Weekend things

Every year our calendar for June is crammed with happenings. I think June and December must be the busiest months of the year for us!

 

This weekend started as June is supposed to continue. I'm also hoping the sunshine continues, although it has been replaced by heavy rain today and the forecast doesn't show a return to sunshine any time soon.

 

Anyway, enough about the weather and back to our weekend.

 

It wasn't crazily busy though, and actually began with a rather relaxed Friday afternoon in the garden.

 

 

 

 

Fraser was quite content to sit in his little shady patch and look through his toy basket for a while, while I sat in front of him in the sun and tried to catch up on my crochet memory blanket. I'm still not caught up but I did get a few more squares done!

 

 

 

 

It was so lovely in the garden that even the biggest boy was persuaded to come out and join us all.

 

 

 

 

Saturday was the day of our local gala day. Each year the Gala committee sets a theme and this year it was 'all things Scottish'. The boys always take part in the Gala with their Boys' Brigade Company and they have something of a reputation to keep, having won the prize for best float for quite a few years running! This year their float was a Forth Rail Bridge made out of bamboo sticks and pulled along by the boys dressed as famous Scots.

 

We made a dressing up police man hat into an explorer's hat with some white packing tape for David's costume. Then we tea stained some paper and made it into a map of Africa. Does anyone know which famous Scot he was going as?

 

 

 

After dropping the older three boys at their float, we found a space to watch the parade and waited patiently.

 

 

 

As the sound of the pipe band that leads the parade began to reach us, Alasdair turned to me and said, 'Aw I love that noise!'

 

 

 

 

Second in the parade are always the little gala queens and page boys, their trailer pulled along by a big tractor.

 

 

 

Then the next float is always the one that has been given first prize.

 

And it was the Boys' Brigade and their bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And just in case anyone doesn't know what the real rail bridge looks like....

 

 

They did a pretty good job!

 

 

Our famous Scots were Andy Murray, David Livingstone and Eric Liddell.

 

 

 

 

The rail bridge even had the Flying Scotsman train going across it.

 

 

 

 

The gala day parade takes place at lunchtime so that left the rest of the afternoon free for other stuff.

 

Like food shopping, and Fraser's first time in the big boy trolley seat.

 

 

He didn't last long in it as he's not steady enough to sit unaided on his own yet. In fact, he looks like he's clinging on for dear life!

 

Back home again, and the sunshine had given way to torrential rain. A perfect excuse for Calum and David to indulge in their new hobby. One that is shared with nearly every other child their age just now - loom band making.

 

 

The green bands are a lovely apple smell.

 

 

 

 

 

No Saturday would be complete without a spot of baking. Especially as we had some people round in the evening.

 

 

 

 

And on Sunday my hubs was speaking at a church in Stirling.

 

Stirling is such a pretty, green part of the country and really not far from us at all. Only a 40 minute drive.

 

The boys think that Striling castle looks like a mini Edinburgh castle!

 

 

 

The church service we were at is held in the lecture theatre of a museum so after the service we topped up our Scottish history knowledge! With the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn coming up in a couple of weeks, there was a special exhibition about it with some things I'd never heard before. Did you know, for example, that parts of the US Declration of Independance are based on the Declaration of Arbroath (written after Bannockburn) as there were a few Scots involved in drawing it up?

 

 

 

David (8) wasn't so interested in the Scottish history but this, the world's oldest football!

 

 

 

 

We spent a lovely afternoon with a family from the church and enjoyed a beautiful walk near their house.

 

I have no idea what type of tree this is, but isn't it huge?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was every possible colour of rhododendron growing.

 

 

And some more unusual trees!!

 

 

This week is looking busy too, although the weekend looks a little less busy than last. So far anyway.

 

Now, sunshine, don't stay away for too long!

 

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Happy Birthday!

Today we celebrated Ally's 5th birthday!

 

He's been counting down the days for a few weeks now and was so excited that the day was finally here!

 

All birthday boys get to choose what's for dinner on their special day and Ally chose his favourite - mince and mashed tatties. Only he had one request, 'please could we have it without the veg mixed in?' I usually add peas and carrots to our mince! But if you can't request to skip your veg on your birthday then when can you? (I cooked the vegetables separately for those of us who wanted them!)

