Healthy 'Flapjacks' for Kids (and grownups)

I have a very sweet tooth and unfortunately my kids have inherited this trait (especially little A who until very recently refused all forms of bread except brioche and peshwari naan!). Obviously I don’t want them snacking on unhealthy things but there’s only so much fruit a kid can eat before…you know. So, I thought I would make some kid-friendly 'flapjacks'. I searched online but I couldn’t find any that didn’t contain both butter and sugar or syrup, so I set to work making my own. Here’s what I have come up with; two different bars that are held together in slightly different ways. Try them both and see which you like best!

Mixed Fruit Oaty Bar

1.5 cup Oats

1 Cup Mixed Dried Fruit/Nuts Chopped

(I used Dates, Apricots, Pears, Raisins and Berries)

1 Banana (Mine was medium)

.25 cup Set Honey

Mix all dry ingredients together, then mash the banana up with a fork and mix with the honey. Thoroughly stir this into the oat mix, it will take a while but it will get there. If it looks really dry then add a bit more honey (it depends how big your banana was as to how wet it will be).

Press into a smallish lined baking tin and bake at 150C for 15-20 mins. Score gently where you intend to cut and then leave to cool completely before turning out and cutting into squares. Enjoy!

Cherry and Pecan Oaty Bar

1.5 cup Oats

.5 cup Pecans and Dried Cherries chopped

5 Dried Dates

5 Dried Prunes

4 Dried Figs

.25 cup Runny Honey

Mix the dry ingredients together. Using a food processor blitz the Dates, Prunes, Figs and Honey together to make a paste. Mix the paste into the dry mix, it will take a bit of work and may need a bit more honey if you’re struggling. Bake and finish as above, and enjoy!

My kids (we) devoured these very quickly and there were no arguments when given one of these instead of a doughnut or biscuit which I thought was a pretty good result!

I hope you like them, let me know which one you prefer and feel free to play around with them a bit! Make sure to let me know if you have a kitchen eureka, we would be willing guinea pigs :)

Thanks for dropping in, see you soon!

Hayley

xxx

Rainy Days

Recently we’ve been suffering some typically English summer weather. I say suffering but really I love the rain. I love that it is the reason we have such lush green lands, I love its soothing mantra as it hammers down on the roof and slips down the windows, and I love the fact that I am inside, dry and cosy, when everything else is cold and wet and yeuck! It makes me want to get out piles of blankets and get cosy on the sofa with my boys but, alas, they are boys and don’t want to sit still for very long!

So, to brighten things up I did what any decent person would do; I baked a batch of custard creams and invited people to play and crochet :) There was a reasonable amount of crochet done, the standard amount of tantrums over ‘opportunities to share’ and a couple of complete meltdowns: It was crazy, but fun!

The result was that I actually completed something from my WIP list!! I was very excited as I actually started it before my youngest was born but as I hate stitching things together it kept getting pushed to the back of the line of things to do. I don’t know why thought as in reality it only took me an hour to piece together and that was in between all the toddler riot management! However, after putting it up and sending my husband upstairs to view my mini masterpiece, he came down and just asked, ‘Why is it in Little H’s room?....’ I thought the answer was obvious- because I made it for him! But the reply came; ‘It’s for girls, he’s a boy, its coming down.’ WHAT? BUT…

I really thought it went well with his cloud mobile? Is it really too girly? Have I been blinded by my love of colour? He’s only 3 (nearly) and I know that most of the little boys I see at toddler groups are totally into anything pink! I really don’t think it matters at this age…? Am I wrong? What do you think?

On the other hand it does mean that this now belongs to me and could therefore be hung anywhere in the house! Or as a Christmas garland!!! Although there is one problem….Little H loves is and cried when Daddy told him it had to come down! HAHAHA!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you’ve been having as much fun in the rain as we have :) See you soon,

Hayley

x

WIP List

At this time of year I often find myself thinking of Christmas. Weird, I know, but it seems the perfect time to start preparing as currently I often find myself out of doors doing nothing but pushing someone on a swing or watching them climb up and go down the slide 53 times in a row. I NEED something to occupy my mind during these times!

However, I am very aware that I have a growing number of crochet projects that just haven’t been finished and with the growing oh-I’d-like-to-make-that list in my head there’s not going to be anything finished this year. So I’d thought I’d have a bit of a confessional, get it all out in the open, in the attempt to get some things done. I promise to show you all as I get them finished: Please check up on me!

Really there’s not that much work to be done to complete most of them but it’s all the silly details like not being able to find the right shade of button, or the correct shape of bead etc. (It doesn’t help that I absolutely loathe darning in ends or sewing things together). My fist attempt was this afternoon as I baked a batch of these (yummmm) and invited some ladies round to crochet together. However, with 6 children in our midst there wasn’t much hooking, just a bit of crowd control, breaking up a few fights (It was fun though!).

Hopefully I’ll see you soon with a completed project to show off :)

Hayley

xxx

The Holiday

For the past few months our family have been counting down the weeks until our first family holiday ON OUR OWN! On top of the usual pre-holiday stress like what to pack, wear etc. we had a few extra dramas including a stomach bug that kept my eldest up all night vomiting and a trip to the hair dressers (that was a treat for our holiday) going badly wrong as I returned with ginger hair. This was NOT good. I am usually dark brown but somehow there had been a mix up and despite trying to put a good spin on it, it just did not look good, or even ok, I just looked kind of bald. Luckily (what a ridiculous word to use here, but whatever), I had one more day to fix it and I returned the second time with somewhat better colour in my locks, although not entirely perfect I must add.

