A day out fit for Princesses

We embarked on a family day out to Hampton Court Palace yesterday.  With my 11 year old niece visiting from abroad we thought we should do something cultural plus eldest daughter had studied the Tudor times in school this year and she was keen to go.

Now that A&E have turned into running toddlers just getting everyone loaded into the car at the start of the day was an achievement. Having packed the picnic and sourced a rain mac for everyone I tried to persuade the eldest kids off the trampoline and into the car. A&E were so excited to see the picnic bag that whilst I wasn't looking they took the opportunity of opening it and emptying the contents onto the hall floor.

Finally we did leave home only 50 minutes later than planned and with little traffic on the roads we reached Hampton Court Palace all set for a fun packed day. We purchased our tickets and the kids were all intrigued to be greeted by Henry VIII's courtiers at the gate. We then headed to the information area so that all of us could collect our velour jackets and cloaks (to ensure we felt the part) and audio commentary guides. Of course whilst all the children and indeed DH and I were rather keen to start our visit, the two younger members of our party reminded everyone around Hampton Court by their loud screaming that they needed lunch.  In search of the picnic area we headed towards the main gate where we had to de-robe and put our audio guides back as they couldn't leave the main palace area!

Having satisfied everyones lunch requirements we tried to lose the 3 eldest children in the maze but they all make their way back out and we re-grouped and headed back to start the tour of the palace. With less enthusiasm for the velour jackets we just picked up a couple of audio guides this time.

Persuading A&E into their stroller we headed round the Tudor Kitchens only to find that we could only go so far until the doorway was too narrow for us to fit through. Hesitant to take the girls out when they were actually sitting still, I reversed and then spent 10 minutes trying to find another way to get  back through to the other side of the kitchens and re-join the others.

Of course we couldn't keep them in their stroller for long especially as much of the living quarters of the palace are on the first floor, up large flights of stone steps. The stroller just fitted through the doorway of the buggy park room and so parked it and ran after A&E as they enjoyed their freedom.  The vast rooms were too exciting for A who ran as fast as she could down the corridors. E, feeling a little under the weather and tired preferred to be carried - by me. Thankfully DH and I could both be in charge of one toddler each which meant we were less likely to lose one of them.

As I entered one of Henry VIII's rooms carrying E and explaining to eldest daughter what the room was, out of the corner of my eye I noticed A run into the room, dash under the rope cordon and head towards the priceless antique table. Thankfully we called her and she ran back to us. The guide in the room explained that if she had touched the table the alarms would have all gone off and in fact she was quite surprised that she hadn't set off the alarms but then she realised she must have been too short and was under the height of the beam! I felt rather thankful for that.

As much as A&E had a great time picking up stones, trampling on flowers in the garden and crumbling crackers all over the palace, the three older children had a great day. They were thrilled to meet Henry VIII and Catherine Parr and they took part in a live historical theatre show about their lives and followed the story as to whether the King would order her arrest. They were all relieved when the King forgave her.

It was a fun packed exhausting day out and as we were in Henry VIII's bedroom I took the opportunity to sit down on a bench in front of the window. Both girls clambered up and peeked through the blind into the garden. It was clear the blinds were down to stop the sun from shining on the very well preserved preiceless tapestries. All of a sudden the girls took hold of the cords to the blinds, climbed down from the bench and were heading across the room with them. DH and I quickly picked up a girl each, removed the cords that they were both clutching and swiftly left the room.

As we headed out from the Palace to retrieve our stroller we saw a plaque commemorating the re-opening of part of the palace by the Queen following a fire some years earlier. Nervously smiling at each other we hoped there would be no further plaques needed following our visit.

I'll only be 10 minutes...

With 4 children aged 18 months to 8 years I have found that I become reliant on friends, acquaintances, tradesmen and babysitters to look after my kids. School finally finished the other day and my kids really wanted a bbq for dinner. I was hesitant to take all four of them in the car just to buy charcoal and eldest daughter and boy in the middle were having a lot of fun with the gardeners. The gardeners have known us for years and as they were going to be at my house for another 25 minutes it gave me plenty of time to nip out with A&E to get the charcoal.

Needless to say the petrol station didn't sell the ready to light bbq charcoal that I like to use so I had to park in our local supermarket carpark which is indeed a hypermarket and take the girls with me. We eventually found a trolley with 2 seats in it and then we whizzed up and down the aisles until we came across the bag of charcoal that I wanted.

