An exciting, mundane day!

Today saw trying to be a Dad go back to work and me looking after my girls on my own (for a whole day) for the first time in about 3 weeks.  Combined with the fact we've been at the grandparent's house and my children have forgotten how to share or play independently (i.e. without constant adult input) it would be fair to say that I was a little apprehensive about it all!

As it turns out the day was not nearly as bad as I was thinking it could have been and we had some fun.

As the title would suggest our day was a little mundane but part of the joy of (frugally) living with little people is making the normal and mundane exciting!

So, some friends came round this morning.  Friends always make your normal toys more interesting.  Then we had lunch on blankets in the garden.  Instant picnic, lunch is suddenly exciting! Then we went to see some new friends in their house.  Again, the mundane becomes exciting!

My top tip for today is, meet up with other people.  They are struggling to entertain their little people as much as you are so just meet up and have fun doing ordinary things.

I was a really naughty blogger today and I forgot to take many pictures but here are the highlights...

Our day began with the train set (this is before we'd even had breakfast)

Then friends made our usual toys much more exciting

Going to see new friends meant new toys, here you can see that N learned to use stilts (while M drew with chalk)

At the end of the day M is exhausted.  I normally try and be at home in the afternoon so she can nap but about once a week I don't mind but she's not good at napping on the go so poor wee thing is now very tired indeed!

Two for the price of one!

 Yesterday was a little bit manic and I didn't get a chance to post but we had a lovely day which included a visit to our friend's birthday party! Here is N having her chance to open the pass the parcel.  It occurred to me though that the kind of kids' games that get played at birthday parties would make great activities for a summer play date.

This photo was also taken at the birthday party but is something we have done at home before.  An almost mess free creative activity and all you need is some chalk and a wee area of paved outdoor space. Later the rain will do all your tidying up, amazing!

Today is a very exciting day because Mr trying to be a mum is coming home after very nearly two weeks away but here is what we have been doing to pass the time! (very excitingly Grandma is still here and supervised this activity while I did a bit of tidying and even went to the shops. On my own!)

If you don't have a paddling pool why not consider using a basin and doing some splashing, setting up the sprinkler if you have one for your garden or even just putting out a bucket of water and splashing! It's a great way to keep cool on a hot day! (and as far as I know the UK hasn't got any hose pipe bans just yet!)

We were on holiday

In the continuing series of posts on surviving the summer holiday here is a rundown of some of our activities while we were staying with friends.  As is a theme of the summer none of them broke the bank!

We did lots of trips to the park (a new park is always more fun than the "usual" one)

We got chicken pox :-( (ok, that wasn't so much a planned activity but it did dictate a lot of what we could do!)

We took a walk through town to have dinner with old friends

these two used to be best friends, it was lovely to reunite them for an afternoon

 One day we just went to ikea, but we went to the cafe, ate cake and took time to play on their outdoor slide (I had originally intended putting N in the free playzone thing but it didn't open until 11 and we got there at 10.15am!)

One of our more extravagant activities was a trip to soft play, including LUNCH! I'm mainly including this because being from Scotland we have started holidays early and in England (where we were) the kids were at school so the place wasn't mobbed! Hurrah!

Reality Mothering

Yesterday I posted this picture to Twitter and Facebook with the caption "It is possible I have fallen a little behind in putting away our clean laundry"

I received many responses which all loosely could be summed up by "My goodness, you mean I am not the only one? This makes me feel so much better".

Some people have this pile on their kitchen table, some in their bedrooms and some, like me, have it on their spare beds, but it would seem that more of us have this pile than would care to admit it.

One of my favourite responses came from one of my friends and neighbours, she said

We should all have "reality mothering" days when we open our homes in their true state to our friends without any frantic pre-visit tidy ups, sweeping into cupboards or closing of spare room doors. I think we'd all feel a lot better about ourselves! I think I've pretty much got to that stage with a lot of my friends now.

