Joining in this morning with @multiplemummy and her meme family frolics. This week its half term in our house which means that OH is off as well and i had some annual leave from work so we headed down to my mum and dads. 

Mum mentioned that at a local athletics stadium a local Gold medal winning Olympic athlete was visiting the town with his team that he is now coaching for the coming 2012 games. Which is incidentally the American team (which seems a bit strange!) here he is winning with team GB at beijing 2008

Anyway he is from the town my parents live in and so the local athletics stadium put on an afternoon of bike riding, meeting the athletes and getting your bike serviced if you want. 

Thats one of the things that i love about the olympics that events like this get staged to get kids (and adults) interested in sport, exercise and getting involved. I love my kids to meet these athletes who are so driven and have such determination to achieve a goal and take part. 

As it transpired our youngest was asleep after a particularly bad night and i didn't get to go. The rest of the family did and i was secretly a bit miffed to have missed it. 

But the kids really enjoyed it and were buzzing about the bikes they could have a go on, the fact that the TV crews were there and that Aunty Joy was fearless about going to talk to them and ask them all for pictures. 

I was really pleased when my dad sent me the pics as i wasn't there. They had a great time. 

So big thanks to Jamie Staff and the USA cycling team for providing a real highlight for my kids this half term. Cycling with an Olympic Champion is not a bad thing to tell your friends about in school. Of course as a family we all wish them well for London 2012 in a few months. Im sure they will be very happy with the silver!! :))

click on the link below to see some other family frolics from this week. 

me too…

When Mammasaurus posted on twitter that the new website aimed at bringing together the best of blogging was needing a bit more help i jumped at the chance to help. 

So how does it work? If you have a blog you can go every week before friday and check out the categories and see if you have anything on your blog that might fit in and post a wee extract from that post and people can then bob on over to loveallblogs and browse by category and maybe find something new. 

Simples. 

So I am delighted to be part of the team helping to run this fantastic resource. I will be sharing the hosting of the 'Pregnancy' related blogs and blog posts. No, im not pregnant but i think having done it 5 times and working in a maternity hospital with teeny newborns for the past ten years qualifys me a bit 😉

So im sharing with Shareen who is 3 weeks away from her first baby *eeeep* remember that feeling? Go on over to her blog by clicking on her name and see the beautiful letter she has written to her unborn wee girl.

So come on over to Loveallblogs and join in why don't you?

Last week i wrote a guest post for the lovely bodfortea blog while she was away in the land of smiles at Disney World, Florida. 

This week it half term and i jumped at the chance when bodfortea offered to do a post for my blog. When she sent it through it really made me smile. With every one of my kids i have lamented that developmental stage when the lunchtime nap bade farewell and there was no longer the much looked forward moment in the day when there was a little bit of peace.

So handing over to bodfortea to carry on the story

 

LOST

 

You'd be forgiven for not realising it from my pasty British refuses-to-tan skin, but we've just returned from an eight day holiday at Disneyworld in Florida. Short but sweet, it was as magical as we hoped (and as expensive as we expected) but while we were there I managed to lose something. Something very important. And I'm writing this guest post very kindly donated by Sarah in the hope that someone out there will find it and send it back to me.

 

You see before we boarded the plane to the land of perpetual smiles, our little two and a half year old, DD, was generously giving me a solid sixty minutes of precious Mummy time almost every day. This was my golden time, my not-telling-endless-stories time, my Bodyrock.tv-because-the-thought-of-a-bikini-scares-me time. I guarded this time like a tigress protecting her young. Seriously, I scratched. (Reports that I bit were grossly exaggerated though.)

 

Then we left these chilly shores for the delights of a Floridian winter and I promised myself I'd relax the rules a bit, go with the flow. We were on holiday after all, right? It won't matter if she doesn't nap EVERY day. Or for a shorter time, perhaps? Everything will be just fine. I even smiled to hide the fear.

 

And so, as is often the case with toddlers in my experience, you give an inch and they take fifteen miles there or there abouts. The nap was lost. I'm think we must have dropped it at Magic Kingdom somewhere between lunch with Winnie the Pooh and the teacup ride. There was certainly some screaming involved. DD wasn't too happy either.

