Half term joy!!

Oh, my heart. How I LOVE, ADORE AND WORSHIP the half term holidays. Boy finished on Friday at 3.40pm and by 4pm we were home, in our comfies, on the sofa with hot chocolates watching Big Hero 6. Screw you, screen time limits, we're on HOLIDAY!!

Cheesy but true!

Saturday was a massive family romp around the woods and Puppy went off his lead for the first time. Such a fun family time together.

Sunday was the obligatory Ikea trip (Boy will do anything for a trip to that place, this time I got wise and left Toddler at home with Husband!) and whilst it was busy, he was an absolute delight and I really enjoyed watching him make grown-up storage decisions for his Lego collection (he went classic Trofast!)

Monday was haircuts and cinema with BFF and her babies. That screaming you heard all over Shropshire at 12pm...? That was Boy getting his fringe trimmed. Give me gin!

Yesterday was a lovely relaxed afternoon at home with Posh Mama and her girl. This was after Boy and I took the dogs for a walk and forgot our house keys so had to walk another mile to collect the spare from BFF!

I have learned the hard way that having plans each and every day of the holidays is a recipe for absolute disaster so today is totally plan-free. We are going to chill at home all morning, scoot down to school to see the forest school men on site and see how the new shelter/outdoor classroom is coming along and then head home for meatballs for tea (Toddler's request!)

On Thursday we are seeing Auntie and Niece (is there any of that gin left?!)

Friday we are...plan-free again. Woo!

Here's some snaps off my phone (did I tell you that I smashed yet another phone?! Groan!) Apologies if you've seen some of these before, I can't remember where I was up to before I fell silent once again??

Forest school planning...will we have ANY dry days this week? So much to do!

The benefits of locking yourself out of the house...!

New orchid (Ikea purchase, thanks v much!) and Husband's new rather expensive lamp.

Someone has had their bedguard removed. Someone now spends the majority of the night on the floor. I give in!

He really loves being able to hold the lead. Dog is too big and strong. Long may Puppy keep up this calm walking-to-heel!

Toddler and this blessed Mama

Half Term is HERE and we have nowhere else to be, taking our time in Chetwynd Firs.

So restrained!!

Happy Dog!

This was on the last Thursday of half term and he was positively limping towards the holidays... at this point he had been up there 22mins and was close to making us late. I had to laugh. It was either that or nail some gin at 7.45am!!

Besties (excuse the festive pjs, after this photo was taken I realised he was still wearing them and swapped them out for regular tartan trousers, honestly!)

Small treats to make this Mama smile.

My latest project. Am feeling the pressure.

Life with Boys, part 1 of 598.

Life with Boys, part 2!!

The Gina Ford dream-wee at 11pm!

What else is new? Let's see...

Forest school is coming along nicely and today there's been a huge delivery of equipment and 'furniture' which I need to unpack and assemble. Am aiming to have an unofficial opening on March 11th, keep your fingers crossed for me!

Excited to unpack this!

Nana has now moved and is all settled in to her new pad. Boys have had their first sleepover which went well apart from Toddler vomiting in his bed at 11.30pm and Boy waking the household up at 5.45am to make pancakes...!!

Puppy has decided that, no matter what I do, breakfast time is 6am. This is exhausting and frustrating as, after years of training and following the rules, Dog, Boy and Toddler are now following his lead and figuring, well hey, if she's up already we may as well all troop downstairs after her and demand breakfast too. Puppy has effectively shat all over 5.5yrs of Gina Ford intensive training, at least he sleeps through the night and doesn't poop on my floor. Can't have everything, I guess. And it's taken him 10 weeks, but he has finally figured out how to walk up the stairs, which is just as well really as I'm not sure I could have carried him up to bed for much longer, he weighs a tonne!

We've decided on Little Greene's Dock Blue for the snug chimney breast and I'm off to buy the paint today!

Dog has his first hydrotherapy session in Lichfield last week and, once we'd persuaded him to get in, had a whale of a time. Soooo cute! (disclaimer: there's nothing wrong with him, it's just for fun)

Toddler dropped the small iPad, Husband hit the roof, I said I'd get it sorted then realised that I had never got round to listing it on our gadget insurance. Feck. So we're currently using a small iPad that's held together with electrical tape. It's a good look!

And I think that's it! We have finally taken the plunge and booked tickets for Legoland in May (secret from the boys) which is exciting. There will be no aeroplanes this year, too many exciting projects to start at the house, but we now have 3 trips in this country planned which is more than enough to keep anyone happy.

Oh, I know, check out what I managed to nab in the Hush sale...

Have been lusting after it for 2/3 bloody seasons and when I spotted one left in my size I jumped. Am still waiting for it to get here, so keep fingers crossed it fits me. I am going to wear it exactly as modelled above!

Right, am off to build some Lego models with my small loves before reluctantly getting them dressed and heading out for some fresh air. Have an awesome Wednesday, friends, might see you before the weekend ;-)

Love Day!!

Valentine's Day has arrived, and for this Mama it's mainly about the girls!!

Spreading the love to all my wonderful girlfriends today as Husband knows I love him every damn day!!

Was looking for a fun meme to send to Kindergarten Teacher first thing this morning and amongst the usual 'hoes before bros', 'sisters before misters' etc... I found this...

...which, quite frankly, has made my year!!

Have a happy, happy day everyone xx

FRIDAY!!

Wahooooo Friday is here...

And it's the first one in February. Is it? *checks It IS!!

Have been terribly remiss recently with my monthly recaps and future plans...possibly because when I sat down to write them each time they were so mind-numbingly boring that I found myself drifting off, it was farcical to expect some other innocent fecker to READ them! But I do enjoy doing them...so I have made a conscious effort to make this one more exciting!! (Disclaimer: 75% of this blog post may be fiction!)

