Sunshine on a rainy day

It's been a bit wet here lately so we've been inside a lot! It gets a little wild at times.... Yesterday I came up with a little bit of sticking to make the day more pleasant. First we made a rainbow collage on half a paper plate, then we made suns out of card & glitter & lastly we made fluffy storm clouds! I threaded them altogether when the boys had gone to bed with 3 shiny raindrops on one of the clouds. The boys loved seeing them today & sang 'It's raining it's pouring' for quite a long time after we had hung them up! Lots of fun!

Timmy & Luke spent a few days at my parents house so Jordan & I got organised for when the baby arrives & also painted his ceramic piggy bank that his Godparents bought for his last birthday. He was really pleased with it when it was finished! And unexpectedly, Timmy & Luke's Godparents gave them each a ceramic piggy bank each this week too so everyone is happy! ;O)

So we are as ready as we will be for little baby to arrive now I reckon! The cot is made up, the car seat is washed, the clothes have been sorted & hospital bags have been packed! the boys have enjoyed seeing all their old baby things again & remembering when they were babies too...

And here is our fantastic all singing all dancing Silver Cross pram that we bought for a bargain price on eBay at the beginning of the month! (Photo complete with washing line in the background just for you mum!) the pram is also a carry cot & has a separate stand so we can use it as a cot at night too. Can't wait to start using it! Little baby will be like Lady Davies travelling around in it!!

Hope everyone who reads our blog is well. do post us a comment if you pass by- we love to hear from you!

Anyone for Lemonade?

The boys made real lemonade yesterday! It was SO easy & SO delicious! I'm thinking I should join the WI what with me making pies & lemonade! What do you think Angie???? Anyway, if you want to make lemonade too, here's how to do it....

Put 3 tablespoons of sugar in a jug (one for each boy to do!)
Grate the rind of 3 lemons (again, one for each boy!)
When you've grated them, admire the now white lemons & say 'The lemon is sad! It wants it's yellow back!'
Add rind to sugar & cover with boiling water. Stir to dissolve sugar & leave to infuse for 30 minutes. (Jordan asked me why I wanted to confuse it. That took a bit of explaining!)
Meanwhile, cut lemons in half...

...and have fun squeezing lemon juice into a bowl. (I really must get a juicer!)

After 30 minutes strain the sugar & rind mix, add lemon juice & top up with water to taste.

Put ice cubes in a jug & pour lemonade over it carefully.

Sit in sunny garden & enjoy your very own delicious lemonade! Yummy!

Allotment!

Yesterday we went blackberrying at our friend's allotment! It was brilliant fun & something new that we'd never done together. Timmy & Luke were pleased to spend time with their friend Jonah....
...and they all loved seeing baby Elijah. In fact Jordan was quite distracted from picking the blackberries because he had to keep seeing if Elijah was ok!

We spent some time on Gill's allotment too. The boys loved digging...

...filling up the watering can...

...watering the plants...

...and making their wellies 'all chocolaty'!!!!!!

Jonah spent most of his time at the allotment picking peas & eating them straight away which Jordan joined in with too. I must say, they were delicious! Jordan helped Gill pick runner beans which we had for our tea last night. Yummy!

And all the while baby Elijah sat in the sun playing with his toys. Isn't he sweet?

Gill brought us some Bramley apples from their garden & with the blackberries we had picked in the morning I made a blackberry & apple pie for our tea! I've never made a fruit pie before so I thought it would be fun to try. It wouldn't have won any prizes with the Women's Institute but it tasted delicious! I was really pleased as Jordan LOVED it & had seconds (with custard too)! He can be a bit fussy over sweet foods so I was really expecting him to take a mouthful & say he'd had enough.

Gill picked me a huge bunch of sunflowers from her allotment too which was lovely! I felt a bit spoilt to have such a lot of home grown produce & for free too! So thankyou Gill for a lovely morning. ;O)

Helen's 30th Birthday!

My little sister Helen turned 30 on 17th August! We were invited to a children's birthday party at our parent's house. Jordan, Timmy & Luke were VERY excited to be going to a party & talked about it lots! We pretended that we couldn't stretch to making Helen a birthday cake & put 30 candles on a shop bought cake. The packet of candles stated that they should be placed 2 inches apart- can you imagine the size of cake required to do that with 30 candles????? After lunch we began the festivities & played loads of party games including Kim's Game, Parcel Parcel (what the boys call pass the parcel!), hunt the pegs, treasure hunts, team games & more! The winners got stars on their chart which Jordan loved! There was much hilarity playing the fill the jug up with water team game & a little bit of cheating by Helen & Lee! They got a bit wet too!!!

