We have been busy bees here in the Sweetpea household.  What with bugs (mainly me suffering from those) , birthdays, chics and tendonitis it has meant hardly any time to blog or comment on blogs :-(

I am still suffering from tendonitis but after a 2 hour wait in physio I am finally getting some real help.  I was fed up with being popped on one painkiller after another - I want this fixed not glossed over !  After the lovely Harmony and Rosie sharing the advice she was given with me I went back to the doctors armed with my advice ammo :-)  After a lot of persuading (and even being told 'why do you need physio when you have a copy of your friends excersises'  pah!) I was referred to physio and now have wrist splints and advice on how to go forward.  I really want this fixed as it has been moving up my arms to my shoulders and it is stopping me hand sewing and being on here :-(   Those wrist splints look sexy don't they lol .

Whilst I have been away middle Sweetpea (top piccy) turned 10!  Goodness me, it only seems like yesterday she was a little baba :-(  She wanted a little piggy cake at first but then watched Hairy Bikers and decided she fancied Black Forest Gateau.  I followed their recipe but ended up having to make four layers rather than two which could be cut in half as they didn't rise very well.  Needless to say my hips are now a bit bigger :-) 

She decided to have a sleepover for her party and somehow caught me out by getting me to agree!  They had an easter egg hunt, watched films whilst eating popcorn in bed and had a take out Pizza (a first in the Sweetpea household - goodness they are expensive).  They weren't too bad but did all look like Zombies (as did I) the next day :-)

As the day progressed one of the eggs Mr Sweetpea had popped in the incubator (this man is addicted to having animals in our household!) started to hatch :-)

Tiny the Dutch Bantam  hatched the next day, it took him/her quite some time to get out.  Here he/she is at the front with Bubbles (can you tell the kids named them) his/her sibling.   After popping photos of the hatching in progress on facebook they have quite a lot of fans now and have had visitors popping in to see them :-)

This is how tiny they are, they are standing in front of our Easter tree....

Poor little Bubbles doesn't look too well at the moment, we are not sure how long he/she is going to live for :-(  We are giving them lots of cuddles (especially poor Bubbles) which they love.

There have been some other new additions in our village too, just take a look at these cute lambs.  They are soooo sweet, it always makes want a pet lamb again .....

My Dad used to take on quite a few waifs and strays and Daisy was an orphaned lamb.  Oh how we loved her!  Loving my crazy hair in this photo and my sisters huge cheeky grin :-)  She had to go back to the farm when she was big enough and we used to visit her there.

What else have we been up to, sorry if you are falling asleep at this point :-)

Well we went to a Charity shop and got the most wonderful bargains.  For some time now I have been wanting to make little Sweetpea and middle Sweetpea a cooker out of a bedside cabinet.  I asked on freecycle if anyone had an old cabinet they didn't want and someone kindly told me that she had seen one at our local Open Door charity shop.  We drove there last week and low and behold there was a mini wooden cooker, it cost me a whole £2!  It needed some tlc but that made it even better.

Little sweetpea washed it all ready for me to sand and paint it, I have nearly finished it now so will share the after photos soon :-)

Eldest Sweetpea was very happy too as he found a chemistry set in there, which had never been opened, for £2!   He busied himself later that day creating chemical reactions - hhmm not sure that is a good thing in the dining room but it kept him happy.  I am so glad he found this actually as I am not too impressed with his science lessons at Secondary School, this is just what he needed to spark his imagination and interest in it again :-)

We have also been down our new allotment a lot too.  Late last year I planted a spiral of daffodil bulbs which started to pop up.  I am going to extend it every year as the children already enjoy  going round the spiral :-)

We are also lucky enough to be next to a friends allotment and she created this wonderful willow wigwam a couple of years back.

What with these two items and our little trampoline the kids are kept busy so we can concentrate on planting and weeding :-)

Look she can levitate :-)

I had better be off now as you have probably all dozed off :-)  Take care and sorry again for not being able to comment as much as I used to on your blogs - I will soon be better and hopefully then normal service can resume :-) xxx

Little Quakers visit from America..

Here in the Sweetpea household we were recently contacted by the lovely Blueberries in the Fields as she had a duck called Quakers visiting her.  She went on to explain that Quakers really wanted to explore the world a little more before returning home to America so could he come and stay at ours for a while, well of course we said yes :-)

A couple of weeks later we heard a teeny tiny ratter tat tatter on the door, on opening it we saw a tired Mr Quakers and his very large suitcase :-)  We invited him in and helped him un-pack his little suitcase (which contained mainly scraps of bread and a spare little neck tie), offered him and cup of tea (very English of us lol) and then showed him around our home.  We knew that where he lived he had friend chickens so we introduced him to our newly hatched chicks, he felt far less home sick after that ...

 

After a good nights sleep little Sweetpea insisted on showing him around Ely, Mr Quakers was so excited!  Of course the first stop was outside the magnificent Ely Cathedral, Mr Quakers was in ore of the size of it.

He really wanted to fly up to the top but he was too little and only managed to get half way .....

Little Sweetpea suggested that maybe they should go through the door like everyone else ... even the doors to the Cathedral were gigantic (you can just see Mr Quakers to the right of the door little Sweetpea is standing at) !

Mr Quackers let out a big quack of shock at how pretty the inside was ...

He had a little rest on a statue half way round ... luckily the statue didn't seem to mind and was happy to hold him.

As they left the Cathedral Mr Quakers was very excited to see some fellow ducks hanging around a really old cannon, he just had to show off his balancing skills by sitting on top of it (he is the little yellow speck at the front of the cannon).   Little Sweetpea chatted to his new friends telling them all about his adventures.

We then walked back past all the lovely old buildings in Ely on the way back to a backery .... it was surely snack time after all that adventuring ....

Of course Mr Quackers had to check out all the old doors to see where they went before we got to the backery.

We all sat outside the Cathedral enjoying some cakes in the sunshine ... hhhmmm what's in your cake bag Mr Quakers ??

Yum those cakes were scrummy !  On the way home little Sweetpea explained that we were going to go to the garden centre to find a new tree for the allotment, Mr Quakers certainly loved the ride in the plant trolley.

Then it was time to go off to the allotment to plant the tree.  Mr Quakers thought it would be fun to play a little game of hide and seek so whilst little Sweetpea ran around looking for him he hood and waited for her to find him ...

We certainly have enjoyed having an American duck here to stay and I hope Mr Quakers enjoyed his time here too.  He has to return back to America now to be with his owner Ethan whose Mummy has this blog, he will tell him everything he saw in Canada and then England.  What a brave young duck to travel all that way on his own :-)  xxx

The gorgeous Monique also sent some goodies for the Sweetpeas with Mr Quakers, all these and some sweets (which seemed to disappear before I could photograph them) - you are such a sweetheart Monique. xxx

Little Sweetpea has been loving the lavender bag, in fact I now have to rub all the Sweetpeas pillows with it every night as they love it so much!

Pop over to Blueberries in the Fields Etsy shop to see the most gorgeous Muffinpie dolls, we have several living here who we love dearly.

More blogging about the chicks and how they have grown in the next few days :-)