So, by this point, as you can imagine, we really were in need of a holiday! Come holiday morning we sprang out of bed and in a massive flourish of excitement and hurry we shovelled down our breakfasts, slung what seemed like a months worth of stuff into the car and away we sped (I realise that I have made this sound very efficient but in reality it was nearly 11am when we left despite the hurry, I really don’t know what took so long). I love that feeling of setting out on a long journey knowing that you won’t be returning home for a while. I even love the whole ‘have I packed everything?’ feeling and the conversation that is probably the same between every couple journeying on holiday ‘did you lock the door?...Did you put the dishwasher on?....No, I locked the door.’ Etc. the reality is that actually I don’t care what I have forgotten because nothing can ruin a holiday that much and, lets be honest, you ALWAYS lock the door when leaving the house, why would you have forgotten to this time? Somehow it was so much more exciting with two little people in the back, knowing that they really have no idea what is happening despite trying to explain it to them.

Our destination was Looe, Cornwall. i absolutely love holidaying in the UK, I think it is so beautiful that there really is no need to go abroad. Although we don’t have the best track record for weather in the summer I’m not put off as I can remember many times as a child when it rained on holiday and that just meant that we occupied ourselves playing games and eating biscuits in the caravan or tent. It felt like a real adventure during those times.

So, we arrived and settled into our lovely apartment in Duloe Manor. We were touched by the little details that the site manager had put into preparing the place for us, like the bag of toys and the soft animals placed in the high-chairs for each of the boys. They loved this as much as we did. Little H was very excited about this little home and very quickly understood that this was our holiday home and referred to it as such throughout our stay, adding on the odd occasion that when he now said ‘home’ he didn’t mean our big home but our holiday one (in case we should take him seriously and just drive back on a whim I suspect).

So, what did we do? It feels like an awful lot.

We went to the Marine Centre in Plymouth and saw some really cool things, including a very ugly shark. I learnt how big Stone Bass are (HUGE!) and was totally inspired by this beautiful coral.

We pootled around the village of Looe and ate many ice creams of different varieties. Cherry Bakewell was a revelation! Blackcurrant Cheesecake, Funky Banana, Raspberry Cream and Mint Chocolate Chip were also pretty good :)

We went to the Beach. It was a tiny little beach, very quiet and peaceful and full of things to find. The boys had a great time just running in the shallow water. We tried building sand castles but they were more interested in knocking them down. I’m glad I didn’t get too involved as I have a tendency to take things like that too seriously after a while and I suspect we would have been there for some time whilst I decorated my castle and its many out buildings.

I did gather some treasure too, I’m not sure what it will become yet but I’ll keep you posted as soon as it does.

It was my birthday on the Saturday and I was spoiled with gifts and surprised with a beautiful bouquet of lilies and roses. Instead of cake we went into Looe and had cream tea at Miss. Marples, a lovely little tearoom. Yuuummmm.

Possibly my favourite day in the whole trip was our time at the Eden Project. I remember going there when it had just opened and I was so excited to see how it had developed. It was magical. 

We spent some time walking around the pathways and exploring the nooks and crannies of the place.

There was a dinosaur exhibition on and every now and then you could hear a loud T-Rex ‘Roooaaarrrr’ from the main building. My husband and I got into character and took it ‘very seriously’ that there may be a dinosaur on the loose; we trod carefully through tunnels and tree’s with Little H searching for him. It turns out that Little H is much braver than we are.

We came across a baby dinosaur in the Tropical Biome which was unexpected! It surprised me that both my kids hardly batted an eye-lid as it really was a very realistic dinosaur (man in a suit). There was a 6 year old behind us in floods of tears wailing and holding onto his dad for dear life! I think Little H may be too young to sense how realistic it was. Or maybe he regularly comes across dinosaurs in the garden? Who knows!

Although the Biomes were very impressive I much preferred the outside space, full of colourful flowers and trees, so well established and……ah, just beautiful. I would love to spend a day there on my own to just soak it all up. I know I would leave almost shining like a flower in the sun.

Poppies are my No.1 flower right now and it’s not hard to see why. I just love them!

We unwound from busy days by playing ‘Tennis’ in the evenings. This was a really precious time of learning and sharing with the boys and one I will treasure for a long time.

On our last day we packed up and to break up the journey we visited Dartmoor Zoo. It is a small Zoo and had a very family-run feel to it which was actually rather attractive. We saw Tigers and Cheetah’s…

And a Bear with a Great name…

This Funny creature I cannot remember the name of but it has the tiniest skinny little legs which made me laugh so much!

Little H was so tired whilst we were there that by the time we headed back to the car he was just walking with his head down and shoulders slumped over sporadically grumbling ‘I hate Turtles….I hate turtles and monkeys……I hate all animals.’ It was said with such passion and belief that we found ourselves laughing so much. He really has no idea what ‘hate’ means as he’s just picked it up from somewhere and seems to be using it a lot…hopefully the novelty will wear off!

The journey home was long and sleepy. We were glad to see our little house again. One of the best things about going on holiday is coming home, and one of the favourite things about coming home is the little pile of postcards waiting for us on the door mat. As a way of recording our travels I make a point of sending home a few postcards recording what we’ve done and where we’ve been. It’s a great way to keep a diary as the postmark notes the date and place too. I make sure that I make some time to sit down with a cup of tea and read through them before the business of life gets in the way and the holiday feeling fades.

Do you have any ways in which you like to record fond memories?

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon,

Hayley

xx