london weekend

Well apart from the football (we played rubbish, lost 5-0!) we had a brilliant weekend. Wembley was fab! The atmosphere and build up were amazing. The final score not so great ...but hey it's only a game ;-)
On Saturday we shopped, we ate and we saw every landmark in London. The only thing on the little man's list that we didn't see were the mice on the underground tracks. Guess they must've gone for a weekend break in the countryside?
Anyway we're all knackered now....early night for us tonight!

spotted in Sainsbury's

You gotta love those peeps at Sainsbury's. They always take my designs and make them into fab little stories.
They took this...

and made these...

and they took this...

and made these...

Big well done to Lizzie's daughter, Minnie, for spotting them and taking photos whilst browsing the aisles :-)

we're off to Wembley

The excitement is reaching fever pitch in our house. The other half has supported Bradford City since he was a kid. The second match he went to was the Bradford fire and he's been going ever since. And this weekend they play in the Capital One Cup Final at Wembley!
For those who have no interest in football this basically means that a team in the lowest division of English football have somehow managed to beat the footballing giants of the Premier League and have bagged a place in the final.
What it means for me is....a weekend in London...yay!
The little man is particularly excited 'cos he's been force-fed BCFC by his father and is now their number one fan. He's also never been to London before. The amount of sightseeing he wants to do in the short time we have available is clearly not going to be possible.
The amount of shopping I want to do is even less possible...
But we will try our best.

hello sunshine

How nice of the sun to put in an appearance today. Especially as it's half term. 

Actually the kids were at my mums most of the day 'cos I was working. But I had five of them from 3 o'clock onwards. Five! 
Always a bonus when you can shove them in the garden and encourage a bit of fresh air I think. 

random characters

For my work this week I have been asked to come up with otters and baboons and pigs and racoons.... (liking the way I made it rhyme eh?)

Er....what's wrong with bunnies and bears all of a sudden?
That's normally all everyone demands. A bunny and a bear please. And make them smiley.
I guess they're so last year now.
Out of favour.
Shove off bunnies and bears, some other randomers are here to take your place.

interruptions

Interrupting my work this week: cub swimming gala...school play...visit to a mosque with Alf's class...meeting about cub camp...school assembly...cub presentation night...
I will be working all weekend, and it's all the little man's fault!

...Oh and Valentines day of course...had the night off for that!

showtime

The little one is in the school drama club. This suits me 'cos it's on a Tuesday after school. And Tuesday is swimming day. And they never get back on time from swimming so you have to stand outside for ages in the freezing cold waiting for the bus driver to get his foot down so you can take them home. 
Anyway it's their show tonight. He's only got one line. He's not impressed. We're going to watch him. The big one is getting dropped off from her school so she can join us. She's not impressed either. She doesn't want to see him perform his one liner. She'd rather go home and mooch about on her phone all night. For a change...

cold

Even though the heating is fixed and I have it on ALL day every day it's still flipping freezing and I have to wear my entire wardrobe to keep warm. I'm not kidding. When I get undressed my pile of clothes is like Mount Everest. I had six tops on today! SIX! I'm surprised I can even move! 
Here is a cut out and keep Dress Up Dawn so you get the picture...

Disclaimer: The clothes are just made up. Clearly in real life they are all muted shades of grey and moss with a load of black thrown in for good measure.

name that dog

So normally on a Saturday me and my sis and the kids and the dogs go to the park and the kids get muddy and me and my sis play this game where we guess what people's dogs are called. There are zillions of them about so as they come towards us we guess their names. Then the owner shouts it and we see if we were right. Which we never are, of course, because we always guess names like Brenda and Arthur. And no-one calls their dogs Brenda or Arthur any more. They're all called Alfie. Like my kid. 
Anyway. Keeps us entertained while the kids get covered in mud. Laugh a minute me and my sister.

doodles

Had a bit of a crappy job to do tonight....then it turned out I couldn't do it. So I made myself useful and faffed about on my computer instead. Bonus!

busy

As if it wasn't enough to be busy with my own work the big one has been utilising my creative genius on her homework. Yesterday we made a wooden fort out of cocktail sticks and today we made some sort of biological cell out of felt...on the sewing machine. Looks like a few A*'s will be heading her way this week ;-)

snow mountain

He was at it again yesterday. 7.30 am on the dot AlbertFromNextDoor was out shovelling snow from his drive. Loudly. And joined this time by DavidFromNextDoorButOne. With no regard whatsoever to the fact that it was Saturday and just about the only day I get a lie-in. They were very lucky that I didn't leap out of bed and wrap their noisy shovels round their necks. What is wrong with them?! 
Actually I have a theory. They are both retired. They probably see all the snow and rejoice at suddenly having a purpose in life. A bit of something to do. Make themselves useful. Get them out from under the feet of Joyce and Mary.... Well I wish they'd wait till a normal sort of time to get jiggy with the shovel. Some people are trying to sleep!
Luckily the freak weather conditions meant that the 30cm of snow that was hanging about suddenly melted.
Apart from Albert's snow mountain. That will still be hanging around in March! 

next baby boys

Saw a design I did for Next in store today.
Rush out and buy them people cos every baby needs a doggy onesie!

 My originals...

snow report

Yesterday: 7:30am Woken by AlbertFromNextDoor clearing the snow from his drive. 
Went sledging. Took the dog. The dog wasn't very good at sledging. Preferred a quick game of fetch.
Today: 7am my alarm went off. Texts from both schools saying we are shut. Went back to sleep.
7:30am Woken by BloodyAlbertFromNextDoor clearing his drive AGAIN! He's in his 70's but whenever it snows at least 2cm he's out there shovelling it away. NOISILY. And he always looks at us as if we are total LazyGoodForNothings cos we just leave ours. But you know what? It melts! Life is too short for clearing things that don't need to be cleared. 
We're off sledging again now. I've had to abandon my lovely work plans. But work can wait till tomorrow. We have to sledge before Albert clears all the snow in Yorkshire.

snow

Well, at least the snow waited till 3pm before it dumped itself on West Yorkshire. This meant I was able to do my work in peace today without Motormouth chuntering away next to me. Hard lines kiddo! No snow day for you!