An early birthday celebration for Mia

For Velda and Michelle (so you know how it's gone so far😀)

At the beginning of the summer holidays Mia was bemoaning the fact that her birthday is at the end of November and she never gets to have a party outside.  She said how she would love to have a sleepover followed by a day exploring Cardingmill Valley with her friends. Jason suggested to her that she could have a party in the school holidays and invite two friends on the understanding that when it was her birthday we wouldn't be throwing another one. She jumped at the idea.

The cake:

I don't know what went wrong with my sponge today. I just did my usual 8:8:8:4 recipe but for some reason it was a disaster. Praise The Lord for icing and chocolate fingers. Literally using the icing as glue I managed to make it look vaguely edible.

Decorating:

To save time, I simply went with the colour scheme we already have in the dining room and based my decor and party bags around this. I sent the children out to feed the rabbits after lunch and quickly set the table.

Awaiting the arrival of guests:

Daddy came home from work just in time to get quickly changed and take a photo before the guests arrived. Eden and Ismay are dressed as pirates. (They've been playing a game of pirates all day).

The arrival of the guests:

As soon as the guests arrived, it was time to eat. Mia requested a "Pizza Hut" style tea with pizza, garlic bread, pasta and salad.

Feeding the rabbits:

After dinner, whilst I cleared away, J took the children outside to see the rabbits. They loved holding them. In this first picture they are chuckling away because one of the rabbits had pooed as they were being picked up.

Preparing the picnic for our trip tomorrow:

I decided to save myself some work and got the girls to make their picnic for our Cardingmill Valley trip tomorrow.  We began by making pigs in blankets. I was very impressed by their agility and the ease and skill in which they rolled the pastry. Clearly little bakers in the making.

Although I supervised(!), they were really very good at making the pigs in blankets all by themselves.

Just look at the finished result! Can't wait to eat them.

I gave the children some instructions about what types of food they could have and left them to choose and pack. It was lovely to hear them work together and negotiate how to fit everything into the rucksack.

Toasting marshmallows:

Meanwhile, Daddy set up the chimnea and supervised the roasting of the marshmallows. An activity Mia had requested. The weather held out long enough for the children to stuff their faces.

Eating Cake:

Mia had a sparkler style candle and sparklers afterwards. Her cake was filled with blackberries from our visit to Nanah and Grandpa in Talysarn and we coloured the icing with a coulis I made from our little harvest.

Treasure hunt:

We did a treasure hunt for a family home evening activity a while back and Mia wanted to prepare one for her party. She drew a map and hid the treasure: a box filled with pirate eye patches, trumpets and sweeties to enjoy whilst watching the movie. Mia's map making skills enabled them to find the treasure without two much trouble.

Movie time:

Mia choose the "Heffalump" movie to watch and they were all transfixed.

Bed:

After the movie it was time for bed time stories with Daddy, songs with mummy and at 10:30 I think they may just have all dropped off! 

Part two: The next day

The girls woke up at a respectable 7:00 and went down for breakfast. As it was a special occasion, per Basford tradition,  I bought mini cereals and special chocolate cereal.

After breakfast:

We let the girls choose what they wanted to do. They all enjoyed a spot of reading and colouring, then gardening and finally a quick game of Trivial Pursuits.

Cardingmill Valley:

What a pleasure it was to spend some time with these three girls. They have been firm friends since they were three years old, each so different, but all such strong, independent, intelligent girls. I loved spending time with them and eavesdropping on their conversations. I love how they are all kind and considerate of each other and each other's needs. I also really admired the way they made sure that neither one of them felt left out. These three are amongst the oldest in their year at school, but in a world where pressure is put on our girls to grow up, I delighted in the fact that these little angels had chosen to spend their day playing, running about and enjoying nature. I am in no hurry to see my little Mia grow up and I am so grateful that the friends she plays with share her passion for play.

We went for a little walk first, I love how they hold hands and cuddle and watch out for each other. They are so at ease in each other's company.

Then we had lunch, the rain came out half way through eating so I rushed to the car to get the umbrella. 

They enjoyed splashing about in the stream and trying to fish for tiddlers.

They then enjoyed a game of frisbee. Just look at the glorious scenery. I used to love playing here as a child and teenager. It fills my heart with joy that I can now see my children getting the same enjoyment that I did as a child in this gorgeous valley.

They made up their own rules!

Condover Hall:

In order to accommodate my health issues, several toilet stops were planned en route. We had a little stop at beautiful Condover Hall where the girls pretended they were princesses and ran up and down the drive.

