Wouldn'tcha know it, I have gone and won a photography makeover with 
Studio 64 in London! With Kirsten's 12th birthday just 2 weeks away I am thinking it will be a fantastic opportunity to spend a memorable day out with her, get some fantastic photos and have a total girls day out in the heart of the country!!
Now this seems like a pretty strange place to go being as I know some fantastic photographers already, but when it's free what can you say? :) I'm getting rather excited now to do this with Kirsten, one of the shots is going to be of her and me together which will be fantastic for our family album...and the wall in a gorgeous frame of course!! :)
Talking of photos, I spent 2 hours today going through three memory cards sorting out whats worth keeping and what needs the bin, afterwards I almost felt like i'd had a holiday or something, the less baggage ended my data-guilt on the laptop (which is now home!) and now makes it easier for me to click and print the ones I want for my next batch of layouts! :) Thats what I call a plan!
The last few days has been a little on the down side, one minute i'm laughing and the next i'm crying or shouting. I'm not entirely sure why but I know I now feel like whatever it was is on its way out, I hope anyway. The blog prompts were preset to be uploaded automatically, it didnt work so that really peeved me this morning when I checked on them. I checked all the settings and they were set up right so I emailed blogger to see what they suggest, fingers crossed they will get back to me soon.
For the purpose of Chris, (who I seem to forever miss on yahoo/msn!) I have the tapes parcelled up ready to go to you on Monday...at last I know!! For Taryn, I have Temperance's gifts going in the post to you Monday as well, Lisa, your die cuts are also going with a couple of extra's for the dd and last but not least Sharron, I have your book going out to you too! All will go recorded delivery cos I just dont trust RM anymore! :) Hollar when you have them please.
Aint it sad (or funny) when you have to leave messages for people on your blog? LOL At least this is one place I KNOW they are getting messages, cos I know they read my waffle regularly!! :) Good job bored to death cannot be written into manslaughter eh?!!! :) Lmao
I had a lovely day today, I spent a couple of hours with Sonia (**waves**) and Harvey who is a total joy. He was so sweet to Charley and they interacted really well. Charley loved having someone to play with and thought it was great having the tractor and the slide to play on!! :) Sonia and I had our usual waffle and giggles then I got to meet her oldest daughter for the first time, who is SO PRETTY! I wanted to tell her but I thought at 21 she might think I was so gay or something! She has eyes to die for, the prettiest blue I've seen! Added bonus was the sunshine, although it got a bit cold later on and started to rain it was originally a hot day so there I was parading in some joggers and string top which soon got covered with a sweater when I felt the breeze when I was sat in my own garden!
Kirsten has her friend Gabby over to sleep tonight, as usual I done my usual 'embarrass the kids' thing which Gabby thought was hilarious and Kirsten was rolling her eyes asking why she can't have a 'normal' mother! I was most offended! Not! A mother has to do what a mother has to do right?!! I served up pasta and chicken, Charley blessed the food with the LOOOOOOOONGEST prayer ever to bless it! I'm still not sure if it was actually blessed or not!! Now they are having some kind of disco in Charley's room to the music on the previews for Cars the Movie! The way it goes in this house is fast, loud and then it will suddenly stop, halt, finish so fast that it's almost like you've fast forwarded a time machine to another time! Madness.
Earlier today Charley called me into the living room asking me to get rid of the ghost on the wall. Now before I carry on I have to state that 1. Charley has a very good, active, healthy imagination, 2. I refuse to allow him to breed fear of any kind and 3. I do not play down his imaginitive friends in any way. So, this ghost, he was sat on the wall behind the living room door making too much noise while Charley was watching Little Einsteins. I was beckoned to send this ghost home. I tried negotiating with this ghost who just didn't want to go home, he wanted to watch the tv with Charley so eventually we agreed that he (the ghost) would watch it nicely and Charley would let him stay. All was fine then.