I LOVE this, so in the spirit of the motion, I am hereby opening up my home with all it's blemishes for you to see

Here are my children, watching Peppa Pig while toys lie, unplayed with on the floor and the post nursery-run coats are discarded

Here is the play area of my living room being ignored because I put on a DVD and haven't tidied the toys away or made the children do it either!

 Here is my kitchen complete with broken egg shell lying on the work surface from making lunch and various bits of dirty crockery and such like...

Here is the washing machine, complete with washing that has been sitting clean but wet in it since yesterday evening

Here is the juice *shock horror* that I fairly regularly put inside my children!

Here is a large bag of bags that used to contain fresh milk that I have been meaning to take to the recycling point for about three weeks

Here are the chips I will feed my children tonight because I am too knackered to make something else!

And before we move upstairs, here are the curtains I haven't bothered opening all day and now at 4pm probably won't get round to opening today

Oh and the wet (not dirty) nappy I forgot to tidy up after I changed M earlier!

Here is the very disorganised bedroom of my children and an odd sock collection that I'd love to know if it can be rivalled (especially when you consider it is about half the odd sock, those belonging to my husband are elsewhere and I wear odd socks every day in order to deal with the problem another way)

My very disorganised bedroom

And my full to bursting wardrobe that I have been meaning to sort out since I found out I was pregnant (about 15 weeks ago)

This is my book shelf that for some reason also hosts a now empty chocolate tin, some hair detangler, shoes that fit no-one in our household and some nappy cream, not to mention the fabric and what might be the insert of a washing basket!

And finally we have the computer desk I am sitting at now to write this! (while the children watch more Peppa Pig).

Some Positive thoughts

I feel my blog posts have all been a little negative recently, so I would like to counter that by telling you some of the great things in my life just now, from little things I do, to great ways I have to learned to enjoy each day.

Naomi is loving her solid foods, which means we are having great fun weaning.  She gets so excited for the food and starts visibly shaking with anticipation for the next mouthful.  We tried to take a video of it, but whenever her dad got the camera out, she just started staring at him and stopped doing anything in any way cute.  Although, that was quite funny in itself!  Her favourite food is broccoli and you can guarantee she will yum up anything you give her if it has that in it!

I am also, just loving watch Naomi develop and learn in all sorts of ways.  She learned to roll last week and you can now see her try and work out how to roll the other way (she currently only does back to front!).  But even sitting in her high chair you can see how much better she is at it.  Her Dad told me she looks really grown up now compared to when he left for a conference only a week ago!  She is particularly cute when she is working out how to use her hands, though she is increasingly working out about her feet!

One of my biggest blessings in life, though, is my church.  I just love it so much.  Such a wonderful environment to have a baby in.  Everyone is looking out for each other, and given that my faith is really important to me, it is lovely that it such a helpful environment to bring children into.  On a Sunday morning when we all get together, the worship is done with children in mind, they can have a drum to bang on, or  a balloon to play with, or a space to dance in!  I even love that we have the coffee break half way through so all the parents can caffeinate themselves; how else would they get though the sermon?!  I have only bought about 6 pieces of clothing for Noami, for everyone just hands out the the things they don't need at that time.  One person I spoke to says that because her boys are the oldest she sometimes sees things her boys wore about 7 years ago, she likes to try and guess who passed them to who for them to end up with someone that she might not know so well!

Also, though, I love my friends.  I know them from church where I know lots of people but there are a couple of people that I don't know I could make it through each week without.  They are up for coffee if you need and know those moments where they need to take the baby from you, for a cuddle, or even a walk!  They ply me with helpful advice and let me rant and moan but also when to tell me to stop being unreasonable and suck it up!  They also invite me to things they are doing with their children for the realise I don't always know what is going on because i haven't lived here that long.

And finally, for today anyway.  I love the geographical place I live.  It is a lovely wee town with everything within walking distance.  Parks that are lovely to walk through and places to play for Noami.  There at least three ways to get everywhere so I never get bored and it is just a pretty little place.  Sometimes as I am walking into/through town I just can't believe how lucky I am.

What are you thankful for today?