What are we up to?

Gman is going for a drive.

Baby D is full of snuffles and wants a sofa and crayons day.

DD is creating the ultimate playhouse before going to a birthday party.

X x x

Today's baking

 Now the weather is changing to the Autumnal, my girls are requesting hot chocolate when they get home from the school run.
 Rather than their usual after school treats of cupcakes or raw fruit and veggies, I think it's time for heartier fare.
 So me and Baby D whipped up a batch of flapjacks together (finishing off our porridge oats and dried fruit ready for fresh stocks). They are such an easy and frugal thing to make, plus they are just perfect for small hungry tummies between school ending and dinner time.
 They are also a great breakfast on the run if your stuck for time!


 X x x

coconut ice

After the huge success of peppermint cremes  (which lasted less than 24 hours in the fridge, I decided to attempt coconut ice.

I've run out of red food colouring so I used blue. Of course realising after that the colouring adds nothing to the outcome of the sweet and is purely asthetic.

It's currently setting in the fridge. If it survives hubby spotting it when he gets  in from work, I'll let you know how it turned out.

X x x 

Advent idea

I was chatting to my fellow mummies in the playground yesterday when the conversation turned to Christmas. One of the mum's said she'd spotted some advent calenders in the poundshop.

 After a conversation about how rubbish chocolate calenders are in general, one of us mentioned a book calender!

The idea is you wrap up one storybook for each day of advent. With many charity shops full of lovely books for a few pennies a time it would be a lovely frugal thing to do for Christmas. So I'm going to give it a go.

The 8 books I picked up yesterday cost just £1 for all 8! Definitely in my price range at that price and we can read them over and over until it's time to replace them with fresh stories.

What a great idea! Don't you think?

X x

4th Anniversary

 Just a quick one from me today folks.
Today was our 4th wedding anniversary. My parents babysat the children, so Hubby and I could go out for a nice romantic meal. It was a wonderful three hours of adult conversation and peace.

 X x

Sunny Sunday

I spent the morning in the garden battling more weeds. The girls played with some bubbles and Gman found our birch tree fascinating so we were all happy.

I read on a gardening site to bury all but the new growth on my celery stump so I've given it a go. 

Lunch was steak and herby mash. I used some of my mint and chives from the garden, and made the mash from cauliflower and potatoes. It was super tasty!

And finally Gman had his first taste of milky buttons this evening. I started him on a tiny sliver and he was beaming at me. After a few trys he was happily sucking on half a button at a time. I think he'd of happily eaten the packet lol.

I think tomorrow I will pop one of his ice cube dinners out and give him a try with some apple.

X x x

Homely Saturdays

It was just me and the little.humans today, Daddy had to work till 4pm. We busted out the colour in Castle Baby D received for her birthday. It kept both girls nicely entertained for most of the morning.
After lunch though a red mist decended for some reason and I had to keep them separated for the rest of the day.

G-man enjoyed a morning in his bouncer chewing blankets, clothing and toys. I popped him by the patio windows to catch some sunshine and watch me tackle some of the bindweed mountain in the garden. 

In the evening I left everyone in the care of Daddy and went out. I know! OUT! 

My friend invited me to a body shop party and it was lovely to spend a few hours giggling with fellow mum's and testing products. 

I even treated myself to.some face mask cream and a shower gel set.

X  x x

Gremlins?

On the way to school today the bus broke down! I must admit I forget to think of buses as just big machines that can break. But break this one did. 

There a lot of grumble people complaining about being late for work.

Luckily I always take the bus before the one I need. This is due to there being two schools on the same bus route, which means it isn't uncommon for me to not be able to get on with my buggy on the first attempt.

I'd rather have ten extra minutes to kill in the playground than ten minutes to make up with all three children in toe. 

We took the opportunity to take some nice photos.

I love this one of DD and Baby D in their flowery raincoats.

DD - Boo has settled nicely back into school but is finding it mental as well as physically draining by the end of the week. Poor thing can barely be offered a choice of two drinks on a Friday evening. 

Baby D - D is loving preschool (moved up from nursery). She is learning new things everyday and has a particular love of learning new songs and rhymes.

G- Lil man is learning to roll. He can manage it left to right so far and just rolls off his playmate in a straight line lol. It will be time to start weaning soon, at the moment we are just giving him tiny tastes of everything to start him off.

X x x

practice makes perfect

I've been experimenting in the kitchen this weekend. I've made my first ever batch of peppermint cremes. They came out tasty but not very aesthetically pleasing.

 Not that any evidence remains lol.

I also made my first ever apple strudel. I used mixed spice and cinnamon to flavour the apples. The whole thing tasted lovely and Christmassy.  But my puff pastry didn't puff very well.

But alas there's no evidence of that either.

Just going to have to make another batch of both I think. 

More practise, tasty tasty practise.

X x x

In the garden...

Today we picked up two new compost bins from free cycle. We've now filled up the green one we had originally so will leave it composting over winter ready for spring and summer.

 I figured with three in the go we can always have one in use, one resting and one on the go!

