Lovely Suprises

 

I had a message waiting on my phone this morning telling me I'd won some goodies in a Christmas Raffle I'd entered. I'd quite forgotten that it was being drawn on Christmas day.

A full size shampoo, conditioner and hair mask by the Body Shop. Not a bad prize at all and as you only need to use a small smidge of their products at a time they will last me a good while.

What a lovely suprise to wake up to!

I also recieved my last Treasured Trash delivery of 2020. Mostly it was baby items and books. I sorted the clothing into bags by size and gender. They flew out the door almost as fast as I listed them online. I saved a few cozy sleeping bags for Baby C but otherwise she is well stocked for clothing.

The books I will sort into bags by genre and list tomorrow. Being in Tier 4 should hopefully have them out the door pretty quick too. 

All in all it's been a good day. 

X x X

Birthday Books

 

I was given 2 big bags of childrens books today via The Treasured Trash Network. 

One bag seems to be a mixture  of all sorts of types and styles, the second bag contained two book series for girls.

Both sets look as if they've never been read. Perhaps they were unwanted gifts?

Anyhow I knew immediately that were destined to be read by DD1 and would make a great start to her birthday presents in March.

I wanted to make them look special though so I looked up book gift wrapping ideas on Pinterest. I had no idea there was so many ways to wrap a book! 

 

Here's what I came up with. The books are individually wrapped in pages of sheet music from my paper crafting stash, and bundled together with some of the pink netting offcuts I found in the scrapstore a few visits back.  

 I'm really impressed with how fancy they look. Cute yet quite grown up. And a very pretty start on DD1's birthday.

 X x X

Daddy took us to the zoo

 

We have had a lovely walk around the zoo today. It was reasonably busy but everyone was behaving themselves and giving one another plenty of room.

Even the children on the playground equipment were politely taking turns to use the slide and climbing ladders. It was wonderful to see.

The weather was chilly and there were a few patches of icy puddles to manoeuvre but onc everyone was snuggled into hats and gloves we were fine. DD3 had an adorable pink nose though by the end.

The picnic lunch went down well though the damp picnic benches did not 🤣 I tried to explain it was character building stuff but no one was buying it. 

The promise of a hot chocolate and some peanut butter toast kept us all moving towards home.

It was pretty perfect as day trips go. 

We might even be going again next week if our school doesn't reopen but we shall have to wait and see what Mr. BoJo says.

I'm in two minds about it. I love having my children home with me but I also have a bathroom to decorate which will be vastly easier with them safely out the way. 🤣

Time will tell.

How was your day?

X x X

Playing hunt the fruit

 

I was woken early this morning by an exploding baby. After giving Baby C a bath and bottle I decided to make use of the extra time. 

By the time everyone else was awake I had made a Bread and Butter pudding for pudding. I used the packet of apple sauce we hadnt used for Christmas day in it. It made a lovely warm breakfast.

DH did the best he could with the planned food shop but the aisles were pretty bare. The fruit and veg was almost non-existent! 

My parents very kindly rescued us with a bunch of bananas for Gman. He was quite cross we couldn't get any as they are his favourites.

DH did manage to find a pile of cheap sausages for pennies a packet and some reduced chicken and mushroom slices which are perfect for tomorrow's picnic. 

One of my favourite knitting bloggers added a new free hat pattern to their page a few days ago so that is my entertainment for the evening.

I'm currently watching a rather bizarre but entertaining show called Home Sweet on Netflix. I recommend it if you like bizarre storylines, grotesque cgi monsters and cartoon style acting.

Personally it's just my brand of crazy 😆

X x X

 

What day is it?

 

We're in that weird space between Christmas and New Years. That odd period where no one is quite sure what day it is or what to do with that said day. DH is back on furlough so that's made it all feel even more bizarre.

As we haven't been up to much I haven't really got much to share with you guys.

Food has mostly been using up leftovers and hunting down the forgotten "something" we had to get in for Christmas but forgot about on the day 😂

We're out of milk and bread so DH says he'll pop to the local shop tomorrow and replenish our supplies. We have plans to visit the local zoo on Wednesday so that'll be a good chance to run off some of the kids energy and blow away the cobwebs.

Hope you are well

X x X

Busy busy

I woke up early this morning to watch the sunrise over Stonehenge. 

