Jump for Joy

This is a video we made as our entry to the Samsung Warm up and Win Competition . There are lots of great, funny entries too. You can also download the Samsung Hope Relay app which for every mile you run, walk or jog Samsung will donate £1 to charity

Revlon win

Just a quick post today. My Revlon cotton candy lip butter arrived today, which i entered on Facebook. I was pleasantly surprised by the little treat. The new lip butter colours and the competition were based on the theme of a sweet shop and the lip butter came in a sweet shop type paper bag with a couple of sweets.

Imperial War Museum prize update

Very pleased to say that the books which i won, as mentioned in yesterdays post, arrived in the post today along with a letter of apology over the mix up and a voucher for 4 free drinks at the museum cafe. We will have to take another trip over the summer holidays especially as in the letter it mentions that there are lots of activities on over the holidays such as storytelling and creative sessions. See iwm.org.uk for details of what is on.

Imperial War Museum North

Well Sunday saw us take our first trip to the Imperial  War Museum which is amazing that we have never visited before seeing as we are regular visitors at both the Manchester museum and at the Museum of Science and Industry. The building itself is pretty amazing to look at.

Imperial War Museum North

We had a brilliant time inside, the hands on exhibits were the highlight of the visit for Megan and Sean.  The main reason for the visit however was to collect a prize which I had won through familyfriendly.org.uk. The prize was the five childrens books which the special exhibition ,called 'Once upon a Wartime' is currently centred around. These are War Horse, Carrie's War, The Machine Gunners, Little Soldier and Silver Sword.
                                                                       
Unfortunately although i took the email I had been sent to show to enable me to collect my prize the staff at the museum had no knowledge of my prize. However the gentleman I spoke to was very helpful and asked me to forward the email to him so that he could look into it for me. First thing on Monday I emailed the lady from familyfriendly.org.uk and told her what had happened. She emailed me back within an hour to apologise and to say she would contact them and arrange for the books to be posted to me.

All in all we had an excellent day and would thoroughly recommend a visit to the museum. Megan and Sean both said it was really good and interesting although my daughter, Megan was a tad disappointed that she didn't get her books.

Heinz Tomato Ketchup Facebook Competition

Well, I just had a go at the Heinz Tomato Ketchup Facebook competition to win a bottle of their new Indian Spices Tomato Ketchup and after several attempts I managed to complete all three levels, which are like jigsaw puzzles, and got a congratulations message. They have 300 bottles to give away so quite a good chance of winning. I will let you know what I think of their new sauce when it arrives.

Competition wins arrive!

Star Wars Phantom Menace Goody Bag

I enter many competitions everyday through Loquax. Loquax is an excellent website with brilliant competition listings but also an excellent forum, with some lovely people to share competitions with but also to chat and get advice from. Well today I have recieved two prizes the first came via CityLink and was a Star Wars The Phantom Menace Goody Bag which I won from Primary Times Magazine.
I also recieved today my coupon for a free bar of Dairy Milk Bubbly which I won from the recent Tesco Facebook giveaway.

My Weight Loss Journey

Well after another weekend of excess I find myself going round in circles. Tuesday to Friday I stick to my diet and track my food on Sparkpeople and then Friday evening comes and my chocolate cravings rear their ugly head. From there it is a huge downward spiral into binge eating on chocolate, sweets and cakes all weekend and even into Monday. So inevitably dieting for 3 and a half days and bingeing for the other 3 and a half days leads to weight gain. So this morning I was 15 stone 9lbs, a gain of 3lbs from last week. This week I am determined to break free from this destructive cycle and am going to eat well all week. So day one begins now and I will keep you updated on my progress. Sparkpeople works well for me because it enables me to track everything I eat on their nutrition tracker and it keeps track of my total calories, carbs, protein and fat consumed throughout the day. It also gives me guideline figures to aim for; for calories, carbs, protein and fat, based on your starting weight.

Competitions, Free Samples and World Book Day

When you enter competitions, do surveys and request free samples the arrival of the post can be quite exciting. In fact if I don't get something interesting in the post I feel a little disappointment. However today the door knocked and the postman gave me two small packages. The first package contained a sample of Tetley's new Blend of Both Tea which I got through Tetley's Facebook page I will try these later on today. My second parcel contained a pack of Barclay's Topps Trading Cards which you get just for entering the Barclay's Ticket competition. My 6 year old son will be over the moon with these as him as all his school friends are obsessed with collecting football cards.

World Book Day is looming large on Thursday and once again letters have come home for children to dress as their favourite book characters. Last year my son went in his skeleton costume as one of the characters from Allan Ahlberg's Funnybones and my daughter went as Violet Beauregarde, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, after she had eaten the blueberry bubblegum with blue clothes and face and a hand made golden ticket.


We have decided that Sean is going as a Pirate Dinosaur from Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, he is going to be wearing a pirate dressing up outfit, which I bought off  Ebay. He will also have green face paint to make him look like a dinosaur. However we cannot decide what my daughter can go as this year. She is 11 and so most of the books she reads have normal people in them and not characters as they do in younger children's books.

World Book Day 2011 - Funny Bones

World Book Day 2011- Violet Beauregarde

Hi

Well this is my first attempt at blogging. I hope to provide stories of my life, my children, my pets and my hobbies. I am 34 and have been married for 12 years I have 2 children. Megan is 11 and Sean is 6. I also have a gorgeous border collie called Barney who is nearly 3.

I also have an 11 year old cat called Lucky. I am going to be blogging about my hobbies and family life. My main hobbies apart from spending time with my kids are reading and entering competitions. I also love hunting out bargains. I am also trying to lose weight and constantly seem to be taking one step forward and two back or in weight terms putting 2 pounds on and losing one! I am also in the last year of my Open University Degree and I am doing two courses together which I am finding very intense so my reading for leisure has had to fall by the wayside for now, although I still managed to find time to read James Patterson's new book Private Games, well he is my favourite author!