- Denise Johnson Leave a comment

Themed family fun – week 15

The idea is simple – each week I will tell you a theme. It could be a colour, a shape, an animal, a holiday or anything. You then use the theme to have some family fun and write a blog post telling us all what you did. You might cook something or craft something or visit somewhere. Whatever you like as long as you are having fun.

The rules.

1) Visit my blog every Monday to see what the weeks theme will be.

2) Have fun using the theme and write up your post.

3) Make sure you include the badge or a text link to my blog so people can join in.

4) Come back on the following Saturday to see what we have done and link up your post.

5) Look at other peoples posts and comment on at least three so everyone gets some love 🙂

You do not have to join in every week and if you are worried that you may forget then just follow me on twitter and I’ll be tweeting reminders each week.

Each linky will be open for five days giving people plenty of time to link up their posts.

This weeks theme is
Mango

I hope that you have lot’s of fun with this weeks theme and that you remember to come back on Saturday to link up your posts.
- Denise Johnson 8 Comments

Word of the week – Renewed

Since the groovy mums linky finished I have been wondering what to do on Thursdays and how to sum up my weeks so when I discovered that there is a linky over at the reading residence which is called word of the week I happily decided that this would solve my problems so here is my first one.



After having a bug and generally feeling sorry for myself the week before last, I have turned a corner this last week and I feel renewed. My energy levels have been renewed which makes a huge difference and my enthusiasm for life is now also renewed. I have found a great new system for planning my days which I will blog about soon and it has really helped me to get things done and be more organised and feel more together. I am looking forward to the summer and now starting to make lots of plans for summer fun with the kids and I am feeling really positive about the future. 





The Reading Residence
- Denise Johnson Leave a comment

Themed family fun – week 14

The idea is simple – each week I will tell you a theme. It could be a colour, a shape, an animal, a holiday or anything. You then use the theme to have some family fun and write a blog post telling us all what you did. You might cook something or craft something or visit somewhere. Whatever you like as long as you are having fun.

The rules.

1) Visit my blog every Monday to see what the weeks theme will be.

2) Have fun using the theme and write up your post.

3) Make sure you include the badge or a text link to my blog so people can join in.

4) Come back on the following Saturday to see what we have done and link up your post.

5) Look at other peoples posts and comment on at least three so everyone gets some love 🙂

You do not have to join in every week and if you are worried that you may forget then just follow me on twitter and I’ll be tweeting reminders each week.

Each linky will be open for five days giving people plenty of time to link up their posts.

This weeks theme is
Rainbow

I hope that you have lot’s of fun with this weeks theme and that you remember to come back on Saturday to link up your posts.
- Denise Johnson 2 Comments

Themed family fun – prince or princess week

Courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net by digitalart  

Welcome to prince or princess week!

Again it was very quiet last week so I would really appreciate it if you could help spread the word about this linky. 







Unfortunately I can not link a post this week as I have not been very well but I will comment and tweet every one that does link up and I will be back to linking a post next week as usual.

The rules.


1) Visit my blog every Monday to see what the weeks theme will be.

2) Have fun using the theme and write up your post.

3) Make sure you include the badge (see below) or a text link to my blog so people can join in.

4) Come back on the following Saturday to see what we have done and link up your post.

5) Look at other peoples posts and comment on at least three so everyone gets some love 🙂

You do not have to join in every week and if you are worried that you may forget then just follow me on twitter and I’ll be tweeting reminders each week.

I will view, comment and tweet every post as a thank you for your participation.

Each linky will be open for five days giving people plenty of time to link up their posts.
Mum on a mission for a better life

I hope that you had lot’s of fun with the prince or princess theme this week and I welcome you to link up your posts on the linky below!

- Denise Johnson 6 Comments

The prompt – rules

mumturnedmomThe Prompt for this week from the lovely Sara at Mumturnedmom is a phrase and it is:

Rules are meant to be broken



This is one of those phrases which always makes me smile when I hear it. I have always been someone that belives in setting and following rules and I know that some people would rather there be no rules, so that we could all be free to do as we please, but when I think of a world with no rules all I can think of is complete anarchy!

The main problem that I can see with rules is knowing where to draw the line. For example, I think that rules such as people not being aloud to kill or steal in society, are of course very good rules that help to keep society functioning but the governments control can sometimes go too far such as fining parents for taking a holiday during term time. These types of rules are in my opinion taking things to far and they make it very difficult for people like me that would normally always stick to the rules in order to set a good example to my children. I took Faith out of school for five days last year for a very much needed family holiday which we would not have been able to afford if we had waited until the school holidays, Faith then had chicken pox earlier this year and we were told to keep her at home for five days until the spots had gone. She has also missed two single days where she has been genuinely ill and we have had so many letters complaining about Faith’s attendance during that year and her end of year report came home last week with excellent grades and comments but they had actually written a D- as a grade for Faith’s attendance. This really angered me as for a six year old to see that grade on her report card, she thought that she had done something really wrong bless her. I know of plenty of parents that hardly ever make sure that there children are in school and I also know of many parents that take there children on two week holidays during term time and I feel that although we broke the rules we are just doing the best for our family.


