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.

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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. 

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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. 

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School Christmas Fayre

 

Today we took a trip to our Primary schools annual school fayre. The PTA alway put on a great range of things to see and do, this year was no exception.

We of course had to visit the Santa's grotto ☺️ this year the gifts were craft based which was a nice idea. The older 3 happily did their crafts when we got home meaning I got to have a much needed cup of tea and a sit down.

Once we had finished visiting Father Christmas we treated the children to a hot dog each. At £2 each they were a reasonably priced lunch and it felt good to treat them. 

We also tried our luck on the tombola stalls and I had to have a good browse of the book stall too ☺️

 There were several free things that children could do during the visit. Such as a mobile petting zoo that was in the playground. We saw miniature donkeys, brushed some goats, chatted to chickens and fed some bunnies. 

There was also a trail around the school of elves to find. If you found them all you could get a free prize from the Raffle stall.

It was a nice nod to the cost of living crisis that no child would go home empty handed and could enjoy a few games and visiting the animals with no funds needed.

It really was a wonderful afternoon trip out. OH coped well but he needed to stand behind the buggy a few times in crowded parts to avoid being bumped or jostled by overexcited children running around. I think he'll sleep well tonight though 😂

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That Friday feeling

 It's Friday! Another week survived 😊

This morning I popped the children to school and then had a reading cafe session with DD3. It was lovely to have some 1:1 time together. She really does have such a cute and sunny personality, it's a joy to be around her.

After leaving the reading cafe I popped to the community pantry. £5 really doesn't go as far as it used to even at the Pantry. The shelves were a little empty looking but I managed to complete a shop anyway. I'm thinking of trying to make some cod fishcakes or a fish pie with the cod steaks.

Once home there was a short break while we waited for DIY Dave to turn up. He is a local quy who fixes washing machines and dishwashers etc. His prices are very reasonable and if he can't fix something he won't charge you for looking at it. He also always gives out a wealth of hints and tips on looking after your machines and getting the best out of them. 

 He was able to repair our washing machine which had a minor issue, but sadly or dishwasher has gone to electrical heaven with a computer fault that just isn't worth the cost of fixing.  We will start looking for a good deal on a new one shortly. DH says to leave it to him as it'll give him something to do while he recovers. He quite likes researching it all, comparing reviews and machine specs etc so he's quite in his element.

We found some old long forgotten Meccano while decluttering some cupboards this afternoon. DH has listed it for sale on Facebook as a job lot. If we're lucky it'll make some money towards a new dishwasher 😊

 In the early evening DH popped to Aldi, he was kindly given a lift by his mum who was also headed there too. We needed some essentials for the weekend so it saved me and the children trying to carry it all home by hand tomorrow. DH not being able to drive yet is definitely frustrating him a bit.

Tonight's plan is knitting in front of the England match.  Could it be coming home finally?

X X X

 

It's Thursday

 

Good evening 😊

 Thank you all the kind messages and good wishes for DH. He says he feels a little better each day but is getting quite frustrated with his lack of movement. He is okay doing things with his shoulder as long as it isn't to much weight bearing so he can feed himself and drink etc but if he needs to change heights, for example buttoning a shirt or pulling a zip it's still very painful. 

Today was a cleaning sort of a day. I deep cleaned the patio doors and gave them a good shine up this morning and then tackled a few marks on the carpet from all those soggy feet running in and out. As you can see Baby C was quite happy to join in and help me ☺️

In the afternoon I popped to the shop. We need milk and three nice donations for the school tombola. The children are allowed to wear non uniform for a day in exchange for a donation. Each year group has a different theme so there is plenty of variety. I also picked up a packet of "whoops" biscuits. These are the biscuits that are a bit odd looking or broken which don't pass quality control. Some companies now sell them in big bags or boxes for quite a reasonable price. I paid 99p for 1kg bag. If you haven't tried them I recommend giving a packet a go. It's quite fun as you never know quite what you are going to get but they are always tasty.

The Afternoon school run was uneventful but rushed as we tried to beat the weather home. It was just starting to drizzle as we reached the door so we did a good job. 

Dinner was chicken wings, veggies and baked beans. The three smallest all turned their noses up at their meals and ate a bowl of cereal instead. Tom soon polished off the extra chicken though, all that healing is giving him an appetite.

Tonight's plan are a little reading in bed and perhaps some knitting with a movie. I'm trying to knit Baby C a hat but I've lost my mojo with it somewhat and I'm getting cross with myself for not just getting it over and done with. I always seem to wander off whenever it's on my lap and so it just sits there looking crossly at me 😂

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Family news

 

 It's all been a bit epic here in the Frugal household! Poor DH has just returned home from a 2 week (almost...12 days!) Hospital stay. We've had to cope with brushes with sepsis, the possibility of superbugs, allergic reactions, and more antibiotics and IV's and cannulas than I can count.  

 We are all incredibly grateful to the all the wonderful NHS staff who directly and indirectly helped get DH back to a reasonably healthy state. We still have a little bit of a recovery journey ahead of us, but we can now face it together at home 😊

 The story all started on the Wednesday of half term when we were invited to go swimming at a nearby water park. While going down one of the flumes with DS, poor DH picked up a small friction burn on his left elbow. We didn't really think much of it.

Fast forward a week and DH returns home from work as usual saying he thinks he's pulled a muscle or something in his elbow. By the evening his elbow had a bright red patch of skin around the almost healed friction burn. I suggested getting it looked at but DH insisted slathering on some Sudacrem and trying the local walk in centre in the morning rather than spend hours in A&E with late night drunks.  Gradually overnight DH developed a fever and the red patch began to rapidly grow. My dad took him to the local walk in service and they very quickly assessed him and sent him to hospital for IV antibiotics. I assumed that it would just be over night and he'd soon be home. How little I knew.

 Over the next few days the infection in his elbow exploded. Drs we're drawing circles around its progress every few hours and there were several antibiotics being tried in the hopes of finding one that worked. He had to have his wedding ring removed as the Infection began to move to his hand, and I was warned he could be facing damage to his organs as the infection also crept up his shoulder towards his heart and lungs. Luckily at pretty much the final hour something started to work and the infection slowly was brought under control. Add in a sudden serious allergic reaction and yet more changes of antibiotics just to keep things hanging in the balance!

 Thankfully he is now well enough to be home but still a little delicate. He is currently signed off work for 4 weeks but that will most likely be extended as he is very tired and has quite limited movement in his arm still. 

 I'm not quite sure what curve balls life will throw at us next. We certainly weren't expecting this one. 

 It's never a dull moment around here. That's for sure !

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