A very happy 60th Birthday!

On Monday we got together as a family to celebrate Mum's 60th birthday. We couldn't let such an important day pass without recognising it in a small way even though Mum wasn't with us. We had a nice lunch - one of Mum's great soup recipes, Leak & Pea, with some delicious fresh bread. Then for desert I made Mum's amazing Nottingham Ginger Cake. It's been a while since making it, but boy did it taste good! Just perfect for all the ginger lovers in our family (Jason ate about half of it), and great for all the expectant mothers (ginger helps with sickness). We then took some flowers and a balloon over to Mum's grave. It's so peaceful there. The boys thought it would be fun to release Mum's balloon.

Thought it would be fun to post Mum's Recipe for you to try too.

225g/8oz Plain Flour

3 to 4 level teaspoons ground ginger

1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

125g/4oz butter

125g/4oz brown sugar

225g/8oz golden syrup

150ml milk

1 egg

1. Line a 7 inch square high-sided cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2. Sieve the flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda together into a mixing bowl.

3. Melt the butter with the sugar, syrup and milk over a low heat, stirring all the time. Cool a little.

4. Beat the egg.

5. Add the liquid ingredients with the egg to the dry ingredients. Mix well then beat for 5 minutes.

6. Pour into prepared tin & spread evenly.

7. Cook in a cool oven, 150 degrees C, Gas 2, for about an hour until it is springy and leaving the sides of the tin.

8. When cooked turn out carefully, remove the paper and store in an airtight tin for a few days to let it become sticky.

We didn't have time for that last part the cake was devoured within the first 24 hours, and it still tasted great. Wonder what it would be like to leave it for a few days? Would it taste even better?

School admissions

The time has finally come to choose a secondary school for Jarom. I've been waiting and worrying about this for the last 11 years. When we first moved to Weston-super-mare I must admit the local secondary schools did not have a great reputation. They could hardly be any worse then the inner city Nottingham secondary school I attended, but of course you always want better for your children. I must also say that despite my secondary school not being the best academic achiever, I did love my time there - wonderful teachers & friends.

So the time has come to 'choose' with Jarom. I say 'choose', we have looked into this very carefully and Jarom may not have a choice at all even his catchment area school is highly over-subscribed. But to appease us and make us feel as though we might have a choice our local education authority allow us 3 school preferences. There are only 3 schools that we could choose due to transportation factors - one is our designated catchment school, one equal in distance and one a much further train ride away.

So over the last month we have visited each of the three schools several times, both for their open evenings and for guided tours. We have been very impressed with each of the schools we have visited. I feel so grateful to know that despite our choices or preferences Jarom will get a good education at any one of these schools. What a relief. We then had the difficult task of placing our choices in order of preference. These sheets really helped us organise our thoughts. Finally after thoughtfully considering each one, and praying about it we finally made our choice.

1. Priory Community school
2. Backwell School
3. Worle Community school

Priory seemed to out-shine the others on so many levels. It's learning environment appears to be superb, academic standards are constantly on the rise. They are a special status school for technology, Jarom could take GCSE's in engineering, he loves the thought of that. The school is close - a bike ride, walk, or even bus trip away.

So those are our choices, and this morning I submitted Jarom's application via the internet.

I am so glad it's done.

Sunday Afternoon ...

I do love to get the camera out on a Sunday afternoon, many of my previous posts are a testament to that. So here are today's pictures, how grateful I am for the Sabbath. We all slow down and enjoy just being with each other. Today's Sunday involved - Boys, pancake mix and chocolate spread!

I must mention that my pancake mix (thank you Costco) is a really great food storage item. There's no need for milk or eggs or any other ingredients - just add water! I love that. If we have an emergency in our home, and we just have to rely on the food in our cupboards we could survive at least a week on pancake mix, and of course our other food storage must have item - chocolate spread!

Views from today

Today is a busy mummy day. Rushed off my feet looking after everyone, but I needed a little time to myself, so I got out the camera. Here are my views from today -

1. Autumn is here and I love to decorate my home to celebrate the season.
2. Lunch - very uninspiring today, but Nathaniel ate all of his, which is quite a miracle. I did have to cut all the crusts off though.
3. Bullets - my home is covered in these little pieces of foam - it's so easy to shoot them out, but impossible it seems to pick up!
4. My boy is sick today. Poor Tayler. He always gets sick. So no school for him today, and the sick bowl as his constant companion. Jarom is also suffering with a heavy cold today. On the up side at least I didn't have to do the school run.
5. My washer and dryer - what would I do without them?
6. I've washed my hands so many times today, I couldn't possibly count how many. My hands are so rough and chapped, this is a life saver today.
7. I still haven't looked at my lesson for sunday - must get round to it.
8. These arrived this week - they're the cutest little business cards ever!
9. My side of the bed - I can hear it calling me!

