A Mother's Ramblings

When the Children and I got our new Winter hats, we were thrilled. I mean who wouldn't want a hat that is an Angry Bird, or a Panda or a Husky? What do you mean the majority of the adult population of the world? Don't you know how warm these hats are? They are like Deer Stalkers, only furry! I didn't think twice about wearing it around Birmingham. I didn't think twice about wearing it on the School Run. I smiled at all the children (like I normally do) and had a shared grin with the parents brave enough to make eye contact and a right giggle with those parents who know me and the daft things I do, heck half of them have seen me in my swimming costume on my Instagram account.

This coming weekend, Daddy, the children and I will put up our Christmas Decorations. Before we do this however, the house needed to be cleaned and for me it needs to be more thorough than the surface clean that I normally do. In order to get ready for Christmas I have to deep clean the house. Well, my room and the living room. I deep clean the kitchen every month as an ongoing process (I do a little each day to keep on top of it!) and the children's rooms were deep cleaned the other week (thanks to Daddy) and the bathroom is so small I practically deep clean it every time I go in there. Anyway. I started with my bedroom first, it just made sense to me to get it done first. That way after collapsing down dead after doing the living room I'd have a nice bed to collapse on to. It took me most of a day, but eventually I'd cleaned my entire room. Cleaned under the bed, moved all the units, dusted the lampshades, cleaned the windows, washed the nets, washed the curtain

Dear Pippa, Hello! Long time no see! We're the craft boxes that did live under your bed. You moved us the other day, when you moved your bed in order to clean under there. You may have noticed that after you moved us out, you didn't put us back. That's because we've had enough. We've decided to come to you, via your blog to help you, because you have a problem. You're addicted to buying craft items and by your own admission you suck at crafting. You have so much craft stuff that you've not even looked at, that you should probably try to finish them before buying more. In fact, I saw you looking at a mega box of Hama Beads on the internet. You do realise, that you have four jars and a box full of hama beads don't you? You know the sewing, that you thought would be good for Top Ender to use in the Nativity at Church? Well, the reason you can't find it is because it's at the bottom of one of the boxes. Under four other cross stitch proje

Last weekend, Daddy, the children and I headed up to Birmingham to visit Cadbury World again. Now, last time we went I had said that I didn't think that the tour itself was very child friendly, and at the end of it we were all craving vegetables and protein (in the form of Chicken drumsticks) and not eager to get away, but basically we were wanting to not be thinking about chocolate for a while! However, we thought we needed to be fair, we would go and pretend we'd not been before. We would pretend this was entirely new to us and seeing as Santa wasn't there the last time, we thought that maybe he'd sprinkle some magic dust and help us. Plus this was a special blogger day. We arrived at Cadbury World quite early, a little confusion between Daddy and I over what time we were supposed to get there (We were to arrive for 9:30am, so I said 9:15am to give us some time incase of having to stop or something and Daddy decided 9am for the same reason, thinking that

As many of my theatre review posts start out, this was a musical I knew well as a child, thanks to my Mother. I was joking with Top Ender, that every weekend there was a Doris Day film on, but I know that it wasn't as often as that, it's just the way that memories work isn't it? You filter out half the things that happened and only remember the good things, and of course watching my Mum sing along to a musical on TV was one of the good things I didn't filter out. I thought it would be best if my Mum took Top Ender with her to the Theatre to see Calamity Jane for a couple of reasons. Firstly, if my Mum could magically instill in me a love of Musicals, then she could do the same for Top Ender. And Secondly, it's much easier if I babysit Big Boy, as I know what to do with his pump and how to work his blood test monitor... plus I can handle him when he's tired and cranky much more easily than my Mum can! So Top Ender and my Mum went off to see it, with my Mum p

When we went to Cadbury World, as we were in Birmingham I asked if Daddy would mind if he gave us a guided tour of the German Christmas Market that is in town. Daddy had popped up a couple of times after work (well he has little else to do in the evenings!) since it was open and I figured he'd now know where all the good stalls were. Plus, as I've said at least a million times in the past, who doesn't love walking round a German Christmas Market and smelling all the various scents from different food and drink stalls? I knew we were off to a good start, when we arrived in Birmingham City Centre at Sunset and this was the view that greeted us. I know a lot of people dislike the Selfridges building, but I love it (almost as much as I love the Library) and I think that the Birmingham skyline is a pretty one. We headed up past the Bullring and to the Christmas market. I think Birmingham has as many Christmas trees as I do. The children and I were even caught posing

I've been getting really excited about Christmas over the last few days (actually weeks, but Sssh!) and am busy planning everything to make this Christmas the most magical and Spiritual yet. Well, apart from the first one as a Baby being born to be Saviour of the world is pretty magical and spiritual. Anyway. With Daddy being in Birmingham all week, I want to plan things that the children and I can do together that I can also either give a simplified version to Daddy for whilst he is away or that he can "catch up" with when he gets back home, and of course that's why I need to start planning now. After all, December is really just a few days away if you take out all the hours of sleeping, eating, bathing, chore doing, shopping, cooking, school run, petrol filling, TV watching, blogging and whatever else it is that I do. So, what have I got planned. Actually planned seems a little grown up and fully arranged, it's more like what have I got in mind. We

There is something about this time of year, that just makes me want to get out and about with the family and then make sure whilst we are out that we drink plenty of Hot Chocolate to keep us warm. It's become a bit of a family joke that when we're out on the family walks, we actually put on more calories than we burn because of the treats I take with us, Still, I think that if you're going to trek for miles in the cold and possibly the wet, you deserve a treat! I made a collection on ebay of some of the fantastic things that I think all families should have with them when they are out on a family walk, but I'm afraid you're going to have to make your own tasty treats to take with you. If you like this board (and another one in a couple of weeks) then you'll be entered into a competition to win a £20 ebay voucher, perfect for use in the New Year, as the winner will be notified by the 5th November via their paypal ID. And of course, you'll get a chance

