Beautiful day

Hard to believe it's October! The sun is shining, it's 70 degrees. Its set to be like this for a few days. I'm enjoying it!

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For the Irn Bru fans

I see my blog link somehow made it onto the irn bru website
http://www.irn-bru.co.uk

I don't want to disappoint the irn bru fans who make it over here and just find videos of adverts they've already seen a million times.

So here's a different post about irn bru.

This is a Scottish expat, drinking irn bru for the first time in like a year.







You can see the love in his face. Feel the love in the room.

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Zoe can count

Last night after supper we heard Zoe spontaneously counting to 10! We hadn't taught it to her, she's just picked it up from her sisters and things I guess. Not bad for a 1 year old.

She wasn't co-operating much for the camera this morning, but I caught some of it...

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Irn Bru - snowman

Excuse my ignorance...but do you Americans even know what the snowman is? Did you get that over here? If not, you probably won't find this ad very funny.

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Frugal Halloween

Here's how we dressed up for Halloween on a tight budget.




Zoe : Pumpkin: Hand stitched Pumpkin costume - yard sale treasure - cost to us:- 25c
Lana : Princess: Dress was a gift from Grammy, cost to us:- free
wig was something we had in their dress up box for a while
Kaya : Darth Vader: Light saber was a gift from Granny McF, years ago (made it all the way from Scotland) cost to us:- free
cloak was made from some excess mulching stuff we had left over
Black clothing was stuff we already had
Mask was made by Daddy out of cereal boxes and shoe boxes cost to us:- free
Glenn : Ladybug: costume given to us by my friend Stacy cost to us:- free
Rene: A Jedi : Light saber given to us by Granny cost to us:- free
cloak was a Christmas present from Granny a few years ago.


Here's a close up of the cutest ladybug ever

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Favourite recent pic of Zoe and a bargain

Here's my favourite recent pic of Zoe



And the bargain is the outift she's wearing. It's a 3 piece from Old Navy, it's super cute and great quality. I got it at a yard sale for $2. I love yard sales! here's a pic where you see the clothes better.

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Irn Bru - If

Another commercial. I didn't see this one on tv, I guess I lived here already.

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gotcha

I managed to catch a smile on camera. Just a little one, but still cute.

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Irn Bru commercials

Ok, so I found the red car blue car advert and was reminded of lots of old ads, but I decided to share some Irn Bru ads cause they're the best. Irn Bru is a very popular Scottish soft drink/soda. I think for a while, Scotland was one of the only countries where coca cola wasn't the hightest selling soft drink, because Irn Bru held the number 1 spot. Unhealthy though it may be, it is a drink cherished in the hearts of many a Scots person. It's a drink of national pride.
And the tv ads are great.

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Things you don't want to hear, but heard yesterday

"Mum look, I can climb up on the entertainment center" - by Kaya

"No Zoe, don't pour your water on Daddy's pizza" - by Lana

"I poop a floor" - by Zoe (who had just taken her diaper off)

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It's like the rugrats

I love listening to the girls talk to each other. It's so funny to hear the way they think and the way the pronounce things sometimes.

Here was a conversation yesterday:

Kaya: I need in to the bathroom

Lana: Why?

Kaya: Because I have to run warm water on my ice-a-cube

Lana: (opens door) No that's called a popsticle

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Nostalgia

I just remembered an old tv commercial and thought I might look it up on youtube and here it is. Anyone read this from the UK and remember this?




In the process I found some other old ones which brought back memories. I'll maybe make a few of these posts over the next few days. So watch this space if you're an American who wants to see how weird our commercials are in the UK, or if your British and want to bring back some old memories.

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Glenn the Turtle

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I is gravy

Zoe's quite the little talker these days! Some of her phrases and sentences crack me up.

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Pumkin Patch Pics

As promised...



It was a direct sunlight sort of day so the pics aren't technichally good, but still un family memories :)

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pig tails

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Jump

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Fun Weekend

Had a great weekend. On Saturday we set off nice and early and went to some yard sales to get some clothes for the girls. They needed some sweaters and trousers for fall and winter. Their closets are full of shorts and dresses just now. We didn't have much success, but it was fun visiting the yard sales anyway. Then we headed off to the pumkin patch (pics to come).

It was a bright, sunny, mild and very pleasant day and we were out for HOURS at the pumpkin patch. Didn't notice time passing at first, but by the end of it my feet were aching, and believe it or not, I got some sunburn on my face! In October.

We had fun playing on the lifesize candy land game, picking apples from the tree (dunno if we were supposed to but we did it anyway), walking through the corn, seeing all the displays, feeding the goats, riding the tricycles and just running around in the fresh air. Much fun.

On the way home we visited one more yard sale and picked up a huge sack of clothes for 25c each! Not bad.

Saturday evening my brother, Doug, came over to visit. After the kids were in bed we watched a couple episodes of pushing daisies. It's always nice to see Doug.

This morning we went to church. We've been going to Lincoln Berean church for a few months and are really enjoying it. The kids love the sunday school there. Its a mega church and we love the music and the preaching.

We grabbed a snacky lunch in the car then visisted another yard sale where I got Zoe some clothes (gymboree things for a dollar each), Then onto walmart for our weekly grocery shop (not fun). Survived that.

Then it was time to head back out to our church for a Veggie Tales show! It was loads of fun. The girls were tired (it started at 7.30pm) and hungry (we hadn't had time for supper) but excited and very well behaved. The show was fantastic and we were all singing and dancing.

We're home now and the kids have crashed out.

The highlight of the whole weekend though, has been little Glenn's latest achievement. He's been smiling at me! Big huge beautiful smiles which just melt me. He looks up and me and smiles with his whole face. His cheeks are adorable, and his eyes scrunch up. I'm going to have to try to catch one on camera. Sooooo precious. Nothing like a babies first smiles. Nothing in the world.

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beyond newborn

My little Turtle has lost that newborn scrunched up look. He's alert and chunking up and watching everything. Bittersweet. He's so darn cute though (I can say that, right?), I'm so crazy about him. It's a lot easier to love a boy than I had thought it would be. He's so special and perfect.

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secret world

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My dad is going to totally disown me....

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You color my world

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Zoe's never going to poop again.

She's not going to have to. She's eaten about 20 plumbs in the past 2 days and just pooped enough in one go to last her a lifetime! Honestly, this was....unreal. Wow.

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I survived

I took all 4 kids out by myself for the first time. More to the point, it was my first time driving anywhere other than the local store which is a minute away from the house, by myself without Rene or another experienced driver in the car! And I was going to a place I had never been before and had to study the map to figure out how to get there.

I was going to a La Leche League meeting, and getting there went fine. The kids enjoyed themselves, there are a couple of other homeschooling families there with older kids so Lana and Kaya had a great time too. We went out to eat afterwards too and the kids all did great.

I had forgotten though to plan a route home and I ended up driving round in circles for a bit before pulling over to call Rene at work and ask how to get home. He ended up confusing me more by mentioning about 5 differents routes with multiple road names I could possibly take. So I hung up (after saying goodbye of course) and just improvised and got home ok. phew.

Glad to be home now. For another hour or so then it's time to go drive and pick Rene up from work...(wish me luck)

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Scottish word of the week - #4

I have an American Internet buddy who is moving to Scotland. I know she checks out this blog sometimes so I thought I'd revive the word of the week, to help her learn some of the language before she goes.


BAGSIE (BAG-zee)

To bagsie something is so claim it in advance. So you'd say "I bagsie first shot at the computer" or "bagsie the red pen".

In other words, I don't have my hand on the red pen yet, but don't touch it, I'm using it first, I've already bagsied it. There's really not an American equivalent to this word. It's unique and wonderful.


For reference, here are the previous word of the weeks:

scunnered

boggin'

beamer

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Photoshop Brush Set

EDITED TO ADD: I've added my e-mail address to the links at the top right. Mail me if you want this set.

It's been a while since I've done this! I made a photoshop brush set. Some sketchy swirls.
Let me know if you want it, I can probably send it to 5 or so people. It's about 1.5 MB in size.

I'm hoping to get making some more supplies - papers and brushes mostly, for my own personal use. I don't mind sharing with folks who read this blog, just understand these are not professionally done - the pics are not perfect, there's no terms of use file or index file etc. I'm just sharing in a friends and family sort of context.

