More Temple St Dramas...

This seems to happen every Spring - I have started to detect a pattern for the past 3 or so years...Last night Eva came down at 9pm crying with a bad headache at the sides of her head and at the back. Gave her calpol and went to bed and she was fine. I just happened to wake at 3am to check her - don't ask me why as I normally never wake - call it mother's instincts or something...and she was 39.7 and disoriented, still had bad headache and was complaining of sore neck as well. I quickly rang VHI nurseline (guardian angels in my opinion) and they suggested I go straight to A&E.

Ten mins later I was in a taxi to Temple St. Unbelieveably there were 2 waiting and I hadn't even sat down when i was called in, seen by a nurse, allocated a bed and seen by a Doctor within 20 mins. They ruled our meningitis which is the only thing I was concerned about. We were home by 5.30am once her temp came down to a reasonable level. It looks like it's a strep throat or tonsilitis. Have been just monitoring her all day - she's still spiking a bit but I'm sure it will be fine. Will take her to GP on Monday if still the same.

All the stories you hear on Joe Duffy radio show about the crippling health service blah blah blah ...and I just waltzed in and out and got the best attention. Feel kinda lucky! The staff are so overworked and they still are so professional nevertheless...Hats off to them all!

Anyway some good news...my Christmas present finally came from the States on Thursday morning - Cricut Expression. Waiting for some more parts to arrive (like mats and carts) but have been fiddling around with it... without much success. It's difficult minding sick kiddies and playing with your Christmas pressies at the same time. Mothers duty overrules...

Feeling crafty..

I've been pottering about in my craft room these last few weeks - enjoying my new storage solution (ie old cube style wine racks x 3 turned on it's side and holding up 'floating shelves'). Sounds crap but it's working for me - must post a piccy when I get a chance. Anyway here are the fruits of my storage inspiration:-)





Have to say this is one of my fav's - love Eva's little hands...


My pal Eavan has just had a significant birthday so I scoured through my albums over the years and put this mini album together - we had such a giggle reminiscing on those carefree nights BC (before children!).

Fun day :-)



We had a very busy but fun day today. Eva had an extra rehearsal for girls brigade out in Malahide at lunch time so while she was there myself and himself scuttled off to one of the local watering holes for a sneaky lunch of baked lasagne all by ourselves - total bliss! Afterwards when we collected the girls we took a walk down to the sea as it was a fresh blue sky day with a nip in the air which would cut you in half. The Malahide marina and estuary is a fabulaous place for a walk on a day like this. The place was packed with Sunday strollers and their dogs.




From there we headed over to Clontarf to a little pal's Tara's birthday in Fitzone. While the kids were entertained the grown ups had afternoon tea with more peace and quiet! What a lovely day ;-)

When I grow up...




Today we had a great time at the Donnycarney crop and class. There was a frenzy of activity on the croppers table involving candles and soot generation (near misses with fire:-) and lots of photos and paper flying around the table. For today's class we made this colourful layout using the sweet 'Mellow' papers from Basic Grey. I love the little cartoon characters - really cute and versatile. I think the girls had fun playing with them...

There was a lot of kit leftover which I used to make this layout of Lucy preening herself in front of the mirror. Thanks to everyone who came along today especially Annamarie and Linda as always for supplying the retail outlet to the stash mad women who come to my crops! We can do it all over again in a few weeks in www.Crafteire.com as both ladies will be there with their shops.

Happy St Valentine's Day...

'Roses are red
They're nice and not crap
But YOU use three rooms..
And that's just to SCRAP :-)

This was one of the many verses on my dear ole hubby's valentine's day card today {{{sigh}}...romantic eh? It gave me a giggle first thing this morning.



Hope you are having a nice romantic lurve-filled day...I entered a radio competition on Derek Mooney's show looking for Ireland's most romantic couple and I nominated my parents. I didn't win (boohoo) but I enjoyed making this mini album for them as part of my entry -hopefully they will return it in time for their 40th Wedding Anniversary in a couple of months...





Better go and cook my romantic candlelight supper for two...:-)

Chasing squirrels...



That's how we spent our Sunday afternoon last weekend. As it was such a lovely day we took the kids down to the 'Bots' or Botanic gardens to give it it's correct title. There were squirrels everywhere you looked - some coming right up to feed out of the hands of anyone who brought them a bag of crumbs. Lucy was fascinated by them and was practically crawling into the bushes after them...










I had a small crafty get together over the weekend and managed to get a lot of bits 'n pieces done. I'm not quite keeping my new year's resolution of 5 LO's a week but then it was a bit ambitious to begin with. Here's a few of my most recent...

Linda from Kelly crafts kindly gave me some of her new chipboard and transparency albums to have a little play with. These are so much fun to use and Stazon works perfectly on the transparent sheets...

I created this album with a set of photos I found of me when I was a little one with my parents and then a set of Eva at the same age. The journaling inside reads 'Just like mum...just like Eva...Time marches on and generations pass but not a lot changes. A mother holds her childs hand for a little while and their heart forever'. It's funny to see me and my daughter in the same type of pose and using the same toys which have been passed down a generation...

Pancake Tuesday

We had fun today making pancakes. Like every year..the fun is in the making of them as my two pixies don't like to eat them...Lucy was giddy waiting on my to line them up on the counter ...as you can see!

St Brigid's Day

In a previous life, this day was classified as my other birthday - but that's a long story :-) Yeh you lot..you know who you are!!!

It's allegedly the first day of Spring but I'm not buying it. I can never understand our nation's confusion about the first day of Spring. Clearly it's not here yet, not even a glimpse of it after that deluge of hailstones and torrential rain yesterday. In Italy, they classify first Spring day as 1st March to coincide with the first soltice - now that makes sense to me. It must be part of the curriculum in primary school that Feb 1st is D Day as the teacher tells them it is. My daughter and I have a little pact and agreement-let teacher think that she's right but really we know the truth :-)

So to crafts...this is my altered Marks & Spencer's wallet holder. I bought himself a new one in the January sales and I couldn't throw out the lovely black box it came in -I have a whole drawer full of other similar sized boxes which have missed the fate of the recycle bin for the same reason. I had created this 3D expanding card/mini album (inspired by Carrie's Scrapwest cybercrop class)as a momento of our 10th wedding anniversary in Adare last August and when closed up it fits perfectly in my little wallet box so you see there is a reason for my hoarding sometimes!











TFL
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