Things I'm loving...

While we were in Lewis last week the older three boys and one of their cousins spent a couple of days shinty training with Lewis Camanachd. The team had organised for some of their players to do some coaching for children, calling it their Shinty Camp.

 

 

 

David (8) came out on the second day with this huge Easter egg, his prize for being 'player of the camp'. He was very kind and shared his egg with all of us!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We loved the chance for the boys to spend time with their 90 year old great granny. Fraser is starting to get a little bit shy with people and so cried the first couple of days we tried sitting him on my granny's knee. She was delighted though, when after a few days he would sit happily on her knee - although he couldn't sit on her for long as he's a heavy wee thing!

 

 

 

 

We loved the - mostly - great weather while we were away (and since we've been back), and getting back into the outdoors life after the winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calum (11) still wants nothing more than to be a crofter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day we left the island was beautiful sailing weather. Somewhere across that horizon is mainland Scotland.

 

 

 

The boys entertained themselves nicely on the ferry. So much so that an older man came across to me at one point and said, 'I don't know what you paid for those boys but whatever it was it was a bargain! They are delightful!' Well, that was really lovely to hear as I always think people must see us coming along with five boys and think, 'please don't sit next to us!' Especially on a nearly three hour ferry crossing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the boat was closer to the mainland we went outside to get some photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those two bits of land are the mainland, Lewis is out of sight across the horizon.

 

 

 

Since returning back David has been playing more shinty. This time with a French rugby team. Yes Rugby team. A junior team were coming over to Scotland and wanted to know about shinty so they got in touch with our shinty team to ask if they could give them a day of coaching. My hubs is one of the coaches so he and David spent a sunny day trying to teach the French that shinty involves less bodily contact than rugby!

 

 

 

 

David handed them all a little momento from the shinty team at the end of the day.

 

 

The following day the same rugby team were involved in matches against Calum & David's rugby team. It was the first time either boy had played in a competitive match.

 

I have to admit that the French boys outclassed the Scots in every age group but it was great experience for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

And David continued to show that he is an all round sportsman by scoring three tries! That's him hitting the ground in the photo below.

 

 

 

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60th Birthday Fun

On the morning of my dad's 60th we told him that he wasn't allowed to come down to breakfast until 9am as we were all going to set up a special breakfast for him.

 

Which we did.

 

 

 

 

 

However, we had also taken inspiration of this photo of him from the 70s....

 

 

 

 

 

...and worked on one more craft project.

 

 

Matching tshirts for everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Us, my brothers, sister in law, nephews, my mum...

 

Even Fraser was in on it!

 

 

 

So when my dad came down to his birthday breakfast he was greeted by this....

 

 

 

We had all changed out of them by the time we went out for dinner though!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were joined by some more family for dinner and the table ended up being adults on one side and children on the other, which was fine as the boys and their cousins all entertained each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My youngest brother ordered the biggest burger on the menu!

 

 

 

This is my mum and dad..

 

 

 

 

Fraser was his usual happy self and really enjoyed the foil balloons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I'm pretty sure my dad enjoyed his icing version of him on a golf course!

 

 

 

 

Incidentally, I'm glad I've mastered the art of discreet nursing, since the first time Fraser needed fed that evening was when the cake came out and all the cameras were out!

 

 

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60th Birthday Makings

Now that his big day has been and gone, I can share some of the things we made for my dad's 60th birthday last week.

 

We arrived home at my parents' a couple of days before his birthday, which gave us time to work on a few decorations.

 

My mum has a rather large collection of jam jars which I raided to make these candle holders.

 

 

 

A few doilies and some ribbon and they were ready to decorate the table for the birthday dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

I wish I could say that the idea was mine but I have to give thanks to Pinterest where I had seen several similar ones!

 

 

I also made up a pile of paper pom-poms (thanks again, Pinterest). We hung some of these up around the room and used the others as table decorations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were able to decorate the room at the hotel where the birthday dinner was going to be.

 

 

One of the decorations we had was a line of old photos of my dad from various decades.

 

 

 

 

 

While going through the old photos I found enough to make up a scrapbook of photos, which we gave to my dad at his dinner. The writing on the cover is made from some nice felt letters I found in Hobbycraft.

 

 

 

On the right hand side of the photo above is a pile of envelopes tied together. This was a project idea that my brother's wife suggested. She had seen it on a blog, where someone gave their dad 60 memories for his 60th birthday. We knew we wouldn't be able to get 60 memories together as she only suggested it a week before his birthday but, after getting some names from my mum, and me spending a morning sending out emails, we were able to get memories from people who have known my dad from different times in his life - from childhood, through his college days to today. The boys and my nephews all wrote or drew something as well. Each memory/picture was printed out and placed in an individual envelope so it took my dad a wee while to open them all!

 

 

The boys' present to him was a decoupage one. The Gaelic for grandad is Seanair (Shen-ar) which is almost always abbreviated to Shen.

 

 

 

Calum and David worked on the decoupage, which was a little bit fiddly in places, but the result was worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

And the final make, again by Calum and James, was the birthday cake.