English Heritage streamed the event live over Facebook to the world with gently background music. It actually made me feel quite emotional as I realised I was watching with 14k other people around the world. 

It was also a good reminder that even with all the other worries happening at the moment such as C19, Brexit, finances etc that the really real stuff is just as dependable as ever. The sun will always rise, the seasons will pass, the planet will turn on.

It was quite a philosophical moment for me that early in the morning. 

 Being on facebook early also gave me a chance to pounce of an offer of free food via a food sharing scheme. 

We recieved paninis, pastries, french baguettes, crusty rolls and a bunch of rather brown bananas.

The bananas were quickly turned into a big batch of banana cakes using DD1's baking skills and a nice recipe from BBC good food.

The smallest Spurriers all enjoyed decorating them together. 

We saved a few back for Gman who is officially cast free as of this morning 🥰

We asked him what he would like to do now he didn't have a cast on and he opted for a nice deep bubblebath with his toy dinosaurs for company.  

X x X

P.S - I've received a few requests over the past week asking if we have an Amazon wish list. If you would like to see it you can find it here. I will also add a seperate page to my blog. 

X 

 

 

Baking and worries.

I've been baking with my two smallest people. It helps me think, not sure why, but that's what it does.

DH is being moved at work to lower paid job. It's pretty devestating to January's finances and throws our planned budget for the year out of the window. 2020 it seems wasn't finished screwing people over 😔

Being Christmas we made mince pies using things from the cupboards. There wasn't quite enough margerine so I added a smidge of oil to stretch it out a bit.

We don't have a rolling pin so I used a clean jam jar, and I can't find any circle cutters though I swear I've got some somewhere. I raided the playdough equipment for the square cutter but it did the job nicely.

Hopefully my little herd of children will enjoy these in the morning. The Elves are going to "make" them overnight as a suprise.

Because that what we do in Spurrier house, we keep calm and carry on! 

X X X

 

 

 

Teacher gifts on a budget

 

We've spent the afternoon wrapping and decorating gifts the children's various teachers, TAs and support staff. 

Our budget was £10 for everything.

6x Chocolates - £6

4 for £1 votive candles x 3 - £3

We used paper from our scrapstore stash to wrap the chocolates which we then decorated with felt tips.

The candles we wrapped in pink tissue paper which came with one of Baby C's baby gifts back in July.

X x X

Family update

 

Poor Gman has been in the wars. 

He had a fall in the school playground and someone landed on him. The result is a fractured bone in his foot and a cast for 6 weeks minimum. 

My poor baby.

It's certainly made lockdown 2 a bit more interesting than we were expecting!

X

Itchen Valley

 

We took full advantage of the break in the horrible weather to visit a local country park.

The original plan was to buy one of the trail packs and complete the Halloween trail, but the queue to purchase one was horrendous. 

Instead we mostly worked out the trail by ourselves by just following the crowds going around it.

Baby C took her usual supervisory role very seriously as you can see. She certainly attracted plenty of nature as I was pulling leaves and things off her all day 🤣

We took our own supply of drinks and snacks from home so today only ended up costing us £4 in parking fees. 

Though my budget for washing powder may  need to be stretched futher 🤣

Everyone came home muddy, tired and happy. It was a wonderful trip out.

Fingers crossed we can get another nice day this week to have adventures on.

Take care.

X x X

Thursday Thrifting

 Pinch Punch it's the 1st of the month. White Rabbits, White Rabbits.

 Today has been a busy yet rewarding day. First we took a car load of donations to our favourite charity shop in West End. Some of it was refused as they are drowning in books currently. 

A quick mooch found a set of stacking mugs, which is something thats been on my wish list for a while, for £1. I noticed when I got home they were from M&S!

The ceramic egg was 5p! I'm planning to turn it into a little spring planter for the dining table. Possibly with some grape hyacinths and narcissus.

Dinner was a new recipe from Pinterest. I found while researching what to make with a tin of butter beans. Thise photo above is of the results a delicious Sausage and Butterbean cassorole. It went down very well with everyone, although we told the children they were just giant baked beans when they started poking at it suspiciously 😂

Definitely a recipe I'll be making again.

My late afternoon was spent setting up our new school stuff system. It replaces our old system of "what do you mean it was thère yesterday?" 

We will test it out tomorrow and try to iron out any kinks over the weekend.

Not a bad start to October!

