feeling guilty, and a bit sorry for myself...

how do you explain to your older children that you can't play, talk or do anything with them this evening as their two year old brother just won't stay in his bed???
as many of you have seen from my previous post a battle of gigantic proportion has started in our house now that Tompom can escape from his cot, and although I did win the first battle and he did go off to sleep in his cot last night, tonight was a different story altogether.
Tompom decided that he definitely didn't want to go in his cot and he definitely didn't want to go in his bed and he definitely didn't want to go to sleep. What he did want to do is keep coming out of his room and crying for everyone to come and get him. At one stage he launched himself at me from halfway down the stairs whilst i was on the bottom few steps, no wonder I'm going grey!!!. This went on for over an hour and a half and by which time we were both completely exhausted but only one of us was actually asleep. This hasn't been helped by the fact that I've come down with a sore throat and head cold and feel and look as rough as old boots!!!
Rachel and Jack were fabulous during this time and kept themselves amused with a half played game of scrabble and an episode of Waterloo Road. But I just feel guilty most of the time as i never seem to be able to do all the things that everyone would like me to do. Jack keeps asking if i'll play football, rugby, tennis, basketball etc but not only does he want to play these sports properly (i'm not a great one for being tackled to the ground) he always manages to ask me when I'm at my busiest. I did say that I'm going to get out all the old photo's and videos of me playing in the garden with the kids over the years just to prove I'm not the boring old f**t they think I am....... I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels like this and I know it won't last forever but sometimes I wish i could split myself into several more of me and that would make life at lot easier...if anyone has any miracles up their sleeves then please let me know....
right I'm taking my tired, weary old body up to bed now, ready for round 4 tomorrow!!!

Battle of wills!!!

There has been a battle taking place in our house tonight - a battle of wills!!!. the will of a tired 40 year old mum and that of a 2 year old double ginger gened little boy. Tompom managed to climb out of his cot yesterday and did a grand job of landing the right way up and looking very pleased with himself. I was hoping it was an early one-off attempt at escaping but no he has had a taste of freedom and tonight went for it with great aplomb!! face first on the floor. This didn't put him off and although he was shattered he decided he didn't want to stay in bed and climbed out again. I let him come downstairs for a little while thinking he'll be so tired when i put him back he'll just fall asleep. No such luck! Out he came face first again...

I then opted for plan B which was a couple of duvets on the floor and his blankets and toys, that's when the battle of wills commenced and I tried my best supernanny approach - no eye contact, no talking just picking up a screaming wriggly two year old and attempting to put him back into his makeshift bed without him pinching me with his little nipper fingers. This went on for quite awhile back and forth back and forth. Lots of screaming and coughing on his part and lots of silence on my part. We reached an impasse at one stage of the battle with me sitting at the top of the stairs trying to ignore the fact that he was lying in the doorway of his bedroom behind me. Finally when i couldn't ignore him anymore I picked him up and popped him into his makeshift floor bed and he finally stayed there and eventually fell asleep. Hooray I hear you cry 1-0 to the mummy!!! Tomorrow I'm off out to buy a bed and a stairgate for the door and hopefully this battle of wills will be over soon without to much bloodshed!!!

Here a picture of the said Terror Tot looking rather angelic after the bath.......

Blink and you'll miss it...

Did you see it? Boy it was fast....what am I talking about I hear you ask - my week!!! where did it go, one minute it was Monday and now it's Friday. All those things (i.e crafty) that I was going to get done this week because the kids were back at school (well two of them anyhow) just haven't even been started, I did go into my workshop but that was only to quickly grab some bag handles that I had sold in my Misi shop before rushing off and picking the kids up from school and dropping the package off at the post office on the way. I can't decide if I had acheived a great deal this week or not, some housework has been done, some washing and ironing has been washed and ironed and even put away, some last minute swimming costume buying too but there seems to have been an awful lot of chasing a two year old around the garden going on. This must be why I feel completely knackered by 9pm and my brain won't function to even contemplate picking up a needle and thread.
On a positive note the weather has been glorious, the garden is taking shape and I am gradually working through the "TO DO" list. (alright more things get added than crossed off but at least some are being crossed off).
I did find this really fab blog tutorial for anyone that uses Picasa and have changed my blog banner as the picture didn't fit before, this was just a very quick mock up but this new technique means that I can keep updating the banner and maybe even make a new banner for my shops etc You can read Clover Lane's tutorial here. Also her blog is full of stories about family, life and more so go and take a peek. Right that's me done I spent far too much time reading Clover Lan's blog and now its time for bed. Hope you all have a great weekend....

