Just for fun : Sometimes plan b is the better option.

On Thursday Sophie needed to wear a green accessory for Brownies to celebrate St Patricks day. Plan a was to tie ribbons into their hair, simple, quick and easy - until you discover you don't actually have any green ribbons! So plan b ....

Made using green felt and a hair elastic. Let me know if you're interested and I will try a tutorial!
She loved it and it looked great.

Life from the back : Birthday Tea

Sophie chose cheese on toast for her birthday tea - with strawberries and cream for pudding, such a strange child!
And birthdays mean cake!

I experimented with gluten free flour this time - it was nice but a little gritty in texture, (it may have just been the brand of flour? ) and I made use of the rest of the hearts Sophie had made for her cup cakes.

So now just a pony cake to do for her surprise family day on Saturday.

40Acts : Day Eight going over the top!

Yesterday Steve Legg shared the challenge of honouring others above ourselves :
"Jesus was extravagant. He didn’t just feed five thousand he had food left over; he went the extra mile. It says in Romans 12:10 that we should honour others above ourselves. That means we should go out of our way for them. "
So the challenge was to go over the stop, to step beyond the comfortable and do something generous.
I had lots of wildly unpractical and unaffordable ideas, and ideas were still buzzing round my head on the school run. Today should have been a rubbish day, Rebecca was unwell, and I needed to go to Tesco's to get the stuff they hadn't included in my delivery, and the reality is that it should have been a pain. But as I arrived it struck me, there were people here, people who I could bless, who I could make smile.
So now those ideas began to settle into some realistic plans.

The first would be to purchase two big tins of sweets and then give them back! So I found the store manger and explained that I wished to give the sweets to his staff. He explained how I could do this but was interested to know why, so I simply explained that I wanted to give something back, to be generous!
I paid for the sweets and gave them to the checkout supervisor - she was a little surprised!
I decided that there were some people in the village that could also be blessed, so I purchased 10 pots of daffodils for a £1 each, and spent the rest of the day looking after a poorly Rebecca ! Hence they were still in the car on the school run.
So when I called into the corner shop I took one to the lady working there, a customer started chatting to me, so much to her embarrassment I gave her one too by which time there were two more customers, so another trip to the car and more smiling people, I told them I bought them to make people smile! The first customers response was "I didn't know there were people like you around"
So from there I called in at the hairdressers it's amazing how a few flowers can brighten someone's day, so now I am back with the sick one! Two pots of flowers left to give away later!
I really enjoyed this challenge, it felt good, and made a few people smile today.

40Acts: Day Six - Reach

Yesterday we were challenged to write out our spheres of influence and to see the places where we can be an influence for good. The reflection by Shaun King left me with some questions - what is influence? Who am I influenced by and who do I influence? Some big questions, I guess the problem I had was the criteria he used to define the people we have influence on which I didn't particularly agree with.
Saying that I found it helpful to draw a pictorial representation of the areas of my life that can be a means of influence ( hopefully for good!) I tried to make it representative so the size reflecting either the number of people or the amount of influence but as I was making it up as I went along it is not a totally accurate picture but a rough approximation. I reflected on how this picture mighthave looked a year ago, or perhaps ten years ago.

We were also encouraged to share a positive story of love, kindness or generosity with one of these spheres.

Sometimes it is the simple things that encourage me and speak to me and when I picked up two of my craft letters that Annie had sneaked up stairs they inspired me to create a collection of encouraging statements based on being not doing. I am not sure it totally meets the brief but of all the things I might share these two letters have come back again and again. So please join in and leave a positive and encouraging word to complete the statement.

Life from the back of the pack: Sophie is seven!

One of the features of the girls new school is that you take cupcakes in for your birthday. So last week with Sophie's birthday approaching I thought I would find out what she wanted.

She presented me with her design! Footballs for the boys and hearts for the girls.
So today she helped me make the cakes to her design!

She even made the chocolate hearts herself! We had a lovely time together, and I was reminded again how important it is to spend individual time with each of the girls even if it is challenging!
Ok now just to finish her birthday cake for tomorrow and pony cake for her surprise dinner on Saturday.

40Acts: Day Five - reconnect!

Sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult, and though it sounds simple today's challenge is perhaps the hardest so far.

"And the second commandment…you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these."

Cris Rogers reflected on how as a society we have become isolated from those around us. He encouraged us to look around and to begin reconnecting with those around us, a smile or a greeting can begin that process.

I wonder if we are drawn to programmes such as "Call the midwife" because they feature a lifestyle and a sense of community that we have lost. Having moved just before Christmas we were keen to get to know our neighbours, and so we delivered Christmas cards, it was fun and gave us a chance to get to know those living round us. But in the two months since then we have hardly seen them. We have noticed in the past that winter is isolating, it's cold and wet and people tend to stay in or jump in their cars, and so there is little opportunity to meet.

Our hope is that with the onset of spring we will find opportunities. In the village itself we have made a point of visiting the local shop, butchers and pub as well as the Tuesday village cafe, and over time hope to get to know our wider neighbours.

As for the challenge I was able to chat briefly with a neighbour Friday and Sunday but not Saturday! But this challenge never was for just one day, and I look forward to getting to know my neighbours in the months ahead.

Life from the back of the pack: Treasure hunt

It is great fun to explore new places, and having just moved we have loads to explore, to make discovering Cambridge ( rumour has it there is more to visit than the fudge shop and old fashioned sweet shop!!) more fun for the girls we purchased a treasure map from

http://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/cambridgeshire/things-to-do.html

It was £6.99 for the download but gave some structure and information to help us discover more about Cambridge.

Our plan was to do it over lots of visits, so the girls didn't get bored and little legs didn't get too tired!

So we found four clues, with lots of fun on the way round.

We missed the clue on this road, and were too taken with this clock to go back - so this will be our starting point next time.