Days 2 and 3: Elf on the Shelf and Handmade 365

Aaaarrrggghhh!!! What happened to yesterday's post?

I typed up a whole post, went to add the photos and it disappeared!! So I have up and thought I'd wait till today :-)

Day 2

I didn't try very hard. I was having a day of doing house stuff so really couldn't be bothered so once again it was my red cabled cardy for the school run coupled with a blue cabled cowl to keep my neck warm!!

Although I think I redeemed myself by Woking on a second denim Moss skirt and snipping the ends of my gown for the Sgt's Mess christmas ball next week. 

In Elf news, Eddie was sat showing the fish where he came from on the globe because we didn't have them last year...

Day 3

Today is a better day because I'm working and have to try a bit harder!! Today in wearing my purple Levenwick cardy, my Colette Sorbetto top and Colette Ginger denim skirt. 

Edfie meanwhile is hanging from a lampshade ready for the boys' gymnastics classes after school.

See you tomorrow!!!

It's December Already!!

Wow, where has that year gone?? It's been mayhem here as is evident by my lack of blogging but with the beginning if advent and the return of Eddie the Elf I thought I'd try to start again. 

My post may end up being just pictures and a couple of words but I'd rather that than nothing so....

Eddie is back. Eddie is our Elf on the Shelf and got up to all kinds of mischief last year and hopefully he'll be just as much fun this year too. 

This morning he was waiting for the boys with his story for a recap of the rules...

Then this afternoon he appeared with a game and a note....

I wonder what he'll be up to in the morning before school??

I have also decided to participate in Handmade 365 as I saw Rachelle's here: http://talesoftedandagnes.blogspot.co.uk/p/handmade-365.html?m=1 and I think that most days I do it anyway, the actual blogging of it though will make me more mindful of it and make sure that I'm not wearing the same things every day!!

Today's Day 1 outfit consisted of Topshop jeans, a Primark t-shirt with my Rowan hand knitted Cable cardi from last winter...

Tomorrow I'll try harder :-)

Summer Fun List 2013: Rugby and Cinema

Well the summer holidays are rolling on and we're ticking more and more off the list. 

Last weekend we went to watch the British Army Rugby League Academy play against Gloucester All Golds Academy because my husband coaches the Army team. The weather held out until about 2 minutes before the full time whistle blew and happily the Army team won convincingly. The boys had a great time just playing with balls by the side of the pitch and cheering on the team and we can't wait to take the to see the Challenge Cup final in a fortnight at Wembley!!

Last Monday we took the boys to the cinema to see Epic which was a fantastic film! Our local Odeon does a kids showing every morning in the school holidays for £2.50 a head which makes it a more affordable activity! Popcorn and chocolate raisins all round!

We attempted on Tuesday to cross off Fly a Kite however when we got to our trusty kite-flying location at Old Sarum there was not a drop of wind to be found! 

We still went for a lovely walk in the sun though and hopefully will manage to fly the kite at some point this week when we're camping in North Wales. 

Summer Fun List 2013: Make Water Balloon Sponges

What better way to round off a really hot day than to cool of by letting the kids (and me!!) throw these fantastic things at each other!

I bought a couple of packets of sponge wipes from the Supermarket, cut them into ~1cm strips and tied them together in bunches of 10 with string. 

Add a bucket of water each for the boys and voila! Plenty if fun to be had and best of all no faffy tieing of fiddly little balloons and they're reusable so we can do it all again today!

I also got pretty wet in the process and will definitely be doing it again!

Summer fun list: Lots done already!!

Well, lots has happened in the Thompson Household since I last posted, we've had lots of visitors so fine has been precious and we've managed to cross a few more off the list now. 

So....

#9. Find a Crop Circle - at the end of June we had family visiting and whilst out for the day in deepest darkest Wiltshire we decided to try to find a crop circle that had sprung up that morning and we were not disappointed. The photo doesn't do it justice because you need to be in a helicopter to see all of it but the boys really enjoyed speculating how it had got there even though we did get a bit (well, actually a LOT!!) muddy!!