At tea time there was a traditional kids birthday tea with sandwiches, fairy cakes, jelly & blamanche. This rabbit jelly proved to be very popular with the boys! (Jordan has only recently begun to eat jelly by the way!)

We played pin the tail on the Radley dog after tea. Helen collects Radley handbags you see! There was a little bit of cheating going on in this game too if you look at the photos carefully! Tsk! Tsk!

At the end of the game we turned Radley Dog into Radley Rhino! He looks good don't you think??!

Jordan won the BIG prize for winning the most party games. He was very pleased with himself! He chose a little yellow smiley popping up toy which has kept him entertained for ages!

I just happened to find this photo the day before Helen's birthday from way back in 1991, taken on Helen's 14th birthday. I made her this teddy bear birthday cake.....

...and now in 2007 I made her a monster cake as a surprise! Actually, Jordan, Timmy & Luke made the madeira cake & then I iced it. I was quite impressed that we managed to make a 'proper' cake altogether as we usually do the all-in-one method of making sponge cake where everything goes in higgledy piggeldy! The boys loved cracking the eggs open & sifting in the flour. It was quite a successful bake!

The boys couldn't wait to eat the monsters & did really well keeping it a secret from Helen all day. As I went out to get the cake from the living room Timmy couldn't contain himself any more & said 'I want to eat the monster cake!' It tasted delicious & went down very well. Luke ate all the icing first before demolishing the cake!

Uncle Ian had so much fun at the party that he has decided that he'd like a kid's party for his 30th birthday too!!

As the day drew to a close, the boys had their baths & got into their pyjamas. Lee read them a bedtime story before we drove back home. It was a very enjoyable day! Happy 30th Birthday Helen!

EDIT: Ok everyone, those monsters were made for eating! They were more than happy to fulfil their destiny & be eaten so don't be sad for them! LOL!!

Train Mad!

At the beginning of August we took a trip to the National Railway Museum in York. We were picking up a pram from Bradford that we had bought on eBay (it's a REALLY great pram if you are thinking we are mad to go so far to get it!) so thought it would be fun to carry on the few miles to York & make a day of it that the boys would love. And love it they did!!
With each train they saw, whether it was a life size one, a Thomas toy or a model train, they got very animated & talked louder & faster! It was great that they loved being in the museum so much but their enthusiasm was exhausting! ;O) Luke went round the museum making train noises pretending to be a train too!
The highlights were seeing The Rocket train, which they know comes from Liverpool & was first tested on the Liverpool-Manchester Railway which begins by their school (the area is called The Rocket actually!) and also...

...going on Shinkensen, the Japanese Bullet train. You can sit inside the train & watch a video all about what it's like to go on the real Bullet in Japan. We had to visit the Bullet train several times & watch the video twice at each visit!!!!!! All in all the trip was a great success & one we will definitely be making again in the future. You can't beat a day out that is fun & free (except for getting there) now can you??

And here is a piccie just for my mum! Have you seen it before?????

Ladybird Ladybird Ladybird!

The boys made their favourite ladybird cakes last Thursday! We make ordinary fairy cakes then decorate them like this....
We made some red butter icing to cover the cakes with then rolled out a small amount of black regal icing. Jordan did a great job at doing this! (I love how Bob the Tomato's eyes are peering over the table from Jordan's t-shirt at the icing!)
Next we cut the black icing into circles & cut each circle in half. We put a sammy circle (what the twins call semi-circles!) on the edge of the cake as the ladybird's head!
Using writing icing we drew a line down the middle of the ladybird to make the wing casings & then added chocolate buttons remembering to eat a few as we went along!!!!!!
Lastly the boys made little white eyes from more icing, used a black food colouring pen to add pupils & then used a very small circle cutter to make a smiling mouth!
And this is the finished result (click on the photo to see it better)! Each of the boys made 5 ladybirds each. Jordan pretty much did the whole lot of decorating himself which he loved! Timmy & Luke needed a little more guidance but were really into creating the ladybirds. The boys enjoyed looking at all the different expressions their ladybirds had but most of all they LOVED eating them! They were YUMMY! ;O)