Romanais Blog

Easter Sunday!

31/3/2013

What a lovely Easter Sunday! Thank you everybody for the kids Easter eggs!

Anais and Roman were up at 5.30am this morning to see if the Easter Bunny had been! The Easter Bunny had left them an Easter Egg hunt with clues and prizes so they enjoyed doing that. Lots of chocolate consumed cue Roman taking the sick bowl to the cinema with him!

Jenny came this morning and then we all went to the cinema to see Parental Guidance which was hilarious!

The kids enjoyed it too though some of the jokes were a little too old for them which they didn't really understand.

Then home for lunch and the kids watched Hotel Transylvania which the Easter Bunny had brought.

After lunch we took another trip to Beckett's Farm to see the Easter Barn. Highlight for the kids was being there in time for the feeding of the jumper wearing cute baby lambs! They both had a turn at holding the bottle and feeding a lamb which they were told were all a week old and they had all been rejected by their mothers :-( They also went to hold another baby chick.

Mark cooked Sunday tea so me and Jenny could chat, read and google crafty things. Thanks! xx

Anais made this puppet which has been stuffed with a stuffing and all ready to sew the bottom seam into a teddy bear.....

...and Roman made this mask.

Cress watch - Day 2!

Seeds are sprouting!

Easter Saturday

30/3/2013

The kids had us up today at 6.30am so we were out the house by 9am! We went to Hobbycraft and the garden centre, Roman wanted a pirate sun catcher, Anais wanted a pink ball of wool to do more crochet and I got two balls of blue wool and two small cross stitch kits which I will save to do in the caravan. I also got a box of 100 cookie cutters for £2 (to be used either in baking or using as a template for card making!) and a Yankee Candle Clean Cotton Wax Tart which smells like fresh washing on the washing line, lovely!

This afternoon Mark stuck a border up in the conservatory to give it some colour and interest after he repainted it last week....

...and the kids watched Rise of the Guardians DVD as they loved it when we saw it at the cinema.

Day 1 - Cress watch!

Good Friday @ Beckett's Farm

29/3/2013

Here is the strawberry yogurt the kids made (by shaking!) yesterday. It was left for 12 hours overnight and put in the fridge first thing this morning. Thick fresh creamy yogurt.

Today is Good Friday and we took the kids to Beckett's Farm to see the Easter Barn. This is a fantastic way to spend an hour amusing the kids and better still its free!
(Click on pictures to enlarge)

Miniature donkeys

Rabbits

Mommy goat keeping her kids warm.

Pigs

Sheep and lambs

Calves

Hens laying eggs

A huge John Deere tractor/combine harvester(?) and scarecrow!

Baby chicks in incubators actually hatching out of eggs!

The kids got to hold a baby chick each!

They also decorated an egg shell and planted cress seeds in it.

Here are the decorated eggs in egg cups at home. Anais drew a face on hers and Roman drew lots of Easter Eggs on his.

But the cutest thing we saw there was these baby lambs who had woolly jumpers on to keep them warm. How cute! Anais wanted to take the one in the top left of the picture home :-)

They were featured on the Newsround website today which Anais likes reading.

This afternoon Mark (with Romans help!) fit a new car stereo in his car so he can plug his tablet in to listen to music, seems it will be "bye bye" to CD's soon.......

Roman asked to keep the old car stereo to put in his car when he is old enough to drive!

........and Anais and Roman made this Victoria sponge strawberry and cream cake, yum yum!

Roman made the sponge, Anais whipped the cream, cut the strawberries and assembled.

Anais watched Bambi and then drew some Disney pictures...............

.......she also did more work on her paint by numbers.

Easter Hats, Reading & Yogurt!

28/3/2013

Roman had his Easter hat parade and assembly at school today. Safe to say his was the only rocket! Everybody else's was more traditional! The headteacher remarked at how this was the first Easter assembly where there had been snow instead of spring flowers.

I have started reading Stephanie Meyer "The Host".

I couldn't get into it when I tried before but I was motivated seeing that it has been turned into a film, I thought we might go and see it later this year or wait for it come onto DVD if I enjoy the book.

So far so good :-)

We haven't made any of the Easi-Yo yogurt for a long time and the kids kept asking so I picked a couple of sachets up, strawberry and vanilla.

Half fill with water, empty in the sachet, get the kids to do the hard work of shaking it!

Fill with water to the top and fill the flask with boiling water...

...leave for 12 hours!

I will update tomorrow to show the finished product.

Roman planted some sunflower seeds at school and brought them home today.

Wonder how big they will grow?

Cake Decorating

27/3/2013

Today was the last week of cake decorating so we had a "free for all"!

I made these eight sugar paste topped cup cakes. Some people did roses, bows or tried to make more models. I enjoyed rolling it out and using the cutters though as this wasn't as time consuming or fiddly.

Lexi came in to have a go for a little bit and she made these two.

Not a lot else done today apart from these little crochet bows.

Mark sent this picture earlier from Hatfield when he was parking his car, cute Fantastic Mr Fox. He is huge!

Tuesday - Sewing & Crochet!

26/3/2013

Remember the Carnival Bird Set?

I was going to save him to do in the caravan at Easter but due to the continuing "winter" weather we won't be using the caravan for a while, it is just too cold and wet.

As we have had days and days of white I thought we needed a little colour so I made him today instead!

I am not great at sewing but I am quite pleased with him. He is hanging on the stove in the conservatory :-)

The kids have done more work on their Easter hats and they are ready to be taken to school tomorrow.