 

Now I'm facing the prospect of a nap-free day. Twelve long hours stretching out before me. Don't get me wrong, I love being a stay at home Mum. It's the life I chose when DD came along to join our mad ride in the world and I wouldn't change that for anything. But I need just a little time in the day that's all about me. Ideally halfway between washing up discarded cereal bowls and scraping uneaten plates of dinner into the bin.

 

So here, dear readers, is my plea. If you find our lost nap, please be kind enough to pop it in the post will you? No stamp required, paying for the postage is the least I can do. Because frankly, my sanity is worth a whole lot more to me than that.

 

*****

 

 

Bod for tea is the random musings of a self-confessed control freak Mummy just getting on with life and other important jobs on her ‘to do’ list. Alongside writing endless lists you’ll find her muttering about life with a toddler, trying to get fit, cooking a bit, eating too much, reviewing stuff and generally spouting forth at www.bodfortea.co.uk. She also tweets from time to time as @bodfortea and you can wave at her at facebook/bod4tea. 

 

 

this week in the gallery the subject is those Embarrassing Outfits. 

I was scanning through some of the images in iphoto and i came across this and i think i may have actually inhaled my tea. 

For goodness sake, i know its skiing and everything and there is a bit of fashion licence. but. dude. I look like a teletubby. hey and good job those sunglasses matched my jacket, otherwise, well that outfit just wouldn't have worked. *gag*

Get the serious teenage pout expression too..'cos i'm like so Kool maaaan. 

*rolls eyes*

Go check out some others this week by clicking on the link below. There is bound to be some howlers. 

yuppo here we go again. 

1. We have a new favourite film in our house:

though the thought of monsters coming out of the cupboard is actually still a little bit scary right? Our youngest talks in a similar way to Boo in this movie. all biss biss tigg, missmissmiss.

2. Kicked off my photography year with a newborn shoot at the weekend. Just love photographing newborn babies. 

3. Suggestions for a large 8/9 seater car comparative with the VW transporter or Mercedes Vito which won't cost a fortune? We really need a new car..not just the space issue (although every seat is taken in our car) but the fact that our car, without a sliding door arrangement means that the kids in the back have to fling themselves over the middle row of seats to get out..usually kicking a baby or small angry toddler in the face as they go. It drives me nuts and those cars without sliding doors that don't have a middle row that turns and faces the back row (like the Vito) are not much use. Same problem of getting the back row folks out. 

4. The kids got to rub shoulders with a Olympic Gold medallist today Jamie Staff who won gold in the cycling events at the last Olympics. He is coaching the American team now (eh?) and they were visiting the area where my parents live as he is from there. My son was suitably impressed i think although more interested in the crazy clown bikes they had bought along for the kids to play on!

5. What is your favourite kind of chair? We are thinking of replacing a sofa with a chair, give us a bit more space and also hopefully stop us filling the sofa with all the various bits of paper mountain we have in out house! Although that might be a bit of wishful thinking. Im thinking something like this:

although that colour fabric would NOT work in my house because it not stay that colour for very long at all.

6. I have some exciting blog news. Just need to finalise some details and then can share *eeeeeee*

7. Musical interlude bought to you by:

8. We have officially reached that point in our family that when we visit family, that some of us are going to have to bed down on the living room floor. You know its not that bad. We can't hear the kids getting up early upstairs. bonus. 

9. im so about twitter and less about facebook. You can find me on twitter at apartyofseven *flaps wings*

10. Im about to order my girls some of these skirts.

images from Doris Designs.

Please go over and check them out, they are totally adorable. You will be seeing them in some upcoming photoshoots 🙂

Linking up with these lovely ladies. although its half term and i know one lucky lady is on her way to cape town so thinking a ten on tuesday is going to be far from her mind. Have a fantastic time Jo! Hugs to the Lewis clan. 

hannah

Lucy

Helen

Jo

theoriginalbritgirl 

If you have a blog why don't you join in with the ten on tuesday. Go on 🙂