Anyway, back to the topic of rules, I believe that rules are necessary to a degree and I am the same with my parenting. I have always set rules and boundaries in my home as I believe that children need something to rebel against. I would much rather my children rebel against my rule of being in by a certain time by coming home ten minutes late then if there were no rules so they needed to do something like taking drugs to rebel and shock me. I try to be as balanced as possible and only enforce rules that are needed and whenever my children ask me if they can do something I try to take some time and think about their request from all points of view before making a decision so that I can be firm but fair.


Do you believe in rules or are you someone that believes that rules are meant to be broken?
  
- Denise Johnson Leave a comment

Themed family fun – week 13

The idea is simple – each week I will tell you a theme. It could be a colour, a shape, an animal, a holiday or anything. You then use the theme to have some family fun and write a blog post telling us all what you did. You might cook something or craft something or visit somewhere. Whatever you like as long as you are having fun.

The rules.

1) Visit my blog every Monday to see what the weeks theme will be.

2) Have fun using the theme and write up your post.

3) Make sure you include the badge or a text link to my blog so people can join in.

4) Come back on the following Saturday to see what we have done and link up your post.

5) Look at other peoples posts and comment on at least three so everyone gets some love 🙂

You do not have to join in every week and if you are worried that you may forget then just follow me on twitter and I’ll be tweeting reminders each week.

Each linky will be open for five days giving people plenty of time to link up their posts.

This weeks theme is
Prince or princess

I hope that you have lot’s of fun with this weeks theme and that you remember to come back on Saturday to link up your posts.
- Denise Johnson Leave a comment

Themed family fun – Yellow week

Welcome to yellow week!

Big thanks to the lovely new linker that we had last week although it is still very quiet at the moment. Come on people – help spread the word and get a few more people joining in!




The rules.


1) Visit my blog every Monday to see what the weeks theme will be.

2) Have fun using the theme and write up your post.
3) Make sure you include the badge (see below) or a text link to my blog so people can join in.
4) Come back on the following Saturday to see what we have done and link up your post.
5) Look at other peoples posts and comment on at least three so everyone gets some love 🙂

You do not have to join in every week and if you are worried that you may forget then just follow me on twitter and I’ll be tweeting reminders each week.

I will view, comment and tweet every post as a thank you for your participation.

Each linky will be open for five days giving people plenty of time to link up their posts.

Mum on a mission for a better life
I hope that you’ve had lot’s of fun with the yellow theme and I welcome you to link up your posts on the linky below.









											

										

				


			
				

					
		
												

							 - Denise Johnson														2 Comments
													

						
						
My #shelfie!
						
						
					


										

						


Victoria Plumb and Tots100 are running a blogging challenge for us bloggers to share our shelfie on Twitter and share a blog post with you all about what we have on our shelve.







I have chosen my book shelve in my living room as that is my favourite shelve in my house. It is the only place that everyone in our house knows that they can not leave all their random things on and they can not take anything off the shelve as it is my shelve!
















On the top of my shelve I have some of my favourite photographs. From right to left there is a picture of Faith and myself which we took last August during our family sports day that we did (I will be blogging about this soon with the summer holidays fast approaching!). Every year I take a picture of Faith and myself together in the summer and then I replace the picture, keeping the old ones in the back of the frame so that in years to come we can see how we have changed each year. The next photo is Faith’s most recent school photograph, then there is a picture of Chloe which is one of my most favourite pictures of Chloe that I’ve ever taken and finally there is a picture of Lauren, which was taken when she was attending dance classes and this is Lauren in one of her costumes.









The second shelve from right to left has a few books which are about writing and a book about living with ME which I am currently reading. I then have a glitter globe which Faith brought me for Mother’s day which I use as a book stop. Next is a jewelry box, which is made from sea shells, which is not really to my taste but has huge sentimental value to me as it belonged to my Nana who sadly passed away when I was 12 years old and who remains in my thoughts and heart forever. Finally there is a photography of Darren and myself in Spain on a family holiday from 2007 in a frame which Darren brought me for Valentines day.









