Thought I would write a little throwback to Valentines Day just gone..
As we were in lockdown, I knew I had to plan something home bound. (I mean, we rarely do much on Valentines most years, but hey, in this crazy year, why not go over the top! 🤣
I turned our lounge into a spa! (Our surname is Lancaster, so it had to be The Lancaspa!)
The Lancaspa Treatment Menu
I did a LancaSpa treatment menu for the kids and made them each a $100 gift card (trying to get some maths in there 🤣)..
Then I set up the spa.
I stole some couch roll from a beauty friend of mine, (but they do sell a roll on amazon for less than a tenner) bought some face masks, slippers and eye masks from ebay and set up the room.
For the massage bed, I just took my headboard, stuck it on the coffee table, covered it with a sheet and some couch roll, and voila, a comfy, easy massage bed!
Add some candles for ambience, and wax melts for that lovely spa smell, and you’re ready to go!
I also set up a little hairdressing and beauty station on the kids table with their chairs..
We had a really fabulous day.. (them more than me, as I was the nail tech, masseuse, make up artist, hairdresser and beautician!) But isnt that what parenthood is all about!
Heres a couple of pics of my beauties enjoying their pamper session and make over! Enjoy and have a go yourself next Valentines, or any day!
Forgot to add we also had a killer afternoon tea with little gifts in the afternoon. 😁 Awesome day!
After almost 3 months off school, thanks to the dreaded virus, we are back at school!
The kids were so excited! Excited to see their friends again, and their teachers, and just to be away from Mum and Dad for a bit!
Last night we bathed, braided hair, got uniforms ready, read a story (I hate to admit that it’s been a long time since we did story time! We had given in to a movie instead, but happy to have story time back!)
We made new tags for the book bags earlier on in the evening, which was a fun quick activity, and we had a nice early night!
Then today, up nice and early, ready to run out of the door on time and raring to go!
We had an issue at the school due them changing drop off procedure, and leaving us feeling anxious for the kids, as we didnt get to give a proper goodbye, but they just took it in their stride.
They had a marvellous day, skipped all the way home telling us about all the things they had done!
Now they’re in bed, all ready for a new day tomorrow! I hope your kids also had a lovely first day back after the Covid! It’s been a really tough time, but I’m starting to feel normality creeping back!
Yes I go OTT! 🤣🤣 Yes I know this may not actually be the end of the home school.. but.. the kids are excited to go back to school and they are excited to not have mum as their teacher for the foreseeable, so a graduation and prom it is!
It was fun to get dolled up, any excuse to put make up on the girls because they love it! (My littlest Izzy, loves make up, but has to do it herself! hence looking like David Bowie in the pics!)
We did hair, make up and nails, put on pretty frocks, and we are ready for the prom!
Prom King with his beautiful Prom Queens ❤
Earlier in the day we had a graduation.. we did graduation hats, the obligatory hat chuck, and I made the children their very own Home School Hero medals. 😊
I gave them an (unwanted 🤣) speech on how extremely proud of them I am, how well they have adapted to extreme changes in their world and how fantastically well they have done in their home school!
I asked them what their favourite part of homeschool was, Daisy said all the crafts and Dylan said learning more maths (liar 🤣🤣).
Dylan and Daisy are excited to go back to school to see their friends, and their teachers. Little Izzy wont know what to do with herself when her siblings are no longer around all day (who am I kidding, I will be the most lost 🤣) and my eldest Lauren, who just adores school, and any human contact, will be just over the moon!
After graduation, was prom.. we took the graduation pics, and got ready to party into the night (well 8pm for bedtime!) With a prom night disco!
We put some disco lights on the TV, brought DJ Alexa into the living room, and played the kids favourite songs! Here’s two videos for you.. and I would like to add at this point.. this right here is why I had lots of kids.. (had I met my hubby 10 years earlier, goodness knows how many kids we would have had! 🤣)
I really hope everyone has had a fantastic last day of homeschooling, (even if its just mum and dad having a beer to celebrate it’s over!) And heres to not having to struggle to understand 8 year old math homework!
Thanks for reading, I will be back soon with another adventure.. If you like my blog, please sign up, share, like and leave me a comment!
It’s that time of year again, when we have to struggle to think of and make (or rush out and buy, but I’m a tight arse, so I’m not doing that! 🤣) our kids World Book Day costumes!
This year is different to any other as we are in lockdown.. and to be honest, I had, until this morning, said sod it, let’s not bother this year!
