Helen

Colourful midlife mum to two teens. Determined not to do as she's told and slide off into invisible old age. Much cooler at 50 than she was at 15. Host of the Teenage Kicks podcast, about mental health for teenagers.

366 Sunday Week 3

Well it’s week 3 and I’m still going – just! There was a moment when Mummy thought we were going to have to use the reserve pictures and theme a post around them, but we miraculously smashed a bottle of dessert sauce which has already fuelled debate in the #satcap community over horror scenes in our kitchen! This week, as we have done some (admittedly random) crafting, I am also linking this post up to Red Ted Art’s Kids Crafts. Anyway, here it is (albeit late, on a Monday – are we going to pull this off?): Day 1 The …

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Col Us: Wot so Funee?

Today I am featuring a guest post from my friend C, who likes to play detective games: That made complete sense, right? No? Try this: God I love phonetics! If you would like to join me in a funny post link yours up by clicking on the linky tool below. Steal my badge, and visit some more #funee bloggers. If you’re new here check out the Wot So Funee? main page for more details on how to join in. Feel free to add any funny post you want to share. Just include a link back to this post or paste …

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I Spy with my little eye…

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with S. Do you know what it is? I’ll give you a clue: it is the product of an afternoon’s work by Daddy and the Bug 😕    

The Photo Gallery: Eyes

How does Mummy always know everything? Like, that I have some of my Christmas chocolate stashed away in a drawer in my bedroom, in case sleep evades me, or I am woken by the binmen too early. How does she always know when I am telling fibs? How can she tell who hit who first in a sibling scrap? And how come she always, always finds out if I indulge in covert reading after dark? She tells me she has eyes in the back of her head. She doesn’t though. Does she? This post is inspired by The Gallery at …

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Inspired: Pink

I could not do without pink. I could show you how much I love pink by photographing my bedroom, but having discovered Pinterest, I find there are so many more pink things that I could add to my collection. The feathers here are mine, mine, mine, but everything else is from lovely pink-lovers credited below 🙂 What inspires you? There is a linky below at Dear Beautiful Boy where you can join in! Hot Piggy Pink Shoes by Mytheresa. Bubblegum Dress from Etsy. Cake Pops via Flickr. Candy by Hostess Blog. I have been inspired to post my pink stuff …

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366 Sunday Week 2

Time for my diary of the week in photos: Day 1 I finally got my full Brownie uniform. I just joined recently and my 6 is Leprechauns, which Daddy says is entirely appropriate – can’t think why. I am super-enjoying it, despite not knowing anyone there! ♥♥♥   Day 2 We are twinned at school with the African town of Kano, and we are learning about traditional african food, music, dancing and textiles. We used beetroot and turmeric to make dyes and then experimented with different ways of tying the fabrics. Waiting for them to dry now. Day 3 An …

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Saturday is Caption Day!

Oh yes it is, and oh yes we did….. Give me a caption below, and if you’re in the mood for more fun go and find some more at Mammasaurus!

Easy Chocolate Biscuit Cake Recipe Kids Can Make Themselves

"chocolate biscuit cake"

To be eaten under controlled circumstances only. The best chocolate biscuit recipe in the world, ever. According to me 😉   ♥ (With Marshmallows, Cherries, Nuts, Broken Meringues, Glitter, Exploding Candy, and anything else you can think of!) ♥ ** Update! This recipe has started something of a craze! Take a look at the Facebook post and comments on it. Feel free to add your own suggestions – we’re always looking for ridiculous delicious additions to try out! We adapted this recipe from one we found in Sainsbury’s magazine. I say, adapted; what I really mean is doctored, embellished, played …

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Reasons to be Cheerful and Thankful Thursday

Mummy is very cheerful, or so she says. I fail to see it somehow. What is it about grown-ups that makes them cry when they are happy. Grown-ups are just not normal. Take me: happy = smile; sad =cry, or at the very least grumble. Grown-ups just have a very upside-down view of the world, don’t you think? But she says she is happy. Happy and thankful, so I guess somewhere in that weird old-lady mind of hers she must be. The Bug (who started school in September and is now 4 and a half) brought home reading books today. …

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Wot So Funee? and Alphabet Thursday

This week Wot So Funee? is on it’s travels to the lovely blog of Jenny Matlock who asks us to choose something to represent a letter of the alphabet. Good job today wasn’t F or we would have been mainly giggling at the Bug! No, today’s letter is H. “Wot is funee about the letter H?” we asked ourselves. Then we remembered the Black Hole. So for us: H is for hole If you have not read the story of the black hole, take a look (it is quite possible that it is the funeeist post I have ever written), …

