A Mother's Ramblings

When the Cra-z-loom craze was just starting in the States, several of the Youtubers that Top Ender follows were talking about the bands and the bracelets that they were creating, I knew that when Top Ender would get hold of one of the looms herself that we'd lose her to a life of making bracelets for herself and her friends. When we got a Character Cra-z-loom Bracelet Maker Top Ender is the sort of girl who loves to see what you need to do along with the instructions, so she got me to sit down with her to make the first bracelet so she'd be able to replicate what I'd done. The first bracelet that we made together was a simple single band bracelet, nice and easy and fairly quick to make. The only problem was, the bracelet was far too long for either Top Ender or I, so we reduced the length of the next bracelet. After this second bracelet, Top Ender disappeared upstairs with a table and the bands and several bracelets later she came back downstairs. Top Ender has n...

A couple of weeks ago, whilst I was at School helping Big Boy with his lunchtime Insulin, there was a little girl in the medical room who was going home due to an earache. The little girl was sobbing her heart out, and Big Boy was trying to calm her down, as he's a compassionate sort and can't stand to hear any child cry. Big Boy had a low blood sugar and so whilst we were waiting for his levels to rise I talked with both Big Boy and this little girl. Today as I was leaving the School, after having given Big Boy his lunchtime Insulin, the young girl ran up to me on the playground. She let me know that she was back at School and that her earache had all gone now. I told her I'd been worried about her and was really pleased that she'd got better. The little girl had been smiling at me since running up to me, but suddenly she turned serious and looked me straight in the eye. " Never give up." she stated "Erm, okay I won't." I looked to the...

Sometimes when Top Ender gets into a new hobby I start to feel a little bit jealous. It's not because she isn't spending time with me, or because I want to be her, but she creates such fantastic pieces that I want to be able to create wonderful pieces too. When Top Ender was sent some Super Loop Bands by Interplay to review, I figured I wouldn't let Top Ender have all the fun, and decided that I wanted to create a bracelet too. So before I handed the box to Top Ender, I sat watching one of my TV shows and made a bracelet. It was so fun, that I made another one. And another. And another. In fact before my TV show was even half way through I had created all the bracelets. Luckily Top Ender didn't mind that I had completed them all and she was just pleased to have the bracelets to add to her jewellery collection. Well, apart from the one I was keeping for me that is! The bands were really easy to make, and unlike the loom bands, don...

There are lots of things that I need to organise before Easter this year. I'm needing to sort out the back garden, arrange the Easter Egg Hunt, organise who is coming to share our Easter meal with us (actually check that I've done it already), organise what we are going to be eating for our Easter meal, confirm that my husband will actually be here and not at work, finish decluttering the house and sort out what gifts everyone is getting, as we probably won't be doing eggs. Luckily for me, Haribo sent me some Easter treats to review and seeing as I've managed to hide them from the children since they arrived (hahahaha) I've also got to eat them. Although I should point out that I didn't eat all  of them in one go, several tasting sessions were held (and are still being held!) in order to find out that the Fizzy Farm Animals are my favourite. Cherries would have won, but they aren't in this review. It always makes me laugh that for Lent, I normall...

I'm a TV addict. I know, nothing you weren't already aware of from my tweets talking about various TV shows I'm watching or that I am a fan of. The problem that I have however is that my current set up of a subscription based Satellite service is rather expensive and so Daddy and I have been talking about how we can still get great TV shows, still get a range of TV channels and at the same time how we can save money on what we're paying out. I had an idea that youview , might be the answer and was looking into the service when I was asked if I'd review the service. I figured that I could review the youview service and work out if it was what I wanted to swap to all in one go and so signed up to be considered. I got lucky and was chosen. When the box arrived, I decided that I would set the system up myself. Daddy wasn't around, being in Birmingham and so I didn't have any back up. I was a little nervous, but I read the instructions and worked out which wire...

Big Boy was discussing what was for dinner. He'd decided he didn't want what was on offer and so had taken himself to the fridge to work out what he did want. "Egg Bolognese, one of those foil drinks and sausages please Mum" he said "Egg Bolognese?" I asked, not quite sure what he was thinking "Yeah!" he answered I went to the fridge and looked inside. There on one of the shelves stood the ingredients for my Bolognese, tomatoes, celery, onion, mushrooms and a few other bits and pieces. There was even mince and balanced on top two eggs. I was now even more confused. Firstly how did Big Boy know what went in my Bolognese recipe. Did he want Bolognese with an egg on the side? Did he want the sauce without the mince and boiled eggs chopped up in the sauce? "Big Boy" I called "How do you want the eggs served mate?" "Hmmm. Like yesterday lunchtime, have we got any of those rolls you put the Bolognese in left?" ...

