Miscellaneous Monday (with a few makings too!)

The past couple of weeks I have been busy crocheting. 

Yes, I know it seems like I am always busy crocheting, but I mean more so than usual. You see, I have a craft fair booked for 3 weeks time. There is already a jewellery and a cards stall booked in, so I can't have any of these on my stall, just crochet and sewing.

So, I have been busy making up some kiddie hats. And some adult ones.

And some of these wee guys.

These cute little monsters have been made under the direction of James! He tells me how many eyes to put on each one and how to make it's mouth. I'm working on a kiddie hat to match the blue one.

This little cutie is made to an arigurumi cupcake pattern {click here to find it} but since I chose to make it up in purples (my favourite colour) it looks more like a little Ribena Berry. I'm just going to pretend that that's what I meant to do all along!

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I've also been busy this week working on an order for my Etsy shop.

These cufflinks are currently in the care of Royal Mail and somewhere between here and the US!

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A few weeks ago we all attended a  family fun day where the boys entered a design your own t-shirt competition. James won his age group and the prize was getting your design made up onto a t-shirt.

His t-shirt arrived today. The drawings were all professionally re-drawn and it looks great!

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Have you seen the new Facebook like box in the sidebar? I'd love to have some more likers for the Lifeinmyhousefulofboys Facebook page. If any of you are on Facebook it would be lovely to connect on there.

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Oh yes, that sound clip I had in my Things I'm loving post below. I had a funny feeling it wouldn't work. I was posting from an ipad app and I didn't think I had done the link properly. Here it is now though. It's worth waiting for ;0)

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Miscellaneous Monday

~I have the usual tatties growing in the garden this year, as well as onions, french beans, beetroot, salads, strawberries, raspberries, redcurrants and courgettes (my courgettes aren't doing too well though, this year.) 

I've grown all of these before, but I'm also growing for the first time: cabbages, which are thriving, chillies and cucumber. 

I was pretty confident the cabbages would work out OK, but wasn't sure if cucumber or chillies would grow without a greenhouse. The chillies are a bit slow, but I think they will get there. I'm quite excited about the cucumber though.

It's not the straightest cucumber ever but it's mine! It's also grown a bit more since I took this picture and there are a couple more round the back.

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~I'm sure I've mentioned numerous times before, that our David (5) is quite fearless.

It was no surprise then, that when we took the stabilisers off his bike earlier in the summer (I think these are called training wheels in other places?) he took all of about 2 minutes to crack riding it without them. James, on the other hand, when he was his age, took the entire summer to master it. He is still the cautious one.

The great thing about not having a rider using stabilisers, is that we can go for proper off road bike rides now and there are excellent cycle tracks around where we live.

On Saturday morning we headed off on one of them to a newly refurbished play-park.

And what better thing to do after cycling three miles, including a half hour run around a park, than spend the later half of Saturday enjoying tea and scones at the local garden centre with my brother and his wife, while the boys and their cousins ran around another park?

Happy days!

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Miscellaneous Monday

Today's post is basically a selection of random images from the last week.

On Saturday there was a military parade through town.

This regiment, who have recently returned from Afghanistan, were granted the freedom of West Lothian, and that's what the parade was in honour of.

Here are the older boys, two of their cousins and the Lord Provost.

Another day last week we visited the garden centre to find a local petting zoo there.

Since James and Calum are allergic to furry things, this meant they could only hold the reptiles - no complaints from them! 

Now, some art-work to finish.

David has really begun to show an interest in his drawings. He never had any time for it before now.

This is his self portrait.

The sign reads, this is David (sho da-ee-vee)

Here are Prince William & Kate Middleton on their wedding day.

And so as not to leave Alasdair out, here is the sheep we made together last week.

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Miscellaneous Monday

We've had such beautiful weather for the Easter holidays. Last week there was sunshine every day, and the boys were so chuffed to be able to have lunch outside every day. I have finally been able to let myself believe that spring is here and summer is on it's way.

The sunshine continued today for the last day of their holidays.

It's a funny few weeks at school. They have had the last two weeks off for the Easter holidays. They go back to school tomorrow but are then off again on Friday for the Royal Wedding. Next Monday they are off for the May day holiday and then on the Thursday they are off for the Scottish elections! They then have two full weeks at school before another three day holiday for the late May, Edinburgh bank holidays!! After that it's only 5 weeks until the summer holidays - hooray!

I'm not one of those parents who complains about having their children off school, in case you hadn't noticed!

The great spring weather has meant we could crack on with our gardening chores. 

One of the first jobs we do each spring is clean out the sand-pit. Despite having a lid on it, the winter rains seem to find a way in and this was it before we started.

Here are my two assistants scooping out the water and old sand. 

Once we had washed it out we filled it with water and used it as a water pit for a couple of days until we got down to the shops to buy some more sand.

Now it's all full of nice fresh sand.

I spent a couple of days just digging, digging, digging all the weeds in the garden. The winter came on us so quickly this year that I didn't get to tidy up the autumn weeds so there was a lot to do. It's looking good now. Ready for planting.

As well as digging, I had the hair clippers out one day to give the three youngest boys some well needed haircuts!

Before..

After... 

This is David with his home made bow and some spears, off to catch some deer (pretend ones, of course!)

And to finish off, here are some snaps of our Easter Sunday.

Egg decorating

Easter lunch in the garden

Hoping everyone had a great Easter weekend ♥

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Miscellaneous Monday

It's been a while since we had one of these, so just a couple of random happenings.

My mum is down with us just now for a few nights. She spent the first few nights with my brother and family and then last night came to ours for a few more nights.

On Saturday, she, my sister in law and myself went out for lunch followed by a shopping trip for a special outfit my mum needs for a big event in May. 

A lunch with no children in tow! The boys were spending the afternoon doing manly things with daddy (like getting air in the car's tyres, and topping up the oil) and I'm sure my nephews were doing something eqaully manly with my brother!

Our shopping trip was a success and my mum found a lovely dress and matching jacket in the first shop we tried. It is a really nice fifties style dress with a belted waist. Later on, in another shop where she was looking for a shrug to wear with it too, my sister in law and I were drawn to the exact same dress. Another fifties style dress,  black with a white swirl pattern, a net underskirt and a beautiful satin sash round the waist. We joked about who had seen it first (it was definitely me!), before looking at the price. Oh well.

Now the boys are enjoying having granny here for a few more days, and I'm enjoying the fact that my washing and ironing is already done for this week - and it's only Monday!

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