Tuesday 28 June 2016

I dressed up as an Elephant!



Hello dear friends, I hope you are all well. I am typing this as I am cooking dinner which is very unusual. Today there was no choir, they had a week off following last weeks concert so therefore I was home early. I have tidied up and got dinner ready and I am typing this before we eat it and jead off to Guides.

It is pouring with rain outside but we were very lucky as it has been sports day and it held off all day.

I normally help with sports day but today I decided to watch the children (big mistake! Ha ha), they were all the same team so I happily cheered them on or jeered at them, only my daughter whose javelin landed next to her feet, it was hilarious!

Any how, then a never before event occurred, it was mum and dads go on the final event, our final event was dress up and run, there had to be three parents per six child team and I had three in one team... Noooooo! So I had to dress up as an elephant and run, for goodness sake, ironic, make the skinny girl dress up as an elephant! Not little Miss Lard Arse!

Of course the kids found it hilarious and not just mine. Its a good job I can take a joke.

Well little Miss Lard Ares is off to bed now and No, not dressed as an elephant before you ask...

Take care, sleep tight

Monday 27 June 2016

Wow Busy Weekend Ahoy!

 
 
Hello, I hope you are all well. It has been busy around here with a birthday, girlie sleepovers and visits from several family members.
 
It started Friday when I wrapped up all my baby girls presents and started to get all the washing done, it then carried on to Saturday when I had to get up early to take my thirteen year old to a paintball party. 
 
After dropping him off I popped to one of the supermarkets that I don't normally go to as they had  crisps, garlic bread, dough balls and drinks on offer. I then went home and started to tidy the house when my mum arrived with presents and a mountain of cupcakes. We had lunch together and discussed how shocked we were that England had actually voted out of Europe.
 
Mum left and Ben took our daughter and eight year old son to pick up their brother, my seven year old and I finished tidying up and ran back to the shops to get a birthday cake and pizza for the sleepover.
 
We just got back and hid everything before they returned. About an hour later the first knock on the door came and my daughter who knew nothing about what I had organised stood staring a one of her best friends vaguely and said "Hello, why are you here". When her friend told her she got all excited and started to jump up and down. Then her other friends arrived, it was a busy evening of girls laughing, singing and dancing on the patio in the rain, watching movies, eating chocolate and crisps.
At bedtime they chatted and chatted and chatted and laughed and in the end my daughter and one of her friends said they needed to sleep so I separated them from the rest of the group and they fell asleep straight away. The rest of the group carried on chatting. And think I got four hours sleep...
 
The following morning my daughter opened her presents, watched movies with her friends and when they left my brother and sister in law arrived. We had birthday cake and then went to the park, played games and just spent time together.
 


It was a very full weekend and we went off to work/school this morning feeling rather worn out but it was worth it to see the beaming smiles and my daughters words "Thanks mum I'm so happy, your the best mum ever". Well deserved for the best daughter ever!

Take care and sleep tight xx
 


Thursday 23 June 2016

Quick Post



Well the day has come when the UK makes a decision on whether we remain or leave Europe. Everyone has their own opinion of what they believe to be the right decision. I personally have made my decision, a choice that I made a long time ago and could not be changed by all the scaremongering that has taken place over the last few months. 

Tonight I placed my big cross in pen, as there has been rumours of the pencils provided being rubbed out, I do not believe that there will be a dramatic change in the next ten or so years maybe even in my lifetime but I am hoping the change that is desperately needed in the UK will come in my children lifetime so that their futures will be brighter.

Enough of politics! Last nights concert was wonderful, the children sang their little hearts out and were a complete pleasure to listen to.

One particular song struck a chord with me it is called I hope you dance by Lee Ann Womack and as I listened to the words and watched my daughter singing them it made me think that I never want her to lose her sense of wonder,  and when she gets the chance to sit out or dance, I want her to dance!

As most of you know it is her birthday on Sunday and I thought I would type up the lyrics and put it in a frame to go up in her bedroom so she always knows what I want for her.

