Country Meadow Diorama

The girls love making diorama boxes ... although they're not to scale ;o). They are fun for all ages including mummy and daddy.

Recently we made a Spring Meadow Boxes. I did try and take photo's of all the stages but the chaos of 'making' resulted in a few missing steps!

1. Take 2 boxes and paint the inside blue

2. I drew a pencil line on the inside of the box and told them to only paint on one side of the line ... guess who wasn't listening :o)

3. Make your sheep. Bend 2 pipe cleaners in half to make the legs.

4. Glue the legs onto a large pom pom or a cotton wool ball

5. Glue googley eyes onto a smaller pom pom for the head

6. Leave to dry

7. Make a tree. Get an old cork from a bottle and cover it with glue. Guess which of my girls doesn't like getting messy?

8. Wrap the cork in tissue paper. I use pre-cut circles.

9. Make the tree top by taking 2 circles of tissue paper and fold each one into quarters

10. Glue the edges together

11. Stick the folded tissue paper to the cork and leave to dry.

12. Spread glue all over the base of the box and cover with coloured sand (don't forget to pour out the excess)

13. By now sheepies legs and and eyes should be dry so stick the head to the body. Add cut pipe cleaner to make the ears (see finished diorama as I forgot to take picture).

14. We made the sun by sticking a ball of cotton wool onto 2 circles of tissue paper. The cotton wool makes it easier for little hands to glue it in place.

15. We used border roll (the stuff they use in schools) to make the grassy hills although it could just have easily been painted. This was a little tricky for the girls to do on their own. I cut and bent it to size first. then took it out and let the girls cover it in glue. I then stuck it inside the box and they smoothed it down.

16. Flower shapes and spangles were then stuck in the box and on the tree.

17. Glue the tree and sheep and any other random creatures your children may suddenly remember (ours was Easter Chicks) into position.

18. And there you have it. Your own country meadow. Or as Rowan pointed out with a squeal of delight ... 'Marvin the Sheep!'

Pop over to &  for some more great ideas.

xxx

A Heart Healed

Memories are funny things. Some are as clear as the bright blue sky, others as clear as mud!

My memories of RaRa and RoRo's first couple of years are blurred and sketchy. Completely opposite to the memories I have of their older sister's first years, which are fresh, warm and beautiful. I remember so much about Eldest and so little about RaRa & RoRo.

RaRa was born with a rather large hole in the heart and a cleft in her soft palate. A heart ache for any parent under normal conditions but compounded when the local medical professionals looking after your child seems to fail you at every turn (a story to blog on another day).

At 9 weeks old she had had open heart surgery. At 8 months she had her first soft palate repair surgery and at 2 1/2 years she had her second soft palate repair surgery.

Today RaRa had what turned out to be her last heart echo scan just to check the scar tissue wasn't causing any concerns. "It's looking great!," said Dr Paediatrician as Mr Dad, her twin and myself peered at the pumping image on the screen. "I don't think we'll need to check her heart again!" And with that the chapter closed and RaRa & RoRo ran off giggling down the corridor.

I smiled, relieved that everything was still ticking along nicely and glad that we have one less appointment to attend. "That jelly they put on me didn't wobble Mumma", RaRa casually mentioned as we headed towards the car.

By the time we got to the car I was holding back the tears as random memories flashed into my head stirring emotions that I thought were long gone and I have been wanting to cry on and off all day. 

Duct Tape ... A Mum's Best Friend?

Just over a week ago my eldest ticked one more item off the infamous 'Things I Will Catch When I'm Young' list. This time we have entered the world of verrucas. And it's an impressively large one!

Mr Dad as usual went into panic mode, found the nearest pharmacy that opened at silly o'clock in the morning and drove off with Tarran to get some advice from the wise pharmacist. My non-alarmist chat about verrucas being very common, nothing to get stressed about, the need to buy some Bazuka (I know my adverts) and more plasters fell on deaf ears.

So I poured another cup of coffee, sat down with Aneira & Rowan and waited. Half an hour later Mr Dad arrived back at home with some plasters, a tube of Bazuka and his usual gripe about the pharmacist being 'no help what so ever'.

Yesterday I took Tarran off to the doctors and learnt that verrucas can take 3-6 months to disappear. Possibly longer! If you're really lucky they can come back in a different place (oh the joy) and that duct tape (yes that grey sticky hard core tape) can get rid of them. Seriously, who'd have believed it? So as suggested I looked online and yes, there it was ... 'duct tape occlusion therapy'.

