beautiful mittens! Hope you get some result with the respite care - good luck.

So well said! That's exactly what parenting is, isn't it - enjoying what's been, feeling proud and looking forward to the future. Happy birthday to your girls!

Sat here for half an hour trying to think what to say. And nothing sounds right. I just want you to know I'm thinking of you and wishing I could do something to make things better for you. Sending {hugs}.

Allison, what a beautiful place! I spotted on one of your newsletters that you were doing it up, and I love the way you've done it - very stylish. Wishing you many happy and succesful years there!

Julie, I heard a trailer for a BBC Radio 4 programme that made me think of you and I thought you might find it interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0128hsj Wanted to send it as an email but can't find a contact address on your page!

Two years ago someone made chocolate and beetroot cake for a cake sale at work. I don't like beetroot at all and was quite sceptical, but it was delicious - you can't tell the beetroot is there at all. Worth making!

This so could be my 8 year old. And me, trying not to laugh. You'd think they'd have outgrown tantrums by now, wouldn't you. They're definitely a lot less frequent, only making an appearance when he's really tired.

Happy birthday Amy! My eldest is 11 too and it's a lovely age (although I can sympathise with the madness - did the sleepover thing here too...) Happy birthday to Toby too.

I don't know how you find the time to knit all those! They're very sweet.

Nice to see some lunchbox photos - I do get stuck in a rut with ours and it doesn't help that both my two need a bit of encouragement to eat unusual things. Often half the lunchbox will come back uneaten (the other day I made a lovely cheese/salad sandwich on lovely bread, came back uneaten because 'it looked horrible', such a waste!) so now we have a new rule at home, that any uneaten/untouched items must be eaten when they come home from school before we start eating anything else. Mean maybe, but I'm fed up with spending time thinking up nice things, which I know they'd like if they just gave it a try! (I sometimes feel they grab the chance of me not being there to just reject food that I'd make them eat if I was there, if that makes sense!). And I really really don't like the waste. They get the odd cooked lunch (which aren't bad at all at our schools) but it is so much cheaper to make up a lunchbox (or it would be if they didn't waste so much!)

O Julie, it can't be easy. I admire you a lot - specially the way you manage to make time for Amy too. I hope the holidays wasn't all hard work and that Toby soon settles down now there is more of a routine again. Enjoy your 'me time'.

My 8 year old did the same yesterday - only he banged his head on a window - or so he says! Not sure how you can get a cut from a glass window so I suspect he did it and didn't notice till his friend pointed out that his head was bleeding. Only a small cut but boy, do head wounds bleed dramatically!

I used your voucher idea last year with my two children for the summer holidays. I work from home and have 4 weeks of juggling children home fulltime and a job, so rather than just a voucher, our ones are 'chores in exchange for a treat'. They really enjoyed it last year and asked me last week if we'd do them again this year. My eldest (11) sat down on Sunday night and we came up with chores and treat and matched them up, and she designed the vouchers and cut them out. The funny thing is that some of the 'chores' are not chores in their eyes at all. One of them was that I make a shopping list and we go to the supermarket and they do my shopping, while I stay in the cafe and knit (so it's a treat for me too...). The treat will be that we stay there for breakfast, something they've wanted to do for a while. But my eldest jumped up and down at the chance to do the shopping without me being there! Hope you have a good break Julie, with lots of nice weather so you can all go outside.

We have doggie (who really is a rabbit) and Bear. Doggie was given to us by I's uncle and he still stays in her bed at night. He's completely fallen apart, totally unrecognisable, but he's still doggie. Bear was the cuddly toy that I. bought as a present for N. before he was born. He's in a much better state than doggie, but goes everywhere still. N. would have trouble going to sleep without him. Doggie once went for a 'swim' in the moat of a German castle and was heroically rescued by my dad. Bear has been left on a bus, went missing at nursery for a week and was even left behind at my mum's house and was lost for 6 or 7 weeks (although she insisted that he had gone missing at my dad's house! that was, until she found him). When he was returned to us, N. rejected him for a week or so as he smelt of my mum's house. I myself had a cuddly hare when I was growing up and if N. is feeling very sad and Bear is not available, Hare-hare as I called him, will come to the rescue.

I have one more year at our local primary school before N will move onto middle school. I have been at that school at least once a week for the past 7 years. Although I'm really proud of the kids and how they're growing up, it will be very odd to leave that phase behind. Middle school is so much like 'secondary school', with different teachers, different classrooms for different lessons, and they grow up so quickly there. I've already gone past the stage where you say you have 'small children' but by next year I'll have two children rapidly heading towards teenagers!

I love the cherry!

They look great - very professional! My breadmaker manual has a recipe for them too and like you, I always thought they were a lot of work. Must give them a try - I have an 8 year old bagel monster here...

I've never heard of saltines - what are they? And I think boys of that age just eat non stop. I remember N. about a year ago saying 'the problem is mamma, that I'm just always hungry'. He's been known to eat a slice of toast, a bowl of porridge, followed by some Weetabix for breakfast. He's starving when he comes home from school and has to have a plate with snacks. His school lunch bag comes home clean, however much I put in there. I swear he eats more than I do!

Someone else who reads Susan Hill! Her early books are my favourites, and her Magic Apple Tree is lovely (part cookbook, part autobiography). She has also written some teenage fiction, that according to my partner's 15 year old, was very good.

Love the mug! (I've got a thing for mugs - I buy far more than I really need)

My two are a bit older than your James (10 and 7) but treats when they're ill are lying on the sofa wrapped in their duvet, watching telly all day and getting a magazine to read. O and of course ice lollies or ice cream, which even when they're ill goes down well!

He's getting so big, specially in that photo where he's talking to his friend. My son's at a school where there are 50 kids or so in total... They have joint year groups (he's a year 3 - which is 7 and 8 year olds) as the classes would be too small - 23 in his class in total. I don't know what teachers would do without all the parental help they get. Hope he enjoyed his first day back - my two have been back for almost a week and are loving it.

I am way behind on blog reading thanks to two weeks away, but have just caught up on your blog and had to say, that skirt is just great and it is just perfect for you. I love the stuff you're sewing. Have you seen Ottobre Woman? I think you'd like their stuff too. Nice to see a photo of JR and that new granddaughter, well, what can I say - she's perfect! Hope mother and baby are doing well.