No, I haven’t gone mad – yet. Choo choo is all I hear ALL. DAY. LONG. I’m not sure when it happened but my son is obsessed with trains. It’s the one constant in our day. He may not want breakfast, he may fight a nappy change, he might not let me wipe his runny nose, but we will play trains. We were lucky to be given a Brio train set last year. We weren’t sure when he would be ready for it so saved it until the summer. He understood it straight away and none of us ever looked…
-
-
I know how much my son loves getting messy so thought we would break out the paints for St Patrick (in honour of our Irish heritage). We cut an ordinary green pepper in half and dipped it in some green paint. Sounds simple but somehow we ended up breaking the plate – oops! Then the toddler was let loose, creating pretty shamrocks over sheet of paper. Four-leafed clover anyone? Our version of the shamrock, symbol of Ireland and associated with St Patrick.
-
Today wasn’t just Mother’s Day but also Big Brother’s 2nd birthday. We had piles of presents (far too many!), a birthday outing to the RAF Museum at Hendon, our handmade birthday card was read out on cBeebies and we made and ate a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake. Happy Birthday to my darling son! I can’t believe you’re 2 years old today. It feels like you’ve always been in our life, like I’ve always been your mum. You make my heart feel like it will burst from my chest. You make me cry with tears of frustration and happiness.…
-
I love making personalised cards. We made our own wedding stationery, Christmas cards and announcement cards when both children were born. This year we wanted to make a ‘thank you for our Christmas card’ featuring both their hand prints so got out the paints… We knew Big Brother had a limited attention span so got everything ready to make it as simple as possible. We bought ready made blank cards, envelopes and pots of paint. We put a dollop of paint on an old plate and used a sponge to paint on his hand, then put his hand firmly on…
-
I really want to encourage Big Brother to be crafty and get over my fear of mess by planning a couple of messy craft sessions a week. Today we made our own Valentine Day cards with some help from a potato. First I cut a potato in half and cut a heart into one half using a cookie cutter. I put a generous dollop of red paint onto an old plate and let BB have a go at printing heart shapes on a piece of paper which he loved. Then I folded a piece of A4 paper in half and…
-
It’s been a while since I last joined in with Reasons the be cheerful (a weekly meme hosted by Michelle). Little Sis is now 6 weeks old and we all love her to pieces. She has fitted right in to our family and it’s difficult to believe she hasn’t always been here. She’s also starting to smile (not wind related – honest) which makes all those night feeds worthwhile. Having a young family is incredibly hard work but the hubby and I are beginning to have a bit of time together each evening to remember who we are, why we…
-
As a busy mum of two I am happy to cut corners where possible. I love anything that saves me time so loved the look of a gingerbread dough block which I came across in Sainsbury’s recently. At £2 for a 350g block it is quite expensive but great to keep in the fridge if you have unexpected guests coming round and need to whip up some biscuits without getting your hands dirty! You need to keep the dough in the fridge and remove 30 minutes before you want to start baking. It’s quite a heavy dough and was quite…
-
Big Brother is turning into a typical boy and loves anything with wheels. His absolute favourite programme is Chuggington which he would watch pretty much all day if I let him. Before Christmas he had a couple of Chuggington books, engines and a board book which he loved. They’re all well-loved and splattered in food (before I introduced a ban on toys at the table!). We knew what to get him for Christmas although I think we may have gone slightly overboard. It was all a bit Chugtastic and I only hope he doesn’t fall out of love with it…
-
My changing bag isn’t working for me. Not when I need another couple of bags to simply leave the house. Today we decided to go on a family shopping trip to Westfield Stratford, the super duper new shopping centre next to the Olympic site. I’m gradually getting used to getting us all out of the door but find I take a silly amount of ‘stuff’ with us. First up there’s my faithful old Orla Kiely changing bag, stuffed full of old receipts, my wallet, phone, packs of tissues and broken pencils. The only useful thing it actually contains are numerous…