days of snotty noses and no sleep
Little Pip has had another cold. The poor little mite has been grumpy for a few days without outward shows of anything at all apart from a tiny little tooth peeping through. 4am wakenings were put down to that. But at the weekend, the snot came. and came. Still coming on Monday. He's lots better now and much more obedient in the sleep department I am gald to say.
Friday held a wonder of delights - the school Quiz Night. I had been before with some friends and had a good time. I laughed loads and argued loads too about obscure questions and probable answers. This time I did much the same except with more alcohol. We came 7th out of 23, as I keep saying to anyone who will listen 'none to shabby' - what a total arse I am.
Sadly the after effects of drinking the alcohol hit me hard on Saturday, throwing into disarray many of the normal Saturday things - me going to footie, me looking after Pip whilst the boys go to tennis, the bigger boys going to Luton footie - I awoke from uneasy slumbers after several attempts at normality at around 12:45. Hubby was downstairs in a maelstrom of disorganised activity trying to plan around my absence, he did brilliantly. After 2 horse pill ibuprofen i started to feel normal, vowing to never let a drop of alcohol touch my lips again.
Sunday saw the crop - lovely to get away from the four walls and look at another four walls, actually got something done and more plans on the way.
no photos, just whitterings today.
I have a flickr account though - user name is toniann, there are lots of photos on there.
avoidance strategies
what to do with a spare afternoon
take cheesy shots of the kids in the house who have not gone to footie. The light was appalling and everywhere was a mess but the lure of the Xmas booties & hat were too great.
Yup that's a baby on the table
I'm off the learn how to do a Gaussian Blur on the background so I can blur out my pigsty of a house.......
big plans thwarted be sleeping baby
It's 1999 and Tiddly is 16 weeks and getting his first experience of the pants machine, note his suprised expression. And look at me! don't I look the boss-eyed dream?
what was I thinking (again)
I just thought this was so fab for a little football player - a commemoration of their first year in competitive football and so so cheap (the frame is from Ikea and was £2.50 or so, the prints were 20p each), it will also help with my portraiture under pressure!
And a lovely piece of news is that Marja will be able to use all her pink stash on girly layouts, as she is expecting a little baby girl :)
oh and Sharon may soon have an up and running website for her photography - will keep you posted (all you hundreds of readers ;) )
a tough day in baby world
Oh yes baby, gotta love internet shopping
and so i bought this
in all its French loveliness - it's probably like a Wilkinsons bag for life except I've paid a bunch of cash for it. I'm hoping that the website understood that it was meant to come to good old Blighty - a message pop up stating 'you do realise this is going out of France don't you' or words to that effect never strike a wholly positive note. Thank you for your input ladies :)
In other matters oldest son has scammed a day off school feigning sickness - I even took him to school and stood him outside his class door, but he maintained the sickness bravado so I let him have the benefit of the doubt. He was standing over the toilet this morning complaining of wanting to be sick. Kind of ruined my day though, how inconsiderate of him!! I was going all sorts of places and was also going to gym, have paid for the creche and everything.
Will take a photo of his sick mush later and I'll cast a poll on whether he's a good faker or the real deal ;)
so, which one would you get
Unknown to her, Marja has unleashed the dormant handbag fetishist in me. I completely love handbags, beyond all comprehension and need. I am loving this one from 
elisalou what colour combinations would you choose?
I do like the one in the picture, but it's not like I can get it - it's $52 incl shipping,
that's the cost of the TTT Kit 
or this darling bag from Lamarelle in France.
What is a girl to do?
I am off to wash floors, hoover, make lists, faff, go to Post Office (Marja!), Iron, maybe go to Dunelm, look at the Donna Downey books a bit more (she's the Queen of Mini Albums)
bloody html
cute, teething or both?
How times change (trick or treat variant)
Last night was a bit of a Halloween let down really, Tiddly was out with the Beavers getting bored on a scary walk in our local and very dark at night park & Hubby was out firstly at footie training and then straight to the football match. So it was me, Munch and Pip against the world in terms of general Halloween excitement.
One thing I didn't do, that in retrospect was mean and rotten, was get a pumpkin. Every year since Tiddly was tiny I've carved a pumpkin and put it in the hall. This year I thought - 'oh I shan't bother seeing as Tiddly is out' - what about the two other little people in my house? don't they count? Luckily for me they are generous, forgiving and totally didn't realise I hadn't done a pumpkin (well I'd drop down in a dead faint if Pip mentioned I hadn't done one and that I was a meany seeing as is only 8 months old).
So we saw in Halloween with about 10 door knocking and lots of sweeties given away by the Baby Darth Vader. He feels he misses out on so many things being 3 years younger - it's hard for him to accept that he is still too little for a lot of this stuff.
I made some buttons out of Makins Clay and my Cherry Arte stamps last night - the first ones were rubbish but later ones were getting funkier and funkier as time went on. I will def make more, esp as the imprinting using the stamps is such a good idea. I bought some tiny cookie cutters from Tchibo and they should make some wicked Xmas tree decorations. I might get the boys involved to make a 2006 decoration and we'll keep on doing it each year to see how far we get.
