Art Workshop at Kent College

Just before the Easter break Harvey was picked as one of four children from his class to apply to attend an Art Workshop at Kent College. The workshop was for 42 children from classes of year 5 and 6 children from across the area.

We finally got the letter to say Harvey could attend last week which had Harvey jumping up and down with joy when I took it up with me to meet him after school.

The workshop was held on Saturday April 20th for roughly 4 hours and parents got the chance to see the work the children had produced as well as the GCSE students work.

Harvey loved it they did an exercise in shading which Harvey hasn't done before, a secondary primary colour wheel mobile and a weave using paper strips coloured by the children.

Secondary primary colour wheel mobile

Paper weave

Harvey with the teddy shading exercise sketch

We've been busy little bees

We've gone a little crazy and bought yet more gardening supplies and seeds so our garden will be brimming with veggies and life.

Cress Meerkat and Pumpkin planting set

Bags to grow strawberries, potatoes and other vegetables

2 kinds of potato, onions, tomato plant and strawberry plants

Carrots, peppers and herbs

We've tried growing herbs before but sadly had no success with them in fact we didn't get any growth at all. So we thought we'd have another try with Basil, Coriander and Parsley.

Basil

Coriander

Parsley

These were really easy to plant and boy did they smell and left our hands stinking of coriander.

We planted one kind of potato the Estima which is good for mashing so the packet says.

Darren planting the Estima potatoes

The potato bag took a whole compost bag so we're going to need to buy a few more to get other bags full for planting.

We planted the carrots which again was really simple.

Carrots before being topped with soil

We also planted the pumpkin. We've grown pumpkins before with mixed results.

Pumpkin all planted

The pumpkin set had a compost disc in which grew as it absorbed water. This took ages and was quite messy in the end.

We also planted the peppers. These are a pot luck as to which colour peppers grow. We've grown peppers before but they didn't get very big and were all green. It'd be nice to get some other colors as we aren't keen on green peppers.

Peppers before being topped with soil

We didn't get around to planting the strawberries, other potatoes or onions as we need to get more compost in and clear the garden and the pots already out there so they can go straight outside. The meerkat cress is for the children but seems a little fiddly so we'll do that at a later date.

So our garden so far will hopefully have potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, courgettes, cabbages, strawberries, onions and pumpkins,.

I'll have an update post very soon on our previously planted vegetables.

Real Nappy Week - April 15th -21st

Real Nappy Week is coming and I thought I'd do a blog entry all about it.

There are events held by companies to raise awareness of using cloth, online retailers having sales on cloth nappies and facebook pages holding competitions and giveaways. It's a fab week to pick up bargains and help save you further money by using cloth.

Go Real - http://www.goreal.org.uk/real-nappy-week

They have a theme for the week - Real Nappies... Real Change!

This year, throughout the week, we thought we'd set up a theme to each day. We will be taking a look at the benefits of Real Nappies, inspiring you to make the change to 'Go Real'!

Monday 15th April - Real Choice

Tuesday 16th April - Real Fun

Wednesday 17th April - Real £hange

Thursday 18th April - Real Easy

Friday 19th April - Real Future

Saturday 20th April - Real Change - The Great Cloth Diaper Change

Sunday 21st April - Real Clean

The Great British Nappy Hunt - http://www.greatbritishnappyhunt.co.uk/index.html

During this week, participating retailers will be hiding 'Billy the Cloth Bummed Kid'somewhere on their sites. All you have to do is register to receive daily information and clues about where to find Billy, track him down on our participating retailers' sites, click on him and answer Billy's questions.

Each correct entry will be entered into a daily prize draw with all correct entries being submitted to the final Grand prize draw at the end of the week.

Billy the cloth bummed kid has lots of gorgeous nappies to share with his hunting friends this Real Nappy Week, so don't miss out!

Real Nappy Week Retailer Organisation - http://www.realnappyweek.org/index.html

We want to make this year the best Real Nappy Week EVER, so help us spread the word about Real Nappies by playing our fantastic game of Clothopoly and getting all your friends involved. With a total of 61 prizes worth up to £500 available, you've got to be in it to win it!

Clothopoly is a game where competitors visit different cloth nappy websites to collect game pieces, just as in a traditional game of monopoly. Instead of visiting swanky Mayfair or Park lane, competitors will be visiting BumGenius or Tots Bots to collect letters which make a winning phrase.

In total, 67 retailers are supporting Clothopoly by donating prizes, a total of £8300 worth!

A list of supporters is available here.

Prizes

Grand Prize: £500 worth of nappies, wipes, changing bag and accessories!

10 x Second Prizes: £250 worth of nappies and accessories

50 x Runner-up Prizes: £75 worth of nappies and accessories

The Great Cloth Diaper Change - http://greatclothdiaperchange.com/?page_id=8

In 2012, 256 locations in 15 countries held SIMULTANEOUS events to break the world record for the most reusable cloth diapers changes simultaneously. That meant that some events (like in Malaysia) happened at 2am!