Anyone who has read my Twitter or Facebook, or even this here blog for longer than five minutes knows that I'm fat. It's okay, I get to say it because it's true. You however, don't get to call me fat. I try to be healthy. I'm not pretending that I know everything, I'm not pretending that I'm perfect. Yes, we eat 50/50 bread, but at least it isn't white. I drink Skimmed Milk, I drink fizzy pop (but not as much as I used to and my children don't), I drink water or squash (mainly water and it's the same for the children) and I try to make sure we have at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day and it's normally closer to ten. I don't drink Alcohol (it's a Mormon thing), I try to exercise as often as I can (even if it does make me look stupid) and for at least 90 minutes a day and I do it all with a smile on my face. Apart from in this one picture below where I look like I've had an "accident". I'm tryi...

If you're reading this anywhere other than on www.amothersramblings.com , then you'll be pleased to know that you're reading stolen content. And it's not just my content that's stolen. Nope. See that link to another Mom or Parenting article? Yeah, that's stolen content too. See that link to a beauty article? Stolen! The news section is fine though right? Actually no, that's stolen too. So. What should you do? Well if you've enjoyed reading my posts you can go to my blog, I write a lot of rubbish, but it's my rubbish and I get paid money for the adverts on my blog. The posts of mine you've read here? The idiots who've stolen my content get paid for the adverts you see here. Oh and did I mention if you read my blog on my website, you get to see even better pictures than this one of me and the children eating invisible spaghetti?

I've been thinking about giving up A Mother's Ramblings on and off for a couple of years now. It's not that I don't want to blog any more, but I've lost focus on what I blog about. Originally I set up A Mother's Ramblings because I wanted to share the funny things that Top Ender got up to, I wanted to record the memories in some way and as I had been blogging since I was around 18 (the blog I had then is well hidden/deleted/password protected/destroyed) it seemed natural to me a couple of years later when Big Boy was born, that I should merge my then three blogs into one general lifestyle blog. Instead of blogging about my married life, or my family life, or my trying to budget life I merged them into A Mother's Ramblings and so, no longer were the stories just about the funny things that we did, but it was about my family adventure. Blogging has changed since those heady days. Now, it's about reviews and sponsored posts and I get it. I want t...

I normally schedule myself some time on a Friday to go through the plans for the next week and work out what kind of meals we need. I base it on the weather, on our plans, who is in on the particular night, what we've not had for a while, what we've got in the freezer and more times than not what I fancy to eat myself, which if you follow me on Instagram , or Twitter or see my personal Facebook feed, then you'll know that it's a salad! This week is no different, I'm having Salad for lunch everyday and apart from Monday night when Daddy isn't here I'm preparing meals for the whole family every night. Saturday - Curry The steamer makes the best curries, and as they are Daddy's favourite meal we're eating them every Saturday night. It's nice because it's healthier and quicker than a takeaway (okay so maybe not quicker) and it's cheaper. Plus we had a chinese stir fry last week (my favourite) so we had to have a curry agai...

It's always the way. Whenever I have plans for a day, I have to change them. I was going on a bike ride, I was going to Sainsbury's, I was going to catch up on some sleep. I was going to do some Charity work, I was going to prepare for Sunday, I was going to answer a few emails. I was going to work out, I was going to eat Salad, I was going to watch TV. I was going to do some housework, I was going to do some gardening, I was going to clean the car. And then last night between hourly blood tests for Big Boy, Top Ender got sick. So today I'm being a nursemaid. I'm washing bed sheets, I'm mopping a fevered brow and despite the risk of me getting sick, I'm loving every minute.

There's this really cute song that we sing at Church sometimes, it's called "Popcorn Popping" and it's about how the blossom on Apricot Tree's (or any other tree that blossoms for that matter) looks like Popcorn come spring. I love the song and even more I love real Popcorn treats, especially when it's the home popped kind instead of the more heavily processed bits you can buy these days. It was with great delight that when IWOOT asked if I'd like to review one of their Heat n' Eat Microwave Popcorn Makers that I eagerly accepted. Normally we eat Popcorn as a family on a Sunday night whilst we're watching a film together, but I couldn't wait to try the Popcorn Maker out and so made some Cinnamon Popcorn for me to eat. It was surprisingly simple to make, I just added the kernels to container (see above), put the lid on and put it in the microwave. Even though I'm normally panicking that I'm not going to allow all the kernels ...