I headed for the do it yourself express checkout which as it transpired wasn't express and very few people using the checkout seemed to be doing it themselves as they all required assistance from the one assistant. When we finally had paid and purchased our 5kg bag of charcoal all that remained was for me to make it back to the car. In my wisdom and to save time I decided that I would take the girls out of the trolley and we would all walk to the car. As I was struggling through the car park holding one girl, a 5kg bag of charcoal and with the other girl walking holding my hand I realised how crazy I must have looked let alone how  dangerous it was. Luckily various cars in the carpark stopped to let us all get safely to the car.

Having loaded everyone back in I raced home. The gardeners had finished and I apologised. Why does a 10 minute excercise always turn into half an hour?

Spice Girls

I had a beautiful kitchen fitted in my house about 4 years ago. I chose lots of cool things like a pull out larder cupboard and deep pan drawers and then either side of the hob to fill the space I had small pull out racks put in. One contains my clingfilm and tin foil and the other side contains lots of small bottles of herbs and spices. A & E are now really adept at pulling out the foil and greaseproof paper and putting it back in and this week they seem to have found a new found love with the spice rack.

The other day I wondered why they both started sneezing but then I saw that the lid was slightly off the 7Thai Spice and they were both inhaling it. The lid also doesn't quite close on the ground ginger which they clearly liked the smell of and to their delight they discovered when a jar is thrown at the floor Mummy has to painstakingly sweep up mustard seeds. They really didn't enjoy the taste of the bayleaves and I am now totally out of paprika and turmeric.

I wouldn't mind but I have a kitchen/playroom, so right next to this abundance of pans, spices, straws, bleach and noodles are plenty of toys, books and games.  Clearly though I have two budding cooks in the making with a nose for fine spices.

As I look around my kitchen I think that they have almost explored every cupboard. They haven't emptied my cake tin cupboard for a couple of weeks but I have just noticed my two open shelves under my kitchen table full of cookery books - I assume once they get even more acquainted with my tools and spices they will start looking up suitable recipes in my books!

Mini Explorers

It's  been a few weeks since I last blogged and I realise now that the main reason for this is that Baby A and Baby E are no longer officially babies and have graduated and become non-stop toddlers. I am now unable to turn my back on them for more than a few seconds and I know that if my house suddenly seems very quiet I should start to panic.  The only reason I am actually able to write this is because after all the running around, playing and singing we have done this morning they have finally gone to sleep and I get my 90 minutes of freedom.

They have now realised how fun it is to be part of a double act and they have sussed out how to team up and become a force to be reckoned with. They have also taught me several things about myself and the house in which we live. For example I really had no idea that I owned 3 rolls of greaseproof paper until I found all 3 of them entirely unraveled on my kitchen floor. Seemingly overnight A&E have grown that bit more so that all the items that I put out of reach on my hall table/dressing table/kitchen table are no longer out of reach.

In the past couple of days alone I have picked up an entire box of cotton buds off my bedroom floor twice, re-wound 2 toilet rolls and several times a day one of them will come and present me with the cheese grater from the drawer in my kitchen.  When we are upstairs they love nothing better that to move the step stool in the bathroom to the side of the bath and stand on it to reach the nearest tap (thankfully it's the cold one) and then they stand there with their hands under the water.

Of course when one of them does something then the other one copies. If one tips their bowl of cereal off the table then unless I am super speedy the other one will follow suit. They definitely know how I operate though because as soon as I get one of them down from the highchair they immediately pass me my dustpan and brush.

Not only are they starting to become more independent at home but they have now realised that there is a whole world out there which doesn't have to be viewed from the confines of a pushchair. As much as I love my new pushchair they often manoeuvre themselves to a standing position so that all I can invariably do is take them out.

I realise now that they are at that great age where they are learning all the time, trying to say words and they think that every drawer, box and cupboard needs to be discovered. I have given up even trying to sit down if they are awake or tidy the toys away during daytime hours but then I think of the couple of programmes I have seen recenly - one about identical girl quads and another last night of quads and I just count myself lucky that at least if we are out I have a knee each for them to sit on and a hand each for them to hold. I may be outnumbered by 2:1 but I don't even imagine how the Mums ever leave the house if they are outnumbered 4:1 all of the same age.

With my 90 minutes slowly ticking away I better go and do a bit more sweeping and tidying so that A&E can get up and run riot around the playroom once more.

Now it's double double trouble

One set of twins is hard enough to keep track off now that they toddle around, ususally in opposite directions just so they can keep me on my toes.

Now I am in the enviable position of having not just one but two sets of twins in my life. It's quite hard fitting all of them into the double pushchair and I often find that one of them falls out and I have to pick them up off the floor. At least I haven't lost any of them yet.

