Surprise!!!

Yesterday we went to a Surprise 40th Birthday Party for our Good Friend Peter, he knew nothing about it and thought he was just going for a Lasagne at our Friend Michelles house. We all hid in the dining room (let me tell you its hard keeping a 3 year old quiet!) and when he came through shouted surprise, as you can see he was!

Peters Sister had emailed us photots of when he was younger which we printed and
hung around the room.

Photos were taken with all the friends that came, more memories to treasure.

What Birthday party would be complete without presents...........................

....and of course cake!

Later we played on the Wii and chatted, everyone had a really nice time and we spent a fraction of the cost of a night out in town :-)

Valentines Day

This year I am going to make Homemade Valentines Gifts instead of the usual over-priced items and cards that the shops ram in your face as soon as the Christmas items are all sold out.

I thought I would begin Chris's Valentine Morning with a mug of tea. All you need is some drawstring tea bags (which I have some of anyway) and some red paper cut into heart shapes, you can write a little love message if you want to.

I LOVE the idea of sending him his Lunch in a bag as gorgeous as this looks but I imagine he might get some stick from the other men in his office if I did!

I will probably make him some Heart shaped sandwiches using a cookie cutter and I am definately going to wrap a bar of chocolate to look as cute as these, I plan on writing a love note on the reverse of the paper as a little surprise.

Upon his return from work he can be greeted by some tasty homemade fudge Hearts which look lovely but are actually quite simple to make using

• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 3 1/2 cups sugar
• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
• Pink food coloring,

Place milk in a saucepan. Stir in sugar; add butter. Over medium heat, stir constantly, until sugar dissolves and butter melts. Increase heat to medium high, bring to a boil, and cover with lid. After it has boiled for a while remove pan from heat, add food colouring. Let the fudge sit at room temperature without stirring, until the mixture is lukewarm. Stir the fudge with a wooden spoon until it changes from glossy to opaque and is thick and creamy, 2 to 5 minutes. Quickly pour into prepared pan. Use piece of plastic wrap to smooth fudge into the pan, creating an even surface. Let cool completely, 2 to 3 hours, and cut with a heart cookie cutter

To relax from a hard days work, I will give him this sweet message in a bottle. In the bottle you place a handwritten love letter, some heart confetti and some bath pearls.

Finally following a Homecooked meal he can climb into bed to read his book and find his page is marked with this lovely handmade Bookmark.

I can't wait to show him throughout the day how much I love him x x

I wish I could crochet!

"The Donkey Sanctuary is asking its crafty supporters to turn their needles to a new herd of donkey-themed crochet projects to help them raise funds for their essential work worldwide.

The crochet donkey mobile phone socks, pocket tissue holders, keyrings and bag charms will join the ever-popular array of knitted donkey toys, hats and other goodies already kindly created and donated by supporters. The finished masterpieces – which being hand-crafted are all unique, just like the donkeys cared for by the charity – will be sold via the charity’s Visitors’ Centre and online shop www.donkeyworld.org.uk, as well as at a variety of events throughout the year.

Marian Gumbrell, The Donkey Sanctuary’s Community Fundraising Manager, says:

“Due to the overwhelming success of our knitted donkey patterns we wanted to make sure that that there were projects available for crochet enthusiasts as well. The new mobile phone socks, pocket tissue holders, donkey keyrings and bag charms will help to raise valuable funds for The Donkey Sanctuary’s work around the world, and we hope they will raise a smile or two as well.”

To receive a free copy of the pattern booklet with full instructions for making the crochet mobile phone sock, tissue holder, donkey keyring and bag charm, please contact Marian or Ruth on 01395 578222 or email Volunteer Fundraising on VFR@thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk. "

A little extra cash and some fun on the way

If you read my ramblings often you will know I am being made redundant in May, you will also know that I would very much like to be a Stay at Home Mum once I finish work. With this in mind I am always on the look out for extra ways to earn some pennys.

Did you know that you can make extra money simply for giving your opinions, playing games, watching videos or even just shopping? Most sites pay out in Paypal or gift vouchers, a few will pay in actual cash via BACS and you can devote as much or as little time to them as you want to.

A couple of my Favourite sites are:

Swagbucks By completing surveys, watching videos, playing games, doing ordinary searches and answering a daily poll you can redeem for Amazon vouchers. With quite little effort you can redeem once a month easily.

Topcashback This site pays you in cash via BACS. All you need do is go through this website when online shopping with hundreds of stores and you receive a percentage of your total back in cashback. It takes a couple of weeks to track and become payable but in the last year I have had £200 back on products I was buying anyway!

Superpoints Not a quick earner but for spinning a lucky wheel each day you can win points to be redeemed for vouchers.

Toluna Another thats not a quick earner but some interesting surveys means you can redeem for gift vouchers.

Yougov Yougov has a minimum cash out value of £50 which is a lot BUT there are some really, really interesting surveys on there. It is the actual site used for government research and you often see it quoted on the News and documentarys.

Vivatic Is a really useful site as it puts a list of available surveys in one convenient location and then all you need to do is click through. Once completed it adds to your balance, this saves you having a few balances at once.

Thats just a few that I use and as I said before you can spend as much or as little time as you want on them. In the week I will pop on and do the basic clicks and watch a few videos. Once Aidan has gone to bed I will sit and do a couple of surveys. A few people I know have managed to make in the region of £1000 - £2000 in a year, and who wouldnt want that extra!

I just can't believe that my Gorgeous boy is 3 Today, where did that time go?

I remember so well waiting and waiting and waiting for him to arrive, the anxious feeling as I went in to be induced, the floods of tears when they told me he was stuck and I would need an Emergency C-Section to assist him, laughing in the operating room as they played music to make me laugh and the joyous moment that they told me had arrived safely whilst (hilariously) "We've got to get out of this place" by the Animals was playing!! Now he is a huge, healthy, happy lad who will chatter and laugh with me.

Happy Birthday Aidan, Mummy loves you x x

Fancy a Relaxing Saturday?

DANNIE'S 12 HOUR CLIC SARGENT READATHON!

SATURDAY 4TH FEB 2012

Starting at 9.30am GMT

Get yourself cosy, a pile of books organised, snacks sorted and sit back and relax ready to read for anything up to 12 hours in the Great 12 hour readathon!

£5 registration fee – Register online

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure or email Dannie for further details. dannie992@hotmail.com

You can get friends and family to sponsor you too if you want to, for however long you choose to read! Payments to be made via http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/dannieadventure

Prizes to be won along the way, from books to book tokens and signed books.

You can keep up to date on all the goings on on the day at the blog, including further details about the challenge.

http://thailandforclicsargent.blogspot.com

Part of Dannie's fundraising plans for Clic Sargent Thailand trek

CLIC Sargent registered charity number England 1107328

Oh Next, why do you taunt me so!

There was a knock on the door yesterday and I opened it to discover a rather windswept courier delivering my new Next Directory Catelogue. It comes in 2 parts, clothes and then my favourite the Home Directory.

I love receiving the new home book, its hard bound with glossy thick pages that just ask to be turned. There are always such lovely items in there that I have to sit on my hands to prevent me ordering instantly! I can begin to picture where items might fit in my home and of course I am always very jealous of such wonderful, pretty and most of all tidy houses. I know of course my home would never look like this, Toys are the dominating feature in my Living Room, mucky fingerprints are a constant battle and there is something spilt on the laminate flooring daily but a girl can dream!

Here are the gorgeous items I am currently dreaming of: