A Mother's Ramblings

We went to one of our favourite parks ( Russell Park ) in Bedford this last weekend, and we even managed a walk along the Great Ouse (it's a River) into the centre of Bedford (well the shopping centre) and then back again. It was great fun and a nice way to burn off 500 calories!

Top Ender may be 11 going on 24, but there is one thing that is guaranteed to have her giggling like the School Girl she is with her friends, no not sharing secrets via whatsapp with her best friends, but watching a Barbie movie. Honestly, if you haven't seen a Barbie movie you won't know how they are actually really good. There are jokes and comments that parents will understand on a deeper level than the children, but the children still find hilarious. Top Ender is now at that magic age, where she can find both the adult and child jokes hilarious and some of the times she looks at me as if to check that she is actually understanding the hidden layer of the joke right... that in itself is worth watching them a million times or more with her! Anyway. Barbie and Mattel thought it would be a lot of fun if we had a #BeSuper Party because, Barbie's latest film has Barbie being a Superhero and a Princess. I know, it makes no sense to me (well actually it does because most ch...

Big Boy loves Hot Wheels. Me? I'm rather less enamoured with them. They are small and go under my sofa and then I have to stick my hands under the sofa and risk losing them to monsters who live amongst the dirt and dust bunnies. However, I'm a kind Mummy who when she gets offered track builder sets agrees to review them because she knows it will make her son happy. Even if the inside of the box does frighten me by looking like this... So BB and I set about building the track, it was a little hard going for BB because whilst he is a whizz at following instructions for some toys, the Hot Wheels track instructions are just beyond him. Eventually we had it built. I'm not sure if it was built entirely correct, but it was built enough that BB could let his cars zoom all around and basically be some kind of mini stuntman. And if you want to see the track in action, this is just a little video of clips I managed to get of the car in various position...

I have an admission to make, at the start of this week I thought it was later than it was. You see my birthday is next Saturday, (May 2nd) and I was pretty sure that the weekend coming (as in now) was my birthday. I was mighty confused for the majority of the week, and as such I have no clue what was going on for the most part! My Mum gave me some new socks so, I kinda didn't care that I had no clue about what was happening! The Fourth Week Of April The start of the week had Daddy and I dragging the children to the shops to look at Tents. As soon as we were there, the children however were REALLY excited and started looking at all the tents, ignoring Daddy and I who were busy trying to ensure that the tents fitted our specific requirements. Basically, I told Daddy that if he wanted BB and I to go camping with him and Tops then he was going to have to buy a tent that I could A stand up in and B had some space to sit down in that wasn't taken up by either an air matt...

You may have noticed, that my plan to read one book every three days has gone a little awry, and so has my plan to write quality blog posts, but that's sort of another matter. The problem was, as much as I LOVE reading books, I was having trouble with the actual reading. I was getting really bad headaches and eye aches after reading and even when I've been writing blog posts I've needed to ensure that the zoom was increased so that the size of the text on screen was big enough to be clear. I am however so stupid that I didn't put two and two together. My husband however, is apparently much smarter than me (And no he isn't standing behind me forcing me to type this) and told me I really should go to the Opticians and sometime soon as he was pretty sure there was something up with my eyesight. So eventually I listened to him, made myself an appointment and went to the Opticians knowing full well that I was going to come out of there with glasses. And sure enough aft...

The third week of April has been a good week for me, I've lost weight, I've eaten some GREAT food, I've done chores that I really needed to do and I've been running. Several times. It was also blessed with the most amazing sunshine, so it seems that there was no reason as to why I would have loved this week! The Third Week Of April The start of the week had Daddy, Top Ender, Big Boy and I going for a little walk and there was a hill there that allowed Top Ender to show off how much she loves running up hills. It was such a great image that I captured, I felt I could sense in the picture Top Ender's pride at having run up the hill and her new found love of running. Monday morning had us going to School, the first day back of the last term for Top Ender (sob) and the house was strangely quiet... and I really missed the children. Still, the day was filled with chores and it was soon time to pick the children up and we had a great evening together, with Family...

I know this is supposed to be wordless, but if I don't put some words here, my homepage looks a bit weird! I hope you like my picture, after you've linked up and left a comment, feel free to follow me on Instagram too! Top Ender showed off her new love of running up hills this evening and I got to capture this shot. A photo posted by Pippa Dawn Wright (@pippadamr) on Apr 10, 2015 at 10:36am PDT

I love me a Salad. Take a look through my Instagram images and you'll see plenty of Salads scattered through the images of the children, selfies and pictures of my socks. I love socks as much as I love salad. Daddy and I had been eating extra healthily last week. Daddy had been following the Atkins Diet after a work colleague had had some great success on it and I was just sticking with my usual combination of Diet Shakes, Salads and sensible evening meals. Anyway, as I prepared a salad for me to eat one day, Daddy looked at me as if I was crazy. Whilst I was making my salad look pretty by adding various chopped vegetables and other items I wanted to include in my Salad, Daddy stood by watching and claimed I was ruining a perfectly good salad. It so wasn't true. A truly good salad, according to me, contains cucumber, tomatoes, spring onions, celery, radishes, peppers and probably a half dozen other different ingredients according to what is in the fridge and how I...

