Happy Birthday P!!!!

In the Garden: Harvesting apples from my mums garden. My brother planted a seed from his eating apple (from infants school) 25 years ago, its now giving back soooooo many apples each year. The kids had great fun on shoulders picking them all!!

At Home: Birthday celebrations for P who loved his Porsche cake!!! A lovely meal out at lunchtime and gokart racing this evening!!

With the children: Cutting out butterfly and star croutons to go with their after-school soup.

Rediscovering: A local farm shop I visited as a child and treating ourselves lovely to lovely mature cheddars, scrumpy cider and free range eggs!!!!

Having Fun: Playing on the Gruffalo website with the kids, singing the Gruffalo chorus!!!

We're off to London tomorrow visiting and calling in at the VW Ultra Bug Boogie and Porsche Picnic at Reading on the way home - see you Monday!!!

College was fun, I'm doing a Teaching Assistants NVQ with a volunteer placement at my local primary! My first day was yesterday and it was brilliant but I was soooo shattered after - 20 three year olds do that to a grown woman!

In the Garden: I'm planting garlic bulbs .


At Home: I've been baking and sculpting this sponge

into a Porsche 356 - please don't laugh!!!

With the children: Recreating the glistening spider webs we've found on autumnal walks, making glitter spiderwebs; drizzling glue in crazy spider patterns on card then sprinkling with gold glitter

Crafting: Finishing some more bits for jellybelly*jellybrain's campervan swap

Thinking about: Getting P to build me some raised borders in the garden for veggie growing.

Happy Birthday Mia!!!!!!!

Its our cat's birthday, so E suggested a party in the garden :) We did do homemade chocolate sponges with cerise drizzle icing and sprinkles - but - the cats raided the kitchen and ate them all :0
So we had to do with cupcakes and trifle instead...

E insisted on eating hers in the hot rod go kart P made today

I start college tomorrow, I haven't got ANYTHING ready for it at all!

WISH ME LUCK!!!!!

Whoops!

We went on holiday to Dorset (beautiful!) then my eldest was ill :( This was taken on the first day, the rest were gorgeous blue sky days but we were far to busy having fun to take photos!!!!

I've started on a few halloween ideas, some ideas for xmas fayre, a bit of crafting for the camper van swapand a treat or too for the kids!

We always call E our little 'maths genius' so she can officially show it off to the world now with her new badge!!!


Unfortunately its a bit misshapen already - she has a habit of keeping secret treasures in her school shoes during the day and walking on them!! (grrrrrrr!)

What a load of rubbish?

We're taking place in the Zero Waste challenge at the end of September so I've been trying to reuse or recycle stuff to cut down on our waste, card paper, glasses and even tetrapaks are all recycled locally but for the past few weeks I've been thinking about trying to reduce the stuff that gets tossed straight in the bin.

• Used butter tubs (plastic) are being washed and reused instead of tupperwares - which are always in short supply around here.

• Plastic trays (ie. that fruit gets sold in) are being kept for plamnting seedlings in.

• Crisp Packets - We don't eat many but I fell in love with the colours of the new Burt's Crisps packets and have started thinking how I can reuse it? So far I've sewn a few together successfully.....

Now I just need to decide what to make it into!



Nutterbut is heading towards the kitchen tomorrow so I've started on a replacement for him

What do you do when your kids bond with supper

We have two new (hopefully temporary) family members

Nutterbut Gosh ( a squash) and baby butternut ( a melon)
Grr, I hope they let me turn it into a delicious veggie feast and snack by Tuesday!
Homemade Yoghurt

Yay, I've finally got around to trying this out!! I made up 600ml of powdered milk, warmed it until it started foaming at the side of the pan, then poured into a bowl - mixing in 1/2 small tub of natural yoghurt. Covered and placed in a cooling oven (50 deg C then turned off to cool) . Left overnight I was greeted with yoghurt at breakfast time :)

Next thing to try is turning it into soft cheese, later in the week.

Reflections of a week

So many things have changed this week.....

Our camp seemed to bring the summer to a close - we had a fabulous time, beautiful surroundings ( gorgeous grounds, classic cars, vintage finds - the above wash stand was in the shower block!) , great activities ( fishing, cricket, walking), good friends and magical castles. It rained, tipped down and flooded - but only at night, blue skies ruled the days!
Since we've returned its rained non stop, and the UK is flooding again :(



The Children have gone back to school, both loving it! New routines are working great - perfect as I go back to school next week as Volunteer Teaching Assistant and Library help.



We're thinking about going vegetarian. This has totally thrown my meal planner, I need to find lots of good veggie recipes that the kids will enjoy. So far I have veggie Lasagne and Bolognese type thing.

The harvest has begun in the garden, Tonight we have homegrown new potatoes for supper....

I was thinking of signing the kids up for clubs this term ( Rainbows/Beavers etc) Camping the Kids discovered Jazz, and love it! Now I have to find details of Jazz Dance Classes for Evie.

Unfortunately all this means crafting has been non existant this week.

Last Camp of the Summer

We're off again for a few days camping to here taking advantage of the last few days of holiday and trying out the caravan, then its straight into the new term! School Uniforms have been bought and named, PE Bags finished.....