Smack smack bad blogger!!

I have had no inclination to blog for ages... for a number of reasons. Decorating has kind of taken over everything at the moment... quite often I haven't been sitting down until gone 10 at night so blogging has been the last thing on my mind. On the 19th I had my wisdom teeth out, so that kind of floored me for a while. I am recovering now... the swelling has gone and the bruising is now so light it can be disguised with make up, so just waiting for the stitches to come out. It is a good feeling knowing that I won't have any more wisdom teeth problems.

I have also been a bit up and down emotionally due to the drugs I have been taking to try and get pregnant. I am on a higher dose than I have taken before and I am struggling with the side effects.... not fun :(

Anyway... I am hoping that I am back for good now... I even managed to scrap 2 LOs last night. This one was a take on this sketch by Jems over at Scrapbook Star.

This LO was done very quickly, and I am really quite pleased with it simplicity... maybe this is a style I need to adopt more often!!!

Anyway... I must go and take advantage of having the house to myself tonight... well the boys are in bed, but Rob is out... a nice hot bath and a spot more scrapping with a bottle of cold diet coke.... gosh I know how to live eh...LOL!!!

I am still alive!

I cannot believe I haven't blogged for two weeks!!! As the school holiday ends I have finally found time to sit and blog. It has been a busy couple of weeks with a house full of children, dh off work for the second week and mum visiting this weekend... busy but a lot of fun. Two of the boys I looked after go back to their childminder tomorrow, which I am sad about as they were a joy to look after and settled really well... the only upside is that I won't have to read the Dora the Explorer book 9 times a day to Elliot...LOL!!! Adam started with me last week, and has really settled in well. I saw his mum in Sainsburys yesterday and she said he had been mithering all day about 'going to Louise's house', awwwwwww... how sweet is that. I will have to be careful with Harry though... he has started to call me 'weese' and not mummy!!!

Yesterday we went to Rhyl for the day with my mum. We had a great day and the boys loved the freedom of the almost empty beach. I took way too many photos, but as this was Harry's first time on the beach since learning to walk it had to be done.

Here are a few shots.

I have been doing a bit of scrapping over the past week... here are a few sneaks as I can't share yet as the work is for sarahscards.

Anyone seen a wandering Mojo???

Because mine has up and gone!!! I sat down last night with hours of scrapping time ahead of me whilst Rob watched some boring bloke thing he had on sky+... and what did I manage to get done??? 1 LO!!! The LO is based on this fab sketch by Jems over at Scrapbook Star... thank gawd for that or I would probably have got nothing done at all!!!The papers are Love Elsie and Sassafrass Lass, and the alphas are a mixture of Heidi Swapp (doesn't do what it says on the tin) self adhesive, Thickers and BG. I replaced the stars on the sketch with the circles from a Queen Kat bubble wrap stamp.

I haven't played along with HS:MS for an age and have really missed it... I went over to have a nosey at today's prompt which is 'stitch'. Not a fabby pic as I still haven't mastered the technique of taking in focus pics of myself... but this is the scar on my neck... after 9 years you can still clearly see a couple of the stitch holes... I think they must have used a darning sized needle to sew me up!!!
I have had a busy busy morning de-pigging the house, floors have all been antibac wiped, carpets have all been hoovered, veg is all chopped and chicken is in roasting as I type... so hopefully the mojo will return this afternoon so that I can do some more scrapping with a break in the middle for LOST.

I will get back to blogging more often... it has been a busy week with Elliot starting with me, and with the school hols for the next two weeks the house will be full of kids, so I may not be around as much until school starts back!!! Probably with grey hair and on Valium!!!

Wiikend is nearly over

On Friday night we set up the Wii and much of our weekend has been spent bowling, monkey balling, playing carnival games and training our brains at the big brain academy! As a result Oliver is fast asleep exhausted from his antics, and Rob and I are aching from muscles we didn't even know we had!!!

I did however manage to get a couple of LOs done last night. The first was using some of the garden photos from Wednesday... I didn't dress Harry in clothes to match the April Scarlet Lime kit... honestly, but OMG how perfect are those papers for that outfit...LOL!!! And yes, I used the crackle glaze from Sarah's Cards again... I think I am truly addicted.

The second LO is of the photo I made Oliver have taken with the dinosaur at Gulliver's. Jems sent me this fantastic chipboard dinosaur which I was dying to use, hence making Oliver stand near a model he was scared of!Right off to finish watching LOST then an early night as I have a 2 year old boy starting with me tomorrow for 3 weeks whilst his usually childminder has a maternity break.
More baby congratulations... this time to Monika, on the arrival of a little baby boy not yet named... hope he brings you much happiness.

Garden time...

