another week

This week i have bought another pile of Christmas pressies for the kids, i like to try and get them all bought by the end of November, as December is always really busy, plays, party's, and i have three Gala events as well. They kids have written there lists, Molly seems to have forgotten that the trip we took the other week was part of her present!, we were walking home from school and she was reeling off her even bigger list and i said well you have already had part of your present remember and she blanked me, remember molly, again nothing, eventually she said yes i know! and marched off. She always does that, if she doesn't want to hear something or do something she just blanks it out definitely something she has inherited from Pauls mum. Acctually both the big kids lists are not to big really, i think they have taken on board the trips as presents, i am really trying this year not to go over board with them, as after all i am the one looking for storage for them and most of the time tiding up after them, so really hoping to do away with all the bits that i buy lasy minute every year, to make it look like they have loads of presents and really they don't need, want or even play with!

This was about half of them!

We had a one night pre christmas visit from Elfy Guy, he popped in with a note to tell the kids he is busy and hopes they are being good and will be back when the tree is up! Fred was super excited, he was telling nanna and could barely get the words out. We have been watching videos on youtube where some people have set up cameras to catch the elfs moving, they are so cleverly done.

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We had some time this week at hatters and Alex always goes on the bus but i never put money in, as as soon as i do the other kids all used to jump off, but i thought i would give Alex a go and he loved it moving, he is so different to the others, he is so placid and chilled out and not as prone to major meltdowns, i realized as well while Paul was holding him, they are the spitting image of each other, i bet Paul was just like Alex as a child and i can see they have very similar traits. He definitely is a very good loving little boy

He came to the hairdressers with me on Thursday and despite being there for 4 hours, he was happy just to wander around and watch me with fascination as i had tin foil on my hair!

I do feel sorry for Kerrie though she will have has a few mirrors to clean after we left!

I decided to have another complete change, this is the picture i sent to Paul, as i decided to have one of the colours Paul had chosen, So in the week before i had to keep washing and washing it to get as much of the red out as i could, which meant going out with various shades of pink and a washed out look which wasn't great.

And we have Lavender!!!!!

My little pony hair, we all love it, its nice to have a change

xxx

Remembrance Day

This morning i went to the remembrance service at the local cenotaph, i have been going for years on and off, first as a child representing various groups, Rose Queen, Brownies, Guides and then with my own children, representing various groups and now representing the Gala with the Queen and Princess. Its always such a lovely service, and as an army wife years ago during the Iraq war, there are a few people i think of who lost there lives. Its such an important time to remember and a tradition that i hope continues, which i am sure it will into the future. A local historian recently did some research into the names on our cenotaph and managed to find information on most of the names, where they lived and how they died, i think it helps to bring these people back to life and know they are not forgotten. Its really hard for us now to imagine how it must have been for those men and also for the family's left behind, in a time when they didn't have as much a contact with people, no mobiles, e-mails, internet and would have to wait for letters and reports, even the reporting would have been different, these days you have footage from lots of different people and a better picture of whats going on. Today the rain was bouncing down on us, but it was nothing compared to the story's of being in the trenches

My Grandad was a prisoner of war in the second World war and escaped from his camp in Poland several times being caught and sent back, the final time he got away and walked back from Poland to France to get a boat home. He didn't speak about it much and refused to collect his medals. Once when i was doing a school project on the war at about the age of 7 or 8, we had a list of questions we had to ask people and my Grandad wrote answers, that i can't remember now. I wish i had asked him more, but he died when i was about 12, and my mum said he never really liked to speak about it. I do know this he went away with a full head of hair and when he returned 5 years later he was bald and only about 25, whatever happened must have been extremely bad. I have a brass bowl that he got somewhere on his way back and carried home, i wish i knew where and when, how he got it, but it will always be treasured.

This is our Cenotaph, the pictures were taken on Gala day this year. Before our procession we have a little ceremony where we raise the Gala flag and lay flowers, along with the queens of all the other galas. 

Ewan standing in one of the corners and at the cenotaph. Molly was there somewhere as well. I was back on the gala field getting things ready for the parade.

This years Queen Laura, before she was crowned. 

These are pictures of when i was in the St Andrews Rose Queen, i think about 1989 ish. We were in the lilac dresses. Below i am one the left of the train behind the queen with dark brown hair. So its a tradition that's been going on a while.

Its nice to thing that 25ish years later my children are following the same tradition i did! in the same way. Thats a good thought.

I will have to do some ore research into family that have been in the wars, i have made a start on ancestry, Dad tells me one of his mothers family was quite high up in the army and has a display about him in a museum, or so he was told, so that's what i am looking at currently, will keep you posted about what i find

xx

Life in general recently

I have posted about the different events we have been to recently but lots of other things have been happening...

The Christmas edition of  Good Food arrived, yay, i love this mag and when we had our shop i would always read the Christmas magazines but this was my favorite, its one of the things i miss about having the shop, that i could read the magazines then send them back! but i saw an offer of 5 Good Food mags for £5! bargain. So i signed up as this was mag number 4. Need to remember to cancel it now though. I always read it but usually make something else, that's not in it for Christmas dinner, but just love it!

I really enjoyed altering a wedding dress and blinging it up, for my hairdressers auntie, this is the corsage for her wrist that i made. i often get jobs like this on recommendation from friends, i always enjoy the freedom to alter things and really enjoy it

Lots of Play days! Making train tracks for the boys, we have so many different tracks and sets, take along Thomas, and tack master and for Christmas i am planing on getting Alex a train table, like we don't have enough already!

I still had a full tub of track left after this!!!

Pumpkin carving with Fred

A night out at Blackpool Tower on one of there free party nights!, well free to get in, but the made there money at the bar, Coke £3.00!!!!

More trains!!!

At the park

Dressing up!! Fred preferred Mollys outfit!

Some really warm days, with ice cream (those days are long gone this week, nothing but rain!!)

Brotherly love..aww

Playing shop

Roast winter veg

return on the Sunday roast dinner!

Stripy blanket getting worked on again, it will be finished one day!

Happy kids

So nearly finished star wars jumper, half a sleeve left!!!

Bun decorating

And finally Craft & Chat this morning. I was teaching quilting today

Its getting popular now which is great

Add all this to lots of meetings of various groups and its been really busy.

xxx

Halloween in the Woods

This Halloween i was helping out the friends of Pheasants Wood Group, that i had helped out during the summer with there Fun day, but this time it was organizing there Halloween in the woods event.

I spent the week before making decorations for the woods including these head stones.

And the Bone Hunt

Each bone was hidden along the path, then the kids had to write out the letters, then unscramble them to spell out.....Skeleton!

On the day we lent the group some of the gala equipment and one of the committee had carved out about 50 pumpkins, plus made glowing eyes and milk bottle ghosts and i had made sheet ghosts

The path round the wood looked great these pictures don't do it justice, it was a really great walk for the kids.

We did, apple bobbing and eating donuts danging from string, we had spooky soundtracks playing and i made a bowl of innards (pumpkin scrapings plus oranges) that the kids that to put there hands in to get out a spider to win a prize!

I did face painting, mainly for the adults as most kids had already had painted faces

We had lots of kids turn up and did a fancy dress competition, it was the best fun and i was so glad lots turned up as so much effort had gone into it

After we had packed up and got home i took Molly & Ewan out trick or treating nearby

It was a really great night, another Happy Halloween!!!