In 2013, we will be holding a slightly different event.  This year, we will be changing the diapers at 11am LOCAL TIME, so the change will roll around the world.  In order to make this event a success and increase awareness of reusable cloth diapers, we need your participation!

Here's a map of events taking place during the week, hopefully there's one near you!

Events Map

Retailers to visit during the week which may have discounts on nappies

Little Lamb

Baba Me

Fluff Heaven

Fill Your Pants

Clean Green Nappy Machine

Babi Pur

Babybots

Bambooty

Cheeks and Cherries

Bambino Mio

It may also be worth liking the retailers facebook pages so you can keep up to date with any offers going on.

If you know of any other events or retailers taking part please comment and I'll add them to my post.

 

  

Sowing Seeds

We've grown vegetables before in our back garden using tubs and grow bags. We've had success with runner beans, courgettes, tomatoes, potatoes and really tiny carrots. We haven't grown anything for a few years mainly because we didn't get time to sow everything. This week though we've bought a few bags with seeds in at a bargain price from B&M at 50p a bag, normally £2.99.

Today we decided to sow them and we'll keep them indoors whilst it's still a bit chilly outside to give them a chance at growing.

Inside each bag you get 3 plastic plant pots, a bag of soil and a packet of seeds which varies in quantity depending on which vegetable you buy.

We bought cabbage, courgettes and 2 types of tomatoes.

Here are the Gardener's Delight Tomatoes before we topped them with soil.

Here are the Black Beauty Courgettes before topping them with soil. We bought 2 bags of these as we love courgettes.

Here is the January King Cabbage before we topped them with soil. We've not grown cabbages before so we're not sure how easy these are going to be.

Here are the Roma Tomatoes before topping them with soil.

These were incredibly easy to sow although little sticks in each bag so we could label the pots would have been nice so we're having to keep the seed packets with the pots until we buy some sticks to label them with. Now we hope that we get some veggies from them. We're contemplating buying strawberry plants which I've always wanted as strawberries are so expensive to buy and it's something healthy for the children to eat.

I'm hoping I'll get to do a follow up blog entry about these in a few weeks when we, fingers crossed, get to transfer them to grow bags in the back garden.

I've Caught the Bug............

................ the reading bug.

I admit, and this isn't a great thing to admit to, that since leaving school in 1998 I'd not read a book until January 2011. I've never really been a big book fan and always saw them as taking time away from doing other things. Maybe it was just my age or simply I just hadn't found a book to get me to want to read more.

In January 2011 I picked up Cerys' Twilight books as she was taking forever to read them and I wanted to see what the fuss was about them. I was told they were far better than the movies and were worth reading. Well they got me hooked on books. I loved the story ad yes they are better than the movies.

I read them far too much and eventually got a little bored of them and wasn't sure what to move onto when I came across a post on a Twilight facebook fan page about Fifty Shades of Grey and that it was from Twilight fan fiction. I wasn't sure if I wanted to try it but thought hey why not give it a try any way.

I found a trilogy that I loved and has introduced me to a world of books I love. Yes some may say they are filthy books but I enjoy reading them.

Since April 2012 I've read quite a few books including;

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Freed

Anything But Vanilla

Kinky

Fantasy Lover

Destined to Play

Destined to Feel

Destined to Fly

Bared To You

Reflected In You

Legacy Of The Witch

In Too Deep

On Dublin Street

I love that I've found something that can take me off in to a different world even if it's for only half an hour or keeps me up late because I simply can't bring myself to put the book down.

I'm looking forward to Entwined With You coming out June 4th and I've heard it's not the last in the Crossfire series.

I Can't Believe It!

I don't quite understand how but Gwen has gotten to the age where she's been accepted at primary school! Where has my little baby girl gone and how on earth has she grown up so fast?!

We received the email today confirming she's been offered a place at our chosen school, Harvey, Archie and Jorja go there.

So now starts the fun of finding uniform to fit her. She's not tiny but she's not long moved in to 3-4 size clothing so not sure if the small uniform we have is going to fit.

She seems excited and we know she loves being around other children but not so much when it comes to adults but she does come out of her shell after an hour or so in an adults company.

My big girl

Easter 2013

It's still the Easter holidays for us with a week to go until the children go back to school.

We've had a quiet week staying in, the weather hasn't really allowed us to do much with the rain and the snow trying fall and it being bitterly cold.

We held a mini egg hunt in the back garden but it started snowing whilst out there so we had to rush the children to find their remaining eggs as everyone was shivering.

I had fun making Easter baskets with Jorja who got carried away with glitter glue and had to wipe it up as it was dripping all over the place.

The children enjoyed having chocolate although I must admit they didn't have a lot this year and it's been nice that we haven't had any of them complaining of feeling sick from eating too much.

We also had a rather yummy Easter cake from Asda which was polished off in minutes by us all.

 A few of the children also made Easter cards at school to bring home. Harvey made his at home, he's always drawing or glueing or making something.

Jorja's card

Aarchie's card

Harvey's card

Last but by no means least is the huge egg that Darren gave me for Easter. I'm still eating it so it's lasted.

We're hoping the weather will improve soon so we can take the children out next week if only for a trip around town and to a park for some fun.