Showing posts with label family life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family life. Show all posts

30.4.14

Merrymakers


Woof! possesses magical powers; he seems to be able to calm the nine year old down in a way none of the rest of us can.
My rascal is all over the place at the moment, bouncing from sweet to sour at breathtaking speed. And not so much of the sweet since school started. But a moment or two with Woof! somehow helps him snap out of it. You can almost see the anger ebb away.

Heaven help us when he eventually loses interest; makes me feel sad thinking about it. But no sign of that happening yet - in fact Woof! has a growing band of merry followers who go everywhere with him.


My husband has started making up stories about this motley crew, and they're obviously good because I often hear howls of laughter coming from the 9 year old's room.  So, next to Woof! we have Snuggly Duck, Duck - grey, worn and well chewed - her french name is Snoogalay Canard, Canard and she is trouble basically; then there's Aussie Bruce, the narcoleptic rabbit who never finishes his sentences, and his painfully shy second cousin Oscar.

All it takes is a story and a sniff of Snuggly or Woof and life is good again.

Wouldn't that be great?


The Gallery theme this week is Happy!

17.1.14

Keeping notes

The 6 year old is going through a bit of a note writing stage. Always furtively scribbling away - and no one's allowed to look - then little letters and cards just appear, by our bed, on the table, or in my knitting bag - all kinds of places.

They are terribly sweet and funny….and numerous. I've kept the best ones, but I'm afraid the rest have been 'filed away'. I've learnt to be careful though, after all hell broke loose when she found a few I'd filed in the recycling pile…

This one's a keeper.


3.4.13

Bumbling along together - The Gallery



I love this picture of my daughter with her little ballet pals all colouring away, like busy bees around a honey pot.
The girls were waiting to dance in their annual performance - and what a performance it was: over a hundred children happily bouncing about in their colourful costumes: I've already posted a photo of the bumble bees about to buzz on stage.

As it was such a big show, there was a fair amount of hanging around, and just a handful of parents to keep the kids entertained. All I can say is thank goodness for a colouring-in book and a pencil case full of felt-tips. It may be classic stereotyping, but it did the trick. For a fleeting moment I remember thinking about my boys, and wondering what we'd have done to keep a gang of 4/5 year old lads quiet for a whole hour.

Seeing her with her friends also reminds me of a chat I had with the 8 year old in the car the other day. He told me he was going to ask his best mate for some money so he could buy a much-longed for computer game - I told him he really couldn't do that.
'Why not?'
'Well, you can't just ask for money, it's not very nice, and that's how you lose friends.'
All of a sudden my daughter piped up from the back,
'I'm never EVER going to lose any friends mummy,
and if I do I've got some spare ones.'

May she always have a case full of colours and plenty of spare friends..


Linking up with The Gallery - the theme is 'Together'
Apologies for the lack of commenting this week - we're away, and no
internet!  

15.3.13

Trolley detox, Team Honk and a few home truths

Almost there! And I'm not stressed about the rest, because it's homemade pizza tonight and that's everyones favourite.
It's certainly been an interesting week - tough but rewarding, with a fair amount of late night baking.. Still, no one starved.. or cried, and I have managed to feed the 4 of us on just £12 - so, Yay!

It's made me more resourceful, more organised and more grateful for what we have and often take for granted. It's also made me wonder what on earth I'm putting in my trolley..apart from the boring, obvious stuff.  I've already said I don't think I'm that bad at budgeting, but my weekly spend can be erratic - I've had to guess at it - I do know it's many times more than £12. What am I buying? Mmmm. Too many things that aren't on my list. I do suffer from a bit of BOGOF-itis - you know, when you go in for 'a few things' and come out with a boot-load of groceries that are on offer.

Okay, £12 is extreme - but this trolley detox has made me focus on my spending habits. The thing is, like any detox I'm full of good intentions straight after - all these plans for radical change, and then...it's just too easy to slip back into old ways. Well it is for me. That's what happened last time I did the Challenge: I was going to have weekly meal plans, and write a shopping list that I'd stick to like velcro, but it all went out the window, and I drifted back to last-minute 'creative' cooking. I'll try harder this time: definitely try harder to stick to my list - and I've liked feeling more organised about meals, so we'll see.


We wouldn't have got far these last 7 days without homemade bread - the saviour of Challenge..well that and the 4 trays of muffins. I thought the week would be good for my waistline, but I think I now have an extra spare tyre around my middle, made completely of bread.
It's a good job I'm a late bird too, because there was quite a bit of night time baking; and I'm really pleased I've finished off the old, mostly used up bags of flour in the cupboard (probably past their sell buy date..dared not look..)

