A walk to the river

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We are in the Cotswolds again this week, and enjoying spending time outdoors in the sunshine, but I’m behind as usual so this post is about a walk we went on last week! We set off through the village and past the church, stopping for a while to let the children play in the long grass in a field next to the church yard.

We then walked down towards the railway line…

…and stopped to watch some trains and have a snack.

We walked on through a field full of buttercups and down to the river.

The children played poohsticks and Rabbit found a four leaf clover.

We were going to go further, but it was so hot that our two bottles of water were obviously not going to be enough, so we turned back.

We stopped at the playground, where Owl read his book in the shade while the others played.

Scary Dinosaurs and Sleepy Animals

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At BritMums Live, I was very happy to have the chance to sign up to be a Parragon Book buddy, and to receive my first two books to review.

The first book is Things You Never Knew About Dinosaurs by Giles Paley-Phillips

It is a bright and colourful picture book, appealing to toddlers and young children. When I showed the book to Tiddler, he said “I don’t like dinosaurs eating me” which made me wonder if he had had a sneaky look at the end of the story. I don’t think he can read, but as he is the fourth child it’s entirely possible that he could have learnt to do it without me noticing!

The story starts with a question. “Did you know that dinosaurs are still around today? They didn’t die off long ago, They never went away.” It then continues with what the dinosaurs are getting up to, for example playing tennis, riding bikes and bouncing on trampolines. The rhyming text is quite fun to read aloud, though in some places it doesn’t quite scan which I find a bit annoying.

The idea that dinosaurs are alive today is a good starting point to the story and some of the things they do are quite funny. I rather like “Dinosaurs love to play guitar, to stomp their feet and sing. They love to waltz and cha cha cha and do the Highland fling.” I’m not so keen on the part about things they “really HATE” (a word I am trying to teach my children not to use, or at least not to overuse) and in particular the line “Dinosaurs don’t like doing math…” (note this is the US edition. The UK text edition will be out in August.) It’s not very helpful to have a children’s book that reinforces the idea that Maths is something to dislike.

There are more things that dinosaurs like doing, such as going up in space, sailing the seven seas and trekking from pole to pole. However, the story ends with the thing that dinosaurs like most of all which is “eating kids like…YOU!” When I read the book to each of the children, they all had the same slightly worried look on their faces, and I don’t think any of them liked the ending very much.

They do like dinosaurs though, and they liked the illustrations. After listening to the story and looking at the pictures, Rabbit drew a dinosaur picture of her own.

She then set up a dinosaur scene.

The second book is Goodnight Little One by Margaret Wise Brown.

When I showed this book to Tiddler, after reading the dinosaur one to him, he said “I like donkeys because they don’t eat me!” It is a simple and gentle bedtime story, with a well-written rhyming text, perfect for reading aloud.

One by one, animals and children settle down and go to sleep, and it is easy to read in a soporific voice at bedtime. It starts with the donkey. “Little donkey on the hill, Standing there so very still. Making faces at the skies, Little donkey close your eyes.” Tiddler really likes this bit, and also the part about the cat. “Old black cat down in the barn, keeping five small kittens warm. Let the wind blow in the skies, Dear old black cat close your eyes.”

And it finishes with a child at bedtime. “Little child all tucked in bed, Looking such a sleepy head. Stars are quiet in the skies, Little child now close your eyes.”

All the children liked this story, and enjoyed the illustrations. Monkey drew a picture of a donkey like the one on the cover of the book.

Rabbit drew a picture of a house, with a child in bed inside it.

She also drew a donkey picture and a star, and then she and Monkey made a bed for some of their soft toys and tucked them in.

I asked the children what they thought of both the books.

Me: Do you like the dinosaur book?
Rabbit: A bit.
Me: And the goodnight book?
Rabbit: Yes. It’s a bit night-time-ish.
Me: Which do you like best?
Rabbit: The night time one.

Me: What do you think about the dinosaur book?
Monkey: Odd.
Me: And the goodnight one?
Monkey: Nice. I like the night time one best.

