Why I'm Always Cheerful*

*Not necessarily true

My last few months have been peppered with sad news, shocking news, news of struggle and hardship

I consider myself truly blessed and one of the luckiest girls in the world but life is so short and sometimes very cruel. I've spent this year writing 'Reasons to Be Cheerful' Posts on my facebook page, now in these posts I try to leave out any moans, the purpose it not to pretend my life is perfect (as some have suggested) but to see and list positives every day. Its a reminder to me that you have to be grateful for what you have A sort of fake it until you make it plan if you will.

Now don't get me wrong I could moan every day about world politics, housework, mess, workload etc, we all can its easy to get bogged down. Its really easy to forget to 'cherish every moment' when the kids are driving you crazy or you have a million things to do and 4 people want your attention now.

Let me give an example, this week after 3 nights of no sleep, I decided to build a wardrobe whilst having a child off school sick, said child never stopped climbing on me or asking for stuff which is normally fine but , you know, flat pack assembly isn't that great...  Eldest, came home full of attitude and angry pants-ness, littlest joined her brother in 'lets not let mammy have any personal space', I burnt the tea, which was flipping spaghetti on toast! No one wanted to go to bed, except for sleep deprived mammy and the bloody wardrobe had a broken hinge so is still not finished, resulting in a house full of mess and displaced furniture. This mammy sat in silence waiting for her eldest to come home feeling 'touched out' , useless, totally exhausted and overwhelmed. Then I went to bed and started writing my post.....

And I felt a little better

So faced with all the sadness I've heard of recently I'm going to try to make more effort to grab every moment. to use the good china, wear the nice undies, spray my favourite perfume every day. But most of all I'm going to try really hard to not sweat the small stuff, who cares if we don't have perfect hair on a morning, or we don't get dressed until lunchtime on a weekend, if we are happy and healthy then that's just fine with me.

And I'm going to try for another year of finding reasons to be cheerful,to put my gratitude out into the world.

If you like to join me you can head to my page by clicking on the facebook link above and jump in whenever you want .

Beating the January Blues With a Day At Life

Feeling the post Christmas drudgery and blues? Fear not we have an idea for an awesome January blues buster day out, with a trip to Life for Skating and a visit to Dino Jaws (Skating runs until 18th February and Dino Jaws Until 24th April)

We have written about Life Science Centre on more than one occasion but it really is an awesome place to take the kids and with Annual passes available you can get great value for money with year round trips.

We were invited to have a turn on the ice rink and take a look around the centre and my littles really love visiting so we headed along with my godson and my children's god mother (confused yet?)

The rink is situated in Times Square and you enter via Life reception, Ticket purchase was super simple and we were choosing our skates really quickly. I say 'we' I actually mean the Godmother and kids, this mammy is not good with ice!

My awesome strong girl, full of determination to go it alone!

Gently does it...

we know where we are best off!

I Have skates but.....

Straight back up again, yes his baby sister is having a chiuckle

There was plenty of falling, a bit of frustration but overall the kids (and the godmother did  really well, we had lots of time on the ice, then decided it was time to warm up inside.

After a visit to see little bear, we went to see the Dino Jaws exhibition which was by far my Godson's favourite part of the day, he is Dino mad and I really think he wanted to take the Dino's home ....

'here chicken chicken I just want to play'

While the little littles played upstairs in the awesome play zone I took my biggies on the motion ride for Polar Express. Oh I loved it so much, the kids ended up going on twice and were really very enthralled by it all, I shan't ruin the surprise but Life have added an extra dimension to make it a bit more magic!

Ready for the motion ride

3d glasses ready!

'Ok I have 4 be;;s and you have 2 frogs...lets make some tunes!'

After some more play it was time for Lunch and man alive can my kids eat! 6 of us had 2 adult meals of Sausage casserole and chips, 2 kids pick n mix meals, one hot dog and chips and a burger and chips. Cold drinks all round plus a tea, a ginger bread latte, a slice of rainbow cake and a muffin all for under £30 The food was lovely and whilst we were a bit disappointed that poor termite couldn't have anything really from the main menu as she is allergic to dairy and soya the staff couldn't have been more helpful in finding some snack items she could have and giving her extra fruit and ham.

Dino Cheese !

Our allergy friendly plate

So if you are looking to blow off the cobwebs and fill your weekends with winter wonder my top tip would be to head to Life.

If you've bee already let me know what you think?