Cousins...and second cousins

By lucky coincedence, my cousin Helen was going a baptism in Sheffield and so also visit Grandma. So we hijacked Grandma after we visited Grandad at the Hallamshire and Helen visited us all at mums.

Its a lively room with our six children in one room, but I think Grandma enjoyed watching them!Although Helens children don't see us enough to remember us, they were comfortable enough to climb all over mum for stories......and to climb over each other!And look at Timothy's beautiful blue eyes:

While we had the 6 great grandchildren together, we tried to get a photo of them all together. On 9th August it was the 100th anniversary of Samuel and Louisa Gratton joining the church and grandma and I put our heads together to write an article for the Ensign - could we get a picture to go with it?

First the girls caused trouble...

...then Grandma's too busy looking at the kids......maybe we've got one picture that might work!Always nice to see Helen and he growing family.

Bolsover Castle

Next day trip: Bolsover Castle. Mums a member of English Heritage so yea, kids go free - that always makes the trip more enjoyable!

I've never been to Bolsover before - I couldn't believe the views. I've driven up and down the motorways and duel carriageways in that area for years and never realised how lovely it was.
Its a prime posing location! And I've trained some prime posers!
We loved exploring the ruins - nice to see mum, Sam and Leah in the kitchens downstairs while Megan and I looked down on them from above!
And even though there's not been any fires in them for centuries, it still felt risky letting my children crawl into the ovens! It just didn't feel right! Talk about being over protective!
We had a lovely picnic outside - here's a Nanny sandwich...
And this fountain made Sam's day - lots of little boys weeing into a fountain - this is Sam's idea of culture!
And of course Nanny had promised her grandchildren a trip to the gift shop on the way out - as usual Megan and Leah picked easily - although Megan pushed the budget by choosing a big feather fountain pen...and then later dropping hints for the ink - she ALWAYS manages to do that. And as usual, Sam went into panic mode at the pressure of choosing just one thing! He had to be threatened with nothing to get him to narrow his choice to something vaguely in budget. He chose a helmet and sword. Leah picked a princess hat, although I don't think I've ever seen a princess with style quiet like her!

Cleethorpes

We had two big holidays planned for the summer - Ireland at the end of the holiday, but before that, mum had booked a week off work so that we could go up to Sheffield and have some day trips out.

So first daytrip out - Cleethorpes. Friday was forecast to be the best weather day and we had picked Cleethorpes because we could go with Grandma on the train, but as it goes, Grandma had a meeting at the hospital about Grandad and didn't want to miss it. We had to make the most of the weather so we packed the kids cossies and set off.
I'm always moaning about the tides being out in Essex, but we come up north and the same happens! Why is it always miles to the sea?
We didn't care! It means there more sand to play on, so we headed for the beach while it was dry!



And the rain held off long enough for it to feel hot! So hot that the kids weren't interested in eating the fish and chips we bought...me and mum struggled through them though! With the seagulls help!
After lunch, Nannie promised the kids a ride at the little fun fair on the beach. Megan chose to go on the donkeys. I was pleased she did 'cause I'm not sure she's been on one before. And I hate to say it, but the clocks ticking! She's not as young as she used to be! Happens to us all! And before too long, she'll be too big for donkeys.
She managed to ride it very gracefully!

Sam chose a helter skelter and a big swingy thing.
Leah went on a merry-go-round and a roller coaster - jammy Megan - Leah had to be accompanied on the roller coaster so Megan got an extra ride - she always manages to get a bit more!On the way back to beach, we had to have an ice cream and a milkshake.Leah ate hers and then boldly asked mum to share hers - I don't think Nanny was impressed:...but she gave in as always. She hasn't learned to say no to her grandkids yet!
By this time, the tide had finally come in and as usual Megan and Sam wanted to go for a swim...and Leah wanted to cuddle Nannie in the dry!I think that will always be the way!

Hmmm...what to bake?

Rachel and Vicky came for a sleep over and someone mentioned they'd like to do some baking. I can't remember who, but once one little person thought it was a good idea, one by one they all started jumping up and down with similar feelings.


I won't say my heart sank...but it did! I'm not a huge fan of baking with little ones - its trying to find jobs for everyone fairly - if one puts in a teaspoon of salt, you have a find an equally important (!) job for the other, all through the recipe, so the thought of trying to share jobs between 5 children was NOT appealing!


But how can I turn down my 2 lovely nieces?! My children I can easily turn down, but not my neices! So I decided to embrace the baking and give them a free reign - they formed 3 groups and each picked a recipe book! After much study and discussion, they picked 3 recipes and we went shopping for ingredients.


Vicky and Megan went first and cooked themselves delicious chocolate pancakes with chocolate sauce (girls after my own heart!) for pudding after tea. They were a BIG hit.
Although I'm not sure about their table manners... Then Leah and Rachel made their selection - Pistachio Cupcakes - get them! And they were delicious!

They've obviously got a sophisticated palate.

Sam's choice was a 2 tone jelly:

Strawberry on the bottom and lime on the top - Sam's took a bit more patience and weren't ready until the morning.

A good job done by all, although there was a whole lot of tidying up afterwards!

Fusion of Art

I found the perfect summer workshop for Sam and Megan - Fusion of Art - a mixture of music, dance and art - it was Sam's first chance to be let loose on a drum kit! Luckily for all involved, it was a workshop run by the RAD for deaf children and their siblings so no one could hear him bashing the drums! Because I'm volunteering for them now, they let my kids go too.

As I dropped them off, they both were shaking percusion instruments and bashing the drums, and most of the people in the room were oblivious to the noise! Then they went off to do some warm up exercises to High School Musical - perfect for both kids.