Breakfast was canceled!

Malc was taken to hospital in the early hours of this morning. He's OK, he has a chest infection and an kidney infection at the same time and was in agony last night.
He's going to be in for a few days so I might not be back until the end of the week when I will tell you all about it, as ever,  not even an ambulance ride to A & E goes smoothly!

Life in general.

Yesterday morning I went to Mums and blow dried her hair for her.  Malc went to the tip with my step dad to take an old cooker that we've been promising to take for them for a few weeks.
Last night the boys had Beavers, Scouts and Eden had Youth Club.
This morning Malc and the two eldest went to Men's Breakfast which is held every two months at our church. They had a guest speaker from Hall and Woodhouse which is based in Blandford, so the boys came home with lots of facts and figures on how to make beer! Callum informed me that apparently it's healthy to drink beer!
They dropped Eden off in town with a friend on the way there as she wanted to buy some make up and a birthday gift for another friend.
They all got back at dinner time.
The two youngest were playing on their tablets so I used the time to make these. If your wondering why only half of each has tomato on it's because we have a couple of children who don't like them.

One is for tea tonight with chips and the other one is for tomorrow teatime when Mum and Ed are here. I'll make some coleslaw and a salad. I've also made a trifle but I've not taken a picture as I've still got to put the topping on.

 I also made this, the decorations aren't great by the time I was doing it I'd run out of steam.
At the same time I was baking I was also organising the boys in the garden. Clark cleaned out a load of pots and he put some tulips and other seeds in as well as planting out a few hanging baskets. I was being called away all the time so the decorating took me ages and I kept losing my concentration!

Clark also planted these up as part of my Mums present for tomorrow, primulas and tulips.
Callum has started pulling the wallpaper off the lounge walls so we can redecorate. Malcs got the week before Easter off so I'm hoping to paint it that week.
The two youngest have been out playing with friends and bikes at the front of the house.
My sister and nephew arrived for a visit so Charlie was able to play out with his cousins.. He's an only child and loves visiting as he comes 10 months after Soloman and 10 months before Cody in age.
He's the reason I had Cody! When my sister had him I got so broody I just had to have another baby!
Tomorrow I'm being taken out for breakfast which I'm very much looking forward to, not so much losing the hours sleep tonight though! Don't forget to put your clocks forward!

School work and dog walks

This morning I took a picture of the boys doing their schoolwork. Just to let people know we actually do some!

 We had some lunch and went on a dog walk at a local recreation ground quite near to us, it has fields, a playground, cricket pitch and some woodland. I have many fond memories of going there as a child to walk the family dogs.

 One of the fields is huge. The two specks off in the distance are the puppies. Their recall at home is perfect but when we're out they are very inconsistent! Sometimes they come back first time and others they completely ignore me! A bit more training needed I think!

 Max with his ball and Callum with Hexa who loves her ball and chukka.

 Clark doing some training with Chumleigh, he's just recalled him and made him sit. Clark can also walk away from him after telling him to  'wait'. He can do about three steps away and then he releases him from the command. I unfortunately am not doing so well with Tyxall! She recalls most of the time and sits but not every time. We've decided to go over our local fields, just Clark, myself and the puppies for some extra training.

 Chumleigh and Tyxall together.

Whilst we were there about four planes went over one after the other flying really low. Cody was entranced by them and just stood watching them.
We then went to B & Q to get some flowers to put in the pots we're giving my Mum for Mothers Day, then onto Pets At Home as the youngest two needed fish food for their goldfish.
Lastly we went to pick Eden up as she had Chamber Choir after school.
The boys played out the front with their friends whilst tea was cooking.
As I type baths are being had and Malc has just left for a Cubs planning meeting.
All the dogs are sound asleep and Chumleigh is doing the 'Staffy snore' as we call it.
All in all, a good day.

Another chef in the house.

This morning Soloman and I did some cooking. We made some chicken pies and added some tinned peas and carrots to them.
I made the pastry and Soloman mixed the chicken and veg in a bowl. Then when I'd made the bottom of the pie he put in the filling and milked round the edges. He also had a go at cutting round the edge of the tin to trim the pastry.

 Excuse the background in the next picture, eight year olds are not known for their tidiness in this house! Apparently it's creative to be messy whilst you work!

Once I'd put the pastry lid on he had a go at trimming the edges of the pastry again. I had my heart in my mouth when he did the biggest pie as it was quite heavy and I could see it being dropped on the floor, but he did it.