The kids have been great: I think the Challenge made more sense this year - they know they're doing it for Comic Relief and understand where the money's going. Don't get me wrong, there have been a few trying moments, and they've moaned and complained about having no choices or treats (apart from muffins) - but I know they feel involved, which is brilliant. My 5 year old asked me yesterday if she was allowed to have a biscuit when she went to her friend's house for a play. I squeezed her really tight for that.

And I'm massively slow off the mark with this, but we've joined Team Honk at the 11th hour - we have our very own Red Nose Day sponsorship page and everything!..which is HERE if you'd like to take a look. I know the week's almost up, but if you'd like to give some money to Comic Relief by sponsoring us, that would be amazing.

So, why £12? Something I've been asked a few times: the answer is I'm not absolutely sure.. Originally it was going to be a tenner, but that would have been such a struggle, unless we grew more fruit and veg and did the Challenge in the summer. I'd have had a mutiny on my hands.

Will we do it again? Do you know, I'm sure we probably will - but think I'd like to try a £12 vegetarian week next time..

13.3.13

Comic Relief, Carrots and Cake



'DAY 5 in the Comic Relief Charity Challenge house, and the housemates are getting restless...'


not really a massive surprise considering there's very little food left from my £12 shop. Just two more days to go now.
And in case you're wondering, £12 is all I've spent to feed the four of us for 7 days! Definitely a challenge. Possibly mad. Still, it's for a very good cause, as the rest of the money I'd normally spend on my weekly groceries is going to Comic Relief.

It's certainly keeping me on my toes and I'm baking like a dervish, trying to stay a step ahead. The kids are doing pretty well; they haven't gone hungry, but inevitably the lack of choice and empty fridge takes it's toll, and there's a rising wave of whinging! I'm doing my best to gee them along, and I've heard the older two talking to their friends about the Challenge and why we're doing it, which is encouraging. It's great they feel involved.

Now who'd have ever thought you could get bored of muffins? But I know the kids are tiring of them, and fair play really as muffins have been the only sweet treat on offer for the last 5 days. My supplies are limited: I haven't any butter and just enough marg left for sandwiches - the only thing I can use is vegetable oil. So my cunning plan was to make muffins that look like CAKE...and seeing as The Gallery theme this week is the letter 'C'.... I give you Comic Relief Charity Challenge Carrot Muffins Cake!


I just poured the carrot muffin mixture into a cake tin - and the shape change plus the absence of muffin cases seems to have done the trick! They loved them. Should get us through to friday. I'm sure the topping helped too, but only enough cream cheese spare for these three, and HUGE disappointment when they realised the carrot was made of plasticine..

There's more about our Comic Relief Charity Challenge here

and The Gallery theme this week is the letter 'C'

12.3.13

Frugal food - Charity Challenge day 4

I've had to plan meals down to the last grain of rice so I can stretch the food bought with my £12 budget across the week. I don't really mind the planning bit, and it's less daunting than last time, because things like making bread don't phase me as much as they used to. I make it regularly now, thanks to the very lovely, talented Recipe Junkie and her tutorials on growing and using a sourdough starter. I wasn't totally sure what a starter was to be honest; now I have a jar of bubbly, yeasty goo sitting on my window sill, constantly reminding me to make bread.

sourdough starter

So, this week breakfast is bread or toast, and lunch for me is some kind of orange soup (lentil/carrot or to spice things up carrot and lentil..)  I have packed lunches to make too: my fussy one has them all week - the others have a mixture of packed lunches and pre-paid school dinners. I'm giving them ham and cream cheese sandwiches, a muffin, 2 cream crackers with marg, and a carrot.
They are going to be sick of the sight of carrots by friday.


So the family meals work out like this:

Saturday      Lunch: Lentil soup and bread
                       Tea: Homemade ham and mozzarella pizza and garlic pizza
                       (sauce: one tin chopped tomatoes, half the passata, onion, tsp sugar, seasoning)

Sunday         Lunch: Tomato, mozzarella and ham pasta
                       (leftover cheese and sauce from pizzas + chopped up ham)
                       Tea: Roast chicken, potatoes and carrots

Monday         Spanish style frittata
                       (chopped and fried up potatoes from day before, half an onion, a little ham, 4 beaten eggs + cheeky handful of peas from freezer for a splash of colour..other than orange..)

