School Uniform Shopping - Take One!

The day had come. It was time to take two children (luckily mum was available to have the third), school uniform shopping.

Envisaging images of elbows and long queues i mentally prepared myself for this trip and arranged to go with my cousin Sian (you will see her name pop up alot. We are usually always together, cousins that have a bond like sisters, etc) and her eldest child Hollie who like Katie, will be starting Reception in September at the same school that mine go to.

So we set off and reached our shopping destination. Not too bad, i marvelled once we had parked, got out of the car, forgotten a child, gone back to the car to fetch Hollie who was trying not to cry, giggled at our bad parenting to no one in particular, put a £1 in for the trolley and got through the doors of a well known supermarket chain.

Where were the usual crowds, people squeezing past each other and the endless queues at the tills?

This was a strange and alien world i had entered. Still, not one to complain about such a miracle we started to investigate the huge school clothing section on offer at the back of the store.

This year i was shopping for two children. Katie needed new everything. The nursery she attended before hand had its own style of jumper and t-shirt so she didnt already have the school uniform. Its also very hard to judge what will fit now, and what has room to grow/what she'll grow out of quickly when you have sizes 4-5 and 5-6 years in front of you. Katie turns 5 in November. I didnt want to get things that would be enormous on her but didnt want her to outgrow them all within 2 months either.

Holding things up to her body and using my eyes to judge as best i could, (and yes, all mothers do this!) i managed to get just about everything she needed in a mix of 4-5 and 5-6 year sizes.

The only semi problem with going shopping with Sian and Hollie though, was that Katie and Hollie have ended up with the same everything. Same PE trainers, same grey skirt, same polo shirts, and so on. Although i suppose if they get them muddled up, it wont matter so much as we are family who live about 100 yards or so from each other and can easily swap them back over.

Luckily Tayla (my 7 year old) didnt need half as much. She still has items of clothing that fit her from last term so again by holding clothing up to body judging, i got her the things that needed replacing and made my way to the checkout.

£83 lighter and we made our way back to my house where my mum was looking after Sophie and Sian's youngest Lacie.

Part one of the Back To School Shopping was complete!

Tomorrow comes Part two: School shoes, 1 grey pinafore for Katie, White socks for Tayla, Lunch boxes for all 3 children, PE bags x 2 and 1 backpack for Tayla.

Whose idea was it to have kids again??

R2BC ~ Reasons to be Cheerful

My reasons to be cheerful this week;

1. Despite all the rain, we have had lots of warmth and sunshine inbetween. The sun always cheers me up when it comes out.

2. The school holidays are almost over! I love the kids dearly but they, and i, are very ready to go back to school now.

3. I am ready, at last, to pass my driving test! This has taken me a year to get to and i have overcome many fears and phobia's along the way.

4. I have bought almost all the kids school uniforms in one fell swoop! Just a few more things to get tomorrow and we are all done!

5. I have discovered Ben & Jerrys cookie ice cream sandwich. This is absolute HEAVEN on earth and if you havent tried one then do.. ASAP.

6. I also discovered that ASDA is the only place that sells my childhood favourite drink - UmBongo. I quickly purchased many cartons of this today.

7. Eastenders is having a good drama filled week. I love it when i can look forward to watching eastenders of an evening.

8. I have found a cheap obedience class for my naughty puppy Billy close by. Im hoping we can start that soon.

I think thats it for this week!

The Gallery - World Photography Day

This is my first time joining in with The Gallery but given that im a photographer, i thought i should take part in World Photography Day.

This photo to me symbolises alot. Firstly little girls who love to dress up (dont all little girls) but the fact that they were all together (they're sisters and cousins) and were having fun on a rainy day indoors. They then danced around to music after this photo was taken and had alot of fun together during the afternoon.

The relationship between the girls is a special one and one i hope they all continue to have as they get older.



Parenting Sins

For no reason in particular, other than to avoid the tidying up i thought i would compile a list of the sort of parent i am, and the sins i commit. We all do it, this could be fun! I aim to be as honest as i can without causing myself embarassment or having my children taken away (hehe).

So here we go.

1. Sometimes i let the TV babysit my children. I lure my youngest with the promise of a Peppa Pig DVD and the two oldest with whatever latest Disney film they are into just so i can have some peace for a while.

2. I have been known to 'rest my eyes' for a little while during dvd/tv time and catch up on a few well needed Zzzz's.

3. I have been known to let my 7 year old make breakfast for herself and her sisters before i am out of bed. I figured its only a bit of cereal and milk.. what could go wrong? Plus i am promoting independence and valuable life lessons!

4. My children go to bed at the same time in the holidays as they do on school nights. This is mostly due to the fact that they get up at the same time each morning regardless of their bedtime the night before, but it is also because by 7pm i am desperately craving peace, quiet and Eastenders. None of which can be achieved when you have 3 girls running around.