The results,

The round pie was for Mum and Ed which they had for lunch and I've already had a report back that it was delicious.
The huge one is for tomorrow's tea and the little ones were eaten dinner time. They were still warm and were rather lush even if I do say so myself!
This afternoon, Callum looked after the two youngest and we went shopping with Clark as he needed new shoes.
I also went into town to put Edens singing cheque from Sunday into her bank account. Unfortunately it was dated for 2013! She's going to have to get it corrected. Oops!

Another birthday and more knitting

Last Friday was my stepdads birthday but we were all busy that day and on the Saturday so we decided to celebrate it on the Sunday.
Eden had her paid singing at church in the morning, Mum and Ed arrived at noon to roast lamb and profiterole gateau. Scrummy.
Clark and I also made a birthday cake, just a simple one,

We used the same sort of indoor fountain candles that we used for Clark's cake but with much less success! We managed to light the first one but couldn't light the second, so by the time we did the first one had gone out! Then I tried to take a picture of it all on my phone which was on a go slow so I got one with that fountain just about to go out!
I've also been knitting these for my Mum as part of her present
 for Mothers Day,

I think I've said before that Mum hates wearing socks but when she's sitting in her chair her feet get cold so she puts these on, she's also taught Topsy, her Yorkie to pull them off for her.
I did my leaflet round in glorious sunshine this morning which has given way to rain this afternoon.
Off to catch up with some TV,  we've been so busy that I've missed quite a few programmed that I like to watch.

Paralax

Eden's in a band of three girls called Paralax which apparently means "different viewpoints"
Last night was there first gig together onstage.
One of her friends put this on Facebook so I've pinched it to put on here. It's taken Malcolm and myself most of the day to manage to do it!
This song is called "Play with fire" I don't think it was their best but it was good.
Please excuse the mike cutting out during Edens solo and our Youth Worker, Chris, walking in front of the girl videoing and taking a picture!
Eden is the furthest right as you look at the video and she sings the third verse. She's the loudest one so you can hear her during
the chorus.

 

TV, birthdays and cooking.

I debated whether or not to get on my soapbox about last nights Dangerous Dogs but I think I'm all opinioned out after lots of conversations on Facebook last night. I get the main point that neglected and abused dogs can be aggressive but there was one dog there who after seven days in kennels turned out to be the soppiest dog ever. So that isn't always the case.
I also fail to understand how the owners of a Japanese Akita who had been abandoned for a week were given a written warning yet the girl who didn't pick up her dogs poo got an instant £50 fine!
A man whose dog had ten puppies and who had sold six of them at four weeks for £50 each wasn't offered to have his bitch spayed, even if this was done for free it would cost less than the dog warden having to visit him. It would be one less dog breeding.
 Next time it's more about enforcing the law around dangerous dogs so I'm hoping it'll be more interesting and less one sided.
So you got some of my opinions after all!
Today is my Stepdads birthday, so this morning we cycled (again) to mums house with pressies and a balloon to wish him a lovely day.
They are coming round on Sunday for lunch as way of a celebration as we were all busy today.
This afternoon Callum made a cottage pie to take to mums for their lunch tomorrow and we've made an oblong sponge ready
to be decorated for his birthday cake.
Eden had two friends for tea and they've all gone to Youth Club, we've got the usual Beavers and Scouts going on.
Sport Relief is on tonight so I'm off to watch that, I'm not sure I'll be staying up until the early hours to watch it all, I'll see how long I last!

Cracking Walnuts

Another bike ride today, not so far just to my Mums and back with Soloman and Cody, soon I'm going to be able to crack these with my thighs!

I went to blow dry Mums hair as she had friends coming to lunch and wanted to look her best.
Malc, Clark and I then went to town so that Clark could buy himself a wallet as he broke his last one trying to stuff all the money he received for his birthday in it! He also bought this

One of the friends he was playing with during the week had one and she showed him how to make them. He liked it so much he bought one.
I'll get some pictures as he makes them.
Clark, Soloman and Cody then had a dentist appointment which went without fillings, they've got to go back in six months for another check up.
There's a programme on tonight at nine pm, ITV, called Dangerous Dogs, the first of two parts which I'm going to watch. It'll be interesting to see how it's presented and I'm sure I'll have a comment or two to make about it tomorrow!

Errands

So much to catch up on!
Last Thursday we had to go to town to get our driving licenses renewed, we've got ones with our photos on so they have to be renewed every ten years and ours ran out on the same day!
They do them at the Post Office the letter said that came with the renewal letter. Not any round here! We rang three before we found one that did the photo, electronic signature and checked everything for you!
They were back and renewed by Tuesday though. Well impressed!
The weekend was manic,  Malc and the boys went to Winchester Science Center on Saturday with the Beavers.
Sunday we went to breakfast at our favorite place to celebrate Clark's birthday which was on the Monday.
Clark has also been very helpful planting out these

He's also been baking these

Clark was eleven on Monday, I was going to make his cake but he wanted a picture of his dog on the top of it! Way out of my abilities. So I had to buy one from Asdas, if you take a picture in they print it on to icing and put it on the top of the cake. Result!

