Amy's makeup artist

While I was hanging out in my bedroom on a lazy half term morning, Megan was in her bedroom giving Leah a makeover. This photo doesn't do justice to the transformation, but for some reason she turned Leah into Amy Winehouse! Bush head hair, flicky over-the-top eye liner, rouged cheeks, and let me tell you, she has Amy Winehouse attitude at times.

When Megan does her own make up, she has more of a Barbie/Ella Enchanted look - interesting that she turns Leah into Amy - I'll look into the psychology of that at some point!

Freedom!

Delores offered to have ALL 3 of our children for a sleepover on Tuesday night - good news for all! The kids were thrilled and packed a suit case as soon as they could. Liam and I were thrilled - dinner and a film without having to rush back for a babysitter.

Richard and Nicola had been telling us how nice the Macaroni Grill is, but its been to busy when we've been on a Saturday night, so good news that there was space for us. And WOW, what a fantastic meal. I had chicken and king prawns with bacon, artichoke and capers - heaven!

Then the film...Richard and Liam chose Indiana Jones! How could they not really - it was a blast from the past, and I was keen to see how Harrison Ford would handly all the jumping around and fighting when he's older than our parents!

Don't think it was Nicola's cup of tea - she's 10 years younger than me and so hasn't seen the original Indiana Jones films! (and she hasn't seen Top Gun either! How can that happen!) But I quite enjoyed it. It is what it is - not anything fantastic, but I was scared of the people-eating ants, and enjoyed the special effects, but I don't need to see it again!

But even better, Wednesday morning Liam went to work, and I had the house to myself! No kids until lunchtime! Thanks Delores.

Parcel for Sam

If only I was quick enough with my camera! When we got home on Tuesday, there was a parcel on the door stop for Sam - how EXCITING for a little 6 year old. It was ripped open before he could even read who it was from! Luckily I could see it was from Auntie Barbara - a drawing bug that entertained all ages in our family! Sam had a great birthday, some lovely presents and a wallet full of money to take to Toys R Us!

Bank Holiday Feast

We had a bank holiday feast at Delores' - a lovely roast dinner - and because its her birthday weekend, of course there was a cake and a birthday song...

...but should you trust Lorraine with holding the cake?
...give Delores the centre stage and there's no stopping her - did I mention she won best actress award at this year's roadshow? Can you tell from these photos?

Another surprise - Liam's cousin Collette came to visit - I thought Delores was tall (she's about 5'8 or 10), but it turns out she's tiny in her family! I hope she's passed on those tall Bonner genes to my kids to balance out my mum's genes!
Natural talent - that's what Richard keeps saying about Sam and his boxing skills (that might be because of the way Sam attacks Rich whenever he's around!) Time for a warm up:

Practice that winning pose!

I certainly don't want to get anywhere near those gloves! I'm gonna hold Richard responsible for any damage caused...

Swapsies

Its half term, so swapsies are essential. Liam and Richard were babysitting while Lorraine, Delores and I were relaxing in the spa, and when we got home, Megan had stayed at Lorraines and we'd got Rachel.

For the last year, we've had zoo gold passes and we've had fantastic value out of them! But the end is near - they run out at the beginning of June so we had one last visit.

First stop was requested by Rachel - the sea lions. It's fantastic that we can get so close to the animals - the tunnel is one of our favourite places at the zoo...

...although sometimes we get so close to upside down sea lions, its scarey!The zoo is great cause not only do we get to see the animals, but there are places to play too - theres always time for a trip to one of the parks so the grownups can have a sit down!And if the weather's not so good, there's an indoor ball park.

We've been to Colchester zoo and also Twycross and Chester zoos more times than I can remember in the last year, in fact, we're a little bit zoo-ed out, but I'd definitely get these passes again in the future. We're saving up Tesco Clubcard points to get Tussard passes next! I wonder if they'll get fed up of going to Chessington after a year of visiting!

Gotta love a prophet!

23rd May - busy day

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Sam and Grandma and Great Grandma,

Happy Birthday to you!

Its a busy day for us - three birthdays in one day.

