General update/ photo drop

Oh my gosh, how long has it been since I did one of these?!?!  

About 6 weeks. I seem to be writing more on topics than general ramblings.  Better change that quick smart.  Try and keep up, while I bombard you with photos of our lives.  I apologize if I repeat myself in any way shape or form.

So a couple weekends ago we went to Lake Conastee Nature Park.  We have been to Conastee Park before, they have loads of play equipment and plenty of baseball pitches.  This is the other side of the Lake.  It is more of a bird watching / nature reserve place.  It was a beautiful day, and we had lots of fun walking / running on the paths.  They form part of the Swamp Rabbit Trail, which they are constantly updating and maintaining here in Greenville.

This is an adorable picture of two of my favorite people. They both look so happy here.  Notice the garden furniture is out?  It is finally getting warm here.  Although it is rainy today, it is still 76 degrees......

We recently took a trip to Helen in Georgia.  You can read more about that here.

Th boys had a great time hunting for eggs on Easter Sunday.  Even if they were in their pajamas still

Sebastian was more inclined to eat what he found straight away, rather than hunt for more.....

I have been doing a shed load of baking.  We have stopped buying bread, as it just wasn't very nice.  I am now making a loaf a day to keep up with what we all eat.  At least this way we know the majority of what goes into our food.

I am also making a batch of about 40 cookies each week.  I found an awesome recipe on the choc chip pack from Costco.  A slight tweak on the time and temperature, and they make awesome snacks.  Not sure I have bought any packs of cookies or biscuits for about 6 weeks.  I am also making my own rice crispie treats, with decorations, which the boys love.  Next up is fruit jelly snacks.  I have tried one recipe, but they end up as jelly blocks, rather that gummy sweets.  Again, a slight tweak on the ingredients will probably do it, but we have to eat what we have first!

Isaacs behavior had been better for 6 weeks.  Until yesterday.  Funny, he started eating a certain snack type yogurt over the weekend, after not having it for six weeks.  We introduce it, and boom, email home about behavior.  Think we will be knocking them on the head for good.

Do you like my painting?  I went out on a Friday night with some ladies form a local Facebook group to Corks and Colours at Southern Galleries in Simpsonville.  It was a bring your own bottle painting evening.  It was great. I am really pleased with my picture!

Cocktail Friday is still going strong.  Don't forget to check back here every friday to see what concoctions we have been drinking recently!

This is a screen shot of a photo I pasted on Instagram.  See those likes???  They are all Monster Jam drivers!!!!!  If only they could know how truly OBSESSED Sebastian is with monster jam. We have a few recorded, and that is all he wants to watch.  He plays with the monster trucks when he is not watching them.  He thinks he is a monster truck and uses the sofa as his course.... 

This is my friend Amber.  She is another Zumba instructor.  We recently got together and choreographed 'Chica Practica'.  You can check it out here on her YouTube Chanel.

Check out the flower on my strawberry plant!  I got these in the ground too late last year to fruit, though they did send off tones of runners.  I have so many flowers this year it is ridiculous.  There are load of little strawberries coming along.  Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!  Think I will do a full post on my veggies patch soon, it is certainly coming along.

And in case you missed it, Oliver had the titanium plates laced in his ear recently.  You can read more about it here.

I did my Zumba Gold training this weekend.  It was awesome.  Ali the trainer was really good, I had a lot of fun, and learnt a few more rhythms.  

                                          

I am so enjoying my Zumba at the moment, and am looking out for a subbing opportunity very soon.  I am leading a song at a Zumbathon this weekend.  It is a charity event for the Make a Wish SC, so if you are in the area, please come along

Thats all for now! 

January, where did you go???

Gonna try and make this short and sweet.  

So Seb had his birthday, loved all his presents.  He is coming on leaps and bounds.  Still not talking properly, but the effort is definitely there.  He has a word for me, and constantly shouts for me at home.  This is a good and bad thing!  At least he is really trying now, makes me less worried about him when we go out anywhere.  He is still really laid back, and will only try talking if something is not going his own way and he doesn't like it.

We went to Frankie's fun park for his birthday. They all played a round of mini golf, and went on the go karts.  They love it there!

Thanks Aunty Jen for his Paw Patrol stuff.  He isn't really into coloring yet, but I am sure the time will come!

Every January Monster Jam comes to Greenville.  We thought we would try it out this year.  Tickets were reasonable, hardly anything is cheap when there are 5 of you!  After the initial noise, Seb got used to it.

Thank goodness for ear defenders.  They have been a priceless purchase!  Monster Jam is good, the Bon Secours Wellness Arena is good.  The two together, not so good.  The arena is just too small, the trucks kept breaking down, it seemed to take a good while to set the courses ready for the next race.... I could go on.  I re kong in a bigger arena, like Atlanta or Charlotte, it is probably awesome.  Not so much so in Greenville.

But we have seen it now, and the kids seemed to love it!

Oliver's basketball season is slowly drawing to a close.  So far they have won one game.  Big change from baseball!

But he has really enjoyed it, and has improved so much.  He even scored tonight.  Okay, it was from a free throw, but he is even fouling without realising it, and that's a good thing, right?!?

Seb and I got busy last week, and made these.  My first time making rice crispy treats.  The choc chips are a nice added touch.

The boys do after school clubs on a Wednesday afternoon now, so paul collects them, meaning I get extra time with Seb.  We tend to hit the library and a dollar store of some description.

There is a new gappy Gosling in the house! Isaac lost his first tooth on Sunday night.  I had noticed they have been slightly wobbly for a while.  All of a sudden on Sunday morning he is complaining of it being really wobbly, take a look, and you can see the adult tooth coming in underneath it!

The tooth fairy visited, and left a dollar.  She wrapped it in the same kitchen roll the tooth was in, so someone thought she hadn't been! She only wrapped it, as the tooth fairy bank was out of notes, and only had quarters.......

So January is done, as is my dryathon.  Thank you so much. To everyone who sponsored me.  With gift aid I raised well over 100 pounds for Cancer Research UK.  So proud of myself, and I know my mum would have been too.  I have had a few beers since though......

But with the giving up drinking, I also gave up smoking.  Didn't know I smoked?  Only in the evenings since September, not around the kids.  Had been a smoker for 16 years.  Much worse when younger.  I have now been smoke free since 1st January.  This is such an achievement for me, I am so proud of myself for making this life style decision, and I feel so much better for it health wise.

Mental health wise?  Some days are a real struggle at the moment.  Things get to me very easily.  Anything bad will out rule the good.  Today was a prime example of that.  Cemented some good things for the summer, then something came through the post to make me doubt something and bam!  In tears for an hour.....my moods seem all over the place.  So contradictory in the space of one day. Trying to take a day at a time, a morning at a time.  I have so much in my head, I need a list everyday to remember what I am doing!  Some days better that other, weekend seems harder.  Think it's the pressure of trying to please everyone.  But I know no one is perfect, and it doesn't matter if things go wrong.  But when they do, I feel so awful....

Sorry to end on a sour note.  If you have got this far, you have done well!  I will make more of an effort to post more often, especially if I have things on my mind.  Might be time to say what I really think about certain things......

Oooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh😗