5. I bake with the kids when i fancy a cake. Guilty as charged! If i fancy something sweet and sugary, in a cake or fairy cake form, i have this super fun idea to bake lots of chocolate and vanilla sponge fairy cakes! The kids love it and i get my fix.

6. I over indulge at Christmas. I am famous for it and its not a good thing. I look at their lists of presents that i have bought (this has to be done otherwise id forget half of it and find it 6 months later tucked in a corner somewhere) and i panic that they simply dont have enough and will have a rubbish Christmas. This is then compensated by panic buying on Christmas Eve, getting told off by John and then regretting my actions in the New Year when we a) have no room for all this stuff and b) they are already bored with it.

7. Sometimes i see them doing things they shouldnt and just pretend i havent seen it just because i cant be bothered to deal with it at that time. Very bad i know but if it was dangerous it would be a different story. Its the small things like making a mess, getting a biscuit out of the cupboard etc. Sometimes i just dont want to deal with it!

8. We dont always have a nutritious meal. I have been known to whack in the fish fingers, dippers, waffles and chips on a few occasions. Im sure im not alone in this and i do make sure i cook some healthy, nutritious meals to placate my guilt for a while after.

9. I try to be, but just am not an organised mummy. We are always late for everything. Even our own birthday parties. You can guarantee that the other guests will pretty much all arrive at the venue before we do. We also do not have shelves and big tubs and boxes to store games, puzzles and toys in so that they are neatly stacked away at the end of the day and easily accessible. Ours are shoved under the bed, often in broken boxes or spread across the room so that when ever a game or puzzle is dragged out, half the pieces are missing and it cant be played with anyway.

10. I am not a very pro-active kind of mum. I dont take my kids out all day every day, we are known for frequenting the local park most days to burn off some energy and pass the time (or get out of the hopeless task of housework while the kids are off school). I am not a very arty and crafty mummy either. We bake, and sometimes i will buy craft kits for rainy days but we dont do model making out of loo rolls and toothpaste boxes or decide to turn a random delivery box into a house or car or the like. The chaos and mess it causes in my head is enough to put me off before ive even suggested it out loud.

But overall as with all the other mummies out there, i do try to take them on days out where possible, i try to get the right balance between all the food groups, i teach them right from wrong and to have good manners. I can take them anywhere without worrying that they will show me up and for all my parenting sins, i have three, happy, healthy little girls!

Cant be all bad eh? ;-)

Not Three Little Princesses But Five

From time to time me and my cousin Sian do babysitting favours for each other. An hour here, a couple of hours there and yesterday was my turn to have her two girls while she went to enroll in college.

To start with, It was raining outside so we all had to stay in. The girls happily went to their tip of a bedroom and quickly began to turn it into a bigger resemblance of a raid at Toys R Us while i got on with some tidying up.
Soon after the arguments began. She wont let me have a turn! I had it first! etc etc followed by torturing of the cat, winding up of the dog, drinks being spilt and crackers being eaten over my freshly hoovered carpet.

Having three little girls is very different to having five little girls. I would be going out of my mind if id had 2 sets of twins as this is what its like when having these five girls at once. Not to mention that they all get over excited and do things they wouldnt usually do.

Anyway, needing a way to distract them as dinner time was looming and there was still no sign of Sian, i turned on some music. Good old Jennifer Lopez and her song 'On the floor'. I turned it up as high as it would go (which isnt very on this laptop, so no neighbours were blasted out of their homes) and the girls immediately began dancing. Or rather running around the room in a circle singing and holding hands.
I took a few videos of them and also took a few pics.
The next idea was to dress up as princesses in order to dance properly so off they went to raid the dressing up clothes.
This was what they all came back in -

Quite a mix between Princess and Halloween!



And the dancing around the room quickly resumed -

Not long after this Sian finally arrived to collect her offspring and the day ended on a Princess High! As it should do ;-)

Jasmine Day ~ Charity Event

I took place in my first Charity Event on Saturday.
It was called Jasmine Day in aid of the Epilepsy Society for a local young girl who for the past few years, has suffered badly with the condition.
She had two brain operations recently and is recovering well but it was a very scary time for her and her family for a while beforehand when finding out she had a tumour and so on.

So Saturday had been planned for months. There was lots of stalls arranged (one of them being mine!), lots of other activities, classes, BBQ, and a latern release planned for the evening.
The day started off really well, we set up in the bright sunshine and everything was going to plan. People started to arrive and the day was getting off to a good start.
Unfortunately after half an hour or so the sun went in and the rain clouds came out. We all spent the next couple of hours huddled under gazebo's while the firemen & truck went home, the Judo team went home, as did the Horse and cart ride.
It was really upsetting to watch people go back to their cars and leave, and also to know that lots of people now wouldnt bother turning up like they had once planned to.
Even John took our three home because they were soaked and cold. I was beginning to think the day was a wash out when just as quickly as it had arrived, the rain cleared and a beautiful blue sky came out! hurrah!
The day was saved after all.
We all scrambled back to our posts and set up again. Yes we only had half the stalls and activities we had before the rain and half the amount of people but its better than nothing right?!

