Getting into the swing of it

 As much as I still dislike it, I am getting used to having free time during the week while the children are all at school. 

This morning after I visited the community pantry and had sorted the house I realised I still had a few hours to myself before I needed to collect anyone.

I iced some hotdog rolls we were given yesterday for free. After I took this photo I iced the children's names on each of them so hopefully prevent some squabbles 🤣

I then found myself drifting over to my fabric stash drawer. I haven't even looked inside it for several months so I have spent a happy half hour laying all the bits of fabric out and reminding myself what I have.

I think I might try sewing a gift or two for the Christmas cupboard 🤔

X X x

 

Saturday

 

 We have completed our first week of back to school. Everyone seems to have had a nice time and though there's been a few hiccups here and there, it could have been much worse!  

 On Friday I survived my first solo day at home by scrubbing the family bathroom for a few hours. It made for a nice distraction and it felt good to just complete a big clean without being interrupted by little voices wanted snacks or help or entertainment.

I was hoping to get the children out of the house today to visit our local Pride festival, but everyone has slept badly for a third night during the heat wave and no one was very enthusiastic about going so we now spending the day at home relaxing instead. 

 One positive of the heat wave is that I'm staying up half the night reading because I'm to hot to sleep. I've been favouring the Kindle app on my phone over physical books so I can read in the dark without disturbing anyone who's trying to sleep more sucessfully than I am. 

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Tuesday

 

The eldest two went back to school today which meant I spent most of the day thinking it was Monday when it obviously isn't! 

It was just me and Miss C for the day.

I'm not very happy with Miss C at the moment because yesterday evening she "helpfully" fed the divorce fish. Nothing wrong with that of course BUT she dumped the entire contents of three pots of fish food into the tank. 

The water this morning resembled soup with so much debris in the water and sadly several of our fish had suffocated overnight because of it.

I felt awful telling the children what had happened when they woke up. Mr G was particularly upset as one of the fish that died was his favourite. 

Once everyone was at school and Miss C safely distracted I sorted the tank out. It took forever to get the water clear again. Luckily we still have 9 fish remaining. I just really hope they make it.

In the afternoon, along with several talks about "don't touch the fishtank", we made some spider cookies together. Miss C is always very enthusiastic about the stirring and cutting out parts.

 We also made some popcorn in the microwave as an after school snack which went down well with everyone. 

Whilst Miss C took her afternoon nap I started working on the plants in the front garden. I picked up two reduced punnets of autumn bedding plants for £1 recently and have been nursing them back to health as they were quite dehydrated when I bought them. 

Today I started popping them into pots to decorate the front garden. 

I'm looking forward to seeing how they do as the marigolds were really successful over summer but are now coming to the end.

This evening's plans are a nice cool shower, Dow loading some new Kindle books and reading my current kindle book which is awful. However I'm forcing myself to finish it as I'm over half way through. 

Hopefully my next choice will read better!

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Back to school

  

The three smallest humans all headed back to school today. Mr G is in year 4, Miss W in Year 1 and Miss C has started preschool.

Which means once the older two go back to school tomorrow I will be child free at home 2 1/2 days a week!!! 

What I'm quite going to do with this weird and wonderous freedom I'm not yet sure.

It's both a bit scary and bit exciting.

 Today DH and I took the older two out of for a nice breakfast, then popped to Asda for some food bits and Miss D's school shoes.

 In the afternoon we spotted an advert on Facebook for a house nearby with lots of free bits outside. I recognised a book that was on my wish list so we popped out to grab it.

 I ended up picking up three books and also a fellow playground mum who happened to live just a road over from where the books were. So by happy coincidence we gave her a lift up to the school with us.

 All in all it's been a pretty active day.

It's getting warm again

 Today has been very warm and a little bit busy. We had fun though. 

Miss W was very kindly invited to a birthday party by one of her school friends so while she was attending that I took the other 4 and our lovely friends Mr and Mrs S to visit the Eastleigh Unwrapped festival before popping into the Library and Iceland. Then it was time to pick up Miss W and her friend from the party and try to encourage 6 very hot and fed up children to walk home. We ended up tempting them with promises of ice poles and cold drinks when we finally got there 😂 what ever works right? Dinner was Iceland pizzas split 7 ways, followed by cold baths to help cool off before bedtime. 

 I keep hearing rumours of a thunderstorm soon which sounds good to me. I hope it arrives sooner rather than later.

Not our greatest week

 

This week has felt like a bit of a disaster. Our car needed repairs, two of our children have been having difficulties at school and we needed to use the local food bank.

