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Friday 22 August 2014

My Babies

I made it! The summer is over! Term has started and so recommences the nursery run and toddler group routine that brings me so much comfort.

However, this week has been hard.  So hard.  So much harder than I had expected.  N has been exhausted and I am sufficiently pregnant that I don't really have the capacity to deal with the consequences!

So, in an attempt to overcome my negative feelings about the week so far, I would like to shout.  Loud and proud.  I LOVE MY BABIES!!!!

Sometimes it is hard but I love them unconditionally



I love them so very much

Monday 11 August 2014

The final stretch...

We are on countdown, N goes back to nursery on Tuesday next week and she is *desperate* she asks me, at least once, every day if she can go back.

I am trying to dig deep and make this week as fun as possible.  The blog has been a little stagnant as I felt like I was repeating lots of our activities and didn't have much new insight to share but today's comes with a recipe to inspire!

This morning I desperately needed to get a few things from town and so off wee trotted, N did really well and walked around town all morning (I hadn't even taken the double buggy for emergencies, I am trying to wean her off it in time for bump being a baby!) and then we did a quick pitstop at the supermarket on the way home.

Slightly frustratingly, in an attempt to leave the shop as quickly as possible because M had started eating the food in our basket and peeling labels off of things, I forgot to buy butter which I needed to do the baking I had planned with N this afternoon but twitter came to the rescue with lots of suggestions, the winner was....[insert dramatic drumroll here]... peanut butter cookies!

As it happened I had dropped a jar of peanut butter a few days ago, breaking the lid in the process, so this was great for using something up too!!

The recipe we used was this one, only tweaked a little because I had crunchy, not smooth, peanut butter and because I've never found an affordable chocolate chip that is fair trade we just cut up a chocolate bar!

Here is N having a go at spooning the mix onto the baking sheets


And this is what the finished article looked like, the rest are in the oven being baked! (They come out the oven very squashy but rest assured they crisp up while they are cooling)


And to prove we have done some other things the last few days, here are some pictures of our holiday happenings!

A trip to a new park


"picnic"

These photos were taken thanks to a top tip I once heard (and will now share with you, obviously) when you go on a day trip or similar, take a photo of your child BEFORE anyone is allowed to run off anywhere, so that if the worst comes to the worst and they get lost you have an up to date photo of them in the clothes they are wearing that day.  I do feel a little better for doing this, although clearly you should keep an eye on them too!

We made a medal by wrapping a cardboard circle in paper and taping some wool (or ribbon would work) to the back.  We have, in fact, made a LOT of medals this summer, I think it must have been the commonwealth games that made us do it!


Here we are enjoying a snack with a friend (this is at the friends' house, I love their improvised sand table in the background.  They just sit boxes of sand on top of storage boxes that contain their garden toys)


Finally, I let N and M start a Mister Maker activity a few days ago (I was assuming it would be on the cbeebies website and I could link to it but I can't find it anywhere!)

Here are the girls painting sheets of lasagne ready to break into pieces so they can make a mosaic picture with them.  We haven't done the picture part yet, I'll let you know how it goes.  I used half glue, half paint (having only been half watching the telly when it came on) but it seems to be cracking poorly and can confirm that M managed to paint both sides and get lots of newspaper stuck to her pieces!



Here's what it looks like broken up!


The idea is just that you draw a picture, I assume the simpler the better, although Mister Maker drew a crab! and then "colour" it in with the bits of pasta.

And my final tip, if the summer holidays are really proving too much is that Tesco has Cardbury's Marvellous Creations  chocolate on offer!  Clearly too good for the kids, but Mums and Dads should eat to help the day pass!