May 27th 2015 - Lego jelly

May 27th 2015 - Lego jelly

I have had today's pin on my boards for absolutely ages.  It has been moved from party ideas to food, to ideas for the kids to do to lego ideas.

My boys are having a sleepover (just them) in the big bedroom tonight with dvds and snacks so I decided to make them some Lego Jelly snacks.  I haven't quite done it as per the pin as they say to use lego blocks washed out, but I have a lego brick mold and a lego man mold that were bought for sons birthday 2years ago.  They were used to make chocolate lego bricks and men.

Once the jelly has set and I can take them out of mold will add a pic.  Obviously if this were for a party you could do them in multi colours and lots of!  But as only for my boys they have got red.  IF it sets in time I may make them some green ones as well.  We will just have to wait and see.

I haven't added the full amount of water it says as I want them to set quite thick/hard.

Well I can safely  say this DOESN'T work with a silicone mold!  Although the jelly set hard when I tried to remove it from the mold the "bobbly bits" on the lego stayed in the mold and when I tried to get the men out they split!  Total FAIL!

May 26th 2015 - Bowling

May 26th 2015 - Bowling

Today we had booked a lane at the local bowling alley as a couple of my 12yr olds friends had said about going.  The plan was that me n hubby "were there" but not playing and it it was 12yr old, his 2 friends and 2 brothers.  Well the time came and went that we were due to meet them and they didn't show up and were not answering phones either.  So me and hubby played with our 3 sons.

We all got some spares and lil man and hubby both got a strike.  Lil mans strike however, was on my turn as my knee started hurting so lil man was throwing for me.  We all got half decent scores both games.  Lil man started to get bored part way through last game and my knee was hurting.

But it was good fun and they got a mcdonalds afterwards!  We probably wont be going far for the rest of the week because of my knee.

May 24th 2015 - Sleep (or lack of)

May 24th 2015 - Sleep (or lack of)

This quote fits me perfectly - I'm so tired..... but i'll probably be awake until 3am for no reason!  This is most nights.  Usually it is because of the pain in my knee though, which isn't getting any easier a year after surgery on it!

I can sit on the sofa and almost be asleep yet I go up to bed and i'm wide awake clock watching for hours!  It drives me mad.

May 23rd 2015 - DIY watering can

May 23rd 2015 - DIY Watering can

Now that lil mans has properly established and is all growing well  he needs a watering can, rather than connecting the hose up.  So I have made him one from a pop bottle and my drill, similar to this one on pinterest. It also means that he can water his veg rather than me doing it.

Here's the lid:

May 22nd 2015 - Ultrasound Scan

May 22nd 2015 - Ultrasound scan

Today lil man had to go back to the hospital for his pre-booked Ultrasound scan to re-check him and that there was no problems, as the one on tuesday was inconclusive due to swelling and pain.

The swelling has gone down loads, everything is almost normal size.  He's still in bit of pain, more so after the scan and being prodded about.

But all seems to be good, they could see what they couldnt on tuesday and are pleased.  There is still slight swelling and some odema and raised lymph nodes but everything else was as it should be.  They re-scanned kidneys as well and they are happy that they are correct size as well.

Even though we are no nearer to knowing the cause of the swelling and pain, we can rule out the torsion that they initally suspected on monday night.  Which is a great relief to us all, especially lil man as means no operation.

May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

May 21st 2015 - Finished Story Sack

Yesterday I should have been at the last session of the family learning at the  school where we were meant to be finishing our story sacks and talking about them with the group.  But due to lil man being in hospital I wasn't there, but my story sack is now finished.

Pirates Love Underpants Story Sack was made by me, if you follow my blog you will have seen bits over the past 5weeks that I was making to go in it.  Here is a picture of the finished thing with everything and I will add pics and descriptions of other bits below.

First off was the sack, we were given plain canvas sacks and told we could decorate them how we liked.  A lot of the people in the group did them to the book they were putting in it, I decided to do it as a general sack so we could change the contents.  More info on my sack can be found here and here

My main story book for the sack was of the "pirates love underpants", my son already had dinosaurs and aliens and likes them and he likes pirates so this seemed a good choice.  As part of a story sack we were told that the sack has to have a "fiction/fact" book, so I bought the 100 facts on pirates shown above, this was much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

I  made a little "work book" linked to the story and laminated the pages so that they can be used again and again.  I have included white board pens and hi-lighter pens that rub off and a board rubber in a pencil case.

My son  asked if we could have a monkey like in the book, and brought me his toy one from upstairs.  This was ok but the monkey in the book had pants on, I asked my friend to make me a pair of knitted pants for him.  Her first attempt didn't work and we ended up with a monkey "mooning" us, which was quite funny.

My friend had them back (after I embarrssed her on facebook with the "mooning monkey") and re-made them so they fit him better.  I was very grateful as I can't knit. They did look good once done.  I added a gold earing to his right ear, and made him a banana to go in his hand.  (Banana instructions are here.)

I made a Pirate and a Parrot hand puppet to go in it.  The parrot was a "wash mit/flannel" bought off ebay, but was green.  The parrot in the book was red, so I glued red feathers all over its back and wings and made it a tail.  I also made it a pair of underpants like in the book.  My boys didn't know about the parrot as I didn't make a post or tell them I had bought it.

I made a Golden Pants Trophy  like the pirates are hunting for in the book.  My boys thought it was really good.

I bought the dvd "So you want to be a Pirate" and added it to the bag, it's only 18minutes long but tells you things you need to do to be a pirate etc.  I didn't realise it was so short I thought it was a proper film.

I bought a travel version of the traditional game pop up pirate and I made a set of  matching pairs underpants cards.  When they were printed you could see the pants through the paper so I made a sheet the same size as the cards using the cover of the book, cut them out and put on the back of pictures of pants and then laminated and cut out.  Now you can't see which pants are which.  I printed out a mini instruction card and placed them all in a small drawstring bag.

Last week at the family learning I was given a small wooden treasure chest which I decorated and added gems and coins to.  This was also meant to be a suprise for the bag, but I forgot to put it up before the boys came home from school so they saw it.

Lastly I added a (brand new) pair of boxer shorts (Aldi had packs of 3 reduced to £1.49 and they are next size up for my eldest son but now only has 2 pairs) and an eye patch so that my son(s) can dress as a pirate in underpants when we read and re-tell the story with the props.

Here's my lil man as a pirate in underpants with the parrot puppet.

I really enjoyed this course at the school it has been good fun and my kids like their story sack.  Hopefully I will be able to make a different one (or 2) so that we can change them round from time to time.  They want to put it in the car.

May 20th 2015 - Sleep (or lack of)

May 20th 2015 - Sleep (or lack of)

Sleep is for the WEAK, but maybe it should be sleep for a WEEK!  This 1st pin for today about sums things up - sleep catch up at the weekend, for all that I missed during week.  And the 2nd pin for today sums up why I have had no sleep - Mothers and sleep.

I have spent the past 2 nights at the hospital with my youngest son.  He has slept ok, apart from waking in pain few times (which woke me).  Monday night the boy in the next bed kept crying he was in pain and woke me (his mum slept through it).  And last night the new boy in the ward and his dad were watching tv (very loudly) until nearly 11pm (had paid for movies), the dad then spent most of the night snoring (very loudly) and the boy had the tv on from just gone 5am again very loudly!  Add to this all the machines and bells going off all night, nurses coming and going to do temperature and pulse etc (with not much room between my fold out bed and sons bed) i kept getting woken up!

I am safely saying I will sleep tonight!