AUG08 - Amazing Children belonging to the Most AMAZING Group of Friends

[TwilightSurfer]

I am so blessed to be part of this group. We are starting another year together, our 3rd but who's counting. May you each have a happy and healthy one. I look forward to more meetups, more FBing, more Skyping, more Waving, more crazy tales, more laughter, more hand holding, and more support than is humanly possible! XOX

Thanks Dizzy that is the great thing about telling people your ideas, eveyone has an idea you haven't thought of yet.

My machine does not embroider but I can do applique names. Does anyone remember in Friends that baby Emma had a big cushioned E hanging up in her room - I keep meaning to do one for Iz, though an I obv!

And as we all know, mum's are lazy time pressured so you have to take the shoppy shoppy to them, I was thinking stands at babygroup etc.

tomato paste and worcester source always help lentils

And get in on school Ladies' Nights and Xmas shopping nights (phone round for PTA contact details in Sep).
How about a less-optioned version of this with orders taken locally. In fact, if you could kncok me up a 5-6y black fleece all-in-one with a hood and i-pocket by the end of the month, you have an order right now. Noah fancies a Darth Vader snugglesuit for his birthday (with pocket for action figure Darth Vader natch).

Steaky - I know a couple of gals who have an event management company and one of the things they've set up is Children's jumble sales

everyone up here got really fed up with the NCT sales and the pricing systems etc so E and her partner have nabbed a gap in the market - they hire a hall, people 'buy' a table for £15 and can sell all their nearly new/second hand stuff OR crafts/baking etc

they pop crafts/colouring etc in the middle for the kids and everyone is welcome to bring their kids and have a mooch about as well as buying stuff from the tables - people who hire the tables price their own stuff and keep the profits whilst E and her partner get to sell their craft stuff/kids stuff/baking and advertise their events company - I've done some marketing and promotion work for them which is why I know about it

buckets - I SO want one of those now

Ooh, and nice cooking aprons for boys. V. tricky to find and v. covetable.

Also an excellent 'pressure purchase' at group events as no nct mum wants to be seen rejecting a stereotype-busting item that also implies lots of wholesome mother-child interaction.

DS1 has a wipe-clean one which is blue with white spots and I got DN4 a lovely one with an appliqued fire engine on the front.

DD1 was given an apron with her unusual name embroidered on the front for Christmas and adores it..

(We made tiffin to try it out and it was a huge hit- thanks Oops for the recipe).We made little presents out of it using kilner jars with jolly-coloured lids. A very lovely way to spend Stephens's Day it made too.

DS just got a call to say school is closed until Monday. Yay and [hiding under the bed from cabin-fevered children emoticon].

VG - did you make it to Wicklow and back safely?

Spooky Dizz - that kind of event is one of my pet schemes for making money here at the end of the world.

craft ideassorry

soup fixsorry

i'll go back to what i was doing badly and try here again later.

Buckets yep can do for the end of the month. Will need to know measurements. Will FB you what to measure - nothing too tricky. I know you must have an ikea paper measure lying around somewhere

I have to make a buggy snuggle for DD - so tis on my list when I have done it I can sell it.

Currently making draught excluders - front door done, doing kitchen door and enough fabric to make aprons for me and DD and oven gloves too from this happy apple fabric. But yes aprons for wee ones, great idea.

Will follow up bring and buy sale too. I have a friend that is involved in NCT - I really should be more of a joiner.

Evening all

Sausage and lentil hotpot consumed by all here, DD said yum and asked for more with bagel

Dizzy - Have you offered this girlie the job? I was just peeking on a cm thread and noticed she was starting next week.

Steaky - I wish I knew about your draught excluders DH just paid £25 for one from our local poncey farmshop place. SO maybe that might be another outlet for you to lookout for. It is basically just like yours but she has a 'Union Jack' theme and ours is a sort of willow pattern blue fabric then she has used various 'vintage' ribbon and fabric strips to make the union jack pattern.

How was the soup GB?

I have to say I hate things like tabletop/jumble sales I just don't have the patience!

oops she is coming for a visit on Fri and depending on how I feel with having her in the house she's going to start two days a week from next week. I'll be doing it on a trial basis and we need to go through a few things contract wise but other than that she seems v nice. My CM friend is going to take them for the next 3 mondays and on an if and when basis after that (it was arranged last year before this girl came on the scene) and that will supposedly let DH get his 2 essays done before 1st Feb

snowed like a blizzard for all of 20minutes and has stopped again

have left DD2's beloved doll at my friends house where we were this morning, she has now goine to bed with a horse

poor dylan still not on great form bless her, here's hoping some sleep sorts her out

the nice thing about those kiddies jumble sales is that they are much less complicated than the NCT ones - Steaky if you start joining in then you might end up organising obo of someone else and thats hardly going to make you any money - have a think about it, am not trying to make you less of a 'joiner inner' but you need to focus on you and Iz just now

Dizz I thought I was doing well to stay for the singing at the end of babygroup twice a week!

