Photos of the week

Marley and Phoebe

Chrysalis shells

Spot the Alien?

Awwww so cute

Eyeing up the butterflies

At the allotment

Our first flower bed

Black sheeting - I dug all that!

Emily's butteflies are released

Butterfly cakes

Cats cats glorious cats

Nothing quite like them

The Big Caterpillar House

Days 7: Still no sign of butterflies

the caterpillars move house

Up

-lifting
Awww I so like UP! Up and Wall-e have to be two of the best Disney blu ray films I've watched so far. They contain so much more than just an entertaining animation but they both have such lovely stories in them. And stories with a point too! We should be taking care of our elderly and kids - they have so much to learn from each other - you'll see this if you watch the film.

Though the first part of UP always has me in tears as the lovely Ellie grows old, doesn't have kids and doesn't get to visit South America to see Paradise Falls - I cry everytime I see that part. But it also has me in stitches with the talking dogs - what is it with dogs and squirrels?

Dug the dog (hey who doesn't want a dog like Dug? - he's awsome)

Russell meets Kevin - but Kevin is a...

Russell

Well thats just typical

it's Saturday, my weekend off from work, and it's raining. It's wet and miserable and here I am still sitting in my dressing gown contemplating what to do and how to entertain the kids without involving a long walk anywhere (the dude has the car today as he went to work)

Sigh. I'm thankful for the rain as I know it's helping the allotment, after all the digging and manuring I've done this week I'm thankfull it has rained to help mulch down the manure but I'm still annoyed at the weather. *shakes fist*

I'm going to watch UP instead this morning :)

**UPDATE**UPDATE**

the lazy caterpillar was not dead - he was just lying down!
All five of them are now chrysalises and have been safely rehomed to their net basket, ready for their next stage.

Chrysalis

Two of the caterpillars have suddenly turned into chrysalis, and two are just about to go, but sadly one looks like it has died - so a bit of a sad day.
We will report more new as it happens

little wrigglers

Sorry I forgot to add that I ordered some caterpillars - for Emily's butterfly garden. Well the 5 little uns arrived last week and have grown from the size of a couple of rice grains to large hairy things that measure about 3cm long! The arrived in their own cup like container which had food already in it, and with instructions to leave them in a warm room until they have formed chrysalises before we transfer them into their home.

Burlesque Bird

I won a prize! I won a prize! I won a single ticket to a Burlesque workshop!
For those of you who are not familiar with this form of dance I suggest you google for Dita Von Teese :)

Anyway I'm a bit nervous as I'm not known for my dancing skills (unless you include raving till 6am in the morning - ahh the good old clubbing days). But I am looking forward to it. I had a quick look around the internet and there seem to be lots of classes and workshops going on that I never knew existed. Could this see me giving up my gym membership in order to study the art of the Burlesque? Just wait and see.

I'm not feeling to great just now - I seem to be very tired at night and with a slightly sore throat -maybe coming down with some sniffles? But to keep you all amused some piccies that I didn't have time to blog ...

The Cup Cake Fairies visited again

Dotty Spotty

Ok queue the "awwwwws"

this has been the only time I've managed to get her to wear a party dress, it only lasted about 40 minutes at the part before she was down to her undies.

You've got a friend in me

The lovely people at Disney have sent me Toy Story 1 and 2 to watch this week. Very exited about this as I haven't seen Toy Story for a long long time - and so far Toy Story (number 1) was a winner. Did I say I never had a Mr Potato Head and I feel deprived - I may just go out and buy one. But back to Buzz and Woody - it's a great story and one that has been watched practically every day since we got blu-ray discs. I have to add that once again the clarity of the picture was amazing. Can't wait to watch Toy Story 2 - but that will have to wait for this weekend as I've got to catch up on some study just now.

So here is an introduction to Buzz



Toy Story 2 – The Round up Gang


Too Infinity and Beyond

The icing on the cake

It's been a hectic week with Emily still being a little sick in the evenings, I suffered from mild food poisoning on Sunday night and then on Tuesday Phoebe had the most awful vomiting virus.

The poor washing machine has been on several times a day just to cope with the loads. Glad to say everyone is better - though I think Phoebes stomach muscles really have had a work out. I've never heard her vomit so so so horribly before :(

love is a fluffy kitty cuddle

Anyway to cheer us all up (and spend some of my bonus and full time earnings) I bought this beauty -

And then we decided to have a practice run - the colours are dramatic!I also bought the Australians Woman's Weekly cup cake book that was recommended by a fellow employee in Australia and who I now have regular recipe swaps. I now have a fantastic red pepper soup which is simple to make and also very yummy - and I'm glad our picky-eater loves this soup.

Some good films I've recently watched have been Moon and The Hangover. Moon was a great film and story, definitely recommend it to anyone who likes films that are not so mainstream but have a great twist. Now The Hangover was one of those films that will make you laugh, shake your head as you think it can't get any worse and then laugh out loud as it does get worse! Funniest film I've seen in a long time.

Well this about sums up our week - but right now I'm so tired I could fall asleep whilst typing this. So I must go to bed. Sleep well everyone.

A glimpse of our world

That doesn't look comfy.

This has nothing to do with me (I blame her father)

The draft excluders seek warmth

Very cheesy looking cat

Erm a slighly better photo.