 
 
Well I am off to bed now and when I wake up in the morning we will know a little more where we stand and what sort of future is ahead of us. Fingers crossed
 
Night and take care xx

Tuesday 21 June 2016

Bargains on the fruit and veg front



Hello, I hope you have had a lovely Tuesday.

I worked half the day today and then popped home for an hour to clean my house. I put a chicken curry in the slow cooker this morning so dinner was a very easy affair.

Once I had picked the children up from school I sat and sharpened all our coloured pencils and threw out any pens that weren't working while my daughter did her homework.


I took my daughter to Guides this evening and had a chat with one of her friends mums as I have arranged for her to have a surprise sleepover party on Saturday night. She has six of her best friends coming and I am going to do them pizza for tea, give them the playroom to watch movies and put snacks of crisps and chocolate in there. One of her friends has just had a brace fitted so she can't have popcorn or Chewy sweets.

On the way back from Guides we popped into the shop as it was late and that's when the yellow stickers come out, we bought:-

  • 2 punnets of raspberries 10p each
  • 2 punnets of nectarines 10p each
  • 1 punnets of doughnut peaches 10p
  • 2 bags of new potatoes 10p each
  • 1 cucumber 8p
Yay, for cheap bargains, but I did miss out on a 10p birthday cake. A man picked it up and announced to us that he would eat it for his tea! Well that's just plain greedy!

When we got home my eight year old informed me he had a headache and promptly threw up all over the bathroom floor. Yay the joys of being a mum! His migraines are becoming more regular but it seems to be linked to his stress levels going up. He is becoming increasingly concerned about what class he will be in next year and who his teacher will be.

Well I'm not sure if I will be here tomorrow as my daughters choir has a concert at the civic centre and luckily I was asked if I would like to be with the children, so I haven't had to buy a ticket.

Have a lovely evening and take care xx


Monday 20 June 2016

Monday Mayhem!



Its raining, its pouring and its getting very boring!

Hello dear friends,

Oh my goodness did you wake up to a complete downpour this morning. We left for school with coats and umbrellas. Half way to school a gust of wind turned my umbrella inside out and snapped it. I have to admit this turned me into a five year old and I stood there stamping my feet! My youngest son pointed out quite truthfully "Mummy, you tell us not to act spoilt and stamp our feet". Rightly so my dear boy but I was not acting spoilt I was acting frustrated, severely frustrated and being permanently WET!

Anyway, after lunch it decided to disappear thankfully and we walked home in our thick winter coats, still wet but this time from sweat. It was boiling honestly what is going on with our weather. And please no-one point out global warming because yes I know!

Well back to the more fun things, I popped into town to pick up my daughters birthday dresses that I ordered weeks ago and hadn't got round to picking up and popped into Paperchase as they had a sale and I got her a lunch box for next year which was £4.00, a couple of pens reduced to £1.00 each.

For dinner today we had :-

Garlic and Herb Chicken £5.00
Roasted New Potatoes £1.00
Buttery Corn on the Cob £2.00
Roasted Vine Tomatoes £1.00 (lots left over) Total £9.00

This evening I had to do some shopping as our cupboards and freezer were bare.

I have decided to put a chicken curry in the slow cooker tomorrow as my daughter has guides.  So I bought twelve chicken breast for £10.00, I also bought an additional two chicken breasts reduced to 40p and I have put four of them in the freezer.

I bought two packs of naan bread at £1.00 each and we have plenty of rice in the cupboard.

Other items I bought are:-
  • Ritz crackers £1.00
  • Tuc crackers 50p
  • Garlic crackers 95p
  • Krave Cereal £2.00
  • Milk 89p
  • 48 Sausages reduced to 80p (in the freezer for two meals one this week one next week)
  • Three tubs of ice cream reduced to £1.50 each
  • Diet coke £1.00
  • Vimto reduced to 89p
  • Two bottle of juice £1.00 each
  • Two six packs crisps £1.00 each
I also bought my daughters birthday cards from us and her brothers.

Well that's about it from me for one night.

Take care xx

Sunday 19 June 2016

Fathers day



Hello friends, I hope you are having a lovely day with your families.

