A weekend away

As mentioned in my previous post, we went away for the weekend.
We went to a nice holiday park in Arcen, which is just a little over an hour drive from us.
We arrived on friday afternoon somewhere between 3 and 4 pm, which is quite a good time, given that we first had to do DD13's newspaper round....
We had a very nice bungalow, DD13 had the room closest to the frontdoor.

DD13's room

Next to her room was our room:

Not to worry, DH rearranged to furniture, so he could sleep close to me :D

DD11 & DD8 had the room close to the livingroom, which had a bunk bed, so much fun!

DD11 (top) and DD8, 2 naughty little chickies!

And then, of course, there was the livingroom:

 

We didn't really do much anymore on friday, except for some grocery shopping in Germany, which was just approx. 10 km's from our holiday home...

After breakfast on saturday morning, the first thing on our program was to go to the swimmingpool, as the DD's had all been very anxious to go.

Well, the swimming pool being wet and all, I thought it wasn't such a good plan to take my camera with me, so I nicked some pictures from the www.

 We all had lots of fun there, but eventually we had to get out and go back to our little home to get us some lunch.

After that we had to do some more shopping, as we forgot a couple of things the other day.

This time we went to Venlo. DH bought us some yummie milkshakes at KFC.

In the evening I had some dolly time, and made up a little nightie for Amelia Thimble:

I also made a nightie with yellow accents

Breakfast on sunday morning:

After breakfast we went to the swimmingpool again, until I was really worn out......

So we went back to the bungalow, had lunch, and already had to pack our things, as DH had to work on monday. 

But, there was still a little fun activity for the girls: going to the indoor playground and dancing there.

Unfortunately DD11 hit her head a couple of times, so she really didn't feel up to the dancing

The Hokey Pokey, one of DD8's favourites

 

DD11 & DD8 taking a little pause

 Some more climbing fun for DD8:

After that little break, we went back to the bungalow, had dinner, and finished packing.

Driving back we found out the storm had already started to build up, but we arrived back home safely.

What a lovely weekend it was!

(Thanks Mum & Dad, and DH for helping Mum & Dad with their kitchen)

Autumn holidays

Yes, I know, I haven't been blogging for a while, I guess all my duties kept me from it.
On my last update I wrote about DD11 going on schoolcamp. As far as she's been telling me, she had a great time. Of course, on the friday afternoon when she was on schoolcamp, there was the foxhunt. (It's a game where people dress up as characters, and groups of kids have to search them and ask for a signature, the group with the most signatures is the winner)
Well, I dressed up as an old lady, and I really had a great time. The best part of it, was of course when DD11 came behind me and asked me if I was a fox. So I turned around, and the moment I smiled at her, she recognised me! Her reaction was so much fun to see, I wish I could have made a video of it. Priceless!

Me dressed up as old lady

All the 'foxes', teachers and children after the foxhunt

As you may have figured by now, everyone had lots of fun.
(ha, how much fun can it be to tell teachers in a loud old ladies voice that kids don't learn that much at school nowadays, and that teachers can be plain stupid! no pun intended of course ;-) ).  One of them was kind enough to get me a cup of coffee, which I really appreciated.
All to soon it was time to get DD8 from school, and collect the luggage of DD11 and her friend at the other school location.
Finally the autumn holidays had started! Of course with 3 girls around there's not that much playtime, but over the weekend I managed to finish an outfit for Ellowyne, which really made me happy, as it had been bugging me for months, that I still had to sew an apron and craft a hat.

Serious Intention Ellowyne, wearing my version of the steampunk 'Like Clockwork'outfit

On monday DD11 went to a friend for a sleepover and I could collect her on tuesday late in the afternoon.
DD8 slept in DD13's room, who read her a couple of chapters of Narnia before going to sleep.
As we it was really quiet withouth DD11, DD8 asked me if we could bake together.
She took her magazines with recipes downstairs, and put them all on the kitchen counter:

We finally choose to make chocolate lollipops

She started with putting some sugar decorations in the ice cubes holder

After that we melted the chocolate, and then she added the little sticks.