I am so grateful to Michelle and Velda for raising such delightful girls who have been an amazing support to Mia. Every night before bed, Jason and I have take a few minutes to chat to each one of the children on a one to one basis before they sleep. Mia often brings up the fact that she is one of the few children in her class that goes to church on a Sunday. She tells us that although she feels different, her friends respect her beliefs, just as we have taught her to respect the beliefs of others. How wonderful. In a world of intolerance, our girls are forging an example of celebration and understanding of each other's differences which contribute to the rich tapestry of life. 

On prepare la rentrée

La rentrée (or back to school in French), begins in France, much like in England the minute the school holiday begins. In every shop you will see special "cahiers", books with exercises in them designed to prepare children for the new school year and to keep them "occupied" during the school holidays.  I always find it easier to manage three children close together in age by being "busy".

Journals:

As long as the children have been able to mark make, I have always encouraged them to keep journals. Just like my mum did with me when we were younger. I love looking through them and seeing how much their writing has come along over the years.

Learning together:

Ismay is quite happy to set herself her own homework and loves using my teacher supplies.

For Mia and Eden though, this is just unpalatable, they would quite happily sit in front of the TV all day long. To avoid this, I make sure we go on plenty of outings.

Here we are at the Kimbers, I love how the children set up their own shop in the playroom and acted out shopping, right down to adding up how much money they had.

Here they are playing with Toffee. Mia is really skittish around animals, but Ismay is very confident and was able to help Mia overcome her fear.

Ismay loved stroking the sheep.

The children wanted a ride in the truck, so we got them to "earn" their ride by clearing away the logs that Jono had been splitting for firewood. We set up a very effective little assembly line and the children did a lovely job of clearing away.

Both Sammy and I share very similar health concerns at the moment, so we couldn't stray too far from the "conveniences". Sammy set up the outdoor toys and we just spent a lovely afternoon watching the children play in the fresh air.

Here we are on another trip, this time to Blists Hill. The day we went the children kept saying "this is where Nanah used to play when she was a girl".

We have been growing a range of vegetables this year. The kids have loved helping me harvest.

They have loved eating peas fresh for the pod and shelling them, although oddly, when cooked they are not as enthusiastic to eat them!

Homework:

With homework, I adopt the same policy as we had at home. My mum and dad firmly believed it was our responsibility to complete it by ourselves. Ismay and Mia are in the same key stage again so were given the same homework to complete over the holidays. Ismay rushes to get hers done as soon as possible. Mia works at a snails pace and has only just finished putting the finishing touches to hers today!

Uniform:

The thought of taking the children shoe shopping, hmm, anyone with more than one child will understand the dread I feel. Last year, being laid up after the crash, Jason very kindly did it for me for the first time (I seem to remember him coming come like a quivering wreck). This year, I found out you could book an appointment.

Oh wow, how much easier this was. I simply walked in, got them measured 

Next, it was off to Asda to buy trainers for PE and school clothes for the children. I love Ismay's expression in this picture. Totally sums up how I felt after this day!

The worst part about uniform shopping is the labelling. Thanks to the recommendation of a friend, I managed to get some stick on labels which saved me the dreaded iron on/sew on job!

Now it's the last day of the holidays, I feel really sad that I won't be able to have my babies around me all day long. I take solace in the fact that they are all so excited to go back to school and can't wait to meet their new teachers.

Alba the Brave

As soon as the Commonwealth games were over, our children begged to be taken to Scotland. Ismay, having been named after my sister who in turn was given a Scottish name as a nod to Grandpa's Scottish ancestry was particularly keen to visit. (Mia was eager to go because her favourite Disney princess is Merida from the film "Brave", and ever since that film came out she has been desperate to see glens and lochs in real life!!!)

Jason spent many holidays in Scotland visiting his Aunty Hilda and Uncle Jimmy and has some lovely memories of Scotland. As for me, horror stories about my Glaswegian family - their rows, fights, squabbles and fallings out was enough to put me off ever setting foot in the place........however, I'm so glad my kids forced me to overcome my harsh judgements.

So we decided to take the train. What a lovely way to travel. £50 return for all of us, we were seated by the loos, the kids could spread out, and best of all, FREE WIFI. Although I'm smiling in this picture here, I was actually VERY apprehensive at the thought of navigating a new city by myself with three small children.

I got the children to pack their own bags of food for the journey and let them have control over what they put in it and when they ate on the proviso they didn't ask for anymore and when it was gone there would be nothing else!

