Childrens Personalised Books

Our new family adventure…no TV days. Yes, I call it an adventure and the kids would call it pure torture, cruel and unusual punishment, my mom/sister is being mean. You know the drill when you impose rules on the babies that they are not in favor of.

The babies want to know how we could be so mean as to take away the TV. We did this because the kids were not playing games, reading books, playing outside or using their imagination as much as we wanted them to so we took away the one thing that occupied a major part of their day the TV.

It has been nice to see them dust off the big dust bunnies and knock down cobwebs to find the games, toys, books etc. that in some cases have never even opened up and finding new adventures that they didn’t even know existed. Now they haven’t been thrilled about it just yet… No jumping for joy or cheers for no TV day, they are still too upset about losing a day of TV which they do get back at 7pm. Right now they spend the day counting down the hours until seven. Yes, with each hour that passes I hear 6, 5, 4, 3 etc. hours left until I can watch TV…silly babies have not given any thought that I could and will add another day or two to the no TV days…nice to know I have the ability to enrich and disrupt their little lives with just two little words…4 letters and a space….No TV….the power of mom…oops! Sorry about the power trip I’m going on…

I’m now creating little musicians, whiz kids, writers, readers, make-up artists….Oh the possibilities with having them have no TV time is working out great. They are learning to do things outside their normal routine. The one little tiny itty-bitty problem is that they FIGHT more or should I say they bug each other more.

For a final note…. I have not saved any money on my electric bill which I thought was going to be a bonus…joke was on me.

So once again the kids are home and we’re snowed in!!  I just don’t get it- we’re in the worse stages of global warming since the invention of the wheel and yet here we are digging our way through UK Snow!!

I didn’t mind it so much before Christmas as it kind of ‘got us in the mood’, even when I skidded the car into a metal fence and needed the assistance of 4 burly builders to save me ( Maid Marion eat your heart out). But AGAIN ????

The 12 yr old is of course in 7^th heaven as he just can’t get to school- and if he could get there he wouldn’t be able to get home. The 7 yr old though has school. Tried driving yesterday and can’t say I enjoyed the experience so we decided to walk through snowy London this morning. Well we didn’t so much walk, as hobble to school. I give walking with caution a whole new meaning  . At one point I was overtaken by a 75 yr old man with a walking stick who floated down the street, whistling- I mean how relaxed was he?? It all came to ahead when I hit a bad patch. The 7 yr old described it as ‘spectacular’. I describe it as painful. I can only say I think I may have performed the first triple axle on concrete. Hey maybe the producers of Dancing on Ice should give me a call- or not!!

P.S- the next person who throws a snowball at me and laughs will face my wrath- Bah Humbug.

Traveling with the babies to Disney. The dreaded car ride.

Hands down driving at night with the babies sleeping was heaven. The kids slept off and on. They were tired and quiet. No fussing was heard except from the middle child. Props to the babies but not to the middle child. I could listen to some good music and enjoy the drive. Not to mention the traffic was great. Wide open roadway, who could ask for anything more.

The the middle child who is home from Korea drove me insane on the trip down. She complained about everything. First she was to hot then she was to cold. She complained about the music. She did not like it or it was to low, to high. It was constant non stop. Next time I am taking Benadryl with me. Yes, she will get a dose or two plus some duct tape to boot. (Not really but the thought will be there LOL)

We all enjoyed playing I am going on a trip game. To my surprise the kids did an awesome job with this game. We had some great belly laughs with licking lollipop lion, wait I am wrong again. Darn it!! It is a lion licking a lollipop. For the life of me I could never get that one right, but hey in my defense I was driving in all that night traffic. Good excuse to me. This was a good way to kill some time and keep us all awake.

The ride on the way home. Never again will I travel during the day with the babies. All I heard was…you guessed it…How much longer before we are home? Yep, the first time I heard this I knew we were in for a long trip. This question replaced the middle child issues on the way down. The DVD system did not help. Of course the rain all the way home did not help either because traffic was jammed from accidents.

I wish hotels would do half rates for people who travel at night. I would definitely sign up for that.

We stopped once on the way down and a zillion times on the way home. Another reason traveling at night is better in my world anyway.