I woke up this morning to the screeching tones of daughter and eight year old son arguing over who was going to carry the crumpets up to daddy. Eight year old son won as he announced that he had made them and burnt his finger in the process. (Whatever happened to wait for mummy to get up?)

So I was up at the crack of dawn and after daddy attempted the seriously anaemic crumpets he went back to sleep! We had a chilled out morning waiting for our thirteen year old to get back from his expedition. I went off to pick him up at 2pm and chatted to one of the other mums until they arrived, peering sleepily out of the windows desperate to see if their mums and dads were waiting for them.

He got in the car and announced that he was starved and needed food! Good job I had food ready and waiting for the poor worn out boy.

After dropping him home, I went off on my own to see my dad. Mum went in to make us coffee and dad and I chatted about his recent results. He was much more positive than I expected him to be and told me he is not intending on giving up yet. That's the best fathers day present a daughter could wish to hear.

I spent a lovely couple of hours chatting to my parents, drinking coffee and eating pastries and it turned out to be a very nice day.

I hope you have had a nice day too

Take care xx

Saturday 18 June 2016

All about the kids!





Good evening, I hope you have had a lovely Saturday and all is good in your world.

Things here have taken a turn for the worse, I can't go into details as some of my family are not currently aware of what is happening but as many of you who are regular readers will know my darling dad is very poorly and needless to say things are not looking good.

If I'm honest I'm finding it very hard to get the motivation to write anything, luckily the children were very busy; I have one at work; one on an expedition all weekend; one that was helping out at a summer fĂȘte; one at a very cool birthday party and finally one little man that spent the whole afternoon with me. Them being so busy has picked me up a bit, it forces me to just get on with things and not sit feeling sorry for myself.

Realistically I shouldn't be feeling sorry for myself its not me being forced to go through the pain, its my own selfishness that I might lose someone I dearly love that makes me feel like this but what I really want is for him to not suffer.

I have spent most of the day running the children around and that's fine, I'm quite happy to do that.

I have spent a fair amount of money today as I bought a present for my youngest sons friend, whilst we were buying this I also bought presents for the boys to give to their sister next week for her birthday.

They bought a present for fathers day for Ben but rather than several gifts this year we have just bought one, which I hope he'll like!

I haven't got much for my dad, he has told my mum he doesn't want much, there are no actual gifts that he would like and he is not eating much again so I have bought him a chocolate bar in the hopes that he has a piece when he fancies it and he smokes, so I am going to get him some cigarettes (its not like it can make things worse and at least he will enjoy them).

I have arranged to have a surprise sleepover for my daughters birthday next weekend. We are not in a position to pay out for expensive parties and she has never had friends over for a sleepover before so hopefully this will surprise her and make her happy and feel special.

I hope you have a good Sunday and take care xx

Thursday 16 June 2016

Busy busy times



Hello lovely people.

I haven't been around for a couple of days, it has been quite busy here. We have had some time with  Liam which has been lovely but he has been working nights for a couple of days so he has had to head off to work at 9.30.

My thirteen year old has his Duke of Edinburgh expedition this weekend so we have been busy working out menu plans and getting his camping gear ready, he has to have 3000 calories per day, he also has to have a lunch that he can eat whilst walking as they are not allowed to have a break until dinner time; They will be taken by a blacked out vehicle to a wooded area and given co-ordinates that they have to reach two days later. In the meantime they have to survive. I'm not sure I would be capable of doing this.

My youngest son has one of his best friends coming to dinner tomorrow night and then has his other best friends birthday party on Saturday. The birthday party is Ice skating and then dinner in a local restaurant. Lucky boy! His best friends are very sweet little girls and he has been friends with them since he started school.

Sunday is fathers day but I think I will be visiting my dad on Saturday as I don't know what time my thirteen year old will need picking up from his expedition. 

Today I popped home from school just after lunch to pack my sons bag, it had to be checked tonight and on my way back up to the school it started to poor with rain and I got soaked. When I finally got home I had a shower to try and warm up but I still feel cold now so I am going to head off to bed to snuggle up in my duvet cover now.

