Carbooting loot! - my 1st magpie monday

Hiya all,

Car boots have been a big part of my growing up, many a Sunday morning walking around a normally muddy field or school playground looking at the carboot stalls mom and dad buying the most random of objects, Mom collected elephants for a LONG time, shes not gone of this, but my Dad collects anything with a horse on it and also candle sticks!!!

Many of my clothes as a child and teen were from car boots and i have zero problem with it! Why not, pair of jeans 50p? yes please!

This weekend mom and dad have been to there caravan for the 1st time in a while and they went car booting, mom came back with these little jems of items for Harry.

4 pairs of shoes

sorry didn't realize it was blurred :(

 2 pair of clarks stomposaurus shoes £1.50 each (still available in-store for £32!!)

1 pair of brand new velcro fasten pumps originally from sainsburys £1.50

1 pair of skecher trainers with flashing traffic lights (bigger size but will keep for when they fit) £2.00 (have seen these online for between £20 and £40!!)

What a bargain!! I have no problem buying 2nd hand for Harry, as long as the condition is good and they get a wash and wipe over when we get them home, i think its fine :)

Now, what did i say a few post ago?? no more toys for harry for a while, well turns out a while was in fact 3 days in my mom&dads eyes!

They got him a bob the builder phone £1.50 and pencil case 50p

and this bargain:-

bob fancied a ride!

Thomas the tank bubble machines, not only does it blow bubbles but it moves along the floor and plays the Thomas theme tune, when looking online at this, its still available for £59.99!!!! What did they pay? £1 how could they not buy it as they put it. So they're let of the hook, i agree, how could they walk away from that bargain!!

Harry's loving all his new 'shooooeess' and keeps trying them all on and hes especially loving his new Thomas and Bob toys.

I thought id just throw this into the mix too, its sort of cheating as it wasn't 2nd hand but it was a bargain from IKEA £9.99 reduced from £45!! perfect for our bedroom colour scheme (which has changed since my last post about it, its now black and greys and red!) so this fits perfectly!

Do you go to car boots?
Would you buy 2nd hand for your kids?

I'm linking this post up for the 1st time with meandmyshadow for here Magpie Monday linky (hope i did ok?)

Love Lucy x

sort of, silent sunday

Hiya all,

I think have a picaso on my hands!

Love Lucy x

our butterfly farm!

Hiya all,


Over the last few weeks we have been 'growing butterfly's' when my brother in law saw the national trust butterfly observatory kit on sale in Sainsburys for £7.00 he snapped them up, one for my niece and one for Harry.

The kit comes with a net, instruction manual and a code to order your live caterpillars from the Internet. This was really easy to do and they arrived within 5days of ordering.

When they arrive they are tiny specks in a jar which is filled with what looks like hard sand.

 The kids loved watching the tiny little caterpillars make tiny little movements around the jar.

I could not believe how quickly these little caterpillars actually grow, we would go to bed and get up the next morning and they would of visibly grown.

You can watch as they eat and fatten up, and spin there webs ready to cocoon.
It takes roughly 1 week for them to get into the cocoon and then 1 week for them to come out as fully grown butterfly's.

We were so lucky to be able to watch one of them emerge from there cocoon, it was brilliant to see and i caught it on video, all be it a little blurred.

Harry loved waving at the butterfly's and releasing them in our garden when they were all grown.

I'm sure kids of all ages would love to do this, it was just brilliant too see everyday, don't be alarmed about the 'bleeding' when they emerge, it looks terrible but its apparently just sort of 'ink' from the colour of there wings.

Sadly one of ours didn't cocoon hanging up, so we placed him on the floor of the net as advised but again sadly he didn't emerge fully and died :( i was gutted. 

Ive put together this little video of the pictures and video i took of the 2 weeks that they were with us. Its 7mins long so i apologise for the length and also, the background music, Gareth choose, he thought it was fitting!!

I cant recommend this enough, i already want to get another one to watch.

Have you ever 'grown your own butterflys' ?