It wasn't a brilliant picture to start with hence the lines on the cake, but he was pleased with it, that's the main thing.
We also bought two fountain candles to go on top and we were surprised at how high and how long they went on for.

I've been getting up with my feet running as soon as they hit the floor and that's the way it's stayed all day. I've been going to bed exhausted.
Things have calmed down a bit today but upon looking at the calendar today I noticed that every weekend is booked up until the 26th April !
I would dearly love a weekend away in our caravan but I can't see that happening for a couple of months at least
Never mind, it's good to be busy!! Apparently!!

Oh, my thighs!

Although I am definitely overweight I do quite a bit of exercise. By the time I've mopped the floors for the fourth time I've usually broken out in a sweat!
The dogs are walked just about every day whether it's just thirty minutes round the block or for a couple of hours through the forest.
Recently I've been promising the boys that we would go on a bike ride and inspired by a post on a blog this morning about being without a car and how things take much longer walking made me comment back about how I just nip in the car to go anywhere. I've always got so much packed into my day that I try and do everything the quickest way possible.
Just before I had Clark we were involved in a car accident which wrote off our car, somebody pulled out of a parking position straight into the side of us.
We received £125 for the car which even eleven years ago wasn't very much! It took a year to save up for another car, meanwhile we got out our pushbikes and bought a trailer that you fit onto the back of the bike for £99.
Eden was riding a bike by then, Callum use to sit in this trailer and I had a "V" cushion that I use to snuggle Clark into and pack him in all snug and tight with other pillows and blankets.
We went everywhere for a year like that and even though I then had three children under five and one being a newborn my days panned out fantastically.
Because I knew it would take me ages to get anywhere and get home again so I didn't pack my day with errands and obligations, we just did what we could.
Nowadays our days are packed with just nipping in here on the way there and generally squeezing in as much as we can in as little time as possible!
So, as I had to pick up a prescription from the chemist which is about one and a half miles from us I asked the boys if they wanted to come with me and we would ride our bikes.
Their response was a resounding "yes".
They also wanted to visit my Dads grave which is about 300yrds further along the road from the chemist, so we took a red primrose along with us to plant on his grave. I was bought some for my birthday as it's been far too wet to plant them out so they've been hanging around. We chose a red one because red was my Dads favourite colour.
We took some pictures whilst we were there.
My coat and bike are leant against his headstone, very respectful!
You can see the red primrose we planted  at the end of the grave.

 Even with the amount of rain we've had they insisted on watering the plants!

We say a prayer before we leave, usually at Cody's insistence, so I took a picture before we started.
I always think this is so lovely because my Dad died when Callum was seven weeks old, so the youngest three boys never met him, I think this is probably Cody's way of having some sort of relationship with him. Maybe that's just me being a bit deep?

So then we cycled home and as the title suggests my thighs are now killing me! 

 I finished these a little earlier, they're for the friend that gave me the puppies.

So now I think I need to sit and let my poor old body relax.
Oh, look there's my knitting bag, may as well do some as I sit here......... relaxing!

Not a dog in sight!

It seems that my last few posts have all been about dogs so today there isn't going to be a dog in sight! I realise not everyone is as mad about dogs as me although saying that quite a lot of you have commented on my posts recently so there are a few of you out there.
Today Cody went with Malc and the eldest boys to work for the morning which just left me with Soloman.
It is quite unusual for me to have one to one time with any of the children so this was really nice. We decided to make cakes, first we mixed the marge and sugar together,

 Then we folded in the flour

 We cooked them and mixed the buttercream, Soloman decided he wanted blue buttercream!

 We only put a little colouring in so they quite pale ( thankfully!)

We've given four to Grandma and he's taken four to Cubs for the leaders to taste hoping he will pass his chefs badge.
Talking of badges, I spent about one and a half hours sewing on sixteen badges to Beavers, Cubs and Scout tops this afternoon!
They have sewn them on themselves before but the amount of times they've sewn the front of the sleeve to the back of the sleeve because they've forgotten to put a book down the sleeve to prevent doing this, doesn't bear thinking about! It was easier for me to do it without all the drama!
The two eldest boys cleaned out their rabbits, they even got to go out in their runs and munch on some grass as the back garden has dried out quite a bit over the weekend.
Malc has gone with two of the boys to Cubs, Eden's out at band practice, so I've only got two at home. One of them is definitely old enough to make a cup of tea so I'm sitting and knitting and going nowhere!

