Tag: half term

Half-Term Fun – My Sunday Photo

My Sunday Photos / 5 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

We had some half-term fun last week. We started off with a few chilled out days indoors, watching films, crafting & colouring as the weather was rubbish. The week got a bit better with a trip to Kent for a birthday party breaking up the boredom.

Birthday Party

Nothing beats cake, especially chocolate cake! The girls had a great time and stuffed their faces. With a second piece to bring home, the girls were a little spoilt too. In fact, Izzy ate her second piece then said ‘Mumma, How dare you give me cake!?’. I guess I committed a crime there, clearly good parents sneakily eat the cake themselves! 😂

It took me a day or so to recover and feel up to leaving the flat again but by the Sunday I decided to take the girls for a walk. We had plenty of half-term fun indoors but we needed to break it up and get some air. The girls needed to burn off some energy too and the sun even appeared for a bit!

Of course, this gave me a good excuse to get outside with my new camera and play with it a bit more. Eva decided she wanted to take her bike so of course, Izzy had to take her scooter too. Before heading along the river we popped to the local shop for drinks to take with us and I captured this shot of Izzy zooming through the college.

Scooting

Izzy Scooting

Half-Term Fun

When we got to the park, Izzy discovered her love of slides again. She had loads of fun climbing up the ship and sliding back down again. She looks so happy here, hopefully, the sun will shine more and we can enjoy many more weekend walk’s!

Half-term fun

Eva wondered what you were supposed to do with this part of the Ship play equipment. Whilst I was off snapping the scenery around us, Eva concluded this is the only explanation…

Weekend Walk

Not sure she is correct but points for effort! Oh and waiting whilst I faffed having forgotten my own sunglasses and being blinded a little. What do you think?

 

Photalife

 

A Crafty Easter Half Term – Our Top 3 Makes

Crafts / 6 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple
A crafty easter half term

We’ve had quite a crafty Easter half term so far!

Our awesome friends Slim & his mum spoilt the girls with a ton of crafty gifts to keep them busy across the half term. I’ve also been building up our stash over the last few months so the girls have had tons of fun deciding what to make. We’ve been using the Bendon Craft project idea book from the giant craft jar, some we have adapted & made a little differently too!

Bendon craft projects idea book

Our Top 3 Makes

Peek-a-boo Puppet

Peek-a-boo puppet

The first craft the girls decided they both wanted to make at the same time was a peek-a-boo puppet from the crafts projects workbook included in the GIANT craft kit the girls received. These are cute little chicks in eggs and so simple to make even Izzy was able to literally get stuck in gluing the pieces on. Izzy mastered using the scissors thanks to this craft and it was finished within minutes.

Simply cut out an egg shape, use wonky scissors to cut it in half & stick each half on the front of the peg making sure the egg joins together. Then cut out & draw/decorate you chick & stick it to the back of the peg. Both girls really enjoyed making these and they are pretty cute too!

 

Owl Mask

Owl Mask

After that the girls decided to do different things, with Eva making necklaces using foam shapes & pipe cleaners (no photo’s please!) and Izzy deciding to make an Owl Mask using one of the templates from the craft kit. Izzy loves owls and was telling me to cut out purple paper for the eyes (yes the dodgy eyes are my doing haha!) and cutting out the eyebrows herself. Whilst Eva was busy cutting all the fluff off a pipe cleaner (I have no idea why I wasn’t allowed to know.. it was a top secret make it seems!) Izzy was stealing it all to add to her mask haha!

 

Pot of Flowers

Tiny bouquets

 

Love this little flower pot Izzy made this morning! 🌸🌵 #crafts #toddlercrafts #flowers #flowerpot #sparklycrafts #eastercrafts #artsandcrafts #kidscrafts

A post shared by Ember (@relentlesslypurple) on

Our absolute favourite make this week, which you may have already spotted over on Instagram, is the Pot of flowers Izzy made (and the monster to hide in them of course!). We adapted the idea using the craft project book and decided it was much easier to use foam flowers, push pipe cleaners through the middle & twisting it to secure the flower. After making several of these we found a metal seasoning pot which already had holes in the top and covered it in Washi tape before popping the flowers in. Izzy then decided it needed a butterfly on the front and eventually even a monster!

Of course Izzy! We were missing a monster hiding in the flowers.. how could I forget.. #toddlers #monster #monsterintheflowers #crafts #toddlercrafts #monstercrafts #monstervflowers #flowercrafts #artsandcrafts

A post shared by Ember (@relentlesslypurple) on

 

These crafts were simple yet fun to do and easy enough for Izzy to do most of the work. We will be using the craft kit & crafting project book again over the Easter half term and see what other makes we can come with!

Will you/are you having a crafty Easter half term? What crafts have you made/will you be making over the Easter half term?

 

My Sunday Photo – Purple Flowers During Half Term

My Sunday Photos / 6 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

Eva was rather pleased with herself this week when she spotted these purple flowers for me! Normally Eva is at school on shopping days, as it’s being half term she came with us. She spotted these, happy she could help find something purple for #MySundayPhoto!

Purple Flowers During Half Term

Photalife

Half term & chronic pain

Physical and Mental Health / 7 years ago / RelentlesslyPurple

As a parent you look forward to the idea of half term even if its just a little bit, no early hectic school runs to do, no uniform to sort, more time with the kids.. But then we also kinda dread it a little knowing we have to make sure we keep the kids occupied as much as possible to prevent the dreaded repitition of ‘I’m bored!’ aswell as having twice as much housework to keep on top of!

For me although it is a welcome break from the routine and I love the girls having more time to play together half term has also become one of those times that I feel a little sad. Being in pain so much of the time often leaves me feeling so exhausted I end up feeling guilty for doing so little with the girls in the holidays.

We are half way through this half term and so far unfortunately I have only managed to take the girls to the park twice. I wish we had done more over the past week but I haven’t been feeling great so it has been a struggle to get us out and about as even the short walk to and from the local park wears me out most days.

We have been lucky to review weekend boxes which at times has been a godsend being able to occupy Eva during Izzy’s nap times & we have been doing a few crafts ourselves but I feel guilty that they aren’t out socialising and playing with other children more, especially Izzy as she is now at a stage where she loves playing with other children.

I need to find a way to fit everything in and still manage not to push myself too hard but I get so stressed with myself falling behind as it feels like I’m constantly behind on everything and the girls suffer by being stuck indoors bored doing the same things over and over simply because I’m either busy pushing myself to catch up or suffering from pushing myself.

I am lucky as I now having a working dishwasher so have to stand at the sink less, the Mr does the clothes washing, hoovering, cleaning & feeding the animals, the majority of the cooking and shopping etc but somehow I still struggle!?

I try to make it up to the girls by reading and talking to them, taking pictures and doing what I can from the sofa on bad days but I still feel like I’m letting them down. If anyone has any tips or suggestions I’d really appreciate it as over the last few days especially its been getting me down!

Parent’s with chronic pain.. How do you do it? Honestly? I need to change the way I’m doing things but have no idea what to do or where to start!