November 12th 2015 - 13yrs ago today

13years ago today at 05:12am I gave birth to my eldest son.  Right up until he was born I was adamant that if it was a girl my Mum could bring it up as I knew what a cow I was (especially as a teenager), well lucky for me I had a son.

Although he was of normal weight (7lb 2oz), there was nothing to him, he was small and newborn clothes were too big so my Mum had to go to town and buy me some tiny baby clothes for him.  He soon outgrew these and was in what I had bought.

Over the years we have had many good and bad days and many ups and downs, he has turned from a tiny baby into a gorgeous son.  He is very loud, crazy and mad, but these are his traits and make him special and he's my son and I wouldn't change him for the world.

Happy birthday Jay.

August 28th 2015 - Happy Birthday

August 28th 2015 - Happy Birthday

Happy 6th Birthday to my lil "dinky dot", I can't believe you are 6yrs old today, where has the time gone???

Me, my hubby and friend we were staying with put up Thomas Tank banners ready for him to wake up to.  We didn't do too many because it wasn't my house.  But lil man was happy.

He had already had some of his birthday presents before his birthday - like his scooter so that he had the 6weeks holidays to play on it and he had his presents from 1 of his godmothers before we went away so he could thank her.  We left his cards on the table but not his presents as we didnt want the dogs to rip them open!

He was really pleased when he opened his presents - a thomas tank  wallet (to put his birthday money into he said) and a thomas watch, a thoms tank dvd he has been asking about for ages, a set of speedstcks and lastly and most importantly a thomas tank mega bloks set that has Butch the recovery lorry in, he has wanted it for ages but it was discontinued 18months ago, I found it on ebay though!  He had £5 and a pack of malteasers from his great nan, a jigsaw from his other godmother, £10 from my sister and £5 from his best friend/girlfriend, and his other godparents sent him £20 as well.

He is 1 very lucky little boy.  We spent the day playing, and sorting out food  etc  as we were having a small party in the evening.  All of the food had thomas trains and labels, we played thomas games etc.

FOOD
 we had: sir tophams sausage rolls

Diesel'sfuel stop for the drinks

 Percy's pizza slices

rosie's rocks of grapes and raisins

Farmer mccolls fruit & veg car - carrot & cucumber

 Thomas's treat car - barney bear cakes, iced gems and party rings

Toby's twiglet lumber

Charlie's crisp car

Charlie's chicken bits

James's jelly

Thomas the tank birthday cake from asda

















GAMES

We placed sweets in gre and black balloons and said that they were fallen rocks and they had to burst them in order to move them from the track, once burst they had teh sweets but had to clear up the bits of balloon as "they were still on the tracks"!  (saved me cleaning up).

Here they are trying to burst them


We played "pass the train" instead of pass the parcel.  The train was an empty box with no lid and I covered it with a train front, back and both sides,  inside it we put sweets.  When the music started they passed the train around and when it stopped whoever had it took out a sweet.  We  made sure that everyone had 2 sweets (there were only 5 there but should have been more).  Then on the last go whoever had the train won it and the rest of the sweets.  This happened to land on birthday boy and he said would share them with everyone.

We also did musical bumps and musical statues.  The last game we did was "pin the light on thomas" (bought off ebay).  This is played in the same way as pin the tail on donkey etc.  We "cheated" for the 2 12year olds and turned the image upside down but 1 of them still won!

We had planned to play coal toss (bean bags into a bucket) but we didnt in the end as the kids we're happy to just dance to the music and disco lights.

August 3rd 2015 - Making party bags

August 3rd 2015 - making party bags

Everyone buys the plastic party bags for treats etc to go in, well I wanted to be different!  As lil man is having a Thomas tank themed party the plastic thomas bags are over £2 for 8 and i have 12 kids going to be there.

I bought a roll of thomas tank wrapping paper for 99p and found a link on how to make party bags on pinterest.  They are actually quite easy to do once you get the hang of them and I guess with more practise they would  look much neater, but lil man thinks they are ok for his birthday which is fine by me.

You need a box the size of the bag you are making, another box you can cut up, scissors, glue or double sided tape, paper, hole punch and ribbon.

Take the box that you are using for the size of the bag and using 1 end draw round it onto the other cardboard (do this for as many bags as you are making) and then cut them out.

These will be used later to re-enforce the base of the bag and make it stand up.

Next you need to cut the paper so that it is bigger than the box you are using - you need about 2" more than the distance needed to wrap around the box and about 3" extra in the length of the box.  These extra inches are so that you can make the folds etc so the bag looks nice.









