A Mother's Ramblings

This week I've been thinking about family resolutions. I had spoken to Daddy about them and had a few in mind that I thought would be sensible for us to work towards this year. Then in Church yesterday we had a joint meeting where we talked together about resolutions and how we don't need to wait until January 1st to make them. It's true we don't, but it is a good focal point for people to work from and whilst we work on the ones I've listed below it doesn't mean we won't be making new ones through the year. 1) Have a date night with Daddy at least once a month. We are planning on having a take away on a Saturday night once a month and watching a film together. If we can get a babysitter then we might even push the boat out and go out to a pub or something. Seeing as neither of us drink we're not sure if this is really a good idea! 2) Have a family night each week.  We do love each other and we love spending time together, but we need to really spend...

With having a plan working so much better for me I have planned lunches for this week, even though Tops and BB aren't at School and so I don't have to make the lunches until it is really lunch time. Daddy isn't back to work until Wednesday, so he'll be eating with us on Monday and Tuesday, but as of Wednesday he has to fend for himself again! Monday - Bacon or Sausage Rolls It depends on who wants what, but today we'll be munching on a Bacon roll for lunch unless we are Big Boy in which case we'll be eating a Sausage in a roll! Tuesday - Cheese Toasties We all love cheese toasties as they are so easy to make and who doesn't love gloopy cheese?! Wednesday - Ham Sandwiches I've gone back to having 50/50 bread as the children were upset that we didn't have white bread. They are fussy little so and so's as I'm pretty sure that bread is bread and it doesn't matter what it looks like just what it tastes like! Thursday - Sausag...

I did do this meal plan on Christmas Day, well Christmas Day Evening really. We decided what we were having whilst playing with my new tablet, but it took me too long to type on the tablet so I had to wait until I had some time to publish the post. Saturday - Lasagne We had this last night (it's currently Sunday evening) and I have to say it was one of the best Lasagne's I have made. The benefit was that over the last weeks weeks every time I've said we're going to have it we haven't had it for one reason or another and so I think that it was a delayed gratification thing. Sunday - Roast chicken Daddy started this whilst I was at Church, when Tops and I walked in to the house, the smell was so divine. I promise dear Sunday Chicken that I won't ever stop eating you again! As of next Sunday Church is in the afternoon, so we are going to be eating our main meal in the evening on Sundays like every other day. Daddy is going to be cooking them for the next ...

This Christmas morning when Big Boy woke up at Five, I didn't expect to spend the next two hours in his room watching cartoons, slowly counting the gifts in his Stocking and putting together Lego creations. But I did. This Christmas morning when I poked the Turkey to determine if it was defrosted or not I didn't expect it to fizz under my finger, I didn't expect it to smell like a backed up sewer. But it did. This Christmas morning I didn't expect the family to take it well, when I announced that we weren't going to be eating Turkey for Christmas Dinner as it had gone bad whilst defrosting. But they did. This Christmas morning didn't turn out like I expected. It was better. Have you added A Mother's Ramblings to your RSS Reader ? Make sure you never miss a brilliant lunch or a fantastic family moment.   Also don't forget to follow my Weight Loss and Fitness Journey at Pippa World too!

I hadn't intended to plan any lunches this week, I figured that we'd have more than enough in our fridge to keep us well fed, but it was this evening that I realised that we do need to plan. I'm terrible without a plan, I'll forget to feed the children, or feed them so late that it will screw up Big Boy's blood sugar levels and with this week being partly about feasting I don't want to screw them up even more than they will be! Monday - Elf Pasta The children and I are at home today and Daddy is at work, so we're going to have a bento lunch, and I'm going to attempt to make an elf for the children. I hope it works, if it doesn't then I'll tell them that the strange mix I've made is what the Elves eat before they go on their final checks of peoples houses to give them enough carbs to do their jobs properly. Tuesday - Leftovers/Bubble and Squeak Technically we are having a Roast Dinner for lunch as we'll eat our Roast at lunch tim...

It's taken me all day to stop feeling sick so that I can write up what is for dinner this week. I had, luckily, decided whilst I was sitting in the hospital waiting room on Friday what the menu was and written out a shopping list so Daddy who is merely feeling rubbish rather than actually being ill was able to put everything in motion. Saturday - McDonalds Today, had I not been ill, I would have been taking my Mum shopping as normal. I had said that this week we would remember to bring her injection with us (she is also a type 1 diabetic like Big Boy) so that she could eat with us and so that I could take her on a light hunt too. With me having been in bed almost all day, this has meant that this was cancelled. Luckily the children reminded Daddy that as they were healthy it didn't mean they didn't have to not eat dinner... they are tucking into it now. Sunday - Lasagne I figured that as we are going to be having the biggest roast of the year on Tuesday that we sh...