Love Lucy x

I dont want to go to bed!. . . book review

Hiya all,

The last few days me and Harry have been enjoying reading this book:-

With its bright colours and absolutely lovely pictures, this is the perfect book to read to your little ones.

Haven't we all exclaimed at some point in our childhood 'but i dont want to go to bed' didn't it always seem that all our friends were aloud to stay up longer than us. Wouldn't we all of loved to be told 'alright stay up all night then' well this lovely book takes you on that journey with one very cute little tiger cub.

The story follows mummy tiger and little tiger as he demands 'i don't want to go to bed' and the adventure he has visiting his jungle friends too see what they are all doing at bed time.

Reading through the book, Harry loved pointing at the illustrations and making the appropriate animal noises, (just dont ask me to do a bush baby noise, my impression sounds like a cross between a sheep and a hamster!)

I don't want to go to bed! is the perfect bedtime story before you tuck up your little monkeys or tigers into bed. Its just the right length of story and will get them sent of to the land of nod before they no it.

I would say that this book would be great for a gift too, babies and toddlers will love having it read to them by there mummys or daddys or even grandparents and older children will love reading it themselves like my little niece evie does, the words are not to difficult so give easy reading for new readers.

I dont want to go to bed! by Julie Sykes is available from Amazon for £4.24 


I cant recommend this book enough, especially if your little ones love making animal noises like my little man.


Love Lucy x


*i was sent this book to review, i have not been paid for my review, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

proud mommy!

Hiya all,

I am one proud mommy tonight, my baby boy has done not 1 but 2 wee wees on his potty tonight!

Went to ikea today and randomly picked up another potty for £2 and dont no what it is but hes taken to it, unlike his white winnie the pooh one we already had that he prefered as a hat!

So fingers crossed this is the start of our potty training journy :)

Wish me luck!!

Love Lucy x

out with the old . .

Hiya all,

We (me and my mom) have been sorting the house and today was the turn of  Harrys toys to be sorted, 4 big bags full later,

(these are just 2 of the black bags)

 A little 'Help' if that's what you want to call it, from Harry.

 And we are down from all this:-

To just this in the house:-

 and this outside in the conservatory play room!

Im chuffed, feels so good to get rid of so much, 90% of it was broken and junk anyway. Were now left with just the things he actualy plays with.

Although the title says out with the old, there definately wont be any in with the new, no new toys coming back into the house for a while now!!

Tomorrow will be the turn of Harry's wardrobe and extensive shoe&hat collection!

Wish me luck, i may need it!

Love Lucy x

Our weekend . . .

Hiya all,

This weekend has been very different to the pass few weekends we have had, over the last few weekends we have spent the majority of our time in the house, painting decorating putting together flat pack furniture, going to IKEA and visiting family. Nothing that exciting really.

This weekend we went to the seaside!!

Living smack bang in the middle of the country in the West Midlands, one of the many downfalls about this is that we are the furthest away from the coast you can get! So after hearing that Sunday was going to be decent weather, we planned to make the 2.5hr trip to Llandudno.

All ready to leave!

At 6am, me Gareth Harry, and my Mom & Dad set off for the beach. Followed by my Sister her husband and my 2 nieces in there car.

 When we got there Gareth took harry onto the sand and then Dad too him to look for shells and the can across a huge jellyfish!

lovely views!

We met up with my sister and had a lovely day (even if there was ALOT of walking which resulted in alot of moaning from me!), We walked all along the pier and they went on a few rides ate ice cream, then Harry got to experience the beach and sea for the 1st time, they had a great time and me and Gareth went on a speed boat.

see the fear on my face!!

Harry was a little scared of the sea at 1st, but when he had his jelly shoes on he was fine, i don't think he liked the feeling of it under his feet.

on our way home

We didn't realise how strong the sun was and although we had sun cream on my mom and dad still ended up like this - Mr & Mrs Lobster!!

And here's Mr Tomato!!

Lets just say were all fighting for the bottle of aloe after sun!!

How was your weekend?

Love Lucy x