So far this year, the second week of April has been my favourite week. Actually, thinking on it, I think that quite possibly the Second week of April could possibly be my most favourite week of all time. I hope that you had a great a week as my family and I did! The Second Week Of April The week started with Daddy being off work, thanks to him booking some well deserved holiday. And by holiday, I mean not going to work everyday, he wasn't off cooking duty, cleaning duty, dish duty or driving duty! It's been such a long time that it's just been the four of us having a giggle without anything else to be done in the house, or chores to do or places to go that it seemed rather a novelty. Although saying that we did go shopping on the Saturday and go and collect some new Guides clothing for Top Ender to wear to her first ever Guides trip... okay so maybe some chores were needed to be done! For the first time in ages, Tops and I weren't doing the weekly supermarke...

If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter , you might have seen that Top Ender and I have been going out each morning and having a bit of a walk/jog/run as a sort of reboot of me trying to lose weight. There was a comment placed on one of the images this week that made me really proud. It was made by Laura and she expressed how awesome she thought it was that Top Ender and I are exercising together early each morning. Initially I had roped Top Ender into coming with me for selfish reasons. I had wanted a workout buddy and who better than my sport hating sarcastic comment making daughter? We could make fun of the other joggers, early morning walkers and cyclists who were in far better shape than either of us in order to keep ourselves going and both secretly knowing that we were actually jealous of the other joggers, walkers and cyclists. And you know, time together being Mum and Daughter and having a lot of fun together. I also thought that it might be useful for ...

I know that half of this past week was technically March, but just nod and agree with me. I like having four week months (like February) as they fit nicely into my head calendar, and of course I can then work out how long it is before I need to perform certain tasks. Like changing the filter on the fridge water dispenser or recharging the wind up torch or even replacing the batteries in BB's pump and monitor. Enough with the boring stuff, here's what the start of the month held for me! The First Week Of April The week started off as being the start of the Easter Break from School. Of course we also had our usual Saturday trip to the Supermarket, going to Church on the Sunday (although Top Ender was ill so she stayed in bed) and all the normal other weekend activities that we've come to expect. Top Ender watching a film with her Daddy, the occasional baking activity and a later bedtime for everyone... well me at least. On the Monday we spent most of our day in bed...

If you're like me you have tonnes of craft items laying around the house, that quite honestly you don't know what to do with. Give me some wool and I'll knit, give me some fabric and I'll probably make something using my sewing skills, give me some pompoms and I'll look at you blankly whilst my children start sticking them together to make various animals because they saw how to do it in a book once! The Easter box from Bostik left me similarly stumped and so I put off crafting with the children with the box. Top Ender did have one idea to make some cards, which she and I made for her teachers and BB's teachers as an Easter gift, I don't know if you can see, but Top Ender made a nest on hers, which she filled with an Easter Chick egg thingy and BB's cards were made by cutting two pompoms in half and gluing on to card in the rough shape of an Easter Chick. BB also gave his teachers a small chocolately treat, but just presented them rather than ...

Many years ago I was babysitting for a family around Easter time. At least in my head it was around Easter time, I might have just made that bit up. Anyway. I was babysitting around Easter time and knowing that this family shared the same faith as me and combining my love of sweet things, baking with children and babysitting duties I thought what would be great would be to make Meringues in order to teach the Easter story. See that confused look on your face right now? That was the look that other people gave me when I explained this idea. Okay, so I don't know how familiar you are with the Resurrection of Jesus, but it actually tells you how to make Meringues. Depending on how your family works, their age or preference either read the Scripture first or explain what you're doing. Ingredients 200g Chocolate 1tsp Vinegar 3 Egg Whites Pinch of Salt 200g Sugar Method Before you start, you need to line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and turn the oven on t...

When Hotter shoes opened a store in the Shopping Centre in Milton Keynes, I was excited. I'd had a pair of shoes from Hotter for a review a few years back, and a pair of boots (Which I'd forgotten about to be honest) and I knew that I found them comfortable, in fact the shoes are falling apart from overuse but they are still comfortable. Which reminds me, I need to Anyway. With one thing and another I hadn't been in to the store, until a couple of weeks ago when I saw some shoes in the window with my Mum and we were both just standing there deciding what clothes we had that would go with them. We joked that the next week, we'd go in the store to buy some but when I got home I found an email from Hotter asking if I'd like to review the store and the shoes... Coincidence or fate? So, the next week before my Mum treated me to Lunch, we went to Hotter to get me some shoes. We looked all around the store, at all the shoes that were on display, picked them...