More Friday Frenzies & Fun

Friday somehow always seems to be my most hectic day of the week.
I woke up early (because of DH's alarm) and after trying to get back to sleep for an hour, I gave up around 6 am and got up. I figured if I would manage to get back to sleep I wouldn't be able to wake up again in time.
So, I went downstairs and cleaned the fridge.

The girls got up in time too, so after bringing them to school, I went to the first grocery store and got my first round of groceries for the day. Then I went to a small special shop to buy my GF breadmix.
Back home I put away the groceries and made the bread dough.
After that I started walking the first bit of my postround, which gave the yeast some time to do it's work properly.
When I came back I put the bread in the oven, and asked DD13 to look after it, while I went to the second grocery store and got  DD11 & DD8 back from school again for lunch. My bread was nicely baked and ready when I got back home.

So I put away the rest of the groceries and prepared lunch for everyone, and then it was time to bring the girls back to school again. I went to 2 different charity shops, where I bought nothing, just this time......
Back home I had to walk the rest of my postround, which I managed to do just before I had to get back to school to collect the girls again.

Yes, those 5 black crates were all filled with post which I had to deliver today, so you might be able to imagine why I am very happy to use a pram for the post....
All in all I was quite proud that I had managed to do all this, despite a very sore back.
I decided to relax a bit for the rest of the day, apart from cooking dinner, of course....

Yesterday I was shopping and found a christmas dress & hat for a wine bottle.
Being a doll addict I immediately decided this would work for 2 of my favourite dolls.
I had to adjust the dress a bit, but look how much fun this is:

 The dress is just the right size for Ellowyne, and the hat is great for Daisy!

Chocolate & Charity Shops

Last week we did run out of the chocolate mix we use to sprinkle on our cappucino.
So, that was one of those little tasks that needed to be done in this family B&B. (Seriously, I think it's more like an Inn, as my family doesn't only use it as B&B, but they also have lunch and dinner here.)
I got out cacao, cinnaman and sugar candy.

And with a little help from my late Gran´s coffee grinder, I made us some chocolate mix for our cappucino again.

Something I just wanted to share with you is this poem, which a friend of mine posted on my facebook wall:

Obiously I shouldn´t spend too much time dusting, so I guess our Family resort is going to be called 'The Dusty Dream Inn'.

Some of you may know I just love to go to charity shops.
Here are some of my latest finds:

Yay! A Daisy doll, a bit grubby, but she cleaned up beautifully

And what´s that? Blossom Knickers! And in good condition too!

doll outfits for my DD´s

Moxie Girlz for the DD´s

a chair for Daisy

a teapot for the dollies

a necklace which I intend to make another necklace with

a book for DD8

a book for DD11

I haven´t been taking pictures of everything I found over the past few weeks, but as you can see I found quite a few nice things.
Because of all the dollstuff, I also had a doll laundry day, which I do in my kitchen, with a special doll clothes cleaning product, called Perk, from Twin Pines of Maine.
With a family of 5 you may imagine there´s also quite a lot of real life sized laundry to be done, and that was only too true, as I hadn´t really been keeping up with it, so between washing some dollstuff, I wrestled my way through mount Washmore.......

The Family Bed & Breakfast and St Maarten

Yesterday my sister from The Greedy Minimalist, blogged about her Family Bed & Breakfast.
This rocked a memory in me, as I have been following The Fly Lady more or less for approximately 5 years.
If you have read my sisters blog post, you will know by now that  it isn't an ordinary B&B, but a way of living in your own home with only your own family to take care off.
Here's a quote from her blog: "It's not a real business, but I will treat as if it were just that. I will have working hours and I will pay myself too. My pay probably won't be much more than 10 euro a week, but it will be money that I can use as I please. No strings attached. I'll just have to run my B&B as if it were a real business."
Well, the thought of a B&B, where everything is beautiful & calm and where you can relax and have all comfort at hand is appealing.
So, I will follow my sister on her path, and see what I can do with this concept.
First thing of course, is to get rid of the clutter. To me the kitchen is the heart of the home, so that's where I started working today. The kitchen counter is usually quite empty, as the hubby simply can't stand to see much on it. But, in one of the corners there were 3 empty glas jars, which I had cleaned to use for apple sauce or compote, but I ran out of apples, so instead of something useful, they now started to clutter the kitchen counter. Looking at them I realised that I had read something about the school needing empty glass jars, so I checked my email to make sure this was the case, then went to the shed to get out 4 more jars, and clean them, so they were all ready to go to school at lunchtime.

 And speaking of lunchtime, I had just run out of GF bread this morning, so instead of buying the very expensive factory made bread, I baked my own very yummie and less expensive version, which was just ready at lunchtime:

Now, the kitchencounter itself is usually not cluttered at all, but we do have a cupboard on the opposite side of the kitchen, which tends to attract clutter, so I set myself to work on it, and this is how it looks right now:

 The hubby was really well pleased when he arrived home and saw the change here!

Today it is the 11th of november, and as per custome, in the evening kids will go from door to door and sing a song and get some treats in return. They always love to do this, but DD13 is feeling to big for this.
I had to buy new lanterns this year, as we had ditched the old ones last year.