Over the weekend...

We had a really busy weekend as a family, but a fun one. We had dear friends come to stay, and we so enjoyed their company. It was great to have some girls around the house, and I thought my boys were really well behaved and played with the girls so well. We went for walks and ate good food, we also enjoyed good music too - almost too much fun to cram into one weekend. The crowning event was a Saturday evening get together for former residents of Nottingham who have moved to Weston-super-Mare all 21 of us to be precise - so glad the children ate in the garden, I have large kitchen table, but not that large!

The rest of this week has been spent organising church activities. I have really enjoyed sharing thing week - flower arranging (of sorts) on Tuesday and photography last night. For more details on what I shared during my photography class see my photography blog, the link is above.

Lego creations

Every Tuesday Tayler goes to lego club with his best friend James. The boys have such a great time, and I feel so grateful for good teachers who give up their lunch time for my boy to enjoy his favourite hobby. Lego really is his first love. James came over for tea last night and the boys busied themselves making more lego creations, I promised I would take a picture for them. So here you go boys - does your army have a name or special mission? I hope that rebel leader knows there's a storm trooper making a sneaky attack up the ladder!

Just me and you...

Today we went to the park - just me and you. I took photos of you and you ran and held my hand and enjoyed throwing the leaves. You were such a good boy as you waited for mummy to get the camera ready, you held on tight till we shouted - 'ready, steady - throw!' When I asked you if you wanted to go and play on the swings you shook your head and pointed to where you had been running earlier and said 'run?', I let you walk holding my hand instead. It was so much fun being with you today, you are such a special boy and I love you oh so much. You are such a blessing in my life, just like your big brothers. Thank you again for playing with me in the park.

An invitation...

We'd love to invite everyone, but our home just wouldn't be able to fit you all in, this year it's just family. But we can't wait, this is one party we all really enjoy. So - Beale's, Hayes's, Plumridge's, Mays's & Farrant's - fancy coming to our little party?

There'll be - apple bobbing, donut game eating, chocolate gorilla racing, mummy making, hotdog munching fun! We hope you can make it. Dress-up is a must, but nothing too gruesome or scary. For a few ideas Nathaniel is going as - the very hungry caterpillar, Jason as - Captain Jack Sparrow, Me - Little Miss Muffet, my boys - well, they haven't decided yet.

If you can bring a desert, something halloween themed if possible, that would be wonderful. I know Nanny is making a scary bakewell tart - yummie!

Jason would also love his family to gather for a family photograph in the afternoon in Ashcombe park - without scary costumes!

I think it's going to be a great day.

What happens when you let your little ones take the pictures?

This happens! Nathaniel really loves to use the camera, not my really expensive super-duper pro camera, but our little hand held Pentax camera. It's about 5 years old now, the tech is outdated and so I'm not that precious about what happens with it. I'd much prefer that Nathaniel develop a love of picture taking. So it gets bashed about, chucked down the stairs and slobbered on, but he loves it.

These are the pictures of our recent trip to Puxton Park our local hang out on a weekday morning. We get there super early so that we have the place to ourselves then run around enjoying spending time with each other and experiencing the thrills of all the big slides. So a couple of the pictures were taken whilst on the slides and some whilst playing in the toddler area, I think they demonstrate my boys growing skill with the camera - ha, ha.

I actually think they are really fun pictures, maybe even important. They document an important part of our lives together. I hope Nathaniel looks back on them and thinks... 'my mum was cool, she spent time with me and we had so much fun together!'

Conference weekend as a family

It's our annual conference & weekend family photo shoot. This year we had the privilege of using the new pro camera, and boy, can I tell the difference. Just need to practice a little more with it, I'm feeling a little out of my depth again.

But there's nothing better then having the sweetest little niece to photograph, she is such a cutie, and having 'Mr Bun' on hand was a great comforter - thanks to grandpa.

Now looking forward to the third session of conference. We've really enjoyed listening and the boys have particularly enjoyed sweets and taking notes on the ipad.