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Posts Tagged ‘Kids’

The Queen, Enterprise and the Back Leg of a Goat

Posted in Faith, Family, Kids, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 17 May, 2010| 2 Comments »

As regular readers will know, on this blog I refer to my 8 year old daughter as the Queen. This originated when she played the Red Queen in a school performance of Alice in Wonderland. She was particularly good at shouting:

Off with her head!

She also has bossy tendencies. Can’t think where she got those from.

Anyway, the Queen’s organising and enterprising streak appeared in force a couple of weekends ago when she and four friends appeared in a ‘fashion show’ at the end of our monthly church coffee morning. The Queen and her pals have spent the last few months dressing up every time they get together.

The Queen, the Joker and friends looking fashionable

After reading a Christian kids’ book called ‘The Back Leg of a Goat‘ by Penny Reeve, where the heroine puts on a fashion show to raise money to buy a goat for a family in Africa, the Queen decided that she and her friends would do the same. So they put together their dressing clothes and also an old duvet and some other old outfits, liberally snipped about. The Joker was recruited to play some ‘jazz’ (actually some mellow acid jazz cds from the Vicarage collection).

They recruited kind neighbour Beauty, who knows everything about makeup and nails. Beauty came and preened them all up and the event was ready. We arranged for them to put on the show at the end of the monthly church coffee morning, so they had a captive audience. The Queen had worked hard at getting her Kids Klub leaders and other adult friends to come along. They’d made posters and flyers which they’d handed out.

The Queen and her friends enjoyed themselves  enormously as they paraded around the hall, although I don’t think I’d say that the fashion was ready for showing alongside the next Valentino collection. And with the help of the coffee morning bric-a-brac stall they cajoled over £60 from their audience. We are going to send off the money to the Barnabas Fund, for their education fund. The Queen and her friends wanted the money to go towards educating ‘poor children’.

I just hope that I can now throw out all the snipped up clothing and retrieve a small part of our very messy Vicarage…

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Vicarage Puddings: Easy Peasy Elegants

Posted in Food, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 14 May, 2010| 5 Comments »

In our house, apart from at Sunday lunch, ‘pudding’ is nearly always fruit or yoghurt. Bor-ing. So I have recently developed a way of making dull weekday desserts seem exotic and elegant.

I love these glasses

It mainly involves some rather lovely tumblers from Ikea. Our parish is only 12 minutes (on a good day, when the M5/M6 junction isn’t blocked like a festival loo) from the Swedish superstore. Another advantage of West Midlands inner city ministry. Anyway, we have the tumblers in blue, and although they are obviously excellent for gin, we more often use them as pudding bowls. They are short and wide and a happy summery colour. Perfect for puds.

In them I place yoghurt or icecream, often some fresh fruit, perhaps a sweetie or sprinkles and a biscuit of some sort. Favourites are those Italian trifle sponge fingers with ‘Boudoir’ stamped on them. But yesterday we used some chocolate macaroons I’d made for my school mums coffee morning, using up some left-over egg whites. And if I’m feeling extra kind, the kids are also allowed to have umbrellas. I was feeling particularly munificent yesterday.

Leave one for me... (and don't look too closely at the mucky table)

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The Joker – A self portrait

Posted in Family, Fun, tagged , , , , , , on 5 May, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Sorry about the lack of posting of late. Today I thought I’d check through my recent photos to prompt some of the creativity that’s been lacking. And I found all sorts of alien shots which indicate that persons other than myself have been out and about with my Fuji FinePix.

So I offer you one of them today, cleverly taken in the mirror in the hall:

Smug or cheeky… or both?

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Sunny Afternoon Snapshot

Posted in Family, Fun, Inner city, tagged , , , , , , on 22 April, 2010| 5 Comments »

A few things I saw on my trip to the local shops just now, 4pm on a sunny Thursday afternoon:

  • The white lady behind me in the Asian supermarket bought a four pack of Scrumpy Jack cider, a bottle of wine, a small bottle of vodka and some mouthwash. I worried about her liver.
  • The kids from a family from school all dressed up in their best Asian clothes were trooping off to mosque. ‘Hello miss’ they called to me. I count as a teacher because I read with a couple of them in school.
  • A black lady in her dressing gown and what looked like her daughter, sitting on plastic chairs right by the pavement in their tiny front garden, enjoying a glass of orange juice.
  • My kids and a whole multi-cultural group of local friends all mucking about on the church’s playground,  squealing happily. Beautiful.

How are you enjoying the sunshine?

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Resurrection eggs – the verses

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , on 31 March, 2010| 6 Comments »

Just remembered: here’s a page with the verses for the Resurrection eggs, so you don’t have to retype. Just print out and cut them up. We Vicar’s wives need all the time-saving help we can get.

Resurrection Eggs Verses

We’ll be getting our older two to find the verses in the bible – it’s good practice!

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Resurrection Eggs – All set up

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , on 31 March, 2010| 7 Comments »

My Resurrection Egg outers arrived from Baker Ross yesterday. So whilst the Vicar took the kids swimming, I assembled the egg box with bible verses and visual aids. I also managed to fit three mini-eggs into each egg which I thought might encourage the kids as they go through the box. Not in the last one, though, as it’s meant to be empty, like the tomb. I plan to have other treats on hand to celebrate the last Resurrection Egg when we get that far.

So here’s a couple of rather poor photos, taken on my phone cos I couldn’t locate my camera, so you can see what they look like. In the end, we didn’t open the first one after swimming, because the Queen stayed so long gassing in the ladies’ changing room (and the Vicar couldn’t go and fetch her, obviously) that they were very late home. She had to run straight out to the Kids’ Club Easter Party as soon as she’d eaten her tea, so the Resurrection Eggs will be a holiday activity – term finishes today – hooray!

