Baby steps leaving footprints in the Winter snow

[roastparsnipsandbrusselsprouts]

We will have to reign in the spending next month too, I don't go back to work until April so we have a few more months of living on DHs salary.

We had friends round for lunch & we have SIL & her husband popping round for a bit this evening, then that's it. No more visitors or visiting (MIL wants us to go round tomorrow (to build the dolls house they bought for DD1) but I have told DH I just want a lazy day at home with the kids and he liked the sound of that!

The only downer is that I need to do a bloddy meal plan & shopping list

bessie can you dig out an old meal plan and just use that? Or are you like me and trying to work with the half of everything that you have left over? We have lots of nice cheese which ds loves and is obviously helpful for maintaining his weight but we can't continue to just gorge ourselves. I am trying to make sure there are loads of veggies and fruit going in but it is tricky when routines go to pot.

We are going to the cinema tomorrow afternoon which I think will do us good. It's not taxing but it is out of the house. Ddad is taking us out for tea as well. I think it will be Pizza Hut for the dcs but at least they do a free salad bar now.

We don't have that much left over! We didn't buy lots of cheese or stuff like that, as no-one ever eats it!

I do need to sort out something to make the meal planning easier this year as it is my most hated task. I used to love looking for different things to eat when it was just me & DH, but now I've got to find stuff for an increasingly picky toddler & baby to eat it's just got really difficult! DH says I try too hard & we should have some meals more often, but I think he just wants sausage & mash more often!

Did you get any new cookbooks for Christmas bessie? My dparents gave me the Jamie's Great Britain. It's a lovely book but, although the index makes it look like there are loads of veggie recipes in it, there are very few veggie meals or recipes which I can easily adapt to being veggie. I had been hoping for an easy way to have a few extra meals to add to the repertoire but I will have to try a bit harder.

Morning all, I was looking at the Good Food website yesterday trying to decide what to have for dinner but I just ended up chucking a load of random stuff together --half of it ended up in the bin--.
I got a cook book by Lorraine Pascale for Christmas.
Last year I got Jamie's 30 min meals. I have lots of recipe books just never seem to commit to making anything cause I either can't be bothered
or I don't have all the ingredients needed.

Anyway today I would like to:
Shower, get dressed
do shopping list
Go food shopping
Do more washing.
tidy kitchen

We are running low on essential food items as we used a lot of the good stuff on Christmas day. We have lots of snacky food but not enough for decent meals.

Hi BlackCat - the Jamie 30 mins is actually quite tricky I think. The Ministry of Food book that he does is my favourite. It is easy and the results are brilliant and the book is clear and easy to follow. I get quite Evangelical about it.

I am washed and dressed to brand new knee high boots with buckles - thanks Mum and Dad

Other than that I have put a lasagne dish in to soak and sorted out some money to pay a bill. That is it. I am getting lazier by the day. (dh thinks it just means I am finally relaxing a bit)

My ddad phoned today to say he has booked a holiday for us (dmum and ddad and me and the dcs) during the summer holidays. I am really excited. It is to Aviemore again and the dcs are high as kites remembering what they did and what they want to do again It is fab to have something to look forward to with them.

I will have to meal plan as well. Our fridge went from being stuffed to the point of being scary to virtually empty in a matter of days. I have fresh pasta, lots of cheese, fruit and carrots. We are eating out tonight though so I just have to make a lunch from that lot and we have left over butternut squash soup as well which will tide us over for today. I would really like to spend as little as possible.

I have: Showered, got dressed and been shopping. The fridge is now bursting at the seems. That will be it now though, just going to buy essentials from now on.

DH stayed home with the DC Cause DD was sick earlier.

Carrots That Jamie book sounds good. I will have a look next time I'm at the shops.(I got a bit of money for Christmas)

I bought some jusrol pastry so I'm hoping I can create something out of that.

Here's the website for Jusrol if anyone is interested

www.jusrol.co.uk.

Oh. The link won't work but that is the website.

carrots I got the HFW Veg book for Xmas which looks great, also got yet another cookbook from MIL which is mainly non-veggie, she claims it has "loads" of veg stuff in, but all it has is veg side dishes which you can't always turn into a main meal. TBH I am quite annoyed as I have loads if veggie cook books on my amazon wish list & she's just given me some clutter I am going to feel guilty for putting in the charity bag next week!!

I'll stop winging now

I'm just doing the basics atm. Tonight I need to wash my hair, watch Dr Who & drink some wine

Morning all, I think I might have a day of trying to get more organised today,

I need to:
Get dressed
breakfast
wrap a birthday present
do some birthday cards
update the January calender/diary with important dates (Always loose track of dates this time of year!)
Tidy kitchen
do more washing
put away dry washing
write this list onto a piece of paper so I know what I should be doing

What does everyone else have planned?