From here you need to fold the edge over about 1/2-1" (depending on size of bag your making - smaller bag = less fold).  And also fold down the top edge as it's easier to do now before the bag is assembled.  Once you have the folds you need to add glue or double sided tape to the fold on the side.  Place the box on the paper and cover like you would to wrap a present.  Before you stick the folded side to it you need to get it on the shorted edge (depth) of the box as it will look better.

You now have a part-wrapped present, you need to move the paper from the bottom part of the box so that it over hangs and you can fold the bottom.  Again do it as you would a normal present and glue or double sided tape it together.  Remove the box from the wrapper carefully.

Take the small rectangle of cardboard you cut out at the start and add glue or double sided tape to one side of it (the box I used had writing on one side so I put the tape on this side.)  Then push it into you bag and down to the bottom.

 From here you are almost done, you need to pinch the top at the sides and fold inwards so that you get a crease shape like shop bought bags have.  Crease them hard with your fingers on both sides.

You can now put holes at the top of both sides and add the ribbon as handles.  I'm not adding ribbon to mine but going to staple shut once they have the goodies in.  As you can see the bag is complete and stands up.  You can also fold them over so that they lay flat and take up less room if you need to store them or transport them anywhere.










I will certainly try and make them in the future rather than buying them.  I do think thicker paper will be easier than thin birthday wrap, but as I wanted thomas ones I had to use what I had.

February 21st 2015 - Bowling

February 21st 2015 - Bowling

Today is Blake's girlfriend Rosie's 6th birthday.  She wanted to go bowling, so her Mum agreed.  We had said about going bowling during half term and had invited her to come as well, so we all decided that we would go today for her birthday rather than twice.

The bowling alley is is the "big town" 13miles away, so we got go in the car to get there.  I'm sure the boys and Rosie will all have fun.  I will update with scores later after we have been.

OMG it went from bad to worse, to start with the car was dead, we got the neighbour to try and jump start it but it wasn't have any of it.  So hubby had to bring battery in to try and charge it and the neighbour ran me and the kids to the bowling alley.  We got there 2mins after our scheduled time, but the previous people were not quite finished anyway.  We payed for 1 game each.

The scores were really close between the kids and all around the 50mark.  They decided that they wanted a 2nd game, so we had to move to another lane.  And this lane was a heap of junk, after every 3rd or 4th throw of the ball the pins wouldn't re-set, or the machine dropped them and they stayed there in a heap.  So we had to keep getting the staff to re-set the lane, which they did by throwing another ball down it and then re-setting the computer to remove the score it had given that person.  Due to this the kids got very bored with waiting and started to mess about and fight, climb on things and over chairs etc.

The scores of the 2nd game were higher and lil man got 74 and 2spares he was so happy.  But the machine didn't record 1 of them as it was a time it re-set again.  The other 2 who are older got 57 and 58 but they didn't use the frame.  Rosie won the first game out of the children and Blake won the 2nd game out of the chilren.

January 11th 2015 - Happy Birthday Hubby

JANUARY 11th 2015 - Happy Birthday Hubby

Today is my hubby's birthday.  The day started off well for him, our friends who we had spent the weekend staying with back in our home town of Peterborough cooked him (and me and kids) a full cooked english breakfast! (I just hope they don't expect this when they come and stay with us lol!)  From here we had to load the car of our things ready for the drive home.  Once the car was loaded and we had said goodbyes we headed to see my sister who lives about 8miles away.  This was great as we didn't get to see her over christmas due to ill health, so hubby didn't get birthday presents BUT christmas presents!!!  He actually got his birthday present on christmas day - my sister sent me some money to buy beers/cider for over christmas and 1 pack was hubbys birthday present.  Well after seeing my sister we nipped into my nans, not far from my sisters and stayed with her for an hour before we hit the road back home. Sadly hubby is the only driver and so he spent 5hrs of his birthday driving back home!

My inspiriation for today's pin is found here blue birthday cakes.  Due to being tired from a busy weekend of drinking and visiting and the long journey I will add a pic tomorrow of the small cakes I made for hubby.

January 3rd 2015 - Happy Birthday to me......

January 3rd 2015 - My Birthday

 EVEN google knows its my birthday today as it has cakes and candles on it!!!

I have opened my presents, and the cake is cooking, the drinks will flow later with hubby and a friend.

For todays pin I picked a purple ombre layer cake off pinterest, now I know mine wont be as good as the original purple ombre cake see link, but it is what gave me the idea.  See my pics later once its cooked, iced and then cut.

 

Here is the cake uncut, 3 different colour layers. I dont dare add more buttercream to cover the outside as there is loads between each layer!  cant wait for a slice after lunch.