I numbered the eggs using sticky foam pieces and a marker pen

A close up of the egg ‘fillings’

The fillings were quite straightforward – it took me about an hour to assemble the whole kit. Here’s what I actually did in the end:

Day 1: Cottonwool ball soaked in perfume (not sure how authentic Elizabeth Arden Green Tea is as a fragrance)
Day 2: 5p pieces for the silver – thankfully I had some in my purse.
Day 3: Matthew 21:1-11. Donkey or palm leaf – Playmobil pot plant pieces.
Day 4: Matthew 26:26-29. Cup or bread – a Playmobil wine glass and a piece of bread.
Day 5: Luke 22:39-46, 54a. Praying hands or pipecleaner man – I stuck together some pink foam which I cut into the shape of praying hands. A little lurid in colour.
Day 6: John 19:1-7. Purple cloth. Well the cloth is maroon, but it was the best I could find.
Day 7: John 19:16-17. Cross. I made this by snipping off the bottom of one of the kids’ palm crosses and sticking it together. Shhhh – don’t tell them.
Day 8: John 19:18. Nails. Sourced from the Vicar’s tool cupboard.
Day 9: John 19:33-35. Toothpick (for the spear). Actually I used  half a cocktail stick (no toothpicks in the Vicarage), covered in silver foil.
Day 10: Matthew 27: 57-60. Rock. Some gravel from the drive. Washed.
Day 11: Mark 16:1-3. Cinnamon/cloves/spices. Had plenty of these in the cupboard.
Day 12: John 20:1-8. And nothing in the egg! This was easy.

I’m looking forward so much to starting this tonight.

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Sainsbury’s, society and sadness

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 24 March, 2010| 1 Comment »

I was in Sainsbury’s earlier today, stocking up on Vicarage essentials (own-brand weetabix, apples, Cif spray, pinot grigio etc). As I was queuing to pay out the surprisingly vast quantity of money, I heard two check-out assistants asking elderly couples if they were collecting schools vouchers. The vouchers are collected by schools, scout and guide groups and kids’ sports clubs and can be used to buy sports, cooking, gardening and play equipment.

Neither couple wanted them. And I was a bit far away to shout out ‘No, no, keep them for me!’ It made me sad, though – these people didn’t know anyone they could give the vouchers to. They are part of a society where the old and the young don’t know one another.

This is one thing the church does well and I am grateful that we have church family where my children know folk in their 70s and 80s. Church is where older folk come and make cups of tea for mums at the toddler group and help out in the creche and where society’s trend towards isolation and individualism is rejected.

I shouldn’t have shouted out ‘Give me the vouchers’, I should have said ‘ Get yourselves to church’ instead.

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My kids told me a joke

Posted in Fun, tagged , , , on 22 March, 2010| 5 Comments »

And it made me laugh a lot on Saturday, so I’m sharing it with you weary saints to cheer your Monday morning:

So the policeman comes up to me. He says ‘what were you doing between 6 and 11?

I said ‘I was in primary school’.

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Colin, Kids and Pressing On

Posted in Faith, Family, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 17 March, 2010| 8 Comments »

This weekend we went to see our family favourite, Colin Buchanan (not the bishop), in concert in Birmingham as a part of the Passion for Life mission that is taking place round the country over the next few weeks.

Colin with the Vicarage kids and their friend Wondergirl

The Birmingham concert was a typical Colin session – full of high energy, hilarity and gospel truths. The Queen was particularly pleased to be selected to wave a flag. It was great fun to be there and I’m already planning to ensure that the next time he’s in the Midlands we arrange a Sunday School outing to his show. It was just as entertaining for the grown-ups.

When I mentioned that I’d been to see Colin on Facebook and Twitter, two separate people quoted the first line of this Colin song to me. It’s from his grown-up album, Real Hope. His style was categorised as ‘country rock’ on one website I looked at – I love it, but wouldn’t class myself as a fan of country or rock!

Press on Mums
In all the chaos
Look to Jesus through the tears
Press on, Mums
God will guide you
Through those precious, tender years

Chorus:
And in all you do, do it for Jesus
Who won you life and free forgiveness
Yesterday, today
He is the same
All you do
Do it in Jesus’ name

Press on, Dads
Love your wife
Serve your children
Set the pace
Press on, Dads
Seize the moment
Show them Jesus
Run the race

Press on, kids
God adores you
He will hear you when you pray
Press on, kids
Love your family
Honour, serve
Forgive, obey

. . . and when all your human energy is gone
Look towards your Jesus and press on.

I’ve been singing it to myself all week. And now I’m going to see if I can locate the album, underneath the chaos somewhere.

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The Next Eight Months

Posted in Garden, Vicarage, tagged , , , , , , on 8 March, 2010| 2 Comments »

Whilst I was away on a fab conference last week, the weather went all spring-like. This is normally an indicator of sprouting snow drops and daffs, of nesting birds and budding trees. But here in the Vicarage, Spring is heralded by the chirupping of the front door bell. Especially on Saturdays.

When I answer the door, I am confronted by two, three or even four hopeful looking little faces:

Can we come and play?

And so I’m dusting off the garden rules (no one in the garden if they’ve not said ‘hello’ to me, only one bouncer on the trampoline at a time, your mum must know that you’re at the Vicarage etc) and counting heads and enjoying (usually) happy squealing. And that’s it for the next eight months or so, with brief intermissions for bad weather. Now, where are my gardening gloves?

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