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Social Stereotypes in the Playground

I have a learning partner at school, someone with whom I must discuss challenges posed by the teacher, and create – amongst other nuggets of learning – pointilism pictures. This partner changes weekly according to a random draw of named lollipop sticks. This week for the first time in 2 and a half years, I was matched with my best friend. After hurling myself across the table in ecstaticness , I reflected on the somewhat different process used for allocating playground partners, and the possible reasons. My playground partner (the person I line up with when we come back in) …

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It’s 366 Sunday

There are many photo projects going on at the moment, and the Actually Mummies have decided to join in. Every Sunday, we will post 7 photographs from our week – one per day. They may be funny, they may be dull, but if we are lucky, one or two of them will be okay! By the end of 2012 we will have a visual synopsis of our year, which may or may not tell a story. We will be linking up with Luschka’s Mammatography at Diary of a First Child, and the Photo Project Group at Love All Blogs, and …

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Saturday is Caption Day

I am posting this picture of the Bug and his erm, friend, for Caption Saturday over at Mammasaurus. If you are in the mood for some quick fun, leave me a caption for this, and then head over to her place for some more!

Reasons to be Cheeful

 The brilliant Michelle at Mummy From the Heart (who has just joined Love All Blogs and is now a colleague of Mummy’s) runs a linky post called Reasons to be Cheerful. This week she is cheerful because the theme has been running for a year, and to celebrate she has lots of wonderful prizes! What’s more there are books, and that makes me more cheerful than anything. So here are my 3 reasons to be cheerful this week: The pain in my side has gone away. I have been complaining of a pain for a few days. After painstaking consultations …

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Wot so Funee?

I wrote a post recently about how parent’s birthdays are so much better now that we kids are involved. It must have been so boring just waking up late and going out to dinner before we came along. Anyway, I neglected to showcase the birthday greeting I wrote for Mummy, and she found it both touching and funee, although quite what there was to laugh about was beyond me at the time. Grown-ups! Expatriating! So here it is, the finest birthday greeting any Mummy could want from her child (apart from the early start, the squeals of delight, and the …

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Highs and Lows 2011

Having written a rather serious post yesterday, it is time for the light relief – the nurse to Juliet’s tragedy, if you like (that was Mummy, I haven’t yet started on Shakespeare, though I assume it is only a matter of time!) That nurse comes in the form of Reluctant Housedad, My Life My Son my Way, and Mother Wife Me, who have tagged us to write about the highs and lows of 2011, according to us. So as I sieze the microphone of celebrity, I will try to entertain you: 1. What was your happiest event? Well it’s a …

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Blaggers

Ok, ok, I know this one has been done to death, but a Twitter interaction last night has caused me some angst, and I want to do one last post, to set the record straight, to reassure some people, or just to dispel the attitude once and for all that bloggers who do regular product reviews are somehow the cockroaches of the blogging world. What are blaggers? A lot has been said about bloggers who approach PR’s for free product, in return for a review on their site. They have been labelled ‘blaggers.’ The Oxford Online Dictionary defines blagging as …

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Top 5 Photos of 2011

Over on Kate Takes 5 there is a Listography take on the year-end blog round-up post, and having seen in the New Year  for my first time ever last night (yes, I made it to midnight, and could have continued if M&D were not such lightweights) I am a little too tired to write much today. So here is my year in pictures: This took place in April in the beautiful bluebell woods of Ringshall. It is my top picture for a number of reasons, most notably that moments like this do not happen often between the Bug and me, …

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How to Celebrate New Years Eve with Kids

So. Here we are. New Years Eve. You have downgraded year-on-year from wild parties and Capital city fireworks, to champagne and canapes at home. You no longer celebrate with alpine ski breaks, and there was even one, dismal New Year that saw you force down half a bottle of champagne around 10pm and then collapse in bed, awaiting the early cries of  of the newborn baby. You can’t get a babysitter or a taxi. I am no longer placated with an early night – I want in on the party! Kids have changed the way you celebrate New Year’s Eve. …

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A Boxing Day Tradition: Gingerbread House (and Mini Cooper!)

Boxing Day is traditionally when the Actually Mummy household break into our gingerbread house. Lovingly crafted sometime during December, it takes pride of place on Mummy’s counter, suffering mini-burglaries, and minor structural damage until Boxing Day, when we are officially allowed to demolish it, and demolish it we do! Our gingerbread recipe comes from BBC Good Food, complete with template. It makes perfect gingerbread: firm enough to cope with the house structure and onslaught of decorating by young children; not so hard it breaks your teeth when you try to eat it! Use a template to lay on the rolled-out …

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