 

 

 

His birthday presents were, of course, dominated by super heroes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James (14) continues to take pride in decorating birthday cakes and did himself proud with this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Calum (11) continues to love baking cakes. He too did a wonderful job. Look how perfect that sponge is, and it's gluten and dairy free too!

 

 

 

All the heroes had to come to the table for cake too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've not tried posting a video using this app before, so if it works, here is the birthday boy receiving his cake and introducing his new toys to us!

 

 

 

Happy birthday sweet boy!

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Online friends for real

In a little over a month it will be 4 years since I started writing my blog. (Note to self: Let's have a little online party of giveaways!)

 

It's funny to think back to those days in the run up to taking that big step of launching out into the big blogosphere. I mean, would anyone be remotely interested in anything I had to say?!

 

I had no idea back then how many lovely friends I would meet online.

 

What's even more exciting than getting to know new friends online is the chance to meet them for real!

 

Especially those from far off lands!

 

That's exactly what happened last summer - I just didn't get round to blogging about it with all our other summer happenings and then the countdown to new baby.

 

I can't remember now when, or how, we found each other's blogs but a few years ago I got to know Keri who blogs at Keri-On. Then through her blog I got to know her oldest daughter Sarah, a musician like me, who blogs at the Lord's Lass.

Sarah and two of her friends were coming over from the west coast of the US for a trip around Europe and were heading to Scotland. Their visit coincided with our trip home to Lewis and the girls were persuaded that Lewis was definitely worth visiting on their trip. We were able to meet up for an afternoon while they were up when they came over to my parents' house for lunch.

 

 

Sarah is second from the right. And that's little Fraser as my 26 week bump!

 

We were at the end of our holiday in Lewis and the girls were also heading down our way so we were able to meet up a second day when they came round for dinner at our house. This time I didn't get any photos but we did have a lovely evening together.

 

Fast forward to this past weekend and it was the turn of two of Sarah's brothers to do a spot of globe trotting.

 

 

 

On their brief visit to Scotland they had a spot of time in their schedule to come out and spend Sunday with us. The boys really enjoyed the chance to get to know them. We took them along to their first Scottish church service (and their second!). The boys introduced them to shinty before lunch and then after lunch I'm pretty sure our visitors were told more facts about various bits and pieces about Scottish sports than they could ever retain!

 

 

All these new meetings, new friends and connections just because I took those first steps online!

 

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Baking like Berry

There wasn't much time for my Bake it like Berry challenge this week.

 

That's because the boys' school were holding a Spring Fair on Friday afternoon and I was organising the afternoon teas. We sent a request out to all the parents for donations of traybakes and cakes, but two of the other mums and myself volunteered to bake all the scones.

 

I did more than just scones though because you never really know how many donations you will get!

 

On Wednesday afternoon, while Fraser napped or the other boys entertained him, I made (from left to right below): 2 dozen free from cupcakes (these were actually more to keep at home than take with us), a rocky road Traybake, a mint aero Traybake, 2 dozen butterfly cakes (seen here before being turned into butterflies) and 2 dozen mini cupcakes.

 

On Thursday I made 2 dozen scones and a dozen treacle scones.

 

 

 

And finally, this cake for the Bake Off competition at the fair.

 

It was based on the Lemon cake I made last week from Mary's Baking Bible. Only this time I made it in round sandwich tins rather than the square tin. I sliced the two halves of cake in half again to make four layers and then layered them together with a lemon mascarpone icing. I left the assembly of it until I got to the school as I didn't think it would survive the journey in buy train and bus! I had planned to make up some glacé icing with lemon juice to put on top of the cake, but I was so busy setting up the tables, putting all the donated cakes out, getting the teas ready etc that I had about 1 minute to see to my cake! So I just slapped the mascarpone icing and some lemon curd between the layers very quickly, sprinkled some icing sugar on top and finished it off with some lemon peel I had brought along.

 

 

The afternoon teas were busy, busy, busy! There were only two of us - and Fraser in the baby sling - serving, and we literally didn't stop serving tea, coffee, juice and cakes for nearly three hours! I kept thinking that surely the queue would go down soon and it never did! Still, it made a lot of money for the school funds!