Best Citizen

Really pleased this dog got it. They get such bad press, good to see something positive

And the winner is ....

Ricky, the standard Poodle

I actually agree with the judge as I wanted this one to win.

Tulouse

Tulouse, Tula for short is a cross breed between a Bichon Frise

and a Yorkshire Terrier

The result is this

Or this when she's clipped

Which judging by the first picture looks about due!
She's called Toulouse because Bichons originate from France, Tulouse is a place in France!
She was seven years old on December 28th last year.
She's a really friendly little dog who is brilliant with any dogs she meets, she doesn't chase balls or sticks but her recall is fantastic. If I want the dogs to come back to me Tula is the one I call and the rest of the pack follow.
I use two commands for recall either "come" or "leads on". The second command is used when the walk is coming to an end or if we see other dogs coming towards us on their leads then we tend to put ours on too.
Somebody asked in a comment last week if the dogs slept in a heap and I said they usually slept in twos and threes, but today I took a couple of pictures of them sleeping like this!
This one of five of them all together

And this one withTyxall looking up to see what I was doing

In other news, Eden had her paid singing at church today, the boys have been playing outside since midday.
One of these turned up

The boys all got out their piggy banks and bought themselves one. There's always one that has to go bigger and better, here's Clark with his huge ice-cream!

It's called a 'double'! I don't think he's going to want much for tea

Old friends, baths and finished knitting!

Firstly I'd like to say hello to a couple of new followers, particularly Lisa whose blog I use to read all the time and when we lost our main computer I lost a load of addresses and couldn't remember most of them. So now she's found me I can go and visit her again which I will do later.
In looking to find who my newest follower was though I've managed to follow myself! I didn't even know you could do that!
Today we only took five dogs for their walk, Medi is nearly twelve and has had a couple of long walks over the past couple of days and although I'm sure she would be game I do like to rest her between really long walks. Max has a problem with his shoulder which I will write about when I do a write up on him, but this makes him limp if he's walked too much so I wanted to rest him too.
Clark and Eden went to the library this morning to do some work on their computers. Clark is looking to get his photographers badge in Scouts and had to go and print out some photos as our photocopier is playing up at the moment.
So Callum and I bathed some dogs
Nieve

Max

 Hexa

 Tula, who was by far the dirtiest

 After they were bathed we had the mammoth task of cleaning the bathroom as there was water everywhere and the actual bath was black.
I managed to finish this off this afternoon, So it's ready to send.
I'm glad it's finished. I'm really pleased with it, but with a pattern in it and using 4ply wool with really small needles it seems to have taken an age to knit!

I've already started on some bedsocks that I promised to a friend a while ago, they should only take two or three evenings and then I'm doing some dishcloths that I promised somebody else.
I've had to tape Crufts tonight as the children want to watch Ant and Dec and The Cube. I was really pleased last night when a Staffordshire Bull Terrier came third overall in the Terrier group. A lovely Irish Wolfhound won the Hound Group. I'm really looking forward to the final on Sunday night.
I've never been to Crufts, it's on my wish list. I think I would be the first one in the queue when it opened and the last one to leave, probably with a couple of dogs in my rucksack, up my jumper and anywhere else I could think of too!
Anyway off to do another row on those socks!

Muddy Dogs!

We are very lucky in that to the side of us is a row of houses, then a road and then another row of houses and then we have three huge fields and two adjoining copses.  Even luckier for us is that we can cut through some garages and it's literally 150 yards from our house. Animals residing over there are foxes, deer, which we have seen on numerous occasions, rabbits and so many species of birds. We go to the fields a fair bit but most of the dog owners on our estate walk their dogs over there and it can get quite busy!
We thought we'd pop over there today, now I thought the Heath was muddy yesterday, it was nothing compared to today!
I thought I would treat you to a couple of pictures of muddy dogs!

 Medina, but Tula was the clear winner!

She was filthy!
A picture of one of the less muddy fields. What is it with boys? They always manage to find a stick from somewhere to carry around with them!

Luckily after the walk we went round to my mums for a cuppa so the dogs were in their cages in the minibus and had time to dry off a bit before we took them home and let them in the house.
Tonight has been the usual round of Beavers, Scouts and Youth
 Club.
At Youth Club tonight they are playing something called Wide Games, which is sort of like British Bulldog, I think Eden is going to come back covered in mud!
It's the second day of Crufts tonight, so I'm off to do the last front of the green cardi I'm knitting and drool over all the gorgeous, well groomed, well behaved mutts!