#15. Ride bikes - we haven't been on a family bike rude yet but due to the great weather we've had the boys have spent a huge amount of time out on the just being kids. 

#16. Go camping - last weekend we spent with a huge group if other army families at My Daddy is a Soldier Adventures Summer Camp in Pirbright, Surrey. We had a fantastic weekend doing archery,a picnic lunch (#23 on our list!) swimming (#28!), orienteering and survival skills with an amazing group of people, none of whom let the huge thunder storm put them off!

#21. Have a walk in the woods - this coincided with Alfie's school theme being Minibeasts so what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than in the woods looking for creatures!! We really are lucky to be able to walk out of out back gate and immediately be right in the middle of the woods. 

#23. A picnic - see above!!

#25. A water gun fight - this was timed well with the Happy Family Movement extra challenge to do exactly this so I got the squirty bottles all ready for when the boys walked in from school and then war began!!

#28. Go swimming - see above too!!

And last but not least...

#46. Learn to write your name (Oscar) - now for some 4 year olds this may seem simple but Oscar has always been adamant that he would not write. Ever. "I'm too little" was all I ever got. It seems though that he's been slowly taking it all in and was just going to do it in his own time. So you can imagine how surprised I was when he picked up a sticky note and pencil in the office at Alfie's school and just wrote...

Just like that! As though he'd been doing it forever!

We have lots more planned over the next couple of weeks so hopefully I'll be updating more often with slightly shorter posts!!

See you soon!!

Summer Fun List: BBQ with friends

Our first item has today been ticked off our list because we had a BBQ with some great friends. 

The sun was shining, the kids - all 6 of them - were having a great time and the food, wine and beer were flowing. Bliss. 

I did only manage to get the one picture but I'm pretty sure we'll be doing it again very soon so will get more photos next time!!

The Thompson's Summer Fun List 2013

Well, Summer is upon us, apparently. Not the holidays, we have another 8 weeks to go yet! - and the weather is pretty temperamental at the moment but the sentiment is there. I really enjoyed completing as many things as we could on our 2012 Summer Fun List and we did manage to complete most things even though my blogging didn't manage to keep up! The idea is from the folks at the Happy Family Movement and really helped to focus our summer activities so that we actually did the things we always plan to but never quite get round to doing. This year we are doing it again and hopefully I'll manage to remember to keep up with the blog too!! It will be pinned up on the cupboard in the Kitchen where everybody can see it as a reminder to all of us that there is fun to be had!

 So our list for this year is....

1. Feed ducks 2.Climb a tree 3. Puddle jumping 4. Write a letter 5. Make a fingerprint tree 6. Make a den under the table 7. Watch a rugby match 8. Go to the cinema 9. Find a crop circle 10. Make pavement chalk 11. Play with cornflour 12. Decopatch 13. Visit an aquarium 14. Watch a sunset 15. Ride bikes 16. Go camping 17. Go to the beach 18. Build sandcastles 19. Go on a fossil hunt 20. Wash the car 21. Have a walk in the woods 22. Make ice cream 23. Have a picnic 24. Have a PJ day 25. Water gun fight 26. Make string balloons 27. Visit a zoo/farm 28. Go swimming 29. Have a bbq with friends 30. Paint rocks 31. Do the Summer Reading Challenge 32. Go to a real drive-in-movie 33. Go geocaching 34. Go to Go Ape 35. Make water balloon sponges 36. Fly a kite 37. Visit a museum 38. Go on a train 39. Visit the theatre 40. Send a message in a bottle 41. Make splat paintings 42. Have a back to front meals day 43. Stargazing 44. Make Self Portraits 45. Buy school shoes & uniform 46. Learn to write your name (Oscar) 47. Climb a Mountain 48. Ride without stabilisers (Oscar) 49. Learn to tell the time (Alfie) 50. Learn to tie your laces (Alfie) 51. Take lots of pictures of our adventures!!!!