I've discovered a site called Action Central where you can get really deeply cool PS Actions that funk up your photos big time. The first pic os the original and the second has had Urban Acid applied to it - love how it treats the colours of Pip's coat.
I am still very into reading Alicia Paulson esp as she sets up lovely little photoshoots of her home. I'm almost ordering from Cath Kidston every time I read it.
went to the park today
with one happy boy
one a bit sulky boy
a crazy dog and its owners (who I won't post a pic of as I don't have their permission)
had a good time, although I did a lot of shouting which wasn't a good idea as I had a big headache. We got stuck in Bedford on the way back and although I didn't have a clue where I was going I went through a few sidestreets and I found myself back on track (but still in a queue).
Had a major scrapping opportunity tonight but watched old CSI episodes instead. Not feeling creative - I'll feel all creative again when I haven't got any time.
A busy weekend is planned with scrapping on Sunday afternoon (incl our footie team live on Sky) along with Church reading on Sun morning and a halloween party Sun evening. Saturday is sports day with U8's footie in the morning and tennis in the afternoon.
I'll be glad when Monday comes and it all calms down again and I will look forward to seeing my boys at the end of a school day and won't want to strangle them for fighting and shouting.
I am keenly awaiting a new camera mag - out in Nov - Digital SLR - am hoping it will transform my purely mediocre photography into little gems of perfection each and every time. I'm too tired to even write a denigrating comment about my rubbish pics - and if it comes to that time it means I need sleep :)
goodnight and adieu (oh I must rem to post about a totally 'need that' bag I am going to order...)
A Nice Hour Spent
I've just spent a while gazing again at a newly found blog/shop. I am a big sucker for that folksy, laura ashley faded charm style of things - although with 3 little boys the clutter and eclectism of it doesn't suit our househild at the moment. It is something that I am warming to. A lot.
So the blog is Pozy gets Cozy and her shop is linked into her blog. Her name is Alicia Paulson. Check out her links - a huge list and very wonderful. I am so digging her felted flowers and am currently begging friends for old jumpers as we don't wear them here in Sunny Beds!!
I may get my material down and just start doing stuff - maybe for the Church Xmas market, maybe just for me....
heart attack city
seriously sick pc last night and most of today. My impatient self decided to not wait for a frozen Windows to sort itself out, oh no - that would mean far too much sitting and waiting. Instead I decided on the 'unplug from mains' option - usually the domain of the male impatitents.
Rebooted to find a sick pc with an 'mountable_boot_volume' and big blue screens.
Woke up to find that this remained when booting up (I secretly hoped a night cooling down would fix it - as in 'computer heal thyself'). But no. Panic. Ten thousand photos down the tubes.
Texts, phone calls and general calling in of favours and asking big favours ended up with me having a fixed pc with a few niggly things not working (like internet) but enough for me to start BACKING UP my files. Learn to say 'YES' to backing up.
thanks to Rob & George, may you never find my blog and how stupid I am.
Sharon came with her new camera.......
I would put in the B&W conversion (using jinky art's conversion that was free with scrapbook answers but blogspot is being stubborn).
Last day of freedom today - tomorrow the boys are home from school as well as all of next week. Nothing big planned, maybe visiting buddies, maybe buddies visiting us, probably forgetting to take Ruth to lunch on Thursday...you know the usual.
Need to play with my TTT kit too - have plans for the funky halloween postcard things (well I will spill - going to make a Halloween book with them either to put past Halloween japes in or maybe me and the boys will make up a scarey story and put it into the book)
Isn't Sharon a dream, not only does she let me loose on the camera (I'd trust no-one with my new camera) but she also takes sweet shots of the boy.
my hair
new stuff
the nice thing about reading scrappers blogs (by which I mean celebrity scrappers blogs like Stacy Juliam CZ, Ali E & Donna D) is that you get a heads up on what new products and trends are out there.
I know there are shops and sites that detail the papers and stuff in great depth, but patterned paper isn't my big thing. Every time I read CS's books again I know I have found my spiritual scrapping home.
So without further ado here are some 'wants' from recent celebrity blogs:-
- photo diary book
- QK storage - I wonder if Ikea do a version of this?
- BearyPatch Add A Patch Gadget - This is what I have been waiting for!! should be at the top of the list really.
- I am liking the new QK Vixen font - perhaps to go on a Xmas list? maybe but not before 2 new camera lenses!
not much I know, but I am beginning to understand my needs in terms of crafting and am not all about the latest trend in paper that I won't use or tons of Prima that just doesn't go with having 3 boys.
Read today in CZ's blog that she is giving blogging up - I only scanned it quickly so I wasn't sure if she was just taking a break or giving it up for good. From the comments section it looks like she is giving up for good. Sad but we can't force her to blog if she doesn't want to. I'll certainly miss her, she's top of my blog list.
dirt & tiny teeth
i always w
onder about kids teeth, especially milk teeth and how on some kids they look like they have loads of dolphin teeth. Other kids when they have a mix of milk teeth & second teeth look funny - kind of symbolic of the whole flux of change (bad grammar as flux is change isn't it?) they go through.
here's an example of gappy dolphin teeth - he's definitely outgrowing these teeth as he is his pants and swim trunks!
although he is freckly - most of the dots on his face is dirt........kind of sums him up really :)