Not so lazy Sunday

We went to my MIL's again today for our Sunday dinner. The girls and I rode our bikes again. (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH) This is them working on it together.

Kerry wanted to help out but Jessica..... well she wanted to sing and dance.

The finished truck looked like this.

Emily so far has not stopped playing with it.

While they were doing this I was getting on with my cross stitch, I am quite pleased with myself as it is now nearly done woohoo.

I just have a day left of stitching the white of the polar bears bodies and then a day or so of backstitching and it is then done. Here it is...

The only problem is, with all the rest being white you won't really be able to tell when I have done it :( I will still post it just in case, well I know how riveting it is to read this trying to keep up to date with what I'm doing lol.

The first week of school holidays is now over and so far we have spent a grand total of £0.50 on entertaining the kids. Everything we have done has either been free or we have already had the stuff in the house to do it with. I am a firm believer in not spending on your kids but instead spending time with them. This week my girls have learnt a great deal (even though they didn't notice as they were having so much fun doing it.)

For example, they have been measuring ingredients for the play dough, they have let their creative side out making the ball game, they have been practising with their hand eye co ordination by playing the games we made, patience, counting, hand eye co ordination and using their fine motor skills with the cross stitch. They even got plenty of exercise playing on the park.

I would much rather be doing this with my kids than allowing them unlimited electronics time. Don't get me wrong, they love to play on the computer, watch T.V and listen to music. I just make sure they have plenty of other stuff to keep them busy and their minds engaged.

Sorry, that sounds a bit preachy, but I am very happy with my lot.

Any way time for bed again speak to you soon xx

Come shine and rain

 

I had an amazing lay in today, (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH)

When I eventually woke up we decided to take the girls and the dog to the park. 

We had loads of fun playing and sliding. 

 

 Here are the girls enjoying themselves with their cousin Harvey.

Even Benji joined in the fun by having a go on the big swing, his tail was going ten to the dozen once the swing started moving lol.

 

 

Jessica wasn't so keen on the zip line though as it went too fast and scared her a little. She was fine as soon as she got off though so don't worry.

 When we got home it started raining and so we decided to make some play dough. Emiliy wanted green and Jessica wanted blue, so we just split the dough in half before we put the colour in. Here's how we did it.

You will need, (I used one of my Pampered chef prep bowls as a measuring guide, which works out at one American cup size)

1 cup flour

1/2 cup salt

1 cup water

2 teaspoons cream of tartar (get it from the baking aisle in the supermarket)

2 tablespoons cooking oil

gel food colours of your choice

  

 Put all ingredients into a pan (I have one we use just for crafting so I don't ruin my cooking ones), cook on a medium heat stirring all the time!! (that is important!!) 

It is not far off being done at this point, so be careful. it took about 5 mins to get it here.

put the dough on to a floured surface we chopped ours in half at this point and add a small amount of food colouring, the more you add the more intense the finished colour, but you run the risk of the dye being transfered to the kids hands and/or clothes.

Then knead to spread the colour throughout.

You might want to wait a little for it to cool before giving it to kids to handle!!

 

If like today the rain stops while you are making it then send the kids out to play with it in the garden (save extra clean up in the house lol)

 I have also been doing some more of my cross stitch, OMG today is the first time I have used light shades. This is a type of thread that reflects light, but it is bloody awful to work with. It feels a little like plastic but snags like it has glitter attached. I must admit though it does look pretty good. You can kinda see the light reflecting in these pics.

Because I have done the light shade (which took so much longer to do than normal stitching) I haven't done much else on the rest of the pic but here is my work so far.

Not looking too bad, if I do say so myself lol. Anyway, time for me to go to bed, who knows what the kids will have me doing tomorrow, though I have a sneaky feeling Kerry will want to make more play dough, as she missed out today. Speak soon xx.

Busy Day

We have had a busy day today making some games for the girls to play. They have gotten very messy making and creating.

Today we made a ball game, it is not finished yet as it is yet to dry, but here is what we have done so far.

You need a box and some arty and crafty supplies and some willing helpers in old clothes.

Seal up the box, and cut some holes out one on the side to retrieve the balls, and six or so on the top to aim at.

We have covered the holes with masking tape so there are no cuts or scrapes

Then let loose with your creative side, painting sticking and making merry with the glue lol

Make some card cut outs and paint them in bright colours and add scores on.

Glue these into place on the box like this.

Now all you have to do is wait for it all to dry.

In the meantime, we created a ringo game. All you need for this is some paper plates, scissors, plastic cups and paint.

I had some old Halloween plates which were great as they were very colourful already cut out the centre of the plates.

Then paint some scores on the cups, wait to dry then its playtime.

If you want to play this game outside I would suggest weighting down the cups with sand or rice by making a lid for the base of the cups.

