Category Archives: Cooking

three cheers for SB

Posted on January 27, 2007 by | 4 comments

she has been a blessing. As soon as Chris and BB had gone to bed, things got a bit easier. SB tidied her bedroom while I packed her clothes. We have mostly tidied the play room. when she got antsy i looked at her and said [in the blackadder voice] who’s tired, shall i go to bed and leave you to it [i know i know!] anyway, half way through, I said she had been being so good, that if she carried this on she could have an early birthday present – cue total angelicness! She insisted we needed background music, but failing to find her first songs and hymns [a cd that causes chris to lose 2 mm of molars each time] we listend to evil egyptians – and yes, she was word for wording it! So we did manage to do some home ed around egypt as we considered what we had learnt too alongside the cd.
SO she has made cards for Kit and Aprilia [think kits is an archaeopterixx, well, it appears to be a dinosaur with feathers, and Aprillia is looking at a fairy on a christmas tree - very themed!] BB woke up, and did 2 cards too – I am afraid that she is at that card making stage, and I will say no more!

chris finished packing for BB as I had had a wobbly over finding things [thankyou hun] SB did education city [bit of all the sections, but it is clear she does the maths and the science ones the most from the tracker thingy, even though I have divied it all up into 12 weeks] and BB and I read a book or 6, did some lego and messed up the room.

SB went and made the tealoaf with chris, BB and I played and read and sang nursery rhymes. Now Chris and the girls are watching trek on the tele about wildebeast, so I have heard all about the river crossing thing [why doesn't someone just make the poor things a bridge], i have whizzled up the fruit purees for melrose [so I guess we are coming then] made a stab at seeing the worksurfaces in the kitchen and made the girls tea. It is an ‘unusual’ fusion meal of cheesy pasta, veggie sausages and peas!

i guess I should call them in, but enjoying 5 mins of peace and quiet! have vaguely sorted my clothes. nothing to wear as got far too fat again. Mind you, I doubt Kirsty is expecting me to be a catwalk model. I will wear blending into background clothes!

After tea, will give SB her pressie should she be good about going to bed early. A bit worried about the drive up if I have to do all of it, so might be taking you up on your offer Jax. Must have an early night really, but think that I will be spending eve sorting stuff. I guess it will be a bit hit and miss what we bring!

4 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Cooking, General, history, language, literacy, numeracy, science

Melrose food

Posted on January 26, 2007 by | 1 comment

this is the moroccan stew. and will be fairly similar this time!

[note to self - this time 25/33]Have also made some choc fudge raisin brownies – dairyfree and nut free

Chris has made flapjacks, but they have coconut in them though dairyfree
We are making a tea fruit loaf.

1 Comment

Posted in Cooking, General

snow!

Posted on January 24, 2007 by | 2 comments

not enough to cover a hobbit’s toes though.

bad nights sleep. BB woke early. must get this sleeping lark sorted.

today we did do HE – some singapore maths, addition and subtraction across the 10 in tens and units. SOme getty and dubay – trying to adjust SB’s pen position so it is more comfortable, and getting her to start at top not bottom of letter. Some education city.

We also baked some brownies – ostensibly for melrose, but the top fell off as we got out of tray, so not sure re burnt offerings? The jelly didn’t set either btw.

We went outside and measured up the place for the playhouse. we are getting one of these in the blue and white with heart design shutters mode. Sb played with the snow until her fingers froze.

We did a bit of looking at lions, read our various books, looked at their habitat etc, and downloaded some stuff from enchanted learning. well, the enchanted learning was a pain, cos we haven’t used it for ages, could remember our login details, or email address used – so much palavering. Did it in the end. SB did a bit of reading to me. She did some fiddling about on nick jr and playing
BB and i played marble runs, education city and kneebouncers website. also had some animals pairs cards, so spotted the animals and made them families. SB joined in too.

Anyway, BB has been a pain this eve at sleeping, Chris just taken her up to try again. I haven’t been able to sew as fingers still numb and tingley [not too bad now though] and SB wants a bunny tail on the fantastic fleecy sleepsuit that Katy made.

2 Comments

Posted in Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, literacy, numeracy, online resources, writing

grr to blog titles

Posted on January 22, 2007 by | 2 comments

got home from work to find SB and Chris engaged in the longest ever maths sum [46-18 I think!!]. I don’t think they had spent all 90 minutes on that one sum though! There had been a bit of a lie in and some painting and some tidying I believe, the a romp to the doctors about BB’s eczema-ish dribble chin, for which we have a steroid and antifungal cream. She’s had it on and off for a while, but just looking work at the moment.

