A Mother's Ramblings

One of the great things about being a blogger, is that you sometimes get opportunities offered to you that you think sound fun. Sometimes, I say yes to these even though I have no right being offered them, being part of the Bostik Craft Club was one of these opportunities that I felt that I shouldn't have been offered as I am terrible with arts and crafts. I want to be good with arts and crafts, but I'm not. Then again isn't that why you all love me? I'm not a perfect cook or craft person, I'm normal (normal is relative!) and for the most part, most of you lovely people reading my blog are normal too. I got sent a few items, there was a sheet of felt, a piece of card, a card, some hearts, some foam stickers and some glue. I had no idea what to do, I didn't want to make a card because that's obvious and I didn't want to make a pillow, so I went to my arts and craft supplies. I pulled out some pipe insulation and some wool and I created this.

I swear the last few weeks have been easier with meal planning for me. I think pretending (who am I kidding, there is no pretending) that we're being extra budget conscious has focused my mind a little more clearly than normal! Saturday - Home Made Pizza Daddy is cooking tonight (I make the most of him, when he's around) and making Pizza for us. Top Ender will more than likely eat with my Mum and Big Boy has a party this afternoon that should give him enough food to last until next week! Sunday - Roast Dinner We have the Missionaries coming over for dinner this afternoon (we've invited them for a proper Sunday Lunch) and we're having roast Chicken. We know that the Missionaries are always hungry, well in our local area they are, so there'll be a lot of veggies, potatoes and yorkshire puddings to add to the mix and we'll knock up a quick crumble to go with it all too. Any leftover crumble will accidentally find it's way in to my breakfast bowl tom...

Just before Christmas, Waitrose were really lovely and gave me a great gift. Along with the DVD of Miracle on 34th Street, and a lot of snacks, they gave me this rather fantastic Turkey Timings for a 5kg Turkey, which is what we had at Christmas. Now, whilst I didn't follow this plan exactly (we spent time visiting with our families), I can safely say after having followed it again with a roast since Christmas, that it works out rather brilliantly.  So today, my first official Reindeer Day aka first Christmas preparation day of the year, I present to you the lovely Christmas Cooking Guide... Of course, my prep for Christmas today isn't going to be about getting the Turkey, but I'm going to throw Miracle on 34th Street on and I'm going to start writing my gift list for friends and family for this year. I'm also midway through Valentines Surprises, so had better get moving with those! Do you prepare for Christmas all year or am I alone on this on...

Every Sunday evening, we prepare our living room to be turned into a cinema. With the projector ready, tables and comfy chairs pulled into position in front of our cinema screen, we sit ready to watch a film. Sometimes it's a classic film that Daddy and I think the children will enjoy, other times it's something that we've been sent to review, or a new release and sometimes it's a film which we love as a family. Of course, a trip to the home cinema isn't complete without a bowl of popcorn or a hot dog or two, and if you saw my Wordless Wednesday post yesterday, of some Hot Dogs that we had for our evening snack during our last Sunday Film Night, you might be wondering how I did that. Just in case you didn't see it, take a look below, they look cute right? The great thing about these Hot Dogs is that they take seconds to prepare, but look so great and are fun to include in lunch boxes too. I'm using some Jungle Dogs , that I was sent to do my tuto...

It's wordless, Sssssh!

Top Ender gets homework on a Thursday night, homework that is due in the following Tuesday, but can be handed in before. The homework is the normal sort that you'd expect a nine/ten year old to have. A bit of literacy (this week it was write a poem) and a bit of Maths. This week Top Ender was required to measure items around the home using a tape measure or a ruler, weighing scales and a measuring jug. The last line of the homework said;  Be creative. Be creative?! What? This is Maths! How could we be creative in Maths? Top Ender and I thought for a moment and then Top Ender started to smile, a knowing smile. She had an idea;  "Lets make a cake Mum. We can weigh the flour and the sugar and the butter and the eggs, we can measure the size of the cake pan, we can check the number of ml in the milk and the baking powder and the cocoa powder!" It was a brilliant idea, so we decided to make a Maths cake, one that Top Ender could measure and hopefully bribe her...

