Summer Holidays Part 1

The holidays have actually gone a lot faster than i thought they would with having four kids at home 24/7 and i have to say i have actually enjoyed it. I am not going to say there haven't been any moments of whinging and "I'm board" but on the whole the kids have been really lucky this year as without having the shop anymore we have been able to do much more than in previous years and Paul has been able to spend days and some weekends off with us which has been nice.

We have had so many days out its hard to remember which order but here are some of the highlights of the first part of the holidays.

Ice skating is something the kids love and we are lucky as we have an Ice rink that was built a few years a go really near us, however its really expensive so i am always on the look out for special offers and this time they were offering "£3 quid a kid" for the morning session so it was a bargain. My mum looked after the little ones so Paul and i could both go on the ice and spend time with the big kids and my niece Chloe came as well.

We have a Childrens Centre attached to the primary Schools the kids go to and they run all sorts of clubs during term time some that i take Fred and Alex to. During the Holidays they have been running lots of days out with activity's at all different locations around where we live. One of the ones we attended was a forest club at Stanah estuary where we go quite a bit anyway, but with the activity's for all the different ages its been great and its all free. It was every Wednesday for three weeks.

 They have a lovely little new park that is just for toddlers

 The Den building was for the older kids but Fred couldn't resist joining in! they also did bark rubbings and made mud faces on the sides of trees!

 They had mats set up all over with different sensory activity's and crafts

 And a treasure trail list of things to find.

We enjoyed going to them.

We had to have some days at home and as Fred is now a big Thomas fan i decide to bring Ewans old Tracks and trains out of storage. This was a real hit and kept them all busy for days. It was amazing though that the amount of hours Ewan spent on them he only vaguely remembered the different sets them and Molly didn't remember them at all. I had put them away two years ago as Ewan wasn't playing with them anymore and i didn't want them to get damaged. Ewan was completely addicted to thomas and trains when he was younger spending hour upon hour creating different tracks and watching them go round, even now he still loves it when we go and watch the heritage trains. So bringing them all out again was a blast from the past, it was like them getting a new toy. I did hold a few things back though as they will go with Freds Christmas pressie that i have already brought so in some ways its good the kids don't remember everything.

 I was glad i had kept the instructions despite having put it all together a million times i still needed them.

 At first Fred was a little bit scared of the battery operated train going round on its own ad would not go near it, but after about an hour when the others were getting stuck in he soon over came it.

Even Alex was parked up to enjoy watching it.

We had other days of going to the park or to nanas house and playing with cousins. We also had three children move in next door who seem to have other family round all the time so usually about 9 or 10 kids on the street most days for the kids to play with, though as much as i love kids playing out not sure how i feel about the neighbors family playing out at 10pm at night when my kids are trying to sleep but hopefully once the hols are over it will settle down. We have been to other play centers as well as Madhatters. Every where we have go i have took my knitting or crochet but to be honest watching four in sometimes very busy surroundings it was just to difficult so although i have been crafting its just not much so lots of WIP! As we only have a few weeks left of the holidays i am starting to think about new designs for hats as i want to do as many fairs as i can this winter.

Anyway that's all for now i will sort out the photos from the other holidays days out, well the ones i took pictures of as sometimes we are just to busy enjoying the moment x

In the night Garden

It seems all children love Iggle and upsie so that was what i decided to do for my new hats.

So here we are

I see Iggle looks a bit evil on this picture but its just the way it bent slightly. I had noticed that all my pictures looked a bit dark and dismal but after messing about with my camera i realized it was on the wrong settings and had been for quite a while so hopefully now its fixed it will look sunny again.

We were at The cinema yesterday as it was such a grey rainy day and we went to see The Lego Movie so i think that will be my next hat.

Back to my Sunday afternoon lazy hooking session x