Just wanted to give you all a bit of hope, ??
Newsflash:
DD Has slept through for the last 3 nights !!! YAY!!!
This is great after 3 years of not enough sleep!
I might start to have a bit more energy now

BlackCat LittleKitten was saving it up as a Christmas present. You couldn't get a better one. Congratulations!

bessie that is my kind of to do list.

I am on basic duties, mainly because the dcs have their loot out all over the kitchen and I think they should be allowed to play with it all for now.

I nipped to Tesco before dh went to work so that I wouldn't have to drag the dcs with me. I had £50 cash and that was it so I was adding up on my shopping list as I went along. I felt like a bit of a scrooge but it did concentrate the mind and I only spent £42. I did forget Tropicana though as it wasn't on my list. Hopefully they have some in the local shop.

I came home to a cheque from a family friend for £40 for the dcs for Christmas They are now officially wealthier than me. Ds still has all his birthday money too. I am eyeing up some biker style boots with furry linings on the Duo website and my dcs have a better chance of affording them than I do I will still have fun shopping with my dcs when the time comes though.

Today's main job will be thank you letters. Not a problem with dd but ds makes a huge song and dance about them. Wish me luck!

Thank you letters done. I am amazed. Ds didn't even make a fuss. Yay! Just me to address, stamp and post them now. That may take longer!

I think we might have to play their new board game first and eat some of our chocolate orange.

I think my DC have Christmas money to spend too.

I have done:
Got dressed
breakfast
birthday cards and present done
some of calender, diary done
some washing up done

To do:
decide on and cook dinner
more washing up
clothes washing
DC to bed then chill out!

Hello Anyone around???

I was doing well today up until tea time then I started getting back ache and it hurts when I try to bend.
Hoping it's not going to last so will see how I am in the morning. Won't be much Flying done if it's not o.k.

How is everyone else?

Hi BlackCat. I have done ok today. We did the thank you cards and played The Game of Life, then I insisted on a tidy up and I hoovered and promised them we could play Pictionary if they got on with it. They didn't quibble and did a good job. I didn't make them put the toys away, just contain them a little bit. The phone went just as we finished up but I did still go and play the game with them. I did the dishwasher too and the worktops so things are looking civilised again. Only took ten minutes.

I have also decluttered a few poppadoms and a few of dh's Christmas choccies

Hello, I have also been decluttering the chocolates.

That sounds like a nice kind of day you had. I wonder if my DD would be able to sit still long enough to play a board game??
Maybe she is still too young. (3).
I know DS would like to.
We had the game of life when I was young (living with parents). It was a good game.

We took the girls out to a farm place today to feed some animals and had lunch there. I've still not done much flying apart from the basics. Have fallen a bit behind on laundry as I lost track of what day it was over xmas!

I need to sort some of the kids clothes out into bags to go in the loft, and I need DH to go hunting through the bags already up in the loft again to see if he can find more sleeping bags for DD2, I'm sure we've got some in the next size up & I really don't want to buy any if I don't have to.

black excellent sleep news about your DD! DD2 slept for 12hrs last night - think that must be the third time ever! FX they both continue!

black we tried playing a memory type game with DD1(3) the other day - she got it, but got bored quite quickly (not as quickly as DH & me though!)

We're going to try watching Muppet Xmas Carol tomorrow, she usually gets bored after about 20mins of TV, so we might be watching it for several weeks!

Bessie DD seems to be going to sleep a lot later (Tonight it was around 9.30pm) but she is not waking till around 8.00am which is great at the moment. Next week it might be a problem as I have to get them back into the School routine of waking around 7.00am.

It will be great though if they carry on sleeping all night.!!

We had it as children too BlackCat and my dparents still have it. This one is different but still lots of fun, although complicated. Ds wouldn't manage if he was playing with dcs his own age but it was ok with a 10 yo and me.

It is really difficult to play a board game with a 3 yo really. She would probably manage Beetle or Tummy Ache with a little support and ds still loves both of those games so you might get away with them.

She might like snap or that memory game where you lay out mixed up pairs of cards and they take it in turns to turn one and try to remember if anyone has turned its pair yet and where it is. It might still be a challenge though.

My DC seem to spend a lot of time running around then climbing all over each other. DS will sit still for a while to play his Xbox and DD will sit still to watch a DVD but she often gets up after about 5 minutes to charge around. She thinks it's great fun to scream at the moment, not sure what the neighbours think .

Ds has been running around a lot today too. He was doing laps of the kitchen and hallway between turns of the game. He is not a sit still kind of boy and I have got used to it really and don't notice as much.

If it wasn't gale force outside I would get him into the woods for a good run around but dd's injury is making that tricky.

Fortunately our closest neighbour is away and very tolerant even when he is home (widower who longs for Grandchildren ) so we get away with noisy garden play etc.

I think the screaming is ok BlackCat as long as she doesn't do it in the middle of the night

Carrots What have they said about dd's injury. Will it get better soon?