Oh, and BB – what on earth are we going to do at Melrose about her potty training – it is going to be a nightmare unless we persuade her to use nappies, and that seems very retrograde. Though today has not been a good day!

Actually, for SB I think we need to work on number bonds again for a bit, as its 6-4 of it that often gets her.

Anyway, BB then went for her pneumovacc and SB and I finished the grape and spare redcurrent jelly. She then did lots of colouring in of her roman SOTW sheets. including a map of roman control at julius caesar. i remembered about our roman emperor book, and read from that about julius[we had already done the sotw chapter] she – thank goodness – could tell me rome fought cathage – wayhay – as she did the hannibal maze!

She wants to learn about lions this week – so rootled through the shelves to find likely lion books. I was wondering whether we could have a proto try at a baby lapbook??? [a real home-edder!!!!] partly cos I was so impressed at Kath and M’s. I am going to try and sort the desk for her tomorrow.
She has done some listening to little toe, and showing BB various websites. BB has been gorgeous, mostly running about, dancing [weeing] and had an early restorative bath to get her to bedtime! She really is adorable, even when she wee’s on you! [oopsie]
SB had a slightly later bedtime, as we did more of that jungala ello, which we are both finding fun. [design and technology!]

2 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, history, numeracy

hoping friends stay on the path

Posted on January 19, 2007 by | 4 comments

As they are arriving late, and it gets dark round here – mind you, they are used to rural!

I’m beginning to feel a bit better in the hand/wrist dept – not so swollen. got fed up with sausages for fingers. Saw the rheumatologist, who suggested an up and down thing for 2-3 weeks, but should just go. good oh!

Whilst I was at work, the beans went to PBEO and learnt about birds. BB has been going on about birds intermittently ever since. Difficult to settle when they got back [mid aft], so they argued over every toy [and they had picked up a few in the morning to argue over] and swapped them every 5 seconds. SB couldn’t settle to anything either. Finally she did some nick jr and moved onto education city. Apparently spanish will be available in a months time! BB desperately jealous of edu city – and although found a number of nice sites – and tried the poisson rouge recommendation from Katy – they just distracted SB, whilst BB was mad keen to do education city too. SO have another trial version now running with BB nursery. I am not paying for the nursery just so she doesn’t shriek! I will put a BB list though in the sidebar. SB is excited that on monday her selection for education city will change – she is such a daft but gorgeous girl to be excited by it!
A colleague from work came round – bringing choccies to make me feel better. SB and BB coloured for him and generally shew off. I must integrate more with work, so that it seems a better deal. He is one of my favourite colleagues though, and always makes me smile.
Oh, the other thing I have done is started some grape and redcurrant jelly, but lost the jelly bag, so rigged up some not-quite-good-enough-for-the job alternative. Oh well, it will just be cloudy. Home grown grapes though! [and redcurrants that have been sitting in the freezer for yonks]

Bath time now, and girls have been fed. I will make us an aubergine, mushroom and paneer curry [yum] for our tea. the ‘off the pathers’ are eating on the way down, so we will eat while SB is staying up [watching attenborough natural science progs and little house probably]

I have got guests coming excitement, so no good for settling down either – do you think we should make a bit of room for them in this bombsite??

4 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, literacy, numeracy, online resources, science

monday

Posted on January 15, 2007 by | 2 comments

The beans went to local group this morning all about favourite things. SB took heaps of jacket potatoes – and we had some of them for tea!
in the afternoon, when we had all got home, she did some education city – enjoying it, and I have stared with the easiest bits doing a my city. She wanted to do the spanish, but that doesn’t seem an option at her level. i might email and ask if we can have access to it. she did like the french though. i helped identify the sounds the first time and thenn left her to carry on so I could read apple tree farm to BB.
BB did some oogly googly gears and playdoughing, and SB looked at a DK history book with me – rather lovely – and we did early people in it, picking up the theme at bedtime by reading about otzi the ice mummy. She also did some letter formation with getty and dubay – they’re big letters, but I guess she needs to start in the right place, as she otherwise chooses bottom up. we all playdoughed for a bit.
tea of jacket pots, and then watched some more trials of life before bed.

2 Comments

Posted in Books, Butterbean, Cooking, General, geography, history, language, literacy, numeracy

on the 8th day of christmas [swift summary!!]

Posted on December 24, 2006 by | Leave a comment

migraine

music

IMG 0762

mince pies

IMG 0775 IMG 0783

magazines

IMG 0764

messing about!!

Leave a comment

Posted in Cooking, General

On the 7th day of christmas

Posted on December 23, 2006 by | 7 comments

We fell off schedule [rough as it is], as my parents arrived at lunchtime, and I though they were coming eve, and a text at their halfway point had me scurrying around!