DD8 & DD11 with their lanterns

So the girls had lots of fun, and got a quite a nice haul.........
Oh, of course, I should add pictures of a part of their loot. (yes, they had already been eating some of it before I even had a chance to take a piccie)

DD11's loot

DD9's loot

and everything of DD9's tin laid out (she really wanted to have a picture like this)

A weekend away

As mentioned in my previous post, we went away for the weekend.
We went to a nice holiday park in Arcen, which is just a little over an hour drive from us.
We arrived on friday afternoon somewhere between 3 and 4 pm, which is quite a good time, given that we first had to do DD13's newspaper round....
We had a very nice bungalow, DD13 had the room closest to the frontdoor.

DD13's room

Next to her room was our room:

Not to worry, DH rearranged to furniture, so he could sleep close to me :D

DD11 & DD8 had the room close to the livingroom, which had a bunk bed, so much fun!

DD11 (top) and DD8, 2 naughty little chickies!

And then, of course, there was the livingroom:

 

We didn't really do much anymore on friday, except for some grocery shopping in Germany, which was just approx. 10 km's from our holiday home...

After breakfast on saturday morning, the first thing on our program was to go to the swimmingpool, as the DD's had all been very anxious to go.

Well, the swimming pool being wet and all, I thought it wasn't such a good plan to take my camera with me, so I nicked some pictures from the www.

 We all had lots of fun there, but eventually we had to get out and go back to our little home to get us some lunch.

After that we had to do some more shopping, as we forgot a couple of things the other day.

This time we went to Venlo. DH bought us some yummie milkshakes at KFC.

In the evening I had some dolly time, and made up a little nightie for Amelia Thimble:

I also made a nightie with yellow accents

Breakfast on sunday morning:

After breakfast we went to the swimmingpool again, until I was really worn out......

So we went back to the bungalow, had lunch, and already had to pack our things, as DH had to work on monday. 

But, there was still a little fun activity for the girls: going to the indoor playground and dancing there.

Unfortunately DD11 hit her head a couple of times, so she really didn't feel up to the dancing

The Hokey Pokey, one of DD8's favourites

 

DD11 & DD8 taking a little pause

 Some more climbing fun for DD8:

After that little break, we went back to the bungalow, had dinner, and finished packing.

Driving back we found out the storm had already started to build up, but we arrived back home safely.

What a lovely weekend it was!

(Thanks Mum & Dad, and DH for helping Mum & Dad with their kitchen)

Autumn holidays

Yes, I know, I haven't been blogging for a while, I guess all my duties kept me from it.
On my last update I wrote about DD11 going on schoolcamp. As far as she's been telling me, she had a great time. Of course, on the friday afternoon when she was on schoolcamp, there was the foxhunt. (It's a game where people dress up as characters, and groups of kids have to search them and ask for a signature, the group with the most signatures is the winner)
Well, I dressed up as an old lady, and I really had a great time. The best part of it, was of course when DD11 came behind me and asked me if I was a fox. So I turned around, and the moment I smiled at her, she recognised me! Her reaction was so much fun to see, I wish I could have made a video of it. Priceless!

Me dressed up as old lady

All the 'foxes', teachers and children after the foxhunt

As you may have figured by now, everyone had lots of fun.
(ha, how much fun can it be to tell teachers in a loud old ladies voice that kids don't learn that much at school nowadays, and that teachers can be plain stupid! no pun intended of course ;-) ).  One of them was kind enough to get me a cup of coffee, which I really appreciated.
All to soon it was time to get DD8 from school, and collect the luggage of DD11 and her friend at the other school location.
Finally the autumn holidays had started! Of course with 3 girls around there's not that much playtime, but over the weekend I managed to finish an outfit for Ellowyne, which really made me happy, as it had been bugging me for months, that I still had to sew an apron and craft a hat.

Serious Intention Ellowyne, wearing my version of the steampunk 'Like Clockwork'outfit

On monday DD11 went to a friend for a sleepover and I could collect her on tuesday late in the afternoon.
DD8 slept in DD13's room, who read her a couple of chapters of Narnia before going to sleep.
As we it was really quiet withouth DD11, DD8 asked me if we could bake together.
She took her magazines with recipes downstairs, and put them all on the kitchen counter:

We finally choose to make chocolate lollipops

She started with putting some sugar decorations in the ice cubes holder

After that we melted the chocolate, and then she added the little sticks.

After that it was time to put them in the fridge.

adding the sticks

the result

As it was tuesday, it was finally time to check on my apple vinegar, as it had been 2 weeks ago I had started preparing it. After seeving it, here is the result:

When the lollipops were ready we went to my parents, where my sister was with her DD's. They enjoyed the  lollipops too!

 

my little princess, very proud of her own 'baking'

Another thing I saw on tuesday was a bud in the plant that DD13 had been cultivating.

On wednesday it came to full bloom:

On thursday DD8 & DD11 wanted to bake rainbow cupcakes, which was a fun project that took us the best part of the morning.
But, they were very yummie!

And on friday morning I really had to get ready for our weekend away, and DD13 had to deliver a round of newspapers, before we could go.
But finally we were on our way and arrived at the campsite in Arcen in good time.
.