There's always time to bake!

The title of this post was inspired by Sue who remarked in my comments on my last post asking how I was going to find time to bake with all this knitting and crochet?
Never fear, there is always time to bake in this house!
This is today's results
I made mixed spiced muffins, they're made with apple sauce in them and they're quite delicious

When you add buttercream and a pecan nut to the top it takes them to 'out of this world!"

I also made a gingerbread cake

Here's a picture of yesterday's square and hat,

I have to admit to finishing off the hat this afternoon as Eden and her boyfriend forced me to open a bottle of wine last night!

For some reason my needles drop lots of stitches when I drink wine so I had to call it a night and finish it off today!

Cody finished off his square today,

I have done todays square and I've just finished the rib on today's hat,

Now before any of you think that I'm Superwoman I must stress that no formal schoolwork has been done today.

The boys helped me bake and have been doing fun things by themselves but that's about all.

Tomorrow is carnival night again so be prepared for more pictures.

Challenges

I belong to a couple of knitting groups both physically and online.
I'm doing hats for premature babies and also blankets that are going to Israel. The handover and deadline for these is October 31st.
One of the blankets for Israel

One of the online groups I belong to gave a shout out for people to knit/crochet eight inch squares, so I thought we'd give it a go.
I want to do it as a family project, so Clark and Callum have said they will knit/crochet a few.
Here's the link to the charity
http://www.knitforpeace.org.uk/2015/08/27/helpforrefugees/
Cody has already started.

 I crocheted the three on the table in front of him and he started his first one, he's actually nearly finished it as I took this picture earlier this afternoon.
I've got a stash of about ten hats already but I did these two last night

I've set myself a challenge of crocheting a square and knitting a hat a night. I don't knit/crochet every night but I do manage quite a few nights a week.
Then I've also get this one the go, so when I 've done my square and hat (and blogged, of course!) I will try and do a couple of rounds of this

That should keep me out of trouble shouldn't it?

Sketch Tuesday

Sketch Tuesday is a site that anyone can join in with. We used to do it a few years ago and it sort of dwindled from our homeschool activities over a period of time.
As we've started a new school year I've taken a look at the resources that we have and looked back over what we use to do that worked for us.
So we thought we'd give it a go again.
Last weeks theme was things with corners and although we did it I forgot to take photos of the boys work.
If you would like to look at the whole slideshow  for last week including the boys pictures the link is here

This week's theme was "Fairy Tales" so as we're eager beavers and like to get things done we did our pictures straight away.
Callum did  The Gingerbread Man

Clark did Snow White

Soloman did The Three Little Pigs

Cody did The Ugly Duckling

I took this picture for Instagram as I was tagged in a "what you are doing now" thing. I thought I might as well put the picture on here. At the time we were doing school work.

We've got a couple more projects that we're thinking of starting or revisiting so expect more pictures soon.

Carnival Season

September and October is carnival season down here in Dorset and my goodness we have some fantastic ones.
Last night we drove to Mere which is near Gillingham, it's about an hour and fifteen minutes  from us.
We've been to Mere many times but never to their carnival, it's a lovely tiny little town with a High Street and a little town square. They have a fantastic historical walk which we've done a few times, a lovely library and as it turns out a great carnival too.
These two headed up the parade

We had some bands

Majorettes

Beauty Queens

Different characters collecting our saved up coins

Some brilliant floats, a pirate ship

Dressed up characters with loads of lights on them, these seem very popular as there were quite a few of them,

This float had lit up planes on it and was three trailers long, definitely my favourite.

Another float,

Thomas the Tank,

There was also a fun fair there, the boys shot corks at things, hooked ducks, bought candy floss and I even went on a fairground ride with Clark. I screamed like a little girl all the way round!
I can't remember the last time I rode on a fairground ride, it was definitely a long time ago that's for sure!
We had a great time and can't wait for next weekend's carnival.

Canine birthdays

Whilst I've been away we've had some dogs with birthdays.
Firstly these two, they were two years old on 31st August.
Where did that time go I hear you cry?
Chumleigh

Tyxall, not the best picture. I've been chasing her all round the house and garden trying to get a decent one!

Hexa was 7 on 3rd September. She's always up for a photo!

We are walking them all this afternoon and then this evening we're off to a carnival so hopefully I'll have some more pictures to post soon.

At the Beach

Yesterday the weather was so nice and I'd seen on the news that the weekend isn't going to be that great so we decided to go to one if the the beaches that the county of Dorset is famous for.
We went down at about two in the afternoon after we'd done some schoolwork.
All four boys went into the sea, proclaimed it to be freezing but stayed in there for the following three hours anyway!
Callum, whose confidence has grown and grown since his operation. He actually took his T-shirt off which he admits himself he would never have done before his op.

Clark who went to paddle in his shorts and t-shirts and ended up swimming !

Cody who went right the way into to the sea for the first time ever and was so proud of himself.

Not the best picture, Soloman and Cody.

Callum and Clark with Soloman and Cody in the background.  Neither would take trunks because they weren't going to go all the way in the sea and ended up swimming and having to try and dry themselves in the sunshine before I would allow them back in the mini bus!

Soloman and Cody sunning themselves, although it was very sunny there was quite a breeze so they all said it was warmer in the water then out of it.

We don't take advantage of our lovely beaches enough so we've decided that we're going to try and do this a bit more often.