It's all felt a bit overwhelming so I'm very thankful that half term is here and everyone can have a good rest and relax in the safety of home. 

Today I needed to feel like I'd make a success of at least something so I washed the patio curtains.

My parents gave me a packet of curtain hooks a few days ago because the curtains were barely staying up. Unfortunately patio curtains are considered a very good hiding place during games of hide and seek so they are tugged around a fair amount. 

Still they are bright and fresh now, beautifully scented and hung almost correctly. 

My tiny bit of success is complete.

Tomorrow begins half term. I'm hoping to rally the troops and get them to help me clear out the back garden and make it a nice playing space for summer. 

Time will tell how onboard they will all be but hopefully I will have some good progress reports to share with you each day. That's the plan anyway. 

X X X

Flower power

 

I picked up a tray of 20 mixed marigolds for £2.99 a few days ago. I couldn't resist them at such a good price. 

Yesterday I gave the front garden a good sweep, refreshed the teapots, jugs and planters with a little fresh compost and got planting. 

I had enough plants to decorate the fence, beside the front door, a few pots along the wall and a little hanging basket I found. I forgot to take a photo of the hanging basket but once it's hung I'll show you how it looks.

My front garden theme for the summer is yellow/orange. It's going to be very cheerful I think ☺️

Mr G arrived home very proud of his certificate. All children who receive one each week get to sit at a special table during lunch with the headteacher and make an ice cream sundae as a reward for their achievement. 

I'm not sure if you can make out the writing but it says "for always having an amazing attitude towards learning and trying his best!"

This term his class have been learning about the Romans and Mr G seems to have loved every second of it. Particularly learning Roman numerals, while some of class were struggling with the numbers 1-10, he was racing ahead learning the symbols for 50, 100 etc.

That's my boy ❤️

X X X

Coronation weekend

 

This weekend has been wonderful. On Saturday I put on a little coronation buffet and invited my parents to watch all the goings on with us. 

We toasted the King with a glass of champagne as the Red Arrows flew over Palace.

Today, being Sunday, we went to our church's Coronation Celebration. We had a short service followed by a delicious cream tea. There were also crafts to entertain the children as the adults all mingled and chatted for a while.

I haven't been able to attend church for the last few Sundays so it was really nice to catch up with a few people I hadn't seen in a while. 

After church the day was so beautiful I headed out into the garden. My dad made some hanging strawberry planters recently and kindly gifted is one. There's several tiny fruits already set and lots of flowers showing through so I'm hoping for a few bowls of strawberries over the summer. 

My uncle also kindly gifted is some surplus tomato plants. They arrived growing in half a milk carton and when I separated the plants out carefully there were 25 single plants. 

I'm hoping to get as many as possible to survive though I'm sure I will loose a few to pests, weather and 'helping' children.

It would wonderful to have both strawberries and tomatoes this summer.

A quick update on the Dandelion biscuits - they were eyed suspiciously but everyone ate them happily after agreeing they didn't actually taste of flowers or lemon. They came out rather scone like rather than biscuits. If I make them again I'll be sure to add more flowers and lemon to the mixture.

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Baking experiments and mystery boxes

 

I had a lovely suprise this morning when a parcel arrived out of blue from my friend Angela from Tracing Rainbows.

A whole box stuffed with ribbons, thread, stickers, card, and all sorts magical things ready for become beautiful new creations. 

There was a lovely card included and a gift card to purchase the family some treats. It brought a tear to my eye and made me feel very loved and cared for. Thank you Angela 🥰

In the kitchen today I've been experimenting with the forest of dandelions that have appeared on our back garden. Every part of the dandelion is edible and they are pretty nutrious too. 

I used the recipe HERE though I have doubled the batch for my herd of hungry children. I'm not sure whether to tell them they are eating dandelions until after they have demolished the plate in case they refuse them. 

I'll let you know if they are still talking to me soon 🤣

X X X

Easter Sunday

This beautiful little lady turned 5 yesterday so it's been a little bit of a topsy turvy Easter. We spent the morning at church for the Easter service where we'd been asked to run the kitchen at short notice. DD's 1 & 2 were wonderful helping me set up everything and serving the guest while I prepared over 100 hot cross buns. I was sick of the sight of them by the time I finished 🤣

Once church was finished we were back into birthday mode with cake, presents, and birthday treats. Miss W was well and truly spoiled with visitors and birthday wishes all day. 

I can't quite believe how fast 5 years have gone.

 Today will be spent having a late Easter. We held back the children's Easter gifts to give Miss W the focus for her birthday. Obviously we couldn't move the church service though.