Trying to catch up...

Just a short post from me so say that I am trying to catch up now that the kids are back at school, we had a great time over the holidays and the weather has been just glorious. Suddenly though it was Sunday and thoughts of returning to school were looming, luckily I'd ironed the shirts the week before so it was just making sure that everyone had everything that they needed for PE etc. I did have one last mad dash on the park and ride into town on Monday though to pick up a new pair of school trousers for Jack, another growth spurt and playground games means that the last ones were well and truly ready for the bin. I have so many jobs I want to do at the moment, not just crafty but in the house, in the garden and for the PTA at school but I think I need to make a list and prioritise otherwise I don't think I will manage to get any of them done... Right thats me done for tonight I'm off for an earlyish night ready to make my list tomorrow...problem is I know as soon as I lay down I will be thinking of all the things I want to put on my list and won't be able to sleep. Why does that always happen???

Fabulous Family Fun - Tilbury Fort

Today we decided to visit Tilbury Fort, none of us have been before, although I do remember as a small child standing on the sea wall outside watching the big ships go past and seeing the guns on the other side of the fence. Tilbury Fort has an amazing history dating back to 16th century, the first fort was built by Henry VIII. As you can see the weather was glorious but a little windy. When you arrive at the fort you get given a free audio guide and can listen to lots of interesting facts about what happened here during WWII. Below is the parade square and you can really imagine a Dill Sergeant shouting out orders to the men.

Here are Rachel and Jack finding out lots of information on their audio guides.

Because of the way is was built and all the underground storage magazines for the ammunition there were plenty of hills to roll down.

This was Jack's favourite part, the wooden bridge, but sadly you can't actually walk on it now due to health and safety but apparently it used to be the entrance to the fort and you also used to be able to pay to fire one of the guns!!! how cool would that have been!

We enjoyed our picnic in the grounds and the kids spent over three hours running up and down and in and out of tunnels and looking at memorabilia. We spoke with the young girl on the ticket desk and found out that she has actually lived at the fort since she was nine, and that three families live at the site in the officers quarters, that must have been a fantastic childhood growing up here, but maybe a little spooky at night though!!!
Once we had completely worn ourselves out we bought some ice-creams and headed for the sea wall to see some huge ships coming down the Thames and into the docks.
All in all its been a fabulous day today, everyone is suitably shattered and its early nights all round....

Humility

I was going to write a post about our trip out this afternoon to our local museum and how much of a handful our youngest had been, (he's doubled up on the ginger gene me thinks!!) But then I read Mary Poppins' post about dealing with the loss of her beautiful son Joshua and it made me reason how lucky I am to have three healthy and happy children, so this is a change from the intended post and is just three pictures of my beautiful children.....

a wonderful surprise - Tomas

a terrific tiger - Jack

a generous and loving girl - Rachel

a busy week - part 2

Whilst Ben the Builder was here last week one of his jobs was to put up the guttering on my workshop (one of those jobs that on a list of things to do but never gets done) and whilst he was measuring up he had a quick nosey inside as the last time he had seen this room it was full of canaries.(paul's old birdroom) Not anymore it is now well and truly stuffed with fabric, ribbons and much more!!! I showed him a couple of the bags that I had made and one of them was from the In the Night Garden curtains and he was telling me how much his youngest son loves Iggle Piggle so I thought it only fair that he had a little bag all of his own so this is what I made....
Iggle Piggle on one side....

Maka Paka and the Tombliboo's on the other

I lined it with some fabulous Ikea stripe fabric which gives it a really fresh crisp feel....

Now Ben the Builder has two sons so I couldn't make one without the other, so I found out that Ben's older son has justed started getting into Starwars and made this more grown up drawstring bag for his lightsabre and figures.

Apparently the bags went down a storm.