SO Chris took SB to shop for my pressie, and a few other things, and BB and I made some more scones at home together. It was really nice to have the chance to do that 1:1, and we both enjoyed it.

IMG 0729

We then played games with little tykes people [unfortunate name] until my parents arrived, and BB went into a paroxysm of mad joy! lovely having Mum and Dad here, and Christmas now upon us. Did mean that i didn’t take SB to see a film this pm, which had been the plan. But as I hadn’t said that to SB, there was no harm done, and she and BB went suitably loopy for my parents approval!

IMG 0742

We took a bit of redirection, and made chocolate icing and iced and decorated a lovely yule log. I cheated and bought the roll inside from the bakery. It is an arctic yule log – though as SB pointed out, it has polar bears and penguins. I then tipped too much icing sugar on it to my Mum and Chris’s merriment – so I growled at them. Its snowy in the arctic!
IMG 0751

SB read a level 7 ORT book to my mum, a bit of stumbling as we haven’t read much for a fortnight, and this was a new [to us] book. But still, was happy to do it, and Mum a good encourager. We did some positive home-ed discussion.

BB was flagging at 4, so had a bath, and then made it until 8, even cuddled up watching beauty and the beast [free from the mail].

I have finished wrapping presents – always a good moment! Though SB crept down the stairs just at the point we were discussing the bits you don’t want overheard about the machinery of Christmas, so I am hoping that either not heard, or doesn’t make a difference. I went up to explain she needed to tell us she was moving, as she might overhear Christmas secrets, so the next time she told us. [insomnia again poor thing]

Anyway, with visitors – especially ones that don’t understand the lure of the blog!, blogging service may be interrupted . So Happy Christmas everyone.

7 Comments

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, Dance/drama, General, literacy, photos, Stringbean, Stringbean's HE

Muffins recipe

Posted on December 21, 2006 by | 2 comments

makes 10 ish standard size

Chocolate banana porridge muffins

8oz [225g] plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 teaspoon bicarb of soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 3 large bananas, 4 oz [110g] sugar, 1 beaten egg, 90 ml milk [or water] 90 ml veg oil [or melted butter] 3 tbsp cocoa powder, 2oz [60g] porridge oats.

in ‘wet bowl’ put oats, egg, milk, oil, sugar, mashed bananas.

in ‘dry bowl’ but everything else.

pour wet into try and stir so just mixed but still lumpy, spoon into tins [i use those silicone muffin trays] and 20-25 mins top of oven at gasmark 5-6 [190-200c]

Recipe an adapted and combined one from Muffins by Susan Reimer. Really recommend this book as I did no baking until I got this book and started with muffins when SB about 18 months.

2 Comments

Posted in Books, Cooking, General

on the 6th day of christmas

Posted on December 21, 2006 by | Leave a comment

they are whizzing past aren’t they! slow down!!!!!

Anyway, mostly broken up due to the fact that I went into work at lunchtime and with some of my colleagues, took some of the secretaries out to lunch at expensive local restaurant that is seriously yummy! We had a really nice meal and chat.

made up for it in the afternoon by being crafty and bakey. Chris made pastry with the girls, but they never turned into mince pies. We made the marmalade muffins though – also yummy, and did some more hama deeds – 2 stars for the xmas tree, and SB is halfway thourgh a big heart. BB helped me with a star, but wanted to watch TV, so we put on ‘kleine hippo’ on the laptop and listened to the German as our hands were busy.

IMG 0707 edited-1

We then settled for a read – some red nose readers for BB, and while the bear sleeps solstice and nativity narrative for them both – with discussions around as usual. I do like that book. SB has done lots of jigsaws and playing with BB.

IMG 0715

BB was seriously flagging, so attempted the bath thing, but she stood up in it and wailed ‘mummy, tuddle meeee, I need tuddle, mummeeeeeeee’ so I did, and she fell asleep. meanly I then dressed her, and she managed to make it through tea before falling asleep in my arms whilst I was on the phone – sweet.

SB was listening to little toe, and then we have watched some recorded robin hood together. It is the most adult thing we have ever watched with her, and I wonder what she makes of some of the subtexts – if they are noticeable. But she loves the gore and fighting! :rolls:

Must wrap pressies tonight. Meant to do the stollen – so have that for tomorrow, and somehow need to do the delia scones again as all gone!

Oh, and it was fudge – rather yummy actually.

Leave a comment

Posted in art and crafts, Butterbean, Cooking, General, language, literacy, Out and About, Stringbean's HE