Show Day

On Saturday was the annual agricultural show here. Each summer the boys, especially Calum, are keen to make sure that our holiday to Granny & Shen's coincides with it!

 

They love to enter some of the competitions and I love to watch them eagerly run to each competition tent once the judging is over to see if any of them have won a rosette.

 

This year, I'm happy to say, was their most successful yet!

 

 

Preparations for the show began the day before, with the boys baking their entries for the children's baking competition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Calum (11) turned his gluten & dairy free Victoria Sponge (recipe in the free from tab above) into a sheep cake by covering it with dairy free buttercream icing, marshmallows and a fondant icing sheep face!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

James (14) turned some ordinary cupcakes into Cookie Monster and Elmo with the help of some coloured buttercream icing, mini cookies, Oreos and a little fondant icing.

 

 

 

 

 

David (8) turned his cupcakes into little monkeys by using some chocolate buttercream icing, mini Jaffa cakes and a little fondant icing for the eyes.

 

 

 

Each of the boys, including David, did all of their bakes entirely on their own.

 

 

On the morning of the show they also made their entries for the 'animal from fruit or vegetable' competition, which is always one of their favourites to enter. Last year David had won a 3rd for his melon crab so they were eager to see if anyone could equal or improve on that!

 

Alasdair (5) made these cute little fishes from orange slices, blueberries, carrots & a tiny bit of strawberry for their mouths. I helped him a little with slicing the orange and carrot but the rest was his own work.

 

 

 

 

David made this monkey. There wasn't an intentional monkey theme going on with his entries!

 

 

 

 

Calum made a little peacock.

 

 

 

And James made a chick hatching out of an egg.

 

 

 

 

 

After making their fruit and veg animals, the boys had to help dad load their scarecrow into the car. They had made him the day before as well. They had been busy in the garage with Shen, stuffing the scarecrow with shredded paper as we didn't have any straw. But because we knew the weather forecast was for rain they put the paper into plastic bags first so that he wouldn't go all soggy!

 

 

 

 

 

Thankfully after all their efforts in making him, he fit into the boot of the car ok!

 

 

 

 

 

Here he is in position outside the fruit and veg tent.

 

 

 

 

 

Once the show started Calum was a keen to see the animals, especially the sheep.

 

 

 

 

 

Alasdair enjoyed seeing the emergency vehicles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And David enjoyed sampling all the home baking in the tea room!

 

 

 

 

 

But what the boys were really wanting to know, as I'm sure you all are too, is had anyone won any rosettes?

 

In the baking section the cakes are all lined up neatly with their rosettes on top.

 

 

 

Isn't that an impressive array of cakes?

 

 

 

 

 

Well, in the under 12s animal from fruit and veg competition, David's monkey won first!

 

 

 

 

Calum's peacock was second.

 

 

 

 

 

And James won first in the over 12s competition with his hatching chick.

 

 

 

 

Calum's sheep won first in the under 12s baking competition.

 

 

 

 

While James' Sesame Street cupcakes won 3rd in the over 12s competition.

 

 

 

 

In the grown up baking competition, I entered my shortbread (recipe in the ordinary recipes tab) and my tablet.

 

The shortbread got a third.

 

 

 

 

The tablet came second!

 

 

 

And remember this little Star Wars cross stitch? I only brought it with me on holiday because I was going to put some felt on the back of it, but I thought since I had it I would enter it in the cross stitch competition anyway. I'm glad I did now as it also got a third!

 

 

 

Now, are you wondering about the scarecrow? Just pretend you are anyway.

 

For some reason this wasn't judged at the start of the show like everything else and every time the boys went back to check there was no sign of any rosettes on any of them. Then as we crossed another part of the field later on they saw the judges pinning on rosettes and so they raced across the field to see what was what.

 

They were delighted to see they had won not only a first but a best in show rosette.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the first time anyone in our family has won a best in show so they are pretty chuffed with it, even if it was just for a scarecrow!

