A Mother's Ramblings

It's official. I have to give Big Boy low carb meals in the evenings otherwise it's throwing his sugars up too high, making him crash in the middle of the night (which then causes him to be high in the morning and you know it starts again) and it's just not fair on him, on his body and it can cause bigger issues in the future. Soooooo. Saturday - Chicken Drumsticks with Salad Big Boy is at a party in the afternoon, so we're expecting issues in the evening with his blood sugars anyway but we're going to have Chicken Drumsticks with Salad. The Chicken is no carbs as it's all protein (I'm going to roast or possibly grill them) and the parts of the salad that BB will eat combined with the amount that he'll eat adds up to a whole 2 or 3 grams. Sunday - Roast I've been trying to think how I can make the meal low carb and have been struggling. In the end I realised that what I need to do is reduce the portion size! Big Boy will eat nearly carb...

Big Boy has middle class aspirations, I'm fairly sure of it. No, he hasn't started only wearing Boden, demanding Couscous and listening to Radio 4. He's started swearing. Don't think I don't I hear you questioning me, over swearing being middle class! It is the way that Big Boy is doing it, that makes it middle class. "JOHN H LEWIS!" Big Boy exclaims when he's annoyed at his character having died during a game he's playing. "JOHN H LEWIS!" Big Boy mutters when he's stubbed his toe. "JOHN H LEWIS!" Big Boy moans when his denied something he wants. Seriously isn't "John H Lewis" the most middle class swear word you've ever heard?

I've got into the habit of making meal plans from the food I have in the fridge rather than shopping with my own meal plan in mind and it's a little confusing for me this week! Saturday - Sloppy Joes Pizza Bread As a family we love Baked Sloppy Joes and when I found a recipe for Sloppy Joes Pizza Bread on the Good Food website I knew I had to make it to add to our Sloppy Joe collection. Sunday - Roast Sausages Last week our casserole was so lovely, I mean honestly I've never made a casserole that tasted this good before, that we've decided that we'll have a Casserole instead of a roast once a month or when the weather calls for it. This week though we're back to our Sausage Roasts! Monday - Buttermilk Chicken for the adults Mini Meatloaves for the Children Tops has an after School club (Dodgeball) tonight and then Brownies so we have a very small window of eating opportunity for the children before it gets too late for BB to eat (if he eats t...

We're almost half way through the Organic Naturally Different Challenge , that the Foodies 100, and BLAH set me. I have another delivery of food coming ready for meals this weekend and looking at the items coming has me thinking about why it is that I don't buy organic on a more regular basis. As Sally pointed out in the comments of my admission post, that I don't normally use Organic products, if you look at the prices they are really like for like. The meals this week, were normal meals. What I mean is, if I'd thought of buying these ingredients and making these meals then this is what I would have cooked. These are normal meals, for a normal family and nothing special about them... apart from almost everything was Organic. It's led on to playground discussions about what we eat, how we eat and what we do and don't buy that's organic. I guess a lot of people are actually like me, and don't know what questions to ask about their food, where it co...

This week Big Boy has been being a bit of a rebel when he's at home with me, you see Big Boy has stopped enjoying reading and has claimed that he no longer wants to read or learn to read either. To a book work like me that is terrible news, I couldn't imagine my childhood without the constant companions I found in books and worse because I was such a book worm I have no idea on how to get BB to enjoy reading. In School he's been fine. He hasn't denied requests to read, he hasn't mentioned that he doesn't want to read and he's showing enthusiasm for reading in group and one on one settings. This isn't good enough for me though, I want Big Boy to enjoy being read to, to enjoy reading and to want to do it at home too. I spoke with my friends on the School playground, I read articles on the internet, I spoke with BB's teachers and out of the many suggestions that they came up with the one I thought would work best for us would be giving Big Boy comics ...

It seems that as well as being known for making fun lunches for my children, my love of lunch boxes and napkins is also becoming well known. So when Store asked if I'd like two Lego lunch boxes for Top Ender and Big Boy, all I had to do was ask the children which colour they'd like. Top Ender decided to go for Light Pink and Big Boy decided to go for Red. I personally really like the lunch boxes, I think that they are a good size for a healthy lunch and just the right shape for a wrap and some fruit... which is what I had in Top Ender's the first time I used the lunch box. My excuse was that I needed a lunch box and hers was closest, but really I just wanted to have a fun lunch like the children. Top Ender and Big Boy love the Lego lunch boxes and are busy saving up to buy the water bottles that go with them. Now, I just need to come up with a great Lego themed lunch that I haven't already done. The lunch boxes are available in nine different colours...

