A trip to the sea side

Somewhere we've been planning on visiting for quite some time is Heart Park. It's a man made lake and beach in the midlands.

Sunday the weather looked OK, so we thought that was as good a time as any to see what it was like.

We all loved it! :) There's one charge to get in and under 5's are free. The entrance fee covers use of the beach and the deck chairs, the kids play area, the kids bouncy castle, the "train", the kids fun bus, the trampolines and a couple of other things. You then have to buy tokens for things like the swan pedaloes, mini golf, go bots, quads and quad pods.

We spent the morning lounging on the beach with the small person running in and out of the water and digging holes in the sand, then we went and had some lunch (there's a little hut by the side of the lake you buy food from, or there's a proper restaurant further up from the car park).

After food we went on the pedaloes, the trampolines, then the train, then the bouncy castle (well Mr Bogert and I didn't go on the bouncy castle, but the small person did) we had ice cream from the beach shop (called the rock shop) and then we had a game of mini golf (which Mr Bogert won) before heading home extremely tired. I actually fell asleep on the sofa when we got back and Mr Bogert had to cook dinner :)

We'll definitely be going back, but we're also planning on visiting in December when they do a santa train ride through the trees to santa's grotto. Mulled wine for the adults and a gift for the kids. You can't ask for more than that :)

What's on my crafting table?

Well, as I mentioned, I've been trying to get a few of my own bits an pieces done inbetween being ill and having fun with the small person.

I have been making bunting. I have 3 complete sets of mini christmas bunting ready to go, but need to make a second set of the red and green. These are about 54" long, and the flags are about 2" wide at the top. They're perfect for above doorways, across mantles, across shelves or other items of furniture (ends of beds etc) or even around trees. They will be going into the shop in November ready for Christmas.

I also want to make some normal sized bunting, so I have some baby boy and baby girl cut ready to sew up, and I'm planning on cutting a larger version of the red and green christmas bunting.

I also have these sitting ready to sew. They are part of the super hero capes that Alexandra will give away at her superhero birthday party at the end of the year. Thought I could at least get a start on the ones I know will be coming, the rest I'll have to add the letters to the back once I have the replies.

Whilst everything else has been getting done, my crochet blankets have been neglected and I really must get those finished in time for when little wish arrives.

Finally, this weekend I've promised my sister to get her invitations finished for her party. She's got ages, but she's worrying (and irritating as little sisters so often are). More on those when they're done.

How to occupy a small person

*CAUTION - MANY (many) PHOTOS AHEAD*

So here's a run down of what we've been up to so far. Everything got postponed when Alex became ill in the first week of the holidays, so it's all a little delayed.

MONDAY

We had huge amounts of fun making shrinkles key rings and badges.

We used small sheets of white and pink shrinkles, some permanent markers, some stamps chosen by the small person, some Stazon ink and some key rings and brooch backs.

After I stamped what was requested and trimmed them to size (also not forgetting to punch a hole for the keyring ones), Alexandra sat and coloured each one in really carefully with the markers.

Once the mini masterpieces are ready you place them on a baking tray in the oven at about 175C, then watch as the curl and shrivel and eventually fall back flat but much smaller. Whilst they're still soft, you use something to make sure they are completely flat (in this case a stamping block).

Once they're cool they can have the brooch backs and keyrings added. We wrapped up all the ones Alex had made as gifts in tissue paper ready to give out to everyone.

After, we paid a visit to Grandma's for lunch so that Alex could deliver the mini gifts she'd made.

In the afternoon we made Rocky Road. Alex picked this out of one of my cook books. I had no objection, but I do wish I checked the ingredients first. This is expensive to make!

See. Just look at all of those ingredients (and I must admit, I cut down alot by reducing the quantities of some things and skipping out a couple of things all together!) but don't my lovely new birthday scales look lovely and shiny? :)

And the best bit.....?

TUESDAY

Alex spent part of the morning decorating a pottery puppy that she had given her for her last birthday but we hadn't got around to making yet.

Whilst she painted her puppy I made her a bucket full of number bean bags. We thought it would be a good idea to practice her numbers ready for school. She's already very good. There's something about number 7 that throws her though!

So Alex played with those later in the day and you could see an improvement in her number skills even by the end of the day.

Alex made us tea which she was very good at. We had lettuce ships sailing past a jacket potato rock/island. This recipe is from Mummy and Me Cookbook by Annabel Karmel.

I pre cooked the chicken and laid all of the ingredients out for her to use at the table. So this (not including the large box of baby wipes)

turned into this

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was spa day. Once I got all of the kitchen chores out of the way, I bathed the small person, wrapped her hair in a towel, dressed her in vest, pants and dressing gown and led her downstairs to "The Spa" (also known as the living room).

This was the day that I also ended up being admitted to hospital which scuppered my plans for the next day. I'd looked on the internet for free/cheap things we could go and do that were along the bus route (being a non driver and all that). The art gallery in town was going to be making "magical faces" on Thursday, so we were going to go to that :(

SATURDAY

Finally released from hospital on Friday evening, but still too weak to be of much use to anyone, Mr Bogert also had his boat race on the Saturday, so the small person spent a whole day at Nanny's house and it sounded like she had heaps of fun, so that's good.

