Sunday 18 January 2015

A crafting party, rainbow books and a screen-free day

On the evening of Friday 16th January, I held a Stampin' Up party at our house. Throughout 2014, I held a card class at our house one Thursday morning each month, with a few of the Mums from school and some church friends. I decided to do an evening one this month, so some of my working friends could come, and base it more on Stampin' Up products (an American craft company).
I really enjoyed spending a bit of time on Thursday and Friday making some cards and cupcakes, all on the same colour theme.

Starting to set up in the dining room, with the fold out table and chairs. There happened to be eleven of us in the end - handy, because that's how many chairs I had!

People came at 8pm, and I had prepared a couple of cards for them to make, I talked about some of the new products (we all like the special board for making gift boxes!), and then we ate food and chatted for ages, with the last people leaving some time after 11pm.

After school earlier in the day, Lucy had an appointment at the local clinic for her diabetes. Pretty much a total waste of time for us - the nurse couldn't answer any of my diabetes questions, but they needed to collect some basic data on Lucy for their system. We were a bit sad though, because Lucy's HbA1c score (from her last hospital visit) was quite a bit raised. We need to keep this score low for her body to have the best chance to remain as undamaged as possible as the years go by.
Lucy and I also popped to Tesco to get a load of refreshments for the evening.

Mess in the kitchen after everyone had gone. The kids were happy about all the nice left-overs the next morning! (Though Lucy is still doing her Sugar-free January.)

We had a very lazy Saturday yesterday, thank goodness, and I put in the Stampin' Up order, and got to choose quite a few free things (very nice, seeing as I am still doing my no-spending-on-me-till-May thing!)
Tom went to Henry Williamson's to play in the afternoon, and in the evening, I decided we should sort out our book shelves in the dining room. Scott helped me, and we ruthlessly got rid of about a quarter of them! The bottom shelf is travel guides, craft books, gardening, poetry, self-help, and kids books (though they each have their own book cases in their rooms too), the middle shelf is photo/blog books, history, science, more travel books, and church books. The top shelf is all novels, which I took enormous pleasure in rearranging in rainbow order!!
The kids then came in and seemed horrified about the pile of books we were getting rid of, and rescued a few armfuls for themselves!
Lucy and I have continued to find much delight in the rainbow order every time we go in the dining room (it looks more noticeable in daylight), whilst Scott claims it is stressing him out because one of the John Grishams and the Harry Potters aren't next to each other!! He'll just have to cope somehow!

Today (Sunday 18th January 2015), we went to church this morning - where we enjoyed two really good talks on the Sacrament (even Lucy said she had gone up to the lady - new in the ward - afterwards to thank her), and then went home separately, as Scott and Lucy had Bishop's Youth Council meeting after church.

I decided this week that we would try and have screen free Sundays from now on. (I am letting myself write this blog now the kids are in bed though!) We put everything away, and after church Harry, Tom and I looked at an Architecture book (uncovered last night!), and Jack was reading some history of British invasions book.
Harry did make me laugh though - he sellotaped six A4 sheets together, drew a 'really posh' TV (with wood-surround speakers), plus an X Box, and blue-tacked them to the wall over his bed!! While he was downstairs with us, he said his soft toy birds were watching them! Screen-free rebellion!

We went round to Shane and Dawn's for a couple of hours before tea, (except for Lucy who couldn't be roused from her bed - she's been really stressed and tired lately from studying for her upcoming AS Level mock exams this week) and played Boggle and Rapidough (like Pictionary, but with play dough).
We had a late dinner (delicious pork and veg), then I read a book to Harry and Tom, snuggled up in my bed, then we read another longer one, each taking it in turns to read. It was lovely, everyone was happy, and quite a successful first screen-free day.

I thought I'd get a photo of Harry and Tom in their bunk beds (in their messy room), before they all swap around rooms.

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