Overall the day was a great success, those who did make it had a great time, i got lots of interest in my photography stall, gave out alot of leaflets and managed to get some great pics for Jasmine and her parents during the whole day.
We also attended the evening event which had a DJ, a hilarious dance-off and of course the beautiful lantern release too.
Im very glad i went along and stuck with it despite the weather as it was a great day and i loved being included in something so worthwhile that meant so much to our community.
Denham isnt a place alot of people are familiar with, we are a small village where everyone knows everyone else and has done since we were all kids lol.
So when something like this happens, its nice when everyone pulls together and turns out to make it memorable and worthwhile.

Epilepsy Society

Tug of war!

The lovely Jasmine

Lantern Release

Onto the next Charity Event! :)

A Day Out - In London!

On Friday we decided to take the eldest two children to London for the day.
The original plan was to go to the London Aquarium and then on the London Eye, maybe a wander down the South Bank and then home to my mum who was having newly turned 3 year old Sophie for us.

You might wonder why we were cruel enough to leave poor Sophie behind but there was just no chance we could have taken her without a pushchair, newly potty trained, and with the amount of tantrums she is currently in the habit of throwing, she wouldnt have appreciated it anyway.

So off we went early on Friday morning. First thing we found was that our usual train from our local station into London Marylebone had been cancelled due to major engineering works.
At first, we hadnt figured this out and sat on the platform like fools waiting for our usual train to arrive. After a few minutes i checked the board and found the diversion notice and luckily the right train pulled up and we went to our designated change stop.
Fast forward an hour or so later and we had arrived at Green Park Station.
This is the stop for Buckingham Palace. It was my bright idea to stop there and watch the changing over of the guards and band/parade etc.
What i didnt anticipate was the enormity of the crowd that would greet us. How silly of me. Its August! Tourist hot spot of the year. Never mind though, despite not being able to see hardly anything and getting shoved around by numerous Japs and other foreign tourists we did manage to get some ok pics.
This was achieved by me giving Tayla my precious camera that means more to me than anything else i own in the world (apart from the children of course) and is also what i use to earn money with.
Fearfully i passed it up to Tayla who by now was sat on Johns shoulders and able to get a good view, showed her how to take the picture and basically tried to control my panic attack as she wobbled precariously on Johns shoulders with my prized possession.
Some of Tayla's pics...



After the parade was over we still werent able to get any pics in front of the gates or anywhere else as the crowd were taking their time to disperse so we went onto Waterloo station aka the London Eye instead.
We stopped briefly at a pub for a drink and the toilet and £11 something for 4 drinks later! Then carried on to the London Eye ticket office.
When we got there we saw the queue for the London Eye itself and quickly realised it was at least an hour long if not longer.
Fortunately, The London Eye has a fast track service you can use where you skip the long queue of people and go straight on so being the sort of people who hate queueing of any sort or any kind of waiting around, we opted for that instead.
After paying £10 per person each on top of the standard ticket price for 4 people, it ended up costing us £114 for the 4 of us to get on.
The trip up itself was great, they dont pack the carriages so there is plenty of room to move around, take pictures and see everything without missing your opportunity due to others being in the way. You get an amazing view right across London but the best view of all is the one of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. I got some excellent photo's and cant help but feel that i paid £114 just for an expensive set of photos of Big Ben lol!

The infamous London Eye

One of my favourite pics taken at the top of the London Eye

After that it was nearing 3pm and no one had eaten. We were still supposed to be able to squeeze the Aquarium in too but by now we were running out of cash and time so decided to give it a miss. The kids werent fussed and were more eager to find the nearest Burger King that we'd promised we'd take them to.
This proved to be another mission as we couldnt actually find the place given that it was supposed to be within metres from us. That is the joy of London. Everything is very difficult to find!
In the end we gave up and walked back into Waterloo station where John commented that he bet Burger King was inside the station and of course! There it was, right in front of us. Brilliant.

Once we'd eaten and felt happier, we decided to go back to Buckingham Palace for the photo op's that we'd missed earlier on so it was back to Green Park and another walk through to the Palace.
This time was better and i did manage some great pics before we began the long, labourious task of getting home during the London rush hour.

All in all - we had a great day. The sun was shining, we got to see and do almost everything we had wanted to, we were considerably poorer, very tired but satisfied that we had given the girls a good day out, as promised.

On the flip side though - Now i know why i rarely ever venture into London, even though it is right on my doorstep. I always love London until i visit it and then am quickly reminded why i never go! LOL.