I've been quiet

I know, but it's been the usual hectic routine. This week I finally got verbal confirmation from work that I could come back full time, this is brilliant and I have to thank my boss for making such an effort in proving my worthiness to come back on flex-time. It's a 3 month trial but already I'm feeling the benefit of working a more "normal"day. Previously I was working an 8.5 hour day, through in a lunchtime of 30 minutes and travelling time and that was totalling 9.5 hours easily. Not a great system and I was feeling squeezed all the time. Now I feel less stressed by it all, knowing that I'll be in the office 5 days rather than 4, I wont miss the normal day to day goings on either.

That's enough about work. My Open Uni course started this week, and it's been really lovely to see that the University got rid of their horrible First Class software that acted like a forum and email system - to be honest I hated it and finally stopped reading emails and only looked there if I was desperate for help. This year they have taken a different approach and I can see my fellow students emails pop into my personal email account. It's been nice reading the relevant ones and just deleting the ones I don't want. Though it does clutter up my hotmail account on the odd occasion when a discussion heats up.

I decided to stuff the separate Web Design certificate course after completing the first of the 6 courses I realised that I really REALLY hated writing reports and that in all honestly I was crap at writing them too. I went back and looked at my options and decided to get it all over and done with and just do another 30 point level 2 course but when I looked there was very little left that I could choose from and it came down to picking either "Developing Concurrent Distributed Systems" or another course that involved a project - I decided I'd rather face my Achilles heel than complete another report or project, so developing concurrent systems it is!

I'll let you know how it goes - but fingers crossed, after the normal 3 hour exam in October I'll get my results in December and then hopefully I can attend my award ceremony. The cool thing about this is I get to choose where I accept my certificate, and I really fancy Ely Cathedral. Looks impressive doesn't it?

So what else has been happening - not alot, but I did make time to host 2 dinner parties for some friends. For the first one we did a Burns night and had some Cock-a-leekie soup, followed by a nice haggis with mashed neeps and tatties, and for pudding I made some Cranachan with raspberries but instead of using whiskey in the cream I used some mead and it was very very lovely.

For the second dinner party I skipped making a starter and went straight to Pheasant in a claret and orange gravy, with roast potatoes, peas, carrots and sweetcorn. Very similar to the recipe in the link above but with some minor differences. We then followed this with a choice of either apple or rhubarb crumble with Cornish ice cream. Lurv-ley :)

We (Tosha, Lisa and I) tried to arrange a night out for some grub but it all fell through when two of us became ill. I came down with some nasty viral thing again that had me feeling really nauseous ( I was a little sick) and now I have the most awful sinus infection. It was so bad even my teeth hurt. Sinus infections totally suck , suck suck suck. I've now been taking sudafed decongestant for 3 days and this has been my only source of relief though I still have 3 litres of nasty sticky gunge that is lodged in my head - grrrr.

Anyway I'm being called to watch Wall-e for the hundredth time. Enjoy :)

Cheshire Cat Says Smile

Budding David Bailey?

We bought Emily one of those VTech Kids Camera this week and let her go take her own photos (saves me hovering over her when she's pinched my camera - just in case she drops it!)

So here are her first photos:

Whoops

So much for the items listed in etsy - they were removed because of infringement! I had to laugh at this as there were lots of other people on etsy doing exactly the same. So maybe I'll go and sell on ebay or freecycle?

So what have we been up to this week - well I thought I would have time to blog a bit more but I've been cramming in stupid amounts of housework, taking the kids swimming at my gym after school. Cooking meals from scratch - I made some lovely red pepper soup today and everyone loved it. Many thanks to Vicky in Australia for that recipe - she's given me a recipe for Turkish Delight cake. I've got the ingredients for that so I'll be making it later this week after we finish of eating the cakes Phoebe brought home from school. Yum Yum

Emily has started at the local playgroup, and she loves it. She goes there most mornings and one afternoon, and the rest of the week, apart from Tuesday, she's with her childminder. It means I can go back to work full time now - which is a bonus.

My last uni course starts in two weeks time - so I'm going to try to pack in as much of the allotment as I can just now. I should have a Bsc in something by the end of the year- whoop whoop!

I need to start to dig in some of the compost and get some seeds planted for the first crops of the year. We have some great plans for the allotment - hopefully Beckie can keep me right on what to plant and when we should be in for an excellent year of fresh veggies and maybe some fruit if we are lucky.

We are looking at putting our house on the market some time soon - I think its time we gave up on the council getting the garage next door to adhere to the jet wash opening times. So fingers crossed we can get the house tidied up without too much cost and find somewhere a little bigger, thought I doubt we'll find anything that has a great garden like we currently have. We could go for a similar aged house and possibly find something that has a great sized garden - ideally it would be fantastic to have a completely walled in garden so the kitties can run around outside and have more freedom. It would also be nice to move in somewhere brand new - that would be exciting.

I wonder what this year holds for us all. :)

The other list

Things I have accomplished this year

1. Put baby blankets on my etsy shop - whooop!

Things to do

List of things I want to accomplish this year

1. Organise 40th Birthday Party
2. Sell my homemade baby blankets on Etsy
3. Start final Open Uni course, sit exam and get my Open Degree
4. Chill
5. See my friends more
6. Buy a bigger house (well one with 4 bedrooms - we could live with a smaller garden)
7. add more things to this list

Happy New Year !

Happy New Year Everyone!