X x X

Upgrade

 

 Miss C is getting a bit to wriggly for her moses basket these days so thanks to The Treasured Trash Network and DH, she now has a cosy new coat to slumber in 🥰 

 I'm also switching her 0-3 clothes out for 3-6 clothes. Oh why do they have to grow so fast?

 #3monthsold #gettingbiggereveryday #gorgeousbabies

Quietly being poorly

 

I've woken up full of cough and cold today. All of the children were suffering from it over the weekend and now they've kindly passed it onto me! 

After the school run I popped to our local shop for supplies. Tissues, cold and flu tablets, fisherman's friends and throat lozanges went into the basket followed by some chocolate and some ice cream.

If that doesn't make me feel better nothing will.

This morning has been spent doing quiet sitting down jobs.

I've finished making orange crochet covers for the seven oranges.

They will be transforming into pumpkins for Halloween.

I've also cut up an old faded valance for cleaning cloths, though i have already used one as a hankerchief for some olbus oil. 

The flouncy skirty bit made flannel size clothes and the main sheet was turned into tea towel sized clothes for mopping up spills.

X x X

Whoops

 

Sometimes I'm that organised mum people get jealous of, kids at school on time everyday, remember non-uniform days and donation days and the reading cafe days etc. And sometimes I cut out spiders with 7 legs!!!

🤦‍♀️

X x X

Back to school

The three eldest headed back to school today. 

I'm still not sure how I feel about it, I miss them terribly but I've also enjoyed an uninterrupted cup of tea and deep cleaned a bathroom. 

What is it they say about clouds and silver linings? 

Everyone was sent off to school with a nice breakfast of waffles and we dressed the table up with some partyware to make it feel a little bit special.

Good luck my babies.

X x X

 

New project

 I picked up this interesting wooden box from a fellow Treasured Trash networker recently. I think it might have held a set of cutlery at one point but I'm not sure.

The interior of the box was covered in several layers of paper and a layer of that green plush velvety stuff. 

As I peeled all the paper off I discovered what looked like pages from an annual society show booklet from 1948. There was also what looked like brown parcel paper and a layer of dark coloured paper with alligator scales embossed on it.

It took almost an entire evening to peel and pick it all off back to the wood.

 Finally I was able to line it with some of my lovely floral sticky back plastic. 

 It took a while to measure and cut each section but I got there in the end.

 Now I need to decide what to turn it into. I'm thinking some sort of art supplies box or perhaps a writing box.

 Ohhh the possibilities!

 X x X

Test post.

If you reading this would you kindly leave a comment if the photograph I've atrached has worked 

X 

 

Moving to facebook

 If anyone would like follow our advetures while Blogger is being difficult, you can find us in Facebook here.

 We look forward to seeing you
X

Blogger issues

 

 I've been trying to post for a few days now but Blogger is refusing to work very well. 

 Back soon

X

Staycation fun

 Today was spent enjoying some cheap fun at the seaside. We headed to Hayling Island for the first time this year to enjoy the sun, sea and shingle.

Baby C stayed firmly in the shade being loved on by me and DH, we swapped at regular intervals so we both got to dip toes in the sea with the children and look for beach treasures.

 After the beach became to hot and the children a little to wet and tired we rested with a little picnic in the car before heading the arcade.

We gave each of the 4 eldest children £1 worth of 2p coins. We were a little concerned that no one in the arcade wore a facemask and social distancing was non existant.

We stuck close together and encouraged the children to use their coins a little quicker than we would usually suggest.

Once we left I smothered them all in lots of hand sanitizer.

I dont think we will be back any time soon! Way to frightening for me.

Once home everyone was happy to flop in front of Netflix and Disney films. While it was quiet I took the opportunity to clear out a small side cupboard on my Victorian dresser. I'm trying to clear a cupboard or drawer or shelf each day so I feel like I've achieved something each day. So far that's going well for me and I havent felt to much of a mood dip since having Baby C. This evening though I've found some lucky Chinese coins I bought for the family 2 years ago as a Chinese New Year gift. The little side cupboard must of been my "safe place" for them 😂 I've popped them in an envelope and rehidden them safely in my bureau upstairs AND written a note in my diary on the 1st of Febuary 2021 reminding me where I've put them this time. Third times the charm right?

