Hedgehogs and Fruit

TODAY - well where do I start ... this morning I was rudely awoken by the day break! Getting up I braved a lovely hot shower and a vitamin drink! After the couple small pleasures of the day it was time to tackle more laundry, putting away all the boys things and managing my own, hubby's and some of the girls' clothes I realised it was almost 10am. My cleaner arrived to help me with my housework, ooohhh I do love my cleaner friend. She is a friend too but her job is a cleaner and she does mine woohoo happy dance. Afterwards we do get to sit down to a cup of tea and a gossip.

This is my princess Sol, when she hears the presenters on the radio talking about "the summer".


My shopping arrived this morning as scheduled so I spent the remaining part of the morning sorting groceries out and making space in the freezer. Lunch time brought on a sudden urge to make hedge hog buns with Ellis.

RECIPE

Ingredients
24 fairy cakes chocolate or plain
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
hot water
125g margarine
250g icing sugar
chocolate sticks like match makers
silver ball decorations
chocolate sugar strands
jelly tots or something similar size eg smarties, cherries

Instructions
cream the margarine until pale
Mix the cocoa powder with half a tablespoon of hot water, adding more if need be to make it into a paste.
Mix cocoa powder mix with the margarine, then add the icing sugar. Beat until mixed.

turn the 24 fairy cakes upside down on a baking tray - make sure the paper cases are removed of course otherwise this wont work.

cover the fairy cakes in the chocolate frosting - I just dipped mine in, but if they are too fresh they might crumble.

dip or sprinkle each frosted fairy cake with chocolate strands.

add silver ball eyes, jelly tot nose and broken up chocolate sticks as spikes.

here is our efforts - despite how these look they are fun to make and delicious to eat.



I did offer to take my cleaner friend home later in the afternoon and discovered yet again the car would not start. As luck would have it I had parked the other car in front of it last night so we were able to jump start it. This happens a lot and its pretty annoying when you want to go somewhere and you have to jump start your car.... so off I went to the garage leaving Roy in charge of two children and one came with me (the other one is still at camp). The man at the garage tested the battery and it is fine. As the problem is intermittent there was nothing more he could do for me at that moment, I have to wait till it wont start and call him out to the house. This is the point where I am banging my head on the wall. As the only time I know it wont start is when I get in the car to go somewhere, and the only time I get in the car is when I AM going somewhere which means I will have to drop everything one day and wait for a mechanic. Similarly if Roy is using this car, which sometimes he does as its a 'bus' then he will have to drop all instead of working to wait for the mechanic to come and rescue him. Its a pain!


On a more fruity note - we were out in the garden this evening and noticed our fruit trees are bearing fruit. Last year we had 16 apples, and our neighbour's little girl came in and picked them all while they were still small so we did not get any fruit! This year she has been warned - and the trees are a little bigger. We have loads of apples on two of the trees, some plums on another, and the cherry tree well it is pathetic and has nothing at all so far. We also have raspberries by the dozen and one single solitary strawberry, well we had three strawberries but Toni ate two!

The Boat Race

Yesterday, and I am saying yesterday ... I had great intentions of blogging last night and it wasn't to be. I spent the morning doing housework, laundry and sorting stuff out. It took me ages, and I think back to when it was just Mag and I ... hhhmmmm I used to get our ironing done in half an hour LOL. I even managed to organise a competition between the little ones - who can pair up the most pairs of socks. This was funny and they had a little wager amongst them selves, they managed 12 pairs each until they realised that mummy was probably conning them and went away to do their own thing.

Anyways the day wore on so I thought I oughta do something slightly educational and constructive with the children - We joined the Woodland Trust Nature Detectives weekly projects last year - I think it was something like £20 for all the children and that includes mailings, stickers, charts, and weekly topics on the Internet. We spent the afternoon doing the activity sheets that we had missed the last few weeks and coloured a few of the print off sheets. It was nice for us to sit round the table after being busy the last few days.

After tea we decided to take the children for a walk into he village. Roy had noticed earlier in the day some marker buoys set up in the water and had suspected there was something going on. As luck would have it when we got down the sea front there was a boat race on - the boats at this stage were close to the shore. Of all nights I fail to take my camera with me it just had to be this one as it was so picturesque. The race officials were standing around and called over to us to cover our ears - they sounded a loud horn to start the race. And true to form Seb went over to them to enquire what all the noise was about, they explained and he was captivated. The officials then asked Seb if he would like to sound the next horn which was the five minute mark. They unhooked the switches and brought them down to his level, when it came to the time he got a count down and he pushed the button to sound the 5-minute boat race horn. Seb was just the happiest boy on earth at that moment and I was thrilled for him too. Its such small things in life that make children happy, and getting to push a button made my son's day.

