AWOL

Hi all,

I am sorry I haven't been visiting your blogs in the last few weeks!! I have tons of college work to plough through, but its all my own fault I am doing a 2 year course in 1 year, to old to be hanging around so I want to get as much experience and qualifications as I can now!!!

My Internet also went crazy for a few days, things would open and then disappear, freaked me out, but Steve sorted!!!

Steve also updated my computer so I now have Vista running, taking awhile to get used to the difference.

Some really happy news ....
After Easter I have been asked at school to be a Nursery Nurse (don't let the name put you off, it is just what they are called in our school, it is exactly what I am going to college for, you will hear the name Early Years Practitioner a lot more in the future) full time, so I am going to be looking after 12 children all day, HEAVEN I really can't wait, even though it does mean that I won't have a lot of spare time as my college course will be drawing to an end too!!! This is only for the summer term, but as the Head said you never know what might happen come September, always plays her cards close to her chest, lol!!!

xxxx

Not a lot to report!

Today was supposed to be Chloe's birthday celebration with her friends! She came to me this morning at about 7:30am and told me she had just vomited and that she had a headache. When I felt her forehead she was burning up! So I gave her some medicine and she went back to bed!

I rang her friends at 9:00am and told them that Chloe was ill and that everything was cancelled. I feel so sorry for Chloe as she was so looking forward to this weekend. I even took her late night shopping on Thursday so she could get some clothes out of her birthday money and vouchers! I booked her into the hairdressers on Friday evening so she could get her hair done. Chloe was going ice-skating with some friends who were then coming back to our house for a girly sleepover. It was another of Chloe's friends birthday tomorrow and I was bringing the girls to the party! Chloe has spent most of the day asleep, I don't think she will even make her friends party. I am sure it is the flu that she has, poor lamb.

On a crafting side, I have being taken photos and making notes for my DDA album, but I have decided to get stuck in and make some Christmas cards. I have just completed 30 cards for my kids at school. I am waiting for the glitter to dry and will take some pics tomorrow. I have done a very simple stamped image.

Tomorrow I am going to make a Wedding card, Christmas and birthday cards. Hopefully that will be the end of cards for a while and I can get back to scrapbooking, catching up in forum and blog land and my DDA album.

That's all for now!

Flabbergasted .....

I went to Paper Paradise yesterday to meet up with Tracey. Tracey told me I had just missed Micayla by 10 mins!!! I was bummed twice over as she had Emily with her!!!

Anyways I had recently won an RAK on her old blog, and she had dropped it off at the shop for me.

Well ya know me, no patience what so ever, so I opened it there, OMG the stash that she put into it is just stunning, I love all of it. Tracey and me were ouuuing and ahhing over it. I won't post a pic as I think it's rude, but I do want to publically thank her and what a better place than my blog to do so! Micayla has been so generous with what she put into the box. And all for leaving a comment on her blog, which I do all the time anyways.

Also that special piece that you put in Micayla, will go towards a layout of my Nan, my Nan was very special to me so I think the two will be perfect together, thank you so much Micayla for parting with it, it is truly stunning!!!!

Visit Micayla's Old blog here - Just a girl dreaming ....
and
her new blog here - Home a place for love, happiness and art

What a time I have had ......

Monday night Aimee woke up vomiting and this went on every half hour. I think I got about 2 hours sleep if that. I had work in the morning and it was a full day due to an College Observation by my lecturer, so I had to go. I also had college that night. Dh wasn't feeling too good himself so he stayed off work on Tuesday. Aimee was still vomiting. I got a very good report from my lecturer, and to be honest I think I went on auto pilot.

Then Wednesday DH really wasn't feeling good, he also started vomiting. So that was two down with the bug. So that was Aimee and DH not eating. Wednesday night Chloe started vomiting, so that was 3 down. I was running around cleaning up, going to work and cooking food that no-one was eating.

On top of all this I had a lot of assessments and write ups to do for college. I manged to get all this done on Wednesday night, yeah!!! Even though I did stay up until about 3:00 am!!!

Everyone is back to normal today, thank goodness. I have managed to do some crafting, but alot of it I can't show, as those who are receiving it read my blog! So once Christmas is over I will post up pics of all that I have made.

So I apologise if I haven't visited your blog lately, but I have been up to my eyes in it. Over the next few days I am hoping to catch up with everyone.

