A Mother's Ramblings

When Daddy went to Wimbledon during the week I made a pack of the Sharwood Wraps Kits for dinner. Wraps are one of my favourite ways to eat food and as they only take minutes to prepare so it's the perfect food for when it's just me, Tops and BB in the house. In the end the children didn't want to eat the wraps, so I had a couple for dinner and then saved the rest for lunch the next day, which I shared with a friend. I really liked them, despite what the children thought, and so did my friend. The spices for the chicken was tasty, the wraps were nice and the sweet chilli sauce was a lovely. The only problem was that my kitchen was really stinky for the rest of the evening! I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to make the rest, as they aren't gluten friendly (and so Daddy can't eat them), so I'm going to pass them onto my sister as her family would love them.

I'm trying to keep costs down at the moment, so the meals that I'm making are all fairly cheap. At the same time though I'm trying to be healthy as I don't want to cancel out all my working out at the Gym ! I tend to serve everything with Salad and fill up on that and the protein part of the meal, so hopefully I should be okay this week! Saturday - Cold Chicken and Potatoes We eat a lot of Chicken as a family, and I have a pack that is needing to be used up so I will make a Salad, New Potatoes and some bacon wrapped asparagus. I saw the bacon wrapped asparagus on Pinterest and knew I had to try it! I think that it will add something different to the meal and will be a lot of fun too. Sunday - Roast Chicken I don't know why I even blog a Sunday Meal plan seeing as how it's always the same! My herb garden is going great and I love using fresh herbs in my Roast prep although I am going to try making Yorkshire Pudding again this week to see if Daddy...

Last weekend Big Boy and I got to spend the day with Dairylea to find out more about their new all natural recipe. We had a great day, and I was inspired to make this weeks Friday lunch for Top Ender! Dairylea Triangle and a boiled egg Mice! Making the cheese mouse is really simple, take a triangle of cheese take it out of the wrapper, being careful not to squish it out of shape.  I then cut two circles of hot dog to make ears, made a couple of slithers of red peppers for eyes, a bit of pepper to make a nose and then made a tail using a curled piece of red pepper skin (mice have pink tails!). I was inspired by the Cute Food For Kids appetizers , Making the egg mouse is even easier. Take one boiled egg and carefully peel it, slice a thin piece of the egg off so that the egg will sit flat in the lunch box.  Cut two circles of hot dog to make ears, use the red pepper slithers to make eyes again, a bit of pepper to make a nose and then a tail using the red pepper skin t...

Like all children Tops and BB love a good ice cream, ice lolly or ice pop. The sound of the ice cream vans bells or the sight of an ice cream freezer in a shop sends them into a frenzy when the weather is warm and as much as I love my children I don't love the prices of individual lollies, ice creams or ice pops especially when you can buy a pack or tub for not a lot more. The children love making their own ice cream sundaes, and so we have a few ice cream tubs in the freezer to dish out from and we keep a variety of toppings available as well as whipped cream so that everyone can have their favourite garnishes. Out of the Angel Delight Ice Cream that we've been making, I've made a few more Angel Delight Ice Cream Lollies too. So far these have been some great after dinner treats and we love the extra fruit that we are getting in the ice cream too! We have made a few Ribena Lollies, LOL Lollies and a few Smoothie Lollies and they are all sitting in the freezer ...

I wasn't going to join in with The Gallery this week as the image I wanted to take for it was of me at the gym, but it's rather hard to take a picture of my hands on the gym equipment when I have to hold the camera too. I was busy writing a post for Pippa World, when I remembered this picture from last night and thought I had to join in just so I can make a joke. Here is Daddy at Wimbledon yesterday evening (he's the one under my finger). He was on Centre Court and so got to watch some great tennis. Due to where he was sat I got to play one of my favourite games which is find your husband in the audience when you pause the TV. My favourite game is to play The National Lottery Hand. Could it be You? Or You? OR YOU????? Of course we can also point out that we can see the hands of Andy Murray, and what great hands they are. I mean have you seen him serve a tennis ball? And we can see the hands of the audience giving a round of applause. What other sound can hands make...

Despite all the rain of late, I'm getting ready for summer. Tops, Big Boy and I have HUGE plans for this Summer as it is the last one before Big Boy starts School and so we want to make the most of everyday. We already know that every morning we want to head down to a local park so that Tops and BB can have a play whilst I use the outdoor gym equipment (on top of going to the gym every morning) and we've decided come rain or shine that is where we will be found before breakfast. I think that by putting the children in charge of making sure that I've also started stocking the freezer ready for summer, with plenty of ice pops and I've been slowly increasing our supply of ice cubes with a few surprises for Tops and Big Boy too. The most exciting of which are the Vampire teeth ice cubes! I think it would be great fun to find some vampire teeth in your drink, and I thought that it might be fun to find some blood filled vampire teeth too. To make the coloured cube...