SUNDAY

I still wasn't very good, but we had visitors and I did manage a small walk down the road to the play area at the pub. So Alex got to play outdoors in the sun with her little friend. Play dates are always a good way to pass the time.

MONDAY

Still not back up to full mummy standards, Nanny made a visit and brought a large empty box with her. So Monday was "many incarnations of the box" day. It was a house, a boat with 3 steering wheels, a car, a train, the TV, a table and a comfy snuggle place (filled with a million and one cushions).

We also paid another visit to Grandma and Grandpa's house because some relatives from Coalville came for tea.

TUESDAY

Feeling a little more myself, we went around to Grandma's house again where we built a balsa wood car from a kit. Alex painted it with Grandpa whilst I went to buy hospital bag things with my mother in law.

She did a really good job painting the car. Very impressed with my little artist!

WEDNESDAY

There was a craft event on at The Lunt Roman Fort, which just so happens to be in our village (for a village we have an awful lot!) so we took a very slow walk down there. Slow because I'm still not up to scratch. It meant we were only an hour away from closing time by the time we got there.

We did however have fun. Alex dressed up as a Roman and tried helmets on, but found the curly wig far more fun, then we went to try the quiz they have running through the summer for kids. We only got it part finished, but we had lots of fun wandering around. Alex ran around the gyrus exploring the echos. (sorry about the middle 2 pics. I forgot to change the ISO. I know, I really should know better, I've already heard it all from Mr Bogert.)

I'll be taking her back at the end of next week when they're exploring roman coins, so we'll finsih the quiz then. Who knows, if we get there early enough, Alex might actually be able to run around a bit more!

We still have plenty more to do this holiday and hopefully they'll be nothing else to get in the way!

The hiccup

As mentioned at the very end of my last post, we've had a hiccup that has unsettled, well, everything.

All my big plans, all my wonderful ideas, everything put on hold thanks to an unexpected stay in hospital :(

I was going to post some catch up info about what I'd been up to with the small person keeping her occupied over the holiday and also making the most of our baby and school free time together, but I woke up last Wednesday morning with a pain on my upper right abdomen. I'd had a bad night's sleep, so I thought I'd probably managed to pull a muscle tossing and turning (I've done that before).

So I carried on as normal through the day. Mr Bogert still at home not very well (slightly better though), and me and my favourite small person's plan for the day was to have a spa day. Or, should I say, she was having a spa day, I was spa staff. (pics to follow in a future post). But as the day went on, the pain was getting worse.

By late afternoon I could barely move around the house, sitting wasn't good, I couldn't lie completely flat. I tried my GP surgery, surprise surprise I couldn't get through, so I called my midwife but that alternated between being engaged or ringing out, so my last resort was to phone the labour ward just to ask some advice. "Should I make an appointment with my GP?", "Should I just rest?", or "should I go somewhere and get checked out?"

They asked me to come in to the labour ward just to be checked and be safe. Still convinced they're going to say I've pulled a muscle and the baby's position is making it worse, we all pile in the car and discuss what we're going to do when we get back from the hospital.

After all the checks and baby monitoring, the doc says "I think you have a kidney infection. We're going to keep you over night." Fantastic. My temperature was high and I hadn't even noticed, my heart was racing, again, me, oblivious, and I just didn't feel ill (although I was far from alright -I could barely walk and bending or getting myself in and out of bed was out of the question). It was just this one very bad pain. So not impressed. I had to have IV fluids and antibiotics as well as drinking gallons of water and juice. I did make some friends on the ward though.

They finally freed me on Friday evening with more antibiotics and instructions to keep drinking lots etc etc, bla bla.

Saturday I was in bed all day feeling very sorry for myself with an almighty headache and feeling dehydrated, then I've gradually improved each day to the point where I was able to take Alex out for a walk this afternoon. Still a bit weak, but much more like myself now.

The worst part is last Thursday I had big plans to take Alex on the bus to the art gallery in town, do some free craft stuff there, then have lunch and give her some spending money to shop with. Tuesday I had planned a similar trip into town to do another free craft thing at the art gallery, then on to the transport museum where we were going to do mods and rockers fabric painting. Gutted. (I think the last one was more for me than her!)

Plus side of "the hiccup"? Mr Bogert cooked an ace Sunday dinner for us all and all that water I've been drinking has made my skin look heaps better!

Back to regular programming tomorrow :)

Catch up time :)

Phew! We've had a really busy few weeks!

As an in depth review of all the time that has passed and how we've filled it would take absolutely forever, I've voted for the simple option of a whistle stop tour of the highlights of the past few weeks at the Wishes household....

Last day of term at Toddler Group

This was both a relief (cos I'll get a break) but also very sad. Sadder this year than past ones because it will be the last time the small person gets to go. I've been taking her to this group since she was 10 months old and now she's too big :( There were other goodbyes to be said aswell, and all of our little leavers got a card like last year with the rhyme which reads:

Although we're sad to see you go,

We know it's time for you to grow.