Sam was up at 6.30 to look for his pressies! But he had to wait for Leah to wake up for his main present - she had wrapped it up and hidden it a few days ago! Luckily, he had a little present to open that kept him going!

During the Easter holidays, we went to Ikea with the Faggs and the kids all went in the creche. They played a play station game with buzzers and thats all sam wanted for his birthday. All children were pleased - and were playing it before 7am!

This is the first year that Sam has been able to read and he LOVES it. He read every single word on every card. The front, the verse inside, the names! Today he REALLY struck lucky 'cause it was his school trip to Old MacDonalds Farm. What a great way to spend your birthday.

Then after school we went to Lorraines and they had a McDonalds picnic.

Then the other birthday girl arrived! To celebrate Delores' birthday, Lorraine, Delores and I went to the Spa at Aqua Springs in Colchester while Richard, Nicola and Liam looked after the kids. We definitely got the better deal!

And the last birthday girl is my Grandma. She tried to miss this (her 87th) birthday by choking on a piece of chinese chicken that she pinched off Grandad's plate last week! Luckily for us, after the paramedics tried the Heimlich Manoeuvre (just had to Google that to get the right spelling!) and then rushed her to hospital in an ambulance...she swallowed it!

Happy birthday to all three lovely people!

Last minute BBQ

Sunday afternoon and if we're bbq-ing for us, how nice to have everyone round. By 5 oclock Richard and Nicola, and Lorraine and the gang were over.

Rich found his place straight away...

How about a nice picture of Rich and Nic? Richard can't resist the standard Hastings pose - I have loads of pictures of Liam like this! (obviously not like this with Nicola!)
Sort him out, will you?
That's better, I like seeing Richard do as he's told!

Lorraine and I like to live our lives through Nicola! She ALWAYS looks fantastic, she got a first class degree in Journalism and she's an editor at a local paper, hobnobbing with the rich and famous. Now she's applied for a job at a BIG celebrity magazine and is down to the last 5. I'm not sure if Lorraine and I are going to ba able to contain ourselves if she gets it!Of course, while Nicola looks immaculate everytime we see her, Lorraine and I don't look too bad ourselves!
Oh well, so long as everyone's happy!

Changing Faces...

For Delores' birthday, Lorraine had a brainwave to take a photo of all the kids and print it onto canvas - we thought she'd enjoy that more that anything else.

That was the reasoning behind last weeks walk in the woods - her birthday was creeping towards us

Luckily for us, I've downloaded a trial of Photoshop and so could fiddle with the photo! Its HARD getting 6 kids to look in the same direction at the same time. And without photoshop, we wouldn't have managed it. Here's how the photo changed... first watch Rachel, then Leah, then Leanne, then it gets lighter and brighter, then darker at the edges, then I cleaned off the mess on Megan's leg! I LOVE photoshop!

We also gave her little picture that didn't need editing - funny how the kids could mange this one without editing!

Easy mistake to make!

Since Hilary's been so excited about finding her Grandad at the memorial in London, I decided it was time for me to have another look at my family history. I signed up to one of my favorite sites - ancestry.co.uk and started to trawl through the censuses.

We've found lots of our family on the various censuses, and they're all agricultural labourers, and farmers and other everyday workers - nothing wrong with that, but I came across one of Grandad Beattie's ancestors who was a lawyer! In 1851 and 1861! I was thrilled! I rang my Grandma to tell her - she was suitably impressed and then I rang my Dad. We discussed how interesting that was - a lawyer in those days would have been unusual - education, money, influence! I told Dad it was sad, 'cause by the 1871 census his wife was listed as a widow, and the kids were all listed as servants for other families. What a come down I was saying. Such a shame for them to have such a good life and then end up with nothing when he died!

Dad decided to look at what the lawyer's dad did on the 1841 census to see if this power and influence had been passed through the family. To our surprise, the lawyer's dad was just an agricultural labourer - for half a second we wonder how the son of an Ag Lab could have become a lawyer...until he noticed that our lawyer was listed on the 1841 census as a sawyer...

...sawyer, lawyer...easy mistake to make! Turns out my bragging was in vain! I see now that the S of sawyer looks the same as the s of scholar, but I think it also looks like the L of Lab - dock furtherup.

