A healthier summer

With the school holidays starting on Friday its time to knuckle down and try and get the whole family's diets a lot healthier! This half term we seem to have done a lot of rushing around and we have all eaten far too much rubbish. I need to get us all to eat a more balanced and nutritional diet without dieting. Also if I am going to be a student in September we need to all enjoy simple and inexpensive home cooked meals. 

My son is the fussiest eater of the two and is reluctant to eat his food groups mixed together. This has made it hard to serve up stews and casseroles. So one challenge is to try and get him to branch out more and be adventurous. Not an easy one as he is pretty stubborn and would rather go hungry than eat something he doesn't like! Hopefully as he gets older this will peter out...

My daughter will eat a wider variety of foods but will suddenly announce one day that she no longer eats something she used to love. The most recent one of these is chicken! I think if she had her way she would eat bolognaise, lasagne and cheesy pasta in rotation... 

I would love for them to eat more vegetables than they have been doing. In the summer salads are so quick and easy but only one child eats cucumber and no other salad vegetables are liked. For myself I rustled up a 3 colour salad today but my children would never eat it:

#CountryKids at Staveley Carnival 2014

This weekend was the biannual Staveley Carnival. The carnival celebrates creativity and reclaiming the streets from motorised vehicles. After weeks of preparation the day turned out to be hot and sunny as we arrived at the recreation ground which was full of 1000s of people there to celebrate and enjoy the atmosphere. 

With a tight budget after the weekend before my children were told to choose their one fairground ride with care. They both opted for the tiger inflatable and had a lot of fun for the 5 minutes allowed:

Into the tiger's mouth

Leaping through the ring

It was an energetic 5 minute and I think they chose wisely in the use of the money! Then it was time to take up position to watch the carnival parade which loops its way through the village. It first of all heads over the river Gowan:

#SilentSunday

 

#CountryKids Family bike ride

I am struggling to get my son bike confident so today I was very pleased to have another adult along to help us out on a bike ride. We hadn't been out for 2 months so he was not at all happy about getting on his tag-a-long. Every bend, bump and slope was an excuse to get off. Having a child scream "I am going to die" as you sedately go down a hill on a main road is rather distracting! Some other lovely cyclists even tried to reassure him but it didn't seem to work... so it was a relief to get to Kendal weir (a whole 2 km) and have a rest:

#CountryKids After school tea in the park

It's been another stunning sunny day up here in Cumbria and when I got in the car after work it had an unbelievable number on the temperature gauge:

So I went home, grabbed my shorts and a picnic rug before collecting the kids from school. We bought a take out from the chippy and headed for the river in Staveley park. Once we had eaten the children didn't take long before getting in the water. Apparently it was still rather cold in there!

Meanwhile I laid down and enjoyed my Kindle with a lovely view:

Eventually they grew tired of the water and headed back to the playground on the other side of the park. It was lovely watching them help each other on the basket swing:

What a lovely relaxing way to round of our week and get us in the mood for the carnival on Sunday: