World Cup Fever

Back in the days when I was at high school I loved football. On Saturday nights myself, my dad and my brother would all watch the highlights of the days' games together. Now our youngest brother is looking to making a career from his football playing.

I remember when the US 94 world cup was on I used to babysit for my piano teacher. Once his two little boys were in bed I had the rest of the evening to watch the football. And I got paid for it too!

I was obviously being prepared for living with boys in my future!

In our house not all of the boys are football mad. James (14) will only watch it if a really big game is on. Other than that he isn't too fussed about it. Calum (11) loves to watch a game and he especially loves to read all the facts and trivia about games, players and teams. I can see him on Mastermind or a similar programme in the future as he retains all those facts so well! He also enjoys a kick around of the ball.

David (8) is the real football crazy boy. He will watch any team playing, no matter how low the league they play in. He would also kick a football about from dawn to dusk if he could.

Both he and Calum enjoy their special Saturday night treat of getting to stay up late and watch the football with daddy.

Alasdair (5) is still a little young to enjoy watching a whole game but has been buoyed along by his brothers' enthusiasm. He has started to enjoy kicking the ball about the garden with his brothers.

So, they have been eagerly awaiting today and the start of the world cup.

The wall chart showing all of the games, and with space to write in all of the scores, has been hanging on the dining room wall for a few weeks now.

We've printed off some bunting of the flags from each country taking part, although we haven't got round to hanging them up yet. It's a sneaky way to get them learning what are the flags of various countries without them realising!

I found the bunting on this site here and I've also printed off a few different activities to do over the next few weeks from the same site.

The boys have bought a couple of special football magazines, one of which came with this inflatable ball that Fraser loves to play with!

We decided that to make the tournament even more fun, everybody should choose a different team to support. The boys were also treated to a top or jacket from their chosen team.

David chose Portugal, because he wants to play like Ronaldo one day.

Alasdair chose Spain, because he inherited a Spain top that was David's at the last world cup!

Calum chose Italy. I can't actually remember why he chose them but I know he had a reason.

James chose Brazil because he read a book about Kaka a few years ago and liked it. And he seems to think they have a good chance of winning!

I've chosen France because we honeymooned in Paris and I have always had a soft spot for France since then. And my husband chose USA - because he liked the look of their training top!

Finally, just to kick start our world cup fun, we had a Brazilian inspired barbecue for dinner. I must share the beef recipe as it was so delicious. Just not tonight as I've said enough already!

We're going to have some food from our chosen countries on some of the nights they are playing. If anyone has any good suggestions for foods from any of the countries I've mentioned then please let me know!

And we finished off with these wonderful little balls, which are called Brigadeiro and are apparently a popular Brazilian treat. They are seriously delicious.

Now, I have a football match to finish watching!

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Loom Band Tutorial

If you have children of primary school age then I'm pretty sure that this latest craze will not have passed you by.

Your house will be full of small elastic bands, in varying shades of colours - bright ones, pastel ones, sparkly ones and maybe even some scented ones too.

Our boys, their cousins and all their friends know them as Loom Bands but I think across in the States, where the craze first began, they are known as Rainbow Looms.

In our house it's Calum (11) and David (8) who are gripped by their new hobby. They have found various tutorials on YouTube for different designs and I have even made up a Pinterest Board just for loom band patterns for them!

Follow Kirsteen's board rainbow loom on Pinterest.

Part of the fun of making the bracelets is choosing a suitable colour or theme for a specific person and then giving that person the bracelets. It's a sharing and giving kind of a hobby.

I always get given the bands they make with the purple or pink bands from the packs. After all, they couldn't be seen giving them to a GIRL!

Both boys have been making bands in the colours of the teams they have chosen to support in the world cup (more about that tomorrow). One of the men at church is English and Calum loves to talk football with him, so he made up this band based on the English flag for him. I think it looks great!

One thing we have noticed with the YouTube tutorials is that they are all American. No offense to my American friends but Calum felt that there should really be a few Scottish tutorials out there too!


So, here he is giving his very first tutorial about how to make a design that he made up himself. He was a bit stuck for a name for it so since it is based on groups of three he has called it a Treble Triple band.

Spurred on by his wanting to share tutorials, as well as his photos and some of his favourite recipes, Calum launched his own blog this week too. I've already sent some people over his way via the housefulofboys Facebook page but if you haven't visited him yet he would love to hear from you!


His blog is called Calum's Ceilidh and you can find it here. Ceilidh (Kay-lee) is the Gaelic word for a visit or a get together and so he thought it would be a good name since it's his little online place for getting together with folk and for people to come and visit him.

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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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