But then I was on the good old socials, and I felt bad looking at all the wonderful costumes, and the happy (and some not so happy 🤣) kids in them.
So I thought what can I make for my kiddos, that’s quick, easy, cheap and because I love them to be, matching.
My daughter Lauren, just loves books! She has hundreds! She cant read (she is on the spectrum and has global developmental delay) but she loves to look at the pictures, loves to rub the pages and I dont know why, but loves to tap the pages with a stick 🤣.
So I got to work, and rifled through her book collection for some inspiration. I came across a collection of Mr Men and Little Miss books.. perfect! Easy to make the kids matching, and an easy one to chuck together!
I sent hubby off to the local shop to ask them if they had any spare boxes we could pinch, and he came back with four crisp boxes.
I got to work, and within an hour, each of the kids had a world book day costume!
Here is my step by step on how to make an easy peasy, super cheap (I had all the materials, so it cost me nothing!) And effective World Book Day costume.
First get to your local shop and ask them for a cardboard box. Most shops will give you them, no problem, but I always go to my small independent shop, it’s easier, quicker and I think they’re more likely to give you what you need 😊
Once you have the box, the rest is easy peasy. 😊
Start by cutting a hole in the top for the head.. make sure it’s big enough for the head to go through, but not too big that you lose the structural integrity of the box.
Next cut two arm holes in either side of the box.. I made to long oval cuts, so it wouldnt be too restrictive for the kiddos..
And the last of the box cutting.. cut the bottom off. (For the Mr Skinny character I just cut either side and left it hanging down to give that longer front)
Box turned upside down, so you see what I mean. 😊
Next you will want to tape up the box. Tape up all openings, so it is a nice sturdy box again. I just used normal celloptape, as it’s all I had, but packing tape or duct tape would probably have been easier. 😊
We sat down with the books, and the kids chose which characters they would like to be.
I got the card ready, we are a crafty household so I have a plethora of coloured card anyway, but a multipack of coloured card is pretty cheap anyway.. and it’s the only cost involved in the whole project!
I used double sided tape (but normal would be fine too) to stick pieces of card to the cardboard box. I only did the front as we’re only at home anyway, if I’d sent them to school like it, I would have definitely gone all the way round.
2 pieces of card was slightly longer then box, so I just folded it over at the top.
Then with a permanent marker, draw the face, another bonus, Mr Men and Little Miss faces are super easy to draw!
And if they have a headpiece, hat, hair etc, make that by cutting the relevant shape and stick it to the top of the face!
And my son in it, cos hes just too stinking cute! (I think most 8 years old would be like, no way, but my Dylan, like his dad 🤣, just get on board with any craziness I have in mind!)
Here are the other designs we did..
From left to right, Little Miss Naughty, Little Miss Princess, Mr Skinny and Mr Strong.
And my little Angel’s in their costumes!
Happy World Book day everyone! I hope this makes next year easier for you and lots of you have a go at your own!
Heres a pic with step by step instructions if you want to save it. 😊
A few people wanted to see the whole week on one post, so here you go! 😊
We started the world tour in the USA, where we visited New York, became NYPD, and drove a New York taxi. We also visited Las Vegas and a had a bit of gamble on the roulette table!
We ate delicious food on our USA travels, starting the day with a stack of pancakes, bacon and scrambled egg and loads of yummy toppings! And finished the day with a tray full of meat, mac n cheese and fries!
We visited some famous landmarks and took some silly photos to remember our magical day in the USA. 😊
We then headed to France, where we had a French lesson with Dylan, visited the Eiffel tower and even went on rollercoasters at Disneyland Paris!
We loved the French food! Croissants and hot chocolate for brekkie, croque monsieurs (and croque madam) for lunch, and a gorgeous duck a l’orange with dauhpinouse and french beans for dinner!
Since we were in France we had to visit the best sites like the Eiffel tower, Arc du Triomphe and Mont st Michel, we wont forget this wonderful day any time soon!
After France, we hopped over to the beautiful Italy! We had a go at painting the Mona Lisa, we made pasta and we learned some key italian phrases!
I mean, who doesn’t love Italian food?! It is sooo good! We had the best anti pasti lunch with meat, cheese, bread and salad. Then for dinner we had a feast of pasta, pizza and risotto!
Then we did a whirlwind tour around the beautiful Italy, and took photos with some of the most famous and old landmarks.
We then had the long flight to South Africa! But we were so happy to be back in our second home! We went on safari, had a go at making Zulu jewellery and played the bongo drums!