The good news is I made my dad's day! He laughed and laughed at my fall from grace! He was going to ring grandma and to put her straight - hope he lets her down gently - we all liked the idea of even one fancy ancestor!

Lazy Saturdays

When I woke up on Saturday (okay, when Liam woke me up at 9ish) he had already looked up the £1 cinema and found that there was a film on that we hadn't seen - Evan Almighty. We thought our animal-loving children would enjoy this so we called at the co-op for goodies and then headed for downtown Basildon!
When Liam paid, they gave him 3 vouchers for a free kids meal at the Outback Steak House - we had to go! Even with the vouchers, it still wasn't particularly cheap, but what a lovely way for a dad to spend 2 hours with his kids on a Saturday afternoon.

And with a trip to Choice on the way home where we ALL got to pick some new clothes - Liam, you did good!xx

In his fathers footsteps?

What other way is there for Sam to go than to aim to be captain of the chess team like his dad was.

Megan loves playing chess, and now Sam's getting an interest in it too. Of course it does help that Kay next door gave us a Star Wars chess set! You don't even need to know the rules when Yoda is the queen and Hans Solo is the Bishop!

Heaven for a 5 year old!

Wildlife rage!

While I was taking this RUBBISH photo of Leanne (do I sound bitter?), I heard a big dog scrambling down the path towards us. I didn't turn round, but I know that another thing Lorraine hates is a big dog! And this sounded like a BIG dog! I stopped in my tracks, waiting for her to vault over the gate or swear! But she didn't move and didn't say a word!

But when I turned round, there was no dog! And Lorraine's chin had nearly hit the floor - it turns out it wasn't a big dog, it was a bold badger running across the path a few feet away from us! And I missed it because I was taking a rubbish picture! I'm SO jealous! If i'd just turned a few degrees to the right, I might have had my first wildlife shot!

Lorraine said it was either a badger or a bear! I'm miffed enough about missing the badger, but if I ever find out there's a random bear colony in Danbury woods, I'll resent her for life!

Strolling in the sun

In this sunny weather, its a crime to stay inside! So after cricket club, parachute club and dance class on Wednesday (Wednesdays are busy after school!), we met Lorraine, Vicky, Leanne and Rachel and went for a walk in the woods near school.

As you can see, I'm always looking for photo opportunities - and the kids are usually quite accomodating but you wouldn't believe the moaning for this photo. I don't know why - I only made them go and line up on a load of rotting old logs and then stand there until all 6 were looking my way (and this can take a while!). How was I to know that the giant wood ants would start climbing up their legs?! They're so fussy!

Our trip DEFINITELY came to an end when I pushed my luck and asked the children to assemble under a picturesque tree for ONE more photo! Just one more.

They were almost in place when Vicky let out a terrifying scream! You know the kind when birds and small animals flee the scene!

We looked down and Vicky had stood in dog poo and wiped it up her leg! Disgusting! That was it - a clean up mission began but as we're bad mums, we had no tissues or baby wipes on us. What do you do when there's nothing to clean a disgusting mess with? You distract Leah and use her pretty pink hat! It did the job enough to pacify Vicky until we got back to the car, but I fear Leah's pink hat is no more!

Luckily, Lorraine's always happy to oblige my psycho-photo-taking-tendencies!

Although she does have some psycho-tendencies of her own!

As we walked home, we passed a big, posh house with a board outside for a landscape designers - they were obviously spending a lot of money paying someone to make their gardens look beautiful!

I don't think you can see from the picture below, but there are bushes on either side of their gate that are COVERED in beautiful purpley-blue flowers. COVERED! It looks fantastic.

As Lorraine marched along, I could hear her muttering to herself! It turns out she's muttering about how irresponsible people are to plant flowers that attract bees! She wasn't joking! She wasn't interested in how pretty they look, she just sees them as a health hazzard!

I've got to get over the slight amusement I feel when I see her running from even the sound of a buzz! I know it's not funny, Lorraine, but how can you not see how pretty the flowers are?!

And here's a token picture of me to show that I do put my camera down sometimes!