However today we hit a small disaster. I dropped the bottle when I picked it up and a very cold plastic bottle does not mix well with a very cold tiled bathroom floor! 

So I have picked up a replacement from the pound shop so we can start again. I've tested it out on my own hair and it's certainly done the trick. The fruity scent is a nice change from our usual tea tree scent.

I'm just hoping it meets the approval of the girls. Particularly DD2 whom only let's me brush her hair every few days, if I'm very lucky and the planet's are perfectly aligned. Lol.

I will let you know how I get on.

X x X

Elf update

On the 2nd the Elves brought us some cold cooking to make.

Melted snowmen went down very well with the small people. Om nom nom.

On the 3rd they popped the Christmas tree up for us over night. We found them playing in the branches.

And this morning they had decorated the tree with underpants and left a bucket of  real decorations for us to use after school. 

DD2 told everyone we met on the school run about our underpants tree. She thought it was hilarious!

X x X

Guess who's back?!

I think I'm more excited than the kids!

X x X