I think that memes are rather like buses, you wait around for ages and then a dozen come along at once. I've been tagged in the Beautiful Blogger Award by Milk Teeth Mummy (Thank you) who states that the rules of this Meme are; By accepting this award, there are three rules I have to follow: 1. Thank the person who gave it to you and link back to their blog  (Tick!) 2. Tell seven facts about yourself (Coming up!) 3. Nominate seven people for the award and let them know why (7?!) So seven facts about me that you might not already know... 1) I've joined a gym, and I'm blogging about it over at Pippa World . As many of you know I am very over weight and despite being exhausted come tea time I'm loving my early morning gym sessions! 2) I can't make what we call in my family Scottish Soup. It doesn't matter how I cook it, the broth still tastes disgusting. It's a shame though because Scottish Soup when cooked properly tastes proper lovely. 3) I h...

Top Ender was playing with the Hexbug track yesterday, and quietly giggling to herself. When I asked her why she stood up having created this; That's right she made a Hexbug Track Flower. As you can see, our collection of Hexbugs and track has increased since the first pack of Hexbugs that we were sent to review back in 2010 (was it really that long ago?!), but we are still finding new ways to play with them!

I'm really excited about lunch this week! I'm starting to give BB packed lunches for him to eat at home so that he is used to what he will get when he is at School this September, and we will be able to work out if there are any problems with opening boxes or packaging. Monday - Chicken Pieces and Roll We ended up buying some some precooked chicken pieces for Sunday Lunch, and there were a few bits leftover which Top Ender straight away wanted to know if she could have them for lunch. I've served it with a roll so that she has some carbohydrates. Tuesday - Wimbledon Lunch Daddy is off to Wimbledon today, so I thought it would be a good idea to make Top Ender a Wimbledon lunch today too. I've already got a few different treats for Daddy planned which I will put into a small cool bag for him, that way he won't have to worry about queueing to get food instead of watching some quality Tennis. Wednesday - Hot Dogs After last weeks American lunch with Hot ...

I'm so late in posting this, because I've been so busy this weekend! I'm trying to get used to my new gym schedule and I was out on Saturday with BB and Dairylea and there is a whole lot of excuses going on! I have however gone and done the post as of Saturday! Saturday - Fend For Yourself Night There are leftovers in the fridge from Friday and in the freezer and enough eggs to make omelettes or cereal or whatever anyone fancies. Tops has a birthday party quite late and part of it is going to McDonalds for a meal, so she won't need to eat. BB and I will be at a Dairylea event during the day so we will have food whilst there and will have a few snacks to feast on, on the way home. Everyone is in charge of making sure they personally aren't hungry, although I'll probably take responsibility for BB! Sunday - Roast Chicken My Mum is coming for dinner on Sunday (no, really this time), so you can expect the works for dinner. The only downside is there won...

So with Daddy suggesting that I make a rocket for Top Enders lunch this week, I was thinking about flying things and thought the best lunch would be a Ladybird! We have seen a few around this year and Top Ender has been talking about having a bento lunch of lots of little ladybirds. I think she is hoping to make them out of grapes or similar (I do have an idea, but I don't have the time at the moment) but I thought it would be a lot easier to make a ladybird out of a burger bun! As you can see Tops is still eating a few portions of fruit everyday, there is a frozen yoghurt and some cheese spaghetti (she doesn't like it as much as real cheese or the sticks) and she has a choc chip muffin because it is Friday! Making the ladybird was really easy. Take a burger bun butter it, add ham for a filling and then split the top bun into wings. I did cut the bottom bun to make it a more manageable size, but you can't see this. I used my apple corer to cut some circl...

A few weeks back we were sent some cans of LOL to try. I posted about them over on Facebook because they look so cool and also because where I sit at the table is close to the PC so I was able to reach across and post whilst waiting for dinner to be served. We quite liked the raspberry flavour and Big Boy loved the orange flavour, polishing off his third of a cup quite quickly, so when a few  weeks later we were invited to go to The Rainforest Cafe for another try of the drinks and to talk to one of the staff behind the drinks we left Top Ender at School and headed off for the day. When we arrived Big Boy started chatting to an entertainer whilst I was able to talk to the PR Team, one of the team behind LOL and a nutritionist who I've met before. I did have notes of names, but somehow the piece of paper I had it all on has gone missing. Despite my rather naff note keeping ability, I do remember it was rather intimate and we were told about a lot of different ...

