ACEO's

I finally found out exactly what they are thanks to
Pat's Encaustics - Art in the Wax
and I am so very excited by them, now I really can't wait for Friday because I'm going to buy a new cutting tool too so I can cut out the little 2.5" x 3.5" card and get my paint and sketch on. I have far too much going on in my head and will be glad to get it down on the cards as well as a few new greetings cards and paintings, oh yeah I'm going all out on Friday, just hope I can carry it all back with the kids in tow. We're using the ultra light Quinny pushchair with no underneath for storage as our Graco died a horrible, horrible death. (And I miss it like crazy, think daughter does too as there's no riding on the roof of this pushchair).

W.T.F!

Ok so yesterday hubby had to nip into town to get some stuff so I said our daughter could watch some cartoons, bored out of my mind with playhouse Disney (its good but on all the time), and noticed that Something Special was on on the CBeebies channel, she loves it so I popped it on. During the segment between shows I noticed that they had new presenters.
They were both playing a dressing up game and kept getting it muddled up and our 2 year old loved it and thought it was hilarious.
It wasn't until hubby came home that it was brought to my attention that there's apparently a one armed lady working on the show and that she was causing an uproar because she "might" be scaring people's children.
I mean come on...
Yeah I noticed she only had one arm and yes our daughter probably noticed it too, but was she scared? No.
Did Cerrie Burnell give her nightmares? No.
Would I not want my children watching it because it may bring up uncomfortable questions? No.
What does it matter that she only has one arm, she was great at presenting, she entertained our kids, and at the end of the day isn't that what its all about.

Potty Training Day 2

Oh it started so well today, she peed on the floor then used the potty, then on the floor again and then in the potty again so we were evenly matched on her attempts to use the potty to her just not realising, then it all went downhill after that...But at least she managed to use it twice again today, tomorrow will be interesting as its playgroup in the morning so I'm wondering if she's going to try and go there.
But we decided that she has to use the potty 19 times in total for the upsy daisy doll, so its like a pound a go, and that's 4 attempts down so she hasn't got long to go now.
Plus Nanna's not coming until Saturday now so that gives us an extra day without too many disruptions.
And it also means I don't have to rush going to buy my paint on Friday yippee!

Potty Training

Well since xmas we've been trying to potty train our daughter, she's 4 months away from her 3rd birthday and so far we've been a little lazy but today we stepped it up a gear and oh my life! I've spent most of the day elbow deep in tinkle.
We have 2 incentives for her actually getting on the potty.
1) An upsy daisy dress up doll she saw when we were grocery shopping in asda last week
and
2) Nanna's bringing Easter eggs on Friday, (if she thinks they'll make it until April she's just a little crazy)
She seems to grasp the concept that once she's reached a specified number of times using the potty she will get the doll.
Does the bribery work....Not so much hehe, although she has managed to use it twice and there was six other failed attempts along the way so hopefully the ratio will improve.
One thing though when I was trying to tell her that she needs to sit on it before she thinks she's going to tinkle, I'm not sure if she understood what I was going on about or that she really doesn't know that she needs to go until its all over the floor.
So I'm going to research it just to see, I know it's not a huge thing to be worried about but Hubby has the impression that she needs to be potty trained by September for starting at the local nursery so I better go have a looksie...

Art Books For Sale

So far I've only managed to do one its 20 pages long and its full of digital images, you can either download the ebook or buy a paperback copy for your coffee table the choice is yours!
There's also a lost sticker set for anyone who's interested...
You can find them here:
Gemma Stothard's Qoop Store

Granddad's been and Gone

Well today was a little easier than normal the wife didn't come with granddad for his visit so hubby had to go out with him and our daughter, don't think granddad would have coped by himself.
It was good for me because it meant hubby could pick up the nappies we desperately needed, saving me a trip to the shops, I could watch what I wanted on the TV for a change, son and I partook in a little bit of rocking out to the Kerrang music channel.
Also it meant I could get a little housework done, i really don't like doing it when everyone else is about, under my feet or making me feel jealous because they're playing video games....Not that I get this choice very often. But the stairs look wonderful now, I lost the special attachment for the dust buster so had to do it with the dustpan and brush...At least my arms got a work out if nothing else.
And even better granddad paid for the nappies so we have a little more cash now than we thought we would have.(If the wife was with them he doesn't usually pay for stuff) But they do take our daughter out once a fortnight so I am grateful for that.