Aimee at a friends party

This post is another memory keeper!!! I like this blogging as it is a whole lot better than keeping a written diary!

Aimee was invitied to a party this afternoon at a children's play area called Play Towers, it's filled with soft climbing, slides, tunnels and all sorts. Children love it, Aimee certainly did! A quick snap of Aimee during the birthday lunch.

I know I shouldn't but I can't help seeing the differences between Chloe and Aimee at the same age. We arrived at Play Towers a little early, and we couldn't see any of Aimee's friends. Aimee took off her coat and boots and said "here mum, I am going to have a look to see if I can find anyone". Sure enough she found a couple of class mates that were already playing. For the whole time she came to me once when she scrubbed her elbow on a slide, a quick kiss and she was off again. They this huge black slide, I have been down it and it is very fast and really high up, lots of climbing to get to it. Aimee went down this slide I don't know how many times!!! At this age Chloe would of clung to me until she had seen her friends and would of kept comming back to check that I was still there! Amazing the confidence differences between the two, I have always tried to get the girls to be more confident and out going, as I was very shy at Chloe's age. Chloe now isn't shy at all! I have two very confident girls on my hands now, God help me!!!!

Assembly and dentist

Just a little journaling tonight!!! A memory that I want Aimee to remember!

Today was Aimee's first assembly in St Joseph's! I knew Aimee had a few lines to say! "If we don't wash our hands properly we will pass the germs from our hands to our food and then to our stomachs which will make us ill", little miss had all this learnt off in the first evening she brought it home. The school nurse had given them a talk on how to wash hands properly and brought in the germ seeing machine!!! A little black box with a ultra violet light, which highlights the germs on your hands.

The children have also been learning about families, they have been reading books about the Large Family (Family of elephants, funny books), drawing and painting their families. They then picked one of the books "A piece of Cake" to act out. My Aimee was the narrator! She had a whole load of lines to say, and she only stumbled once!!! I can't believe how confident she is! No nerves, smiling all the time!!! This assembly was a pleasure to watch! For a treat their teacher baked them a chocolate cake for them to have! As the children were filing back out of the Hall, Mrs Keys said "I'd better take this cake with me, what do you think will happen if I leave it here?", children answered back the "mummies and daddies will eat it". Aimee piped up and said "you don't have to worry about my mummy, she won't eat it, she doesn't like cake" LOL and of course she said it sooo loud everyone could hear! LOL

Unfortunately Aimee's school is one of the ones that doesn't allow photos or videos, so this blog is even more important now, as all I have are these words from her assembly!

Then I dashed off to pick up Chloe for her appointment at the orthodontic clinic!!! Just made it with a few minutes to spare. We found out that her brace wasn't working properly, Chloe has to use a "key" to click on the brace twice a week to tighten up the brace! So the last 6 weeks nothing was happening!!!!

I managed to sneak into Tesco's after that and pick up a little something for Tracey, I hope she has fun with it, it should help with using up all those scraps from the December a Day Book that we have decided to do! WHY, OH WHY? do I do these things, it's not like I don't have enough to do already, haven't even started on Christmas cards yet!!!! But it looked like such a brilliant idea and excellent memory keeper!

That's it! I am actually going to start on some cards tonight, I have to, lol!!!!

No crafting but a lot of puking, lol!!!

Sorry about the title but couldn't resist!!!!

We all set off for a normal day on Monday, when I got home after work, I found Dh at home and he frightened the life out of me! Aimee's school had rung him to fetch Aimee home as she vomited after eating her lunch, the poor lamb was sound asleep on the sofa when I got home! Dh then took Tuesday and Wednesday off and brought her to the doctor on Wednesday, she gave her a through check up and told him it was a bug that was making the school rounds at the moment!! Aimee was vomiting, coughing and running a high fever for the last few days. I took Thursday off and Thursday evening I caught the bug, so I have been off today and kept Aimee off with me even though she is on the mend, she doesn't have her full appetite back yet. I am feeling a better now, so I am hoping to get some crafting done tonight, fingers crossed!

Welcome Charlotte!

Dh's sister has given birth to a baby girl on Wednesday evening!!!! Yipee a new baby to oooh over!!!! We will be calling to them in a couple of weeks as we want to give them some time to spend with Charlotte and let Oliver get to know his little sister!!!

Well done Jo!!!!!

xxxx

Just a little note!!