I don't think there is anyone who hasn't seen the film Sister Act or who couldn't tell you what the story was about, so when Daddy and I saw that the Stage show was coming to Milton Keynes Theatre we were quite excited. We love the film and thought that a Musical version would be fantastic.  We weren't wrong. Despite three of the main cast being played by understudies the show was one of the most upbeat, toe tapping, happy productions that Daddy and I have seen in a long time. There are a few changes to the film story, and there is all new music for the show too, but the changes make sense and the music is fantastic. I've been humming a few of the songs since leaving the theatre and I'm after a cast recording to add some of the tracks to my work our playlist ! The entire cast were fantastic, although the show was stolen for me by Curtis's Goon's (Curtis is the bad guy!) whose comic performances were laugh out loud moments. A lot of the r...

We had Big Boy's first induction/interview at School today. We had a work book that we had to fill out in advance, with simple smiley faces to show if BB could do a few simple things or if he wasn't quite there yet and we then had to take this with us. It also gave us a chance to speak with the head of the foundation stage about what BB was like, about his likes and dislikes, how we thought he would do at School and so the School could see what sort of family we are too.  It's a bit late really, seeing as how they have already offered him his place at the School and we've been sending Tops there for the last four years! BB has been really interested in knowing what it is that he is going to do at School when he goes this September (he thinks that he will be in Top Enders class!) and so I've told him that he will mostly be playing. Of course I know that he'll be learning things whilst he plays and I know he'll be taught a lot, but t here is still so much th...

When Leoni-fay of Cakes, Babies and other ramblings tagged me in the Yummy Mummy Meme I thought that it must have been to do with my recent declaration of gym membership. I promise to stop going on about it soon, but I figure if I keep talking about it, keep telling people about my new monthly expenditure that I will actually go and will soon be as yummy as I hope to be! So here you go, my answers are below! What is the first thing you do when you wake up?  Well, normally it is roll out of bed and go to get BB before going downstairs, but I've been waking up early for the last few weeks and so I've been reading one of my hundreds of books that I get out from the Library or catching up on emails and tweets on my phone. Now though it's going to be getting up and going to the Gym! Do you shower daily? Are you an early morning shower or an evening bath type?  No. I have a good reason though! I don't have a shower any more! We really, really really need to get...

Over the weekend Daddy and I had a very serious talk where I was explaining to him just how much I hate being overweight and how I really need something else to help me to lose weight . I explained that I thought if we could go down to the Outdoor gym once a week as a family it would really help my motivation and fitness and our health as a family too.  Daddy being the kind hearted soul that he is suggested that I join a real gym, once with a ceiling so I could go when it's raining and a swimming pool so I could swim and people who actually know what they are doing so they could advise me. We can't really afford it, but we will make cut backs in other areas because as we know if you haven't got your health then you haven't got anything and so I've started investigating two gyms local to me. One of them, Daddy and I used to belong to before we had Top Ender. We stopped going because they didn't allow children and we knew that we were going to want to take Tops ...

We don't drink alcohol here at A Mothers Ramblings, we drink a variety of soft drinks and water but we don't have a special drink that we can pull out on special occasions or to celebrate family events with. For Father's Day we were asked if we would like to try Sorelle a brand new 0% wine-style drink that is launching in the UK. We were sent a bottle of Rose, which I put into the fridge ready to accompany the Sunday Roast. We offered the Children a glass, but both declined which was good as Daddy and I really liked the drink and drank the entire bottle during dinner. Thank goodness it's only 24 calories a glass (there is about 83 in a glass of a Rose with alcohol) as it means that my outdoor gym workout that morning hadn't been for nothing!  It's hard to explain because I've not drunk alcohol for so long, but it did taste like what I thought I remembered wine tasted like. There is that crispness and that dryness along with the  fruitiness  and  sweetne...

Monday - Leftover Roast Dinner Rolls Last week Top Ender and I were chatting and Tops asked if we could make extra roast dinner on the Sunday so that she could have a Roast Dinner Sandwich on the Monday. I'm such a lovely Mum that I agreed (I actually always make too much so it's not that much of a bother really!) and so this Monday Tops, BB and I will be having a Roast Dinner Sandwich. Well, Roll actually. I will layer stuffing, Chicken and some leftover vegetables in the roll, and as the Muppets movie is out on  DVD on Monday I'll be making a special Monday snack too. Tuesday - Ham Pitta with Chopped Vegetables I'm going to finely chop carrots, cucumber, red onion, tomatoes and some lettuce and mix it up with some ham to stuff into Pittas. My Mum used to make things like this for me and my Sister and it tasted delicious. It's a perfect lunch for Sunny days... I just hope that this Tuesday will be sunny! Wednesday - Egg and Tomato Mini Baguettes Tops...