Last week, my plan for turning our leftovers into a meal the next day worked so well that I'm planning on doing it again this week. I'm also going to try and use up what is in my freezer, because as you know I've been trying to be extra frugal this month, and I'll try to keep that up for the rest of the year too. Saturday - I don't care Salmon I saw a pin on pinterest, which asked for the recipe for "I don't care" or "Whatever you like" as that is what the family had asked for dinner. It made me laugh as that is what my family say ALL THE TIME. I've decided that tonight we're having Salmon and boiled potatoes with vegetables. Sunday - Roast We have a Chicken Roll in the freezer, which we'll roast for lunch along with home made Yorkshire Puddings (Gluten free and egg free of course), some stuffing from M&S that I got for Christmas and we didn't use, the usual selection of vegetables and some lovely roast potatoes....

Dear Dr Pepper, Let me just start this letter by letting you know that it's not you, it's me. And yes, I know that is what your High School girlfriend told you but this time it's different. I really mean it, unlike that ungrateful first love of yours. I've loved you for longer than I've loved my husband, and that's a pretty long time right? We have had, such a great relationship and I like to think that it is fate that our names are so similar. Hey, do you remember that time I hugged a case of you in Costco? The looks we got from the staff that day, but they must have been young and in love once and I'm sure that if they had taken a second to stop and think they would have realised that our relationship was just the same as theirs had been and we wouldn't have been thrown out of the store. I know we broke up a few times, and yes, as you've suspected it wasn't a coincidence that it was always around Lent and New Year. I always came back t...

One of the things that Big Boy's Type 1 Diabetes diagnosis highlighted was that I needed to understand more about food. Sure at School, I'd had Home Economic lessons, where I learnt how to make various dishes and calculate the calorific values and I think there was probably a bit about balanced diets but between leaving School and getting married I mostly forgot all of that. Then with me trying to lose weight and get fit (I'm still chatting about it occasionally over at Pippa World ) I realised there was a lot more to it than I thought. Then with BB's diagnosis the carb count of every food became important as it is that figure we use to calculate the amount of insulin he should have before each meal. Now, I don't normally like to generalise like I'm about to but , in my experience boys are always hungry. It seems to me that I could give BB his breakfast and within ten minutes of finishing it he'd be asking for lunch, and thanks to my regular visits to the ...

I'm not sure what the cat though I was doing when I took these photos, but when Google+ Autoawesome auto awesomed them into this video, it was obvious that he wasn't caring what I was doing, he was just watching a little game of Mouse Tennis.

One of my favourite lines in one of my favourite films is when Sulley in Monsters Inc is trying to comfort Boo, and shows her that there is no monster (Randall) in his closet. As Sulley steps into the closet, he realises that he is a monster and standing in his closet and exclaims Well now there is! It's this scene that comforts me in the middle of the night, when Big Boy shouts for me to come rescue him from whichever monster is tormenting him whilst he sleeps. Philips have come up with another idea in collaboration with Disney and have created the Imaginative Lighting range. The range has been focused on four key areas that parents like me find important reading, safety, playtime and sleep and the items in the range will help enhance time spent by children in their bedrooms. I think the lights are adorable, and never mind BB, I think that I'd quite like these in my room! Philips is running a great little competition to win one of three great prize...

