A Mother's Ramblings

I love the bowl my husband got me for my Monday bag!

A few months back, I was asked if I would like to review the  Kinivo BTX270 Wireless Bluetooth Portable Speaker . I said yes, mainly because the one thing I am missing from my Primary arsenal (at Church) is a good quality speaker that can link up to my phone and allow me to play music if the music leader isn't around and also because I want to be the annoying Mum who has a portable speaker on her picnic blanket this Summer. When it arrived, it was perfectly timed. It was the day of the Primary Talent show and so I thought I'd take it with me, just in case. It was actually needed, needed that is until a friend came with a bigger portable speaker that was louder and when we're backing up children in a sports hall, louder is what we need! Since the BTX270 arrived, I haven't been able to make use of the speaker in Primary, as our lovely Primary Music Leader has been with us each week, so I can't say how good it is in the Primary setting. The children and I have s

Every week, my Mum and I go out for a walk. Well, actually it started as us going out for a walk, but soon turned into us going to the local shopping centre and going shopping! The point is, we get a bit of exercise together, we spend some time together and then after School and picking up the Children we disappear off to a restaurant and share a meal together. This week, I was asked if I'd like to review the new Summer menu at our local Beefeater , so my Mum, the Children and I descended upon our local branch, ready to taste, nibble and slurp! I am normally terrible at picking what I'm going to have at a Restaurant, so I may have spent several hours looking at the menu in advance. Somehow I forgot this when I got to the Restaurant and spent a good ten minutes staring blankly at all the dish names! In the end I decided to go with the Prawns as a starter, whilst my Mum picked the Ribs and Top Ender the Nachos for one from the daytime menu. Big Boy picked Nachos too, but off

Hello Friends! I feel like this week, I spent most of my time eating, although I'm sure I didn't as I have lost weight (Wahoo!) and more importantly there are as many pictures of Kittens and my children on my phone as there are items of food. Oh, I take pictures of everything I eat as a way of making myself accountable and also making sure that I keep an accurate record! So, here was my week. The Fourth Week of June The week started with Daddy, Top Ender, Big Boy and I heading off to Ikea to buy a sofa after the cancellation of our sofa delivery at the end of the week before. As we had the hire can for a couple of hours more than we needed, we decided (thank to one of Daddy's co-workers who pointed out the possibility) to clear the driveway of junk and take it to the tip. Our driveway has been covered in junk for AGES and so it was brilliant to clear it and such a relief! I physically felt two tonne lighter after the driveway was cleared and we've got plans o

Big Boy loves the Minions, not quite as much as one of my friends, but enough that he has two Minion teddies and an unhealthy obsession with saying Bottom and giggling just like Stuart the Minion (yes, I know the names of the Minions, that is how obsessed my son is). So when Tesco asked if we'd like a box of great fun Minion themed items I knew that BB would go nuts and I'd get Mother of the Year award again. I had told BB to expect the parcel, I knew there was going to be bed linen in the box, so he asked if I'd wash the new linen and put it on his bed ready for when he got home. I agreed, not only because I was excited, but because BB very rarely likes to changes his bedlinen from something other than Mario! When BB got home, he rushed upstairs to see his new bed linen and then came back down stairs ready to film an unboxing of the rest of the goodies! My son has been watching way too many youtube videos as you'll be able to tell from his introduction.

It's a well known fact that I love Swagbucks. I love spending a short amount of time each day reaching my target (personal if not the one Swagbucks has set for me) and then every so often cashing in my swagbucks for vouchers for either Amazon or Paypal. The original plan had been that I'd save the vouchers up for Christmas, and basically have a "free" Christmas. Plans change however. The first thing that happened were our youngest Cats kept trying to get into our swing-lid bins. It was a game to them, they were (and still are) well fed but they were foraging for more food and causing a bit of a mess spilling the contents of the not only the main bin but also the recycling bin all over the kitchen. We decided that we needed lockable bin lids and the only bins we liked that we could find wiped out half of my savings.

One thing I will always be eternally grateful to my parents for is that they installed a strong work ethic into me. It wasn't a case of them forcing me to go and get a job, but they encouraged me to get a paper round when I was 13, that I shared with my sister and that soon developed into a Saturday job at the shop, and then an after school, before school (during school oops) job and eventually a part time job at the local city centre, which along with my regular babysitting gigs gave me a lot of cash. This is where the financial advice started from my parents. My parents advised me to not spend all my money. I know, good advice right?

