Jean’s Dino Extravaganza! (by sarah)

Saturday saw Jean's fifth birthday and it was dinosaur themed!

I haven't got all the photo's yet but here are a couple to be getting on with 🙂

Mum made Jean a triceratops outfit from Sew a Dinosaur a book I picked up in a charity shop 🙂 It is a fantastic outfit and came out better than in the book (she made some adjustments!).

We had dinosaur biscuits 🙂 Jean made!

And a Dinosaur and Volcano cake!

Jean announced that I am the Bestest Baker in the whole world when she saw the cake 🙂

We also had volcano cupcakes!

Food wise there were also over 90 dino cupcakes with either flintstones or jelly dinosaurs on them! And dinosaur shapes sandwiches and little dino chocs me and Jean spent three days making!

Me and Jean also made Hama dinosaurs as decorations 🙂

Jean also decorated lots of cardboard dinos as decorations 🙂 These also appeared in the Dino make and do along with stickers and cloth party bags for the kids to decorate!

We had a pre-historic safari where we found a mother load of dino goodies 🙂 (even if the kids didn't believe that Alaric was a real trail leader especially once Rob turned up in his National Geographic gear!). There were a few party games and the Land Before Time I, II and III for the kids to watch in the evening 🙂

I was a little bit behind with putting the food out and forgot I had made Jelly and ice-creams for the kids but think it went well 🙂 Jean liked it anyway 🙂

Blacky Out for a Walk (by sarah)

We have a leash for Jean's rabbit which everyone including the rabbit loves! I wanted a nice picture of them walking up the drive but Blacky decided that there was a nice bunch of dandilions and that was it every sat down :/

Recycling Bags (by sarah)

These are my new recycling bags that go under the kitchen table - they velcro together! We've just had the first week of them being in use, it has made such a huge difference to keeping the kitchen tidy - it's almost unbelievable!

Plus I think they look nice 🙂 and they were cheap!

The only issue is there really needed to be one for cans too - but a) that wouldn't have fitted under the table so well and b) we've doubled up the plastic as tins as well as we don't get that much plastic.

Minni Puss (by sarah)

Minni disappeared a while ago and because she would often go off for a while initially we thought she would come back. But she didn't which has led to a strange situation as in when to give up hope - we hunted high and low fearing she had got trapped in somewhere but she wasn't anywhere 🙁

No body was found but she was acting 'old' just before she disappeared i.e. not moving from the fireplace except to eat and maybe sit on a lap for stroking.

We had given up on our little puss cat but it has become evident that Jean hasn't. When Betsy died the vet gave Barbara the body which Jean watched being buried so after the initial Pooey Betsy incident she got over the fact Betsy wasn't there.

With Minni she still expects to see her and will tell people we have four cats though Minni is missing. Then when we went to the park we saw a huge black cat, sleek and powerful, sort of what Minni would have been if she was a young male cat. Jean called it over and stroked it and then said, 'It's Minni! Mummy it's Minni - she's run away to here and the people have fed her lots and lots so she's grown up big and strong!'

I didn't really know what to say :/ So I just 'maybe Jean.'

We are all really missing the black menace even if she did have the re-occuring anal gland problem which made her regually a smelly cat. I think Minni's absence is harder on Jean as write from the start Minni would guard Jean whilst she slept and things.

I think Jean may have not understood Minni was an adult cat - we got Hydrogen and Helium as kittens who grew up and even Tom hadn't finished growing when we got him (which is bad news as he was so underwieght).

You can’t get the staff these days! (by alaric)

We've got houseguests over, and we left them at home while we went for a walk in the countryside.

However, when I got home, I found they'd decided to go to Tesco many hours previously, and had gone off leaving:

• Jean's rabbit outside in his run
• The shed unlocked
• The front door of the house wide open

When asked why, they said "Oh, Barbara (the next door neighbour, my aunt) was around"...

Had it not occurred to them that Barbara might decide to go out herself, and is not supposed to be responsible for locking up our home? Or that Barbara might not actually take it upon herself to guard our open doors from passing opportunists, and sit watching, but might have her own things to do?

sigh