 

Most of the action was taking place in the school playground and the other boys had a lovely afternoon wandering round the various stalls with their friends.

 

The school holds a Christmas Fair every year as a fundraiser but this is the first time they have run a Spring Fair, and it seemed to be a big success.

 

In the midst of the busyness, one of my friends came in and said to come with her for a minute. She took me running into the playground, where there was an auction taking place. The reason wasn't because of the auction though, but because my cake had won the competition!

 

I got this lovely hamper of goodies as my prize.

 

 

 

 

Then it was back to the teas, where we sliced up the bake off cakes to serve as well. I joked that we should charge extra for the winning cake!

 

 

And that's how this week I really was, in a way, baking like Berry!

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Recipe of the week - Gluten & Dairy Free Mint Slice

 

 

I do a lot of gluten and dairy free baking but not a lot of that baking is biscuit based. I suppose the main reason for this is that gluten free biscuits are so expensive! I can but a pack of digestives for 30p whereas a smaller pack of gluten free digestives will cost me about £1.99! Still, I feel bad for Calum and Alasdair that they miss out on the sorts of traybakes that the rest of us enjoy and have recently adapted a couple of our favourites.

 

The first of these is this mint slice. It was a recipe given to me by my friend Bev. The handwritten copy she gave me has the title 'Green Stuff', but we call it 'Mint Slice'! The traybake has been a favourite of those of us who can eat it for a long time now and so it seemed easy enough to adapt to make it free from.

 

The resulting bake was a hit with both Calum and Alasdair, and the other boys said that they couldn't tell the difference between this version and the allergy packed version that they are used to.

 

So I think that makes it a success!

 

You will need:

 

7 oz dairy free margarine

2 tbsp golden syrup

2tbsp sugar

16 oz of gluten free digestives and rich tea biscuits - you don't need exactly half and half but roughly that will do. I use the Sainsburys own brand range as they are our favourites.

1tbsp cocoa powder

10 oz icing sugar

A few drops green food colouring (or paste)

1tsp (or a little more depending on the brand used) peppermint essence

10 oz dairy free 'milk' chocolate (we used Moo Free)

 

 

- Melt the margarine, syrup and sugar together in a pan.

- Crush the biscuits, either in a food processor or the old fashioned way, put them in a bag and bash them with a wooden spoon.

- Add the crushed biscuits and the cocoa to the melted margarine/syrup/sugar and stir together until everything is mixed well.

- Tip into a Traybake tin that you have lined with greaseproof paper and press down well until it's all tightly packed.

- Leave to cool and set for an hour or so.

- Now to make the green layer. You don't actually have to make it green if you don't want to add the food colouring but we like the minty looking-ness (yes, I know that's not a word) of it.

- Put the icing sugar, mint essence and optional colouring into a bowl and mix to a thick paste with some cold water. Because the strength of mint flavourings varies greatly depending on the brand, it's hard to say here how much you will need. Just keep tasting your icing until you get a strength you like. Start with just a little as you can always add more but not take out! Also, you need this to be fairly thick so that it will hold its shape when you slice it later on. Too runny and it will ooze down the sides. Having said that, if you make it too thick it will be hard to spread it on top of your biscuit layer!

- Once you have a spreadable, thick, minty icing then you can spread it on top of your cooled down and hardened biscuit layer.

- Let this layer set and then melt your chocolate in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Or in a microwave, but we don't have one! You can choose any dairy free chocolate you like but we've recently discovered Moo Free as our local supermarket has just begun to stock it and I can't believe how much like 'real' chocolate it tastes!

- Spread your melted chocolate over the icing layer and once more let the whole thing set.

- Once your chocolate has hardened then you can cut it into squares and enjoy.

 

 

 

 

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7 months old

7 months old and continuing to delight everyone with his beautiful little personality.

 

His brothers all dote on him, and who can blame them?!

 

It's three weeks now since he learned how to roll from his back to his front. A week ago he learned how to go from front to back again and will sometimes go over two or three times.

 

I found this batch of photos on the iPad that the boys took of him. They were so cute that I couldn't leave any of them out, so be prepared for baby overload!

