So that was Easter

The kids are back at school. Easter came...

... and Easter went. Much like the beautiful pink blossom that screamed Spring is Here...

... all that is left is a little mess to clear up.

I had set myself a challenge to complete 40 minutes of the torturous planking exercise throughout the 40 days of Lent. Despite missing some days out completely and leaving myself with three minutes worth to do on the final day, I met my target. If you ever find yourself complaining that time is passing too quickly, put yourself into the plank position and hold it for a minute. Never have sixty seconds passed so laboriously slowly.

The planking challenge was part of my One Small Change for March, to improve my core strength. From a vanity point of view, I can't say I've really noticed much difference. My wobbly bits still bulge over the waistband of my jeans making me reluctant to abandon the baggy jumpers in favour of more weather appropriate attire. However, beneath the wobbly bit, if you should happen to prod, there are definitely abs waiting to reveal themselves should I lay off the chocolate, cake and beer long enough to give them half a chance. And I feel fitter - which has become a far greater incentive for me than chasing the perfect bikini body (a losing battle at my age I fear!).

My One Small Change for April has been to run more with my husband. This has never been very easy because one of us usually has to stay and look after the children while the other wears the high vis lycra and takes to the streets. With two of my daughters back home for the easter holidays from their places of education, it has been easier. We took advantage of the babysitting availability and put in a fair few miles together. And I loved it.

I used to feel a little bit anxious about running with my husband, He runs faster than I do and I worried that I'd hold him back or that I'd do myself a mischief trying to keep up with him. It hasn't turned out like that at all. By some happy coincidence, my 5K pace is not far off his 10K pace and my 10K pace is the sort of pace that he can just keep going and run marathons. We train together but with a different focus. He has inspired me to run a little faster which is reflected in a new Personal Best and slowing him down has made him less prone to injury. We have run some beautiful routes together in the sort of weather that makes you happy to be alive. It has been a wonderful shared experience.

One time, we ran together around Preston park in Brighton where he ran as a boy. It included a lap of the Preston Park Velodrome, the oldest cycle track in the country. It was especially nostalgic for my husband but it was lovely to be part of a new memory we were making. We have plans for lots more running in the south coast when we go on visits to see my father in law.

I never imagined that running would become such an important part of my life. As we were running in Brighton I did remark to my husband that it just was the equivalent of a nice stroll around the park for people who don't have much time. We certainly fall into that category of people. I hesitate to say that there is not enough time to do all the thing I want to do because to follow my own  advice, I would have to get myself into that plank position and hold it for sixty seconds. And to be honest, I've had enough of that for the time being!

Easter Days

The kids don't go back to school until next week but my husband is back at work already which definitely gives the feeling that Easter is over.

The Easter weekend itself was odd for me because two of my girls were in Portugal staying with their father. Although my eldest daughter joined us for lunch, our morning Easter Egg hunt was just for the two little ones, which is much how it will be once Taylor goes back to university and Charis goes off to boarding school. I viewed it as a little rehearsal for when that time comes. Life is going to be very different.

I made a chocolate fudge cake which Addy enjoyed decorating with mini eggs and everyone enjoyed eating.

To round off our Easter holiday festivities, we attended a special spring event at our local community owned organic farm. With the weather having drastically improved from the snow and icy winds of late, it was very well attended with people, possibly like me, desperate for signs of spring. What better 'sign of spring' than gorgeous little lambs playfully leaping onto hay bales. We were all enchanted by them, especially Dylan who just kept reaching in to touch them.

There were lots of activities for the children to get involved with:

Meeting the rescued Owls

Not too impressed with the sticky seed mix used for Making Bird Feeders

Enjoying the reward for completing the Easter Egg Trail

Wondering whether to dare entering the Straw Bale Tunnel

Certainly it was a stark contrast from shopping for designer clothes in Portugal but my girls seemed content enough drinking dodgy hot chocolate from chipped mugs and were massively enthused by the stall selling freshly made fudge in a baffling array of flavours (mars bar fudge was my personal favourite with chocolate and peanut butter being a high ranking contender for the accolade). Taylor bought a magic wand carved from a birch twig and her boyfriend demonstrated his manliness with some welly wanging.

Addy did threaten to spoil the whole experience by getting herself into the foulest of moods and insisting that we only liked 'boring fun' but it really was a lovely family day out to make up for my girls' absence the previous weekend.

Best of all for me though was a warm sunshiny day just before my husband had to return to work. We got out into the garden for a good session of weeding, pruning and preparing for the growing season with Dylan and Addy as willing 'helpers'. I was really excited to see that the snow had not damaged my rhubarb which was bursting into life with the promise of rhubarb crumbles to come. I can't wait to get back out there and start planning and planting. Happy days.