We are loving spending time in the garden in this gorgeous weather. I managed to get some great sunny shots of H-Bear this morning. His favourite thing today was pushing his car around and around... it kept him amused for ages, that is until he tried to get it into the sand pit!!! Our sand pit is on a raised area with edging around it, so this was never going to happen... bless him he did try his best, but had to admit to defeat with the mother of all paddies! he threw himself to the floor, kicked and screamed, tore some grass up... then got up and walked away to play in the sand pit as though nothing had happened... LOL!!! Update on the camera from hell situation... it has gone back to Pentax and I have been told I will get a replacement. So all being well, I should have a working camera again soon. I did ask for a refund of the original repair and all the postage costs incurred over the past couple of months... not banking on a result there but you don't get if you don't ask eh?

This morning I got this lovely surprise in the post. My best friend Annie sent this to me... it couldn't have come at a better time to put a smile on my face... thank you so much.

And another thank you to Miss Jems. Thank you for making me smile and laugh, you know what I am on about... got to love the PM system ;)

Not a builder in sight!

HOORAY!!!! No more workmen, no more dirty floors, no more cups with plaster/brick dust/adhesive smeared all over them... our garage conversion is COMPLETE.

I cannot believe that we ever had doubts about losing the garage... our new room is fantastic, and has had such a positive impact on the rest of the house. The unit from Ikea is brilliant as it holds all of the toys that were cluttering the living room... best of all though, Harry hasn't worked out how to open the sliding doors.... yet!

Just a couple of piccies to be drawn to fill the little frames, then get the new tv and Wii in place and we have a fully functioning 'play' room for the whole family... to be honest I think I am more excited about setting the Wii up than Oliver.... LOL!!!

No scrapping been done here as the weekend was spent painting, more painting, flat pack building, and general sorting and cleaning of the whole house... I hate that having one thing done has a knock on effect to the rest of the house... I'm really NOT good at having workmen in!

I am going to do a spot or ironing now, so that tomorrow I can play.

This last photo is a quick snap taken today... is it me, or are there red horizontal lines on it!!!
Edited to add a close up... ok so the lines are feint compared to what they were, but when printed out they are very obvious!

Not happy!!!

I cannot believe I have become such a bad blogger... this week has been mad busy with the builders/plasterers/electrician, and with the weather being so gorgeous I haven't been on the pooter as much as usual. Good news for us is that the garage is no longer a garage, and is now a room, with a window and a door into the hallway. No pics yet, as the flooring will be going down tomorrow, then I can paint, so I will share pics then. It's looking good though :)

More good news for me... I got my camera back this morning, and *touch wood and whispers* it seems to actually have been repaired!!! Not one, not two, but THREE repairs this time... let's just hope that's the end of the problems. So now I can take clear pics again, I decided to pop over to HS:MS... Today's prompt is 'remember', which is kind of poignant for us at the moment. Rob's aunt Hilda passed away yesterday morning, after having a stroke at the weekend. I only met her a couple of times but i can honestly say she was a wonderful woman... the kind of woman you would love to be your grandma. As she lived in South Sea she only met Oliver once when he was a baby, and unfortunately she never met Harry... this LO is a really old one but it is perfect for today's prompt as it will help us to remember the day we went to visit and she met Oliver.

I haven't been scrapping much this week, although I did manage to get this quickly LO done yesterday. I have been wanting to scrap this photo of H-Bear since it was taken last August, but have never found papers just the right shade of blue.... until the Warrington Crop. The Arctic Frog papers in this Sarah's Cards kit were absolutely perfect, and just had to be bought. I used the crackle glaze again... it's not an obsession honest ;) But I am still trying to get it to do small crackles... I don't think it likes my cheapie acrylics... well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!It's only 2 more sleeps until we get H-Bear back... we are all missing him, the house is just so calm and quiet without him... it's just not right! Oliver has had a great week though being able to play in peace with his toys without destructo-boy trampling over them just for the fun of it. And he is still going on about all the rides and the dino dig at Gulliver's World, so I think he really enjoyed his day there.

The first ride he went on was the pirate ship, which he loved. I am really proud of him for going on it as he is usually a bit of a mard for things like this.

Photo number 2... you WILL have your photo taken with the dinosaur, I have gorgeous chipboard dinosaurs that Jems sent me, that I have to use... I don't care if you're scared... just smile for gawd's sake!!! (I am such a cruel mummy)

OK so if I had known I would have got my dinosaur shot, I wouldn't have subjected you to the T-Rex torture ;)

This morning I went to see him do his assembly play of the Hungry Caterpillar. Oliver had to say the line On Wednesday he ate through 3 plums, and hold up his painting of 3 plums... which I am proud to say actually looked like 3 plums!

Right, I better go and make the house ready for Freya's arrival in about 1/2 an hour... be back to blog hop later:)