A busy week - part 1

Its been pretty hectic here over the past week or so but we had some glorious weather and have achieved a lot!! Firstly the builders arrived the first Saturday of the Easter Holidays and worked sooo hard to get all the driveway, patio and landscaping finished. They finally finished at 8pm on Tuesday and boy did they look fit to drop!!! We're extremely pleased with the final outcome and as always with these things details were tweaked along the way to achieve the best result. There's lots of planting to be done and we have already had one trip to the garden centre and have planted up the bed by the gate and have added lots of colour to the pots by the front door.
Here's Paul enjoying the sunshine on his new patio....

The new driveway now has plenty of room for visitors and no more lunchtime parking tickets!!! we live on a no through road close to one of the main routes into London and before the lunchtime parking restriction people who car shared often left their cars in the lane outside, unfortunately due to the parking restriction and lack of space on the old drive both I and friends have been caught out with a nasty £30 fine for parking outside our own house!!!! Not anymore!!!!

The new front step is fabulous (we were really unsure how it would turn out) but it really draws you into the front door.

The house looks sparkling with its fresh coat of paint and all the lead and pipes painted black.

We're still very much in that state of awe you have when something is newly finished and you can't help just looking at it and admiring it and want it all to stay just as it is..... I'm sure that will wear off soon and then we can really enjoy our new patio.....

Easter Egg Hunt & Nits!!!

Our local Country Park holds some great craft/nature days and today was no exception, we were off in search of the Easter Bunny.
It has rained quite a bit over the past few days and we were advised by the rangers to wear wellies and old clothes and boy were they right. It was very squelchy and squidgy but lots of fun. Firstly we picked up our twig pencils (Rachel and Jack loved these and I was on strict instructions to keep them safe to take home) and our clue sheet, then it was off into the woods to follow the Easter Bunny Trail and answer questions on which animals lay eggs. There were a few tricky ones likes snails and worms which we found out today do in fact lay eggs. This trail led us to a tent where we collected our hens eggs to paint and as you can see the kids enjoyed this. Although one little boy (not one of mine thank god) did try to eat his hard boiled egg paint and all!!
Then it was time to grab a spoon and head off on an egg and spoon race and to meet the Easter Bunny.

And this is where we found her and she wished us a Happy Easter and gave the children a creme egg each.

After we had all eaten our creme eggs it was off into the woods to climb trees, walk in streams, jump in puddles and generally get wet, muddy and tired. I think Tompom fell over so many times he gave up worry about it in the end.
I took loads off photos of the kids in the woods and had a great time experimenting with my new camera so when we got home I couldn't wait to upload them to the computer. So Rachel sat at the computer with me standing behind her when I saw that she had a few bits of what I thought were dirt in her hair, on closer inspection I found out it wasn't dirt but that she has nits, big nits!!! So out came the Hedrin and the nit comb and we have all hopefully be deloused!!!!
Hope you all having a very Happy Easter!!
I'm now off to write more clues for tomorrows Easter Egg Scavenger Hunt in the garden...

Colour Swap - here's what I sent.....

I received a lovely email from Lorraine over at FairlyGirly to say that she had received my colour swap gifts so I thought I would just show you what I sent her...
Now Lorraine chose green for her colour but having read through her blog I found out that she also loves purple so I combined the two colours and this is what I came up with...
The bag is made from a fabulous piece of curtain weight fabric that I picked up in a remnant box and it is lined with green and white polka dots cotton fabric.

This is my first attempt at a coaster and I was really pleased with how it turned out.
Purple on one side

Green on the other so Lorraine can choose to suit her mood...

I painted a little heart box with green paint and added a frog button and filled it with green flower and leaf beads which Lorraine is hoping to make into a bag charm for her new bag.

I made this brooch using the same purple and green fabric as the coaster and I couldn't belive my luck when I found this handmade button in the button box in the local charity shopAnd finally some Crabtree & Evelyn body wash and a green butterfly bath bomb.

I've really enjoyed taking part in these two swaps as I love making things specifically for people and have already joined another one.......

Magazine Feature - Easter Mini Tote's

I was really chuffed to receive an email from Avril over at SprinklesSparkles telling me that one of my Easter Mini Tote's has been featured in the latest edition of the online magazine Creative Crafting. The bag below was featured in the Online Street Best Picks section of the magazine.

Check out Issue 4 now.....