It would seem that by covering the verruca with a piece of duct tape for a couple of months (replacing when it falls off) the verruca disappears. In some cases improvements can be seen within weeks. How amazing is that? The method varies depending on where you read about it but it generally follow along the lines of

• Cover the verruca with Duct Tape for about six days
• Remove tape and soak in warm water
• Use disposable emery board to rub away the dead skin
• Leave to dry overnight and then cover with more tape
• Repeat as necessary until the verruca disappears

As to be expected it's had mixed feedback from the medical profession with some studies showing great success and others showing little success. But there were enough positive stories on various forums to get my interest. The skeptic in me doesn't trust the negative articles and posts. There's a lot of money wrapped up in the verruca. If duct tape is a winner, think how much money would be lost! I can imagine Mr Bazuka choking on his coffee when the first study of Duct Tape vs. Verruca was plonked down in front of him.

In my mind we've got nothing to lose. If it works it's a lot quicker, much cheaper and won't damage the skin. So I now have a large roll of duct tape next to me waiting for when Tarran get's home.

Oh and I also read that it can be used to cover gun shot and knife wounds until you can get medical assistance ... sounds like one to add to the medical travel kit!

Let's start at the very beginning ...

... it's a very good place to start!

Getting pregnant (as it turned out) was not something I had problems with. Staying pregnant was a bit harder than anticipated.

About 5- 6 weeks into my first pregnancy I was stopped in my 'rush hour' tracks by the most breath taking pain in my side. A few days later I was being told that I had what was termed a 'suspected' ectopic. 'Suspected' because it was very early on (5-6 weeks) and hard to determine. The intact empty sac, pain and nasty bleed all pointed in that direction. I managed to hold myself together until the point when the consultant mentioned that he wanted to go inside and cut some of my baby making bits! I was just about getting my head around losing my first baby let alone finding out they wanted to disable half of those facilities!

I smile sometimes when my girls ask 'Why?'. The first thing I said to the consultant was, 'Why? Is there nothing else you can do?' Having never had an operation of any sort I was keen to keep it that way! Eventually we came to a compromise. I was allowed to have a chemo jab instead which would purge my body of anything nasty and in the wrong place on the understanding that if it happened again they would have no option but to have a look inside! To say my world turned upside down is an understatement . It was a very bleak time in my life.

With my 2nd pregnancy I was scanned as soon as I found out I was pregnant just in case it was another ectopic. It was looking good. A tiny little beat inside the sac.

After a few weeks of regular checks the early pregnancy unit sent me on my way with a thumbs up. And at 13 weeks we trotted off with nervous excitement to get our 3 month scan. To be honest I can't remember what the lady doing the scan said or how I reacted ... It was not good news!

My baby had died a couple of weeks before and my body had kept it ... I'd had a missed miscarriage! It was an awful time. I still felt and looked pregnant and yet I wasn't!

As an IT contractor I was working long hours and travelling lots so by my 3rd pregnancy I had decided with Dad-to-Be to give up work.

My 3rd pregnancy was hard for both of us. I was worried about the baby and Dad-to-Be was worried about me and the baby. We managed to get through all the early pregnancy unit checks and made it past the 12 week and 20 week scan but we still found it hard to relax. Too frightened of tempting fate. I don't think we looked at, let alone bought any baby things, until I was 6 months pregnant and we left decorating the nursery until I was 8 months pregnant.

The pregnancy itself was great (if you discount a 6 week continual migraine that ended up with me in A&E). I bought a doppler so I could listen to the heart beat of my ever growing bundle. I had no complications,a nice neat bump and embraced every minute of being pregnant. We just couldn't relax until my baby was out and breathing in life.

When she arrived it was a truly amazing moment and one that I will remember for the rest of my life.

My 4th pregnancy took us by suprise. Don't get me wrong it was planned and as usual took one attempt (something my OH likes to remind me about!). My eldest was a gift of a baby. Calm, gentle, dare I say ... easy. So when she was 5 months old we decided to go for another.

I remember to this day having my scan at 6 weeks to check that everything was ok. The consultant was doing the scanning. She turned to her registrar and told her to go and get Sister Wendy as there was something she should see. Dad-to-Be squeezed my hand as I looked at him anxiously. Bloody hell, something was wrong again!

Sister Wendy was training to be a sonograher herself so she could have complete control over the early pregnancy unit and keep it in house. I knew her well as she's been there through all of my pregnancies. As she walked into the room she glanced at the screen ...

