She might be 7 now, but my girl still says some daft things. But she's not the only one. Her brother is nearly 12 and he STILL says daft things too. Here's some of their latest classics...

(B1 is talking about camping by a safari park)
B1: I was woken by lions.
LG age 7: (mishears) What are broken lions?

B1 age 11 3/4: What would happen if an insect flew into your ear and touched your eardrum?

B2: I'm going to get a top on.
LG age 7: What's a toppon?

Daddy: These are fresh burgers made this morning.
LG age 7: Were they cut off the pig this morning?

(Her brother is winding her up)
LG age 7 (to me): Where did you get him from? Your tummy must have felt BAD when you were having him.

LG age 7: I don't like drinking water, but water will probably be one of the only things I like. (Yes, I was confused too!)

LG age 7: You know if a person is blind and they have a guide dog? When the guide dog is 17, can it drive a car?

LG age 7: I think nearly every single person in the world has been in a flat.

And, finally, a set of questions from my kids wouldn't really be a set of questions from my kids unless it mentioned Hitler...

B1 age 11 3/4: If Hitler was still alive, would you be happy if I killed him?

About a year ago, I wrote a post about hoping to go on holiday to Barcelona My daughter, who had previously not wanted to go abroad, had decided she would like to go to Barcelona, so this seemed like too good an opporunity to miss. But then we had a rather 'eventful' holiday on a canal boat - read about that here here and especially here and my husband decided we couldn't be trusted to go abroad if we couldn't even avoid disaster in the British countryside. So Barcelona was, sadly, put on the backburner.

It seems that we're just not that good at holidays. No wonder we go to nice old, safe old Padstow every year. Nearly a year on, the memories of our canal holiday, not to mention our Italy holiday have faded sufficiently for us to think about Barcelona again.

And the good news is, we've booked a holiday for later in the summer!

We're taking no chances. We won't be losing any suitcases (you need to read those Italy posts!). We've got a proper package which will involve us being picked up from the airport, not making hasty, incorrect decisions and getting on buses and off again in a hurry without thinking things through.

We are all very excited. My daughter wants to see the Gaudi architecture, especially the lizard at Parc Guell (and I do too!). The boys want to visit the Nou Camp.



And most of all, we want to enjoy some decent warm, sunny weather. The sort we just don't get in the UK any more.

Now I just have to convince my husband that it really would be a good idea to take a whole suitcase full of food and drink, just in case my daughter refuses to eat or drink any of the foreign food and drink on offer...

Anyone whose read my blog more than a handful of times will know a couple of basic facts about us a) two of my kids are REALLY fussy eaters and b) I'm a crap cook.

Everything I make ends up burnt and setting the smoke alarm off (I don't need to test it weekly, that's for sure!). My own food is based largely on Dolmio and my kids' food mainly comes out of the freezer and goes into the oven. Then comes back out burnt. I really am rubbish.

My kids' absolute favourite meal is pizza and some sort of frozen potato product. So when McCain got in touch to ask if we'd like some of their fries - and to try to make some simple pizzas - it was like a dream come true. Even better, my younger son had to make pizza for his homework anyway! Win-win.

The lovely people at McCain sent us a big bag of Crispy French Fries and all the ingredients to make some pitta pizzas with a variety of toppings:

• Mozarella
• Ham
• Mushrooms
• Wholemeal pitta breads
• Mixed herbs
• Pineapple slices
• Sweetcorn
• Tinned, chopped tomatoes
• Garlic
• Onion

As the pizzas are only small, everyone could choose their own toppings, which is great for the less fussy members of the family. My poor younger son likes most foods, but is often restricted to eating what his fussy brother and sister will eat.

McCain sent us a very easy to follow recipe, which I was confident even I could do. But the kids took one look at it and still declared 'I think Daddy should do it'. Cheeky monkeys!

Actually, we did it together. All five of us. Now I know this is normal for a lot of families, but it's a really big deal for us.

We had to grill the pittas and put a bit of olive oil on them. We made the sauce ourselves by frying the onion, then adding a clove of crushed garlic and the herbs, as well as the tin of tomatoes. It took about 20 minutes for the sauce to thicken, ready to go on the pizzas.

The only place we went wrong was slightly burning the pittas as we were grilling them. Yes, we set the smoke alarm off, but it wasn't disastrous.


We all had different toppings:

Daughter - cheddar and ham
Younger son - cheddar, mozzarella and ham
Eldest - cheddar, mozzarella and pesto
Mummy - mozzarella, sweetcorn and pineapple
Daddy - mozzarella, ham and mushroom

Then we cooked the pizzas in the oven for about seven minutes and ate them with delicious McCain fries.



I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the nicest meal I'd had in AGES. We will definitely be making it again. It was so easy and everyone enjoyed doing it - as well as eating them.

It has also inspired us to think about cooking properly more regularly.

We received a bag of McCain Crispy Frency Fries and all the ingredients to make our pizzas, as well as the recipe from McCain. All opinions are our own. Recipe courtesy of www.mccain.co.uk

This photo was taken a year ago, in May half term last year. You know, at the start of summer. Summer in the wettest year on record.

All this talk of jetstreams and another cold, wet summer and rubbish weather until at least June reminded me of this photo and others like it - I have them of all of my kids taken on that day.

I love the photo, even though it's not technically brilliant. You can just see how hard it's raining and how wet we are all getting. You can see from the look on my daughter's face that she is hating it!

I snapped the picture on my phone and, needless to say, I was getting soaked too and trying to move backwards quickly, taking the photo.

Can you caption my soaking wet little lady?



And once you're done, why not hop on over to Mammasaurus and check out some more photos dying to be captioned.