Forty Miles for Lent

I've never been any good at the whole 'giving something up for Lent' thing but my decision to do something positive - to add something significant for the duration of time between Shrove Tuesday and Easter Sunday - has been really successful.

I resolved to run Forty miles for Lent. Every time I didn't feel like going out training or making the effort to get off the sofa, I thought about my Lent tally and renewed motivation had me reaching for my running shoes. Once I got back into the habit of running again it became very self supporting - the more I ran, the more I wanted to run.

Then came the snow.

I know that many runners go out in all weather conditions but the idea of contending with freezing temperatures, bitter winds and icy roads was just not that appealing. However, as soon as I could, I was back out and feel a great sense of achievement that I managed to total over 45 miles - never very fast, never very athletically, but job done.

I am loving how the calorie total for my Lent mileage is looking. Although 5,679 calories doesn't quite cover the energy value listed for the chocolate Egg that my husband surprised me with, it does feel like a relatively guilt free Easter.

These 45 miles are just the begining. I have a lot more training to put in before I feel confident about taking part in the Market Drayton 10K race this May...  but I am on my way.

Glitter glue and googly eyes

Although it has only been a short term,  I am definitely more than ready for this Easter holiday and to celebrate the start of it, I had a craft session with the kids decorating easter eggs.

Whilst I was having a lovely relaxing, post run (just under three slightly painful miles), hot bath, my husband got busy blowing eggs. He expertly blew six but by the time I was out of my bath and dressed, little Dylan had already 'hatched' a couple of them!

With the remainder, I tried to lead by example and show two under fives how easy it was to transform a plain egg into Buzzbee the bee with just a little paint, some cling film for the wings and a cocktail stick for a deadly looking stinger. They were far more interested in simply squeezing copious amounts of glitter glue everywhere.

Dylan's googly eyed creation

Addy does love glitter glue

The results weren't exactly stunning (although Dylan's actually turned out much better than his big sister's) but they did have fun.

By the end of it, I could have done with another bath.

Wishful thinking

Just after I finished writing my post yesterday and turned off the computer, my upbeat mood that had blossomed from a lovely Easter day and having both babies asleep in bed, suffered something of a
setback. My little Dylan woke up screaming and would not be settled back to sleep. I gulped down the remainder of my sparkling chardonnay getting all the calories and none of the pleasure and resigned myself to another night of bed sharing to the detriment not only of my back but also my time spent with my husband.

Time with husband has been very lacking of late. As well as the disruption to our evenings because of the children's recent illnesses, I also lost him for two days during a well overdue visit with his best friend. And now, I lose him again as he spends the next four days with his daughter from his first marriage. The relationship with his daughter has been strained almost to the point of estrangement but he has never given up hope that his love will find a way to bring her back to his paternal embrace.

Demands on his time are great. Our time is always the first that is sacrificed.

Often I don't even realise how much I desperately need that time. Time to reconnect. Time to restrengthen our bond. Time to re-energise. If I am not careful, I can easily find myself in the position where I am now -feeling low, withdrawn and frankly, not coping all that well. I hate it. Stupidly, it means that I waste the opportunities where I actually could be having the sort of wonderful shared moments that can make a marriage so fulfilling.

I had been looking forward to the Easter holidays not just for our family time but as a chance to get some of the jobs on our ever growing job list crossed off, getting out in the garden for some spring planting and also grabbing with both hands those opportunities for the indulgence of my need for quality time with my husband.

None of the above have really come to fruition...

...yet.

The optimist in me is insisting that it could all still happen.

As I type this, my husband is putting to bed the two little ones (who I know he is going to miss terribly over the next few days when he will be far away and doing his best to cope with an altogether different parenting challenge).

Maybe they will settle quickly and sleep peacefully throughout the night. Maybe then, just maybe we can relax and enjoy our last evening together before he heads off tomorrow with his hastily packed bag and headful of dreams of a happy reunion with an eighteen year old whose life has become so unfamiliar and distant.

And if not... he'll be back on Friday and maybe then, just maybe......

Easter Sunday Farmyard Cake Fun

This is what happens when you let your six children plus one boyfriend and your husband loose with buttercream, sweets, fairy cakes and inspiration from your Cake Decorating Partwork.

Chicks, sheep, cows and pigs

It's been a lovely Easter Sunday:  teamwork in the kitchen to get the dinner prepared, Easter Eggs well and truly hidden by Liberty and Taylor's evil boyfriends, hours spent rediscovering retro board games from the depths of the games cupboard and of course the farmyard cakes.

Unlike last year, my husband even remembered to get me an Easter Egg!

It's 9.30pm now. The little ones are asleep in bed, and the big girls have retired to their room to multitask with TV and computers.

I still have a little sparkling Chardonnay to finish and the rest of the evening to relax and enjoy.