I have my Samsung fridge freezer for ages now.  I've got over the fact that it has magic wheels, I've  wiped  off at least a million fingerprints and have now given up and am living with a slightly streaky look to the Chrome finish. I've discovered that my boobs can accidentally turn off the ice maker if I stand too close to the touch pad area and that you get used to new noises really quickly.  I've also discovered that the novelty of having ice on hand at all times of day and night without having to think about refilling ice trays with water has not worn off, and Top Ender is still so in love with the cold filtered water available that her water consumption has doubled, which is good as I was a little worried about how much she wasn't drinking! The children LOVE that they have their own drawers and that I fill them with appropriate snacks for them. Mostly carb free options for Big Boy, slightly more carb options for Top Ender and of course breakfast  b

There are many things that I love about having the evenings to myself. Of course having Daddy away is a really sad thing and the children and I miss him terribly, but as I said I really love having the evenings to myself. And of course when I say I have the evenings to myself, what I really mean is I go to bed early, watch TV and eat pudding. I think that most of you will remember that I'm not a huge fan of Ice Cream but the desserts from Weight Watchers have a few benefits for me (and for you too!). The first is that they are a good serving size, meaning that I'm not overwhelmed with Ice Cream but this is good for you because honestly we all need to watch our serving sizes don't we?! The second benefit is that I am actually still watching what I eat, (I'm not on a diet as such, I'm just more interested in what I'm eating) and so eating a calorie reduced pudding is a good thing. Also with the lead up to Christmas, I know a lot of playground chatter

I'm normally quiet good at the quiz show pointless. In fact I'm normally so good that my Mum and I have considered applying to be contestants. However, recent events have meant that I now can't be on the show and it wasn't even anything I did. To explain why I have to take you back a couple of weeks, so imagine wibbly wobbly wavey lines across your vision now. I was in bed, one cold and dreary night. BB was needing a blood test in just over an hour and I thought there was no point in going to sleep, so I started channel hopping. I'm terrible when it comes to late night TV, I prefer things that I don't have to think about, possibly romance the sort of shows that are akin to trashy novels, but none of these scripted reality shows, I'm not that low brow. Eventually I settled on ITV Encore, a new programme was about to start, well a repeat from about 14 years ago but it was the first one and I'd never seen it before. It had Caroline Quentin

Every Thursday night, Big Boy goes to Beavers. I love that he does this, I think that it's important for him and I can see the difference it has made in him for the short time he's been going. He is much more confident, he talks with other children much more easily, he has become more tolerant of others and accepting of differences. Basically he is turning into one of those well rounded young men that I'm going to be incredibly proud of for the rest of my life. Anyway. As you all know, BB is a Type 1 Diabetic; And whilst I'm a little more protective of him than maybe I would have been if he wasn't a diabetic, I have good reason to be really don't I? Now, whilst his leaders at Beavers know what to do, I'm still a little worried about leaving him alone with them. It's a lot of responsibility to put on people who see him for an hour a week and who have a duty of care to other children too. So, each week when BB goes to Beavers, Top Ender and I go t

I'm going to admit something to you, but you must promise not to hold it against me. I often eat a bowl of cereal instead of my lunch or evening meal and so when I was asked if I'd like to review Jordans Simply Granola, I said yes. I figured that it would be a nice evening meal and also shave a few pounds off my budget and possibly my waist line! I started off by having some for breakfast, topping the granola on top of yoghurt and topping the granola with raisins and chopped fruit. I even posted a picture on Instagram because of how lovely it looked. And it was. It was lovely. Seriously lovely. So I had some again, this time with fresh fruit, It was just as good. In fact, it didn't matter, how I ate it. With Milk. On it's own. On top of Cake. With Ice Cream (and I hate ice cream). In Muffins. It didn't matter it was just lush. Seriously lush. Oh my goodness how lush it was. Yes, was. Was because I ate it all up and rather quickly.

Big Boy had a blood test scheduled for this morning, at the Hospital. We've already been for this test a few weeks ago, but when the results came back BB's doctor was concerned that the results were a little high and so ordered a retest. I knew it was going to happen as when BB had the first test it caused him so much pain that he was sure that his arm was being sawn off with a blunt and rusty saw (that's what he said) and not even the promise of console time was able to help him calm down. I wanted to kick him (the Doctor not BB!) because I didn't want a repeat of the last time. I didn't want my little boy to feel the pain he felt before. To make matters worse, this time BB needed to fast before he has the blood test. It's not too hard to get BB to not eat or drink between Midnight and 8am as I can kind of make sure he is asleep. It's the 8am to 9am (well 9:30 by the time they called us through despite being the first appointment of the

One of the great thing about having so many nieces, is that they always tell me everything that's going on and what they would like or what's popular or what they have seen and think I should know about. This means that nor only am I now fully versed in various pop groups, but I'm also fully up to date with what the most popular toys for this Christmas are going to be. Which is why I knew when I was asked if I'd like to review the Barbie Glam Camper that I was going to have four of my nieces jumping all over me, volunteering to help me and no doubt taking on the very hard task of taking the toy home. In the end after speaking to my lovely sister, we decided that what we really needed to do was let Top Ender review the camper and then allow all four girls to share the camper van as a Christmas gift. So after I'd carefully removed the camper from it's box (so I could remember how to put it back in!) and took a few photos, Top Ender started playing with the ca