Around here - Week in the Life & Mother's Day

Last week was our 13th year participating in the 7 day photo documenting project called "Week in the Life' and it ended yesterday being Mother's Day.  It was a very different year this year as there was no driving the kids to and from school, ironing uniforms, making lunches or the kids seeing their friends on the weekends. 

I have loved having the kids around 24/7 and now my son is back at school today in Grade 11 it was a shock to the system to iron the school uniform and make a school lunch for him.  My daughter has another 2 weeks of online learning at home before she goes back to school.

We have been playing UNO after our evening meal every night and have been having lots of laughs playing the 7 and the 0 rule.  If you put down a 7 could can chose to swap your cards with another player of your choice and if you get a 0 everyone passes their cards to the next person in the order of who's turn it is.  So if you are taking turns and going clockwise then you pass your set of cards that way or if anti-clock wise same thing.  It really adds another level to this card game and we were laughing so hard at what was happening.  So you could have one card left and call UNO and then the next player puts a 7 or 0 down and then you lose your hand...it's loads of fun.

The kids made me beautiful hand made Mother's Day cards and some fruit chocolate skewers for breakfast....who doesn't love chocolate for breakfast on Mother's Day.  We had chicken and leek pies for dinner and my daughter made apple crumble and home made ice cream for dessert which was delicious.

One thing I'm very proud of is having both my kids in the kitchen cooking from a very young age and now as teenagers the next phase is evening meals so when they leave home they are not ordering take-away and wasting their money.  Home cooked meals are so much better anyway and it's my job as a Mother to teach them about budgeting, meal prepping for the week and basically one day when they leave home they can look after themselves with a food budget and cook healthy dinners and have leftovers to take to work to save money.  I love this about Motherhood and given they are 16 and 14 I have plenty of time to do this.  Last school holidays they cooked lots of evening meals so I could have a break and they can build up their confidence in the dinner menu...they both love cooking and it works out for everyone. 

Remember the dinner party they put on by themselves which required them to write a menu and shopping list, work out to keep to the $50 budget and actually walk around the shops together and buy the food and then come home, prepare it and cook it  They even put together a play list of songs for the evening and waited on us hand and food...the best $50 ever I ever spent and they loved it.  Once the family can come over again I'll get the kids to do this again as we had a great night.  We even used the special china and white table cloth.

Here's a few photos from our week.

Breakfast treats made by my kids for Mother's Day present.

Mother's Day handmade card.

 I made this Roasted Pumpkin & Cashew Dip...sooooooo delicious.

Afternoon coffee in the backyard.

After dinner UNO with the kids.

Sienna whipped up some pasta for lunch.

Fried Rice for dinner.

On our walk.