Its all in the dough #Ordinarymoments #magicmoments

The mad and crazy rush of christmas is upon us. It is the day before christmas eve. Or christmas Steve as we have heard our little ones say before. Heh! a day to celebrate all Steves in a christmassy way. So apartyofseven is home from school. That means a LOT of noise and a lot of people. The kids are generally happy to play together, although it isnt always harmonious. 🙂 There isnt a lot of time for quality time. We try and have some moments of quality family time and i actually think that the festivities sort of lend themselves to that happening. But it is harder to seek out time with either just one person or by yourself! Thats when it is time for a trip to the loo!!

But spending time with just one of my kids is rare but during term time i am given that opportunity…and one thing that she likes to do is play dough. I like play dough, it has a really therapeutic quality to it. Its also fairly universal and even my older kids will sidle up and have a little go at forming something out of the moulding clay. They almost can’t help themselves!

This time my daughter was deteremined to have a go at making some cake looking play dough. She likes to focus on food group! that and making endless sausage shaped play dough through the hole in the bar-b-q type thing that came in an old set ages ago. This day was one of the first that she had actually asked me to put her bobble in her hair. it didnt last long, she took it out soon after. But it was cute while it lastest!

In such a large family i think it is important to try and make small bits of quality time for each person. it can be really hard and sometimes what they want to do fills me with dread BUT i really believe that they get benefit from it. 🙂

Pretty important to get quality time for mama too!!

 

Motivational Mondaythe ordinary moments

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A bit of a dis-aa-ster #countrykids

Its that time of year isnt it when there seems like an endless list of things to do and none of them are remotely interesting to a bunch of lively little over excited kids. This week at school has been a whirlwind of trips, nativity plays, gymnastic displays and parties. It seems like we have been rushing from one event to another. So we thought it was really important to get the kids out of the house for a bit of a run one afternoon. It was starting to get towards dusk a little.

I cannot wait until the evenings get longer!!

But we headed out and it was one of those occasions (that im sure we all have) when i thought it might have been better off staying inside! We had planned to go to a local forest but it is a bit of a drive and it wasn’t going to be doable with me needing to get back to work so we had to go for a local park that we don’t often go to. When we got their, within a couple of minutes, I remembered why we didnt go there very often!

The park is very close to a large housing estate and so get a LOT of dog walkers. Which whilst i have nothing against dog walkers, unless they don’t pick up their dog’s mess then i have a really BIG problem with them. No, we have a dog and to be honest he isnt the best with other dogs. He is fabulous with the kids and people in general but with other dogs it is all a bit handbags and whilst i dont think he would actually fight another dog..what inevitably happens if things it a bit agro with another dog is that my kids in their well meaning ‘lets help the dog’ way start to run up to him, especially my three year old who has NO fear of dogs at all.

I have told them all so many times the dangers of getting in between dogs that are going for each other. But they seem unable to help themselves which properly freaks me out.

So…we started out trying to head round the park and we ran into a whole bunch of dog walkers and one particularly snarly dog that wanted to have a bit of our dog…once we got past them we then headed to a hilly part of the park. One of my girls decided to roll down the bank and came back to me a few minutes later saying she thought she had rolled in dog muck…!!!

It started to rain and so we decided to make a u turn and head back to the car..we spied a pretty little plant on the way back and ventured into the leaves to see it when ….squissh..you guessed it..more dog muck and our three year old fell over in the dirt just missing it.

A little frayed around the edges..and angry at people who don’t pick up their dog’s mess. We headed back to the car and then home to recover with a movie, pyjamas and tea.

Phew.

A bit of a country kids dis-a-ster..but we made it out there!!

🙂

 

Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

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Ballet girls #whatsthestory #magicmoments

If you follow me on twitter or instagram then a few weeks ago you would have seen that my girls (three of them) were getting ready for a ballet show. They go to a ballet school that is run by a lady who danced for the English and Australian National Ballet..so she has quite high expectations for the girls in her company! I took these pictures just before they left, hence the make-up. They were pretty excited about the make-up bit it has to be said!! 🙂

The shows take place every second year, which is a good thing as i dont think i could cope with it every year…but pretty much since October half term we have been too-ing and fro-ing to lots of rehersals. The older girls have been to about 30 hours of extra practice in the last month or two and whilst that might seem like a lot, they accept that they have to be committed to it to be able to give their best performance. It is a big theatre and its only run on one night so its pretty important to get it right.

This is our third show and so we were ready this time. We gave the girls a little pep talk about what to expect and how it might make them feel. We usually hit a few ‘i dont want to do this anymore!” type of comments but they are soon forgotten after the show when they are all on a high and have fallen in love with the performance side of ballet. 🙂 They get to appreciate how much enjoyment can be gained from actually working hard at something, sticking with it when the going gets a bit tough and then being thrilled when they experience the results. I am so proud of them just for that regardless of how they actually performed!!

But they all did great and this year having three girls in the show gave us a lot of interest all the way through the show. Faces shining, big smiles and lots of attitude and giddy, happy and tired girls at the end. But it was all so worth it.

I am very happy that its two years to the next one however!! Maybe then it will be all four girls in the show!!

Motivational Monday

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Sly fox in the kitchen after school #ordinarymoments #whatsthestory

We have had a bit of a re-jig with our hard drives recently and it has unearthed some real gems and i thought i would share some of them. This little bunch of shots made me smile. I can actually remember it like it was yesterday. It was in fact not long after our youngest was born. I think she must have been a couple of months and we were deep into winter.

This was after school one day when it was dark soon after we got home. Only two out of my five were actually in school then! It was one of those times before the extra activities had invaded our schedules as they have now and so when we came home from school it was down time and some snackage and play time.

The school kids were showing me a game they had learnt at school called sly fox and we were playing it in the kitchen and i kept turning round and taking shots as they tried to creep up behind me and  be the ‘sly fox.’ They thought it was hilarious when i didn’t turn round and they managed to get to me in time!

It feels like a simpler time actually without the crazyness that now fills our lives and all the running around. That is the nature of the kids getting older i suppose. Its fun to look back and see the kids all little too!!

 

cMotivational Mondaythe ordinary moments

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A walk of remembrance #countrykids

A few weeks ago was remembrance day and since my daughters have joined the Brownies and got invited to carry the flag in the church and on the parade. It was a gorgeous, cold morning and after a lovely service where the girls did a great job of carrying the flag (the one flag, between the two of them – you can see there might be a problem brewing there!), the whole bunch of them, the boys brigade, the girls, brownies and scouts etc all disappeared down behind the church and marched past to the sound of the boys band. It was lovely.

We did get a bit of a hint of some brewing sibling trouble as the girls rounded the corner..some serious, frowning faces and we discovered that someone had told the girls that they couldn’t ‘share’ the holding of the flag for the march. In the church we had worked it out that one of them could hold the actual stick and the other could hold the corner of the material, then everybody was happy.

But that all went south when someone didnt appreciate the delicate balance of asking two sisters to do the same job!!

I think next time it might be time for an independent effort!

But it was so lovely to see the kids marching in the november sunshine to remember those gone before.

🙂

 

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

mummy mishaps
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