Lets not forget we not only had the luggage to contend with on the way home. We now had added suvioners and a stroller to the mix. Thought we were squished on the way down, on the way home we were beyond squished and no one except me had foot room. I think I could use a smaller vehicle. LOL

We finally played the I am going on a trip game five minutes before we were home. Oops, next time that will be the first thing we will do half way into the trip. ~Ann Marie anessa.me~

A story to tell for Halloween/All Hollows Eve. This story is not scary but strange and perfect for the season.

Let me set the stage.

We moved into our house 5 years ago this month. When we moved in our house our belongings were still in MI so the people we brought the house from left all the things they did not want behind. One of the things they left us was a console TV. How cool or so we thought. The TV had a mind of its own or was controlled by something other then us. For the 3 yrs and 2 months (yes, I remember how long) the TV would come on and shut off as it pleased. You would turn it on and it would shut off at some point. It could be minute from the time you turned it on or an hour. Whenever you would turned it back on and it would shut off again. This could happen many times, just once or not at all while you were watching TV it all depended on what ‘mood’ the TV was in. Yet other times the TV would just come on all by itself. We joshed around about our TV saying it was possessed. We got rid of the TV 2 years ago this Christmas. The new TV has not had these issues, BUT……….

Our Microwave took over. Yes, indeed it did! Our microwave is possessed. Right when we got rid of the TV the microwave started. It comes on as it pleases. You shut kitchen cabinet door or the microwave door and the microwave comes on. ( so you know there is no time on the microwave and its off) My favorite is when you hit the “0″ button and the number “6″ comes up. The buttons on the microwave will work when they want to. We laugh and joke about it. At times we say we need to have a priest come and bless our house.

Yes, there has been people who have been here when these odd things happen. Needless to say they are just amazed and entertained by our strange happenings. We are not scared, I’m sure there is some logical explanation or NOT. For now we will continue to be amused by our strange Microwave.

Summer holidays

Like everyone else this Summer I was blinded by our heatwave in June and booked the Devon holiday park summer break. Not realising August would turn into typhoon season, we packed our raincoats and suncream, wellies and swimming costumes and set off for our week away.

Leaving the Old man at home who had work commitments, meant that the 3 hour drive was solely mine. Due to the torrential rain the 3 hour drive turned into a 6 hour journey, with us veering off the motorway to find ‘ an idyllic lunch spot’. A deserted pub on a deserted seafront, serving up rough looking chicken goujons wasn’t what I had in mind!!

On arrival at the holiday park we managed to get all our luggage into the chalet before the thunder and lightening struck. So worn out from the drive, we spent the first night in the entertainment bar with Loopy and his disco. The 7yr old loved it- up on the dance floor, doing the Macarena like an old pro! The 12 yr old spent the majority of his holiday money in the arcade in the first 10 minutes. This left me to sit in the bar and sing along with hits from the last 3 decades- whether I knew them or not. Safe to say I had a headache in the morning.

The following days were spent on the beach, where the kids spent 3 hours digging a hole, cycling for 11 miles round fantastic scenery- won’t tell you what ached after that- and a rainy day in Torquay shopping centre finding things to buy in the pound shop.

So although it wasn’t quite the sunshine holiday I’d envisaged- the kids got on great, we had lots of great meals together, lots of great family chats and now I know all the words to Ketchup Song.

Highlight of the trip- bingo in the arcade and the 12 yr old sweating over one number- you wouldn’t get that in the Maldives!!

Stopped off at a chinese herbalists  whilst out with with an old friend. Finally had enough of the back ache, the shoulder pain, the hair loss and the inability to sleep for longer than 20 mins I thought , what the heck!!

Led into a calm soothing room filled with aromatic candles and soothing music my defences were down. The herbalist proceeded to wedge her knuckkles into various sensitive parts of my body- whilst asking “does it hurt”?. Able to understand my grunts and groans she told me my body organs were poorly functioning and my circulation was quite frankly rubbish. So distraught am I that I don’t utter a word when she slaps on a sticky pad to each sole and tells me the toxins will be out by morning. As I managed to move my illfunctioning body from the room I was greeted with a conveyor belt of pills, potions and powders. Asking to see my tongue she humphed, and replaced two bottles with two others ( I can only assume she’d discovered more bad news). her hands moved like lightening back and fore to the bottles and the caluclator. The words ” that will be £198″, didn’t sink in the first time, good job there’s stuff there for my failing brain function too then !!
As I looked at her I uttered the desperate words- “after all of this will I feel better”. Well what do you think she said??