Evening All! It's been a great day, we had great fun together as a family (Daddy and Top Ender went out and Big Boy and I were at home) we went to a Baptism, went shopping, watched some great TV, had a great meal together and my husband has been laughing his head off almost all evening but won't tell me why. Which is annoying. Anyway, here are our evening meal plans for this week. Saturday - Chinese stir fry We were going to have an Indian every Saturday night, but I really fancied a Chinese tonight so I went with a Turkey stir-fry. Luckily Daddy was on board with this and cooked it for me too, which was also grand! Sunday - BBQ Last week, when the Missionaries were round for the Sunday Roast we commented how bad it was that we were stuck indoors on a lovely day eating a heavy roast. We decided that what we wanted to do was cook something nice, filing but also good for the whole family.With the weather being unseasonably warm I decided that a BBQ would be good. ...

You know how sometimes I make fun lunches for my children? Well, I've sort of stopped that. It's nothing that they have done, it's just I was starting to spend more and more time in the Kitchen cutting out pieces of food and it was getting a little... well it was getting repetitive and to be honest I don't think the children cared if I spent two seconds using a sandwich cutter or twenty minutes creating their favourite cartoon character. It was as I was thinking about stopping completely that I was asked if I'd like to review a new product called Pop Chef . I looked at the product online and thought it looked fun and more importantly it looked like something the children would enjoy using too, no more complicated that a Cookie cutter and so I said yes, as maybe a new product would give me back my love of making something cute for the children and also get the children interested in joining in too. I have made plenty for the children with the tool, but the bes...

A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I'd like to try out a reward system for children that is based around currency. The idea is that the Mumbucks are earned for good behaviour (which you pick either as a family or as the supreme leader of your household), saved for special treats (the children have decided McDonalds, video games and theme parks count here) or traded for extra time on the consoles or TV time etc. I thought this sounded like a great idea and agreed to a review and giveaway! We don't really have a problem with misbehaviour in our household, but I thought that this system would be fun and an added encouragement to the children to carry out the small amount of chores that they are currently tasked with. As soon as Big Boy saw the packet, he was asking questions about what it was and after reading the packet and the leaflet he was eager to get this system in place in our home. We waited until Daddy was home though, so that we could all work together to agree ...

The meals for this week seem to have been planned for ages, although I think its just because I've been thinking a lot about food recently! Saturday - Curry I've decided to make Saturday our curry night. The curry that Daddy made in the steamer last Saturday was so lovely that it needs to be repeated, many many times. Sunday - Roast We have the missionaries over for dinner today, one of the great things about this is they eat just about anything and another is that they are always so pleased to be invited! We're looking forward to getting to know these two young men and also to share some learning with them. Meatless Monday - Quiche The children love quiche, so a wedge of quiche and new potatoes and some form of veg will be a great meal. I'll have salad instead of potato. Tuesday - Chicken Breast Burgers I was thinking about having pizza tonight and getting the children to make it, but in the end I decided that a chicken breast burger was the bes...

Earlier this week the photo prompt for the Fat Mum Slim photoaday was "My Name is..." and I shared this photograph and message. Why? Well, because that picture is of me. It and the words below it ( My  #name  is Pippa Dawn, I go by PippaD. I am a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a cousin, a friend and hopefully an inspiration.  #FMSPhotoaday)  sums me up. I'm all bingo wings and large thighs and a huge belly, because yes that is what I see when I look at that photo. HOWEVER. You know what? That's fine with me. I mean obviously I wish I didn't have bingo wings, large thighs or a huge belly but look at the important part of that picture. Look at me smile. Look at me throw my arms in the air with what looks like carefree abandonment. When this photo was taken I was with my family, at a place I love. I think you can see that in the photograph in my stance and smile. When this picture was taken I wasn't thinking, "That'll be a grea...

Pac-Man was always something I was aware of growing up, I think that the original game was released the year after I was born, and the arcade around the corner from my grandparents house had a machine that I would play on occasionally when I was older. Just before Christmas, we noticed there were Pac-Man toys available and despite Big Boy buying one that he insisted he sleep with (and subsequently in the middle of the night we hear the disembodied famous Waka Waka drifting across the hall) we didn't think much of it. Until we realised that there might be a resurgence of Pac-Man fever (do you remember that song?) with a new cartoon and home console game!

I've got a new toy to play with this week, I've just taken delivery of a Morphy Richards intellisteam compact, (look out for my review and giveaway in the next couple of weeks) and so I'm planning a lot of steamed meals this week... it's a throw back to when I was first married! Saturday - Chicken Tikka Masala with Zesty Cardamon Rice I read the suggested meals in the booklet accompanying the Morphy Richards Intellisteam Compact out to Daddy and he decided that this is what he would like the best out of all the suggestions. Luckily for him I agreed! Don't tell the children though, as they're having chicken and noodles as I figured it was easier than getting them to eat curry twice in one week! Sunday - Sausage Roast It's going to be a much welcomed return to the sausage roast. I'm looking forward to the gluten free Yorkshire Puddings (I need to get that recipe up on the blog soon) and I must remember to get Daddy to make this a little late...