Tuesday        Savoury chicken rice
                       (leftover chicken pieces, half a leek, half an onion, carrot, stock)
                   
Wednesday   Tomato and ham pasta
                       (another batch of tomato sauce made with spare tin and rest of the passata - save about half for friday pizzas. Maybe add a dollop of cream cheese to pasta sauce)

Thursday       Leek and carrot soup with cider bread 
                        (Cider bread is really worth a go - so quick, easy and delicious. I'm using some cider I keep in the fridge for this recipe - but no cheese or butter)
                     
Friday            Ham pizza and garlic pizza

I bulk out the meals with bread, and after-school snacks and puddings are muffins. Peach, carrot or banana on offer this week. Squirrel is having break.


Snackless squirrel

The homemade pizzas on saturday night were a great success



375g of flour made dough for 4 bases (2 tomato, 2 garlic)

We even had enough to feed a hanger-on; and apart from one slightly tense moment as I watched my son's friend carefully pick all the precious pieces of ham off his pizza, everyone was happy!

Sunday roast is always a winner - and there's enough chicken left for savoury rice tonight, plus a big bowl of fresh stock. I cut the potatoes up really small for the frittata yesterday, but they were spotted by my fussy potato avoider.
spanish style frittata
Still, he did eat it. Very slowly. Every single thing has to be eaten up this week!

No one's going hungry, that's for sure, and I keep reminding them we're doing it for Comic Relief - but think the novelty might be wearing a little thin..

You can find out more about our Charity Challenge here

11.3.13

£12 Comic Relief Charity Challenge

..possibly a bit mad, but we're doing it again! It's been just about long enough since the last time for everyone to have forgotten what it was like...
So a quick recap if you're wondering what I'm on about - I've squeezed our weekly food shop down to  £12. £12 to feed four of us for 7 days. And that's it. Bar a few basics I have here.

Why? Well the why is for Comic Relief, because that's where all the money I'd usually spend on the groceries is going. We started on saturday - quite a good distraction because that's when my sister left for Australia - we finish at the end of the week on Red Nose Day.

I do like a good challenge and it's going to be interesting, planning, cooking and trying to keep the kids happy. But it wouldn't be much of a challenge if I raided the freezer and the cupboard for the week, so my self-imposed rules are no digging about in the freezer for meals, and no tins or packets except the ones bought with my £12 budget. I'm allowing myself to use up what's left of staples like flour, sugar, oil - and also the opened tub of marg in the fridge, tea bags, 3 onions, half a packet of split red lentils and a few wizened cloves of garlic I found at the back of the cupboard. It's not much extra, and sure, wouldn't it be wasteful to buy more when they're sitting there? Anyway, my rules and hey, it's for charity!

I think I'm pretty good at budgeting, but my grocery bills have been fluctuating a fair bit recently. The Challenge has made me take a long hard look at what I usually spend, and what goes into my trolley - as well as my rather slack approach to meal planning.
We're into our third day now, and the kids are still reasonably enthusiastic, but when they start moaning about the absence of treats and choices (and they will), it'll probably be a good time to gently remind them of the children who can never grab an apple or a biscuit when they feel like it; the children who have barely enough food to live on. Hopefully I'll get them to think about why we're doing this.

So my £12 list is reasonably similar to the one last year. I shopped at Lidl and Tesco's and bought the cheapest of the cheap. Quite a few are the same price as before which really surprised me, seeing as most of the things I usually buy are getting more expensive.

Doesn't look like much, does it..


Small chicken £3.09
milk £1.00
400g ham £1.65
cream cheese 50p
ball of mozzarella 40p
1 kg rice 40p
2x500g pasta 60p
1 kg potatoes 69p
loaf of wholemeal bread 47p
cream crackers 39p
2xtinned tomatoes 62p
passata 29p
1.5kg carrots 63p
4 bananas 32p
2xtinned peaches 58p
1.5kg flour 45p

Total £12.08

There isn't a lot in the way of fruit and veg. I'd thought about buying more instead of the chicken, but I can stretch the chicken to 3 meals, and we're only talking a week. I haven't included eggs because a very kind friend with hens has given me 8 lovely fresh ones, as well as 2 big leeks from her garden. The other advantage I have is I'm just feeding me and the 3 kids, because my husband's away. And I've only one milk drinker too, which helps cut costs.

Things seem to be going well enough, but it's early days! I'm trying to stay one step ahead and definitely doing more baking. I'll post my menu plan tomorrow so you can see what we've been eating. Some things crop up A LOT...Hard really to have much variety.

I think it would be fair to say homemade bread and muffins are the food glue that hold this Challenge together..

1.3.13

The Scandinavian snack squirrel

squirrel bowl by Ylva Olsson
What can I say?  It's Swedish, quirky, there was 40% off, and the squirrel was always going to be coming home with me.
Now you're possibly thinking, sure that's lovely but what's the big deal? And it is the kind of thing that could easily have ended up at the back of a cupboard. But I had plans for this little ceramic dish, and as strange as it may sound it's actually become a pretty important daily feature around here.

