Tuesday 24 December 2013

Erin turns 6

This year she wanted a party..in fact she left it until the last minute to tell me she wanted a party, so my organisational-self went into over-drive.

She invited a few select friends to the house, I had put on some snacks to eat, along with a cake decorating station, which all the girls loved.




We had a disco area in the living room where the girls could dance along to One Direction...cue much screaming from them when a song came on.

They all had lots of fun and each girl left with either a necklace or a bracelet, a stationery set and a big slab of cake (along with the many cupcakes they decorated) I pleaded with the parents to take extra cakes so I wouldn't have to eat them myself bin them!

Erin talked about her party for days after, she certainly had a lot of fun and I must admit, I had lots of fun too, I will always look back fondly remembering a room full of girls dancing wildly to Gangnam Style.




Last year I started a birthday tradition where I asked Erin 20 Question to do with her favourite things. Every year I'll ask the same 20 questions and see which answers change and which stay the same.

You can see last year's answer's here.

This year's answers are:



1.      What is your favourite colour? Pink
2.      What is your favourite toy? Littlest Pet Shop cat
3.      What is your favourite fruit? Berries
4.      What is your favourite TV Show? Adventure Time
5.      What is your favourite snack? Sausage Rolls
6.      What is your favourite animal? Cat
7.      What is your favourite song? Dynamite by Taio Cruz
8.      What is your favourite book? Ballet
9.      Who is your best friend? Evie and Abbie and Morgan
10.  What is your favourite thing to do outside? Play tig
11.  What is your favourite drink? Orange juice
12.  Which is your favourite holiday? Christmas
13.  Who is your favourite person in the world? Mummy and Damian
14.   What do you want to be when you grow up? Hairdresser
15.  What is your favourite thing to do at school? Literacy
16.  Who is your favourite cartoon character? Ben and Holly
17.  Give 3 words to describe you brother? Funny, Loving, Nice
18.  Give 3 words to describe your family? Loving, Nice, Awesome
19.  If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do? Draw lots of pictures
20.  Give 3 words to describe yourself? Funny, Nice, Good

 The picture on the left is from her 5th birthday, the picture on the right was taken on her 6th birthday...I can see a little difference, she's losing her babyish features.

Happy Birthday my little munchkin!!

Being prepared in the case of an emergency...

Whether it be a national food shortage, power cuts, contaminated water supply, we all have a responsibility to ourselves and our family to be prepared for the worst.

It was upon reading a particular thread on the Money Saving Expert forum that got me thinking about starting a store cupboard and gathering equipment in the event of an emergency. Living in this day and age, we never think of anything bad happening...we don't really suffer with catastrophic weather, our homes are fully equipped to receive gas, water and electric. But, what if the worst did happen, how long would we be able to stay comfortable inside our own homes??

I've already starting writing a list of things I need to buy:

  • Camp stove and extra gas cannisters
  • Battery-operated radio
  • Batteries
  • Candles/matches
  • Extra blankets
  • Torches
Along with supplies I can pick up as extra along with my weekly shopping to start a store cupboard:

  • Long life milk
  • Tinned goods
  • Bottled water
  • Tea-bags and sugar
  • First Aid items
  • Paper plates and cups (easy to throw out after use instead of using valuable water to wash)
  • Rice/pasta
  • Biscuits
  • Squash
 Any item from the above list costs a few pence alongside your normal weekly shop and is well worth investing in to stock up.

I wonder how many households would be in serious trouble if anything happened? I know mine would be! But I'm on track to being fully prepared.







Here are a few links if anyone is interested:

http://www.ready.gov/build-a-kit
http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Preparing-for-disasters/How-to-prepare-for-emergencies/Ready-for-winter/Prepare-your-emergency-kit

Plus here is the link to the MSE thread for those that are interested.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4065593

Thursday 12 December 2013

Our Elf On The Shelf

Mr Jingles came to us on the morning of Friday 6th December and became an instant hit with both kids. Not surprising since he came bearing gifts.





Erin received a letter from Santa explaining why Mr Jingles was staying with us and he included a little report card for Erin to fill out on how Mr Jingles was behaving. He even had his own little passport, how cute is that!!




On Saturday, Mr Jingles let his mischievous side out and hung Erin's underwear on the Christmas Tree, Damian and Erin thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop talking about it all day.




On Sunday, he brought Donuts for us to eat for breakfast...I guess he was making up for being mischievous yesterday.




On Monday, Mr Jingles and Mr Bear were playing Noughts & Crosses.




On Tuesday, he made himself comfortable in the doll's house.




On Wednesday, he read a story with his friend Santa.




And today, Mr Jingles brought Damian and Erin some new Christmas dishes along with a note asking them to be nice to their teacher and friends.

He has only been here for a week, but he has definitely settled in and is an additional member of our little family. There was even murmurs from Damian and Erin that they will be sad to see him go on Christmas Eve!!