 

These are Fraser with Ally (4) in the background. Ally is wearing one of Fraser's bibs because he wanted to be a cowboy that day :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And these were taken with his biggest brother James (14). I suspect that Calum (11) was the photographer of both sets of photos!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite how content he looks in all these photos of him on his tummy, he does soon get tired of it and want either rolled back again or picked up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another couple of milestones.

 

Just over a week ago he cut his first tooth. It's at the bottom but hard to see as he always sticks his wee tongue over it when you try and look in his mouth! He has always loved to chew on his thumb, but he's not a thumb sucker, and has occasionally given himself a wee shock when he bites it with his new tooth!

 

The second milestone was the introduction of solid foods yesterday. I didn't plan to wait until he was seven months and had meant to begin when he turned six months, but, well, I just didn't get around to it! Besides, he's not exactly wasting away on his mummy's milk!

 

The other boys were so excited for him to have his first taste of food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He had a little bit of puréed mango & apple and he seemed rather impressed by it.

 

 

 

As you can see!

 

 

 

He was eager to try again at lunchtime today and now the excitement of introducing lots of different foods begins.

 

 

Sticking with food, last week when Alasdair had a dermatology appointment the doctor told us that she had just that morning received the results of Fraser's food allergy blood test and written to the dietician and our GP. We still haven't received our copy of the letter but she said that from what she could remember he has the same allergies as Calum (11) and Alasdair (4) - dairy, wheat and egg. She couldn't remember if he was allergic to nuts or not.

 

I really hoped he would be spared the food allergies but I suppose at least we know what we are doing by now.

 

Food allergies and eczema don't affect how beautiful and perfect he is!

 

 

 

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Bake it like Berry - Cakes and more cakes

 

Since I didn't get round to posting about last week's bakes here they are along with this week's.

 

 

The first thing I baked from the book after the last bakes I shared was Mary's Key Lime Pie, which was absolutely delicious. I made it to have for pudding one night when we had friends round and as I sat down with it I remembered I had forgotten to take a photo. 'Never mind, I'll take a photo of the leftovers afterwards,' I thought, as I didn't want to take one there at the dinner table. Later on in the evening, when we had all left the table, my husband sat down next to me and confessed that when he had been topping up the coffees in the kitchen he had also polished off the rest of the Key Lime Pie as he had enjoyed it so much!

 

I have since made the same pudding again, this time when my parents were round for dinner, and again it didn't last long! Again, no photo!

 

 

 

Next bake was this Coffee Traybake. Mary's recipe is actually for a Coffee and Walnut Traybake but I wasn't going to add the nuts for our household. I also made it gluten and dairy free and it worked perfectly. I really liked the generous quantities of coffee icing for the top of the Traybake.

 

 

 

 

One of Calum's favourite cakes is a gingerbread and so as he flicked through the Baking Bible one afternoon, he asked if we could try one of the gingerbread recipes. There are two or three of them in the book. We chose the traditional gingerbread recipe and again made it gluten and dairy free. It is a similar recipe and method to the gingerbread recipe we make (see wheat free recipes tab) but Mary adds a lot more treacle than we use. This recipe didn't ask for icing on top but Calum loves icing on gingerbread and so we added some to this one too.

 

 

 

 

The final new bake this week was this really beautiful Lemon Cake. It was so light and lemony. A perfect summer sponge cake. I took some along to our parents' craft group at the boys' school this morning and the empty tin I took home spoke for itself!

 

 

As well as these new bakes we've also made a couple more batches of those delicious chocolate cookies from the last Bake it like Berry post and another batch of the griddle scones.

 

There are so many lovely looking recipes in this book that I can hardly decide what to add to my to do list for next week!

 

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Makings - Crochet Madagascar Penguin

 

Calum (11) asked me if I would crochet him something to give to his best friend for his birthday.

 

He had a look through my Pinterest Crochet board and decided he would like this wee fellow.

 

 

The lighting in the photos is terrible but you get the idea!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He is based on this pattern here and was pretty straightforward to crochet.

 

Calum now wants me to crochet one of this penguin's friends so that he and his friend have penguin buddies!

 

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