When Daddy came home from work last night, he came home to a dark house. As he stepped in the door, he heard a strange noise. A noise that sounded like a cat being strangled, or someone doing a rather bad impression of a ghost... as his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could make out a glowing face on the stairs. Backing away from the glowing face he stepped into the living room, where the noises had stopped and he could see nothing but blackness and then suddenly three neon lights attacked him! That's right. Top Ender, Big Boy and I had decided to dress in black and hide in the dark to frighten Daddy when he got home. Daddy was even more frightened when he turned on the lights to find Big Boy and Tom standing there dressed as skeletons! We've promised not to frighten Daddy like that again... at least not until he's forgotten about it! The glowsticks and halloween costume that Big Boy is modelling will be available from October 3rd in Aldi stores,...

My sister is not going to forgive me for the title of this post, but I couldn't resist. Sorry Kitty. This is Teddy, the newest addition to my extended family. Yes, he is adorable and yes you are allowed to coo for a few moments over him, after all every time I see him I "steal" him off my sister and sit there cuddling him soaking in his adorable new babyness and marvelling at how tiny he is. We wanted to mark Teddy's arrival as a family, and when I saw that the brilliant Penwizzard have a lovely Me To You Tatty Teddy Baby Book ready to be personalised with a baby's name we knew it was fate.  Tatty Teddy and Teddy are meant to be together, they are the cutest in the whole wide world! My sister loved the book, as did Teddy when I read it to him, (okay so what I mean is that he didn't cry, throw up on me or fill his nappy whilst I read it to him) and I'm sure that this little book will be treasured for many years to come. Th...

This is Tom. As you can see Tom is a bear and he belongs to Big Boy. When Big Boy got him, he knew what he wanted to happen, Tom was to go on an adventure like Pom Bear sometimes does. So today, Tom and I have had some fun and as requested by Big Boy here is the blog post of the adventures that Tom got up to today. Tom started off watching a bit of Telly, but with me having the Radio on he soon turned it off. Tom decided, he'd try and frighten me by wearing Big Boy's Halloween costume. It did give me a bit of a fright, but nothing as big as the one in my story from last Friday. Exploring the laundry basket of things to go upstairs was next on Tom's list, although he was disappointed that Libby wasn't in the Bear House still. Tom helped me to check out the box of needles at the top of the stairs, as we weren't sure if we needed to get some more for Big Boy's middle of the night injections. And Tom loved the flowers on Big ...

My Nan makes the best casserole, honestly if you've ever had a good casserole times it by a hundred million, add a touch of love and you'll have a casserole that is only a tenth as good as my Nan's. I always try to emulate her when making the casseroles that I make, and never have I made a casserole anywhere as nice as the ones she makes. Until this Sunday. I can't comment on if it was the ingredients (everything was organic), the time that I spent or the love that I gave each component of the meal but it was the best darn casserole ever and because I was sending pictures to Facebook , Twitter , Tumblr and Instagram I had a few comments where I was asked for the recipe in order so they could make the most awesome casserole too. With Casserole this good, how could I refuse to share? Ingredients One Onion One Leek Two Sticks Celery Two Carrots 1/2 Butternut Squash 3 Cloves Garlic Olive Oil 500g Diced Beef (you can use a cheap cut as it will "softe...

As I mentioned earlier this week, I'm already thinking more about Organic products and about how I'd be able to include them in my normal meal plans, with the added benefit of this being a stretchy meal plan, using leftovers to the best effect I'm finding that I'm thinking a lot more carefully about what we're eating and how I can best use everything that we get delivered. There wasn't something that I could say was the "main" meal this shop, there wasn't anything that I could use as our Sunday roast so I was lost as to what I could make and then walking home from School Friday lunchtime it hit me. Saturday - Spaghetti Carbonara On Saturday, we might have the missionaries eating with us, so I figure a nice batch of Spaghetti Carbonara will keep them going and the rest of my family too. If we haven't got the Missionaries over then there'll be Spaghetti left over! Sunday - Casserole We had a substitute in our shopping, instead ...

Happy Friday Everyone! This is a little story, that I shared on Facebook earlier today, that I thought deserved to be shared here too. I was doing the hoovering, thinking that I needed to use the bathroom, when the postman knocked on the door.   My postman is rather like an excited Labrador puppy, he's always excited to see m e and loves handing over parcels and likes to guess what is inside. This in turn makes me excited about opening the parcel, so once I had said goodbye to the puppy postman hybrid I forgot all about needing the bathroom and opened the parcel. I no longer need the bathroom. Thanks to Aldi, who have sent Big Boy a Halloween Dressing up Costume to review.

I was a runner at School, actually scratch that, I became a runner at Senior School . I discovered that I liked long distance running, cross country and Orienteering and I'm sure if I lived in a more mountainous area I would have been into trail running too. As is the way with most children though, when I stopped going to School I stopped running. I don't want that to happen with the children and after a fairly inactive Summer Holidays I wanted to get us all back into sport and being active. I'm hoping that they will have a love of being active as part of them and that when they leave School they keep up the activities! Big Boy is fairly active, he understands more than most children his age about food intake and it's relation to energy and that not all calories are created equal, because of his Diabetes. BB is fairly sporty, he likes to run and to ride a bike, he loves kicking a ball about, he's rather naff at Tennis but enjoys it and he is currently trying to ...

