Rainy days!!!

After a week of the most amazing sunshine the weekend arrived...and with it the rain, I awoke in the morning to grey skies and that all to familiar pitter patter on the window. Of course it was the weekend, I should have known. So the plan of a weekend away in the camper was put on hold...again, as I mentioned in my last post we had hoped for it to clear and head off later that day, sadly the rain kept on coming!!! To add to this my youngest had a rather nasty virus. He had a temperature and spent the day curled up on which ever sofa was close to the action. This meant I had some one to one time with my older child, so we got the paints out. Now I have quite a few kits for the children, I buy then when I see them, usually at a cut down price and then squirrel them away until either a rainy day or I discover them and have to use them straight away! Often these are the things I put in the holiday craft box when we go away together. This is one such kit. Painting stones, they are the glass stones used in paper crafts, I remember using them in the late 90s when they first came popular, plain glass, flat bottom curved top, which gives a great magnifying effect.
Between us we made quite a few, all the time we where serenaded by the gentle snoring from the little one curled up on the sofa next to the kitchen table, man did he look sweet!!! So what to do with these little stones, well this was our solution, we made little jewel boxes, We stuck them down with gloppy clear drying glue which oozed out of the side, then sprinkled on little tiny craft beads to add to the jewel effect. Yep I am still crunching these little beads under foot they are about the same size of fine sand!!! Not a great picture, sorry guys!
A very satisfying project with a great end result, I think this always encourages children to do more when they have a practical object at the end of their playing. Although I love nothing more that paper and paint for no other reason than the 'right now'

With my younger one poorly the older one went to bed and the I had a bath with the little one, who suddenly rolled his eyes and went floppy, I managed to get him out of the bath and on to the bed. He fell asleep, whilst slightly alarmed I did not worry. UNTILL...once he had fallen in to a deep sleep his breathing was very irregular, I moved away due to his temperature and his cute little hand brushed across the bare skin of my shoulder. It was stone cold!!! I started to feel that panic feeling which I tried to over come with logic, which worked for about fifteen minutes, then I felt the need to take action. His temperature was through the roof, his hands and toes so cold. I need to point out that I very rarely take my children to the doctor and in fact when my youngest was a new born I did not take him to have his weight checked etc and have no idea what centile line he was on...he was growing and happy..I trusted my maternal instincts I am a believer that today's world actually rocks a mother confidence (I would like to say that my child did have his six week , three month and hearing tests). So this was quite serious for me to worry.

NHS help line was called, I have been a bit cynical of this help line, well I need to take it all back, how lucky we are in this country to have the NHS, they are fantastic, very calming and very thorough. After a very worrying hour, with their advise he did come through his temperature, in fact I watched it go down, I even managed to get him to drink some water. Oh boy! he looked so sad and helpless, lying there, it was like having a little tiny baby again, so vulnerable and yet as I watched his little body was fighting like made to rid itself of this nasty virus. How are amazing our children are, in the morning he awoke and got out of bed, woke up his brother and started running around. We have so much to learn from our children. I am keeping alert as I am sure he will dip at some stage through the day, the medicine is near him, but he is off enjoying the day. As for me...well I am tied and frazzled, but the important thing is we are over the worse. So we might not have got our weekend away, funny how these things go, how frantic would it have been if we had gone away and he had been so poorly.

So on that note I am off to enjoy the day, the rain has stopped and the sun is peeping through the clouds...the garden is calling...

Photos...1) the work table 2)the finished stones 3)the end result 4)my current WIP 5)making me happy, two different charity shops in two days resulting in two matching goodies, I am so loving this mug:0)

Scary thought...the latest news about foot and mouth, it is such a worry, our British country side suffered so much last time in so many ways.

Went away came back again!!!

Oh man, what a start to the summer holidays, we are only on day three without school and sooooooo much has happened, which is why I have not been around to reply to all your lovely comments, I will get to you eventually...The first day was so relaxing we had a lazy morning and eventually got ready around lunch time and off we went to a little end of school celebration for the children. This was great fun...came home and hastily packed for a week in the English Yorkshire Dales for a little holiday. On the way I had a flat tyre, as I had no idea what place I was in I was very silly and drove on the flat to the nearest place. Great start... When we eventually got to the idyllic cottage retreat we nearly turned around because of a horrid smell that just jumped at us as soon as we opened the door. The next day after nearly being 'ick' (as the children politely say) a plumber came out...horror it was not a drains smell it was a rotting animal under the floor boards. As you can imagine we came home quite quickly...
So the children needed some fun, we started a fresh day with home made pan cakes and chocolate sauce, its all healthy stuff around here at the moment!!!
'Mommy can we make a project' my usual reply 'Oh yes, what could we do?' to which both children shout 'painting' So that's just what we did, we got my Dads treasured box of paints out and we each picked our own colours and mixed them up with white to see the colour change.
We had a little practice each and had some fun with the cleaning up of messy hands and feet. Let me tell you, we are all very happy with our art work, what do you think?
Just a few canvases I had picked up cheap to originally do some Baby and Christening paintings to give as gifts, sadly it never happened so I thought I would put use to them, the kids are at an age now that they like to see an end product, gone are the days of just a colouring book and a few pencils...Once we had cleaned up it was time to take a break and enjoy our hard work which is now displayed up on the kitchen wall. What better way to make everyone happy on a dull wet day but Hot Chocolate and marshmallows, I know this health kick we are on is just too much.
SO we all went to bed happy and content with our lazy day at home looking forward to the next day, sadly this brought a flood, no not the horrendous ones that have been doing so much damage around the UK, no this was more of an over active bath time, my two children, a deep bath and a pair of goggles each...OK I saw a bit of water go over, when the electricity went out I thought it was a storm, now once the boys had got out of the swimming pool, whoops I mean bath! I realised that the reason I had not seen the water was the loo roll holder full of rolls had absorbed the visible damage. I went down stairs and it was here I got the full picture of the damage, coming out of one of the rooms under the bath was water, the light was blown and the bulb full of water, the ceiling of this room and into the kitchen was a dirty big water mark. I went to bed reading with a camping head torch, it took hours and hours for it to dry out enough, of course that meant no computer, no telly, radio or cooking...So forgive me for being a little quite over the last few days, its been a bit of a drama to say the least, still to the floods that so many have had, it just makes a funny story really...No seriously I am laughing...Honest!!!

I did managed to get some knitting done whilst the TV was out despite my still sore arm, wow such a great bruise so many colours! I have been making little mice, the first one, well he had character, they get better as I make more, so a trip to the wool mill today to cheer myself up and buy some odd balls of wool to fulfill the desire to make a ridiculous number of mice...Oh I feel better already, yer OK I admit I bought more than just the odd ball...

Here's to the sunshine...

UPDATE UPDATE....My doll quilt has arrived and it is just brilliant, I will not spoil the surprise, I will get a good picture and share with you all the info.