Sunshine & stories...

Nice sunny day in Scotland again today. Was extremely chuffed being able to get out with the boys again & get plenty of fresh air. Started off in the back garden kicking a ball around & playing on the swings when inspiration hit me, chalk stories. Asked the 3yr old if he fancied getting the chalks out again & he was more than happy to oblige. So we sprinted around the front & got started. I drew a picture of a lady & we began writing our own chalk story. We both took turns adding pieces onto the story with new drawings. We ended up with a pretty great story about a princess, a dragon, a castle & an evil witch who turns princesses into bunnies...

The poor bunny Princess Mummy was turned into.

Our story with our princess, dragon, witch & castle.

To be honest, it was a pretty fun & quiet day on the whole & I don't really have much to say tonight. Which is weird because usually there's some disaster to share. 

What I did however realise, is it's only a short time until the summer holidays. I solemnly swore that this summer, we are not making the same mistake we made last year. Granted, the weather wasn't particularly nice but we spent most of our time indoors, watching TV & not doing anything particularly fantastic. But this year, things are gonna change. After making a conscious effort to try & do more screen free time I realised this can't be temporary. Whether it's days out, days playing board games, playing in the garden or doing something else fun, this summer has to be fun, family-orientated & totally freaking awesome!!

- M

Funny moment of the day came courtesy of the eldest on his way home from nursery this afternoon with his epic Star Wars spelling skills. "Mummy, cream soda sounds like Master Yoda." You really had to be there to appreciate how funny it was.

Modelling clay fail & pointless tantrums on a lovely spring afternoon...

Woke up this morning after my epiphany yesterday about getting out more & it was raining. Fantastic... 

Kids were pretty disappointed that the afternoon at the swing park was cancelled but we decided to do some crafts. We settled, after a tough debate, on modelling. So I hunted online looking for recipes for home-made modelling clay. There were so many recipes with so many different ingredients so I gave up & made it up as I went along, a bit of this & a bit of that. So I mucked around a bit until I got the perfect texture as follows:

1 cup of boiling water + 1 cup of salt + 1 1/3 cup of flour

Kneaded it for about 5 minutes until it all gathered up into a dough. Not too dry, not too sticky. Perfect. It moulded really well, held together & didn't get all over the place while we were using it. 

So divided it amongst four of us & had to decide what each of us were going to make. My plan was for a heart shaped paperweight (with a rather fabulous moustache my darling son helped me make), the 10yr olds plan was for a wee heart shaped figurine type thing, 8yr old had people & animal figures in mind (namely a man with a hat, a goat & a chicken) & the 3yr old wanted a smile for his Daddy. Please excuse our makeshift mess mats, really must invest in some instead of looking like tramps on crafty days...

Unfortunately, after baking in the oven (140C for about an hour/hour & a half), it appears our clay models have risen. We used plain flour so I assumed this wouldn't happen. Cue a rather unhappy 10yr old girl on the brink of tears. We chopped the bottom of the base slightly to even it out but unfortunately it's a bit sticky in the middle so here's hoping that overnight it'll harden. So if anyone decides to use the recipe I used, don't. I'm clearly shit at making up my own crafting products so do yourself a favour & find a recipe from someone who actually has a clue as to what they're on about.

Onwards & upwards though as tomorrow it'll be time to paint them (& we all know how awesome it is clearing up after 4 kids painting, particularly when one of said children is a young toddler!!) & hope that the bottom of my darling sister's creation has dried or else it'll be WW3 tomorrow morning. Will update if she hasn't torn the house down around us!!

On the whole, it was a relatively peaceful day. Well, apart from a massive hormonal pre-teen tantrum over what I'm still not entirely sure. Apparently I was wrong about something & I appear to be the worst sister in the world worthy of some seriously bad-ass insults. Classics such as "Well you're a total liar then because it was clearly not like 10 minutes ago" (Fair enough about half an hour then) "Oh well it's like another 20 minutes, how stupid are you?" & (after being told that she was in the wrong for what she did) "Well you're just ugly." *minds blown*. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Just sayin'! Another day, another drama. Lemme tell you, if that's what a pre-teen girl is like, I'm glad I have boys! 

- M 

Oh & I must share a funny story before I go. Boys both fell asleep in our bed (we part-time cosleep with the youngest) as 3yr old wanted a cuddle as I was nursing the baby to sleep & conked out. Decided I would move the 3yr old later on once I was heading up to bed after doing the shop (online of course, I'm not THAT negligent) & left them sleeping on opposite sides of the bed.

About half an hour later, there's sobbing & hollering from the baby. I run upstairs, exasperated by the interruption from the intensely pleasurable meal planning, to find the 3yr old sound asleep with the baby half asleep attempting to latch on to his brother's nose & becoming pretty pissed off that it wasn't quite what he was looking for. Brilliant.

What's that yellow thing in the sky?

In a surprising turn of events, we woke up to a sunny Scotland this morning. So the plan was to get outside, play & get some much needed vitamin D & fresh air! While trying to come up with some fabulous game or crafty activity to do, it came to me that we never just go out to play any more without purpose. So we grabbed some street chalks, a ball & headed out. Unfortunately, the 8 year old brother was glued to the screen & we couldn't prise him away, so it was just the two boys & 10 year old sister for the afternoon.

Bamboozled by the mysterious fiery yellow ball in the sky, the boys seemed rather surprised to be ushered out the front door without full Arctic proof gear on.

So it started with a box of sidewalk chalks (we used crayola ones we managed to get for a bargain in a local shop) & a smile...

But apparently, said smile wasn't good enough as it wasn't anatomically correct...

... but in comes 3yr old to fix it...

At this point, 15 month old is more interested in digging about & pouring them onto the path...

... but eventually joined in the fun.

I actually remembered just how much fun it was just doing normal 'kid' things that we did when we were younger. But as an adult, realised that it's more than a bit of fun as we were counting, identifying different shapes, doing the alphabet & practising writing skills, so it wasn't just like an afternoon spent goggle-eyed in front of the pc or the PS3, we were all getting something out of it.

The rest of our time outside was spent on the trampoline, playing on swings & running around so hopefully some half decent sleep is on the cards (highly unlikely).

But it wasn't all without it's drama. Between a seriously mistimed fall (Ollie falling faced down just as I kicked the ball, connecting with his head), scaring the shit out of each other screaming (bloody bees), a near miss from faceplabting downstairs (prevented thanks to my epic catching skills) & trying to see who could consume the most bacteria (prize goes to Ollie putting a used dog toy in his mouth, note that we don't actually have a dog!!!!), we still had our moments. But where's the fun without some heartache?

In amongst games of hopscotch, drawing & copying letters etc, I realised that it had been ages since we had just been 'outside' with no toys, no gadgets brought from inside into the garden & just doing something exclusively together. Today, I made a promise to myself to get outside more, even if it's regular Scottish weather & we have to go out in hurricane & downpour proof clothing to jump in puddles. We spend way too much time indoors, way too much time on technology & too little time focused just on us with nothing else to think or worry about.

Technology, toys & gadgets have taken over & it's inevitable that we're going to get sucked in & at one point or another it's probably going to bite us in the bum. Today I was bitten. Hopefully, we can start as we mean to go on because realistically it's NOT healthy to have so much screen time & it's going to affect our relationships if we're playing a PS3 game with each other instead of one on one communicating & working together at something. Technology has it's place & it's a wonderful thing but maybe it's time to step back, take a look at how often it's being used & see if we're using our time as wisely as we could be.

- M