So now I have around 85 pills a day along with powders and drinks. So if in 20 days I feel refreshed, and revitalised and my ying is inline with my yan- it’ll all be worth it- Just have to muster up the strength now to open all the bottles of pills-and hope that my brain is functioning well enough to remember which ones I take and when.

Picked up the 7 yr old from school on the Friday, and was greeted with the words- every parent dreads to hear, “I’m star of the week and I’ve got Buster to bring home”- OH NO!!!  As my heart quickened and sweat broke out on my forehead, I reached for the 4 yr old standing next to me’s inhaler , didn’t need it but  I thought it may help the sudden constriction in my chest. Buster the school stuffed dog is special, he’s awarded to the gifted ones, he comes with his ‘own apparel’ and he gives me the evil eye!!
So now we have the dog we have to entertain him all weekend and of course document his every move in ‘the diary!. “So let’s have look what Busters been up to with the other kids, shall we”, says the Old Man lightly.
‘Buster goes to the Star Wars premier,
Buster goes on the Eastenders set,
Buster goes to Tiffanys to choose Mummy’s birthday diamonds.’
I think the Old Man got to page 6 before he went for a lie down. As you have probably gathered by now the 7yr old’s school is filled with ‘showbiz luvvies’. No point trying to compete- so we did our thing. It was football tournament weekend, so Buster got to ride in the dilapidated mini-bus with a whole crew of 10 and 11 yr olds. Got to sit in the kit  bag, under the gazebo amongst 45 people hiding from the torrential downpour. Felt the force of the strikers boots as he shot him into the goal (we opted to leave that out of the photo gallery!!) and to top off Busters weekend with ‘the normals’, Buster with his Mcd’s Happy meal.
As we took Buster back on Monday morning,  we were confident in the knowledge that if buster could talk we know where he would rather spend his weekends- well until the next time when he was flown on the private plane to Monte Carlo to whizz round on a jet ski!!

Okay don’t ask me how it happened but I joined a gym!!!  I figured whilst I’m having to be at the gym three times a week while the 6yr old (whoops 7yr old now), does her gymnastics I may as well do something constructive- so feeling active I joined . Had to have an induction before I could start using it so off I toddle, expecting a nice stroll around the machines, being show how to use them and what to use for what ‘troubled areas’.

How wrong can an unfit 40 something be??

I’m met at the door by a cheery, cherpy slip of a girl with bundles of energy and a waist the size of my bangle. As she looks me up and down she asks me what my objectives are. “Get fit, tone up” says I feeling confident. Okay then let’s start with some cardiovascular to burn off some of that fat says the stick insect grabbing my love handles, that I thought I’d expertly hidden under my Lycra workout top.

We moved over to the cross trainer machine. “My God it’s weird”, laughed I as my legs went one way and my arms went the other. Realising I wasn’t doing it properly, in fact I was going backwards- I was shown how to do it correctly. As the instructor stopped to have a chat with her mate- another stick insect- I hiked up the speed and went full pelt into my cross trainer action. 1.30mins showed on the timer and I was sweating like a navvy and dangerously out of breath. At this point the two instructors looked over and said “mmm,”.

I decided to defer the attention and get off the machine by asking what the others did. Had a go at the exercise bikes not showing myself up too much on them, the rowing machine- showed myself up highly on that, and then we moved to the weights machines.
Sides of arms, back of arms, middle of arms and shoulders. Front of legs, back of legs, sides of legs, all over legs. Backs, boobs and buttocks- you name it we did it. I ended up flat on a mat doing three different types of ab crunches.

45 mins after I’d walked in I barely managed to hobble my way out. With my programme charted in my folder, waiting for me to start I waved to the stick insects who were chatting to a 70yr old guy on the running machine coming up to his 30th minute at top speed.

To top it all when I got home my eldest son lovingly announced, “Mum, you think you’re aching now, wait till tomorrow”. The folder’s still there in the gym waiting 5 days later. One day, one day!!!!!

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