Bath Bombs

One of Stephanie's birthday gifts was a bath bomb making kit. The kit has everything that you need to make the bath bombs included. 

Starting to measure out the ingredients. Looking very scientific.

A few drops of water.

Quick drop of colouring.

Mix it all together.

Scoop it into the mould, use the special squashing tool to pack it down tight.

Fill to the top. Then ease of the mould.

A perfect bath bomb. 

PS This is the quickest way to get a child to go for a bath- well she was dying to try out her fresh bath bomb! LOL

Bucket list

Stephanie asked to go and see Matilda as one of her birthday presents. So I booked up two tickets and on Friday after school we headed off together on the train to London.

We made our train with seconds to spare- we would still have had time to get there on the next train had we missed it, but it was nice not to have to wait around.

I told Stephanie she could have anything she wanted for dinner as part of her birthday treat. This was her choice;

From here we headed to the tube station to find our way to Covent Garden, the show is at the Cambridge Theatre near there. We used the maps app on my phone to find the theatre- Stephanie was very impressed by this! LOL

Once we had found the theatre we wandered around for a while as we had time to spare, watching people and looking at many of the buildings. It was soon time to wander back to the theatre. 

I treated Stephanie to a slush drink and she spent some of her birthday money on a cop y of the book and a bookmark. We sat in the bar area awaiting the doors to open nattering and then reading her book.

Soon it was time to take our seats. We were very high up! As you can see I had an exceptionally tall man in front of me which made it tricky to see, I had to keep leaning one way and then the other to see what was happening and could only really see half of the stage at a time. However, I still really enjoyed the show. Even though I know the story very well- I read it lots as a child and desperately tried to move things with my eyes I was still left with a sense of oh my goodness what's going to happen next throughout!

When the show finished Stephanie and I agreed it was amazing and we would definitely  recommend to others. Although Stephanie has asked if we go to that theatre again could we please have front row seats as she had to sit on two booster cushions to be able to see. LOL

Once we came out of the building we saw lots of these;

I asked how much to take us to a tube station and was told £10. I decided to go for it as dinner had cost less than I had expected due to Stephanie's choice and I had only spent a small amount in the theatre. It was fantastic. Stephanie was like a little princess. Well that is until a black cab cut us up and then started to shout at our driver. Our driver was fantastic and said I have a child in the back please take care I am not arguing with you. Still the cab driver continued to shout (we were at traffic lights). My driver reiterated he had a child and was not going to argue. He turned his back and checked that Stephanie and I were ok. To my utter disbelief the cab driver started to then shout at me "what the **** are you doing in that anyway I means what's the point etc etc" I said "because I have a sense of fun and would rather give my money to someone with manners". then turned away thank fully the lights finally changed and we went our separate ways. 

Stephanie promptly said "was he one of the mean people you say live in the world mummy?" I assured her that sometimes people say mean things when they have a bad day but we mustn't let his bad day affect our fantastic one. I thanked our driver for the ride and assured him we were fine by the encounter and appreciated his way of dealing with it and disappeared down into the busyness of the tube station to find our train home.

A selfie as we travelled through London in our bike taxi.

A fantastic evening and another item off of the bucket list!

A birthday treat

Wednesday was my little princess' 9th birthday- time really does fly!

We had a fantastic meal out as a family, my sister and her hubby and three children came too. We went to a local pub which is a ten minute drive away. I drive past it everyday on my way to work but I have never been in. It was Fab!

I didn't book a table before we went (I forgot!). There were 8 of us and staff said no problem, give me a moment and I'll set one up for you he got us some drinks for while he did this. A tab was set up so we could just order all drinks and pay when we were ready. When it came to ordering the food the young lad again was very helpful, the children could have a smaller version of any of the adult meals or they could do chicken nuggets. My niece opted for a creamy mushroom pasta, Stephanie and my nephews chose the nuggets. Dylan had a curry and I had slow roasted minted leg of lamb. When the food came out I was shocked- the children's portions were what i would have served as an adult portion. Mine was a whole 1/2 shoulder of lamb- I'd just expected some! The children's meals came with peas, but they wanted carrots broccoli etc too. This was no problem either, the staff just put bowls of different vegetables on the table for children to help themselves from. I didn't photograph any of the food- we just tucked straight in. It was delicious. I didn't clear my plate as much as I wanted to I just couldn't fit it in. We waited a while then the children asked for desserts. Again staff were accommodating of the children- Stephanie wanted chocolate cake which came with a choice of ice cream, custard or cream. When I queried which cream it was the young man said it would be no problem to change the double cream to squirty  cream that she wanted. Again when the portions came out the children's desserts were adult sized and delicious.

 A playful break between courses. We had a corner of the eating area to ourselves so we allowed the children to play calmly by the table as we weren't impacting on anyone elses meals etc. This was encouraged by the staff, who joked along with the children.

That glass dish above is the children's ice cream dessert, almost all eaten.

When we arrived the staff put the cake I had bought with me into the kitchen. Once we had finished eating they brought it out. With all candles lit. We were sat near to the kitchen, but they must have 2 entrances as they came out in a different place so they walked all through the pub with the candles lit. All of the staff joined in singing happy birthday- as did all of the other customers. Stephanie was made up!

