Catch up

It has been yet another week of solid activity around here.

I spent most of the week in a mad flurry of food shopping before the long weekend, sorting sponsorship forms for Chloe's sponsored bounce (99 bouncy castle bounces in a minute), cooking a couple of extra meals for the days when I'm completely zonked over the long weekend and unsuccessfully dodging big fat rain and hailstones.

Saturday didn't see any time for relaxing either. Robert had planned to take us to The Outlet in Banbridge for a bit of retail therapy (I must look absolutely dire if he's offering to take me clothes shopping). Banbridge is about an hour away by car and of course every parent knows that means ten minutes of "mummy, look at the cows/sheep/horses" followed by 50 minutes of "mommy, are we there yet/there yet/there yet".

We had a pretty good morning all in all and managed to pick up a few bargains and I nabbed two gorgeous pairs of trousers from Olson for £10 each reduced from £85 thank you very much:) I got my long craved for Starbucks.

It's strange that one thing that really isn't that great, I mean lets be honest here, Starbucks isn't exactly something to write home about there is a lot of much better coffee to be found, but even so the only thing I've missed about working in Belfast is a venti latte with 3 extra shots and a cinnamon whirl drizzled with lemon frosting. I'm telling you, I forgot just how big those cups really are.

We eventually drove home around 1pm and stopped at a cafe to pick up some lunch because Robert wanted to treat me by not having me cook lunch (I think he might be cheating on me), arrived home and had just settled down to eat when the phone rings and it's my mum checking we're home. I told her we were and would call round as soon as we finished eating.

Ten minutes later the phone rings again and Chloe answers it. She listens to my mum for a few minutes before hanging up and announcing that my dad is on his way to our house with our new sofas and to have the old ones in the driveway and ready to go to the dump. And then she added "You just can't get a minutes peace around here", which just goes to show how much running around we've done this week.

So I have my new sofas, I can finally start decorating the living room and I'm sitting here now waiting on a handful of people turning up to collect a few things I've popped on freecycle to make a bit of space.

But at least I did manage to find some time to make three badges for the Folksy Badge Competition with a chance to win a year's free listings.




Which reminds me, I just can't believe that my tiny little baby girl who was born less than a minute ago will be finishing P1 in four weeks. Where has this last year gone?

One of those weeks

It really has been.

I've been hopping back and forth to the pooter when I get a few minutes to myself, but just don't seem to have found the time to blog. I've tried and have half a dozen barely started unfinished posts waiting for just a few more minutes.

Robert seems to have been working constantly lately which means that I've taken the role of the two income single parent.

I'm honestly not complaining, just trying to keep the house below the chaos barrier for him arriving home and at least I know that it's just because the company he works has a pile of new contracts and it's just been a matter of "all hands on deck" until everything is up to scratch, then things will settle back down again.

I did find time to chop off most of my hair though, so that's good:)

Edit to include a blurry blackberry photo of the new do because ask and ye shall receive:)


And now if you'll excuse me I have to change the water in the fish tank before the fish start making a bid for freedom.

I do hope you're having a lovely, more relaxing weekend. But can I ask that when you're doing something really nice like curled up on the sofa with a huge coffee and the papers or taking a walk somewhere (because the sun has even come out today), can you spare a thought for muggins here, scraping the green gunk of the glass of the fish tank?

So this is what my blog looks like!!

We're hopefully now in the gentle slide down to Christmas and almost two weeks of blissful relaxation and cake eating.

We're all still here, including Chloe

Note to self, Leanne your phone is so old you might as well still be calling an operator and asking to be patched through. Stop using it to take photos!!!

I wrapped a few of Chloe's presents this morning and popped them under the tree. Obviously that's just asking for a whole world of pain but it had to be done eventually. A presentless tree is a sad looking sight indeed.

Chloe decided a few months ago that she doesn't like Play Doh any more. She packed it all into it's carry case, handed it to me and told me to give it away. Being the clever mummy that I am, I put it out in the garage instead. Usually when she decides that she doesn't like something, she's asking for it again in a week or so. I put the stuff out there almost three months ago now.

Anyway, I dug it out again last night and made a bunch of these little fellas. Hopefully the Play Doh will see a bit more action for a while.

They remind of me that Stretch Armstrong thingy from years ago. You can stretch them and squeeze them and pull them out of shape and they spring right back again, a bit like little stress balls only for a stress free four year old.



I've seen a ton of tutorials for these all over the place, but basically you just use Play Doh to stuff balloons and then draw little faces on them and top them with a pom pom for hair. You could use googly eyes too, if you happen to have them lying around.

Here they are all packed up inside the bag I got her from Nicsknots.



We have some good news too, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow.