Christmas Planning Week 14: Decorations

Don't know about you but this week is defiantly the kick start week for decorating our house.

We spent Saturday putting up our tree, no tinsel this year, I can never get it to look as good as my mum used too and this year it looked even worse.  However we've put the addition of sweeties strung up with ribbon instead.

I'm not happy with it tho, it looks really bare and naff... going to look out for a nice 6ft bushy one when they get reduced for next year I think.

Christmas Planning - Week 13: Dining Room

4 weeks left.... where has the time gone?  


This week has been a bit quieter on the Christmas front, mainly because I had an interview (didn't get the job.... pfft ... their loss - wasn't my dream job so not all that bothered.).  


Still got 2 pressies to get and about to get an Albelli voucher to make my grandparents their photobook.... that's this afternoons job so I can get it ordered.  I did make one in Photobox but it was expensive and rubbish compared to this type.  


We have at least decided on Morrisons for our Christmas crockery and I'm going to make sure it is packed away safely so it can come out year on year and become traditional.   (post to follow soon)


Tree is due to go up next weekend and at the moment I still cannot get in the cellar to get to any of the decorations and stuff so that's on the list for this week.  


I also really want to get the playroom finished so we can use it as storage over December. It still needs prepping, papering and painting. 

Christmas Planning - Week 12: Attic Storage

Eeekkk - it's only 5 weeks until Christmas.  I've had a very very productive morning sorting out all the Christmas stuff and making room for it all.   OK so I emptied the cr4p out the airing cupboard/ wardrobe (in my room) and threw it on the bed then put the Christmas things in santa sacks (see this post) and put them into the empty space.
As for the things that are on the bed, well I'm hoping the magic faries will find them a home if I leave them long enough .......... what do you mean they won't ........ bugger.

Whilst sorting through the Christmas stuff I made one bag pressies and one bag Christmas Eve hamper/ things I may need before Christmas (such as festive jumpers and t-shirts).  I also listed them all on an excel spreadsheet with cost and savings.

Hi

Wow another weeks gone by and I've hardly posted anything, reason being I've been trying to get the parents and in-laws photobooks done before the voucher runs out at the end of the month.  They are big ones at 100 pages each and are covering 5 years of photos, and I will be posting a review of my latest Albelli one very soon.... hopefully next week.

Then I've been selling things, Preloved are running a competition where whoever posts the most ads gets a prize (selected high performing members) so last weekend I had a massive clearout and lists tons of stuff, I made £60 so far and lots and lots are still listed for sale, mainly on my Preloved site but also on facebook pages and a local forum group as well as Gumtree.  I may have to branch back into the world of vista street and friday ads but I've never had a great response from them in the past so am loath to waste my time.   I really want to avoid ebay (not sold on it for a year now) as theirs fees are extortionate and it's farr to easy to get scammed by people now with ebay taking their side.

If you know of any good sites please let me know - the easier it is to put an ad on the better :)

What else is on my to-do list for this weekend?   Well I need to
- pop to farm foods for some more Ben and Jerry's raspberry and chocolate frozen yogurt - at £1 a tub you can't buy cheaper and it's AMAZING.
- sit Ben down to actually fill in his Summer holiday scrapbook so far before he forgets what he's done the last 3 weeks (wow that's flown by).
- try to work out what we are going to do with our 2 weeks holiday at the end of the month.  I was hoping for a caravan holiday but we can't afford £350+ for 3 nights away - that's extortion.  Looks like it'll be a few nights in a travelodge somewhere in the UK where I can still get rooms for less then £40 a night.
- work out how much it would cost to post some of the smaller items and update the items descriptions to include this (as much as I hate having to post things).
- clear out a few more bits (maybe)

but for now I need to get breakfasts and make a cup of tea.

101 (ish) things to do with the kids..........

Whilst visiting a farm on holiday with the boys I can across the National Trust's 50 things to do before you are 11 and 3/4.
One of our local schools also has a list ..... 100 things to do before you leave primary school.

OK so my boys are only 2 and a half and 5 but when I look at these lists I can tick off hardly anything already which is quite disappointing. I am therefore going to make 2014 a year of DOING.
Some of these challenges are definitely aimed at older children (so I have missed them off for the time being).  I won't be disappointed if we don't manage everything on this list but even if we can tick off 52 of them in 2014 I'll be a happy mummy.

So through a combination of these 2 lists and some of my own here is my "101 (ish) things to do with the kids" list.

Why don't you join us?? Perhaps choose 4 or 5 a month to achieve?

We've already done some this year which I might link up to, and may complete some more this year if I can (but with so much going on it won't be a deliberate effort).  Some of them I am sure will be ticked off numerous times in their childhood.

To-do list 8th-14th November

Another hectic week, another week of no real blogging,  a bit of networking tho with #bloghour over on Twitter with UK Blog Awards and a fantastic chat with other parent bloggers (#pbloggers) on The Toadstools/ Marbel's Brio chat.

Moving day is getting closer..... 14 days and counting and I've........... made my lists, contacted some people (lots of blanket letters still to wright but as I've got my re-direction in for a year I'm not massively concerned).

My last (hopefully) meeting with the estate agents really wound me up - and they then added fuel to the fire by not bothering to reply to my e-mail i sent them yesterday.    Roll on getting the keys on the 23rd then I won't have to talk to them again for another 18 months (see my post here).

I've had some sad news this week that a virtual friend has passed away :( and had to break the news to some other virtual friends (post here) .  It may mean a couple of nights off blogging/ tweeting while I stitch my memorial.

So onto my to-do list for this week............

My To-Do List 19/10-24/10

Gosh where is the time going, it's to-do list time again ( a day late due to having been busy and then away last night - blog post to follow).