'Oh My God, It's Twins!' she blurted out!

And the rest as they say is history ...

Lolly Stick Frame Part 2 - Glitter

Glitter Variation 

• 4 plain lolly sticks (you can buy them or just keep the sticks from your kiddies ice lollies. Washed of course!)
• Glue
• Glitter (in bowls with a spoon)

Okay, so why have I got a paper plate and some greaseproof paper/baking parchment in the picture? I find that greaseproof paper is fantastic for using with glitter as it slides of more easily than cartridge paper or newspaper. I'm also a fan of using paper plates when we're making. They're like my disposable art trays although they can often be reused to make things with as later.

1. Spread glue over one of your lolly sticks. I often have to help remove some of the generous helpings of glue that the girls put on!

2. Put the lolly stick carefully on the greaseproof paper and cover with glitter.

3. Use the spoon to flip the lolly stick over and pat down into the glitter to get a good covering.

4. Carefully pick up the lolly stick stick and put it somewhere safe to dry. Repeat the proccess with the other lolly sticks.

5. Take two lolly sticks and make a train track. Put a blob of glue at the end of each train track and glue the other two lolly sticks on top to make a square. Please excuse the colour change in the chaos of doing both girls I didn't take a complete set of pics.

6. Glue ribon on the back and there you have it. Sparkly frames!

xxx

Lolly Stick Frames Part1

This week I've been making 'Lolly Stick Frames' with my girls.

There are so many things I love about them. Relatively cheap, easy to do, versatile, great for children of all ages and most importantly they look good hung on the wall. They're are also great to give to friends and family. Hope you like.


Glue and Stick Frame - What you need and do

These photos use extra large lolly sticks but you can use smaller ones which which look just as good.

• 4 coloured lolly sticks (you can colour/paint plain ones)
• Decorations (pom poms, sequins, shells, leaves, paper, butterflies, pasta  pretty much anything you can thing of)
• Glue
• Ribbon

1. Take two lolly sticks and make a train track. Put a blob of glue at the end of each train track and glue the other two lolly sticks on top to make a square.

2. Lay your decorations on your frame and glue them in place.

3. Rowan wanted to use some glitter glue on hers.

4. Leave to dry

5. When dry glue a piece of ribbon on the back.

6. Voila! A rather cool looking picture frame.

Guess what Daddy's getting on Sunday??

Why not pop over to for more great ideas

Happy Cake Day!

For a change all of my girls were invited to the same birthday party this weekend. As usual we were fashionably late (by 20 minutes!) and arrived somewhat flustered and full of apologies. 

It was a lovely party. A bouncy castle outside in the garden plus an entertainer to watch once they'd run off their initial excitement.

The entertainment was a mixture of magic, a Punch and Judy Show, a few party games (pass the parcel, sleeping lions) and balloon animals. The man in charge was surprisingly good and even managed to coax some of the children to stand up in front of everyone and sing nursery rhymes ... it was so cute! It's not often I've seen a gang of 4 year olds captivated enough to sit through a whole show but I have to hand it to him ... he nailed it!

Personally I find organising birthday parties quite stressful. I leave everything to the last minute (not intentionally) ... it's that 'time' problem again. I just never know what to do, what to book and who to invite. Each year I dabble with the idea of an entertainer but it always seems such lot of money to spend on a bunch of children who would rather run around screaming with their friends!

So the formula has always been arty crafty stuff and run around screaming. All of which I can pull together at the last minute. The children have great fun flitting from table to table. Making and decorating various baked goodies, card shapes, hats etc which fill their party bags nicely. The bonus has always been that the parents are around to help.

My eldest has a birthday looming and I really need to get things moving. It's right at the end of August (over the Bank Holiday).  Not the best time for getting invites out to school friends especially as I have no contact details for a lot of them. That and the fact that the invite list changes weekly depending on who's flavour of the week in the playground!

She's growing up and not so little any more.  The 'Arty Crafty Screaming Party' no longer hold prime position. The pressure is seriously on and I am in no way prepared. The thought of playing the entertainer lottery fills me with dread. Do we go for the 'Disco Diva', 'Barney the Clown' or 'Mr Mayhem's Magic Show'. Do 6 year olds really enjoy this kind of party?

Time to find a new formula me thinks. Decisions, decisions ...

Morning madness

Mornings (school run mornings to be precise) are always a messy manic affair. Mess in fact seems to have been a major companion in my life for the last 5-6 years!!!