Food, again, was so delish! Vetkoek for lunch, braai for dinner and biltong to snack on through the day! The kids favourite!
Before we went to the next country we took some snaps with the animals, popped into Sun City and took a dive into the Kimberley Big Hole!
Then we headed to Thailand where we made Thai flower garlands, learned how to say hello in Thai and went to the full moon party!
The food was a bit spicy for the kids, but they still loved it. Satay and sticky rice for lunch and a Thai feast with curries, starters and crackers galore!
To finish off our wonderful day, we took some pics with the elephants, the temples and of course, the gorgeous beaches!
We leave Thailand.. and off to China! Here we made chinese lanterns, Daisy gave us a wonderful tutorial on how to make these and looked at how we could write our name in Chinese. 😊
Let’s be honest, we all love a good Chinese takeaway! And today didnt disappoint on that front at all! We had a host of starters, noodles, rice and sweet and sour chicken!
And we finished our time in China by visiting the temples, the beautiful giant panda, and of course, the great wall of China! A great day had by all!
It’s the last day of our tour and we are heading home to do the last day in our own beautiful home country, the United Kingdom! We entered a cheese rolling competition, held our very own championship welly throwing contest and did a London bus craft!
The food was yum! We started the day with a lovely bowl of porridge, had an exquisite afternoon tea for lunch then finished the day with a 3 course meal of prawn cocktail, fish and chips and Eton mess.
We couldnt head home until we got some great pics on the iconic London landmarks of the London eye, Buckingham Palace and the house of commons!
Our 7 day world tour is over, we’ve had a fantastic time!
If you want to read the days in full the blog links are here..
Yep, that’s right.. We are on the last day of our 7 day world tour and just before we head home, we decided to do a quick tour of our home country, The United Kingdom! I feel it can be really underrated by some, but it really has some truly stunning places, on your doorstep and further afield!
We love to explore the UK, and we are so proud to be dedicating our last day to a GREAT country (says so in the name!).. Great Britain! 😁
We started off the day with a nice warming, tasty, wholesome bowl of porridge. 😊
We were going to have the good old English Breakfast, but we have eaten so much this week (dont you always when you’re on holiday 😉) so we decided on porridge with a variety of additions instead. 😊
After lunch we went for a walk to the park, to enjoy the lovely day it was today! But low and behold, we arrive and there is a cheese rolling competition going on! Come on kids.. who will grab the rolling cheese? 🤣 (excuse my terrible editing, we did roll down a “cheese” but missed it in the video 🤣)
After a fun packed morning at the park we headed home for lunch. We had a traditional afternoon tea with a selection of finger sandwiches, cakes and cookies, scones with jam and cream and a lovely cuppa! 🤤
We then did drew a London Bus, and decided where on the bus each of the family members would sit.
And just before dinner we headed to the long anticipated Wellie Throwing Competition of 2021.. the stakes were high, and the competitors revved up! They were in it to win it!
Well done to the Champion Dylan! A well deserved winner.. Daisy said in an exclusive post throw interview that she will be sacking her trainer, and will be back harder and stronger next year!
We headed home for some good old fish and chips for “tea”.. after a delicious prawn cocktail that is! And for pudding.. it had to be Eton Mess!
It has been a lovely day exploring our home country, we’ve had loads of fun! We, of course, took some pictures of our travels, so I hope you enjoy these!
And then as quick as it began, it was over! Our week long holiday, around the world, to 7 different countries!
I am cream crackered 🤣🤣 I need a holiday after this that’s for sure.. but dont you find that often when you go away, you come home more tired than when you went? So it ties in perfectly with any normal holiday!
It has been so much fun! The kids have loved it, Daisy is heartbroken that its over, she didnt want to come ‘home’ she just wanted to keep travelling, bless her. ❤
But we do have another event coming next Friday to celebrate the end of Home School 2021, so dont forget to sign up with your email address, so you get notifications when I post about our new adventures.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your kind words, messages, shares and interaction to the first week of my brand new blog! I am really loving sharing it with you all!
If you love reading my blog as much I love writing it, please share my blog posts, leave me a like or comment on the blog pages, and sign up to recieve notifications of my posts.
Thank you again! Much love! And peace out, for now! See you on Friday with an emotional final day of homeschool 2021! ❤
We have arrived in China! Definitely our favourite take away, so we just had to go and learn about some of their culture and activities..