There was a few tears from Aimee on the bus this morning. As I had dropped off Aimee at school yesterday morning she got a little scared when Chloe got off at her school this morning!! But once she got to school she settled down and had another great day!!! She now understands that Chloe gets off at her school and she stays on until she gets to hers!! Bless!! It was a lot to take in - travelling on a bus, new school, new building, new rules, new teachers, new classmates!!! I am still very proud of her!!!! xxxx

Phew!!!!

Okay I have spent the last 3 nights trying to sort out my blog!!! I have half way looking decent at the moment, so I am stepping away from the editing and leaving it alone! I know my header is a bit stretched will fix it later.

Today saw Chloe starting her second year of high school. Looking forward and not nervous!!! Basically that's all I have to report, when she came home and I asked how was school "FINE" she says, and then I draw some blood as I was asking were all her friends back? "Yeah", did they go anywhere exciting "Some", you get the drift!!! She got some Geography homework. Which she did straight away while waiting for dinner to cook!!! Bless!

It also saw the start of me working from 9:00am to 1:00pm 5 days a weeks as a permanent part-time TA, lol what a mouth full. This is defiantly the place I want to be in until ....... I win the lotto!!!!!

My little Miss is starting a whole new adventure tomorrow!!! She moves schools and will be traveling on a bus to and from!!!! I am bringing her to school tomorrow morning, well it is her first morning and she is going to a whole new school, new building, new teachers, new pupils, new rules, etc ..... okay it's for me, Aimee would quite happily get on the bus tomorrow morning without another thought, its her soft mum that wants to bring her to school on her first day, and then be a nervous wreck waiting for her to come home in the evening, Yes I know Chloe will be with her on most of the bus journey!!! Aimee is soooo excited to be going on a bus and to a new school, she is just so confident for a 4 year old, it's quite scary really!!!!!

I leave you with some pics of Chloe on her first day back!

BBC2 - My first job

I got my first job when I was 17, I left school early and went to work in the above Fishing Lodge.
I was breakfast helper, washing dishes, waitress at night and I lived in!!! When any of the room staff were off sick or they were short I helped here too!! Work was hard, I was young, pay was so so!!!! It was an experience ... I found that I could relate to customers and they relate back to me, so this is where I learnt people skills!!!

I just had a nosey on the web so see if I could find pics, I was surprised that I found some and that they have their own website, if you click here you can actually see the Website.

TFL
xxx

I'm Back Online!!!!

Over the last few days I have had no Internet connection, and I have been getting withdrawal systems, I never want to go cold turkey again!!!!

I want to say sorry to the players of the BBC2 as I haven't been able to comment on their blogs!! Luckily I had scheduled quite a few of my entries for BBC2 and I see they have been posting away!!! So at least I don't have them to catch up on!!!!

I will be catching up on all my fav blogs, forums, etc over the next few days!!!!

xxxx

A Venture Experience .......

NEVER TO BE REPEATED!!!

Quote from an earlier post in March:-

"On Saturday we went on a photo shoot. I hate having my photo taken, but I must say the photographer really put me at ease and I actually quite enjoyed it ...... the part where the girls got their photos taken on their own and individually LOL. Unfortunately we will only be getting the "free" framed 7x5 photo that comes with the package as the prices start from around £300 for a couple of 4x4 inch photos in a frame!!! Dh is going back to pick out the photo, cause it will break my heart to see all the fantastic photos I know he has taken!!! Seriously thinking of booking a proper photographer and getting him to do the same kind of shots, and then I could justify spending £300 on a full set of photos!!! - Unquote

Tonight we went to see the results even though I wasn't going to go, I decided to tag along and keep my mouth shut!! We were lead into a room with couches and a big screen and music playing to show us our photos. We were shown about 20 photos and to be honest I actually found it hard to pick 4 photos that I liked.

The shots were of sides of heads, bleached out faces, eyes closed, squashed noses (group photo), over coloured hair, the list goes on.

There were two shots of Chloe (two moody shots) that I liked and two of Aimee (she wore her Princess Belle dress and looked adorable, and one of her lying on the floor looking up at the photographer as she was explaining her Puppies In My Pocket toys, except for the hair colouring which was orange and really bleached out face) there was one of me and the girls which I kinda liked and there was one of Steve and the girls.