Inside the house I have some windowsill celery starting. I going to pop him into a pot and try to keep him happy over winter ready for spring planting.

My chive plant that I thought had died has sprung back to life. Healthy enough even for flowering! It desperately needs a new pot so I will do that ASAP.

Not sure if he needs to come indoors for winter though, any advice folks? 

And my twig of a mint plant has explodes into a mini mint bush. I'm hoping to dry a few sprigs for tea over the winter. If it keeps growing like this I will soon have lots of delicious mint pesto and mint sauce stashed in the cupboard. 

We are hoping to get the garden nicely prepped this year for next growing season. Job one is clearing it all out and getting some weed matting and gravel down. 

X x x x

Winter cleaning.

I've been dying to deep clean the girls bedroom for the last few weeks. DD has taken to playing in there when the two smaller siblings are annoying her. This means it's full of toys, books and drawing things. Plus the general dust and debris of a children's bedroom.

So today once DD was safely in school I convinced my Hubby to pull out all the furniture for a good thorough clean, then made him rearrange everything in exchange for some biscuits.

DD now has her own end of the bedroom.

And Baby D  has the other end.

I've found out all the winter bedding and popped it onto the the beds after a good air out in the garden.

The cupboard and drawers have all been polished, carpets hoovered, and all fabric surfaces sprayed with fabric freshner.

 It so much nicer  I think I might have a sleepover with them tonight lol.

My room is next on the list!

X x

Up cycling Towels

I've been keeping my eyes peeled for some new bath towels for a few weeks. Two of our older towels are now looking rather thin and Swiss cheese like so they needed replacing.

I picked up these three lovely blue ones from an Asda clearance shelf. £3 each, bargain!

The worst of the two we've stashed in the car for those dirty emergency repair type jobs. The other has been cut into 12 equal squares.

And given a quick zig zag seam down each open edge to prevent fraying edges. That should see me set up for cleaning cloths for a little while. 

Waste not want not as they say.

And I need to save every penny to go to Disneyland! 

Hubby brandishes a drill.

As the title suggests Hubby has been playing with his power tools today. He's put up some shelves in the playroom alcoves. We picked up some cheap brackets and shelves In the B&Q sale a while back.

I now have lots of lovely shelves to display photos and storage for books, games and nappies.

And he even had enough time to pop up curtain rails over the two open doorways in the house. I hung my bargain Ebay curtains on each one ready for the colder weather. We can now heat the lounge and the playroom  without it escaping into the hallway and kitchen. Hopefully this will decrease our heating bills a little bit this winter. 

Didn't he do well?

X x x

Sick day and future plans.

I've woken up this morning with the most horrible cold. I haven't moved all day from my blanket nest on the sofa (at Hubby's insistence)

 OH has done all the school runs, every nappy, every feed. He's been wonderful.

I was even surprised with some beautiful flowers on his way home from dropping off DD.

Laying in my fleece and chenille nest and watching daytime telly has led to me seeing a huge amount of advertising. One in particular about Disney world Paris got me thinking. 

I would love to take the children there one day. I  remember going with my parents years ago and really enjoying it. 

 So I am setting a two year plan starting from the 1st September to 1/9/17 to save up enough money  to get us all passports and visit the famous Disney castle.

Watch out Disney, the Random's are coming.

X x

***Major Spoiler Alert for 2015****

Brace yourselves......ready?

Christmas is coming in December! 

And knowing this fact I have started on my gift buying.

Both of the girls are major fans of Paw Patrol, a cartoon about a group of dogs that rescue people and animals. The problem is, it's a current and very popular show. Which also means big price tags on merchandise!  

 Take the stuffed toy collection  for example. £12.49 each. And naturally a child will want all 7 characters right? That's  £87.43 for 7 cuddly toys.
 Want to know a secret?  Visit Ebay.
 We found every character for £4 or just under, including postage. All 7 characters cost under £28.
 This will be the main present for all three of the mini Randoms to share.

We also snapped up some Paw patrol hooded tops for the two girls by using a bidding tool. The auctions for the tops ended at 2.48am for some reason so we used a sniping app to snag them at the last second for 99p each. Funnily enough no one else was bidding on them at that time of the morning.

 Buying cheap Christmas presents in my sleep? Now that's a superpower to proud of right? 

Anyone else made a start on gifts yet? 

X x

Last Day of Summer.

Today was my final day with the girls before school begins again. I was determined to put it to good use and I think we did.
 Our morning task was creating a collage of our London trip. We used the front page of the Evening Standard for a background, printed out a few photos that showed everyone, and stuck on all the bits I had saved. Train tickets, tube maps, receipts etc.
 I think it came out rather nicely.

Afternoon was spent baking some cookies and scones. They made a lovely supper and the girls were proud to be eating something they'd made themselves. 

I have purposely left the washing up for tomorrow so I have plenty to do while I'm wishing away the hours to home time. In fact all the housework was forgotten where possible.

The place is going to sparkle tomorrow when they get back....bring on the bleach (and the distraction )

X x