Search This Blog

Thursday, 16 April 2015

April 16th 2015 - One man's trash......

April 16th 2015 - One man's trash.......

......is another man's treasure!  This saying is very true and fits today's pin really well.  Last night I had to go round the neighbours house as had left my keys at home and hubby was out.  Well the neighbour went outside to her bin and stood beside it was a small wicker shelf unit, I asked her if she was throwing it out and she said yes unless I wanted it.  Well I said yes as have been looking for a small unit for my friends apothecary/halloween bottles to go.

The neighbour put the shelf over the wall into our garden.   The shelf is wicker as I said above, it has 3 shelves and the top is arched.  It's a little bit damp and dirty from being outside but will soon dry off and then I can clean it/paint it etc and make it look older than it is.


Wednesday, 15 April 2015

April 15th 2015 - Family Learning trip out

April 15th 2015 - Family Learning trip out

Today was the last day of the family learning and literacy course, and this meant we went on a day trip!  We all decided early on the course that we would go to Walby Farm Park which is just over an hour away from us.

The trip had been arranged and we had the full use of the school room there - this morning the kids all had some worksheets to fill out linked to the farm and stuff, we then went on a tour where the member of staff assigned to us told the kids all about the animals and their foods etc.  They all got to stroke a baby goat - was only 2 weeks old and made loads of noise when taken out of pen away from mum!  After this we went out to see the hens and ducks, the kids all got to stroke a hen and help collect the eggs from the pen, the member of staff went through all the different types of eggs we had collected and how long eggs take to hatch - 21days (I didn't know this).  We then carried on the tour and the kids all got to bottle feed a lamb - the farm has got over 25baby lambs so far and still some not born.  My boys thought this was great.  We washed hands, had dinner and then the kids were allowed to go and play (Walby has a huge indoor play area with slides and ball pools etc).  We went and stroked the rabbits and guinea pigs and watched the sheep racing (none of us backed the winning sheep).  Sadly we then had to head back to the coach to come home.

I did take loads of photos of the day, including the feeding of the lambs, but when I got home and went to upload them it told me the memory card was corrupted and needed to be formatted.  I'm really annoyed about this, hubby has even tried to see if he can salvage the pics but the programme he uses isn't even picking them up.

This was my 2nd visit to Walby and it is a great place, has things for everyone of all ages and stuff both inside and out.  Well worth a visit if your in the area.

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

April 14th 2015 - Aldi

April 14th 2015 - Aldi

Prior to moving North nearly 2years ago I hardly visited Aldi for my shopping, despite there being 2 where I lived.  Both were out of town and involved 2 different buses each way - not fun or easy with kids and shopping!  So we would occassionally nip over in the car.

When we moved house, we started off by shopping at Morrisons for most things as thats what we had got used to as our regualar supermarket.  However, on the same site as Morrisons there was a Lidl, so we would nip in there and get few bits. We then had to go to the other retail park to go to Iceland for any other bits we had't managed to get.  Next door to Iceland is Aldi!

We decided that we would try and do our shopping at Aldi as they say its much cheaper than the other supermarkets.  Yes they are cheaper BUT we still found we had to go elsewhere for few things.  But on the whole we manage to do most of our weekly shopping at Aldi and Iceland.

We were sppening in the region of £90-100 a week in Morrisons and then extra in Iceland.  By swapping to aldi we have reduced the main shop down to £60-70 a week.  Which is great, this extra money comes in very handy with 3 boys who are growing out of clothes and ruining school shoes like you wouldn't believe. 

I wish I had started using Aldi alot sooner than I did and would certainly reccomend it to anyone.  As I said abov we do have to get a few things from elsewhere but I would say 85% of main shop is done at aldi, 10% at Iceland and 5% elsewhere - for the reason Aldi don't sell the product or don't have it in or we don't like Aldi's version.

Monday, 13 April 2015

April 13th 2015 - R.I.C.E

April 13th 2015 - R.I.C.E

R.I.C.E - not the stuff you eat but Rest Ice Compression Elevation in a first aid sense.  When I slipped in the garden at the weekend trying to get away from a wasp I landed on my wrist!  Didn't think much of it until my wrist and hand started to swell so I removed my rings.

I was still in pain with it this morning although I can move it so went up A&E to get it checked.  The nurse prodded n poked it (as they do) and I had pains shooting up my arm and into my hand, so I got sent for an xray.  Had a long wait in xray and then back to A&E.

The doctor again prodded and poked, and said my wrist isn't broken that they can see at the moment, but there is a fracture showing on my scaphoid (bone at base of thumb) - my thumb doesn't hurt though and I broke that years ago.  As i'm not in pain with it they are leaving it for now.  They believe that I have sprained my wrist over the part that hurts and is swollen and told me to use R.I.C.E as mentioned above along with pain killers.  If i'm still in pain in a few days to go and see my GP to be referred back to A&E.

Sunday, 12 April 2015

April 12th 2015 - A wet Sunday

April 12th 2015 - A wet Sunday

Where has the sun gone???  We've had a lovely week and have been outside for most of it, just started to get used to the idea of spring/summer being on the way, I even thought about getting the shorts n stuff out of the box and it rained last night and hasn't stopped today! 

So what better to do on a wet day than play Monopoly Junior with the kids.  We were going to  play my Disney Monopoly but think its too hard for lil man, who has only just got the idea of the junior version.

We have also done some jigsaw puzzles and i'm sure we will end up playing some more games this afternoon.

Saturday, 11 April 2015

April 11th 2015 - Making Rockets

April 11th 2015 - Making Rockets

You need:
Rocket template  http://www.clipartbest.com/rocket-ship-cartoon
1 thin drinking straw
1 thick drinking straw
double sided tape
crayons/pens optional
printer
scissors

Me and lil man have today made rockets from paper and drinking straws like these on pinterest.  We followed the link which took you to a page of free rocket templates (see above), we had to draw 2 of them (the same rocket) off the laptop screen as have no ink to print them.  Lil man then coloured them in.

Once they were coloured in I cut them out and placed double sided tape on the back of the rockets (both) and place the smaller straw on top of the tape but left 3/4 of the straw sticking out the bottom.  This thin straw then goes into the thicker straw and using the small bendy bit you blow into it and the rocket flies.  I have a happy son that is making his rocket fly, complete with countdown.



Friday, 10 April 2015

April 10th 2015 - Fairy Garden

April 10th 2015 - Fairy Garden

Since we moved to our house nearly 2years ago and started working on the garden (which was a jungle) lil man has asked for a fairy garden in part of it.  We fenced off a section after we had cleared it and we're looking at ideas to go in it etc.  I found many on pinterest and made a whole board linked to it.

As we have seen things fairies, toadstools and such cheap we have bought them.  I have also made some small rock houses to go in it.  When lil man went on a school trip last year the shop had an ornament seagull  that says welcome under it - it was reduced to 50p so lil man bought it with his money - his teacher even asked if he was sure that he wanted that and not a toy like his friends and he was adamant he wanted the seagull for his garden and bought a pencil as well.  His teacher explained to us when we picked him up about it and we confirmed he was making a fairy garden.

We also have a statue of a big grey cat in it.  This was named phoenix after our big grey cat that sadly got killed a few years ago, he was a lovely cat and very dosile.  He was missed by us all so we got the statue.


We still need few more bits to go in it but we have plenty of time for that.  I promised lil man that we would have it done by Easter this year, sadly Easter was last weekend BUT I have sorted it today for him.