The Blog of a Full-Time Working Mum

Perfect day for baking today. The weather is awful! I found a quick and easy recipe to make chocolate chip cookies on Good to Know: http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/310732/Jasmine-s-easy-choc-chip-biscuits It makes 20 cookies. Ingredients 225g caster sugar 300g plain flour (sifted) 200g of butter melted 1tsp vanilla extract 1tsp of baking powder A pinch of salt 1 egg 150g chocolate chips Method - Add all the ingredients (apart from the chocolate chips) into a bowl and mix together. - Once you get a dough texture, knead using your hands. - Add the chocolate chips and mix together using your hand again. - Spread some butter onto a baking tray. - Take some of the dough, roll into 2-3cm ball then flatten a little. - Place in the oven and bake at 160C, gas 3 around 15 mins. They're ready when the edges are golden. Enjoy!

Around this time of the year every year, Dylan and I go and pick blackberries to make a crumble :). We did it again yesterday. We did not have to go far, our local park is full of them. It did not take us long to fill up our containers. However by the time we reached home, Dylan had eaten the content of the first container. Needless to say he was not very hungry anymore so we made the crumble tonight instead. I used the Berry Crumble recipe from allrecipes:  http:// allrecipes.co.uk / recipe/26195/ berry-crumble. aspx Ingredients (6 people): 300g blackberries 250g flour 200g sugar 180g butter   Method: Preheat the oven to 200 C / Gas 6. Lightly butter a shallow baking dish Arrange the berries in the dish Mix the sugar, butter and flour with a fork until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over the berries. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes or until crumble is golden and berries are bubbly. S...

Have you ever played footgolf? No? It is so much fun. You have to try! It is like golf with a twist, a new way to play the old game. It is also cheaper and more family-friendly. I tried it for the first time last night. I was looking for a crazy golf place near us but found none, only a standard golf course. However I found out that they offered different types of activities like footgolf and frisbee golf. So we played footgolf. You get a soccer ball (kids get slightly bigger balls). The aim of the game is to complete each hole by kicking the ball into the holes, with the lowest possible amount of kicks. Footgolf players play on the same golf course as the standard golf players. The footgolf holes are gigantic holes placed close to the standard golf holes.  Footgolf holes have different coloured flags. It takes about 45 minutes to complete a 9-hole course. It is fairly easy for a younger child. Dyla...

We had a pizza evening last night. I never know what to cook. I can never please everyone. If hubby likes what I cook, the kids don't and vice versa. It is a nightmare. I could not handle any more criticism about my cooking (not last night). Everyone love pizzas at home hence why a pizza evening :). The kids made their own. Dylan made a ham, olives and goats' cheese pizza and Ryan a Chorizo pizza. Ingredients for Dylan's pizza: Pizza dough base Pizza sauce Ham Goats' cheese Olives Grated cheese Ingredients for Ryan's pizza: Pizza dough base Pizza sauce Chorizo Grated cheese Both the boys enjoyed the activity. Even Ryan managed to participate in the activity (he is only 22 months). Daddy helped him place the Chorizo slices and the grated cheese onto the pizza base (more cheese in his mouth than on the pizza though as you can imagine - too tempting). Dylan did everything himself: spread the pizza sauce onto the pizza base, cut...

Nothing better than a good old game of paper plane flying. I love retro games. They are simple games but they are loads of fun.  Nothing beats a game of Ludo (sat on nan’s lap on a cold winter day) or pooh sticks game (during the Sunday walk after a nice and filling Sunday roast) or building a den in the forest with your buddies on a hot summer day. I felt a bit nostalgic yesterday and thought of all the things I used to play with as a child. One of the things I remembered playing a lot with is paper planes. I mentioned it to Dylan and he welcomed the activity with enthusiasm. We found an easy template for our planes (just a traditional paper plane template) on Wikipedia, made our paper planes, coloured them and gave them names (mine's called Speedo and Dylan's Lightning). We tried to fly our planes from the upstairs window first but both our planes landed in the neighbours’ garden (oops!) so we decided to launch them from the top of t...