A few years ago at our School it was suggested rather than bringing in a tray of biscuits or fruit or sandwiches for all the children to share in one class party that they should instead bring in their own lunch as normal, but it could be a special lunch. The lunch box could be decorated, or they could add in a special chocolate bar treat (we aren't allowed chocolate bars in our lunch boxes normally) or if you are like me you could just make a normal lunch that looks nice and pretty anyway. So today all the mothers will try to out do all the other mothers with decorated lunch boxes and special treats. I feel sorry for those who read the note that came home from School and didn't realise that they have been entered in to a competition to see who loves their child the most... Yes, I have added some little extras to the lunch box today thanks to Hobbycraft who sent me a lovely box full of things to have a Christmas Party with. Yes, I have made a special Friday lunch as I n...

As many of you know when I'm planning the lunches for the children for the week I try not to give them something totally new to them for lunch, just in case they don't like it. I wouldn't want them to go hungry, especially Big Boy as if he doesn't eat everything in his lunch box he would suffer from a low blood sugar because everything is measure in detail for him. Primula asked if I would be interested in trying their new Pods out in Top Ender's and Big Boy's lunch boxes and seeing as they both love Primula I thought this could be a great plan. Mistake Number one was thinking this was a great plan. One Saturday lunch time I realised that we had nothing in the house suitable for lunch and we needed to eat as we were going out. Cue much giggling from the children as I "stole" some of Daddy's bread and found the Primula Pods in the fridge. I made the children a sandwich using the pods and the children hated them. I wasn't sure if it was b...

One of the things that we were warned about by the Diabetic Care Team at the Hospital, was how to react and cope when Big Boy got ill. When a diabetic child gets ill, things can change in an instant, blood sugars can drop to dangerous levels or sky rocket to dangerous levels. That's right if it isn't the normal number then it's dangerous and there are a lot of problems that can quickly follow. For the last couple of days Big Boy hasn't been right. He hasn't wanted to eat, but he has. Until yesterday lunchtime when he left half his lunch. This is a problem when you've measured out how many carbs and given the required amount of insulin. After School the teachers told me that he'd been quiet this afternoon. Not low quiet, but possibly coming down with a bug quiet. Big Boy had gone back into the School to get his Wellies and a picture for his cousin that he had drawn when suddenly he had felt quite queasy and had thrown up all over the sharing time mat. I...

I love Christmas adverts on the TV, it's bitter sweet because every time one comes on I think "What would Maw think of this?" and it reminds me that she isn't here. I think that for me Christmas adverts remind me that Christmas is really here, and that I had better get a finger out to do those last minute chores, tasks and find those well hidden gifts again. There are a lot this year that have caught my eye and in no particular order they are; Boots Go Compare John Lewis Waitrose Aldi Sainsburys Tesco Morrisons Littlewoods The one advert that is the same every year though is the Coke Advert... and I don't think I have actually seen it yet this year! What are your favourite adverts this year? Let me know in the comments! I received a lovely gift from Boots early in the Season, and of course I'm part of the Sainsburys Network and I've worked with Aldi this Christmas and went ...

Today started like any other day with a quick radio interview about my views on children under three going to the Panto (if they are mature enough then why the heck not? Big Boy started going when he was 18 months!), making the packed lunches for the children, taking the children to School, cleaning the bathroom, doing the laundry, taking in parcels for neighbours, steam cleaning the kitchen, being mock insulted by another neighbour, reminded that I'm not hip and happening any more and eating pizza for lunch... and as I'm the only one here almost a whole pizza all to myself! I had been asked if I'd like to review a Goodfellas pizza and had been sent out a voucher, but every time I went out I'd forget to buy one or they wouldn't have one of the ones I wanted. It sounds stupid to say that I was looking for a specific pizza when Goodfellas have launched so many new ones this year such as the Superiore  (A premium pizza that delivers restaurant quality), the Takeaway...

I mentioned the other night that Big Boy is really in to computer games at the moment. He has decided that when he is older he'd quite like to design video games and has figured out that what he needs to do now to make that happen is play as many video games as his Daddy and I will let him. I'm a great believer that everything in moderation is important and so we do let Big Boy play computer games most evenings, even if it is only for ten minutes. This way we all get what we want and I can see that Big Boy is improving with his reading skills as he reads different things that appear on screen when he is playing the games. Anyway. Big Boy has been seeing the trailers for the film Rise Of The Guardians and has been excited about it and our trip to go and see it during the Christmas break and was most excited when we got a copy of the XBox game to review.

