A week on.....

Just a quick post to share photos of the progress on the extension.  Work has slowed on the building side as the bricks for next part of the walls haven't arrived yet :(  Due next week and I hope it's Monday so the builders can crack on.  In the meantime they have lifted the rest of the patio, added the drainage pipes for the gullies and put the hardcore down.

Bless our little walls all covered in hessian - but the first frosts are here and they need a bit of protection. 

And finally as promised, here is a photo of Liam dressed as a Fletcher for the medieval day his year had at school on Tuesday.  He did lots of research as homework and thoroughly enjoyed the day :)

Work begins

After what felt like a very slow process to get to this point after getting plans drawn then passed by planning and building control, our extension build has begun!  The builders are lovely and very hard working, so here's hoping for a couple of weeks dry weather to get the outside finished.

Before photo:

Work started on Wednesday and they are all dug out and ready to start cementing the raft on Monday :)
I'm ignoring the mess of everything....

The builders said the boys could sit on the mini digger if they wanted to... they didn't need asking twice!

We are going to take photos each Saturday so we can see the progress being made.  Builder's schedule of works says it will be finished in 5 weeks as long as there are no big surprises or lots of bad weather.  Can't wait!!

UKS October week 1 challenge

Here's my LO for last week's challenge on UKScrappers - I couldn't get a decent photo last night and this morning's isn't much better I'm afraid as it's very dull and drab today....

The criteria was to use a Beatles song title or lyrics (my title is a cover version they did so I hope it's OK), at least 4 lines of journalling, use black and white (white cardstock, black letter stickers), and one or more circles.

UKS September wk4 challenge

I've had these photos ready for scrap for ages, along with a sketch that I found online - think it was an SEI challenge as that is the name I saved it as.... but it was so long ago I can't be sure!

The criteria for the challenge was a 1 to 6 recipe using the ingredients in the mixing bowl.  So I have:

1 cardstock
2 words in the title
3 embellishments (2 bits of twine and the heart)
4 patterned papers
5 photos
6 circles (5 on the tags and one as the O in the title)

All finished!

We're celebrating here.... we have done some DIY which involves plumbing and have remained married!! lol.  We hardly ever argue, but when we do it will be while DIYing.  Add plumbing to the equation and the likelihood increases ten fold.

Anyway, we've taken our bath out and now have a full length shower enclosure for the boys to use.  They love it!

Here's the before (taken a couple of years ago for CC class LO I think, forgot to take some before we ripped the bath out!)....

... and the after.  Decided to make it a bit 'younger' by replacing the brown blind/towels etc with that nice teal colour that is very popular at the moment.

Love those funky hooks for the boys' dressing gowns - it was an over the door one but neither of them could reach it {rolleyes}, so Dave cut the top bits off and we screwed it on instead.  Have to admit I'm still in the novelty phase of thinking 'it looks great' everytime I walk past...

And for those at crop who remember my joy at discovering Lime Lite - UniBond Grout Revive is my new best friend.  A bit of a faff to clean all the tiles off after applying it, but wow it really makes the grout/tiles look like new again.  I can highly recommend it - I'll be doing the ensuite and kitchen when I get some time.  Was a bit worried it might wash off etc but I've scrubbed the whole lot since I've done it and all fine.  Quite expensive but the tube goes a long way, I've done all the bathroom and still have about a third of a tube left :-)

A catch up post.....

I really don't know where the last couple of months have gone - the time has gone so quickly.  We had our week in Cornwall at the end of August, and the boys have been back at school for 3 weeks now.  I was going to post some photos from Cornwall, and then decided to just wait until I have scrapped them, and then post them (plus I haven't had the chance to edit them yet!).

Here's the obligatory back to school photo - Liam seems to be spurting upwards again!  Both have settled in really well into their new classes and both their teachers are really nice.

Clyde really missed them, as he had been used to them being at home all summer.  Was so sweet when they got home and he was all ears back, tail going like the clappers!

Liam turned 8 last week, and he gave us all the birthday money he got to put towards a new bike.  It's an adult size bike, with posh clicky gears :)  He is very pleased with it and was out for a long ride on Friday and Saturday.

 
We had an all day crop last weekend to celebrate running for 6 years.  Was really good to see everyone and I managed 2.5 LOs which is probably a record for me!  Here's my page using the July sketch challenge, I combined it with the September house challenge on UKS which was to use the words work, rest and/or play as inspiration.  I went with play...

 

and here is my page for the August sketch challenge, which is to go alongside the Go Team GB one I did a few weeks ago.

and finally the page I had to finish at home which was for the UKS Sept week 2 challenge.  The criteria was to use the sketch provided, chipboard, washi tape or ribbon and sewing (faux or real).  These are the photos from Liam's birthday last year!

The maths monkeys have been launched at school and guess who is the first to bring it home from both classes..... yep that'll be us!  We need to think of some fun maths to do with them now!! 

Monkey Mayhem

Once upon a time, two female humans decided to make a group of Maths Monkeys.  One of said humans, that will be me, should have known that any group of monkeys, regardless of size, would be trouble bearing in mind the year of havoc we had with our Monkey Adventures.

Surprisingly he was nowhere to be seen when we returned from holiday, but the new residents seem to have settled in well - possibly too well!

They started with self portraits....

and then all joined in

As we checked out the other rooms of the house, they were everywhere....

 

 

some being more adventurous than others

 

Hopefully they will all be leaving for school soon and creating mischief there instead!