We have also been doing cross stitch too. Emily started hers today and is making good progress. Here she is giving it the old college try.

I haven't done any stitching yet today so there is no update on my piece today, so tomorrow will have a definite update.

We are all looking forward to the opening ceremony tonight, we are ready to cheer on Team GB, with our flag out flying.

Good Luck Team GB, we are rooting for ya.

Children really do copy Mummy

Kerry went to sleep at my mum's house for the night and Emily went to my MIL's for the night, which left me and Jessica home alone together. We had great fun, playing different games, cooking a basic pasta bake (she got to do a lot of stirring), doing a bit of cleaning and doing a bit of cross stitching ;) I gave her a bit of scrap aida and showed her how to hold the needle adn fabric and away she went. Here is Jessica concentrating on her stitch.

She was really proud of the result, saying over and over "I love cross stitching I'm good at it aren't I Mummy?"

She had to keep asking me whether it should go in the top or the bottom, and I lost count as to how many times the thread came off the needle. But she did have a load of fun doing it, and it was lovely to spend time doing it with her.

Here is the finished result. Look at that smile. Such a proud girl, such a proud mummy.

I haven't done as much on my stitch as I was busy helping Jessica with hers but this is how far I have gotten with it.

Had a lovely suggestion for a craft to try from +Hugh Edwards, I am going to put it on my wish list and will get my self a kit, so thank you for that.

Anyway, time to sleep for me. Speak soon x

Quick Update

Well what a weekend, I forgot that Saturday was Saturday and had it in my head that it was Monday. I blame the schools breaking up, there I was thinking it was the first day of the school holidays when really it was just the weekend lol. I blame it on a blonde moment ;)

So, I took a break from my cross stitch on Sunday wanting to give my hand time to recover a little but got straight to it again on Monday here is where I got to on Monday.

I then continued on Tuesday, and got this far,

This stitch has a lot of block colours and is very boring to do, I really want to get it finished now just to have it done.

I have chosen the photo for my SIL's wedding stitch, this one 

I have also been on Ebay (this section has been removed as it mentions my OH) and have bought the software to convert it into a chart. The software arrived yesterday and so I have made the chart up. I need to check my stitchy stash to see what threads I have and which I need, I also need to buy the fabric this pic is 128x192 stitches which those maths boffins amongst you will have worked out is almost 25,000 stitches. I have worked out that so far on the stitch I'm working on at the moment I have done roughly 1800 stitches and it has taken me 4 days to get that far, and so that's roughly 450 stitches per day. On this basis it will take me 55 days to complete the Wedding one. This means I should get it done for Christmas. But OMG it will be hard work. 

So I would say I have 4 more days on the pic I'm working on already before I can start on this one. I think I will have to take my mind off it by doing a few smaller pieces every now and again, I also have family life to fit in and the council business to do, and now the children are off school I don't think I will be able to do 450 stitches per day :( Ah well you will just have to keep tuned to see if I do manage to get it done lol. 

I'd better get on with it speak to you all soon xx

Nails and day 2

 

Well the girls had their nails painted last night as promised. Only Jessica and Emily had theirs done because Kerry stopped at her cousins house. they thoroughly enjoyed picking out their colours and having the paint put on. Emily had to have hers done twice as she scratched her leg and ruined the first coat lol.

And as promised here is my update on my work in progress (WIP).

Can you tell what it is yet?? Answers in the comments section please x

I have also finally gotten the picture I need for a very special cross stitch. My lovely sister in law (SIL) got married last year and I am going to cross stitch one of her wedding photos for her. I am just waiting for the software to change the photo into a chart and then I can get started. Woo Hoo. Very excited about it and will of course keep you up to date with it. I know my SIL doesn't read this so I am safe sharing it with you. 

We had a lovely Sunday lunch at my Mother in laws today. Most Sundays she does one but on the days she doesn't myself and my SIL fight over who get to cook it. Call me mad, but I love doing Sunday dinner. I must admit, it does help that I have all my Pampered Chef stuff to cook it in, making it super easy. I also love making things like sage and onion stuffing from scratch using the recipe that has been passed down five generations the first I know to pass it down was my Great Great Grandma Churms, and that I am teaching my girls now. When I next make a Sunday dinner I will post up the recipe with the step by step instructions on how to do it.

I also love going up to my MIL for dinner as we get to ride our bikes up there. I bought a Trailgator which attaches Jessica's bike to mine so we can all travel together. It took Jess a long time to get used to the 'bar' as she was used to riding on her own with stabilisers, but now she loves it. I am hoping that when she starts to ride on her own she will be able to balance better on her bike to start with as she will be used to how it works being on the back of mine. Hopefully this 'training' will get her off to a faster start when she does get on on her own. 

Will update on the cross stitch later xx