With sad things still in the news I hope you and your families are keeping safe and well.

Take care xx

Monday 13 June 2016

Monday Update

Good afternoon,

Monday is here again and for once I'm quite glad, its almost nice to get away from all the crazy and back to the normality of children asking for help or making me laugh with their funny little comments. I love working in year five because you can see their personalities and sense of humour peaking through.


Cheap yet delicious
For dinner today we eat a yummy roast - lamb that I bought on offer, roast and mash potatoes bought on offer, broccoli bought on offer, Sweetcorn (2 cans for £1.00) and Yorkshire puddings (12 for a £1.00)

My thirteen year old competed in high jumps today and got a silver medal. I am so proud of him as he always puts himself down and says he is no good at sport. Well he proved himself wrong today!



Liam's flight is due to leave Marseille today at 10.30pm, I will be glad to get him home. He us now sitting safe and sound in the security lounge. Big Yay!

I have been feeling quite tense the last few days, so tonight I think I am going to have a nice bubble bath with a hair and face pack and just relax.


Have a lovely evening and take care xx

Sunday 12 June 2016

What a weekend!



This weekend has been full of highs and lows, but it has made me realise more than anything how incredibly lucky I am.

As most of you will know my eldest son Liam went to France this weekend to watch the first England Euro's game. Halfway through the game I received a message from him saying he was having the most amazing time and it was one of the best things he had ever done. I watched the game and towards the end I heard a loud bang, because of the recent terrorist activities I was worried. Then just after the final whistle blew I received a telephone call from Liam's dad telling me that Liam is fine and not to worry because I would hear that the English fans had been attacked by the Russian fans.

A little while later I received a message from Liam telling me that he and his friend were in a car on the way back to the hotel but that it had been incredibly dangerous and Russian men in balaclavas were attacking everyone. The devastation that was being caused by a minority of vicious thugs was horrific with several people being injured and ending up in hospital.

Liam said that the majority of the Russian people that they had met that day were really nice people, it is so sad that the camaraderie between the true football fans were ruined by these mindless criminals.

I found out a little later from Liam's dad that an England fan had driven Liam and his friend away from all the fighting and back to their hotel, all of our family are incredibly grateful to this kind man who helped two young men escape this awful situation.



This morning I woke up to a message from my dear friend and fellow blogger Nathalie, who's brother lives in Marseille offering to help Liam should there be any further problems and drive him back to the airport. I cannot put into words how I feel about such a kind offer, this man does not know us and yet he is happy to go out of his way to help. His sister, the lovely Nathalie, has checked up on us, sent regular messages backwards and forwards between us and her brother trying to help us.
I have not yet been lucky enough to meet Nathalie but I truly hope one day I can take her out to dinner and truly thank her for caring and helping.



This evening I have received a message from Liam telling me that today in Martiges the French people have been amazing to them, chatting and bringing them free drinks. These are people who have done nothing wrong and have been through more than enough in the last year without having to deal with idiots trashing their community.


So today, I am feeling grateful:-

  • To have a sensible son that avoids trouble and makes friends with people very easily
  • That people are willing to help others even though they don't know them
  • To have family members who keep me updated immediately to avoid me worrying
  • To have good friends that will do anything to help
My thoughts go out today to the families of anyone that was injured or worse in this weekends events whether it be the European championships or the tragic events that took place in Orlando.

Even though it was raining today we felt a need to get out of the house so we took the children to the national park.










It was nice to get out for a while.

For dinner tonight we just had chicken sandwiches as we did not feel like cooking too much.

The chicken was reduced £2.20
The rolls were £2.00
Cucumber 45p
Lettuce 10p
Tomatoes 45p

Total £5.20

Please take care xx

Saturday 11 June 2016

Lazy days!



Happy Saturday!

Well today I have not done very much at all.

I dropped my thirteen year old off to a cadets testing board early this morning. He passed both the tests that he had today, one was for first aid and the other was for his shooting accuracy. I am very proud of him because he said he struggles a bit with first aid.

I then took my daughter into town as she wanted to have a look in Lush, River Island, and a stationary store that I can't remember the name of. We then met my sister-in-law for a coffee which was lovely.

