Reasons to be Cheerful: Half term fun #R2BC

Sorry I have been AWOL for most of May. It was a tough month at work and we have been so busy I haven't had a chance to post! Hopefully this bunch of cheer will make up for it...

1) Running in the Howgills

A lovely evening running with my son's junior group up into the Howgills followed by a picnic in the park:

2) Swimming in Windermere

After a very hot parkrun it was bliss to take a dip in the rather chilly waters of Windermere:

3) Slimming down

I am looking so much slimmer than at the start of the year and feeling fabulous:

3) Charity football tournament

Reasons to be Cheerful: Family, Friends and Fun #R2BC

Miracles happen and I am ready on time with my host post! Really hoping that more of you will be back this week even if it is the UK school holidays. Here are my reasons to be cheerful on what is the first week of our Easter holidays:

1) End of Term

We all finished school on Friday and after meeting in town we had a surprise and bumped into my mum for a 3 generation walk home in the sun:

Two weeks of no school runs is heavenly and hopefully we will have lots of reasons to smile by the end of a fortnight.

2) Fun in the sun with friends

My son and I travelled down to Berkshire on what turned out to be the hottest weekend of the year so far. We had a fabulous weekend with friends and my son loved all their outdoor play equipment:

3) Football Golf

Reasons to be Cheerful: Back to routine #R2BC

The lovely Michelle is hosting again this month as she enjoys reading all our happy posts, please pop over and see why she is cheerful this week. Meanwhile here are my reasons this week:

1) Simple fun

On the way home from town my son met a couple of friends in the park and kicked a football around with them for a bit before heading into the playground:

2) Happy Herdwick

How could this smile not be infectious:

Mattel Fun Times: Chameleon Crunch

Sponsored post

This is the latest toy we have tried out from our Mattel Fun Times box. This gave us quite a surprise once I'd put in the batteries as he started to run round in a circle! I realised that to do him justice I'd have to try him out in a bigger space than our tiny front room...

 

So he took a trip to my children's after school club to test him out in the school hall. The children from aged 4 up were all delighted to have have a chance to try and feed him once he stopped and opened his mouth:

They found it even funnier when he spat some back out! The hard thing was getting everyone else to stop playing so I could video my daughter on her own:

 

Over the sounds of the school club you can just hear the chameleon making comments like I'm hungry or yum! A cute game that seemed to entertain lots of different aged children. He felt so at home at school that we left him there to enjoy his new friends!

A good fun game for younger children but you do need plenty of space!

 

#SilentSunday 1st July 2012

Reasons to be Cheerful XXXVI ( #R2BC )

Another week and another post on what is making me smile!

1) The weather

We have had so much more sunshine its really good for our sense of well being. As a family we have been outside having more fun and enjoying seeing the signs of Spring:

 

2) Fun with friends

On Sunday afternoon my friend was rehearsing for A Passion for Kendal so I had her 2 boys round to play with my children. We had some fun on bikes and scooters in the street and then had an hour with them going bonkers at Fun or Kids softplay:

#SilentSunday 19th February 2012

#SilentSunday 8th May 2011

How not to cook like My Daddy Cooks

My daughter and I were inspired to bake this morning after watching Nick and Archie make their Easy Apple and Raspberry Tray Bake and decided we could make one too... 

So off my daughter went to raid kitchen for the ingredients:

About 400g firm cooking apples or other “sharp” variety daughter doesn't like cookers so used eaters
A punnet of raspberries (we had a handful left in the fridge, hence why we added them to this recipe! You can use as many or as few as you want) none left so omitted
Juice of one lemon had to use lemon juice from bottle
225g plain butter
225g self-raising flour
225g caster sugar only had fine brown sugar
3 large eggs
2-3 heaped tbsp ground almonds I hate almonds so omitted
1 tbsp demerara sugar

As you can see we were going off the recipe already... but daughter attempted to weigh everything out:

So back to the recipe... 

Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F no problem with that bit!

and grease an 8 inch rectangular baking tin with butter, then line it with baking paper. oh haven't got one of those, hope the square one will do...

Peel the apples and cut them into 5mm slices (no core). Squeeze the lemon juice over the slices and leave them in a bowl until you are ready to use them. after I had sliced them I realised that I had forgotten to peel them - hope that doesn't cause a problem

Meanwhile son is not helping much by knocking scales as daughter is weighing ingredients... table getting rapidly covered in flour and sugar...

Using an electric whisk (or, for complete ease, a food mixer), blend together the sugar and butter until it becomes light and fluffy. the plastic whisk attachments in mixer object to the blending process by bending and coming out of their sockets. Swap them for the dough blade but this doesn't appear to result in light and fluffy cake mix.. Let's go old fashioned and transfer to bowl and wooden spoon:

All the other ingredients were dutifully whisked in.

Pour the mix into the prepared baking tin then add the apples (drained from the lemon juice) and the raspberries. Hmm my mix doesn't pour so I'll spoon it in instead... hmm my cake tin is maybe a little bit too big as mix only just covers the base... I'm sure on the video the apples were in the cake mix and not just on top... oh well...

Sprinkle the demerara sugar on top what is that dark brown stuff coming out with the sugar? who has put coffee granules in the sugar??? oh well I'm sure it won't change the taste...

We baked it in the oven as per directions and this was the result:

Nothing like it did when done by Nick and Archie!! As the proof of the pudding is in the eating and not what it looks like we all agreed it does actually taste yummy, even if my kids won't eat the apples...

Apologies to Nick and to learn how to do this properly please go to My Daddy Cooks and watch and learn. Think I won't be taking up a cookery blog any time soon..

Recipe for a great long weekend away...

Start with both my kids packing their own bags the night before (even if it turns out E hasn't packed enough underwear!). Then they are both up without fuss at 6 AM and all in the car ready to go by 7...


A stress free drive aided by: good weather, in car DVD for kids, no traffic, plenty of snacks, a gorgeous step daughter keeping the peace from 1/3 way there, only 2 service station stops and only 6.5 hours driving time....


My lovely welcoming parents who my kids adore and who spoil all of us. Drinks with my favourite aunt & uncle. Coffee with my 97 year old granny. Lots of time with my brother, sister-in-law & nephew. Watching the cousins getting to know each other and play together. Seeing the light in my bed ridden grandad's face when his great grandchildren ran in the room. My granny's enjoyment of my brother playing with his son & my daughter with accompanying giggles. Catching up with an old school friend on way home...


When can I do it again? Once I've recovered from all the driving of course!!