Life is good.

Sick

I'm not one of those mums who dread school holidays. I love having the kids home. I love the noise and chaos. I love finding them activities to keep them occupied.

However, this easter holiday has not started well.

Both my little ones have recently had chicken pox and my little boy in particular had a very hard time of it, covered in spots that drove him crazy. Just when I thought we were putting illness behind us, they both started vomiting.

I assumed it was a 24 hour bug and they would bounce back quickly but 48hours later they still weren't even able to keep down water.

We took them the see the nurse at our health centre. She examined them and could find nothing that started alarm bells ringing. We were advised to keep trying to encourage them to have sips of water and as long as they were peeing there was nothing too much to worry about. She did ask that we bring my son, who was clearly in a worse state than his sister, back to see the doctor later that day for a second opinion. As a child, the nurse had developed meningitis following chicken pox and was well aware of the potential dangers of a lowered immunity.

The doctor confirmed that regular sips of water and monitoring their hydration levels was the only course of action required.

They have both slept for much of the time.

I have been desperately trying to keep on top of the unavoidable mountain of sicky laundry and doing my best to stay positive.

It is very difficult to stay positive.

My precious holiday time is ticking away. I have achieved none of the plans and goals that I had set myself and I am left feeling incredibly tired and run down.

Little Addy is in bed now, sleeping peacefully. Dylan is in his daddy's arms ready to be put in his cot. Maybe tonight they will actually remain in their beds all night rather than ending up in mine. I never object to bed sharing if they need it but it does give me back ache to add to my woes.

I want my little ones back healthy and happy. I want to see their appetites return. I don't want to feel their tiny bones through their skin where they have both lost so much weight.

They have been brighter today and hopefully tomorrow they will be brighter still. There is still plenty of holiday time to enjoy and I won't care what the weather does outside as long as I can finally wave goodbye to the black cloud of illness that has hung about for far too long.

Easter Gift Ideas

The daffodils blooming in my garden are reminding me that Easter is just around the corner.

I like the tradition of giving Easter Eggs but there are plenty of inspiring alternative gift ideas if one does not want to restrict themselves to chocolate.

These are a selection of Easter Gift Ideas I was sent to review.

Easter with Schleich

Anyone familiar with Schleich figurines will know that they are exquisitely detailed and highly collectible.

The Schleich range is enormous but these farm animals, puppy and rabbits could make a fantastic Easter themed gift.

I made a cute display of them on my writing bureau but my little ones keep climbing up to get them to play with. Dylan especially loves the pig because PIG is one of the few words he can say really well. He can also make a pretty convincing oinking sound!

Rabbit Parade

The thing I love about jigsaw puzzles is sitting down with my kids to solve them together. This panoramic cute bunny picture screams SPRINGTIME and would make a lovely, gentle activity over the Easter holidays.

With 200 pieces generously sized pieces, this puzzle should keep us busy and give the little ones the opportunity to get involved. 

The picture has clearly been subject to some photo manipulation which has led to much speculation from my older (more cynical) children with regards to the method used to encourage the bunnies to snuggle together so closely and neatly (velcro/superglue/kebab skewer - you get the idea!) 

Rabbit Parade is a quality puzzle as you would expect from the Ravensburger brand.

Chocolate Rotator

Ok, so this gift idea does involve chocolate. 

The Let's Cook Chocolate Rotator is one of a range of food preparation sets from Character. This particular set enables children to create hollow chocolate shapes in a variety of designs. One of the moulds is an egg shape making this ideally suited as an Easter gift.

We did have a lot of fun with it but I have to confess that the biggest attraction was licking the melted chocolate spills and excess.

The amount of coloured foil you are provided with is only enough to make a very limited number of wrapped chocolates. 

The chocolate is not included.

The following video shows our not entirely successful attempt to make foil wrapped hollow chocolates.

I think that with some experimentation in how much chocolate to use and which type of chocolate works best, some reasonably good results could be achieved. However, if I am honest, it was the chocolate itself that got my children most excited rather than the ability to create the hollow chocolate shapes. I would probably have been better off sticking to Easter Eggs!

Be a Knight, Do it Right

My little ones have been enchanted by CBeebies' CG animated series, Mike the Knight, since its first airing.

Each episode is packed full of medieval adventure, comedy and magical mishaps with a strong moral code to Do It Right. 

There are a host of fun characters from Mike's two dragon friends, Sparkie and Squirt, to his wizard in training younger sister Evie (complete with pet frog, Mr Cuddles!)

Mike the Knight - Knight in Training (from HIT entertainment) will be available to own on DVD from 19th March. With five episodes and a musical bonus feature, there is plenty to keep the kids amused and would make a great Easter gift.

Huzzah!!