Grandparents Day is almost upon us again

Has it only been a fortnight since granddad and his wife came to visit, it seems to have flown by but then we have had grandma and nanna come to visit (not together) and then we had the gas man checking the fire and boiler for their yearly check-up, (ok so I tidied and cleaned both the kitchen and the living room to perfection for the Tuesday gas man visit and the house is trashed again, the kids bedroom and the bathroom are the only rooms to have missed the hurricane).
And we had a family outing to asda the other day too, that was a good day its not often hubby comes out with me and the kids it made a very nice change and I picked up some exercise books for writing notes in and also odd hours by Dean Koontz, so it was very worthwhile, don't worry hubby only spent just over £3 on those so I wasn't breaking his wallet straps.
Plus I even won some cash on the bingo last night so I can pay the electric bill and a little spare to buy some art supplies, which is good as I found some landscape pictures on the net from my home town of Wainfleet and am very excited about doing some of them on canvas.
I am going to do a couple using paint.net first, just to see if my idea will work, but I think it will.
I've also been looking at Photofuse canvas making kits, wondering if the family would appreciate them and will it be good value for money.

Happy Valentines Day

So have you had or having a nice valentines day?
Ours has been different to say the least.

I mean I know not to expect anything too romantic and crazy as we have 2 small children so anything we do do will involve them in some way or another. But then we remembered that Nanna i.e. the Mother In Law was coming for a visit today.

So my first job was to get myself and the kids dressed and out to the shops to buy milk as we'd ran out last night, and Nanna always has at least one cup of coffee whilst she's here. And then there's all the tidying to be done before she gets here so she doesn't fall over all the kids stuff.

Oh and hubby and I gave each other a Valentines card. ( He bought me 2 Keri Arthur-Riley Jenson Guardian novels a few days ago and said I could have them early)

He didn't know what he wanted so he's got some cash to buy himself a book or add on for his webpage or whatever he likes really.
Anyway that done and then daughter and hubby had to go meet Nanna in town (she is able to come straight here on the bus by herself as she's done it before, but she wanted meeting), which was fine as son was asleep so I got a few more bits done without daughter running around my legs and taking out what I've already put away.

So halfway through washing the pots they roll in and wake son up, well he was asleep in pushchair behind the front door so can hardly blame them for that. Daughter got a nurses outfit which once on she spilt banana milkshake down so more washing for me woohoo!!, she also got s peppa pig towel and some ducks for the bath, but the ducks she can share with our son.

Have noticed a pattern whenever Nanna comes one week son gets loads and daughter gets hardly anything and then the opposite happens the next time she comes.

Was wondering if the thought had occurred to her that it was Valentines day or not and she did mention with a disgusted look on her face how much mush was in the shops because of Valentines day. ( Brain into overdrive wondering if she knew it was today or not and if so did she put me in the camp that it means nothing and I wouldn't care about her being here, or was she playing the territorial mother towards her precious son and wanted to sabotage even our most lame attempts at a nice Valentines day)
Who knows....All I know that is after this little rant I will give as little thought to the potential craziness of the M.I.L.

So if you have an equally strange Valentines or even a toe curling horrid one I would love to hear it....

Now to order take out and have a bit of a relax!

My Alternative Valentine

So if like me your fed up with all the adverts promoting ballads and love songs galore, plus I don't really enjoy listening to a lot of them, and in my opinion when you listen to the lyrics most of them are about loss and make you feel sorry for yourself.

Now personally whether you have a partner or not the last thing you need is to wallow in self pity on a happy day about love for your partner, family etc. so I put together a more upbeat alternative version to the usual valentines mush.

Dental Appointment...