We're at the point here where everything in the freezer has been eaten, and so I need to work on stocking up the freezer and creating some nice meal for the family and all within my budget too. I pretty sure I'm not the only one who buys meat when it is on offer and stores in the freezer for use over the next couple of weeks to make better use of my budget. My budget is around £60 a week, what do you spend? I'm interested because I always feel that I'm spending a lot on not very much and I want to see compared to others! Saturday - Steak and Chips As it's a special celebration weekend, we thought some Steak and Chips would go down nicely for Daddy. Tops and I. Big Boy is still going through a only eat Chicken or ham phase so we'll serve him a small bit of steak but he'll probably ignore this and choose to eat something else. I'll make sure to get some nice ham in for him. Daddy normally cooks the steak, but I think if I find some thicker pi...

I do loved being tagged in a Meme, especially when it's one that I can answer really easily! To celebrate Father's Day this weekend I was tagged by BareNakedMummy to do this Father's Day meme. In fact I was only tagged about five minutes ago and here is the post live! Image courtesy of  FreeDigitalPhotos.net 1.      How did you tell your partner they were going to be a dad for the first time? With Tops I came out of the bathroom holding the test and a look of shock on my face. I had intended just to use the test up as it was near it's "best before date" and didn't expect to be pregnant. I think I phoned him for BB but we knew in advance of me taking the test that I was pregnant. It was *that* planned! 2.      How did your partner react to the news? Very excited, we were going out to the cinema and I think he grinned the entire evening. 3.      What advice/support/thing did you most appreciate ...

It should come as no surprise that today's Friday Lunch is a celebration of Top Enders recent Guinness World Record Achievement . Tops has been on the radio, received her certificate in the post, been given a lot of fuss over by all her relatives (well that happens anyway) and today it happens all over again as her School are going to tell everyone during assembly about what she did in her half term. I think that we will always be thinking about the  Thomson Family Holidays  event and how it cheered up what was a rainy half term! To celebrate today though I thought I should theme Top Enders lunch in to what must be the easiest lunch I've ever made. I started by finding a nice soft roll that was the shape (roughly) of Mr Potato head and making it a nice ham roll. I cut out some ears from ham, a nose from cheese, some teeth from rice paper and he has some arms that are cheese strings too. I had originally planned that his mouth would be marshmallows and hi...

Every family has it's own little games that they play. It might be the "I can't hear you unless you're singing" game as favoured in the Whittle household, or the Brian's of Britain game that Daddy and I like to play (and I frequently cheat at) but it's these little games that our children will remember and carry on when they are grown and have families of their own. As a child I remember that every time we went in the car my Dad would play the game where you pretend to run people over for points (Yeah, I know but in our defence I think everyone played a variation of this game when they were young) but the best game that our Children always want to play is; The Receipt Game Daddy keeps every single receipt he is given. It might be for a packet of crisps that he wasn't supposed to buy,  a toilet seat or for a bit to go in a computer. After a while when his wallet is about to explode he swaps them into a box in his bedside drawer and then after a ...

Just before Big Boys birthday we changed the way that his room looked and with moving some things around we had to take down the Hot Wheels Wall Track that Top Ender had put up for him before Christmas. We knew that we wanted to put it back up because Big Boy really loved having the cars on his wall and it's much easier not having to put the track together each time he wants to play as it's just there on his wall. The box has been in my room for a few weeks now and so when BB saw it this past weekend he was finally not able to handle it any more and very politely (no really he said with a cherry on top and everything) asked Daddy to help him put it up on his wall. Of course Daddy agreed and together they put up the poster and the track on the only spare wall in BB's bedroom. BB is over the moon, he loves making the cars go through the booster and then having them zoom around the rest of the track. So far BB has been very good and hasn't been playing with his cars ...

The other day, whilst I wasn't about, Big Boy was in the bathroom and started to shout for Daddy to come and help him. Daddy went to the bathroom to let Big Boy know that just because Mummy wasn't around didn't mean that Daddy was going to take over wiping his bottom for him. It turned out though that Big Boy didn't need help with the actual wiping, but we had run out of  paper and BB wasn't sure what to do. Daddy quickly remedied this by grabbing some of the paper from under the stairs (that's where we keep the spare paper) and he let Big Boy carry on with sorting himself out. The good thing about having run out of toilet paper was that we got another toilet roll tube to add to our crafting collection and it meant that we were finally able to open the pack of Andrex that was sent to us a few weeks back too. Big Boy had been drawing with Daddy before his bathroom break and had drawn a picture of himself, a clown and a Boss man (You know the end of level cha...