After we had paid the bill we went outside. The pub are in the process of setting up a mini zoo. They have some animals, but discussion with the staff informed us that they are intending to get more including; ponies, and monkeys. We saw some of the animals, however there are lots more enclosures we couldn't access as staff were working on the meerkats enclosure ready for their arrival this weekend. We will definitely be going back soon. I could see us easily sitting in the garden enjoying the animals. 

Of course my water baby spotted water before me and jumped straight in. Again staff were fab and we happy for children to play for a few minutes before we bundled them dripping get into the car. In our case home with blowers on full heat and straight in the shower. Good job it is so close to home!

Where have the holidays gone?

Wow the holidays seem to have marched by in haste! I feel very relaxed and have enjoyed our time off but it is over too quickly.

I have been thinking lots today about how much we have crammed into the last two weeks. Here are some of the pictures I have taken to give you a little glimpse;

Robot building

 playing with new cousins

 Residing in a hotel before a BIG race

gardening

Enjoying the sun

baking

Wildlife watching

Flowers for my mum's birthday

Simple food

Family walks

Tree climbing

Water fun

Easter egg hunting

Clue finding

All together- MEMORY MAKING!!

Back to school tomorrow to recharge our batteries, not long until the bank holiday weekend, 5 weeks until the next half term. In those 5 weeks we have lots of learning to do, birthdays to be had, exams to be taken. How did my babies get so big, so fast?!

Little Cook

This evening Stephanie took charge of dinner. she decided that she was going to make pasta salad with salmon.

 Chopped salad from the fridge 

Pasta on the hob, and salmon.

 That done she heads up the garden to see what can be found, and comes back with her bowl full. That little lot washed and spun and dinner is ready. This is the part where I confess to tucking in and taking no more photographs! Imagine it all put onto a plate. It was delish!
 I love that she was able to go to the garden and collect some of the dinner. Hopefully in  few short weeks even more food will come from the garden. It's looking all green and full of promise out there currently.

Garden birds

I have been amazed since we moved here by the amount of birds that visit our garden. Loads come daily and hop about the floor. It is fantastic to sit in the garden it is so peaceful and all you can hear is the birds cheep cheeping at each other. Yesterday my neighbours very kindly gave us some of their excess bird feeders and a little food to put in some of them. Stephanie helped me to hang up those with food in our trees straight away.

I've been pottering about in the dining room for an hour or so this morning, the feeders haven't yet been used that I am aware of. I have seen lots of birds hopping about the floor feeding on whatever they find in the grass. I have seen lots of dunnocks, collared doves and starlings. I am not goin ot pretend to be knowledgeable about this. The lovely neighbours also gave us a book to help with identification.

I've been putting this to good use!

I still have these feeders to fill up, 

When I go shopping next I will buy some more food and see if I can identify more of the birds which come visiting.

Mummy Friends

I came across this clip when i first woke up this morning it's all about parenting, how we can all have strong beliefs on how to best parent our children and that we all do it differently. The idea is that no matter the differences we all want the same- the best for our children. Little did I know that my lazy day at home  would result in having 2 extra little people today. I got a text- whilst watching the video from a  friend whose childcare fell through is there any chance I could step in. No prob was the answer. Being a parent and juggling everything is tough. I'm home and new Stephanie would love the company- it's one of her best friends at school. We had an easy morning playing and pottering. Then while we were eating lunch my sister in law called, without going into too much detail she's having a rough time personally at the moment could I please have her eldest overnight. Once we had eaten we headed over to collect him as  she doesn't drive. When I got there I found her in a completely overwhelmed state. "Where's your black sacks I asked?" Confused she went to get them, I bundled up the washing which was built up everywhere and loaded it into the car. I'll bring it back clean and dry I promised. Floor now cleared we could get into the kitchen. the children went out together to play for a while. Whilst we had a drink, a chat and a few tears were shed. Plan hatched to get things sorted I headed home with a car full of children and boot of washing. 

This little love is working overtime;

Tomorrow I will return her child and the 4 sacks of washing. See how she got on with her jobs for today and determine the next few things we need to address to get her sorted. We will soon have things straight for her. 

Not the day we had planned, but very much the day that is needed.

Garden update

It's all beginning to look rather green and busy in the garden. Remember when it looked like this when I moved in?

It now looks like this:

Peas and radishes sharing a bed

red and white onions

Cabbages

just planted carrot seeds

There is also a picture of another 2 beds- one I have divided up into nine to make smaller beds, with mixed salad, and spinach in. I am going to plant more cut and come again type veggies in there too to fill up the empty sections and the final bed will have French beans in it once I have planted them. I love the planted beds which i made all they cost in the end was a packet of screws and a £5 pot of wood treatment to help them to last longer.

I also love how the flowers have just sprung up across the grass, it looks very pretty. I had to be very careful when cutting the grass as I didn't ant to cut the flowers I did loose a few but the majority survived.

The view as I sit here typing:

It's glorious and all I can hear are the birds singing all day long. I love our new home :-)