I blogged before about putting the heating on and with the weather having turned cooler today, it's made me think about when we'll need to put the heating on again. For us it's a test of hardiness as well as a cost cutting measure, plus with my Summer habit of leaving the back door and bedroom windows open to let fresh air into the whole of the house, I get used to the freshness rather than the stuffiness of the central heating and prefer not to turn it on, even when I'm cold! Last year it was too cold too quickly for us and we ended up turning on the central heating sooner than we expected and turning it off later than we hoped. Towards the start of the winter I brought an electric blanket for Daddy and I. It was a treat and I was pleased to find out that since I had last had one, that you were able to leave them on all night, on a special low setting. Having the blanket on the bed was the best things about going to bed, as it was all warm and snugly as soon as we go...

No, it was really.

Today I've been stuck in bed. ALL DAY. Daddy and I have worked out that I had food poisoning, which kind of serves me right for having a take away when I could have had a lovely bowl of Potato soup made with the Organic vegetables sent to me. If I had got up just twenty minutes earlier and not left my potato peeler at Church last Tuesday, I could have had soup... Still. What's done is done and can't be undone. I've spent most of the day sleeping, trying not to be sick and rushing to the bathroom. I don't recommend it. My lovely husband stepped up and made sure the children ate, had fresh air, had a bath, had clean uniforms for School tomorrow, and helped me when I was little overcome with it all. So I'm bored in bed and I've just realised that this is probably going to get a million hits for people looking for advice about a different sort of boredom in bed... but it's too late now!

So as I said yesterday this week we're working with mainly organic ingredients , I wasn't sure exactly what I should make, especially as part of the challenge is to make proper recipes and to try to stretch the food as far as possible. In the end I started with the dish I knew we had to have, every Sunday we have a roast and so I have to do the Chicken for that and then I worked out the rest of the week around that and what we were doing with regards to after school clubs, working late and the like. Saturday - Potato Soup We're out today in London with the lovely folks at Vosene, so I'll throw some Potato Soup into the slow cooker and we can eat that when we are back from all the other things we do. The one thing I will add to it, is some Bacon which I purposefully went and got from the Organic Butchers in one of the villages on the outskirts of Milton Keynes. My Potato Soup Recipe Peel and dice 5 large potatoes, one onion and 5 sticks of celery. Add t...

Hello Everyone, My name is Pippa and I don't buy Organic. There I said it and now I've got that out the way I can tell you all about my latest foodie challenge. I've been challenged to make a meal plan for the family for the week using Organic products by the Organic. Naturally different campaign. Ah. So, why don't I use Organic ingredients normally? Well, they cost more right? I'd love to use Organic, but I'm on a limited budget and trying to make it stretch as far as possible. Yes, I know that Organic is better for nature and that there are higher animal welfare standards, that there are less pesticide residues and that the food is natural and great tasting but the cost... Hang on I got all that for just £56.15? I could make loads of meals from that. I could make; Chicken Roast with Roast Potatoes and Carrots Chicken Pie with Gluten Free Pastry Chicken Pasta Bake Tomato Pasta with grated Cheese Potato Gratin Sausages and Aligot Meat...

I've got this parenting thing down was what I thought as I walked home after taking the children to School on Tuesday morning. Top Ender and Big Boy had lunchboxes, water bottles, had been given a wipe of sun cream, had rain macs in their bags (just in case) hats on, labelled uniform and shoes and I remembered not only to take Big Boy's bag full of Diabetes kit but also my house keys. It was the first time I had done a solo morning school run in ages, and with Daddy at his new job and having left the house at 6am I had already cleaned the bathroom, folded the washing and cleaned the kitchen and had a nice long list of chores I wanted to attend to that day. I crossed every single thing on the list off before lunch. That's how good at the parenting thing I am. I collected the children on time, spoke to friends, arranged to go out to lunch next week, arranged two play dates and accepted a birthday invite. I signed two permission slips, made dinner and did the dishes. I...

We're a lucky family, sure sometimes we might not have all that others have and sometimes that might make us feel less appreciative of what we do have so I thought that it might be worthwhile doing a chore for our local neighbourhood to remind us just how lucky we are. I thought about what we could do for a few days. At first I thought we could weed some of our neighbours gardens, but I find it hard enough keeping my garden weeded and looking tidy. I thought we could bake cakes for our neighbours, but with so many different food allergies and intolerances in my family I know that our neighbours could suffer the same and so thought we'd have to think of something else. Then I remembered on our walks recently there has been a fair amount of rubbish in hedges and along the paths. So, we decided to go for a walk wearing gloves and carrying bin bags. I had warned the children before we set off that they shouldn't pick up glass or anything dodgy looking and if they saw it...