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.