scuba diving!

they offered one hour taster sessions at the leisure centre for £5 (bargain!)

the instructor had lottie in stitches

she took to it immediately

loved the hand signals you do underwater

and was soon swimming lengths and lengths

but the best bits were handstands and somersaults in the deep end!

lewes to newhaven raft race

this event has been going for 37 years...local fools make a raft and hope it doesn't sink before they get to newhaven from lewes...we went today for grandad's birthday and a picnic

old man (sorry, esteemed member of the family) opening presents

toby enjoying himself

thing1 posing as usual

flour bombs

the idea is as they progress to the start line, spectators hurl eggs, water balloons, tomatoes, flour bombs, abuse and in return they have pumps on board and fire hoses and soak the spectators!

this year's theme was 'music' so this is "greased lightning" and the firemen's subwoofer

abba's dancing queen takes joint lead

come on yellow submarine!

no.9 was sinking before it started!

we had vegan chocolate sweet potato cake with candle for the birthday boy and delicious food:

cheese straws and pesto swirls, pringles, crudites with home-made guacamole, wodges of watermelon, cherries/strawberries/red grapes all washed down with fizzy mango juice....YUM!

fluff

boo is the longer-haired of our two kitties...he also adores his grandma

however when grandma got home from work the other day, he flomped on her whilst she "rested her eyelids" and shed what looks like half his fur on her

damn summer moulting

puff pastry

lottie likes to watch "bake with anna olsen" and today anna made puff pastry and hors d'ouvres so lottie wanted to do a savoury bake day

a tray of goodies

pesto swirls

cheese straws with poppy seeds

ice cream

when the co-op sells off pots of double cream for 15p, it opens the opportunity to make your own ice cream

lottie made nutella and vanilla!

mummy made mango!

ellie made blueberry and vanilla!

basic recipe:

1 small pot double cream whisked until nearly stiff and put to one side,

1 egg whisked with 1/2 cup sugar until pale and thick, add squirt of vanilla extract and the cream and fold together,

add your choice of fruit/flavour, swirl around then pot up and freeze

camp out

i got a £100 tent for £30 so when we next go camping we are well equipped

not realising how huge it is!

we decided to try it out by camping in the garden and it has been so much cooler than sleeping indoors...

ellie decided to put her tent on the trampoline (no where else to put it and it saved a mattress!)

disney caramel apples

lottie saw these made in disneyland on a youtube video and wanted to make her own

take 3 granny smith apples and push a stick into each, melt a bag of dairy toffees and coat each apple with the melted yumminess, leave to set (which in this weather is in the fridge), just before they have set, put a marshmallow on each side near the stick (these are for mickey's ears)...if you put the marshmallows on straight after you have coated the apples in toffee, they will just slide right to the bottom! once set, melt milk chocolate and coat the apples, leave to set. once set melt white chocolate and add red food colour, coat only the bottom third of the apples and sprinkle red edible glitter onto this chocolate (this makes mickey's shorts), put 2 little white sugar balls for his buttons and there you have "Mickey Mouse Caramel Apples"

poppyville

we saw this riot of red from our house so i said to ellie "let's go explore that before they all fade"

we were already halfway there after work, so whilst still in uniforms, we plodded up the hill

finally we reached the top

the view just kept getting better

then we found the field we wanted to frolic in

presenting South Heighton's beautiful display of nature

my favourite photo

my not-so-favourite photo

ellie having a moment 

i even caught a bee mid-flight!

slip'n'slide

get a giant plastic sheet (b&q £7.48), add water, bubble bath, children and a beautiful sunny day

and you get slip'n'slide!

kept them happy

cleaned them

such fun!

summer birthday

lottie has decided to revert to the method of celebrating her birthday in the summer as she is fed up with her birthday the week before xmas....we used to do this when she was little as she never played with anything and we worked out it was because she got everything in a one week period (sensory overload!)

so we made her a devils food cake bottom layer, fudge brownie top layer, chocolate ganache icing, home-made sugarpaste roses and sliced strawberries

just the one candle so as not to spoil the beauty of the cake

make a wish!

july 4th

we had fat burgers with plastic cheese slices, skinny fries and corn on the cob, washed down with full-fat coke then to follow 'mom's apple pie' with squirty cream

have some pie with your cream ellie

(i had to stab her with my spoon to stop her from squirting even more into her bowl)

australia

got this in a charity shop for £1

aside from 3 missing pieces, it made this

there were these to add

into these spaces

so we used an atlas to find where these place names went

we also found this little fact in lottie's raspberry bear yo-yo