Take one pan...

I'm getting quite good at these bung it all in a pan teas.

So, inspired by 'A Girl called Jack' I thought I'd blog it. 

First chop and fry an onion, add grated carrot and courgette and swede, the courgette was grown by my mum so was delicious, (we'd had two in last nights tea with some homegrown beans, pasta shells and a jar of Aldi tomato and mascarpone sauce.) the swede was left over from a pie I'd made a few days back ( ok, ok last week!) 

Then comes the magic... Open the cans and bung it in. 

In no particular order...

small tin of sweet corn

small tin of chickpeas 

tin of cannellini beans

tin of green lentils 

And a tin of tomatoes

Some passatta 

Two-ish teaspoons of veg stock

Two teaspoons of curry powder 

One teaspoon of garam masala

After tasting a bit I also put in a teaspoon of marmite and a teaspoon of miso. 

I do get a bit George's Marvellous medicine when I'm cooking!

I served it with basmati rice. 

Delicious, I shall freeze the rest and maybe add more stock for a yummy soup. 

The best complement.

A typical day.

A typical day, honestly, really I can't lie and say it starts with a family breakfast where we discuss current affairs, ok.

A typical week day starts, thankfully, with Paul bringing me a cup of coffee, he does this 99% of the time but the days he doesn't are the days I could punch him in the head so thankfully it's most days. 

Paul's up first which is good, I get up when I hear the woman next door go to work, it's a bad system to rely on as it can back fire if she's ill or has a day off. 

Most days are the same, Paul opens the kids curtains, they groan, I get in the shower, Jack comes in uses the loo, promises not to flush. 

Tommy is usually downstairs lounging on the setee eating his cereal like he's got all the time in the world. 

I then have to find one, two or all of their clothes! Get my self dressed and dry my hair, I hate drying my hair and never put much effort into it. I then go down stairs and make the sandwiches, hunt for school bags and shoes and moan at the kids to eat up, get dressed, clean their teeth, move faster. . .I get the dog in if she's outside barking, tidy round  (load dishwasher on a good day!) And try to leave the house tidy as it will annoy me all day if I know we've left it a mess. 

Most days we have the car but some days we rush I mean walk to school, I work at the same school so that makes life a little easier. As I said in the previous blog I'm a teaching assistant, I work in early years, which is great fun. 

'you might not ever get rich, but let me tell ya it's better than diggin a ditch'

So 8.45 - 12 or 3.15 (yeah as if!) depending on the day consist of all kinds of fun! 

Noise, snot, tears, stories, paint, play doh, toast, milk, maths, reading, writing listening, talking, laughing, walking not running, more coffee, letters, sounds, the bell. On my afternoons off I catch up on cleaning, shopping or Mad Men. 

Then its Home time. 

The complete opposite of the morning, a leisurely stroll home (or short drive) chatting about their day. 

Through the door and a half-hearted welcome these days from Martha, a cup of coffee, chat to the boys, snack and a drink, tv, ipods or garden for them, tidy round, unload dishwasher and washing machine and think about tea whilst checking Facebook for me. 

5 pm Martha's tea time heaven forbid you forget!!

We always sit together for tea and Paul's usually home before or during. 

I like to tidy the kitchen after tea and I like to think this always happens. 

A typical summers day means the kids are back outside playing football or if its really cold and wet we're all in watching tv together (I'm talking sub zero and torrential rain as they'll be out all weathers) , one of us will take the dog out and lately I've been going for a jog but this hasn't become regular enough to be typical yet! 

Then the moan we had about getting them out of bed turns into the moan about getting them into bed. I'm usually competing with a football match and I usually lose. 

Once we've gone through the never ending bedtime ritual (that's a blog in itself) I usually hit the sack myself all my plans of doing the sandwiches or ironing or reading the books that are gathering dust by my bed fly out the window and I sit in bed watching tv with Martha snuggled between us (or growling underneath it) 

As you can see we're pretty relaxed, no after school clubs or scouts, beavers or boys brigade. We have gymnastics on a Thursday and our weekends are filled with football, training Saturdays, matches Sundays, I wouldn't have it any other way.

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Others taking part in blog everyday

Penelope's Vintage World 
JJC Photography
Little White Cottage 
Elfie's Smile
Gianina Blog
Kay Patterson's Blog

Arrrrrg!