While dinner was cooking I was called into the hall by the little dude. He asked me tell the alligator to stop staring at him. So the alligator, after getting a bit lippy was sent home, out the back door! Charley chased after him and told him that until he can be nice he cant come back. I mopped up the alligator tears with some kitchen towel and reassured Charley that the alligator would be ok, he just needed to learn to respect people! Sorted.
Wrong! I then found I had to move the bats, they were blocking the tv view of Wonderpets! Ok so perhaps my child watches too much tv but hey, today is a 'free-for-all' day in our house! So there I am running round a 13' square living room waving my arms like some eejit, telling the imaginary bats to move over and stop hogging the tv. While they moaned that they didn't like the Wonderpets I told them that it was Charley's choice and they should be nice. Eventually they went upstairs, as did Charley and I to check on the girls. While I was doing to 'not normal' mum thing to Kirsten the bats were getting settled on the bathroom ceiling, the snakes were fighting and it was up to me again to sort them out. I'm getting good at this!! A few kind words to the snakes and they went down the plug hole in the shower and the bats stopped arguing and being so noisy. Peace had resumed again!
Yesterday while we were in Gloucester, we had to walk to the other side of town to find the Fire Engine, Red, from Cars the Movie. Eventually we located it at Argos, so getting ready to cross the road Charley says 'will you please be quiet and stop talking!' I looked down at him and asked 'Pardon?' he tells me that he's not talking to me he's talking to the parrot on his shoulder! Throughout Argos this parrot talked none stop, he talked about the dinosaur that lived on the roof of the house opposite ours, he talked about the farm he went to with his dad last weekend, he talked about Kirsten's baptism and my broken windscreen on my car! I listened and wished I had my digital voice recorder with me, it was just so amazing.
The nice thing with all of this is Charley's reality concept, even though he often plays the role of Firemen Sam or Sportacus or Diego, he knows the difference between imagination and reality. Trying to cheer him up a few days ago I asked him 'who you going to be today dude, Sportacus or Fireman Sam?' (the two dress ups he has), he didn't answer so I carried on, 'or are you going to be a dog again like Jake? I thought I had a pretty good grip on things till he put me in my place. 'MOM! they're only pretend!'
That was me told!
I love my life! How can motherhood get much better than sharing the imagination of her 3 and a 1/2 year old son? I love being in his world, I love the stories he tells me, watching him explore with his imagination and extending his intelligence and vocabulary.
So now its time for them all to settle down in bed. As the house is totally spotless, clean and organised I may just sit and do some layouts I have ideas for in my head!
Oh, pictures....gotta have some pictures! I can't post any of Sonia or Harvey until I have Sonia's permission.....so when you read this Sonia....can I? PURLEEESE!! :) :) :)
Charley was rather taken with this Little Tykes tractor, he played on it for ages! As he's grown up loving Bob the Builder I knew soon as I saw it that he'd head straight for it!
Note the fire engine at the side of him, he's wanted it for a few weeks now and finally having it yesterday it goes everywhere with him!! :)
Anyone for dinner?
Then came the innovative stuff! :)
I cant post much more on here cos lil Harvey's in the others so soon as Sonia gives me the go ahead I will post some more....no pressure though...SONIA!!! :)
Now i'm gonna show some of the stuff I been playing with the last few weeks, just cos I can!! :)
This is a triangle flip book, rather pretty and very easy to make. If anyone wants to know how to do it just leave a comment and let me know and i'll put the instructions on here.
One more pic and the rest of them I shall put in my photo album over there! :)
I cant remember where I got this idea from but it works really well. Its one sheet of double sided 12 x 12 folded into 4" squares then two pieces of mountboard for the outer. This project is going to be 28 things about my 18 year old son. Cos i'm big on journalling for my pages and projects I am going to tell him facts about his birth and early years that I probably haven't told him already!!
So, thats all for now. I shall upload lots more pictures over the next few days, just so I can share them and hopefully someone will have a go at them and share with me! :)
Now i'm off to do our family prayer and tuck the kids in, before I chill out on yahoo with my sxc boy, Jd! :)
~*~Debs~*~
Ps. The title of this post means nothing. I just couldn't think of anything remotely intelligent to call it!! :)