Also linking with Social Pix over at OneDad3Girls Pop over to see people's pics from all over the the blogospohere, twittersphere and instagramashphere (I definitely just made that word up).

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the difficulties of getting reasonably priced prescription sunglasses for my 9 year old son. Apparently you can get free prescription sunglasses. But we're not eligible for them and we were being quoted huge amounts of money for glasses which he will certainly need, but only for brief periods of time. Which I am therefore not willing to pay £94 for. Yes, £94. Have you seen adverts for prescription sunglasses for kids? And adults? Yep, so have I. So why isn't my 9 year old son entitled?

Anyway, lots of other bloggers agreed with me that this is pretty disgraceful and came up with some suggestions, with varying degrees of honesty involved, on how we should get my son some free prescription sunglasses. Thank you to all of you for your suggestions, they were much appreciated.

Now dishonesty, even if it's something I am morally entitled to, doesn't sit well with me. I am a hopeless liar. I can't negotiate prices of things. My husband is brilliant at it and I have to walk away, because it makes me squirm. I would be the one saying 'Well, shall I just pay you an extra £20?' rather than knocking a couple of hundred quid of something. So the thought of going into an optician and telling them my son was having headaches and needed his eyes testing, or he'd sat on his glasses and broken them, didn't make me comfortable.

I am very grateful to bloggers Mummy Barrow with her Ranty Friday and Victoria at Verily Victoria Vocalises who helped me get my message out to a wider audience. I'm especially grateful to Victoria who had the balls to copy Specsavers in on a tweet - something I would never be brave enough to do. Yes, I am a wuss. We got a tweet back explaining their position and I also got a long comment on my post from an optician explaining their difficulties, which I do appreciate.

I do understand their position re the NHS and funding and I realise that with every offer terms and conditions apply BUT if the terms and conditions are that you must be one of the approximately 1 in 12 kids who is lucky enough to have their eye test in April maybe they should spell this out a bit better for the benefit of the 11 in 12 who aren't and will never be eligible. Ironically, my son used to have his eye test in April. But it was at his October test when the powers that be decided he was old enough and his prescription was stable enough to move from six monthly tests to annual tests. So his test will always be in October and he will never be eligible for free sunglasses.

And then, through the power of social media, I struck gold. Blogger Chelsea Mamma remembered a post she'd read some time ago by a blogger I wasn't familiar with. Annie QPR had written about her positive experience with an online optician One Stop Glasses She'd used One Stop Glasses to buy an identical pair of glasses to her favourite pair for a fraction of the price.


So I checked it out. It was amazing! There were 10 pairs of prescription sunglasses available (I only looked at adults' glasses because my son has a big head!). Not all of them were suitable for a 9 year old boy, some were clearly too big. But I found a pair that he liked which came in a small size. All I needed was the details of his prescription. And they cost £25! Not £94!

Just a week after I'd blogged about it, his new sunglasses arrived. That's the power of social media! My son was so pleased with them - he was even excited about the case! The sunglasses fit well and they look good.

Now all we need is the one thing not even social media can sort out for us. Some sun.

Damn you, British weather.

My husband and I both have a milestone birthday coming up later this year. It doesn't start with 3 unfortunately, but I'm pleased to say it doesn't start with 5 either.

Yes, we're heading for the big 4-0. And we can't decide how to celebrate. We always celebrate all of our birthdays in our family. We don't have big, wild parties. Or any parties at all. But we do make sure we mark the occassion with a day off work, a day (or half day) out, a birthday cake and a meal out in the evening.


So how to mark a milestone birthday? And how to mark two milestone birthdays three months apart? Together? Separately? A bit of each?

When it was just a distant glimmer on the birthday horizon, back when we were about 35, my husband had big ideas for his. He wanted a box at Man Utd with corporate hospitality and friends and family (only a small number, of course, even in dreamland where money is no object). Or maybe a family holiday to New York? Great idea with a bunch of kids that won't travel. And a wife who isn't too keen either. I'd like to go to New York. I just wouldn't want to actually TRAVEL to get there.

As the birthdays got nearer we started being more realistic.

We liked the idea of a joint party between the birthdays - a family-friendly one the kids and select other kids could come to. We knew where we would have it too. But then my husband started thinking he might like another sort of party at another venue. Maybe without kids. And I wasn't keen on that idea.

Maybe a weekend away? Edinburgh to see the pandas (I'm so desperate to see the pandas). You try fitting a weekend in Edinburgh into an actual weekend, so you don't have to take the kids out of school. Easier said than done.

A trip to London for the weekend. But I don't want to travel home on my birthday (a Sunday). And it seems pointless paying for a Friday night in a hotel if you're only going to sleep there and not spend the day there.

A family weekend in Center Parcs - take my mum and dad and maybe my sister and her family. We're back to the can't take the kids out of school problem.

A trip to Snowdon - we could all climb it! Even our 7 year old daughter. My husband and eldest really loved their trip to Snowdon and are desperate to go back.

Or what about Alton Towers? Or Disneyland Paris?

We could celebrate our birthdays in the summer holidays or October half-term and just do something more low-key on the day?

We have NO IDEA. We just can't decide. We want our birthdays to be memorable and enjoyable for the whole family. If only we could decide what to do.

And what about presents? Don't get me started. For myself, I'd like the sort of presents that mean something - those necklaces with the kids' fingerprints or a family portrait session (or both - you only turn 40 once!). These are not the sort of thing my husband would think of himself, so I will have to ask, which slightly takes the magic away.

What to buy him? He's not exactly the man who has everything, but he doesn't want for much. And it would be nice to get him something special rather than an ordinary present. So far, my daughter has painted this mug for him, but its not really enough. I just don't know what else to get. And time is running out...