Then last night I went on line and picked up a cheap as chips printer from Tesco dot com just to keep in the dining room - saves us running up the stairs to the big printer every time we want to print something off. We have been looking at the wireless printers, and quite fancy the lexmark one that is an all singing and all dancing job but we are going to wait a bit till we get downstairs all decorated - I just don't have a designated surface for it just now, and there is no way Roy is gonna get to keep it in his office .... hmmm I might find a spot in my craft room but even then that's risky. The £14 tesco printer will probably get stuffed in a cupboard while not in use so will do its job for now.

He's Off

Mag that is ... Number one son is off to summer camp for a week.

I will miss him, I always do and the day before him going he had a few moments where he thought he would not be able to leave me either.

It was a long day, we headed off at about half past 11 and stopped on the way to feed the children. it was a cold wet afternoon but the journey was okay despite this. I hope he hasn't forgotten anything LOL I should stop worrying about him. We did the scenic route on the way home and was tempted to call in on some friends on the way home - but when it came to near the time the kids were all over tired.

As agreed with our neighbours we were having their two little girls in for a sleepover when we got home. The neighbours were having a few friends around and I thought it would be nice to offer to take their children. The neighbour's two girls are age 5 & 3, they are sweet girls but the eldest can get a bit 'active' at times so she keeps you on your toes. Between the hours of 7pm and 11pm the house was bedlam - talk about musical beds. I ended up with one child who wasn't even my own sleeping in my arms on the sofa, Sol was in her own room, the others well ....... Toni, Seb and the eldest girl bedded down in Mag's room! When we eventually got everyone in bed and sleeping after 11 and we were exhausted.

The children did not wake till seven this morning which I was quite happy about. Breakfast went smoothly and that gave them bags of energy so they could drag all the toys from the TV room into my dining room! The place was T-R-A-S-H-E-D! I don't mind though it makes for an interesting life.

Toni

VISIT TO THE ARK - 18th june 2008

We went to the Ark farm, I had taken along one of my neighbours children also. The trip was organised by playgroup but we stayed on at the farm for a while after everyone had left - making the most of our tickets when the place was quiet.

At first Sol was nervous of some of the animals, but as the day progressed she came to like them all. she was particularly fond of the little chicks and got to hold one a couple of times to her delight.

The funny point of the day was lunch time when we got our picnic lunches out. the little girl who came with us had her own packed lunch, so I opened it and popped her sandwiches down in front of her. Then I had to do a double take - she was eating dry bread! further investigations lead me to a tin of vegetable soup in her picnic bag - DOH! thankfully we had enough for her to eat too. Story goes - mum was making the lunches and dad said "already done" so mum abandoned making the sandwiches trusting that the dad has it all in hand. I don't think he will ever live the day down when he sent his 3 year old on a picnic with a tin of soup.

here are the photos - well a couple of them ...

Seb, he is a bit nervous of the bunny.


Me - and Sol!


Sol at the farm park


Toni & Mag


An Alpaca




Hannah the girl from next door and Toni.

Dizzy Sol at The Ark Farm

Tally Ho (fathers day)

Fathers day started off with the whispers outside the bedroom door. The children had made a huge plate of toast with jam for Roy and some tea. To be perfectly honest I think it was jam with a little bit of toast stuck under it, and the teabag must have waved across the top of the cup too BUT you cant blame the children for making a real special effort. Soon the gifts were done and we had a debate on where to go for the day...

We plumped for Ward Park which is a bird park with lots of greenery and water flowing through. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Park There are also tennis courts, and other sports areas joined to the park too.

We parked at the sports end of the park, as we had Toni's bike in the car. We took off her stabilisers and gave her a bucket full of encouragement, after a few wobbly attempts Toni mastered the art of balancing on her bike. this was probably the best fathers day gift of all for Roy, he was as pleased as punch that he had taught his daughter how to ride on two wheels.













This is Mag "twittering" about the event -as you can see he was terribly excited!