This is today's press release, fingers crossed someone can help there's just not enough around -free - for kids and parents in Sheffield. RT's and shares very gratefully received.
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CHILDREN'S SHOW TO BE CANCELLED UNLESS SPONSOR STEPS FORWARD
A free show for children in the city centre, is due to be cancelled unless a sponsor can be found.
**The events on this and the follow post happened over a day and a half, it's just easier to group them together, to this extent they may not be in any particular order**
After leaving our bags at the hotel we hopped aboard the 201 green line bus to Legoland. Ben noticed the destination and said "oh this bus is going to Legoland" completely unfazed by it, so I asked him if he'd like to go and both said yes. Letting me know that they loved Legoland Discovery Centre and could they go to the Sealife Centre after. After explaining we weren't in Manchester (and how the train/ bus route was different) they wondered which Legoland I meant.
taken in 2012
As we pulled along the route we spotted little signs that I thought Ben at least would recognise (he went a couple of years ago in June 2012), Noah would have been too small to remember) but nope, not a flicker. He has told me since he STILL doesn't remember going so that was obviously a worthwhile experience.
We really made the most of the last week of our Easter Holidays, even better due to the fact our kids were
off when the southern schools had gone back.
We chose to go to Windsor and make a day (and a half) out of our Merlin Passes at Legoland then onto my mums for a couple of days before she brought us home on Sunday. Despite living on the high speed rail line to London (2 hours) the connections etc to Legoland make it that little bit too far to do comfortably in a day.... but that's a tale for later in the week.
This holiday was all about budget .... fun and experiences.... but budget and trying not to spend too much on unnecessary items or expenses.
I've been away this week (not that you'd have guessed as I actually scheduled posts) - have been reading your lovely comments but not been able to post reply's so I'll have a catch up (probably tomorrow evening). Have got some lovely posts to write about Legoland Windsor, Easton Farm Park and a gruffalo trail WITH a gruffalo!! plus loads more and a potential update on my Snazaroo post.
Must go and break the boys fight up now.... roll on school again tomorrow........
For once this weeks Bad Mums post is NOT about me. I was the model mumy this week. I took the boys to the cinema on Saturday (Cineworld) to watch their Movies for Juniors showing.
These are a fab price at £1.35 each (bought online an hour before leaving the house, with Mycineworld 10% discount) and means even with the extortionate cost of snacks (£6 for a drink and popcorn) I can treat the boys once in a while. The film of choice today was Frozen which is something mummy has secretly been wanting to see for a while, just to find out what the hype was all about.
Here's a song that really captured me and the boys this week .... I fear we will be singing it for many more weeks to come.
If you've not seen the film this song is about how lonely Anna is and how she wants to spend time and play with her sister, Elsa. It shows her at different ages throughout the song. Just before the last verse of the song, their parents die, so the last verse is sadder than the rest.
Here's the lyrics, and a you tube video so you can enjoy the magic yourself.
Noahs birthday started off much like any other soon to be 3 year old ..... with a request for a Hulk cake. Sure I could buy some icing picture off ebay (or somewhere) and a sponge cake .... or I could make it myself .... that was where the trouble started!!
With the boys we did a trial run a couple of weeks ago using red food colouring (to make a spiderman cake) - it didn't give quite the colour intensity I was hoping for....
So armed with green gel colour (which my friend advised would work much better) I set about the cake making mission. The flavour of the Spiderman cake was lovely so we used the same recipe.
I also bought multicoloured ready rolled icing and dug out the Lego silicone moulds. Hulk himself was going to prove a challenge ... there was nothing online I felt confident copying so I went with a simple (well ..) marble cake with green icing, Lego man and bricks.
If you are fans of Teddy Bear Lost and Found or the regional Lostbox pages I help to manage on facebook/ twitter you may have seen the heartache felt last night when it came to light that a scammer was hitting the victims of Lost Bears and claiming them as her own.
Like many many other Snazaroo/ PlayPennies fans 2,482 to be exact I was duped by the Playpennies/ Snazaroo marketing scam.
After seeing an advert on the PlayPennies facebook page for a free Snazaroo face paint kit on 13th April I jumped at the chance to get one. My boys love having their faces done and have had a professional do it (using Snazaroo) at the last 2 parties they have been too so I thought this set would be a nice treat for them.