We then came home and I fell asleep on the sofa for a hour (I never do that).

I am lucky enough to have received a lot of updates from Liam letting me know that he is safe and keeping to the quiet areas. Sadly the game turned out to be a draw in the last few minutes.

I popped to ASDA tonight and got some fantastic bargains.



I got four lots of mashed potatoes for 10p each.
Two lots of sliced potatoes for 10p each
Two pots of fresh fruit for 10p each
Four peaches for 10p
A rosemary plant for 10p

The mash and one of the sliced potatoes went into the freezer.

Tonight's dinner consisted of Gammon steaks that cost me 10p, sliced potatoes 10p and tinned Sweetcorn that cost 50p. The desert was the fresh fruit 20p. So the total cost of the meal was 90p.
Bargain!

Have a lovely evening and take care xx





Friday 10 June 2016

Huge Yay, he is home



Hello dear friends,

I hope you have had a nice day.

Mine has been fabulous, I went to work this morning knowing that Liam, my eighteen year old son, was on his way home from his three week trip to New York.

I left work at 1.15 to my gorgeous son standing outside waiting for me. It was such a wonderful sight to see him. We went to lunch together and spent an hour and a half chatting about his trip, the things he saw, the things he liked, the things he thought I would like.

We then went to pick the children up from school and my little eight year old didn't realise he was with me and stood next to him, he then looked up and  I wish I could have captured the look of surprised delight on his face. The other children were all as pleased to see him.

We all received thoughtful gifts from him that suited each of our personalities, he is a very good present buyer, which I have to admit he does not get from me!

We have only seen him for a few hours, and he will not even be in the country for 24 hours before he travels to France to see the first England Euro match. And I have to admit with everything in the news I am very nervous about this trip but he is a sensible boy.

My youngest son went round his best friends house for tea and when I picked him up, I met her mum, she is a lovely lady that has the same amount of children of similar ages as me. We chatted for an enjoyable half an hour and I look forward to having a coffee with her one day soon.

Well that's about it from me for tonight

Take care xx

Wednesday 8 June 2016

Wednesday round up


Hello lovely people, how was your day? Are you feeling super tired like me?

It feels like it has been a long week! It always feels like that after a week off.

Today

I walked to and from work only once because I was working all day so about five miles walked.

  • Cleaned the kitchen
  • Put the dishwasher on
  • Vacuumed downstairs
  • Ironed twenty pieces of clothing
  • Cooked dinner
  • Paid for school dinners (unfortunately I accidentally paid for two lots on one account so I now need to ask the school to transfer it to the other child argh!)
  • Read stories with the children
  • Took my eight year old to the shops - just us - much to my daughters disgust

Things I haven't done that I should have :-
    • pack four lunches for tomorrow (two are school dinners)
    • Have a bath and wash my hair
Bargains I got from the shops :-

  • Pack of grapes 20p
  • Pack of pears 60p
I'm sorry for the lack of photo's today but I am very tired and need to head off to bed.

Take care xx

Tuesday 7 June 2016

Pizza anyone for Pizza


Good evening dear friends,

I hope you have had a good day.

Tonight's post is going to be a quick one, I am feeling a bit down this evening. There is nothing hugely wrong but my eight year old has spent most of this evening feeling sad and tearful. He got upset on the way home from school because he tried to pick me a poppy and as it was attached to someone's outside wall I told him he shouldn't pick it. He cried and said he wanted to give me something because he loves me and I turned it away.

He then got upset again this evening because he said some children at school were calling him 'little and weak' and 'slow at running' he also said that no-one likes him. Hearing my little boy say these things and getting so upset is awful to see. He is such a sweet, cheeky little boy who is always incredibly kind, thoughtful and loving and I really can't understand why he struggles at school. I understand that this could partly be back to school nerves but I just want him to be happy.

I stayed at school all day today because something that I was doing ran over and it would have taken too long to walk home and back again.so only about five miles walked today.
 

My daughter had Brownies tonight and was told that next week she can have her trial night at Guides as her birthday is only three weeks away and at ten they move up to guides.
She is very excited about this as her three best friends are already at Guides.

