Cute notes.

Now that Eva can write - although there is a slight spelling mistake in the love as she adds a U as well - I get messages, cards and pictures like this almost daily. I used to do the same for my mum, I look back now and cringe, but as a mummy, these are amazing and always put a smile on my face. I have them up on the fridge, or at least I will when I get some new magnets.  The first one she gave to me is a card with balloons on the front. The circle at the bottom she told me was me, but she didn't get to finish it as she had to eat her tea. The last one was a picture. It's me with my long red hair and I'm thinking about my best friends, Eva and Archie. I love how she comes up with things like that. I love these so much and I love Eva even more.

Bean xo

10 things to do this summer.

1. Visit the beach. 

Building sand castles, splashing in the sea, eating fish and chips, ice-cream cones and spending pennies in the pier. The summer for me is all about the beach! We try to go once a year, even before having children the boyfriend and I found ourselves at the beach eating ice-cream watching the sun setting. This year will be the first time we take Archie, I'm not so sure how he will react to sand and I dreading the whole fist full of sand in the mouth moments which from what I remember from Eva's first beach day are not fun for either of us. We're planning on our beach trip before summer - next month - as I'm back at work in June and want to have a nice day out before then.

2. Visit a zoo.
Another yearly thing for us. Boyfriend loves zoo's, even as a child his parents had to take him to one every year on his birthday. I think this year is the only year he's been unable to go to one at all due to Archie being unwell with chicken pox, although we are planning to go to bird land tomorrow. Eva visited her first zoo aged 3 weeks, Archie is 6 months and yet to step foot in one, mainly due to Eva being at school now and boyfriends work hours. we only get the school holidays and boyfriend doesn't always get the time off. This year we are visiting Noah’s Ark zoo. (www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk) It's one we are yet to visit and seems to be a very child friendly place.

3. Have a picnic.
No trip is complete without a picnic. Whether it be a trip to the beach, a walk out in the country or a simple trip to the park. I normally end up eating sushi rather then sandwiches which sounds weird, raw fish? But I love sushi, I'd probably opt for a veggie range rather then fish while out and about though.

4. Go for a walk in the countryside.
I'm very lucky to be in the middle of the Cotswolds meaning I am surrounded in hundreds of amazing walks and places to explore all year around. I love walking in the summer mainly because the sunshine makes for good lighting while taking photos and the ground tends to turn into a bog during the wetter months. I'm looking forward to going for a walk in the woods to see the blue bells, something we do yearly. We also take Eva on a deer walk, whether we try and see how many animals we can find. One year we found wild boar!

5. Fly a kite.
Kite flying for me sends flash backs of the tantrums my brother would throw when his kite wouldn't fly and ended up being thrown in the bin not long after it was brought. We headed to Worcester Woods last year and brought Eva a cheap (I say cheap but the smallest ones were £10) kite and used the fields to go fly it. She loved it, and was actually better then all of us put together! I've just sorted out her kite from the garage ready for trips out this summer - if it's lasts that long!

6. Slimbridge wetland centre.
Or as Eva calls it "Duck land" because it's all about the ducks here. With loads of things to see and do there it's a winner even on wet days. They have hundreds of ducks, geese, swans and other such birds as well as the wildlife, it's beautiful and well worth a visit. We are going with the in laws this year, nanny being a nature lover she's excited to go with Eva and see what they can find.

7. Baking.
This a must for the summer, with Eva off school keeping her entertained on the wet days will be a mission so that's when baking comes in. I love baking, I'm covered in flour most days from baking biscuits or cakes. I plan to do alot with Eva. She tends to get bored making things so I shall bake things for her to decorate and of course she gets to lick the bowl!

8. Go to the park / feed the ducks
With quite a few local parks I can see us spending alot of time visiting these over the summer. Archie is now sitting up unaided so I shall have to take him soon for his first try of a swing. Parks always come hand in hand with feeding the ducks, we normally buy an extra loaf just for them and I've found that if we are in town when we decide to feed the ducks we end up buying them a loaf from the bakery rather then something cheap! They eat better then most.

9. Swimming.
We do this anyway, once a week at least but it's one of those things that need to be there on a list of things to do in the summer. I may look at taking the children to another pool rather then our local maybe one with slides and things.

10. Take photos.
The final thing on my list is photos. I plan to take alot over the summer and post them on this blog. I feel I've forgotten photography over the past year or so and I've run out of excuses to not get the camera out. Go back to 2012 and my camera rarely left my hands!

Weaning.

Yes Archie is really at that stage already, I'm as shocked as you! He's been showing signs of wanting solid food for a while now, and I've been putting it off for two reason's. The first being his age, I wanted him to be at least 6 months and secondly - with is probably a selfish reason - I didn't want him to grow up so quickly, putting him on solid food like admitting he is getting older and is no longer that baby who needed me for everything! Although he still does. 

When it comes to weaning I am all for homemade food rather then the vile pots you buy from the shops. Seriously anyone buying those for their child have you tasted them! I brought one for Eva - chicken dinner I believe - and tasted it before I gave it her, It tasted like mashed up cardboard with a hint of cat vomit. I read into baby led weaning and I do plan to do it this way later on, right now though I don't have a high chair, or the room for one so I am sticking to the well known puree method.

  I made up three puree's yesterday, Butternut squash, Broccoli and Parsnip. I had a taste of all three and the only one I wasn't happy with was the broccoli  one, I think this might be because there is no salt or pepper so it's very bland. I'll see how Archie takes to this one soon enough.

The first one he had was the butternut squash. His face on the first mouthful was a picture but he soon hoovered it all up and and a huge smile on his face. Yes, he loved it!!

I've been reading up on some recipes for puree's and I'm quite excited by some of them - small things - once he's got the hang of these ones I'll be moving him on to some fruit puree's. I'll be doing many blog posts on this subject mainly for my own personal use and also for anyone who's also weaning their children. 

I'll be adding the recipes of any foods I make for him as well, so keep your eyes peeled.

Learn to knit.

Back in January I wrote a post about things I wanted to do this year. I'd already done one which was "keep a blog", the next was Learn to knit. I'm actually very annoyed with myself for not learning any sooner! Yesterday I picked up my knitting needles for the first time and managed to knit a basic knit stitch. I was actually amazed how easy it was. Casting on was also alot simpler then I first thought. 

My first square.

I now plan to knit all different coloured squares and stitching them together to form a lovely blanket for my son. 

I am also going to have a go at Crocheting.

To do lists

This year - like most year's - I write a list of things I'd like to do, things I'd like to learn and places I'd like to visit. Last year, due to bad sickness during my pregnancy, I only managed a few of the things on my 2013 list. I had a baby, saw my daughter start at school & enjoyed some days out.

So this year I'd like to cross off some if not all of my to do's. 

1. Start and keep a blog

2. Learn to knit.

3. Make my house more homely.

4. Visit the beach

5. Visit a zoo.

6. Take Archie swimming for the first time.

7. Bake at least once a week.

..

First one is done, so I am now on to learning to knit. This one I am looking forward to, learning a new skill or talent is always a positive thing to do. Not only that but with two children, one who's very much into dolls and is always wanted a new outfit for them and the other who wear's alot of knitted jumpers, it's the perfect skill to learn. I used to do a bit of knitting, so I guess it's something I already can do, however I've never made anything only done a few stitches. So this year I want to make some knitted things..