Well that's hubbys dental appointments done now, he had one tooth out a fortnight ago and was meant to have three out today but came away with only having two out, a wisdom and the accompanying molaral on the bottom left hand side. They both got stitched so hopefully he won't have any problems with bleeding. But with having them stitched it will take three weeks for them to disappear.

I went with him to town because he doesn't like the injections and he was a bit worried about it but he was fine with me going to tesco's for some shopping which was very liberating not to have the kids in tow, (my mum came to sit with them while we were out), I don't get to do a lot without them so even just shopping for a few groceries was very strange but I managed to get everything I meant to which usually doesn't happen with the kids there...

The kids are still full of cold too so it was good that they didn't come because as soon as we got to the bus stop it started to snow, its stopped now so I'm betting that our trip out to the local shops in the morning will be nice and icy for us. Although it is amusing watching our daughter slide around on the iced over puddles, she looks like the roller skating spider from Harry Potter.

Now I've just got to print off some valentine images for daughter to colour in and make some cards for daddy and brother and whoever else she decides on making them for.

Doctors, Doctors, Doctors.

I find it strange that for two consecutive Mondays I've had to take one of the kids to the doctors.
It's a little more strange that both kids had something wrong with their eyes. Son had sticky eye and daughter has an abrasion on hers.
But what makes it totally bizarre is the fact that the only snow we've had here that has settled has both been on Sunday night/ early hours of Monday morning, so we get to walk in the slushy icy remnants all the way to the doctors.
It's supposed to snow again tonight but I don't need to take anyone to the doctors tomorrow (touch wood).
It is raining though at the minute so I might have to go somewhere tomorrow with the nice fresh black ice under foot.

One Dragon's Dream...

I've just read this children's book to our daughter to help her go to sleep, read it about 12 times until she finally fell asleep.
It made a nice change to the usual menagerie of story books that I have to get off the shelves, also by the tenth read through I had it memorised.
It's by Peter Pavey, and our version was published in 1979. (I've just had a look on amazon.co.uk and its only for sale through third party sellers at about £20 - £30 so when my mum bought it for £3.95 back in the day she was getting a pretty good bargain.)
And not only is it a great bedtime story its fantastic for helping kids learn to count too, as each page is numbered one to ten throughout the story and each corresponding page there are lots of things to count and find, a bit like where's wally but with amazing illustration.

Wrist Straps for Kids

O.K. so I'm probably not the only parent that worries about their child's safety especially when they're out for the day with grandparents etc. But earlier when granddad and his wife came to take daughter out for the day, the wife mentioned that she already bought one of the wrist straps for our daughter so they don't have to use the reins on her when they go to the park. Now I must have been talking in a different language about how I personally don't think they're very safe, it's just a personal opinion granted, hubby feels the same, and yet the look of utter contempt and disgust at my not wanting them to use the wrist strap was priceless. I forgot to even mention the comfort factor which has only just occurred to me. But either way I thought I was talking sense and not sounding like a crazy hysterical woman, but then I've just had a look at prices online so that could be why I got the look, as they cost between £4/£5 where she bought them from....So maybe she should have asked first and I just hope she kept the receipt...

What Have I Been Doing?

Not enough if you ask hubby hehe
And it does feel like that, seems I have done absolutely nothing...
Although that's only a half truth I have been doing some things like get dressed, the pots, ironing etc but art wise hmmmm....
Well I figured out how to print off 6x4s without getting a 3 sided border so should be adding some prints in a week or so to etsy, also half way through some more greetings cards...
Also started doing some alphabet colouring pages based on Harry Potter, coming along slowly but getting there...
I've also been honing my digital scrapbooking skills which is very difficult so super kudos to everyone out there that does it.
I've also started knitting my xmas jumpers for the kids, well I've done 6 rows on the back so far but its only February and its still a start.
Hubby had his first tooth out with little trouble but I'm going to have to be there next Thursday to hold his hand because he's having three out and he really doesn't like injections. So we've booked my mum to come over and look after the kids while we go...