Top Ender loves Barbie and keeps everyone up to date what is going on. It might be a new film coming out, a new book she has noticed or a magazine or as was the case this Summer a new doll that she had to have. This new Barbie was special because she was actually a doll you could play with AND a digital camera that you can take pictures with and can then be instantly displayed on the Barbie's T-Shirt - the Barbie Photo Fashion Doll. The plan was that we would get her this doll for her birthday although fate intervened and the lovely team at Mattel asked if she would like to review the Barbie... The Barbie has been with us everywhere, and little shots appear on Barbie's T-Shirt of interesting things that Barbie and Top Ender have seen. There is a folder on The A Mothers Ramblings Facebook page of all the pictures that Top Ender had taken at Santa arriving, and we will continue to add to other folders with Top Ender's pictures. The doll can store up to 200 photos a...

A couple of weeks ago the children received a parcel in the post. Inside amongst some snow and candy canes was an invite to a special Christmas Party hosted by Littlewoods with a special guest... of course Big Boy and Top Ender were very excited about being invited and even more so when I agreed that we could go! We travelled down by train, keeping ourselves amused by making up stories about other people on the train and finding a cup for Big Boy to relieve himself in when we found the train toilet to be out of order... The answers that some of our friends on Facebook were giving as to what they thought the cup contained kept us amused right up until we walked into the party and there sitting on a throne just for him was SANTA. Although Big Boy and Top Ender have reliable informed me that this wasn't actually Santa, because he was too skinny, too young and the real Santa would be too busy to go to a Christmas party in the run up to Christmas... too clever ...

After the lovely guys and gals at Warner Brothers read my review of The Vampire Diaries and realised that I was now a dedicated fan they asked if they could send me a special treat. I was delighted to find that they had sent me the box set for Series Two and for Series Three! I was seriously over the moon and had to wait for a few days when Big Boy was finally at School full time and didn't need me to go in at lunch time to supervise the giving of his injection as I didn't want to start watching the series only to have to pause them whilst I ran out for half an hour! If you're not a fan of Vampires then you really aren't going to understand why the DVD's are so great, but if you can give the series a go. If you have a teenager over 15 (or you're lenient like that) then these DVD's are either a great stocking filler (if you only buy one or have brilliant stockings in your house) or a great under the tree gift. Personally I think that they are a great gif...

This is the last week at School for Top Ender and Big Boy before the Christmas Holidays, so we have to make this weeks lunches extra special. I also have to remember to post the pictures on my Facebook and Tumblr  pages because I know that some of you like to pin them on Pinterest (Feel free to follow me!) and some of you just like to laugh at my sometimes terrible artistic talent! Monday - Baby Jesus Mangers Did you know that Mince pies used to be filled with meat rather than fruit and were oval shaped rather than round because they were supposed to be representative of the manger and the lid was supposed to be represent the swaddling? This is one of those "little facts" that I know and when I tell others they look at me as if I've been at the Christmas Brandy, which as we all know doesn't exist in my house. Well today, we've got my tribute to the original manger shaped mince pies aka a Sausage Roll! Tuesday - Rudolph Sandwiches Some lovely Rudolph Sa...

I did have a great meal plan for the whole of December all worked out, but for some strange reason I haven't wanted to stick to it so this is what I want to eat this week as opposed to what I had planned! Saturday - Sheppard's Pie Today Top Ender and I are taking part in a service project through our Church ward and going to sing at a local Old Folks Home. As we are going to be dashing about doing this and then taking my Mum shopping, I thought I should get Daddy to make dinner and as he makes a lovely Sheppard's pie... Sunday - Pork Chop Roast Again today is really busy. In the morning we have Church and Top Ender is in the Nativity, so Big Boy and Daddy will be joining me to watch it. Then of course we are all home for lunch and an afternoon of doing some things together before finally in the evening I head back to Church for our Carol Concert. If you'd like to attend and you are in the Milton Keynes area it starts at 6:30pm and you can find us at Hi...

