Our Favourite Family Portrait

Printerpix and Tots100 are running a really great competition at the moment and have asked bloggers to submit their favourite family photograph along with a description of  why that photograph has been chosen.

Like most mums I adore taking pictures of the kids - I have thousands upon thousands.  Luckily in this digital world, it is so easy to keep these precious records of our children growing up.  Sadly I am sure I'm not the only one who has SO many on my computer, and not so many printed out and in frames (bad mummy!).

What's more, I can pretty much bet that I am not the only mum who likes to keep herself out of the picture where at all possible.  I say why ruin a pic by having me in it?  I am trying to make more of an effort though as I really don't want the kids to look back on all their childhood photographs and wonder why I'm not there.  Moreover I don't want them to have the same insecurities with their appearance that I have, and so one of my resolutions this year is to <gulp> have more photographs with me in.

So on a dreary day a few weeks ago, I jollied the troops and suggested a group photograph.  Given the ages of Keani and Dexter (5 and 3) this is not the easiest of tasks.  Both kids more or less used to refuse to smile, these days they're getting better, though both tend to do that classic inane grinning thing that children do when you ask them to 'smile' or 'say cheese'.  It is so difficult to get a decent natural looking pic.

Anyhow with camera in hand, I sat it on the dining room table and aimed it towards the settee where I decided to take the photograph of all of us.  I then had to set it on the self timer thing, then rush back to get into the picture.  Say 'sausages!' I yelled out then subsequently went back to check the picture - and no, it was rubbish!  Again, timer set, I rushed back to my place, 'say chocolate cake!' looked at the picture again, nope, still not great.  And this kind of continued in a similar vein for a while.  We weren't having much success.

The children were getting restless and started jumping around and being silly and I started getting a bit stressed thinking we would never get that perfect family portrait I was after!  And then Dexter started hanging upside down on the settee.  His curly hair cascaded down and his little cheeky grin appeared.

And it was then, I had the Eureka moment!

Needless to say this was the photograph we finally took.  We actually flipped it round, so instead of us hanging upside down, it looks like we're flying!

I adore this pic.  It captures the kid's fun side (and ours too).  It doesn't look staged, it looks really natural, and fun - and actually it was.  It was so nice to be able to take a picture and have some giggles at the same time.

This post is my (Lisa's) entry into the Printerpix Photo competition.

Pancake Day Challenge

Pancakes! I love them!  I particularly like chocolate spread and banana pancakes, or the traditional lemon and sugar.  If I could have any pancake at all though, it would have to be one drizzled with some kind of salted caramel sauce...   nom!

For the first time this year we have been able to celebrate Pancake Day properly - you see for much of Keani's little life (she's only 5) she has been allergic to eggs, so pancakes in previous years have been a no go.

Thankfully, she is growing out of her egg allergy and can tolerate cooked egg, which means, hurrah! we can all eat pancakes.  Fancy fillings, and expensive ingredients are out though, Keani is only 5 and Dexter 3 and we do have Keani's nut allergy to contend with too.

Anyhow inspired by some biscuit cutters the kids received from Santa, we decided to go about making our own biscuit cutter inspired pancakes.

We took a basic pancake recipe and made 3 lots of batter.  One a normal 'batter' colour, and the other 2 coloured with food dye, one a dark purple (for Dexter) and one pink (for Keani).

We then cooked the regular batter and flipped our pancakes.  Once the pancakes had cooled slightly, the kids got their biscuit cutters (heart shaped for Keani, scull and crossbone shaped for Dexter) and cut their shapes out of the pancakes.

We then made 2 more pancakes, one pink and one purple - taking care not to burn them.  Food colouring makes them more susceptible to burning I find!

The kids then cut their shapes out of the purple and pink pancakes, and inserted them into the original pancakes.

And............. ta dahhhhhhhh!

Dexter was being more receptive to the photoshoot at this point, hence him posing with Keani's pancakes!


I managed to bribe Keani to pose a little in this pic.  Dexter is looking a little bit cheeky on this one!

We decorated the pancakes with a little golden syrup and some bananas and strawberries and they went down a treat.


This is my entry into the Tots100/Center Parcs Pancake Day Challenge

Silent Sunday

That's my Hero - Super Dex!

So MoneySupermarket and Tots100 are running a fantastic competition to find out about your child's or grandchild's superhero.

My two kids love their superheros!  Dex is a bit little to be drawing his own, but his personal favourites are Spiderman and Batman.

When I asked Keani (5) who her favourite superhero is, she said 'Super Dex' (this is what he calls himself sometimes).  I asked her what he does that makes him a superhero and she said 'he draws lots of crosses - lots of X marks the spot' (which he does - he's a little bit pirate obsessed too).

Anyhow after more questioning, it transpires that 'Super Dex' is a superhero who draws lots of 'X marks the spot' on the ground, and everytime he draws an X he leaves some treasure.  The treasure can be anything - from chocolate coins to pirate DVDs and Disney Princess dolls.

Wow, what a wonderful superhero!

This is Keani's depiction of 'Super Dex'.  I love the fact she's given him a curly quiff (Dexter has unfeasibly curly hair).  I especially like his green mask and dayglo tights too!

This post is an entry into the Tots100 MoneySupermarket That’s My Hero competition“