A Mother's Ramblings

I'm a bit late in posting what we're having for our meals this week as Top Ender and I have been rather busy having fun together on our Staycation. We weren't able to do quite as much as Dan Jon and I did, but it didn't matter because we did the important things that Top Ender wanted to do. It was a brilliant Staycation.

After having got up entirely too early and then spent an absolute fortune on new School uniform and shoes, I thought that we needed something fun to do as a family and so I suggested that we go Wild Swimming at a spot that wasn't too far from home. Luckily, Flyfour and the children were up for a bit of an adventure and so after a quick change of clothes into swimming costumes and our quickest drying clothes/shorts we were off. The day was one of those annoying British Summer days, where it couldn't make-up it's mind if it wanted to be sunny or cloudy and as we arrived at the steps the sun decided that it wanted to stay hidden behind the clouds.

This is going to be the week that I'm not looking forward to and that I AM looking forward to in equal measure. My bathroom will basically be out of bounds for the week (and at the rate Dan Jon and I drink water this could be a HUGE issue) but at the end of the week, I will have my brand new sparkly, drip free bathroom. I AM SO EXCITED! This week also sees Dan Jon and Flyfour off on their Camping Trip, Top Ender and I start our Staycation and Dan Jon is also off to Tech Camp! It's going to be a great week if everything goes to plan!

I was talking with Top Ender the other day and we were talking about the future and where we see ourselves in five years time and if where we are now is where we saw ourselves five years ago. It was a really deep conversation and it allowed me a chance to reflect, more so than the reflection at the end of each year. At one point, when we were talking Top Ender asked why I say "Just" so much when talking about myself. I thought back over what it was that I said and realised I use he word "just"to describe myself all the time. I'm just a Mum. I'm just a Stay at Home Parent. I'm just volunteering.

With Top Ender having been on Youth Camp and then having gone Camping with her Dad, Dan Jon Jr and I have spent a lot of time together alone. We have loved our time together and we came up with a few different ideas for spending our time together, that we thought other Mother's might find useful for sparking their own ideas in the future.

I'm such an idiot. I forgot last week that Top Ender and Flyfour were going camping during the week and so some of the meals that I had organised were too much for Dan Jon Jr and I alone! So we kind of rescheduled a few meals and ate scraps of bits and pieces that we had in the freezer and cupboards, made other meals from the bits and pieces I had remembered to buy and well Dan Jon and I may have accidentally fallen into a couple of supermarkets to buy supplies for meals that we like, whilst Flyfour and Top Ender were away. Luckily the boy has cheap tastes and so we were well fed and happy!

This Summer Top Ender isn't off to a dozen different camps as she was last Summer. This Summer Top Ender is only off on camp two or three times (once with the Youth from our Church, once with her Daddy and possibly once with me) and then after that, she is also off to Disneyland Paris with her Guides group. It's her Guides group trip to Disneyland that I'm the most excited about as it isn't a backpack or holdall that she is taking, but a hard suitcase and with the need of a hard case is the need for a way of working out which is hers and which is another passengers with a quick glance. Which is why I was glad when Gel-A-Peel asked if we'd like to review them!

When we had gone to the Ideal Home Show, we saw a bed that was also a desk and knew this would be perfect for Dan Jon's bedroom, because his room is quite small and combing furniture would help with the space. We knew in the next few years that Dan Jon is going to be getting more homework and that he is going to need to somewhere to do it. With Dan Jon making his own video games and spending more time working on his PC, we needed a space for that too and of course we needed a space for his consoles too. Dan Jon needed more space for his books and his collections and everything else and with this in mind we planned the rest of the room around this rather large piece of furniture and Dan Jon Jr was almost beside himself with excitement! So we called the company and placed an order.

I had wanted to design my own shoes as part of my Birthday Bucket list , it seemed like a fun task to do and something which everyone could join in on. Well, everyone apart from Flyfour because he's a stick in the mud for things like this! The problem that I had was, I didn't know what I wanted to draw on my shoes! I had all sorts of ideas but my drawing skills really aren't that good, despite me remembering some of my learnt skills from my teenage years. In the end I decided to take some inspiration from one of the postcards I drew a few months ago for the Primary Children.

Dan Jon Jr and Top Ender love Smiggle. They are often at our local store looking over the items and working out what they want to add to various collections, checking out what the new items are and of course purchasing items that they deem essential. I don't mind because I love looking round Smiggle myself and am responsible for a lot of the items that they own... just don't tell Flyfour because he thinks they buy the items they own themselves!!! Smiggle asked if we'd like to receive a few bits and pieces to help us get ready to go back to School and of course knowing how great the items are, we said yes! The parcel arrived whilst Top Ender was on camp, so we had to wait until she was back before we could look to see what was sent, the suspense nearly killed poor Dan Jon!

A few nights back, Flyfour and I went out to the Supermarket to pick up a few different snacks and a few bits that I may have forgotten to get when doing the main shop earlier that day. Whilst we were there, I decided to play a game with Flyfour so we could make this a kind of date night trip to the Supermarket! I explained the rules to Flyfour, which were really simple basically, I will ask a question and then you answer but giving the answer you think I would give and I would answer giving the answer I think that Flyfour would answer.

Food glorious food! Dan Jon, Flyfour and I loved the meals we had last week because they were fun meals and so I'm hoping to recreate that in part this week now that Top Ender is back from Camp and before the children all run off to camp with their Dad over the next couple of weeks and Top Ender goes off to Disney Land Paris! Here's what we're eating this week.

Another day, another post about Top Ender and Camp! One of the things that the girls in our Ward (Parish) did to prepare for Camp, was tie dye a T-shirt. This was because each Ward and group of girls had been assigned a colour and our Ward had agreed to team up with a couple of other wards as the numbers in these three wards were quite small. This meant the girls in these wards wanted to combine all three of the colours assigned to the three wards. And so they decided to tie dye white shirts (one ward colour) with blue and yellow (the other two ward colours). They did this in an activity one evening and had a blast, so much so that Top Ender wanted to dye another shirt when she got home, to take to camp!

Top Ender is on Camp this week with the Young Women from the Church we go to. Last year was her first camp, and she was a little bit worried about the trip, not because of the camping, or because of the girls, but because of the unknown. This year, Top Ender was READY for camp because she knew what would be happening. Preparation for camp started early. There were songs being learnt for Camp, there were Secret Sister gifts purchased, bags being packed and I even managed to sneak a live video of Top Ender playing a camp song on her Ukulele (well actually, my Ukulele) that I put up as a Facebook Live video and you can see below...

After Top Ender had made her Paper Craft Camp Site , she had left it downstairs in the living room for everyone to admire. We were all really impressed with the effort she had put in. The next morning when she came downstairs, somebody else had apparently been impressed with it, as she had some visitors.

During August, Top Ender is going off on a Guides Trip to Disneyland Paris. We have all been really excited about it because it's her first international Guides trip and being a Guide has been brilliant for Top Ender, her confidence, her mental health, her general well being and well for me too. I know that her Guides leader is a brilliant woman, who really cares for the Guides in her patrol and I know she wants the best for Top Ender too. Anyway.