Busy weekend

I knew we were going to be busy,  what with ferrying children everywhere and normal weekend activities.
We went to our fave place for breakfast on Sunday, Mum and Stepdad treated us as a thank you for all the help we gave them when Ed was in hospital which was really nice.
I made a birthday cake on Sunday as it was Mum and Malc's birthday on Monday. Unfortunately I left it in the oven for too long and it burnt! I put it on a rack to cool anyway because I thought I could cut off the burnt edge and the boys would probably eat it with some custard.
Unfortunately our lovely puppy April had other ideas and as she has lovely long lurcher legs she managed to reach it and eat half of it!
I got a bit disheartened and thought  I would buy one instead on Monday but when I woke in the morning I had a chat with myself and decided to have another go.
Birthday cakes in Asda are between £10 and £15 and I thought that's so much money, the frugal amongst you would be proud of me!
Anyway, this one turned out a lot better so Cody and I buttercreamed it and decorated it.

Mum and Ed came up later in the afternoon and we had a takeaway for tea, so a lovely day was had by all.

Fit enough to shop

I woke this morning feeling much better, I've got a silly cough but that's all.
I'm not sure if I've mentioned that Eden has a Saturday/holiday job at a chemist quite local to us. She has a very enthusiastic boss who wants to send her on all sorts of courses which she's very happy to do.
So she went off to work this morning, Malc, Callum and Clark went to the bimonthly men's breakfast at our local church.
Meanwhile I had a lovely soak in a hot bubbly bath whilst Soloman and Cody watch some kids TV.
So the weekend started quietly and gently in this house, which is very unusual!
After lunch Callum,Clark and Cody came out with us.
Cody has been on about buying himself a phone mainly to play games on as he's never really without us to have the need to ring or text.
As they earn their own money helping myself or Malc at work I've tried to say to myself that it's their money to spend on what they wish. Sometimes I have to speak up if I think  they're buying absolute rubbish but I try and leave them to it so they can learn the value of making good/bad decisions.
He seems to think  he's made a good decision so I'm crossing my fingers that he takes care of it.
Callum was keen to go to B&Q as he wanted to buy himself an Orchid as one of his clients has a few and he's been teaching Callum how to look after them.
He also managed to find some other plants that were in the sale as they were a bit bedraggled but with a good water and some TLC they'll bloom.
Then onto my favourite bit, I visited my favourite shop for some wool.
I want to knit Callum a chunky hoodie and also one for my friends little boy.

Callum chose the colour he wanted.

I then found some Christmas coloured wool and couldn't resist.
Last year Callum made some little stockings and pegged them with little pegs onto a crocheted chain and they looked great, so this year I thought I would give it a go. Callum used red wool with a few rows of white around the top of the stocking but I thought this would look good in variegated Christmas colours.
I also found this little caption on the internet which I thought was most appropriate!

To bring you up to date

So much has gone on that it would take me ages to type it all out so I'll just tell you the basics.
Neighbours son had an incident with a nurse dislodging a needle which resulted in him having to have two operations on his arm and having to be in hospital for two weeks which meant lots of extra work looking after his Mum.
He came home on the Saturday and my Stepdad went into hospital on the Sunday for eight days, which meant lots of looking after my Mum and taking her to hospital every other day. He's been diagnosed with Crohns disease.
Stepdad came out but was quite tired all the time so it's been a couple of weeks of me making them dinners and being there every day.
Things are just getting back to normal now.
In the middle of that Eden and her boyfriend of eight months broke up, apparently he wasn't " feeling it " any more!
It was a total surprise for her as she didn't see it coming so we had a few days of tears. It's so hard as a Mum to help in a situation like that, there's absolutely nothing you can do other than soothe and cuddle them.
We all had a virus going round us one by one which I seem to have succumbed to today.
Despite this we've had some nice dog walks
Malc and Callum

Soloman and Cody tree climbing

Clark tree climbing,

During the summer we have fireworks arranged by our tourism board for six weeks during the summer holidays.
We met up with some friends and went to see them last night.
They put on loads of free activities for everyone.
Although these are aimed at younger children Eden decided she'd have a go at skipping,

We also went to a farm fun day where the youngest two had a great time on some inflatables.

So I think that about brings you up to date.
We have quite a busy weekend planned, it's Malcs and my Mums birthday next Monday so we have lots of preparations to sort out.
More photos for the next post then!

Normal service will resume

Hopefully soon.
Things have been pretty mad here for the last few weeks.
As usual I've been running around after everyone but I hope to explain more soon.
Until then here's some Jelly Babies I've been knitting

Got to go,  time for the dye to come off my hair!

White, two sugars please!

The man that Callum gardens for rang this morning to say that he had to go to the dentist this afternoon and would be out for several hours. He wondered if I could "pop" in on his wife and make her a cuppa about 3-30pm. As I usually go over to another neighbours and make her a cuppa whilst her son's at dialysis three afternoons a week it wasn't a problem to add her to the list.

Mum and Ed came back from a weekend away about dinner time so I went to change their bed for them as Eden had been staying there to look after their dogs, I was sure the bed would be full of crisp, sweet wrappers and crumbs!

The first thing Mum and Ed said after the dogs had jumped all over them was that they needed a cup of tea.

So I've figured on a new enterprise that I think could bag me a fortune. 

I'm going to be going round the roads on the estate with this trolley knocking on doors.

I'm not sure whether to get a bell like the ice cream van or just holler!

What do you do?

What do you do on a very grey day when it's tipping down with rain?
Why bake of course!
Some butterfly cakes with a cherry

Smarties Victoria sandwich

                                       

Callum made ice cream

With chocolate milky stars

And smarties in.

The dogs walk was cancelled, it really was raining that hard!