There is one thing that really annoys Big Boy about being a School boy. It isn't the T-Shirts, it isn't the trousers, it isn't that he has to tidy up the toys and that when he gets home I get him reading, writing and doing all the things he has already done at School with me. What he really hates is that now when a parcel arrives for him, he doesn't get to open it straight away, but has to wait until I tell him a parcel has arrived and where I have hidden it! The most recent parcel that he was over the moon about was a rather lovely LEGO Duplo Photo Safari  set. Big Boy loved naming the different animals that were pulled out the box and was soon involved in some rather imaginative role play about a documentary film crew filming the animals for a TV show. I fear we've been watching too many Nature Documentaries this year, and just how dark is Big Boy's imagination?! Luckily Big Boy soon stopped killing the characters and started building so...

So you might have noticed, if you're a stalker (like Rachel Gurr! ), that for a couple of weeks I hadn't posted a plan for dinner or for lunches. In fact I'd been a bit slack with the whole blog posting thing for a few days really and despite most of you knowing that I'm not MIA with my infrequent tweeting , occasional Facebook posts and for the lucky few middle of the night renditions of Rockin' Robin there are some who might be wondering just what the heck is going on. Well it's simple. I'm being a Mum, Wife, Auntie, Sister, Daughter and Swagbuck Queen. Thursday night the Children and I watched The Yummy Gummy Search For Santa Movie (available to buy now) which we had been sent and had us giggling, dancing and eating jelly. Then on the Friday, Top Ender, Big Boy, Daddy and I headed over to Leighton Buzzard to have dinner with my Sister and her family and my Mum. We had Fish and Chips and then headed off to the Town Centre for the Christmas Ligh...

This year Big Boy is taking a big interest in my Nativity set. As it is rather delicate, I knew that something had to be done to stop him from playing with it and accidentally breaking it, although I wasn't sure what. When walking round Tesco the other day I saw a sweet little Wooden Nativity set and I knew that Big Boy would love it. After explaining how precious to me my Nativity set was, I gave Big Boy his own Nativity set. He was rather proud of his new acquisition and set about retelling the Nativity using his little figures. I thought that everything was good and left him to it. Big Boy had other ideas though.  Big Boy decided after a little while that his Nativity figures were actually children and that they needed to know what they were going to grow up to be and so he put all his figures next to my Nativity figures... and moved them all to be in a circle around the Baby Jesus again! After explaining again to Big Boy that his Nativity set was fo...

Last week I forgot to post pictures of the Children's lunches, mostly because I was running around like a headless Chicken for most of the week trying to get a lot of last minute jobs done, like clean my house, do the dishes, stop slobbing on the sofa. So I thought I would do a quick round up here for those of you who are interested! The first lunch we have here is a Christmas gift all neatly wrapped up. As you can see in the top left there is a penguin on the Satsuma, this was a temporary tattoo which thanks to Pinterest I found out works really well on fruit with a skin you aren't going to eat. The Fondant Fancy there is a special Christmas version as it is all white and snowy. Big Boy seems to think that they taste better than ordinary Fondant Fancies, but then again he thinks the pink ones taste better than the chocolate brown ones. We were sent a new Seasonal packet of Pom Bear Crisps (available in Asda), they are Pigs in Blanket flavour and for the first...

Every so often I surprise Top Ender by being "Fashionable", or by knowing something that she is sure that I am far too old and uncool to know. Like what Ugg boots are. It's not that hard, here in Milton Keynes it's a fairly common sight to see girls wearing Ugg boots, skinny jeans and long jumpers so I've learnt how to tell real Uggs from fake Uggs at about 100 paces. It isn't hard, The real Uggs are great quality and look expensive where as the fake ones... well they look fake. Tops was asked if she'd like a pair of Uggs, and she chose the Kids Cardy 2  in black, which she said would be great as the colourful buttons down the side would mean she could team it would some bright clothes or with dark clothes because they are black.

The one thing that I learnt from not posting a meal plan last week is that if I don't post a meal plan my family and I really have no clue what we are doing. I didn't make a shopping list when I went to the supermarket, I didn't know what I was cooking each day and we were quite terrible and had take out a couple of times even though we knew we shouldn't. Still this week I at least had the meal plan in draft before I went shopping so I knew what I should be buying, and I even managed to remember to buy some snacks such as the Lord Poppington Popcorn Daddy and I had been munching on (and enjoying) earlier in the week! Saturday - Fish and Chips Home Made Last night we had Home Made Gluten Free Fish and Chips. I was supposed to cook it, but I spent some time with my sister and my Mum (who has a terrible cold) and so Daddy ended up making it. It was lovely and even though Daddy has once again admitted that he really isn't keen of fish he did enjoy his fish sup...