Shopping

Me, Mum and Princess Lollipop went shopping in the local charity shops today. I bought quite a lot of bits and bobs to upcycle for Princess Lollipops office and spent less than £10, bargain :-) There was a huge thunder storm when we were out, but we had been persuaded by the very persistent Princess Lollipop to take her to Macs, so we were warm and dry :-) Ialso bought Princess Lollipop a butterfly fairy wand and she had great fun skipping along in front of us spreading her magic around :-) Her greatest adventure was going on the bus, which isn't something she gets to do very often!
When we got back Mum and Dad's neighbours were trying to get into their house, having locked themselves out, Mum had the genius idea of letting them climb through her loft into their own loft and gaining entry that way. It worked and they brought a bunch of flowers round later as a thank you :-)
Me and Princess Lollipop watched the new dvds Drama Teen had bought her, and after a late tea it was bedtime for the tired Princess. She settled pretty quickly bit didn't stay sleep very long before she was back downstairs cuddled on my knee, after she dozed back off I managed to get more of her name cushion embroidered. And Mum raided her stash to find me some of the right shades of embroidery silks to finish the last two letters, thanks Mum that saves me a drive to the shops this week and means I can get on with the last letters and then start on the decorations :-)

Great Day

Today has been lovely :-) I had lunch with my friend S and her gorgeous baby boy, and even managed to sneak some cuddles from him :-) Then after school me and Princess Lollipop drove over to Drama Teens University Halls, to have tea specially cooked for us by Drama Teen. It was a lovely vegetarian stir fry, very delicious :-) Although Princess Lollipop ended up swapping hers for plain pasta and chicken dippers, followed by lots of biscuits! We took Drama Teen for a quick trip to the supermarket, and after dropping her back off at her Halls we drove over to my Mum and Dad's house for a sleepover :-) Princess Lollipop was on top manipulative form and managed to get Grandma to play snakes and ladders, make her a hot chocolate and persuade her to let her eat a jelly! And it was already way past her bedtime when we arrived!! I drew the line at Princess Lollipop getting a bedtime story too, and finally got her to bed, she was asleep almost instantly, poor tired plum.

Catch Up

I've been to both my Craft Classes this week and whilst there carried on working on the name cushions for the Littlies birthdays. Little Prince's one is finished, but due to how I've placed his name and the decoration it looks a bit unbalanced! So I'm going to embroider a meandering trail of horse shoe prints in the space and hopefully that will solve the problem. Princess Lollipop's cushion with her initial in the style of a Superman logo, topped with a crown is totally finished, I just need to insert the cushion pad and sew up the open edge. I'm making her a second one with her full name and more girlie decorations and I got that started today. She will appreciate the Superman one more I'm sure, but I'm really enjoying making these cushions and can't resist making her a totally girlie one, so it's more for me than her!!
This morning I met up with a couple of friends for early morning coffee (Diet Coke for me lol), company and chat :-) It's the first time we've all got together since Christmas soooooooo it was lovely to have a proper catch up, rather than the snatched conversations we have at the school gates :-)
I've also been looking about on Pinterest to get inspiration on how to paint the "mini Welsh dresser" I've bought to make Princess Lollipop an "office" she adores writing letters and sticking things with sellotape, so I think she'll really love it :-) And I'm having loss of fun planning it all too - win win :-) I bought the paint and some cheap brushes (Mr Messy says I never clean them properly so I don't bother any more, I just buy "disposable" ones!) So I'll be able to get on with that as son as I get a minute!!
The tumble dryer broke down, with a full load of washing inside it and another waiting in the washing machine!! But the repair man was able to come the next morning and fix it there and then, it was something we could have done without (especially after just having both cars fixed!!) but at least it was repaired quickly and relatively cheaply :-)
So it's been an up and down week, but mainly ups :-) This positive thinking is getting to me :-)