You've made new friends, had lots of fun,

but now your time with us is done.

A new adventure is on it's way,

as you start at big school to learn and play.

We also had to say goodbye to Christine who has been helping us from the Children's Centre. She has a new job, so we'll get a new helper in September. The kids all got to decorate biscuits as planned. They had initial biscuits for their names and also stars and hearts. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the biscuits because they were all gobbled up too quickly!

Alexandra's Pre-school Summer Concert - The Princess and the Pea

I finally got to find out where a Mexican comes into the story! When the Prince goes travelling in search of a Princess he goes to the 4 corners of the earth, and apparently, Mexico is one of those corners :) My little Mexican performed the best little dance you've ever seen, but the Prince still didn't believe she was a Princess (shows what he knows!). The whole thing was lovely :) Mr Bogert was on camera duty again, so we got there early to take the portrait pics of the kids in their costumes. I love this bit, because you really get to see how everyone is dressed up. I filmed the concert as best as I could (the chairs were a little close to the action) so that my mum, nan and grandad can watch it, they were on holiday at the time. The whole performance made me realise 2 things: 1-Alexandra is a born performer and we really should enrol her in some dance classes because she'd love it. 2-I must make a Princess and the Pea play set to get it out of my system!

My mini birthday celebrations

The night after the concert, Mr Bogert treated me to grown up cinema time (Mother in Law babysat) and we went to watch Eclipse (not as good as the book) and we had a giant popcorn tub and drink to share and a mini tub of ice cream each (Mmmmmm, Cherry Garcia......). The next night which is normally Mr Bogert's manly bonding pub night, I got to go :) But he additionally surprised me by taking me, his best friend and his best friend's fiance out for a meal to a gorgeous Indian restaurant I've been wanting to go back to for ages. Yummy!

The small person's Pre-school Graduation

This was so sweet. I love that they do this for the kids moving up to big school. They all looked so proud :) The kids make their own mortar board hats with the nursery name on and they each go up to the headmistress when they're called, shake hands, get a reading book and a certificate that has a photograph of them on the other side (dressed in a robe and the mortar board). Again another sad moment. My little small person isn't so small anymore. She has to go to big school :( I asked her if she'd mind very much stop growing and she just looked at me with a mix of sympathy and "my mummy's so silly" look, and said "I can't stop growing Mummy. I just like wheating my food". Mr Bogert was on camera duty again which is good for me because it means we've got pictures of all the kids Alexandra played with at this point in her life and we can show her when she gets older.

My birthday BBQ

Yes, my birthday did get dragged out across the week, but hey, I'm not complaining. We kind of do this every year. It works well with my birthday being in the summer. All of our friends come over and we eat, chat, drink, the menfolk do silly things like this year competing with each other to see who could do the most repetitions of weight lifting. It turned out to be one of the wives! :D My lovely friend Heather managed to come all the way down here (from up north) to see little old me, and we gave her a birthday cake because it's her birthday 2 days after mine. Her and her Andy stayed the night.

My ACTUAL birthday

This was the day after the BBQ. Heather and Andy were still here so they had some breakfast and watched me open presents. Look what Heather made for me.....

Now I want a dedicated craft room even more so that it can sit above my work desk :D I had lots of other lovely things aswell including some ace new weighing scales, a garlic crusher (you have no idea how much easier this makes my life) and a shiny colander which when it sits on my kitchen counter, makes the room look finished (It makes sense to me). I also had lots of money to go towards our bathroom project. Can we get a new bathroom installed before the baby arrives? Probably not, but Mr Bogert's going to give it a damn good go!

The rest of the day was spent at a pre-wedding shoot Mr Bogert had booked. (He asked me if I was OK with this, but as you can see, I had plenty of fun over the week, so I was quite happy for him to work on my birthday) The lovely couple actually invited me and Alexandra to go along and meet them and their family (parents and kids) and have dinner at a restaurant with them. I thought that was so nice of them. They really are a lovely couple and the food was yummy. They've even invited me to the evening reception of the wedding! I might be a little too large by then though.....

More boat building

The boat building has been an ongoing thing in between all these other activities. I must admit, he's done a pretty good job (not that I'm an expert on these things) and he and his boat partner took it for a test paddle this last weekend. Not only did it float, it moved as it was intended. He's still got a few modifications and some painting to do, but it's looking good. He's also made his boat partner want to build his own boat now too. Mr Bogert in all his enthusiasm suggested exactly the same design so that they "can attach the 2 together, add a sail and have a catamaran". Boys.

Other

I have been making Folksy plans. Hopefully I'll be able to restock my shop by September, I've even pre-made a few xmassy things to go in around November time.

The small person was ill for most of the first week of the summer holidays, but she's all smiles again now, so we're well into our summer activities (more on that in future posts), but Mr Bogert is now unwell. He occasionally puts in an order for room service, but what's bothering him the most is he can't finish those modifications on his boat.

So I think that's all of the highlights, and here we are back at present day. Expect some crafting show and tell and some great kids holiday activity commentary in the coming posts!

*It should be noted that this post was written before "the hiccup" (see next post) hence the delay in posting it.