Flashback Friday: Great Men

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Publicity for Cancer Research UK in the last few days, means that I've decided to republish this post from March 2011.

I've been struggling with this post for a few days; trying to remain anonymous (reasonably) on this blog makes it incredibly difficult to partake in a linky which relies on sharing photographic memories of your life. I can't blank out my face can I? Going to have to bite the bullet (in a sneaky way) sooner or later.

So with this inner conflict, I plodded into school to teach literacy for Year Six and perused the lesson plan left for me.  Even the absent teacher seemed to be prompting me to write this post, as the children were being asked to write about flashbacks! The stimulus for the lesson was the following video, it's only two minutes long and I'd really love it if you took the time to watch it. [Read more…]

The Fragrance Shop Discovery Club

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I wear perfume every day, but I'm a loyalist when it comes to fragrances and CK One has my heart and soul. Occasionally I'll layer it with a squirt of DKNY Be Delicious, or Davidoff Cool Waters, but by and large I like the simplicity of the maestro's signature fragrance.

The other  problem with trying new perfumes of course is that they are a very expensive item to get wrong. No-one wants to be stuck with a bottle of fragrance which, while smelling amazing on your sister, smells literally like toilet water on you. (True story; Eternity smells disgusting on me).

The Fragrance Shop Discovery Club [Read more…]

Spring Bento Lunchbox

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Spring is such an exciting time of year for nurturing the creative spark and capturing children's imaginations. With Easter approaching, signs of Spring are emerging with in my garden with fuchsia buds and clematis shoots, and we even managed to find a few ladybirds and bumblebees on the weekend! I can't think of a better starting point to make lunchboxes more enticing.

Spring Bento Lunchbox

Spring Bento Lunchbox [Read more…]

Bento Lunchboxes

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Around three weeks into the September term, I lost the will to live with packed lunchboxes. The novelty had well and truly worn off for both of us, and The Boy had ventured into the realms of not wanting to try new things. I managed to have one or two variations of sandwiches throughout the week, but the joy of making his lunches was waning. And I couldn't be faced with finding out that he hadn't eaten his lunch, as a teacher I know the importance of children keeping their metabolism and strength going throughout the day via a quality lunch.

That's when I discovered a few simple tricks of using cutters for his sandwiches, buying some fun food picks to decorate the cake or cheese, putting fruit sections into small lidded pots and I bought a fabulous panda-bear lunchbox online.

Bento lunchbox ideas

[Read more…]

365 #11

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Welcome to 365 Photo A Day Project linky. This linky covers round-up posts for the week or one of your favourite photos of the week. I've written a post providing tips for completing the project, always ask one of the regulars for help if you're stuck.

The 365 linky only works because of people linking to it and then contributing their thoughts to others' posts via comments. I can't emphasise this enough, it's the whole point of the linky!

Join in by entering the URL of your favourite photograph of the week (either a 52 or a 365 photo) and show some comment love to everyone else in the community. We've got a Facebook group, and now I've created a collaborative Pinterest board (if you'd like to collaborate, let me know and I'll add you).

  1. Choose your favourite photo from the past week and link it up below.
  2. Please add the badge to your linked-up post so that other people know how to find all the other fabulous entries.
  3. If you can spare five minutes to comment on a few other entries I know they'd appreciate it!
365


Days 68 – 74 of Project 365

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Days 68 - 74 of Project 365

68. Free! (It was a beautiful day in south Wales with temperatures reaching 15°C. So we headed down to the barrage with Mr. TBaM's bike and the tag-along. The Boy absolutely loves cycling with daddy, and he is honestly screaming in glee in this photograph.)

69. Warning (I should have realised when he didn't want to play in the garden that something wasn't quite right with him. A headache all day in school and plenty of sobbing after school meant a rough night and buying a new bottle of calpol.)

70. Ill (The Boy was off school today with a trip to the doctor on the cards; third bout of ear infections this Winter, with tonsillitis added in for 'good' measure. I've not seen him so ill for a long time.)

71. Swish (We managed to do some craft after school using one of the silk painting kitsfollow that we'd bought from Baked By Me. A bargain at £2.00 from £8.99!)

72. 40.5 (Dreadful day and night. Horrendous. I was called out of school early because my mum was so worried about The Boy's temperature, and then that night he spiked at 40.5°C with a fever. It took a full two hours, both nurofen and calpol, a cold flannel, no duvet in the cover, and a fan on full pelt, to get his temperature under 39°C, and for him to manage to attempt sleep. At 2.30am he ended up in our room with me holding him all night for him to be able to sleep.)

73. On The Mend (The Boy was definitely beginning to feel better after the dreadfulness of the night before, we even managed to attempt some craft in the afternoon which resulted in a cheeky look for his lordship.)

74. Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer Do! (The first daisy of the year picked for mummy, I came home from the park that a school-friend's birthday party was held in with a pocket full of them. So pleased to see my little man out and about with a little colour in his cheeks.)

–

TheBoyandMe's 365 Linky

Pit & Peak Of The Week #2

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Oh there have been a hard few days this week, it seems very fitting to remind myself of one good and one not-so-marvellous aspect of the past seven days.

Pit:

Ears.

Anyone who really knows us will be only too aware of the terrible times that The Boy suffers at the hands of his ears. Ever since his second Winter, he has been at the peril of many an ear infection, the climax of it came last year when we visited the doctor seven times. We were referred to an ENT specialist who informed us he had glue ear in both ears with a 10% reduction in hearing in his left ear and 5% in his right. Luckily once April arrived, his ears cleared up and I knew he'd be fine until November. [Read more…]

The Mad Blog Awards 2014

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This is a post which I have debated writing for a few weeks now.

I've thrashed it out with friends (both real-life and online), family and peers.

And I have spent the last six months fairly adamant that I wouldn't be putting myself in this situation again, and yet two days before the close of the nominations for the MAD Blog Awards 2014 I find myself writing this post. And it feels a little odd.

For those non-blogging readers amongst you, the MAD Blog Awards are like the Oscars for those in the blogging world. I am incredibly fortunate for the past two years to have been a finalist in the Photography category, and quite frankly considering the calibre of the other finalists it was a very humbling situation to find myself in. I was also very lucky to be a finalist in the Family Fun category, which my great friend Fiona from Coombe Mill won.

It genuinely was amazing to me that so many people would nominate and vote for me, thank you to each and every one of you for that. Due to various, dull and frustrating self-esteem issues that I quite frankly won't bore you with, I'd made the decision not to put myself in the position of not winning again.

And then people nominated me. Not just in one category though…

  • Best School Days blog
  • Best Family Fun blog
  • Best Blog Photography
  • Best Writer
  • Best Craft blog
  • Best Food blog
  • Best Home & Interiors blog
  • Best Family Travel blog
  • Blog of the Year

It's all a bit astounding really. Looking around my living room, I'm not entirely convinced that I deserve a nomination for Home & Interiors though! But thanks!

Which is why I'm writing this post and adding the badge to my blog. I believe the awards are a wonderful celebration of all things blogging, and obviously so do the very generous people who've taken the time to nominate me again this year.

And so this badge is added to my blog to thank those people for taking the time to think of me.

If you're looking for bloggers to nominate, may I be so bold as to suggest the following:

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