 

 

 

 

 

When I was taking the photo of the scarecrow the official show photographer was also taking pictures of them. He asked were the boys the creator of the winner and said they should go in his picture too. I found this photo he took of them on the show's Facebook page.

 

 

 

But to finish with here is another photo I discovered on the show Facebook page. One that we had no idea had been taken but that I absolutely love.

 

It's of Calum, the boy who wants nothing more than to be a crofter when he grows up.

 

Doesn't he already look the part?!

 

 

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Summer, week 2.

Ahhh, summer.

 

That's ahhh in the blissful sense of the word, and not ahhh as in 'Argh!' the not so blissful sense of it.

 

It's been two weeks today since our schools stopped for the summer holidays.

 

Our usual summer holiday destination is to my island home in the Outer Hebrides and this year is no different. We arrived here a few days ago, but this year before we came across to the island we headed away for a few days to Lochinver, a little village about an hour north of where we get the ferry home.

 

It is a beautiful spot of the country, and one I had never visited before.

 

We had no wifi and no phone signal and we really didn't care. Even the 14 year old survived without wifi!

 

Here's a little of what's been happening in the last week, week 2 of the summer holidays.

 

Well, like so many others, we've really been enjoying the World Cup! Our no wifi, no phone signal holiday house did have a tv with the basic channels on it so we were able to keep up. With Brazil's demise earlier in the week there are no more of our chosen teams left in the tournament but I was pleased with how far my team, France, got.

 

No, Fraser doesn't sit like this for a whole football match, but he did sit there for a couple of minutes while I got a cute photo of him with his oldest brothers. This was taken before Brazil were knocked out!

 

 

Being from the Outer Hebrides I am a bit biased when it comes to beaches. We are spoiled for beautiful white sandy beaches and whenever we go to one elsewhere I always feel it's not quite up to Hebridean standards! However, the beaches around Lochinver do come pretty close.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Around Lochinver are lots of twisty windy roads surrounded by mountains, lochs and glens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day we visited a secret tea garden...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

....which served some impressive hot chocolates!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all our exploring of a new area, there was the excitement for the boys of heading across on the ferry to Granny and Shen's.

 

I'm glad that the boys love the island as much as I do!

 

 

I love this time of year when the sky is this light at midnight....

 

 

 

My brother, sister in law and their boys came across the day school stopped and head home tomorrow so our visits overlapped a little. Even though the boys see their cousins all the time as they stay so near us, they were still excited to have a few days at Granny and Shen's with them.

 

Of course on one of those days we had to head to the beach together!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boys and their dads all worked together to build an impressive looking sandcastle.

 

 

 

 

When we noticed the tide coming in they raced to build a channel of water to connect the moats to the sea.

 

 

 

 

And everyone jumped on for a photo.

 

 

 

When not visiting the beach the boys and their cousins have been playing lots of football at Granny and Shen's.

 

 

 

And the weather has been playing ball enough for us to enjoy a family barbecue on evenings like this...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow is local show day, and also forecasting rain, but we don't plan to let that put a dampner on the day! After all, what's a Scottish summer holiday without some rain?

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A couple of firsts for Fraser

Since the first of these firsts is the happiest one then let's start with that one.

 

At the weekend Fraser cracked sitting up on his own.

 

He seemed to go from completely unable to do it to managing just fine in no time at all!

 

 

 

He could sit upright in his Bumbo before, as in the photo below, and would be quite happy there for a wee while, but soon he would get fed up of the fact that he couldn't reach his toys on the floor properly and try stretching to get at them. He would then get a little frustrated that he couldn't quite get to them, even though he managed to get himself into some quite unusual positions trying to reach them!

 

Oh, and those Tunnock's tea cakes weren't his! I can neither deny nor confirm where they went!

 

 

Now, though, he can reach everything he wants perfectly.

 

 

 

His favourite thing to do is to sit with his bucket of blocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He loves to tip them over and use the tub as a drum!

 

 

 

 

The boys built this great wee den for him yesterday to shelter him from the sunshine. It was big enough for anyone else who wanted to cool down to pop in and join him! See those blocks again?