On our way back from Brownies I popped into the shops to see what I could get on offer:-

  • 4 large cheeses and tomatoes pizzas £2.20 was £5.00
  • 3 tubs of Lurpak butter £.125 each was £3.50 each
  • Loaf of granary bread 55p was £1.20
  • Loaf of crustless bread 40p was £1.00
That was all I bought, the children had one of the pizza's for tea and the other three went into the freezer.
The butter went into the freezer.
The granary bread I will freeze and take out two slices per day for my lunch. The crustless loaf is for the children's lunches.

Well that's about all for tonight folks.

Take care xx

Monday 6 June 2016

Wow, im a busy bee!



Hello!

Sorry lovely people its a late one tonight.

Let me tell you about my busy, busy day.

This morning I left for work at 7.30am because I only had to work three and a quarter hours today and as it was a teacher training day I could go in when I wanted and leave after my hours were done.

I realise that I am much luckier than most people because I don't have to worry about childcare, I have the holidays off with my children but I do hate leaving my children on teacher training days because invariably they are always the day before we go back to school and that is the day I want to spend as much time with them as possible. Yeah I know, I'm never satisfied!

At work I was busy, we had air conditioning put into out classroom during the holiday, phew, that room was hot! We also had a new cupboard which we desperately needed so we spent the morning tidying up and putting all the things we have used during the year into folders. And generally getting everything ready for tomorrow.


Once I had finished work I quickly walked home and was met by lots of hugs and kisses (I'm so lucky).

And so the list begins:-

  • Made lunch
  • Vacuumed downstairs
  • Vacuumed upstairs
  • Dusted downstairs
  • Washed up
  • Brought one load of washing in off the line
  • Put another load of washing on the line
  • Put another load on to wash
  • Ironed school clothes for tomorrow
  • Cleaned all the shoes
  • Cleaned the kitchen
  • Washed the floors
  • Cleaned the downstairs toilet
  • Packed the school bags
  • Went to the shop to buy my thirteen year old his fourth pair of school shoes since September (don't get me started on that one)
  • Bought salad stuff for quick tea and lunch stuff for this week
  • Packed six lunches ready for tomorrow
  • Cleaned the kitchen again!
  • Bathed and hair washed the three little ones - also scrubbed their teeth
  • Finally Homework!
Let me tell you about the homework situation this half term, oh dear, darling daughter who is brilliant with her homework lost one of her homework sheets. Bless her she compromised, she knew she had to draw a picture and put lots of her spelling words inside. So she drew a tiger strolling through the grasslands and although she was unsure what her spelling words were she wrote a lot of words down and checked them in the dictionary and if she got it wrong she used it as a spelling word.
Initiative - good girl. I am proud! She also completed her maths.

Eight year old - Completed his Mathletics, no problem its on the computer so he was quite happy to do that. We had a small melt down when he got one question wrong and refused to accept that he might be wrong and the computer be right until he realised he has confused perimeter and area.

But oh dear the English, he didn't have any until I got to work and my colleague, whose daughter is in the same class, asked how long his English homework had taken. I checked his bag, big surprise no homework. So I contacted my colleague who sent through a copy of the homework.
He had to write a fact sheet about three different cities. Tantrum was about to ensue when I suggested he complete it on the computer, three hours later he is still researching, typing, finding appropriate pictures and graphs to complement what he had written. It turns out to be one of the best pieces of work I have ever seen him write. Oh no I need to get the child a computer!

Then youngest son had the choice to do whatever he wanted about coastal areas, of course he drew a picture of the seaside but I managed to convince him to write a poem to go with his picture and it was incredibly cute.

They will go back to school tomorrow and I can honestly say they all worked very hard on their homework and they should be proud of what they achieved.

Money spent

£28.00 school shoes (again)
£32.00 Food (packed lunch and quick tea food)

I did not go to the supermarket tonight as I had to buy shoes so I did not buy any yellow sticker items today


Exercise

Walking backwards and forwards to school

I am off to bed now, take care xx

Sunday 5 June 2016

Fun at Fingrinhoe

Hi, Happy Sunday.