Struggling to Find a Positive :-(

Today I explained the concept of a "Get Along Jar" (both pick a forfeit to do something nice for the other person when they've been fighting) to the Littlies. Together we tried to think of suitable forfeits and I told them if they started fighing they would be picking a forfeit from the jar. It didn't take long!! Then Little Prince kicked off, as he usually does when we try something new, copied of course by Princess Lollipop! What should have been a quick 5 minute job turned into a huge battle, ending up with Little Prince not allowed on his new PlayStation game again today and Princess Lollipop carted off to bed!! Hopefully as they get used to the new rules it will be less stressful, fingers tightly crossed. The rest of the day they managed to "just" bicker constantly rather than actual fighting and somehow that was even more grading on my nerves than the all out warfare earlier!!
I did manage to get Princess Lollipop bathed and get hair detangled and styles with very little fuss, which now I think about it is a huge positive :-) And after a yummy tea, cooked by Mr Messy I had a relaxing soak in the bath, another positive. Writing these post does help me to look back on my day and remember the positives among the chaos :-)
Once the Littlies were in bed me and Mr Messy relaxed in front on the tv whilst I enjoyed the chocolate he'd bought for me :-) Chocolate is always a positive :-)

Two Positive Posts in One Day

I booked Princess Lollipop's birthday party this evening, it's going to be a Pirate and Princess Party at an indoor play centre. Predictably Princess Lollipop wants to be a pirate and DEFINITELY NOT a Princess, she's a girl who knows her own mind :-)

After some poking about on Pinterest we found a pirate costume that suited both of us, boyish enough for Princess Lollipop and girlie enough for me - result :-) It's going to be a red and black tutu skirt, a white t-shirt with lacy ruffles down the front and then a corset style bodice over the top. She'll also wear black and white stripe tights, a pirate fabric headband and most important to Princess Lollipop a toy cutlass :-)

I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into making the costume :-) Fingers crossed that this year she actually agrees to wear the costume I make!! Unlike last year's batman tutu costume!!

Lovely Day Out

Me and Little Prince has a lovely day out at a Shopping Centre today :-) It was his turn to spend his Build a Bear vouchers, so we went to the same place I took Princess Lollipop last week.  Now he's bigger I let him sit in the front seat, although I did insist that he still used his car seat. Even though this was his idea he got quite freaked out by the high driving position my car has and spent most of the hour long drive clinging to the sides of his seat! We did manage to have a lovely, uninterrupted by little sister, chat about his very early life with birth family. He has a much more mature and in-depth understanding of the reasons he isn't with his birth family and it showed in the comments he made and the questions he asked.
At the Shopping Centre Little Prince got overwhelmed by the noise and sheer number of shoppers and we had to have a sit down on a bench to let him regroup and regain his composure. Then we had a wander round, before visiting the Lego Shop and the Disney Store, he decided he'd like some Lego Technic for his birthday and wanted to buy Disney Infinity for the Wii, but it wasn't in stock. Next he decided he was ready to visit the Build a Bear shop, he chose a brightly multi coloured bear almost immediately. Then we had to queue, for AGES! Despite the crowded shop and the long wait Little Prince waited patiently and I was immensely proud of him.
At the food court Little Prince went for the familiar of a MacLunch, but despite that he was still obviously stressed and couldn't eat very much, he did manage to sit quietly and chat sensibly while I ate, again I was extremely proud.
After lunch Little Prince requested a visit to Game, where we found Disney Infinity at £10 less than at the Disney Store - result :-) Little Prince's was thrilled as he was spending his own Christmas money and also chose a driving game for the PS3. The queue stretched out of the shop and yet again we had to wait for AGES!! But my little superstar was patient and sensible once more, he's grown up so much recently :-) Once we were finished there Little Prince's was shopped out, so we headed off home. He told me he needed to zone out and asked me not to talk to him, again a huge behavioural improvement. And huge emotional growth too, he recognised he needed time to chill out and could calmly ask for this need to be met :-) So very very proud of my maturing Little Prince :-)

More Positives

I got the last bits of sewing on Little Prince's name cushion finished, which hardly took any time at all :-)
I had a long, informative phone call and arranged a meeting about something new and Mr Messy are planning to do, no details until we are sure we are doing it :-)
I had a quiet relaxing day at home on my own :-)
Mr Messy's car was successfully fixed and didn't cost an extortionate amount of money :-)
So it was a good day today :-)