Summer holidays and Time to Relax #weeklyroundup

It has been a long time coming but finally our summer holidays have officially begun. Well actually the begun at 1.15pm yesterday afternoon, not that I was counting down to it or anything! And what are we doing with our first day of freedom, honestly, not a lot. A lazy morning followed by a spot of baking as I need to get birthday cakes ready for my youngest's birthday tomorrow.

This week has been a long one, the kids still had days to complete at school, pointless in my opinion as they weren't even doing any work, but I've moaned enough about that. My eldest already beginning her holiday time has actually spent a lot of it with my mum, really nice for them to get some one on one time.

I'm now trying to figure out what we're going to be doing with our time off. I don't want to have everything planned but I also don't want to hear the words, "I'm bored", constantly uttered. Any free days out suggestions would be much appreciated!

Read

I've had Philip Pullman's novel His Dark Materials on my to be read list for years but I've just never got around to buying/reading it. Now my dad actually bought it for my eldest daughter at Christmas and with 6 weeks of free time ahead of us I thought what better time to start this 1000+ page book.

I'll admit that after waiting so long to read it that it will take a loss less time to complete it because as predicted it is a wonderful piece of literature.

Watched

I am sucker for the classic programmes from my child hood and I recently discovered a few box sets on All4 including one of my favourites, Dawson's Creek. This was definitely a big part of my teenage years and now my girls are watching it with me.

It's oh so cheesy and very 90's but it's just as good as I remember it. I was always rooting for Joey and Pacy to get together.

Heard

This week being the last week of school meant the leavers service, this is something I always cry at even when my own children aren't leaving school. Listening to the children's speeches is emotional and it reminded me that it will be one of my daughters doing this exact same thing again next July, need this year to slow down.

This one was particularly difficult because as well as children leaving, certain members of staff were moving on too including someone who has become a close friend of mine and although we will of course stay in contact it will be very strange not seeing her every day around the school.

Wore

OK technically I may be stretching the wore a little bit too far but I felt like I was wearing a lot of sellotape trying to wrap up all of the birthday presents. There seemed to be a lot of them, I may have forgotten that I'd bought some of them.

The good news is that I got to wrap them in some gorgeous personalised wrapping paper from Pretty Gifted. It's one of those that it makes the presents look almost too good to open as actually the paper would look pretty spectacular if it was put into a frame and displayed on a wall. I'm beyond excited to see my youngest's face when she gets to see the gift wrap.

Made

Well as I said at the beginning I will be making a birthday cake as well as cup cakes and cookies ready for the youngest's birthday but before me making a mess in the kitchen it was the turn of my 10 year old.

She decided to make a couple of tray bakes to take in for her class to enjoy on their last day of school and she really made a task for herself because she had to make one that was suitable for someone with a dairy allergy and also for a pupil who was a vegan.

I can already picture her as a baker when she's older as she has a real passion for cake making already.

And now as our holidays begin we are starting it off as we mean to go on, as a family having fun. We'll be going out for the day to celebrate the youngest turning six, we're heading up to Leeds Castle in the morning and then an afternoon in Maidstone so that she can spend her birthday money. On top of that, she's determined that this is the year that she would like her ears pierced too. 

Hope everyone else has a fun weekend ahead of them!