Oops one word - reciept!
DD is a squasage fiend too. We go especially to the butchers to buy her chippolatas - she happily troughs down 3 at a time. But has gone off chicken this week, but has started eating potato - hey ho!

oh and dilema again

I think we've finally got my shifts sorted - am going to go in and double check as I'm not convinced this woman knows her arse from her elbow, however, whilst speaking to her on the phone I've found out that my job share partner has secured a vacant full time position on another shift therefore, by law, they have to offer me the other half of my shift.

financially its VERY tempting as DH and I are in a right old state

I need to sit and think it all through though, check whether the loss in tax credits and increase in childcare costs would cancel out the increased wage

it would knacker my time off as I would be working 6 ten or eleven hour shifts (2 early, 2 late then 2 night) and have 3 days off before the started again - DH would be working on the days that I'm off and vice versa and we would have a few cross over periods too - we'd have no time off together as we're on opposite teams

AARRGGHHHHH too much to think about, someone fix it for me by giving me the lottery numbers for the weekend please?

steak all of your and everyone else's ideas sound great. I can only second TS's offer of Will be in touch nearer the time re. gifts for my friend's twins btw - when I saw her in December she looked scarily well, and they are due in March but more likely to arrive in February

GB my answer to anything tasting of nothing is usually lashings of chilli sauce, but YMMV.

Forgot to say earlier about sleep, we have gone from having a child who will happily potter off to sleep on his own to one of us having to lay down by his cot until he's fast asleep (try and leave before then at your peril ). And you know what, I love it. This evening when I'd laid him down and said 'love you, night night', I sat down by the cot; he laid on his back looking contemplative, pushed his dummy out of his mouth and started chatting away to me in this dreamy, almost-asleep voice. I couldn't help laughing a little and he looked out at me and gave the biggest glowing smile. Then he chatted some more and rolled over to go to sleep

Obviously things would be a lot different if he were screaming though, so albs please know that you have my heartfelt sympathy. I really hope your DC give you an easier night tonight. You are such a loving mum, it shines out of everything you do - please be kind to yourself.

Red hello! We've missed you Glad to hear of festive fun.

dizzy aha, all is revealed We loved it, thank you so much, and it hangs proudly above the back door.

am delighted you liked it, was a touch about it because I have strange taste sometimes - I took a photo on my mobile and sent it to sazz for approval backup before it was purchased [pathetic emoticon]

Dizzy You want a Darth Vader costume? Did you just say 'obo' like in The Bill?

Steaky Add pre-school committee contacts to your list of numbers to phone round for. You need to know when every event is and whether it's worth your while. Fetes and country shows in summer. Our NCT sales have a separate area nr the refreshments for trader stalls, no need to join anything. Tis £15 a table but massive footfall goes past them so is worth it just for brand awareness.

DH's car is snowed in at work so he was making a run for it with some colleagues to train station via pub. My soup is still sat on the stove as I stuffed myself with crusty bread and pate and forgot all about it. The primary benefit of a vegan soup, eh? Indestructible it is.

absolutely! if he is darth daft H&M have lovely blue velour jammies with Darth's head on them - DD2 has a lovely black velour pair with Spiderman's face on them

Evening ladies.

dizzy what a dilema for you with this shift work and childcare. I hope you manage to get it sorted and at least get some time with dh.

cyteen that is so sweet, I love it when they chatter away to you. (I also don't really mind cuddling them both to sleep tbh as its only time I get with each of them on their own.)
Ds is saying so much more now. We have words together. Favourite over christmas has been 'mummy,lights,pretty'
He also has fine use of 'yes' and 'no' and due to visits to my dads he now says and asks for 'pop'
Me 'would you like a drink of milk?'
ds 'No' or more NO(shouts very loud)
me 'would you like a drink of water?'
ds NO DINK A POP*
me drink of pop?
ds 'YA'

oh well moderation and all that.

sazzles bless dd1 this am,hope she forgave you for disturbing her sleep.
red the aprons sound lovely.

Dh has just gone to work, we have over a foot of snow here. On news tonight it said worse ever since 1981

we have had a lovely afternoon with dcs in the garden building snowmen.

They are now breeding.
We have 4 snowman, and I sculpted a snow cat, then transformed it into a snow rabbit.
Which me and dh decided looked like something from Donnie Darko.
Evil snow cat and evil snow rabbit.
However dcs love them.

I am now off to finsih my glass of rioja (first drink since way before xmas)and play the guitar.

loving the snow family No1 have you ever listened to any Joan Baez?

No just watching her on youtube. blowing in the wind.(love that song)
She is very beautiful.

I thought you might like her - Bob dylan used to support her on gigs until he took off

Sazz glad you're home ok, how is the snow looking? I could imagine it would make it even prettier