Whenever my husband is home, we go out for a walk during the day. If the children are at School, we go without them and then go again when the children are back from School. If the children aren't at School, we all go for at least one walk during the day, but normally two. My husband, whilst not exactly sporty is actually the one person who seems to be able to motivate me to go and do more. The problem is of course, my husband isn't here every day. My husband doesn't work from home, and so he can't be here to motivate me to do more. I wish I could motivate myself more, but to be honest I can barely motivate myself to do the minimum, I'm lazy at heart. And that's a big problem. A couple of weeks back, I was messing around with the CCTV Cameras with Big Boy and I caught sight of myself from behind. Talk about a big problem. And right there, I swore I was going to exercise more. I was going to eat less. And life got in the way, looking after Big Boy

Mario Jr and Harry are 11 days old in these pictures, aren't they adorable?!

When the Children and I were eating our evening meal, a few nights ago we were having a chat about various different things. The Children wanted to play a game that Daddy and I often play, but they forgot part of it and so instead of playing Brian's of Britain , they started playing Justin's of the World. "Justin Bieber"  said Big Boy "Justin Timberlake" said Top Ender "Justin Fletcher" said Big Boy "Justin Chambers" I said "Justin... Time?!" said Top Ender I'm not saying a word, but Top Ender and I are becoming more and more alike!

Have you been having a good week? Despite some rubbish happening this week, I've been having a fairly good week, as have the children and I think that the sweetness has been made all the sweeter for the rubbish! I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere that I need to learn! The Third Week Of June The week started with the Primary Talent show , it was a great day and I loved being able to see the talents of the Primary Children and hanging out with two of my favourite grown ups... well four if you include my Mum and Husband! Sunday was great, I'd not been at Church for ages because of being ill and conference and other things and just being able to partake in Sacrament and be part of the fellowship of the others in the ward (local congregation) and then after Primary, I was able to socialise even more with everyone as we had a Munch and Mingle! Monday, BB woke up complaining of a headache. A bit of calpol and his breakfast saw him off to School and me to the

At Church, I get to be with the Children after the main Sacrament meeting (the bit with the bread and water and sermon) as someone somewhere thinks I'm sensible and a good influence on children... Anyway. The Primary Presidency (which I'm a part of) for our Ward (local congregation) thought that it would be fun to have a Primary Talent Show, for the children to show us and each other their talents. We arranged it to be on a Saturday afternoon and the Children started practicing their talents, ready to perform. All the Children were fantastic, we had a child reading rhymes, some told jokes, a few danced, some sang and there were other acts but as I'm only related to two of the children and therefore permission to plaster their pictures all over the internet I only have pictures of my two performing! Big Boy and Top Ender decided to play their Violins as their Talent. I know I've spoken about this several times over on Facebook and Twitter, but honestly Top Ender

For months I've been excited about going to see Spamalot at Milton Keynes Theatre . There have been billboards about it in the Shopping Centre and every time I've walked past one I've squealed a bit and jumped up and down a bit, which is a bit embarrassing for an apparently middle aged woman to do, according to my husband at least. So, when School called just after lunch on the day I was supposed to go to the Theatre to see the show to let me know that Big Boy was poorly and I needed to go collect him I knew that I had no hope of going to the Theatre that night.

For months now, the sofa in our living (as opposed to the one in the den) has had a hole in one side. We're not sure how it happened, and we've tried to fix it, but it didn't work and again that was fine. It was an old sofa and not to put too fine a point on it, we hadn't paid for the sofa, we inherited it from my Sister. And then Peach decided to give birth to her kittens inside the sofa and we had to cut the back in order to check on her (you have to count the placentas that are born to ensure none are left inside as that is bad) and then she discovered that the arms of the sofa are a great place to hide the kittens and we had to cut it again, just to ensure that the kittens were safe. So we decided that after being married for 3 months short of 14 years, we should do something that grown ups do and buy our first sofa. So we got the children up early on Saturday morning and planned to head to our furniture shop of choice. Ikea. Mainly because almost every

I was pretty sure I had posted more recently than apparently I had... but I think because I was ill and erm there was stuff that happened and erm you know life! So here is a quick recap! The Last Week Of May The week started great when Top Ender and I went out shopping with my Mum (as is normal on a Saturday) and Big Boy decided that what he really wanted to do was bake cakes. So that's what Daddy and he did. They were blinking lush. Sunday morning I woke up, helped BB get his breakfast and then went back to bed as I wasn't able to sit up, let alone stand up. Luckily my lovely husband understood that I really was feeling rubbish and so let me stay in bed attempting to sleep it off and gave me lunch in bed (Salad and Sandwiches) as well as keeping me hydrated with as much water as I could manage. Tuesday night, Top Ender and I were off to the Theatre, but due to a timing issue Big Boy had to get on the train with Daddy in order to make sure Tops and I we