It's about 5.30am as I write this so shortly I will be sneaking around the house setting up a little pile of eggs and gifts for the children to find when they wake up 🥰

 

 Happy Easter everyone ☺️

X X X 

Sunday - Wednesday

 

 Sunday's mean church for our family so that's where we spent the morning. We were all invited to take communion which isn't something we regularly do during our services, but we were in preparation for the Easter service being held this Sunday. 

On Monday we went to Marwell zoo. It's almost time to renew our annual passes again so we had a brief discussion about maybe getting tickets for different attraction for a year. It was soon decided that we just plain love the place to much to leave it so we will sort that out when the time comes. DH reminded me that in September when DD4 starts at playschool that he and I could have nice romantic walks and coffees up there together child free during the day. It's sounds a bit fantastic after 14 years of having at least one child at home at all times but I know a new season is on the horizon. 

Tuesday was spent in the New Forest visiting some of our favourite little places including the always lovely Lyndhurst. The children were spoiled rotten with both a cake each from Tasty Pastries and then a visit to the old fashioned sweetshop Futher up the high street. 

We popped in Hoborn Naish to wave hello to DH's parents and spent the evening in the clubhouse enjoying the kids entertainment. This year one of the team members is particularly good and had the many children on the dancefloor in the palm of his hand. He had that perfect blend of taking no nonsense but being incredibly silly too. I'm in awe of people like that.

Today has been a quiet relaxing day after two days travelling around. Last night ended up being quite late for everyone so we were in no mood to wake up early for another trip anywhere. A late lazy breakfast and some art at the dining table filled the morning happily and the afternoon has been filled with movies, video games and encouraging each of the children to take a nice afternoon bath. 

 Soon it will be my turn to enjoy some scented bubbles and read a few chapters of my book in peace. I can't wait.

 There's two plans for adventures tomorrow depending on how the weather is looking. Either a rainy day visit to soft play or a sunny adventure on the beach. Personally I'm hoping for beach. I haven't been beachcombing in forever. 

 X X x

Saturday

 

 Today we all took a soggy walk into Eastleigh for our first free event of half term. All 5 of the children happily joined in with the Easter wreath making, I couldn't resist a photo of them taking up a whole side of the craft table to themselves. Every so often I look at them doing something like this and realise that 5 is a lot of children 🤣 and yet at other times it feels like just enough children or even not enough children 😂. 

 After the craft session we took a nice long walk around the shops taking part in an Easter trail. We found all of the bunnies hidden in shop windows eventually and returned our completely sheets to enter a competition and receive an Easter chocolate each. We were one of the first 75 to take part so we also were given a cute blue tote bag and some Easter themed stickers. 

 After the trail we headed to Macdonald's for a Happy meal each. The price of the meals has increased dramatically along with everything else so I think that will be our only visit this half term as I'm sure there are cafes we can go to with cheaper children's meals. When you are buying 5 at a time the costs really creeps up 🤣

 We are all now home for the afternoon. DD1 and the two smallest are happily snuggled together watching a film together and DD2 and DS1 are playing video games. I'm hoping for a peaceful cup of coffee and a chapter of my current book before anyone needs me.

Fingers crossed.

X X x

Friday

  Friday was spent mostly at home. 

 A neighbour of our has been struggling a little with life lately and I've been trying to help out. So on weekdays once I've gotten up and sorted my own household out, I then pop next door and get my neighbours children up, dressed and fed. I often pop the laundry on and set up the slow cooker while I'm there as it's nice and early in the day.  To say thank you they gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for my dining table 🥰

 There seems to be so much struggling and worry around at the moment I think it's really important we all try and look after each other. Goodness knows no one else will at the moment. Times are hard indeed. 

 X X X 

Easter half term begins

 

 Hello Strangers.

It's been such a long time since I last found a moment to blog. It had crossed my mind a few times lately to come back here and try to get back into the habit of Blogging our little adventures.

This morning someone contacted me via Facebook asking how we all were and saying they missed my blog posts. It's sprung me into action. 

Today has been reasonably uneventful. That's a great start to blogging isn't it 🤣.  The children all attended their last day of school except for DD1 who has a half day tomorrow. 

I spent the day mostly reading, drinking tea and relaxing whilst knowing it was the most peace I was going to get for about 2 weeks 🤣 Even DD4 picked up on the days chill out vibe and snuggled on my lap for a delicious afternoon nap. At almost 3 years old, Miss C almost never has a cuddly nap anymore, she much prefers to just nod off where ever she happens to be at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed even warm snuffly minute of it 🥰

Tomorrow we will begin our Easter adventures. 

X X X