Week 14 - Monday Round-up

So as you'll know, yesterday I posted an update on my 2014 Goals, in my Quarter Quell. The post had originally started off as my weekly round-up but when I realised how long it was getting, I figured I better make them two separate posts. So here is my weekly round-up!

This week has been great. Perhaps I'm only saying that now as its ending great (because it started manic) but overall its left me feeling like it was great! Monday I had only 3 days of work left, before breaking up for almost 3 weeks. This was a great motivation to get through the week. Not only that, but when I arrived home from work that day, I had both the Urban Decay palette that I'd bought, and also the Calvin Klein Endless Euphoria samples.

To top off an already good day, Chris, the kids and I all sat down to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The girls are enjoying the Harry Potter movies so far and I couldn't be prouder!

Next came Tuesday and it started off a little sad to be honest. Mum was having the kids that night (because I asked her to but still...) and so when I dropped them off at school I knew I wouldn't see them again until Wednesday after school. Sometimes at work I have too much time to think and sadly this was one of those days. For most of the day I dwelled on not seeing them but the second work was out, I just got excited. The reason for that? I was meeting up with Nat and we were going to Meadowhall. Not only that, but we were going to see Divergent, 3 days before its official UK release!

We were like two kids when we arrived at Meadowhall - honestly you would think we never get out! We spent a little while shopping (though I only spent £15), grabbed some dinner and then went to the cinema. Nat wrote a movie review and you can read it here.

My Meadowhall haul

Nat called in for a cuppa when we got home and that was nice too. Another great day! The following day was Wednesday and in lots of ways, this felt like the end of the week for me. The working week at least. Wednesday was a good day at work and even more so because it was the last. Sadly I wasn't able to head straight home though as Lily had a birthday party after school. Instead we headed to mum's to get changed, wrap the present and generally waste time. We headed to Wacky Warehouse for 5pm and while Lily was in the party, Megan and I had some much needed M&M time (Mummy and Megan time).

Megan tried chicken fajitas (though they were just breaded chicken in wraps, with cheese and barbeque sauce) and I had steak and onion baguette. There was also a plate of chips and cheese with bacon but shhh.... (what diet?). Lily finished her party at 7pm and after taking one of her friends home on our way, we went home too. That evening Nat and I officially launched Twice the Mum, starting off with our Weight Loss Wednesday link up (I'll argue that I only started my diet the next day!)

Thursday I had to get up at the same time, as if I was going to work! The kids still had two more days off work. However Lily had an Easter assembly at school and it was lovely to know I could go. Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 all put together the story montage of the Easter Story. Lily had one line and I was so proud that she was one of the few people who just remembered it and didn't need her script.

You can just see Lily to the left of this picture, stood against the wall

Afterwards I came home and was delighted to receive awesome mail! First up was a recorded delivery letter, which contained none other than my comic-con tickets. I seriously squealed and forgot all about the two other parcels sat on my lap for at least thirty minutes!

One of the other parcels, was a new router for our home. We're getting fibre optic broadband today (Monday) and the router needs to arrive in advance! The second parcel was my new subscription to the Discovery Club, courtesy of The Fragrance Shop. It's such a good idea and relatively cheap. You pay just £5 a quarter, for 5 sample scents. This month there is actually 7 though. On top of that, you also get a £5 voucher off every scent in the box, meaning if you like one you can buy a larger bottle at a reduced price!

No doubt I will be writing a blog post about its contents, once I've had a bit of a sniff!

I spent most of the day just catching up on things, especially my blog. In the evening I continued to catch up, this time on OUAT and OUAT in Wonderland. I have to admit I was pretty devastated by the former, crying for a good 20 minutes or so. The latter fails to impress me still but I'm continuing to hope for better things!

As I said before, the girls were still at school till Friday, so again I was up early. This time it was Megan's turn for her Easter service, located in the local church. While I'm not particularly religious, it was quite nice to attend a tradition Easter service. It was even nicer to see Megan sing for both her Light Lunch club and also her X Factor club.

Again, Megan is on the left. The very end of the line.

When I headed home, I got even better mail! My new camera had arrived. It's awesome and I love it and I really have to be careful not to waffle about it. So far I've only taken pictures using the auto setting but already I'm noticing the difference. Even my 52 Project photos were taken with it.

The battery needed charging when it arrived so this stopped me playing with it for too long. Instead I headed for a bath, caught up on some HIMYM (though I'm still nowhere near the finale) and dyed my hair using the new Washed Up Mermaid dye I bought.

I have to admit I'm fairly disappointed with it, especially for £5 a bottle. The first picture was after my first attempt (its only 15 minutes development time) and the second picture is after I tried again later that night. Its still not covered very well at all. In fact, because it was so pale, I even let the girls dye the ends of their hair. However sadly, Lily's only took it a tiny bit and you can't even see it on Megan's.

Anyway, in between my two lots of hair dying, I also had to go out and collect the girls from school. As a treat we headed to Pizza Hut, just the three of us, for dinner. Sadly Lily's pizza came burnt, so she ended up sharing mine. This turned out to be a good thing as a) it meant I ate less pizza (being on a diet and all) and b) Lily's meal got knocked off the bill altogether and the girls both got free ice cream. Our total bill came to £9.98 which was pretty good all things considered.

In the evening, we dyed the girls hair as I mentioned, then we just hung out together. It was really lovely.

Saturday was yet another great day. The girls and I spent some time picking our Grand National horses, though sadly none of us won. My first ever Birchbox also arrived, which was actually pretty exciting! As well as that, some t-shirts arrived in the mail from TeeFury. This is a site I have posted about a million times before. The shirts were of course Karen Hallion designs (I'm a little bit obsessed) and after posting the picture on Instagram, I was so excited to see that Karen Hallion herself commented on my pic!

Chris came home just in time for the Grand National and so after that I made everyone dinner and then we settled down to watch the next installment of Harry Potter. This time we were onto Prison of Azkaban. The girls found it fairly confusing I think but they enjoyed it nonetheless.

Finally onto Sunday and gosh it was a dreary day. We had planned to go to the park with some of Megan and Lily's school friends and I thought at one point it was going to get cancelled. However we did go and it was nice. The kids love to get out to the park and sadly I don't take them very often. I also gave my camera a bit more of a trial run.

Afterwards we headed to my mum's for lunch. Now it's Easter Holidays I imagine we won't head over that way very often so it was nice to call in while we had the chance. When we came home, the kids took some time to pack a bag for Daddy's house and then we just relaxed for the rest of the day. I started a big cross-stitch project, which I will update about when I've got a little more done. Once the kids had gone off to their dad's house, I settled down to some blogging and some TV. When Chris got home from work we caught up on more TV. We were tempted to stay up for Game of Thrones but honestly, I'm not that bothered. Besides we got up early this morning to watch it instead!