Weekly Menu

Our menu for this week reflects that we are all cutting down,and trying to eat a bit lighter as we are off on holidays to Spain next week.Dh and ds especially have had to loosen their belts recently so we're trying to be in healthy mode this week.
Monday
Trout baked with lemon and pepper,with lightly creamed leeks,corn on the cob and
baby new potatoes.
Followed by fruit and yogurt.
Tuesday
Carrot and Parsnip soup,with baps and Avocado butter.
Followed by banana muffins with strawberriesand blueberries.
Wednesday
Sausage and Lentil stew with garlic mashed potatoes.
Followed by Tropical fruit salad.
Thursday
Chicken Curry with Rice.
Followed by Tropical fruit salad or banana muffins.
Friday
Fish cakes with Pea and Garlic Puree and cabbage with bacon.
Followed by Stuffed baked Apples.

Papa Piccolo

Our book for this past two weeks has been Papa Piccolo,we rowed this one last year too,it was very popular,especially with the yummy Italian food to accompany it.

Here's what we did and our scrapbook pages.

-We learned about Italy's geography in Europe,looked at it in our atlas and talked about the continents,and coloured in the Italian flag.

-I chose some new vocbulary from the manual and we found pictures to illustrate them with.Then Sam wrote the words on the front flaps.He also coloured in a gondola which I stuck in his notebook.

-We read about Marco Polo and traced his route
on a map.We also included an entrry

about him in our timeline notebook.

-We read 'The Fox and the Sour Grapes' and dicussed 'sour grapes'.

-Everyone had great fun learning about the colour wheel,Sam played some online quizzes and games and the we did some colour experiments with markers,food colouring and water.

-Sam and Rose painted masks and did a little bit of roleplay as Piccolo and Sophia(left).

-We learned about 'Nocturnal' animals and I printed out sheets of some different types which Sam painted and stuck in.For his background he used watercolours to make a night sky and then put some gold flecks on it to look like stars.

-Sam stuck the correct pictures of how a kitten grows on the table from HSS.

-I typed out Sam's narration of the story and stuck it in,and I also added some photos from 'Our Italian Dinner' and also of dc making Biscotti,yum!

Here are the Photos closer up;

Here are some pictures of Rose's notebook also.She did some of the same things as Sam,and she learned a little rhyme and learned about the letter 'C'.

Tuesday Tea and Crafts

For the first of our tea and crafts this week we decided to have it after dinner so that dh could join in the fun.

We had homemade carrot cake which I made the previous day,and our new favourite tea 'Camomile,Honey & Vanilla'.

We read about Noah from 'The Pray and Play Bible'.Then we did some of the suggested activities which included playing a game,singing a song and a craft.

For our craft we made 'Helping Hands',by tracing around our hands on coloured card then we wrote our names on them,decorated them and made a handle from a pipecleaner.When someone is going to help out in a certain room they hang their 'Helping Hand' on the door.So hopefully I will get lots of help with chores now ! lol.

It was fun to share our tea party with dad hopefully he will join in from now on!

Menu of the week

I have just finished compiling our weekly menu and here it is;

Monday
Cheesy Fish Bake - Trout fillets covered with courgettes,babycorn
and cherry tomatoes,topped with parmesan breadcrumbs and baked.
Served with boiled potatoes.
Followed by Banoffee Pie (leftover from sunday)

Tuesday

Pasta with Marinara Sauce served with Garlic Bread.

Followed by homemade Carrot Cake with cream cheese icing.

Wednesday

Kids night: Cowboy Casserole -sausages,bacon and baked beans

cooked together served either a baked potato or mash.

Followed by homemade Carrot Cake.

Thursday

Chicken and Vegetable Risotto topped with cheese.

Followed by homemade Iced Apple Sponge made with apples from our garden.

Friday

Fish Lasagne served with a green salad and warm crusty bread.

Followed by homemade Iced Apple Sponge.

One other thing we will be cooking this week will be Biscotti to accompany the book we are reading 'Papa Piccolo'.We will have some of this with our tea and crafts on wednesday evening.

On board Titanic's Little Sister

On Sunday, which is the only day that dh can spend the day(well,most of it!)with us I decided it would be fun to do something exciting.
So,I had read about a boat trip you can go on in Belfast around the Titanic quarter,where Titanic was built.We set off for the 3:30pm sailing but it was not to be.Firstly we ran into lots of roadworks which made us late,then we couldn't find the dock where the boat trip left from,then we found it and no-one was there(wrong side!),then we couldn't find a car park nearby,and when we finally did we just spotted the ship pulling out! TOO LATE.
Just as tempers were getting frayed and all seemed lost dh spotted another bigger ship,- S.S.NOMADIC docked at the harbour.So we went for a look.It is actually the sister ship of the Titanic,built at the same time, by the same men and launched on the same day.She was designed to carry the wealthy upper classes out to the waiting liners(of which one was Titanic).During the great war & WWII she served as a troopship,then from 1968-1999 when she had retired she became an exclusive restaurant on the Seine in paris.
They had an exhibition on board of Titanic artefacts and some things used in the film,so we had a look.(slideshow above)It was very interesting,as this is the last surviving 'White Star Line'ship in the world.The dept for social development here plan to fully restore the ship to her former glory by 2012,the money raised from people visiting the onboard museum will go towards doing this.
So there was a silver lining to this cloudy sunday after all!

Feasting on Friday

On friday I invited my Grandad to have dinner with us.I haven't seen much of him all summer as he has been away in his caravan.

He is a wonderful man,so youthful for eighty three!So now he's off to his house in Spain now for a month.We had a lovely evening with him,the kids are very fond of him too.

I cooked one of dh's favourite teas 'Fish Pie' with salmon & prawns,which was a big hit with everyone.Dessert unfortunately wasn't such a sucess.After spending a good part of the afternoon with dc making a large 'pineapple upsidedown cake' I DROPPED IT !!!!!!! lifting it out of the oven.So for dessert I had to improvise and make a sort of strawberry mouse,luckily I had some fresh strawberries to make it with and some rice crispie buns(from thursday) to eat with it!

So all was not lost.