On the bottom two shelves there are my books. I collect Agatha Christie books and I proudly display my collection which takes up most of my book space. I also have a number of self help books which I always love to read as quite often they all have at least one good piece of advice that will help me improve life or get more organised. Dr Phil is a huge inspiration to me when it comes to being a good parent and I have all of his books as well. Reading is really important to me and although I have a kindle and I read lots on line I still love to have a real book in my hand.



As I mentioned earlier, today’s blog post is for a blogging competition, but you can win too, even if you do not blog as Victoria Plumb are also running a competition on their website where you can win £250 John Lewis vouchers by simply taking part in their fun style quiz. 

For those of you that are unaware of Victoria Plumb, they are a bathroom design specialist which sells direct to you, cutting out the middle man and saving you money. Their website has a whole host of brilliant information including image gallery’s and mood boards to help inspire you, along with DIY guides for more practical help and they sell a huge range of products so they really can help you create the perfect bathroom from start to finish.






I took the quiz myself and my results came back as – Mrs quirky cool which likened me to Jess from New girl. I have never watched the show so I do not know what that means although from the description that the results gave me it did not completely match my home, style or personality, but there were some similarities. It said that I would have a large leather sofa and a large kitchen table. I do have a very large sofa as it is a corner sofa, although it is not leather. The sofa which I had before this one was a cream coloured leather. My kitchen table is also large as it comfortably seats six, although I have squeezed eight around it before for special occasions! I am not so keen on the apparent ‘must have’ vintage gold mirror which is suggested, but I do really like the bathroom with the corner bath. I can see myself now, laying in one of those with loads of bubbles, a glass of wine and a good book!

Why not take the Victoria Plumb quiz yourself to be in with a chance of winning? If you do take the quiz I would love to hear which style you were matched with!

Some of my regular readers may be getting a sense of deja vu as I have discussed this quiz and my results before in a post called ‘What is your home’s style?‘ for a different blogging challenge but I forgot to link up my post so it was never entered! 

This is my entry into the Victoria Plumb/Tots100 challenge, more information about this can be found here.



											

										

				


			
				

					
		
												

							 - Denise Johnson														14 Comments
													

						
						
The prompt – Favourite smells!
						
						
					


										

						
mumturnedmomThis weeks Prompt from the lovely Sara over at Mumturnedmom is a topic and it is:



My favourite smell…







There are many smells that I love such as the beautiful smell of a new born baby, I remember when Faith was small and I would hold her up to my nose and breath in her delicate scent that was ever so slightly unique to her. 






I love the smell of freshly washed sheets and anything that smells clean such as soaps, furniture polish and kitchen cleaners. I also love the smell of petrol although I wouldn’t want my home to smell of it! 





I love smells that remind me of things such as cinnamon which always reminds me of Christmas and coconut which always reminds me of the sun tan oil we used when on our family holidays in Salou in Spain. I love the fact that with just one whiff of certain smells you can close your eyes and instantly be transported back in time to memories of precious days and sometimes it can feel so real that you can almost taste things from the memory.





One of the things that I really love about the fact that I have given up smoking this year is how much my sense of smell has improved although this is not always such a good thing! 





I have always been one for sweet smells, I love scented candles that smell of candyfloss, oranges and Christmas cookies. I love using shower gels and body butters that smell of chocolate and vanilla and I love perfumes that also have a sweet smell to them rather then floral types.





My absolute favourite perfume is ‘Midnight fantasy’ by Brittany Spears, closely followed by ‘Fantasy’ which was the first of the two, so they are quite similar in fragrance. When Darren brought me a special gift set which contained both bottles which fit together to form a sphere a couple of years ago I was absolutely thrilled. 





There are so many wonderful smells, it really is impossible to pick just one!







											

										

				


			
				

					
		
												

							 - Denise Johnson														Leave a comment
													

						
						
Themed family fun – week 12
						
						
					


										

						
The idea is simple – each week I will tell you a theme. It could be a colour, a shape, an animal, a holiday or anything. You then use the theme to have some family fun and write a blog post telling us all what you did. You might cook something or craft something or visit somewhere. Whatever you like as long as you are having fun.










The rules.





1) Visit my blog every Monday to see what the weeks theme will be.





2) Have fun using the theme and write up your post.





3) Make sure you include the badge or a text link to my blog so people can join in.





4) Come back on the following Saturday to see what we have done and link up your post.





5) Look at other peoples posts and comment on at least three so everyone gets some love 🙂









You do not have to join in every week and if you are worried that you may forget then just follow me on twitter and I’ll be tweeting reminders each week.







Each linky will be open for five days giving people plenty of time to link up their posts.





This weeks theme is


Yellow





I hope that you have lot’s of fun with this weeks theme and that you remember to come back on Saturday to link up your posts.