A Matter of Choice

I've been feeling a little envious of all the lovely things people in the UK have been getting up to during the summer holidays, which seems absolutely ridiculous given that once I'd have spent every waking moment wishing I could be by a pool, who'd have thought I'd ever want anything more than that! I was worried about the summer, it seemed like I was the only one of my group of friends whose child was off for the nearly three months as the others were still in private nursery which only closes for one week in August. I may have moaned a little about this too - sorry to anyone who knows me! Before the summer holidays I decided to get organised and I created a kind of summer bucket list and called it 'Summer Dreams' the idea was to give us (well, me as I didn't tell Leo about it knowing he would want to do it all at once!) something to look forward to and some sort of plan to what seemed like endless weeks of scorching temperatures. In the end I prett...

We're over halfway through the summer season! I was worried when Aaron went back to work in April after 5 months off over the winter and it seemed like it would be a lifetime before we all had time together again - in Loukas case it pretty much would be anyway! It's not been easy but so far so good, in our case at home anyway.  Aaron is exhausted bless him as he is right in the crazy period which will last through August but he's powering through. Leo has now been off school for a month and thanks to the amazing invention that is the Nintendo Wii it has largely been an enjoyable time. We've ticked off a few items off our Summer Dreams list and I have several more plans, some of which have been on hold as both my parents have been ill recently so we are still looking forward to a boat trip, funfair evening and some beach / pool trips together. I'm quite impressed we are all still in one piece to be honest, the kids are ok, I've not lost my sanity yet...

As we recently saw the end of school for the summer I thought we'd start off as we mean to go on and I chose the first activity from our 'Summer Dreams' list. Sam, Leiarna and baby Jaxon came round after school for lunch, playtime and dinner and I thought it a perfect time for some cocktails... I love cocktails, they make me think of holidays and fun, so I thought it would be nice to share this with the kids..... without the alcohol of course! (I just can't stand the word 'mocktail') I provided the ingredients and Sam came armed with the decorations. We started with a fruit smoothie, banana, mango, orange juice and ice. They enjoyed helping to make it, putting the chopped fruit into the blender and pressing the button. The smoothies were not a huge hit with the kids but we enjoyed them as I made the next round, a child friendly take on one of one of my all time favourites. 'Sandcastles on the Beach' crushed ice 1 cup orange juice 1 ...

I'm a big fan of pinterest and forever 'pinning' activites to do with the boys although it's a bit like the recipies I used to rip out of magazines to cook 'one day'.  As much as these ideas are great they so often involve some sort of craft skill, require patience or create mess and they get put off for another day! My biggest problem  excuse currently is Louka being too young, and his nap times being too short, and the fact that even simple activities are too old for him as everything would go straight in his mouth. I got round this problem this week though and the boys and I did our first proper activity together, it went down very well, was easy to set up, cheap and not messy - Yay! Using a selection of random toys and plastic boxes, I made several blocks of ice with hidden surprises inside. I told Leo we were going to play with ice and at first he was confused, I placed all the blocks into a big plastic box and took them outside. He thought it hila...

The summer season is well underway here in Cyprus, and in a months time the schools break up for the summer holiday.....yes you did read that right, the school year finishes mid June and the kids are off until September! Aaron has been back at work now for over a month and so far we have survived, the next challenge is to do so without Leo being at school every morning. I want to enjoy the summer with the boys and get out and about even though I do find it very hard with both of the boys.  It's always so tempting to take the easy option and do the same old things but last summer I feel I missed out on lots of things while struggling with a big baby bump in the heat. I've been thinking of ways to keep us all occupied, both the boys and me, and in typical style I decided I had to make a list. It's more of a list of ideas to come back to rather than a definite 'we must get all these done'  and as I don't like the name 'bucket list' Lauren from Real H...