I thought it may be nice this year for the boys to have an Easter Egg hunt. so after scouring website after website and not finding quite what I wanted, either too challenging or too easy or too American I made my own.
I used some clipart eggs and a text box to write the clues.....
I've been on quite a few East Midland Train journeys this year, but never has my husband come back down the train and demanded I go to the toilet.... my potty training 3 years old maybe but I'm 32 I'm pretty sure I know when I need a wee.
But no he was adamant I HAD to go for a wee telling me to read the sign on the toilet lid while I was there ..... thinking perhaps he'd banged his head I humoured him.....
Sadly I didn't take my camera (that would have been weird right?) ... fortunately a chap called Tim Garratt,did in January and here it is for you.........
by Tim Garratt, posted on Twitter, taken from The Mirror's web site.
With it being little mans 3rd Birthday on Thursday we wanted to find something really fun and different to do. After reading fantastic reviews of Gruffalo Trails (see links at the bottom) we thought we'd make the lengthy to go to Sherwood Pines* and carry out their Gruffalo trail.
What we were greeted with was some lovely woodland (but we could get that in Sheffield without the associated travel costs) and a couple of play areas (again nothing we don't have) but ........... well read on and find out..........
I'm holding my hands up ... I am not just a bad mummy I'm a typical useless on line user too. I will admit I cannot remember 500+ passwords to have a different one for every site..... heck i can't even remember which 10 sites I signed up to in the last week let alone forever.
So imagine my anger when I receive email such as this "On Thursday 10 April we at **** became aware of the bug [heartbleed] and immediately ran tests to see if the ***** servers were vulnerable. As soon as it became apparent that we were, we applied the fix to close the OpenSSL security hole (known as the Heartbleed patch). However, it seems that users’ data was accessed prior to our applying this fix". Now aside from the fact they KNEW on Thursday of the issue but didn't tell users until 5.45 on Monday 14th is bad enough in itself but for companies not to have effective virus software to stop this happening is appalling. These are companies we trust to keep data safe who simply can't due to their own lax security.
Booty was a great game for the Commodore 64 (C64). Ok so my definition of great may not be completely accurate.... it was painfully annoying but it is one of the games that I remember playing (so it must have had some greatness) .... I've downloaded the ROMS and played it a few times since just to get the nostalgia bug back, but never managed to complete it.
It was released in 1984 and was a single player game..... the music was terrible but fortunately you could switch it off.
The aim of the game was to guide Jim, the cabin boy, through the ships various decks collecting items of booty . To collect these you simply walked past it). You had to be careful tho as some of the items were secret bombs and if you didn't move away fast enough it was life over.
Here's the shocker ....... sit down and reach for social services phone number but ........... I let my child do his own homework. I know how appalling, what an awful mummy I must be.
I don't understand it ..... perhaps I am living in a parallel universe? I have spoken to soooo many parents (especially recently with the school Easter challenges) who have told their child how their model will look or what design their car should be. I've spoken to almost as many who have sat up the night before it needs to be handed in fretting over whether the colours are correct or if they have written enough (well typed, the teacher would know they wrote it).
What pops, spins, smells of apple pie and sounds like something out of a Roald Dahl classic? The Lush Fizzbanger of course.
With pressure on the purse strings Lush is a little slice of luxury for me for birthdays, mothers day, Christmas or anniversary presents. This year I asked hubby for a Fizzbanger, thinking all his Christmases had come at once I quickly had to explain that it wasn't what he was thinking and was in fact a lovely bright yellow bath bomb from Lush.
Like most of Lush's products the smell is the first distinct thing to hit you, it has amazing citrussy apple, Cinnamon and a hint of ylang ylang.
It's Ben's first Easter at school and like most parents in the country (I'm assuming) we were set some challenges for this week. Now when you work Monday to Thursday and have a husband whose idea of a
messy house is leaving 1 sock on the floor (even then it causes a meltdown) it fell to mummy to raise to the challenge. But of course, Noah couldn't sit by while his brother had all the fun so double the kids meant .... double the mess .....
So Sunday was earmarked for art attack afternoon ..........
Following on from my posts on the worst Breakfasts to feed your children and the worst dinners they can eat.... the woman has done a 3rd one to turn me into a failure.... the 10 worst lunches......
lets take a look and see just what a bad mummy I am this week. You will notice many of them have been covered in my earlier posts (pfft she couldn't even think up 10 NEW ones for us to fail at. Therefore, for the purpose of this post, a 'lunch' is a quick meal (served at around mid-day for us) rather than a sit down family / after school evening meal.
