Mess, Muddle and Fun Week Three - Kitchen

 So for this weeks challenge from Carolyn (How do you come up with all these lovely ideas BTW?) was In the Kitchen. After reading her suggestions I immediately felt drawn to the wooden spoon puppets as I knew DD would love them. I managed a quick scurry into Wilko's while I was watching the shop for OH a few days back and picked up 2 spoons for just 37p each.
 We decided to make Jubilee spoons because we are on trend lol. The first became the Queen and the second a Union Jack. DD loved decorating the other sides of the spoon and the Spoon Queen has been introduced to all her other toys as a new friend.
 Please excuse the awful photos, I took them this morning at 5.30 am thanks to DD having night terrors again, so just be glad the cameras the right way round lol. I will pop some better photos on shortly.
  Can't wait till Friday for Carolyn's next set of challenges. x x x

The great debate

 There is a debate raging at the frugal handmade home at the moment. DD is fast approaching the time to start preschool, she is next on the waiting list to start before Christmas.I have always said that my children would be home schooled. I feel it is a better, safer and with better results. Some of this comes from my personal experiences of attending school which was quite honestly the worst experience of my life and something I still feel I carry issues from. But am I allowing my own fears and phobias to be passed onto my DD by not sending her to main stream education?
 My OH feels that she should be in school but we should keep a careful eye on her education and pick up
the slack in any areas  we feel she isn't getting enough support in. If it is a subject we cannot teach ourselves (languages for example) we will make sacrifices and hire tutors for extra lessons at home.
 It is a subject we talk about a lot at the moment and we tend to go in circles after a while. Our agreement at the moment is that DD will be attending pre school and we will observe carefully how she gets on. As it is easier to remove her from school than it is to enter her into it later.
 Our biggest concern if she is home schooled would be her social development. We would combat this by enrolling her in various groups and activity's such as swimming and learning a martial arts (OH has always said he wants his children able to defend themselves). She already shows an interest in singing and dancing so a drama/choir group could also be an option. We are also lucky to live in an area that has a fantastic homeschooling network where children can meet up for day trips and lessons (often they hire a local science lab area for a day and preform experiments). So I feel this will combat some of her social life and development.

 Do any of my readers home educate their children or have experience of trying it? How do you tackle the social aspects of home learning? Are there any areas you struggle with?

x x x

Alfie turns 2.

 We had a wonderful afternoon out yesterday at a birthday party. There was mountains of wonderful party food.....

 ...a bouncy castle to play on....

.... And lots of Birthday boy cuddles for everyone.

 A huge thank you to Kylie from Me and my valentines for inviting us.

 But mostly for this which made for a very blissfull drive home and quiet afternoon :)

A brief (hopefully) hiatus

 Sorry about the lack of posts lately. My poor OH has man flu and I'm a bit busy trying to keep everything running smoothly while he recovers on the sofa. In the mean time here's a little clip to illustrate my situation at the moment lol.

A long long day.

 (I love DD's hand sneaking into shot)

 Today has been a long long day. A grumpy DD who needed a nap desperately but refused to have one. And an OH who had accidentaly corrupted his computer game save after spending hours trying to get an achievement. Both we're comforted somewhat with biscuits but even so it's been tough staying sane.
 On one of our many walks around the town centre trying to get DD to nap I picked up a cheesecake mix for 60p. I'm planning to make this tomorrow with DD seeing as she enjoys helping mummy cook. It also helps that it's one of Daddy's favourites.
 The England 2012 paper chains will be a great addition to DD's craft box. And a great addition to my England corner of the front room.

I also picked up a wonderful pair of Next trousers for just £1, they still had their tag on saying they were on sale for £12! They are sightly long at the moment but I think she'd be in them by autumn which would be perfect for the colour and material they are.
 The book is being tucked away for reading on holiday. I love QI and have read the other QI books they have released so this was a gem of a find for £1.25

 x x x

Yesterday evenings doings.

While I was entertaining DD and crocheting flower squares to use up my stash and make a nice blanket....

..

OH was digging this wonderful wooden headboard out of our communal bin shed, cleaning it off, giving it a polish and attaching it to our bed. We've needed a headboard for a long long time, and the ones we've been looking at in the charity shops/furniture stores have been around £20 so that's a nice amount saved for a rainy day!!!
 Isn't he a clever chappy? I am so blessed to have him in my life, he's wonderful.
x x x

P.S It's nearly time for my 100th post giveaway to one of my lovely daily readers and followers. I'm getting excited.
x

Another day by the sea.

  This Bank holiday has been something of a wash out down our way. I was hoping to get some beach combing in but it was far to drizzly even for me lol. So we did the same as before, nice lunch in the cafe and a mooch around the arcades. Being a bank holiday meant all the arcades were open this time, and some of the fun fair rides were running as well. It also meant that the free car park on the beach was £2.50 rather than free like last visit so we park a few roads from the beach for free and walked instead.
 (Above) DD loved pretending to drive on this racing simulator game. She didn't even mind that we hadn't put any money in and was quite contend spinning the steering wheel and beeping the horn.

 OH sneaked this snapshot of me trying to win some sweets for DD.  I hadn't realised my bump had popped out quite so much already.

 As we moved from one arcade to the other DD loved finding puddles to splash in. We had to take her shoes and trousers off in the car for the journey home as they were soaked through. But seeing her so happy and giggling was worth it.

 Who remembers these from their childhood? I used to love "winning" my little egg from these machines. I haven't seen one like this in years and years!! I think the modern ones are so boring and expensive at £1 a go. I also remember there used to be one with a monkey/gorilla as well.

 x x x