The conversations I had with Owl and Tiddler were similar. Owl said that the dinosaur book was “quite good” but the night time book was “good” and he liked it best. Tiddler also said the goodnight book was his favourite.

Thank you very much, Parragon, for giving us the books to review. We enjoyed them both, but “Goodnight Little One” was a clear winner for us!

Silent Sunday

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The Village Green

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We are staying with Granny this week. There are lots of good things about that, but one of them is being in a beautiful village in the Cotswolds. So on Tuesday afternoon, after a reasonably productive morning’s work, we went out to the village green to burn off some energy. The children played on the swings and roundabout, Monkey made a collection of feathers and leaves and Rabbit climbed a tree.

Then Granny persuaded all the children to run round the green and touch all the trees. This was a stroke of grandparenting genius, as it can be quite hard to get the big ones to run around so although they get plenty of fresh air they don’t always get enough exercise. We found out there are twenty trees on the green!

On the way home, Owl and Monkey wanted to take some pictures of the flowers outside the houses. I taught them what I know about photography, which took about ten seconds. Think about the angle. Think about the light. And don’t take photos through people’s windows 🙂

And we took some photos of the cows too. They seemed quite happy to pose.

BritMums Live 2013

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On Friday and Saturday I had an amazing two days at BritMums Live.

It was brilliant being in a roomful of so many inspiring women, I enjoyed the talks and panel sessions and learnt some useful things. I also enjoyed meeting and chatting to some of the representatives of the various brands that were there. I was particularly pleased to talk to the Butlins team (application form is in – yay!) and Parragon books (review to follow.)

Friday’s highlight for me was the panel session about New Feminism. It was inspiring to hear all the women on the panel giving their perspectives about Feminism, and I was particularly impressed by Sonya who said (apologies for the paraphrase) “Feminism is about choice. We need to work together and not fight amongst ourselves. You can be a feminist and a SAHM.” It was good to hear that said aloud, to be honest. It’s easy to keep quiet about being a feminist if you have chosen to stay at home with your children, in case you get shouted down, when really it’s obvious that if we replace one set of obligations (to stay at home entirely) with another (to work full-time and put children in childcare from a young age) then we are no closer to freedom or equality than we ever were. I also loved the comment from Melaina (again it’s a paraphrase) that it’s okay to love pink and glitter as long as we don’t say girls should wear pink and boys must not.

The BiB awards party on Friday evening was great fun. I enjoyed the bubbly and the conversations, especially with Sonya and Jo. Oh, and I took a picture of my Mia Tui bag just because I love it, and also because it was the BEST conference bag, with room for so much stuff, and enough separate compartments that I didn’t lose anything so it made me feel really organised!

After the party, I went out for dinner at the Chiswell Street Dining Rooms – thank you Monika for getting the group together and booking it . What a fantastic meal!

Saturday morning passed in a bit of a blur because I was so tired. I enjoyed chatting to Heather from Twinkl, Lauren and others about home education. But after that, and despite a lot of tea and coffee, I was definitely flagging. I reached a point, at a little after midday, when I was missing the children so much that I really wanted to go home. Luckily at that point I ran into Jennie, and we found a comfortable place to sit and gather our strength to be ready for the rest of the day. After a delicious lunch, and some more time to chat, I felt revived and able to enjoy the afternoon sessions which I was really looking forward to, and I was not disappointed. I loved the session on blogging with heart, for support, and was in tears within the first minute. That was pretty much how it carried on, and I got through a lot of tissues, but left the session feeling inspired and uplifted by the lovely bloggers who shared their stories, and showed how supportive the blogging community can be. I then went to the Pinterest session, which I knew would be good as I’d heard Maggie talk about Google + at Cybher, and she made it all seem very clear. Maggie, I am going to try and get better about using both of them, I promise!