 

 

 

 

Whenever I sit him down, I position his cute little dinosaur cushion behind him, as he does still topple backwards occasionally!

 

 

 

 

Now, onto the second first.

 

We received the results of Fraser's allergy tests about 6 weeks ago, and they showed exactly what we had suspected. He has the exact same allergies as Calum (11) and Alasdair (5) - dairy, wheat, egg, nuts and soya.

 

In one sense I sighed a little when I saw it written down officially. I mean, I know quite a few families with one child with allergies, but three with this many of them and a fourth with a nut allergy?!

 

But I'm not the kind of person to dwell on that kind of thing. With the exception of his allergies and his eczema, Fraser is the picture of health. He is thriving, meeting his milestones and continues to delight not just me but the whole family. And he charms everyone he meets with his infectious little smile. So what if he has a few allergies? Albeit fairly major ones!

 

Generally, this is my attitude to all of the boys allergies. We know how to cope with them and we have our ways of avoiding contact with them.

 

But sometimes you get a little reminder of how careful you need to be.

 

A few weeks ago I was making Sunday lunch. Our meals are mostly allergy free but I do make non allergy versions of things for those who can have them. Like a nice cheesy sauce for the cauliflower for Sunday lunch. I serve the cauliflower without the sauce and put the sauce in a jug for those who can have it.

 

That Sunday the boys had been taking it in turns to entertain Fraser while I made the sauce. But he got a little fed up and so, as I often do when I need to get things done, I put on the sling and put Fraser into it while I finished up making the lunch. I had finished making the sauce with the cheese, milk and butter in it anyway.

 

Only, there must have been some milk or butter on my apron. It is an oilcloth one (a lovely Cath Kidston one) which meant that whatever it was hadn't soaked in but instead was on the surface. When we sat down to eat I noticed that Fraser's leg was very itchy. Then when I looked closer I saw he had broken out in hives. It was only on one leg, the leg that would have been against the apron (the sling carries him slightly to my side so his other leg was more round my back).

 

You can't see it all that clearly in the photos but it was the first time he has broken out in hives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little feed from mama soon distracted him from the itching, and the hives calmed down on their own, but it did highlight to me again how quickly and easily an allergen can cause them to react.

 

However, going back to my earlier attitude of delighting in the little man, let's not finish on that note but instead how about this photo of the train Calum made for his last week out of one of Alasdair's toy boxes!

 

 

And there's those blocks again!

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Makings - with pattern & recipes!

Last week was the last week of school here. As well as attending all the usual end of term events - sports days, assemblies and such - I was also busy making some last minute presents for the teachers and other staff at the school.

 

 

For the teachers I crocheted these little flower key chains. I used a pattern for flower embellishments from Attic 24 which you can find here. For some of the flowers I added an extra layer of petals on the back. Then I just sewed on the key chains that I bought at Hobbycraft.

 

 

 

I also think it's good to say thank you to all the other staff who are involved in the successful running of a school - the office staff, the classroom assistants, the janitor - and we are very fortunate that our boys' primary school is a really lovely school!

 

So I made up a couple of batches of fudge to give out to them.

 

The first batch is my old favourite that I make up every Christmas, both to use as presents and to have in ready for any visitors who might pop in. I absolutely love this fudge recipe and it's so straightforward to make.

 

It's Baileys & White Chocolate Fudge and you can find the recipe here.

 

 

 

The second fudge recipe is one I found on Pinterest a while ago and have been looking for an excuse to try out.

 

It's a Malteser Fudge and you can find the recipe here http://pinterest.com/pin/104497653828850329/

 

It was a nice enough fudge, but extremely sweet, even for my sweet tooth, so bear that in mind if you plan on making this one. One piece is most definitely enough, which is maybe not a bad thing, but out of the two of them I would always choose the Baileys fudge over this one!

 

Speaking of which, I think I might rustle up another batch of that today.

 

Just to have in, of course!

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