Easter

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone's had a nice Easter Bank Holiday.  We've been semi-confined by the pox (which I can thankfully say took a turn for the better on Saturday) which we think is mostly scabbing over, but as he does look ridiculously spotty we were a bit worried of the general public reaction to his smiley spotty face.  We instead stayed local, lots of nice walks, a trip to the seaside including an obligatory ice cream, and some gardening time too.  

I think it was really nice just to be still for a bit, and when the kids are happy we are happy. 

Easter bonnets. I'm not sure where this tradition came from.  It's a bit of a weird one for boys.  For girls you can get pretty bonnets, stick some flowers, chicks, eggs etc. on and they look immediately cute.  Do that to a boy and there's a very good chance he'll get laughed out of the playground!  At only 3, my little man is oblivious to the hilarity of this weird tradition...so lets get the bonnet made and cameras out!

We initially thought we'd go down the decorated crown route.  

This is our effort from last year...

We paper mached a crown which was all a bit gloopy and fun.  Then I made some rabbits and stuck them in the grass at the top (this was a night before jobby as I did think we'd miss playgroup due to the pox).  Here it is...

The crown was a tad small and he did not want to wear it! Oh well...never mind.  I'll try again next year.  But then in the shower I had an epiphany...could I convert my straw hat into something he'd wear?  With 15mins until needing to leave...it was a bit like challenge Anneka!  So with sellotape and wool flying everywhere, lots of giggling and panicking, we transformed the hat from this...

Me modelling the hat in 2013.

....to this.....

He loved wearing it for the bonnet parade around Hythe, holding on for dear life in case the wind blew it off!

Bunnies nestled in the grass...maybe should have used more sellotape...

What a Mess!

But a winning mess all the same!  THIRD prize! So he was delighted with his bag of eggs that he won.  First prize went to someone who had encompassed more of the religious side of Easter. Second to a cute girly hat.  We'll take Third...and now I'm pleased we had the hilarity of the 15minutes of woolly Monday morning madness before playgroup.

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Easter eggs are all well and good, but who really needs all that chocolate?!  After ploughing through the chocolate still lingering from Christmas in an effort to cleanse the house of any chocolate impurities, the thought of another onslaught of chocolate is just a bit sickening.  Especially with the pressing issue of trying to get rid of a post baby belly.  My little man likes chocolate, but he doesn't have it that often, and he would never eat loads in one go, so I thought we don't need to buy big chocolate eggs or anything, but I did want to do an Easter egg hunt.

So a little bit of an alternative egg hunt I suppose.  We had a rock painting craft session, where I painted some rocks in Easter themes with the plan to hide them around the garden for a hunt with a small pressie at the end.

Enjoying the painting session.

The finished rocks.  You can tell who did the monster one...

Finding them around the garden.

The finale was quite fun.  After all rocks collected and counted, he had to lower his prize down from the tree.  He had a great time.  The best part about using the rocks is that we had about 4x different hunts that afternoon.  Then they were used to load in his trucks upstairs.  I found one in my boot this morning, so I guess he still is enjoying hiding them!

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He's been busy in nursery making Easter cards.

At home we made some Easter cakes for ourselves and our two neighbours.  They were delish.

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I'm also working on something a little different...Running.  I achieved couch-5k after my first was born, and now I need to get back on it.  I've joined a weekly beginners running group which started on the 30/03/15.  The people I've met are really nice.  So far I have done 4x runs.  I don't feel as bad as I thought I would, and I'm looking forward to achieving something at the end (hopefully!).   If I lost a little post baby belly along the way I wouldn't complain...

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I hope you all had a good Easter!

Love from me and my little men x

Surviving the Pox

In my last post you saw my DIY heart picture which I think looks pretty spiffingly awesome (even if I do say so myself).

It's now sitting on my new shelves in my lounge.  New Shelves! Yes...I'm quite excited about these as ever since we have moved in (that's about 5/6years) I have been plagued by a blank wall and had no clue as to where to start with it.  How can a blank wall be so difficult? Well I find it easier to cosy up/decorate the small nooks in a room, rather than make a commitment to a large part of the room with the risk of getting it very wrong.  I decided to make a bit of a gallery wall so I could mix up the artwork if I wanted to.  I think these picture ledges are perfect and I am really pleased with them.

Love these pictures.

There are my two home made ones in the middle!

Unfortunately you don't get a picture of the shelves in context with the rest of my lounge as it is all a bit "plastic fantastic" below this photo line.  That's the baggage of having children...the hundreds of plastic toys that adorn your living room.  The added problem of having boy children is that none of those plastic fantastic toys are particularly pretty... Cranes, pirate ships, racing cars... 
My shelves can be my bit of prettiness amongst all their crap!

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We've been plagued by chicken pox in this house.  The eldest got it and I think we got off lightly.  He was a bit of a grump bag and tired, but apart from that not too irritated by them.  We are paying the price now as our newest boy on the block is absolutely covered head to toe with amazingly big blisters.  He has screamed for the past two nights with an unbreakable fever and has been in obvious discomfort.  Absolutely heartbreaking to watch and not be able to do anything to make it better for them.  However, I think the fever broke this morning, and he has had a sleep for 4hours solid today.  So far he is settled in his cot, so all we can do is keep our fingers crossed that he has a more restful night.  I can't wait for him to be on top form again, and I can't wait to stop finding splashes of pinky/white calamine lotion everywhere (I came back from picking one up from nursery to see I had calamine splashes all up my jeans...not a good look).

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Our little one has also cut his first two bottom teeth!

He's been pulling the funniest faces feeling around for his new toothy pegs.  We've also started the very messy adventure, of weaning.  

Hmmm....I'm not sure who won that one...!

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Me and my little man have also been playing with Sensory Writing.  Something I saw from the Imagination Tree  and kept us amused for ages.  Perfect for pattern copying, letter copying, oh...and digging in!  Yep, there was a lot of digging and flicking with salt and glitter flying everywhere, but that was cool.  

Little people are learning all of the time.

Mixing in the blue glitter.  We need to stock up on crafting goodies.

No kitchen foil in the house to make a shiny background so picked a nice sunny yellow.

After plenty of digging my little man achieved his initial!  

He was super pleased.

A few more things to jot down, but I'll save that for another post.  What better way to spend a pox ridden bank holiday weekend by having some blogging time.

Now for more tea.

Love from me and my little men x