I was impressed with the things the kids had packed in their bags to keep them entertained. On the whole, I was very proud of their behaviour. Eden was most impressed with the Star Trek like toilet door!!

We arrived in Glasgow and set about exploring. First stop was the tourist information office where a lovely lady gave all the children Glasgow pins from the commonwealth games. Ismay was in her element as everyone complemented her on her name which is an old Scot first name and surname. She proudly told everyone that Mackenzie was her middle name and she got to handle the tartan.

Next, we bought metro tickets and used the subway. The man at the booth gave all the kids a special commerative holder to put their metro tickets in when he learned it was their first time in Scotland. We loved using the metro. It was quick, clean efficient and the kids got such a thrill out of swiping their cards through the scanners.

The first place we went to was the Ibrox stadium. Here we bought Rangers t shirts. The kids got loads of lovely comments from Rangers fans about how cute they all looked.

We then hopped back on the metro and went off to visit Glasgow University where we had a lovely picnic in the grounds. The children loved running about.

Next, we hopped back on the metro and checked in at our hotel. After getting caught in a massive downpour, we decided to take refuge in a chip shop.  We got to try deep fried haggis. We all liked it (I didn't like the deep fried part though).

As we were having dinner,  Mia remarked that she was disappointed that she hadn't seen any one in "Glasglow" (sic) wearing a kilt and playing the pipes. Just as we were walking back to the hotel, she got her wish, hearing Scotland the Brave played on the pipes. Just magical.

Whilst we were out  we squeezed in a quick visit to the cathedral and necropolis. Both were resplendent gothic tributes and I imagine them to be quite spooky places at night.

We were really impressed by the "tardis", we found quite a few of them.

As a special treat, I let the children watch television. They watched a programme about vets and they had some scenes of the operating theatre. Following this, Ismay announced that she'd quite like to "cut open animals!!!" and if she married a farmer she could do it all day!!!

The next day was our highland adventure. We caught the train from Galsgow central and headed to Wemys Bay. I bought the children magazines to read to occupy them during the journey. Boy did I regret letting them all choose different ones as they all seemed to want what the other one had.

We loved Wemys Bay train station. The kids (having only ever had Harry Potter read to them and never having seen the films) said this is just how they imagined Hogwarts station to be. We had about five minutes to queue and buy tickets for the Ferry. The children were sooooo excited.

Once on the ferry I started to feel a little outnumbered as the children enthusiastically ran about. I had memories of a school trip to France where we had 60+ children to look after and all of a sudden 3 didn't seem to bad. The main thing is we arrived at Bute Island in one piece!

What's not love about Bute island? Just gorgeous, castles, beaches, mountains och it was lovely.

The children wanted to wear tartan scarves as quite a lot of other people were wearing them due to the Highland games being held that weekend. At £15 a pop that seemed far too much for three children. We managed to find a charity shop that was selling the Stewart tartan in fleece fabric fo £2. I asked the lady behind the counter for some scissors and made it into scarves. (I figured that as we have some Stewarts in our ancestry it was ok to wear that tartan!!)

We caught an afternoon ferry back to Wemys Bay and from there hopped on a bus to Largs. Thanks to Horrible Histories, my kids have a slight obsession with Vikings and we'd been told we might see some there.

Largs didn't disappoint, we did indeed find Vikings, and Palm trees and ice cream.

We had been told by our taxi driver that Nardinis served the best ice cream in Scotland. It was lovely, but as Mia said "no offence mummy, but the place that Uncle Jordan and Aunty Clare took us to when you were in hospital was better"!!!

During the journey from Largs to Glasgow Central, a quick phone call to Daddy was made as Eden's behaviour started to become, ummmm challenging. He soon straightened himself out after his little chat with "Dadda" (Edens special name for Daddy, none of the other children use it!!) and was even very helpful about getting me to the toilets!

Daddy booked us into a posh hotel for our final night in Glasgow. It was in a nice area near the Royal crescent and had a lovely play park close by where I took the children to run off steam before bed.

In the morning, we got up and had a final wonder around. The atmosphere on a Saturday was lovely, live music everywhere, the pipes, kilts......

Eden was desperate for a kilt but they were shockingly priced in all the shops we went into.  We happened to pass a market on the way to the train station, and the man on the stall, impressed that Eden was wearing a Rangers top, gave us a very good deal on a kilt and a sporan and even gave the girls some Scottish flag pins and pencils as a freebie.  He explained to Eden that if he wore his kilt he would get plenty of kisses.......

I am so glad we made the effort to go to Scotland. Our first impressions were that it was a lively friendly place and we will most definitely be returning soon.