It feels like it should be a joyful uplifting experience. In my head I have a Von Trapp family happily singing their way through the morning ritual of getting dressed, having breakfast and heading into the car. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

To be fair I think we’re pretty organised up until ... those last 5 minutes!

The girls get up, get dressed and head down stairs to get breakfast. This is now pretty uneventful for which I am thankful for.

School uniform is generally mummy free apart from the odd ‘tricky’ button or missing article of clothing which is usually drying on a radiator or in the washing machine! The toughest time for me was when they wanted to get dressed themselves but needed help that they of course didn’t want! Crying on the floor because they couldn’t get their tights on followed by screaming at the top of the stairs because ‘I was really mean and had helped them put their tights on’, was not a good start to the morning! Still, life moves on. Not always as fast as I would like, but it does move on!

Breakfast is also pretty stress free. For just over a year now, unless they want something hot like toast, porridge or a ‘big breakfast’ (that is a topic for another day) they make their own breakfast. We have always kept all their plates, bowls and cups on a bottom shelf in the kitchen (they are of a plastic nature). This was a surprisingly good move as their plates have been used to help them learn colours and count indirectly when they help get the table ready for various meals and have been used for an enormous amount of Teddy Bear picnics’. Just over a year ago we moved all their breakfast cereals down to a bottom shelf so they could make own breakfast. They put the bowls on the kitchen floor, pour in the cereal, then milk  and carry it to the table. It was very successful. Okay, so I had to walk over a crunchy floor and milk river for quite a few mornings, but they soon got the hang of it, loved the independence and the mess was in a controlled environment. Don’t get me wrong the kitchen floor was sometimes a disaster and it was a just a bit stressful watching a gang of 3-4 year olds slop a trail of milk and cheerios to the table but it was a means to an end.

Then it’s back upstairs to wash, clean teeth and do hair x3. For some reason my girls are more than happy to wash their hands with soap and water but the face always seems to be an obstacle and I will always have one of the girls swearing blind she’s washed her face even though it is covered in toothpaste!

Back down stairs, shoes on, book bags, cardigans, toys and extras ready by the door ready to go. By 7am-7.15am it’s looking good ... 

I dutifully sit with and help my eldest do her violin or recorder practice, which requires at least a second cup of coffee. Aneira and Rowan head off into other worlds where they battle wickedy witches and escort a prisoner to her cell. At least one reading book will get an airing, occasionally 3 if we're on top form (although this is a very rare occurrence).  If we’re lucky only one cup of water will be knocked over and at least one of them will redesign their hair. Tarran  joins her sisters for about 10-15 minutes of fun and it's at that point I remember the extra bit of homework or the letter requesting something for school or the form that needed to be filled in ... where the hell is it?? I take my eyes of them for a few minutes while I hunt down the lost item and when I look back it's chaos. No shoes, hair a mess, book bags emptied, cardigans gone! ... by 8.05am it’s looking bad and we've yet to deal with the object that Aneira & Rowan want to take to nursery suddenly being lost or not being good or interesting enough. We head into huffle puff territory as we desperately run around the house trying to find something interesting for EACH child to take. Today was relatively easy and they both settled on their automoblox cars (something that tey have previously refused to take in as it's boring!). As for Friday 'Show and Tell' ... groan!!!

By 8.10 we're in the car, the girls are excitedly chatting and singing away and I'm a nervous wreck.  I kiss and wave each one into class ... big smiles, socks and cardigans inside out, wonky buttons and dodgy hair. You've got to love 'em!

Me ... you ... and a whole lot more :-)

Hi and a big welcome to my space. It's taken me a long tome to get round to opening this door. Sit down, make yourself at home. Sorry about the mess ... it's been a permanent fixture for the last few years. I am working on it! Would you like a coffee? Maybe something stronger? Cool, so let me introduce myself.

I'm a Mum to 3 girls (a 5 year old and 4 year old twins), 2 cat's (we have had more), a couple of house bunnies, a seagull and of course my OH (also known as Mr Dad). Life is pretty full on and has been a roller coaster of emotions since having the girls. It's unlikely to change but that's OK, I like it (most of the time!). I am a very very luck lady :o)

Life is good, settled and a tad stable so I thought now would be perfect to start a blog to diarise my life with the girls. Share some of our past and present stories, maybe pass on a bit of advice? Even if it's along the lines of 'What not to do!'. There's a few years to catch up on but hopefully they will naturally weave their way into the madness that is my daily life. I hope you like it.

Do drop by again. It was lovely meeting you!
xxx