I met so many interesting and friendly people, and had such a wonderful time. The final session, with bloggers reading keynote posts was an emotional end to the day. The highlight for me was Merry’s post Remembering Matilda Mae. Merry, I missed you and wished very much that you were there so I could give you a hug, but Susanne and Heather read your post so beautifully. Three lovely people coming together to support Jennie; another example of the power of the blogging community. I’m proud to be a part of it. Thank you Brit Mums for organising such a brilliant event, and I can’t wait to do it all again next year.

Nonsuch Park Run

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On Saturday morning, Owl, Monkey and I went for a run in Nonsuch Park.

We joined in with the official park run for the second time, along with some friends from our church. We didn’t run the whole course, and in fact there was a lot more walking than running as Monkey wasn’t quite in the right mood this time. I was very proud of the boys for giving it a go though, and I hope we will be able to do it together again.

After the run, we had to wait for an hour till daddy could collect us, because he had taken Rabbit and Tiddler to Dramabuds. The boys were not very pleased at having to wait, and it took some time for me to persuade them that a walk in the park was a good idea, but then they found a den with a really good climbing tree inside. So they did accidentally have fun in the end!

Water play with Baby and Bears

Meal Planning Monday

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This week is going to be busy, and I will be at BritMums on Friday and Saturday, so I am trying to prevent everything descending into chaos by being really organised. That’s the theory anyway! Things always go better when we make a meal plan, and we use all the contents of our veg box without having to make soup on Thursday night, also known as veg box eve! Nothing wrong with making soup, but making it in the middle of the night is a bit crazy. I have made a meal plan for the week and Suburban dad has done a big shop, though there will be inevitable trips out to pick up things we have forgotten (somehow fruit juice didn’t make it to the list), bread from the baker’s and meat from the butcher’s at the weekend.

Breakfasts will be cereal, fruit and yoghurt, as we won’t have time for anything more complicated. Lunch today will be at Granny’s house, and the rest of the weekday lunches will be bread, cheese, ham, salad, etc. This is the plan for the evening meals :

Monday – Spaghetti Bolognese (with Quorn mince), grated cheese and salad.
The big boys have got a friend coming round for supper and I have checked that he likes it. I quite often do it when we have friends round, as it is easy and popular.

Tuesday – salmon fillets, new potatoes, peas, broccoli, greens.
The greens are from the veg box, we have some frozen peas already and I added broccoli to the shopping list because everybody likes it.

Wednesday – Quorn chicken, peppers, mushrooms and rice.
I think we will probably have our friends from 3 Kids and a Gluestick round for tea before Rainbows and Beavers, so I’m hoping this will suit all seven children. I will cook everything separately for the kids, and save some for us to have later with some kind of sauce, probably tomato-based and spicy. I usually eat with the children, but not on Wednesdays as they have to eat at 4.30pm, and also because I will be weighing in at Rosemary Conley in the evening so I prefer to eat afterwards!

Thursday – pasta and pesto, ratatouille, grated cheese and cottage cheese.
I will make the ratatouille in advance and offer Owl the opportunity to prepare the pasta and pesto. It is his favourite meal and he can’t wait to be able to cook it on his own, but at the moment I think the pan of pasta and boiling water is too heavy for him to drain it safely without my help. He enjoys doing it anyway, and it is a good quick and easy meal to do before he goes to Cubs. The ratatouille is mainly for me, so that I don’t overdo it on the carbs, but some of the children like it I think. And the cottage cheese is my alternative to the grated cheese, but most of the kids will probably have both.

Friday – pizza, olives and salad.
This is my suggestion for daddy and the kids while I am at BritMums, a nice simple Friday night supper.

Saturday – burgers, sausages, bread and salad.
Again, this is just a suggestion, and I don’t know if it will be needed as they will probably have eaten loads at the church fair in the afternoon, but I think daddy might like a trip to the butcher’s on Saturday morning and a chance to fire up the barbecue if the weather is good enough.

Sunday – baked potatoes, steak and salad.
Daddy’s favourite meal – I think he will deserve it after looking after the children for two days!