Ok I admit defeat, I can't take any more kids tv, I've had my fill of Sponge Bob and Harry Hill repeats, Tom and Jerry was ok for a while and The Pink Panther amusing, The Regular show was funny the first time, but Im gonna have to admit I miss Cbeebies in fact you know what I miss, people...real live human beings, ok they might be dressed up as trendy allotment owners or wacky kids entertainers but at least they're human.

We had a brief love affair with CBBC and laughed together at Hacker and Bear Behaving Badly (ok I was laughing the loudest) but since then its been cartoon channels everyday and you know what the most annoying thing is...yep...the adverts, and they are all aimed at me, and my kids are starring zombie like at the tv being sold car insurance, mis-sold payment protection plans, debt management and Marthas favourite...dog sponsorship.

I think Im gonna have to rearrange the house and find myself somewhere comfy to sit away from the tv...when The Amazing Adventures of Gumball has finished that is.

How my boys describe me...

(this post by Lindsey...not Martha!!!)

I have recently been readingwww.fantasticimperfectfamily.com and loved her bit 'My boys would probably describe me in the following way'(...http://fantasticimperfectfamily.com/nlp/lets-get-the-introductions-over )
So I asked my boys 'how would you describe me'
This is what they came up with:

• Says nice words
• good at hugging
• good at cooking
• good at driving 
• takes us nice places where we learn stuff

All these things were said with a great big smile beaming across their faces and not a hint of irony when they said I was good at driving!

Monkey and LaLa

My two boys have cuddlies, lots of them.

(strange choice of location ...I know!)

Jack has monkey, who is a lovely soft monkey we bought from Sainsburys before he was born.

Jack and monkey

Tommy has LaLa who was once a lovely yellow teletubbie.

not so cute anymore!

LaLa is actually a replacement cuddlie as Tommy originally had War-fee (War rhymes with star, fee rhymes with me!) it was a soft, home made, blue starfish that my mum made for Tommy so he could ‘drape’ it over his face when he was little.

...on holiday in Zante

Warfee went everywhere with Tommy, he would cuddle him in bed, stick him under his num num so he was close to his nose,

push him under his sunglasses on holiday and shove him up his jumper at nursery.

...getting ready to move house

...bouncing on a friends trampoline.

...playing in the ball pool

...or just relaxing on the setee

He had warfee for three years until Jack was born.

Jack was born by c-section and Paul took Tommy on the bus to register Jack, Tommy loves buses so this was a treat for him, they caught the bus into Town went to the registry office, went to Sainsburys for a carton of juice and caught the bus home. When they got home Warfee was gone!
I rang the Registry office and tried to describe a homemade blue starshaped piece of cloth with an embroidered face on it, the lady was sympathetic but said she hadn’t seen it, I then rang Sainsburys, same answer. I then had the task of ringing the bus station I tried explaining it to the lost property man, I tried describing it as a childs comforter…’Computer?’ the man replied. So I tried describing it again …I think he thought I was mad! All I wanted to say was have you seen Warfee? All I wanted to do was jump out of bed and get on the bus and find him. My mum even went in and retraced their steps. Even now if I go down Broad Street I still look out for him.(Not sure who it affected most...hmmm!)

Warfee was swiftly replaced by Lala who has an annoying rattle in her tummy that would jangle as he walked along the landing, looking back I wish I’d guided him to something cuter…lol.

Lala has been a great comfort to Tommy and still turns up when he is feeling low or unsure of things, she went in his pocket when he had his first season ticket to watch Birmingham City, although she does now have a slightly scary appearance and has even been decorated like Darth Maul!!!and patched up a few times (Nanna to the rescue again.) she's still very much loved.

Darth LaLa

This why Jack has monkey

Jack and monkey...looking at monkeys

…and monkey 2 ...and why he had FOUR funny bunnies,(http://bit.ly/d7oEFH )

I was so sure that it wouldn’t happen again.

I mean you can describe a monkey, you can look for a monkey and hopefully you can find a monkey…you could even put up a poster for a missing monkey!

Monkey or Teetee as he was known for a short while isn’t so easily shoved into small places so hasn’t been on as many adventures as Warfee or Lala, although we did lose him once, only to be found a short time later hiding in the seat of Jacks push along car, this how Jack found out about monkey 2

(we once lost Lala for some weeks and found her squashed into the lower compartment of their Early learning centre Rocket.)

Every night when I go upstairs and peep in on them before I go to bed Jack has monkey in his arms and LaLa isn't too far from Tommys grasp (along with toastie, squashy, terry, tc, ted, trevor, blues bear,sooty, mummy lala.....)