After that it was time to put them in the fridge.

adding the sticks

the result

As it was tuesday, it was finally time to check on my apple vinegar, as it had been 2 weeks ago I had started preparing it. After seeving it, here is the result:

When the lollipops were ready we went to my parents, where my sister was with her DD's. They enjoyed the  lollipops too!

 

my little princess, very proud of her own 'baking'

Another thing I saw on tuesday was a bud in the plant that DD13 had been cultivating.

On wednesday it came to full bloom:

On thursday DD8 & DD11 wanted to bake rainbow cupcakes, which was a fun project that took us the best part of the morning.
But, they were very yummie!

And on friday morning I really had to get ready for our weekend away, and DD13 had to deliver a round of newspapers, before we could go.
But finally we were on our way and arrived at the campsite in Arcen in good time.
.

Being a Busy Bee

Sometimes there are those days you can't remember what you've been doing all day, but it was busy.
Monday was such a kind of day for me. I'm homeschooling DD13, so I can still remember I read up on some subjects like keeping chickens and square foot gardening, and helping DD11 pack her things for the schoolcamp.Oh, and of course sorting the postround for tuesday.
Well, tuesday I woke up very early, due to DH's alarm, and then I fell asleep again, and of course overslept.
The good thing was DD8 & DD11 were already wide awake when I finally woke up, so they got themselves dressed quickly when I told them we were late, and we managed to get to school in time/almost in time...
When I got home again I felt up to cleaning out the pantry, so that's what I did:











Considdering how much stock we have I think it's quite amazing I only found a few items that needed to be tossed, and don't worry, the oats and oatflour were almost finished, which probably is why they got out of date, because it was just not enough to make anything with it, so it was only the jar of mint sauce which really was a waste.













I also found a couple of items with a short date, so will now have to look for recipes to use it up:

This is what my pantry looks like now:

To start with I used up the almondpaste to bake "gevulde speculaas", a typical dutch treat, basicly it is almondpaste between 2 layers of gingerbreadcake, with some almonds sprinkled on top:

Very rich, very yummie and very addictive!

Last night was not much better then the day before,I woke up too early again (around 4.30 am) and gave up trying to sleep at 5.15 am. So, I got out of bed, folded some laundry, and hung some laundry as well, and even worked on the ironing pile. When it was just over 7 am, I woke up DD8 & DD11, as it was the big day: DD11 was going on schoolcamp!
She had to go there by bike, so I took her luggage and that of one of her schoolfriends to school by car, and other parents were bringing all the luggage to the final destination.
I forgot to take my camera with me, so I only have some piccies in terrible quality, which I took with my phone.

the luggage & the bikes

DD11 with one of her schoolfriends

A last hug for her little sister

And off she goes!

After that I went to an acquaintance, who had just moved home, to help her clean her new kitchen.
All too soon it was time to get DD8 from school again.
We (DD13, DD8 and I) had lunch at my parents, and after that I had another practice session for the foxhunt on friday. I really have to get the make-up right for the character that I'm going to be.
Both girls are convinced I won't be easily recognised, and in fact my act freaks DD13 out!
Back home again I cooked us a simple dinner.
When the girls were to bed I remembered I had seen something inspiring on my postround. So I had a look in one of my boxes of stuff and found those 2 little birds which were just perfect to finish my table piece I had been working on  before:

I think they look supercute like this!

Cauliflower

Last Friday, when I was grocery shopping, the cauliflower was on offer for 59 eurocents each.
Of course I had to take advantage of that, so I bought these 2 nice and big cauliflowers.

We had already eaten cauliflower on wednesday (yes, also a 59 cents cauliflower), so I wasn't going to have it for dinner over the next few days, but I had already been doing some research on the web, to find out how to freeze it.
So my mission for today was to get it prepared for the freezer and freeze it.
I ended up with 4 bags of cauliflower, so that will be approx. 30 eurocents on vegetables for 1 dinner for our family of 5.