Squirrel now sits in the middle of the kitchen table, and before the kids get back from school I fill it with some kind of snacky treat. The original idea was for the snack to be healthy and wholesome, but in truth it seems to be on a sliding scale of healthiness, depending on what I can find in the cupboard, and how long it's been since the last shop..

All three love it, and charge up from the bus, with the youngest usually shouting, 'WHAT'S IN SQUIIIRELLLL!'
Sometimes I have to charge ahead, due to a slight snack oversight, grabbing a bag of raisins on my way to the table.
And squirrel seems to possess some kind of magical power, because my fussy eater is munching through dried fruit he wouldn't have even glanced at before.

They do have the usual bread or biscuits too because they're always ravenous, but squirrel has made this hectic part of the day a little more fun.

Healthy squirrel

Nutty squirrel (with a hot kick)

Fruity squirrel

Bad squirrel


18.1.13

sNo fun for birds...a timely DIY bird feeder

The youngest two were standing by the door in full snow kit by 7 this morning. Just shows what's possible when they're keen! And they were so excited; jiggling up and down with anticipation, thinking snow balls, sledging and NO school.
I was thinking snowed in, husband away...and no school. What an old misery.
But I had a plan for my three almost eager little helpers - once they'd had their fill of snow.


I've been meaning to make bird feeders for ages. We used to have a bird table, but it slowly rotted away, and we haven't replaced it because of the cat. There are other ways: higher, hopefully safer ways, and feeders seem to be a better option with a cat prowling about. Nothing's going to be perfect, still it's got to be worth the risk in this kind of weather.

All you'll need is an empty plastic bottle, some string, a few sticks, scissors (I found small, sharp nail scissors were best) and bird food.


Make two small holes opposite each other near the bottom of the bottle, and push a stick through to make a perch. Repeat this, so the second stick goes in slightly above the first.


Next cut a small hole (no more than 3/4cm wide - too big and the seeds will fall out) about 4cm above each perch. I found the best way to do this is to pierce the bottle with the scissors, and then twist a stick around in the hole, until it's the right size.


Poke a hole either side of the bottleneck, and thread some string through (a longish darning needle helped with this bit) and tie the ends together.


Take the cap off and use a funnel to fill the bottle.


I did a little googling to find out where cat owners put their bird feeders. Top tips seem to be washing lines, weak branches and generally making the area under or around them less cat conducive with the odd prickly plant.  So we put one on a line between the apple trees, and the other on a high, spindly branch above a holly bush.


The birds were a little tentative to begin with....


...but it wasn't long before we had our first taker!


8.10.12

Day 331 - You couldn't make it up


I had a very interesting chat with another mum during ballet. She was asking how I was doing with my husband still away - I said things were ok but I was feeling it more this term, and she said that was completely understandable seeing as I was pregnant....

WHAT? 

I had a frozen moment as I tried desperately to get over the surprise, and think of what to say.
And that pause, right there, was the ONLY pregnant thing going on.
Apart from me being ancient, my husband hasn't exactly been around much.

I also knew there was little chance of the mum or me getting through this conversation without a pink glow of embarrassment.  Did she think I looked pregnant? Admittedly I've probably put on weight. Or was there some kind of mad rumour going around?

"Noooooooo, I'm definitely not pregnant! Just eating too much..!"

"OH no! It's not that, it's just your daughter told mine you were having a baby..."

And there you have it. My darling 5 year old had made up this whopper about me being pregnant. She'd even told her friend I was having a girl. A case of make-believe in the playground getting way out of hand...

And then I was wondering who else had heard? You know what the school gate's like - a breeding ground for gossip. It's like the worst kind of chinese whispers down there.  Last term my 7 year old came back from school with a 'sorry you're leaving' card from his best friend. He wasn't going anywhere.

Of course my daughter hadn't really got a clue what she'd done. Quite hard to handle, because it didn't seem right to get very cross with her.
She was upset when we had a talk, and kept saying it was just a pretend game. I know she can get carried away with her stories, and had obviously been a bit too convincing. I'm all for having an active imagination, as long as it doesn't run completely wild.

Once we'd all got over the shock, I did feel relieved the mum had mentioned it and we'd cleared it up quickly. Imagine if she hadn't said anything, and gone on believing...

I'm sure this will make my daughter think twice before she starts spinning another tale. And if I cast my mind back, I know I wasn't adverse to making up the odd story or two - though can't remember any backfiring in such spectacular fashion!