I was talking with a Mum in the playground after School on Friday and whilst we were flicking through our diaries trying to find a mutual date that we were both available on, we were chatting about our week. It turned out that we'd both kept our diaries free for the first week our children went back to School as it seems that we'd both had the same idea. As soon as the children were back to School, we were going to tackle the cleaning, the sorting, the clearing and I don't know about the other Mum I was talking to but I know that I went for it with vengeance! Luckily for me, I had an arsenal of tools Scotch Brite and Scotch Gard had sent me to help. Starting in the Kitchen, I had some sponge scourers, non scratch sponge scourers (perfect for my very expensive glasses!), colourful non scratch sponge scourers, Kitchen Duo, Pot and Pan Brush and Heavy Duty Scouring pads, a sponge cloth and a Kitchen Microfibre cloth. I swear my kitchen and my dishes have never sparkled ...

This week the out of school clubs really do start back up and I'm trying something new with regards to leftovers... Saturday - Pork Chops We've not had Pork for a while, at least it feels like it, so we've decided to have it tonight! Sunday - Casserole and Mash We're having Casserole for dinner today, with plenty of Mash as we didn't have it during the week. I'm hoping that as Daddy is making it whilst I'm at Church that he's going to make a lot, so that there will be a lot of leftovers to turn into dinner tomorrow! Monday - Casserole Pie I'm taking the leftovers from dinner last night, adding a crust and calling it pie! Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognese My two love Spaghetti Bolognese, they normally end up covered in tomato sauce and have to sit and eat it wearing practically nothing or they stain their clothes, but they still love it! Wednesday - Sausage and Mash Tops is out at a friends house tonight, so it's just and...

Before Christmas I had a brilliant idea of what I could get the children as their something to wear Christmas gift. Whilst trawling the internet I had found the most amazing Minecraft Creeper Hoodies, and I knew that the children would love them. The problem was, when I found the ones I was after, they were a lot more expensive than I was hoping they would be due to shipping costs. I was dejected. And then somehow I came across Onesies R Us and I found that they made onesies to order, and even better than that they made Steve from Minecraft onesies. So after measuring the children, I placed my order and waited. I had placed my order after the Christmas cut off, but I was hopeful that the onesies would arrive before Christmas. When they didn't, I was secretly relieved as I knew that if the children had received them on Christmas Day nothing else would have mattered. They finally arrived this week, and both Top Ender and Big Boy were thrilled with their gifts. If you...

One of my friends told me off the other day, and told me I should go sit on the Naughty Step. Apparently I've not been baking enough as they've not had any biscuits, cakes or other things (I'm not quite sure what the other things are, maybe they got me confused with someone else) that I'm trying to palm off on people because I've baked way too many for my little family. She had a point, I have stopped baking recently and mostly because I've been busy with Christmas and playing with the children and I sort of fell a little out of love with baking as I mentioned a few weeks back. It was going to take something brilliant to get me out of my funk and good old Wilko's saved the day when they sent me this brilliant cookie press. As soon as I had finished baking Top Ender's Birthday cake, I set to work on a gluten free biscuit recipe and soon had fun pressing the three designs on to the biscuits I was making. I did bake the biscuits, but they...

At the start of the week, I went to my MIL's to drop something off. Whilst I was there, the sun started peering through the clouds and I had to take a photograph. The best thing was that the photograph isn't manipulated, it's untouched, but it appears black and white because the sun bleached out the colour from the photograph.

Just in case you haven't been over here since the new Year HAPPY NEW YEAR! I'm hoping this year to have some good simple home cooked food with my family and I'm also going to be looking a lot more carefully at budget meals too. This week Daddy is away all week (from Monday), so it's just me and the children after Sunday, until Friday. Saturday - Beans on Toast with Bacon On a Saturday, we're normally quite busy as Tops and I go shopping with my Mum in the afternoon and by the time we get back home it is dinner time. Beans on Toast with a bit of bacon is something I know that Daddy can cook quickly whilst I'm driving home from my Mums ready to eat when Tops and I get back in. Sunday - Roast Chicken I'm not really in a mood for a roast this week, but the rest of the family outvoted me and so we're having a lovely Sunday Roast. It's Chicken as I have some portions in the freezer! Monday - Beans on Toast with Bacon I'm honestly not sur...