So here's the original post.... lets sum it up.....
1) Cheese on Toast
The boys don't tend to eat Cheese on toast at all as they aren't keen on melted cheese. Lets look back at WHY she didn't like it . "white bread with processed cheese slices" is the worst . Ok so I did slightly admit to using processed cheese slices a very very long time ago. As far as lunch goes tho it's not something I would generally serve up (processed or normal cheese).
The kids do however love cheese sandwiches for lunch (with cheese off a block) so I guess that is just as bad as melting it. Bad Mummy rating 3/10
Wow i cannot believe how long it has taken me to finally sit down and write this (didn't help I have clearly saved the original photos I took in a very well filed folder on my laptop and now can't find them).
Right back at the beginning of March my boys were lucky enough to win 2 signed copies of Zoe and Beans books from Macmillan Children's twitter competition.
James the Cat was a children's series created by Grampian Television and narrated by Sean Arnold. It follows the exciting events which take place at the Cornerhouse (number 104) between James (the cat) and his friends. Each episode ran for about 5 minutes. There were 26 episodes made in 1984 for Series 1.
The series starts with James being left behind when his family move out. Through the first series James is a newcomer to the garden and has to make friends with the other animals that live there. Fellow resident characters include:
Mrs. Lavender (a snail)
Frida (a kangaroo)
Citroen (a French frog)
Rocky (a rabbit)
Dennis (a pink fire-breathing Welsh-accented Chinese dragon)
Next door are Ma and Pa Rat, and their rat children.
According to the internet the show had a subsequent series that I was too old for, made in 1998 with narration by Alistair McGowan. In this one James becomes a VIP (diplomat) and travels to distant lands or receives important visitors. Try as I might I cannot find further evidence or clips from this 26 episode series.
OK I tell a small white lie - This is a 1998 one, obvious due to its brighter colours .. but its not in English.
If you do want to watch an English version the first one ever can be found here.
After a long (long..... long.... long...) day at work the only thing I wanted was to go home to a bar of chocolate and a cup of tea.
Normally on my walk home through town I get stopped by chugger after chugger as I try to escape the crowds .... tonight however was different. The lovely people at Galaxy had set up a stall and gave me ....... FREE Chocolate ... not just that but they also gave a voucher for 30p off their new bar 'Galaxy Honeycomb' so guess what I will be purchasing tomorrow :)
With its lovely rich creamy texture Galaxy is my number 1 chocolate of choice and when it's free it's even better!
At the moment you can also pick up a free ebook with their 40g bars and have a chance to win a Kindle with their larger bars so how many more excuses do you need to indulge?
Here's a song that really reminds me of my childhood. Released in 1993 I remember listening to it at my Auntie's Farm House. I was only 11 but I can remember the exact layout of that house. I can remember the wooden picnic bench style table in the kitchen and I can remember eating chocolate Wheetos ... wow what a treat they were as I was never allowed them at home.
She used to have a fish and chip van ... not something you see any more.
Ohhh i miss that Welsh farmhouse!
Here's the lyrics, and a you tube video incase you need to educate anyone ...........
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The show was set in a fictional skyscraper with a talking lift (David Walliams for the first series and Gary Parker in the second). 
For once this weeks Bad Mums post is NOT about me. I was the model mumy this week. I took the boys to the cinema on Saturday (Cineworld) to watch their Movies for Juniors showing.
So imagine my anger when I receive email such as this "On Thursday 10 April we at **** became aware of the bug [heartbleed] and immediately ran tests to see if the ***** servers were vulnerable. As soon as it became apparent that we were, we applied the fix to close the OpenSSL security hole (known as the Heartbleed patch). However, it seems that users’ data was accessed prior to our applying this fix". Now aside from the fact they KNEW on Thursday of the issue but didn't tell users until 5.45 on Monday 14th is bad enough in itself but for companies not to have effective virus software to stop this happening is appalling. These are companies we trust to keep data safe who simply can't due to their own lax security.
Here's the shocker ....... sit down and reach for social services phone number but ........... I let my child do his own homework. I know how appalling, what an awful mummy I must be.
1) Cheese on Toast