X x X

 

 

Backwards and forwards

Baby C recieved her Nanny blanket today. My mum has made each of the children a patchwork blanket to snuggle so it felt quite special for C to receive hers 🥰

Today I trundled back to the hospital for Baby C's 5 day checkover. Due to the COVID rules they no longer come to your home to see you, to be fair they try and do as much in each appointment as they can to save to many journeys. As someone who hates any medical related trip its been quite an anxious time which isnt the best thing while trying to heal.

Baby C has lost a tiny 8oz since birth, I'm suprised she lost any as my girl likes her food.

The hearing test was successful on her left ear but inconclusive on her right ear. That means another trip back next week at some point to retest.

She lost her cord stump this morning and it looks like it's healing nicely too.

Things are going great.

Next appointment is more Mummy focused as I get my Pico dressing removed and a check over to see how I'm doing. 

Today was also Gman's last day of term. We bought his teachers each a potted plant to go with their cards as no one seemed to be following the no gifts rule.

A few more days R&R and we can start having some summer trips out.

X x X

Thursday Fun

Baby C had her first bath today. Is there anything as wonderful as a bath fresh baby? 

I discovered that an old falling apart book of quotes had pages the right size for some frames i had laying around. The colours match our freshly painted bedroom 😁

This afternoon was spent making some last minute Thank you cards for Gman's teachers.

They've moved the end of term forward a few days. Originally it was ending on the 22nd.

X x X

Little trip out

We took Baby C out for a little trip in the car today. DH wanted to show her off to his staff at work, like a proud Daddy 🥰 

It was also her first time out of babygrows and into what I call 'people clothes'. 

The bruises from my IV's and spinal are making themselves known today. Overall though my pain levels are very reasonable and as long as there's no sudden movements I'm pretty good on my feet. Tiredness comes on quick but DH has been wonderful at letting me lay on the bed undisturbed with some tea to rest for an hour or so whenever I need it. 

One of the perks of visiting DHs work was a quick visit to the charity shop  that's almost next door. 

Shower Gel - 50p

Book - 25p

Craft Book - 50p

The shower gel smells like candy floss and bubblegum and all thinks girly. The craft book has some lovely ideas I look forward to trying soon. Stephen King will be added to my challenge collection, though i haven't started reading Carrie yet. I might make that tomorrow's task of the day. 

X x X

And then there were 5!

Baby C arrived happy and healthy on the 12th of July at 2.25pm weighing 8lbs 5oz.

Apparently Baby C didn't get the memo to evict herself after my waters broke a few days  before so we ended up with a "not quite elective- elective section" 🤣 

Having had 5 cesarean sections now the risks are getting too high for anymore biological children so we decided the time was right to be steralized at the same time. We have both said however that there is room in our hearts for more children in the future and will look at fostering and adoption etc in a few years time if we feel ready to explore it.

So it's the end of a chapter, not the story for the Spurrier family.

 For now though we are enjoying life as The Spurrier Seven 😍

X x X

The Chazza are open!!!

We popped Gman into school this morning and took a little wander into town. 3 of the local charity shops have officially reopened and I'm not ashamed to say i may have done a little happy dance in the street.

I picked up the knitting book for just 25p! I have others in this series and they are really good quality. 

The 3 novels were £2 for all 3. I've looking for Carrie by Stephen King forever. I've challenged myself to read all his works in published order, as luck would have it Salem's Lot is the second on the list. 

I also picked up two craft kits. 

The first is miniature sewing. When I was in my early teens I used to go to the big annual stitch shows at Olympia with my mum, i can remember there being a few stalls featuring tiny needlepoint items for dollhouses. I've always fancied giving it a try but it's not a cheap craft to get into. This kit was originally £19.50! In fact you can still purchase them on the Nicola Mascall website.

The second kit is a cute cross stitch kit. I usually stick to greeting card kits but the sweet picture and bargain price tempted me in. At 7" by 5" it isn't a gigantic project but certainly one that will take me a little while to complete. I couldn't spot it on Hobbycrafts website but they had several similar by the same company so I don't think its a particularly old kit either.

And finally for a bit of fun I saw these in the Pound shop and had to snaffle them. I'm thinking of a mini pamper session with my girls in the garden on our next sunny afternoon. Maybe some homemade facemasks too.

I'll keep you posted.

I'm waddling off to start my new books with a nice hot cuppa 😍

X x X