 

 

 

 

 

Calum baked a gluten & dairy free '6' and I baked a non free from '0' and then we left James to do the decor.

 

 

 

 

He spent a couple of hours on it.

 

 

 

 

My dad likes golf and so this is James' icing version of him on the golf course.

 

 

 

 

The photos were taken while the icing was still soft which is why he is held up with a cocktail stick!

 

 

 

 

 

 

He made the bunker out of cake crumbs...

 

 

 

 

...and he said the extra golf balls are the ones that Shen has missed!

 

You can also see where James' name comes from!

 

 

We managed to keep my dad out of the kitchen while James was busy on the cake so he didn't see it until he was presented with it after the meal.

 

He had one more surprise when he cut into the cake.

 

The reason I made the '0' non free from was because we filled the middle with m and ms!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a few more fun photos of the day to share but I think that's enough photos for one post!

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Things I'm loving....

We've been busy, busy this week getting a few things ready for a big birthday celebration next week, which is why I haven't posted much. I really want to share some of what we have been working on but it's still Top Secret. The big birthday is my dad's 60th and since he reads my blog then I can't share our craftiness with you until after the big day!

 

 

In the meantime, here are a few of the other things that I was loving this past week though.

 

 

Actually, let's start with a couple of weekends ago when my hubs and oldest son took part in the sponsored sleepout that the homeless charity my husband works for organise every spring. We set James the fundraising target of £50 as I thought he would mostly be getting sponsorships from his friends and maybe a few teachers. I shared his Just Giving page on my Facebook though and he smashed his target!

 

 

He managed to beat his dad's total by about £30 too so he was even more chuffed! Plus, he even managed to get a little sleep on the cold car park floor that night, unlike his father who was one of the organisers and was up and down all night checking everything was OK.

 

I think last year the charity raised around £39,000 from the sleepout so it will be interesting to see how much they raise this year.

 

 

Moving forward to last weekend and to Mother's Day. As is our tradition for Mother's Day, the boys cooked Sunday lunch with dad. This was the place setting that David (8) set for me....

 

 

 

....and here is the lovely lunch - roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, mashed tatties, cauliflower cheese and roast vegetables. I did take pity on them and make the Yorkshire puddings but the rest was made entirely by them.

 

 

My husband commented that it's not actually that hard making a roast dinner, it's just getting everything ready at the same time that's tricky! They did really well though and lunch was delicious.

 

Calum (11) made his yummy Chocolate Coca Cola Cake for pudding but I was too eager to eat that to remember to snap a photo of it!

 

 

I've also been loving my lovely new Cath Kidston apron these last couple of weeks. I was given a voucher for the Cath Kidston store for my birthday back in September but I only got round to spending it a few weeks ago!

 

The apron is so pretty I found that I had forgotten to take it off the other day when I popped in the car to collect my husband from the train station when he finished work!

 

 

 

And finally, this little man and the fact that every time we pass one of these doggy charity coin collection things he asks me to take his picture with it!

 

 

 

 

 

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Eczema Outreach Scotland

Eczema Outreach Scotland are a charity I've written about here before.

They are a relatively new charity, set up by a mum of a girl with eczema to help and support other families living with eczema. They do so in many different ways, one of these being organised days out for families to get together.

On Saturday we attended one of these events, the second one we have been to.

It was held at an indoor snow slope near Glasgow - David & Calum loved how the UV lights at the entrance made their jumpers glow!

While the children all took part in some sledging, the adults stayed warm and had an informal chat with a dermatologist.

Before hitting the slopes the boys were kitted out with helmets. Alasdair (4) had been saying that he didn't want to go sledging but he went down to see what the boys were doing anyway.

Once he saw them on the snow though, he changed his mind and got a bit braver. He loved every minute of it!

Once their time on the slopes was up they all came in for some juice and snacks and then had the chance to fill in some surveys and give suggestions of any tips they have for managing their own eczema, as well as writing down any questions they would like to ask a dermatologist.

It was a great morning. They boys really loved the snow slide and are keen to go back another time.

I thought it was good to hear the questions and concerns the other parents had about their children's eczema. Everyone seems to agree that many people who don't have to live with eczema think of it as a much milder thing to live with than it really is.

Having been at a similar event last year - in fact I think it must have been almost exactly a year ago as I was in the midst of the worst weeks of pregnancy sickness - I was already aware of other families going through the same skin care routines and sleepless nights as we are, but somehow it really hit home to me more this time because as I was greasing Fraser up on Saturday night, while my hubs was doing Alasdair's creams, I thought of the others who right then would be doing the exact same thing.

Knowing this doesn't make what you have to go through any easier, you still have to spend all that time looking after the skin, watching your child cry in pain while they scratch and you try 101 things to distract them etc, and yet it does help that little bit too to know that you aren't the only family going through it either.

I'm not sure if that makes any sense but if you are another eczema family then maybe it does to you! And if you haven't joined up with Eczema Outreach Scotland yet then do head on over to their newly re-launched website here and sign up.

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