Yesterday evening Dylan and I made some cupcakes. I am no baking expert and I don’t like the mess so it is not something we do often. Ryan was in bed (he is only 21 months old) and daddy at work so I said OK. Mum and son's bonding time. I did not have baking chocolate (and I was a bit lazy as well to be honest) so we used chocolate cake mix. Dylan mixed the dough with the hand mixer and placed the cupcake cases in the muffin tray. He also cleaned the bowl -by that I mean that he licked the bowl. Because it was a last minute thing, I forgot to take the butter out to prepare the buttercream frosting (I had tried to melt butter in the microwave in the past but it was a disaster. I completely ruined the buttercream). Luckily I found a trick online to soften butter quickly. Definitely one of the best baking tricks ever! Basically, what you need to do to soften butter quickly (but don’t want to melt it) is to put boiling water in a glass to heat it. Leave ...

Do you know how to make a bicycle sound like a motorbike? All you need is a playing card and a clothes peg. I did not have one so I sacrificed my plastic notebook cover instead. Never mind it was almost time for a new one anyway :). It brings back so many childhood memories. My dad used to do the same thing with the sides of a camembert box (the wooden ones). They make twice as much noise! Sorry dear neighbours :)!

We went for a walk in the woods on Saturday. The plan was to go to the beach but the weather was not that great so we decided to go to the woods instead as it is more sheltered (in case it rains). To make it more fun for Dylan (walking is not much fun apparently - or so he says), I organised a scavenger hunt for him. For those who don't know what a scavenger hunt is, it is a game in which the organisers prepare a list defining specific items, which the participants seek to gather or complete all items on the list. It is very similar to a treasure hunt but without the clues. Preparation time: It takes 10 minutes maximum to prepare your list of items and gather what's needed. You will need: Scavenger hunt list Pen or pencil (to tick what has been found) clipboard (optional) Bucket to collect items or camera (personally I prefer the camera option - I'd rather not go back home with a bucket full of leaves, mushrooms and creatures of all sorts) Activity times: ...

Now that the school is over, it is time for the kids to have a bit of fun and relax. I have put together a list of all the things that I would like to do with them over the summer holiday. I have tried to think of all the fun things that my kids love doing and also what I loved doing as a child. So this is my shortlist: 1- Decorate the pavement with chalk 25/07/16 2- Bake cupcakes and decorate them 07/08/16 3- Go to the local library and take part in the summer reading challenge 15/08/16 4- Go to the swimming pool 14/08/16 5- Have a water gun race 6- Eat a Fish and Chips at the beach 23/08/16 7- Play footgolf 15/08/16 8- Have a scavenger hunt 31/07/16 9- Make stick raft boats and make them float 10- Pick berries and make a crumble 22/08/16 11- Make a homemade pizza 10/0816 12- Go camping 05/08/16 13- Go to the cinema and nibble on sweeties and popcorn 14- Have a Mario Kart Tournament 30/08/16 15- Have a "Flying Paper Plane...

Today I thought I would surprise the kids with outdoor water games but once again the weather was pretty awful so I decided to plan a playdough activity instead. They love it but they do not get to play with playdough very often. I tend to avoid messy play as much as possible. Too much cleaning ;)! So today playdough activity...  Not a good start... No playdough... I must have discarded the dry and cracky playdough and forgot to replace it (yep definitely something I would have done!). Luckily I found a playdough recipe online:  Ingredients - 3 cups floor - 1 cup salt - 1 cup water - 2 tsp vegetable oil - Food colouring Method Mix it all together in a bowl and keep kneading it until it is just right. Easy as that. It takes 5 minutes more or less.  Ryan (1 1/2 years old) enjoyed planting popsicle sticks in the playdough. Dylan (6 years old) chose to write his name with the playdough and build a house with popsicle sticks and dough...