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Saudades de Rock

It all started when an 11 (ish) year old girl was invited to a concert by her Dad, and wanted to go for the bonding experience though she knew little about the band. The band was Extreme, the girl was some chick called Mary-Lee.

Ok I was just being obscure, the girl was me.

I remember Dad telling me I'd come away from the concert with a crush on the guitar player, Nuno. I was not interested in boys and was certain he was wrong. I guess I hadn't figured out yet that Dads know everything and are always right.

I came away from the concert in love with Nuno and obsessed with Extreme; an obsession to last through my teenage years. I had all the posters covering my walls, I wore extreme t-shirts every day - even when they were paper thin and covered in holes, I learned to play their tunes on guitar and piano, I knew all the lyrics, I married a balloon called Nuno and made my family join in the ceremony - you know, all the usual stuff.


Then I matured and grew to be above and beyond all that. I got married for real, had kids, achieved nirvana and all that. But on the 12th August 2008 (my daughters 6th birthday by co-incidence), my husband blew that all out of the water for me when he opened up his laptop and played a dramagods (Nuno's post extreme music band, which are kinda cool) song, Interface - except MUCH better than the way dramagods played it! Rene had a sheepish look on his face and wanted to see whether I'd figure out who it was.

"Is that Nuno and Gary doing a dramagods song?"
Close enough. It was a track from Extreme's NEWEST ALBUM Saudades de Rock, released that day. And it rocked my socks off. The boys are back, and better than ever. Gary's vocals are astounding, Nuno's strutting his stuff on his 6 string as always, Pat is short haired and his funky bass lines sound as good as ever alongside Nuno's make-your-blood-pump rhythm guitar riffs. I loved Paul Geary, but I must admit, this drummer boy, Kevin Figueiredo, is pretty awesome.

This album shows Extreme's musical diversity at its best, while staying true to their queen-influenced sound with excellent harmonies and musical arrangements.

I listen to this album and I feel like a teenager again. I wanna go stick up a bunch of posters and find me a balloon to marry!

http://extreme-band.com/site/

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Butternut squash pie

Maybe not the healthiest thing in the whole world, but I used a butternut sqush from farmers market, and it tasted so fresh and yummy. The crust is homemade too, which I prefer. I made it last night and the girls and I finished off the last of it today. It didn't last long.

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Ew snot

Zoe's a big snotball just now, from this cold.

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Feeling like poo today

We all have colds here. Muscle aches, snotty noses, coughs, headaches. Fun fun fun. Thankfully the little boy is ok, must be that good breastmilk. Anyway I'm going back to lie down and snuggle under the covers to get rid of the chills.

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I love every piece

I just don't have it in me anymore, this whole digi scrapping thing. I need to find some inspiration pieces and try to work on something. Anyway I made this in like 5 minutes, because I just wanted to at least have one page of the new guy.

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You are a monkey

She's a monkey and she knows it

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Yard sale deals

It can be difficult finding clothes in my large size, especially considering we don't have much of a budget for buying clothes at all. I usually wait until the goodwill store has a 99c sale day and go scouring through looking for something that will fit me, then I buy it no matter how gross it looks!


But I found some great deals at a yard sale today. I wish we had more cash on us, there were loads more great clothes I had to walk away from....

Zoe was so desperate to pose with me.

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3 of the monkeys

I've been staring at the sunsets here all Summer, and imagining this shot. Finally got it tonight.

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Mangled

She looks like she's been through the wars. She fell over at the weekend, over a bar in a playground, and scraped up her face and nose. It's been so sad to look at her. It's clearing up well now though, thankfully.

Here she is proudly holding her wee brother. She declairs "I holdee. I holdee baby".

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I love a bargain

We only had 2 small size wraps for Glenn, which I had thought would suffice. My reasoning was, 1 in the wash, 1 on the baby. However, I forgot about newborn breastfed poop and how runny it is and that it leaks all over the sides of the diaper!.


So we were going to have to buy some more, but money is very tight right now. They cost about $8-10 each for a cheap one.


We noticed yesterday that one of our local consignment stores sells cloth diapers! Yay! We picked up a pack of 3 wraps for $8! Bargain.

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Tax Deduction

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