Anais is a nest and Romans is a rocket! Roman said they are daddy, mommy, Anais & Roman chicks blasting Jordan, Dylan and Lexi into space!

I made Anais some crochet bows and attached them to some hair grips and hair bobbles. Cute!

It is the last cake decorating tomorrow ( if I go - not confident enough to drive in it and not looking forward to walking either). Mark went in the loft and found me these books out.

The Mary Ford Complete Book of Cake Decorating was brought from the library in their reject section a few years ago for 20p.

The Lovable Character Cakes was (I think) brought from The Works over 10 years ago - I don't think I'd even had Anais then, it is that old! I thought I'd take them in for everyone to have a look at tomorrow.

And as we won't be going anywhere at Easter I pulled the Easter towel out to bring a bit of spring into the house seeing as it still winter outside. It made me smile anyway :-)

Confusing Weather Monday!

25/3/2013

One of those days today where the day has just flown by and there is not enough hours in the day!

Its Easter in less than a week, the clocks go forward on Saturday night and we still have snow EVERYWHERE :-(

Confusing day today as the sun has been shining so brightly it could have been summer. It was actually warmer in the conservatory than in the house but looking outside we could have been in the middle of winter.

I thought I'd start stitching together my crochet table runner as it would give me an incentive to get it finished instead of looking at a pile of hexagons. I had done 16 hexagons so far.

This will eventually be x3 hexagons wide.

I also made another three hexagons but still have to sew them to the others.

Mark estimates I need 39 hexagons in total, 19 hexagons done so far, 20 hexagons to go!

The kids Easter hats have had a second coat of paint and are now drying. They can finish them this week and then take them to school on Thursday.

I also came to the end of the ball of one of the white cottons so made a little white bud flower with the scraps and added a little seed bead in the centre.

I made pancakes for pudding yum yum!

Mark cleared the drive before it got dark so he can go out tomorrow and so I can go out too if I want to, erm, thanks! But the side roads here are treacherous so I'll leave it until I can see tarmac again!

Slow Sunday!

24/3/2013

We have all been taking it easy today and haven't gone out again as the snow is still quite bad. We saw next doors car get stuck and have to push it down the road so we didn't want to risk it.

Anais "modified" her snowman to have a smiley face!

Mark has been helping the kids to do their Easter hats. They both need another coat of paint.

Anais is a cracked egg which will eventually have shredded paper and little chicks in (a nest).

Romans is an Easter Egg in the shape of Wallace and Grommit's rocket, blasting Easter Chicks into space! Roman kept moaning at Mark that he wasn't doing it right as he wanted a control panel in there and seat belts for the chicks!

I have been trying to teach Anais how to crochet. She can do a chain but struggled further than that with single crochet. I was trying to show her, so made a little red flower, a little lilac flower and then made her a bag. The flowers can be added to presents instead of bows!

Snowy Saturday!

23/3/2013

Bah! More snow :-(

We were supposed to be going to the cinema this morning but no cars were driving up or down our road and looking on Facebook a number of bus routes had been cancelled indicating the roads were not good. Common sense told us it was better to stay in today instead.

Mark got his tape measure out and measured the snow, seven inches on the patio and eight inches on the outhouse roof!

Anais made a snowman, Roman threw a few snowballs and then decided it was too cold and came in to help Mark...

...who decided as we were staying in he would repaint the conservatory.

It didn't take long as it was only to refresh it and it was painted and all furniture put back in place by this evening :-)

This afternoon Mark took the kids for a sledge ride to the shops and back. I stayed in the warm!

When they got back I tried to teach Anais how to crochet but she is finding it hard to hold and work with the wool at the same time. Here is her chain crochet (1).

Roman made himself a space ship (2) with some packaging that was destined for the bin! Check out his "launch station" (white flap!)

1

2

Freaky Friday!

22/3/2013

Bah! Bittersweet day today!

We went to school today to see Anais perform a violin solo which she has been worried about for a while. She was more nervous about the solo today than she was about the concert last night.

She was FANTASTIC and played Fiddlers Fancy, we were very proud!

And so we walked home to find this.............

The tree in next doors back garden had fallen down with the weight of the snow...... and it had fallen over OUR side of the garden, totally squashed the fence, pushed the shed out of shape, flattened my rotary washing line and rested part on the outhouse roof and JUST brushed against the conservatory roof.

We didn't realise this at first though as there was so much snow on the conservatory roof it was hard to distinguish what was tree and what was snow. Mark went outside to investigate and we soon stopped worrying about the conservatory as it was clear it was only the smallest amount of foliage on the roof, no branches or anything with any weight. Next worry was the outhouse roof but we couldn't assess the damage of that until the tree had been removed.

Mark phoned the council and credit where it is due they were out within the hour and removed the tree. Good news was the outhouse roof was also fine :-) So no major damage done apart from the shed being slightly pushed out of shape and the washing line being completely squashed! The fence is next doors side so it is up to them to replace that.

This is "Charlies Tree" and has great sentimental value to me and was at the end of the patio under the fallen tree.

I was more worried about this tree than the conservatory roof or outhouse roof and was a little frantic!

Mark was fantastic though and rescued it for me first without even thinking about the possible damage to the conservatory or out house roofs. So THANK YOU!!!

No damage done to it either, hardy little thing *phew*!

All in all we have been VERY lucky as the damage could have been so much worse.

So not a lot made or done today as we have been pre-occupied with the tree.

I did make Anais favourite cake though which is our treat for a Friday after we watch our family film.