Finally the sun has decided to show us what it looks like, and it looks delightful!

We decided to take our little darlings out for a picnic today. We had been told by a colleague of mine that there was a beautiful nature reserve in a little village called Fingrinhoe, so we loaded the car and set off on our journey.

We arrived and immediately the children announced that they were starved, so we found a table in a quiet area and had lunch with the birds soaring above us. What more could anyone ask for?





We wandered around the reserve at a leisurely pace, walking through the wooded area, by the ponds and lakes. The children happily chatted about the birds, fish and flowers that surrounded us and it was a lovely reprieve from the technology that normally controls our lives.





We got some lovely photos.




We took money with us to buy the children ice creams but they were quite happy with the picnic food so we didn't spend any money. Woohoo!

When we arrived home I skyped Liam who had moved from his apartment to the Hilton for the final part of his trip. He showed me around his room, with its gigantic headboard and toilet, and told me he as going to eat at the shake shack and wander round times square doing some shopping.

Unfortunately, our half term is almost over. I have to go back to work tomorrow and the children are back to school on Tuesday but we have had a lovely week reading book, watching films, playing games and enjoying each others company. We have seven weeks left of the school year and I'm sure it will go really quickly.

Enjoy your evening and take care xx



Saturday 4 June 2016

Lazy Saturday!



Happy Saturday folks, I hope you are having a nice, fun day.

The quote above reminded me of my dear Liam, as he makes me laugh every day with his funny comments and the daft things he does. I hope he never changes because its so good to laugh!

I just wanted to share with you some of the healthy bargains I have bought over the last few days.

 
 


Three lots of pineapple at 10p each that we used to go with lunch yesterday, the banana's were 74p and have been used for breakfast, lunch and snacks for my thirteen year old the last couple of days and we still have a few left.




I also managed to get three punnets of raspberries for 10p each, two punnets of plums for 50p each, one punnet of kiwis and two punnets of red grapes both at 10p each. I got a pack of two Gammon steaks for 10p, I have put these in the freezer.

We used the raspberries first for breakfast and lunch as these will probably have the shortest life span.

The grapes, plums and kiwis are in the fridge, I won't buy any more fruit until these have gone. They are not a bargain even at 10p if you are putting them in the bin.



I also got two packs of hot dog rolls for 14p each, four sesame seed bagels for 10p and two large milk cartons for 58p each.

The hot dog rolls and one of the cartons of milk have gone into the freezer, we are using the other milk and as you can see from the photo above the bagels were used for lunch.






I have found over the last week that I can certainly reduce our shopping bill by buying a lot of items at a seriously reduced price the hardest thing to find is meat and even when they are reduced there is not a massive discount on them.  The above lamb shoulder joint I found reduced to £7.98 and thought this would be a nice treat one weekend done on the barbeque with baked potatoes and salad.

We use chicken breasts a lot in curries or sliced in panini's or sandwiches so when I saw these two packs at £1.94 each I knew they were a really good buy because we normally get three packs for £10.00. So they went straight into the freezer.

Tonight, we have home made burgers with salad so the lettuce is for the salad and my youngest son doesn't like burgers so the pizza is for his tea with salad.

I feel that this week, we as a family have eaten healthier meals. The children haven't requested sweets because they have had fruit, of course since Thursday they have also had one of their nana's cakes a day but overall we have saved money and eaten healthier long may it continue.

Further savings

Yesterday I took the children for hair cuts. The place that we take them has a have twelve cuts get one free system and yesterday it was time for the free haircut so instead of costing £24.00 it cost £16.00 but I did give a further £2.00 each in tip to each of the stylists. The thirteen year old didn't come because he had to have his hair cut before camp a couple of weeks ago.




Don't they look cute!

This evening once the children have gone to bed I am going to relax and read my book, I am currently reading Far From True by Linwood Barclay and hopefully chat on Skype to Liam, he spent the day in Connecticut today following his visit to UCON yesterday.

Have a lovely rest of the weekend, Take care xx