I don't know about you but....

This meme from Oh Mammy seems like too good an opportunity to miss. Everybody needs an outlet for their frustrations and this is a lot less painful than banging your head against a wall.

I don't know about you but... I love holidays and any excuse for a celebration. I also love chocolate. Easter, then, should tick all my boxes and make me very happy. I provided activities such as Easter Bonnet Making, Gingerbread Egg Decorating, an Easter Egg Hunt and a Celebration Dinner. The kids loved it. The baby loved it to the point that he made himself sick on chocolate and deposited brown vomit over the white ribbon of the Easter Bonnet.

I don't know about you but I hate when my sister tries to make me wear her Easter Bonnet!

Despite the frivolity and fun, I couldn't help but feel disappointed that my usually generous husband had not given me an Easter Egg.

As a kid I rarely got Easter Eggs because my parents thought they were not good value for money. We would get a bar of chocolate and some pocket money instead. I remember gazing into the window of the local sweetshop at their display of eggs and so badly wanting the foil wrapped chocolate treat presented in a mug decorated with a Thelwell Pony and Rider.

No Easter has ever quite made up for the disappointment of not getting the much coveted Egg and Mug set. This Easter was no exception.

My husband had a reason for not buying me an Egg (it could have been as simple as a creme egg from the kids to make me happy). His reason was He Doesn't Do Easter.


So, I don't know about you but... I hate it when my husband decides that He Doesn't Do Easter because that means no easter egg for me - again :(

I wasn't completely without chocolate. I have a very special friend who NEVER forgets "Paula and the girls" (I'm sure the post office think I must run brothel when I go to collect parcels from him addressed like that!) He sent us a delicious Hotel Chocolate You Crack Me Up  Egg which we all shared after dinner with coffee. Lovely.

Donkey Oaty

We have been having such a busy time over Half Term with our first alphabet date, a third birthday to celebrate, impromptu barbecues and family visiting. There has hardly been time to catch my breath. It was a real treat to snatch some time for myself whilst my husband went off to Morrisons with the little ones, armed with a shopping list and lots of bags.

I used the time for a relaxing soak in the bath with one of my new Lush goodies, the Donkey Oaty bath bomb.

He was a cute little fellow, my donkey, but as he fizzed away in the warm water he got the look of the poor emaciated animals that feature on the animal charity leaflets urging us to dig deep into our pockets to help stop the cruelty. Soon he was gone completely. I made a mental note to put some loose change in the next RSPB collection tin and luxuriated.

It may not be everyone's idea of fun lying in bathwater that looks like it has been tinted with bromine, with citrus peel floating on a slightly scummy surface but for me it was a little bit of Easter Heaven.

Flashback Friday - Creme Eggs

The Easter holidays are here and the supermarkets are not about to let us forget that Easter means Easter Eggs. Despite the huge range of merchandise available now, the one thing that remains totally synonymous with Easter for me still is the Cadbury Creme Egg. In the interest of dieting I have yet to taste the sickly fondant loveliness encased within the thick shell of sweet chocolate made in the way that only Cadbury can. My mouth waters at the mere thought (although these days my poor sensitive teeth shudder at the prospect!)

It is a miracle that I was not put off Creme eggs for ever after witnessing the Great Beer and Creme Egg Race that was a big date in the social calendar of one of the Halls of Residence of Bristol University.

Relay teams of strong stomached students would compete to see who could most quickly consume 4 pints of beer each with a creme egg between each pint. The amount of vomit flying around and the wretching noises would act as a catalyst for yet more vomit as determined 'athletes' would push through the pain barrier of forcing yet more gassy ale into distended, fondant filled stomachs. Sick buckets were an essential piece of equipment.

Some teams took it very seriously with practice sessions and qualifiers. My future husband failed to make the grade but we went to support our foolhardy friends. Our friend in the white T Shirt is faring slightly better than the opponent next to him with his head in the sick bucket! As I recall, his composure did not last for the duration of the challenge.

THE EGG BODS HAVE LANDED!

The rows and rows of Easter Eggs on supermarket shelves proclaim the fact it is that time of year again. I will no doubt be filling my trolley with ovoid chocolate treats before too long but I can't honestly say that anything I've seen so far has particularly egg-cited me (sorry!!). It is all much the same as last year... and the year before.

What has made me feel like a kid again are the Mix and Match Collectibles from Bluw Toys - Egg Bods.

These wind up toys with characters such as Fireman Scramble and Nurse Eggwhite can be jumbled up to form a host of new characters to fire the imagination.

The video shows a cracking bit of fun we had with two of the Egg Bods sent to me for review.

Available at all leading toy retailers for £4.99 each, Egg bods would make a great Easter Gift. (recommended for children 4+)

www.eggbods.com