Here are the latest additions to our house:

Baby A and Baby E nearly launched themselves out of their stroller a couple of weeks ago when we walked past the toy aisle in a supermarket. They were so animated in their love for these small dolls that I felt we had room in our lives for them as well.

Thankfully Baby A and Baby E are only 17 months old and are happy with one doll each. I wonder how long it will be until they both decide that they actually need to have twins and I will be taking out 2 girls, 2 dolls twin pushchairs and 4 dolls!

Mini Me

I have often had the same discussion with friends who say that sometimes they leave the house wearing the same colours as their kids. It's true that when my eldest kids were pre-school age if I had pulled out jeans and a red top to wear, you could be sure that boy in the middle would be wearing blue tracksuit trousers and a red top. There is something about my subconscious that obviously chooses the same colours for everyone.

Now thankfully eldest daughter and boy in the middle wear school uniform and pull out their own clothes at the weekend but obviously I have to choose all the outfits for Baby A and Baby E.

On Saturday we were invited out for lunch. I got dressed and then I got the girls dressed in their matching dresses, Baby A in pink with a white t-shirt and Baby E in purple with a white t-shirt. Dear husband was already out so I put the girls in the pushchair and walked round to my friends house.  It was only as I was halfway there that I actually looked down to notice that I was wearing my long purple dress with a white T-shirt underneath. I couldn't believe that I had left the house dressed the same as one of my 16 month old daughters!

Needless to say various people pointed this out throughout the course of the day. I made a note to self to try and avoid such clashes in the future.

Sunday came and eldest daughter I completed in the Race for Life in Regents Park with lots of friends. We left the house early and left dear husband in charge of the youngest children. I left the girls clothes out for him. When I got to the park I called dear husband and asked him to bring my fleece sweatshirt down for after the run as it was rather cold.

I completed the 5k run in my own personal best time of 28mins12seconds and eldest daughter amazed me by running it in 42mins. We then met up with dear husband, the other kids and lots of friends for a picnic. I pulled my sweatshirt out of the bag to keep warm and then realised I had done it again. Baby A, Baby E, eldest daughter and I were all wearing our Gap sweatshirts in various colours.

2 days in a row.

This morning when I got up I consciously put on my favourite lime green sweater, as this colour doesn't feature at all in the babys' wardrobe.

As I sit here writing this a thought is crossing my mind. We are going to a family function in a couple of weeks time and I have a feeling that my 3 daughters and I are all wearing very similar floral dresses for the occasion. I have a feeling that perhaps I have done it again.

Customer Service at its best!

I am on the look out for a new double pushchair at the moment. I love the one (pictured at the top of this blog)  that friends lent us when Baby A and Baby E were born. We took it out with us before they were born in order to chose a car that would fit us and the pushchair in and amazingly several cars were rejected before we found our lovely second hand Renault.

Now however as I find that I can almost go to the park without taking the stroller (provided I park at the gate and go straight back to the car) I am thinking of something a little more compact and lightweight that they can climb in and out of easily.

Last week dear husband and I managed to leave the eldest two children with Grandma N and we escaped to do some research in Mothercare. Dear husband stayed with the girls in the car and I found a lovely sales assistant who was remarkably knowledgable about the double pushchairs and happily came out to the car 3 times with different options to check if they would fit in the back. The first was too big, the second too lumpy but the third was just right.

We got the girls out and took them into the shop to have a go at sitting in the pushchair and they were remarkably still and happy and quite annoyed when we took them out of it.

As I like nothing more than to get the best price for the best product I thought I would do a bit more research. Having seen adverts on TV for baby offers at Asda, the next day I drove up with the girls to have a look.

I found the double pushchair stored safely in it's box on the shelf. I asked a member of staff if I could have more information such as the price and she apologised that she was just the cleaner so I headed off to find someone who may be able to help. To cut a very long story short there was no one to help. They did call a manager down who read out the information to me on the box - I love it when shop assistants do that. Did she think I can't read?

I then clearly made a terrible mistake by asking if I could see the pushchair out of the box. The assistant said "No". I pointed out that I nor anyone else would spend £100 on a pushchair that can't be taken out of the box, loaded with a baby and test driven. She then explained that the pushchair was rather heavy and cumbersome anyway and suggested I go to Babies R Us or Mothercare.

I thanked her for her honesty and we left.

As I drove out of the Asda car park and saw their slogan - "Saving you money every day" it made me laugh.

I have now placed an online order complete with my twins discount on the Mothercare website!