Just like last year this is a mixture of things that we would do anyway and things that are slightly more adventurous and I can't wait to get started!!!

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week: Day 3 - Infographic

Being a mathematician, when I saw this I was really quite excited and had every intention to spend yesterday evening sorting through all of the projects I've knitted over the past year (none of which are on Ravelry otherwise it would have been soooo much easier!!) and plot them on a chart to see what I tend to knit most.

Unfortunately as I arrived yesterday afternoon at my eldest's school to read with the class, as I do every week, I was met by a grey faced deputy headteacher. We had just had THE phonecall. Ofsted had phoned just an hour before to announce that they were coming today.

As a school governor this meant that my Tuesday night was now filled with re-reading of policies, School Improvement Plans and Self Evaluation reports instead of making pretty graphs about my knitting.

Poo.

So very quickly here is my infographic for today's blog post:

Hopefully I'll be back on form by tomorrow's post!!

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2013: Day 2 - A Mascot Project

As soon as I saw the title for today's post I knew that there was only one project for it. The Beekeeper's Quilt. 

It is an ideal project for a Bee like me. I can puff away between projects with each little puff not taking too long for me to feel like I'm being negligent to my other ongoing things. It can fit into my handbag and be worked on whilst the boys are at one of their many activities. I can use different yarns and colours to stop me getting bored. I can even embrace my inner Monkey with different types of cast on and techniques, my inner Peacock with embellishments, and my inner Manatee because they're just so cuddly and therapeutic to knit.

Unfortunately, like many almost all of my projects this has fallen by the wayside due to my terrible distractability. I started MY Beekeeper's Quilt in February 2012 and I have the grand total of about 20 hexipuffs completed. Absolutely pathetic! I daren't even attempt to count up how many projects I've cast on and completed in the time since then. My intention was to knit a few hexipuffs a week whilst my husband was in Afghanistan for 7 months last year but that didn't happen, he's been back seven months now and I know I haven't touched it since he returned! I will dig the little basket of puffs out of the cupboard that its been hibernating in and see if putting in view will spur me on.... I'm not holding out much hope though!!

What project would best represent you and your style of knitting?

If you want to join in with Knitting and Crochet Blog Wek it isn't too late! Have a look here.

Knitting And Crochet Blog Week 2013

Knitting And Crochet Blog Week 2013 is here and I'm going to use it as an attempt to get back into my blogging. Next week I'll try to update on my Summer Fun List and Year of Projects but for now I'll stick to this.

As before we have been given a list of topics for each day and today's is the House Cup (very Harry Potter-esque) where we need to decide which house best represents us. This will also set the tone for the posts for the rest of the week.

The House of Bee: Bees are busy and industrious but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest.

The House of Manatee: Manatees are gentle, calm and cuddly. Relaxed and unflashy they represent the comfort and soft side of knitting and crochet.

The House of Monkey: Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting.

The House of Peacock: Peacocks take something good and make it brilliant. Buttons, embellishments and a bit of sparkle prove that perfection lies in the details - like a Peacock's Tail.

Now there is no denying that I am a Bee. I am slightly Monkey-like in that I like to be challenged and am always trying new techniques but the fact that I am totally incapable of casting on a project and then just seeing it through to completion without straying onto something else is what dominates my Knitting.

I am currently knitting Levenwick in some scrummy purple Rowan Creative Focus Worsted, along with Eryn in Rico Alpaca DK, plus Florentine in some pale blue Rowan Drift, a Shale Baby Blanket and some Leave These To Me fingerless mitts in Scrumptious 4ply. I'm already eyeing up Thyone in some Scrumptious DK from my LYS or possibly Etty in Felted Tweed..... although the new Kim Hargreaves book should be out this week...... See!! I just can't stop myself!!

If you fancy joining in have a look here or just to have a read of the other blogs taking part type the daily tag into google and a list will magically appear before your eyes.