We started the day with some crafts.. first we tried to make a paper koi carp. This didnt go down too well.. the kids really struggled, and found it quite boring.. But I loved it, and I’m very impressed with my fish! 🤣
We then tried our hand at making some chinese lanterns out of paper.. this was alot more appealing and nice and easy for the kids to do, almost unaided! Daisy insisted on making a tutorial video.. so here you go! Enjoy! 😊
For lunch we had a little tea party.. we talked about how tea grows, and how they make it into tea bags.. and then enjoyed some lovely tea while watching videos about The Giant Panda. 🐼
After our tea party, we looked at how put name might look if we came from China.. Because you cant do a direct translation, I found a website which gives you a Chinese name based on the meaning of your name, and the year you were born (basing it on the chinese zodiac).. I loved this, we did have a go at writing our names in chinese too, but it ended in tantrums 🤣 We also looked at our chinese zodiac signs, as a family we are Tiger, Rabbit, Monkey, Snake, Goat and Pig. 🐯🐰🐵🐍🐐🐷
For dinner we had, of course, our favourite, Chinese takeaway!
We went for Peking duck, wonton and ribs.. Special fried rice, beef chow main, sweet and sour chicken Hong king style and some chilli squid! It was as good as it always is! And I am so stuffed right now!!
(Have to give a shout out to our favourite chinese takeaway -in Milton Keynes – Open Kitchen in Fenny Stratford! You’re food is amazing!)
And in keeping with our world tour traditions.. we have taken some great photos of our travels around the wonderful and cultural China!.. Enjoy 😊🇨🇳
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our trip to China.. and we are so excited to see you tomorrow with the last day of our 7 day world tour.. and boy do we have some good plans for tomorrow.
Thank you so much for all of your support! It means the absolute world to me.. feel free to leave me a like or comment, you can sign up with your email to receive an alert when I post new material and please share to spread our adventures far and wide 😊
Hooray! We have arrived in beautiful Thailand! We have lots of Thai family, so it was really fun to make some Thai crafts and eat some delicious Thai food!
We started the day by making a Thai flower garland.. I remember when I was in Thailand, age 16, there were small children about 4 years old selling garlands like this (only 1000% more beautiful!) To the cars sat in traffic.. the memory stayed with me as it was so sad to see.. I know that unfortunately this is a way of life for lots of kids, but it does make me so sad! 😔
To make the garland, I used some cotton fabric, cut strips then with a needle and cotton, do a loose running stitch right through the middle, scrunching up as you go.. make a loop, then add the two bits at the bottom.. we also made some paper flowers add added them to our garland.. phuam galai is what the Thai people call. Some are exquisitely beautiful!
For lunch we had one of my favourite foods.. Chicken satay, peanut sauce and sticky rice. The kids loved it! So easy to make and super delish!
After lunch we took some lovely photos in our Thai inspired outfits.. (Dylan didnt want to join in on this one 🤣) but the girls just loved it! 😍
And we learned how to say “Hello” in Thai! 😊
For dinner, we had a Thai feast! Matt and I just LOVE Thai food so we went a bit OTT on the food front 🤣
We had a selection of Thai starters.. Fishcakes, sweetcorn fritters, spring rolls, prawn toast, satay left over from lunch, and lovely spicy Thai prawn crackers!
We also had some Jasmine rice and Pad Thai.. A green curry (that wasnt very green 🤣), beef pad gra pow (a spicy one for us, a chilli-less one for the kids) and some sticky pork.
Matt and I made everything from scratch, and although missing some fresh herbs, it was all really tasty!
Then after dinner.. we went to party.. The Full Moon Party! And just by chance, tonight was a full moon! It was meant to be..
We played music outside, put make up on and danced in the moonlight! It was alot of fun, until we got too cold.. which was after about 10 minutes 🤣🤣
Only problem with the make up was mum ordered what she thought was glow in the dark make up.. but it was UV make up so we couldnt get good pics.. but you get the idea 🤣
And just like all the other days.. we took some super photos ready for a fun packed day touring the wonderful Thailand!
Thank you so much for joining us again on our spectacular 7 day world tour! I appreciate your support, if you enjoy reading, sharing my blog helps me get my story out there for more to enjoy.
This day has been emotional! We went home.. back to South Africa!
My Mr is from South Africa and we moved there in 2013, and lived there until 2016.. Our Daisy was born there, on our farm, with no medical intervention, just Matt and me! It was magical!
I have many many fond memories of SA, and it was nice to talk a walk down memory lane!