We wanted a family shot so we picked the best of what they showed us!!!! The lady said oh so you like traditional shots were no one is moving, I replied No I like photos were you can see all of the faces, I am sorry but I don't want to hang a photo of a back of a head or half a face or where it looks like the person is falling down the side of the photo (KWIM). I would of loved for some of the shots to have shown all the faces so you could actually see who was in the photo!!! If that is traditional than yes that's what I like. Like come on why would you pay all that money and not even see who is in the shot "Oh yeah that's the back of Chloe's head, liked the way her hair looked in that shot" I could understand if it was a part of 3 shots. What am I on about? One of the photos was of Chloe and Aimee, Aimee was posed beautifully smiling beautifully and Chloe was giving her a kiss on the cheek, except all you could see was the back of Chloe's head. If this was part of 3, one of Aimee kissing Chloe, the two of them looking at the camera and then one of Chloe kissing Aimee I could understand, but never would we of been able to afford to buy a series of those shots anyway!!!

Oh we didn't get the hard sell, lol, she could see we were not impressed so she didn't even try!

I am sorry if you have had the Venture Experience and love those kind of shots, this is my blog and this is my opinion.

Is it because I take so many photos myself and I am very critical of them, only choosing the ones that show off the people in them to their best and discarding the rest (backs of heads, over exposure, etc) I have always loved cameras and photos (the ones without me in them), I was always the one growing up in our family who kept photos in albums and when got old enough got to use the camera and take the photos (cameras weren't as common then and getting them developed cost a lot of money), I don't know, but the photos we looked at today would be ones that I if I took would not be happy with them..... I still say photos that you can recognise the people in them are my kind of photos!

Candid shots are fab sometimes, like when you photograph children walking away from you, or a mum and a dad looking at a newborn baby, or baby feet and hands, or when children's heads are together and they are plotting something or you catch a speacil moment and the subjects don't notice, yes I like these shots I take a lot of them, or wedding shots where the photographer takes a lot of candid shots, but the photographer also takes a lot of traditional shots that are posed and you get the choice of picking what you want. But for me when you want a family group shot and you are only getting the one, yes I would like to see all the faces.

Thanks for reading my rant, as I said I don't like getting my photo taken, but with all the hype I thought it was going to be sooo hard to pick a photo, I was so disappointed with struggling to find one that we liked!!! So it will be back to Hull in 6 to 8 weeks to pick up the photo as everything is "handmade".

xxxx

Rushmoor Park

A family day trip was arranged through the school and the Extended schools project on Saturday 14th June! We were going to visit Rushmoor Park, about an hours journey away from us! Again the day wasn't great lots of heavy showers - BLAH!!!! but we were lucky, we were inside when the shower came, and we were just getting on the coach to go home when it rained again, the rain kept away for the rest of the day, we even managed to picnic sitting on our raincoats on the grass!

We were treated to a birds of prey demonstration, the children were allowed have a little owl land on their arms, and of course Aimee was the first to say she wanted ago, I swear that child has no fear!!!!! I thought the display was fantastic!!!!! Then we went and saw some more of the animals lots of chickens, rabbits, swans, ducks, geese, guinea pigs, budgies, pigs, cows, sheep, lambs, ducklings all the usual animals!

The children were also treated to bottle feeding the lambs!!!

Towards the end of the day, we decided to go back into the little animals, rabbits, guinea pigs, and rats, bad move, as Aimee stuck her finger into the cage and got bitten, (as I said she has no fear and she had gotten used to touching the other animals, even though she was told not to put her fingers in, more for the fact that I can't stand rats!!!) OMG the amount of blood that flowed from the cut was frightening, the staff managed to get the bleeding to stop and put a plaster on it. When we got home I brought her to A&E just in case and I wanted it checked out properly! She has been put on a course of penicillin for a week 4 times a day! Aimee was fine once the shock had worn off and the bleeding stopped at the hospital, were we spent over 2 in a half hours, she was brilliant let the nurse give it a good clean and put the plaster on. We have to go to the doctors in 3 days for them to remove the plaster and take a look at it!!!! and don't believe that she won't put her finger back in a cage, cause I can nearly grantee that she will. LOL

Even though she got bitten when she was asked she said she still loved the day and had a fantastic time!!! We all did!!!

Here are some of the photos I took!

WARNING THERE ARE A LOT OF PHOTOS!!!!

Do you remember the FIRST KISS post!!! I don't think the little girl would of kissed this one, lol!!!

The bite!!!!

TFL through all the photos!!!!!
xxxxx