Soooooo, January.

We did...

And in February we have...

Stage 2 of the forest school development (which hopefully involves some serious shopping!)

Posh Mama's birthday party extravaganza (how can she possibly have a 6 year old? Insane!)

Supper out with Yummy Mummy

Lichfield sleepover

Ikea trip to buy bunkbeds (note to self: achieve this before aforementioned sleepover!!)

Valentines Disco at school

Haircuts with the boys, give me strength!

Boy's 5.5yr birthday, weeee!!

Dog's first session of hydrotherapy fun!!

AND HALF TERM!!! CAN. NOT. WAIT!!!

Ooh, to be fair, all of that is real ;-) My life isn't as boring and mundane as first thought, happy days.

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend. We are off to a unicorn party and then possibly squeezing in this bloody Ikea run before spending our Sunday morning at the local high school for rugby training (regular pitch is too muddy or some such rubbish, I'm not sure!) Keep your fingers crossed that I don't freeze to death!!

*waving

Hello! Sorry for the radio silence, I've smashed yet another phone so have no camera and can't access Blogger on the move which is cutting down on writing time considerably. You'd be amazed how much writing I do sitting in the car on the school car park! Damn my inability to keep an iPhone intact for longer than 6 months...

All that said, feck all has happened in the shire in the last week so it's not even like you're missing out. M&S order arrived and the jeans are PERFECTION. Just what I wanted and very like the Zara ones I wanted last summer and couldn't squeeze my thighs into (sad times, must move on!)

JEANS HERE

Not surprisingly, the blouse was too stiff for me and stuck out over my boobs like something unnatural and wrong. More sadness. Took it back and immediately spotted the Instagram superstar of the grey jumper with flared sleeves...I WILL NOT BE LATE TO THIS TREND I shrieked with glee and promptly grabbed it off the shelf. Toddler had used up all of his 6 minutes of shopping patience so I just grabbed my size, thrust it at the woman behind the till and thought, it'll be fine, it's a grey jumper, how bad can it be?

JUMPER HERE

You can see which way this is going, right?

Instagram superstar grey jumper made me look like a prize twat. Too short in the body for me and you couldn't even see my hands poking out the bottom of the mahoosive sleeves. I wore it for a while in our dressing room at home, waiting for it to 'grow' on me and for me to suddenly think 'ooh hang on, no, you're wrong, it looks AWESOME...' but that didn't happen. So that's gone back too. If you fancy one, though, Telford M&S had loads on Monday!

In other news, I managed to buy 4 tickets to see Train when they play Birmingham in October when they went on pre-sale this morning which has MADE my month!!

And the forest school development at school has made a significant start, very exciting times. Hence, my Pinterest is now filled with images like this! Can not WAIT to get in there once the boys have finished the heavy duty prep...watch this space for unveiling photos!

Husband was working away again last night and lo, Sound of Music was on Sky. Half way through, just when Reverend Mother was calling bullshit on Maria hiding in the convent to escape from the love of her life... I had an epiphany. Goodness, I am Reverend Mother to Good Friend in Crisis. She is refusing to leave a crappy situation and is burying her head in the sand due to fear...MUCH LIKE MARIA. Her love is Captain Von Trapp and Mama here, is the aged wise Reverend Mother. Huh. As much as I enjoyed my analogy, I had always seen myself as more of a Baroness Schraeder. Balls! I wonder if Reverend Mother ever wanted to slap Maria across the face when she muttered such idiocies as '...maybe if I give him one more chance...?' (Have just realised that in this situation Maria would have been talking about God, so obviously it's not exactly the same, but I had been drinking gin...!)

In Boy-related news, school have decided that their current uniform policy is out of date and sexist and a new one is soon to be released stating that all children with long hair should have it tied back full time at school. This is all very well and good, and I may well have been the gobby parent who pointed this out to them when my long-haired male child started there in January three years ago!!!, and in theory I agree with it whole-heartedly, I have no time for sexist policies that discriminate. But as a Mama of a 5 year old boy with long hair who has just agreed to wear it up for sports and lunch, and who has to deal with some little shit in his class calling him a girl whenever he has a ponytail, it just all felt a bit much. Do we really need to rock the boat, right now, about this? So there I was, again, in yet another meeting with the Sexy Headmaster discussing sexism and gender and self-esteem and bullying...blah blah blah...eventually I had to concede defeat and head home to tell Boy that I had tried my hardest but that the rule would not be changed. To be fair, he accepted it pretty well and has agreed to wear his hair up little by little, more and more each day until the new policy comes into play. Nexo Knights bribery may have swung that in my favour!! Husband, on the other hand, was not so easy to cope with. I think he was just stuck on the femininity of the ponytail. We had rants about pulling him out of school, flat outright refusal and daring the Head to exclude him, going to the local press, threatening to email school himself and deal with the whole thing... some of his anger may have had something to do with the fact that I'd tried to update him while he was stuck in London traffic...? Who knows. Either way, he's moved on and is mad about something else now. Phew!

What else has occurred? Honestly, nothing. Life is busy, busy, busy with everyday, mundane things such as swimming lessons, school runs and seeing friends. We're have a magical unicorn party this weekend then we're off to Lichfield to finish unpacking Nana and assemble the boys' new bunkbeds (they are BEYOND excited, no-one tell Toddler that he's effectively sleeping on a mattress on the floor!)

Hope everyone is having a good week and staying away from the news. America is making me bite my lip so hard it keeps bleeding and I've been having trouble sleeping so am on a Twitter-ban this week to see if it helps. Relying on BBC coverage, unbiased media reports, can't handle the emotion at the minute!!

Must go and put the kettle on, Glam Mama is coming over for coffee before yet another school run and yet another trip out to the pool. Roll on bedtime!!

See you Friday xx