For Lunch we had Vetkoek (pronounced Fet-Cook, means Fat Cake 🤣) .. It is basically a savoury doughnut, or deep fried bread rolls! They are delicious, and if you get a chance to try them.. you must! (Recipe.. make white bread dough, separate into roll size balls, deep fry until medium brown! Easy peasy!) We served it with mince, cheese and apricot jam.. It went down a storm! Like it always does when I make it! It always reminds me of visiting my mom in law, and makes me miss SA lots!
After lunch we put some green felt down, did a quick hunt of the house for any African animals we could find, and made our very own African Savannah!
We also did some language learning today! Did you know South Africa has 11 official languages? Here are my munchkins saying “hello” to you, in all 11 of them!.. enjoy 😊
For dinner we had my Mr’s number one dinner.. A Braai.. or to us Englishfolk.. A BBQ.. South Africans love to Braai, and most will do it at least once a week! Theres loads of meat, we had Boerewors (a yummy South African beef sausage), pork rashers (thin pork belly slices), steak, corn on the cob, garlic mushrooms and Oumas potato salad. Another recipe coming up, but if you try anything, try this potato salad recipe.. I promise you, it’s amazing.. potatoes, diced raw onion, diced cooked bacon, mayonnaise, condensed milk, salt & pepper.. some people also put chopped boiled egg in, but I prefer it without.
I am not exaggerating at all, but the kids were literally silent for around 20 minutes! Not a peep! They absolutely love this dinner and are all true Saffas!!
After dinner we did a virtual game drive and saw Giraffe, Wildebeest and Cape Buffalo and played on the African bongo drums.
Daisy and me also had a go at making Zulu bead jewellery.. it was very fiddly and required alot of patience (of which I had alot more than daisy 🤣) but we loved it! I am definitely going to have a proper go at this when our world tour is over! Here is the bracelet we made 😊
We also had a little evening snack of biltong! We actually make our own now, we have a cool little cupboard that drys the meat! Biltong is like beef jerky.. only a million times better! Biltong never lasts long in this house.. the kids LOVE it!
And lastly, we took our photos! We did the silly poses ready for photoshopping 🤣 But we also picked lots of our own photos from when we lived there as the backdrops.. some are from our farm, our little peace of heaven on earth! And others are from our travels around SA.. We also loved going through the old photos and showing the children all the places we went! Anyway.. I hope you enjoy these.. if you enjoy reading my blog and sharing in our adventure, I’d love it if you would share my posts. 😊
We took this photo of the hippo, in Beautiful St Lucia. This photo is of our farm.. the bench in front of the Dam.This original photo was also taken on our farm. It breaks my heart that the 2 younger girls never got to live there! 😭
Thanks for reading again.. We will back tomorrow for Day 5 of our adventure!
Number one country on my bucket list to visit is Italy! I cant believe I’ve never been, but after this rubbish year, I am going! I’m booking to go next year, I’m not putting it off any longer!
We started the day with a delicious Italian brunch of cold meats, Italian cheeses, ciabatta bread and a mushroom and mascarpone frittata.. it was delicious! We managed to polish off the lot!
We then got out the art easel, and had a go at painting our very own Mona Lisa! This was so much fun! And I think the kids did a fantastic job! My Daisy just loves to draw! And I think she has real talent bless her.. ❤
Then we made pasta in preparation for dinner later.. I cant believe I’ve never made pasta before! Dont get me wrong, it took ages, and was a bit of a work out 🤣 but really it was super easy! The kids loved helping, and Daisy was surprised we could “actually” make pasta 🤣
(Excuse the box of Krave 🤣 Daisy got snacky after her pasta workout 🤣)
We learned some Italian.. (forgot to video this time.. ) but they picked this one up easily, (apart from goodbye.. so we swapped that for ciao 😊)
For dinner, we had an Italian feast! (Dont you find when cooking Italian food, pasta, risotto etc, you ALWAYS make too much! Like, I could have fed 10 people easy peasy! 🤣)
We had tomato and red onion bruchetta, mushroom risotto, carbonara with home made pasta! And a couple of pizzas (yes I admit, they were just tesco pizzas that we started up a bit! 🤣) .. and for pudding.. a lovely creamy tiramisu!
And just like the other days.. we did some poses earlier in the day ready for a non stop trip around the beautiful and ancient Italy.. enjoy!
I hope you have enjoyed our visit to Italy.. We have had loads of fun! And it’s really got me excited to get my butt to that beautiful country!
Tomorrow, we are going home! Well our old home, and the home that will live in our hearts forever! The country I am DESPERATE to get back to ASAP! The most beautiful country in the world in my eyes.. South Africa!
Mum of Many : Making Memories 