Ok, just to update you all,

IrishMoms

is undergoing a

massive, huge, enormous, incredible

redesign

and will be back in the very near future,

looking all gorgeous & fabulous! 

In the meantime,

if there are any particular topics that you would like us

to consider including in the new design,

then HURRY UP and send us your comments and suggestions

……don’t want you to be saying afterward

“what about including…..”!!!

So come on, get those ideas rolling on into us.

Eavan & Yvonne

XX

We thought this little poem might bring a smile to your face, as you join us on another journey for another year….and you never know, this could be the year that we finally chuck the scales!!

T’was the month after Christmas

and all through the house,

nothing would fit me, not even a blouse.

The stuffing I’d nibbled, the turkey I’d taste,

the yummies I’d eaten had gone straight to my waist.

The wine, the mince pies, the bread and the cheese…..

I should have just said, “no thank you, please.” .. .

So as I dressed myself in my husbands old clothes,

I stood on the scales and wailed as they rose!

I said to myself, as only I can,

“you can’t spend the year disguised as a man!” …

So away with the last of that sour-cream dip,

get rid of the chocolates, every cracker and crisp.

Every last morsel of tasty food must be banished

’til all those additional ounces have vanished.

I won’t have a cookie, not even a lick,

instead I’ll chew on a long celery stick.

I won’t have that danish, or chocolates, or pie…..

I’ll munch on a carrot and quietly cry:

“I’m hungry, I’m lonesome, and life is a bore -

but isn’t that what January’s for?”

Unable to giggle, no longer a riot,

Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet!

Bridesmaids the Movie

What can I say only that this was the funniest movie I have seen in years. I was still laughing in the toilets after the movie. The title is misleading because the name ‘Bridesmaids’ would make you to think it was a ‘chick flick’, and this is a pity because all the men that I know would really love this movie.  The humour is unisex. Its actually just a really funny  film, with women as the main characters. There are so many hillarious cenes that are totally unpredictable. The main character is well casted, she’s very real and girl next door  looking, best of all,  I loved that she looks her age, no botox or fillers!!, (No I’m not against botox or fillers but its nice for an actress to look real for a change!) It is a little bit predictable at the end, but then that’s movies for ya!!  and I suppose everyone likes a happy ending..

The Wilson Philips songs brought me down memory lane, I forgot how much I loved them, so I downloaded them from i-tunes as soon as I got home.

The only disturbing part of the film – apart from missing bits because I was laughing so much, was that my dear friend Eavan kept making soo many connections between me and the groom’s sister Meegan, (like hello???)- I won’t explain because it will ruin the film if you haven’t seen it, and if you have seen it – I would NEVER do that in a sink – well not sober anyway!!!! (It was also very funny when my friend realised how much sex is in the film, and that her teenage daughter has already seen it!!! lol)

My final word is – if you haven’t already GO AND SEE BRIDESMAIDS

This morning when I came downstairs the postman had already been, (which means I wasn’t up early!!). He left the usual bills etc. but there was also a letter addressed to Karla, it was a dental appointment for September.

Luke  had already noticed the letter for Karla so he said “Mammy did you see Karla got ‘mail’ today”  (Yes he calls the post “mail”) What he said next amazed me, “Mammy you know the way Lochlann is in America, well he wrote a letter to Connor telling him all about America, and he drew a picture and everything, and he did it on paper…… I mean he actually wrote it with his hand, (I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!!) and then he sent it in an envelope all the way from America, and the post man gave it to Connor, he didn’t do it on the computer, and print it out, or he didn’t send it by e-mail, the postman actually brought it to his HOUSE. 

“Well  that’s how letters work Luke!!”

“But isn’t it a GREAT idea Mammy…. To actually write and send a letter to someone, its so handy they don’t have to be on the computer to read it and they can show it to all their friends and everything, like just have it in their pocket”

I couldn’t believe my 9 year old  explaining ‘Letters’ to me!!  I mean I know everything is very technical now and we send e-mails and keep in touch with faraway friends on Facebook, but he had never heard of an actual personal letter, come to think of it I don’t think he has ever gotten a letter.

It made me think about what we are losing to computers, I know how wonderful they are, we couldn’t manage in our house without them (3 laptops and a PC) But no one ‘write’s’ anymore.

The ‘hand written word’ is so personal, Luke and Karla’s little notes give you a sense of their personality, you can feel Luke’s kindness when he writes a note or draws a picture, and you can see immediately how creative Karla is, as she uses images to tell her stories.

I thought about it, and I don’t remember the last time I actually ‘wrote’ to someone.  Years ago, I used to love getting a letter from Eavan or Clodagh another friend who was great at writing letters, she would write to me from lots of different locations,  she was an air hostess and had lots of romance’s and adventures to relay.

It made me think, we are definitely able to communicate with more people now, but are we more personal, are we giving anything of ourselves through our inserted ‘smiley faces’ and our ‘lol’s. I think xxx is not really kiss kiss kiss anymore, just 3 friendly x’s. Its all nice, but its just not the same as seeing an envelope with  familiar handwriting on the front. An e-mail doesn’t put a smile on your face the way a beautiful handwritten letter does.

And so yes!!, this weekend I’m going to write to someone whom I haven’t seen in ages, and hopefully put a smile on her face.

Now that summer has finally arrived on the little island of Ireland, it’s time to help you to make the most of it.  How would you a little help in preparing for your al fresco dining – whether it’s a picnic in the park, a lazy lunch outdoors on the patio or under an umbrella at the beach?

Our friends in Kellogg’s have given us a fab picnic hamper to give away to one of our readers! Yes, that could be YOU!!  This hamper is packed with Kellogg’s snacks including Rice Krispies Squares, Nutri-Grain, Special K Mini-Breaks & Bars and Kellogg’s Cereal & Milk Bars. The winner will also receive a family-sized picnic blanket, a beach parasol and high-factor sun cream – perfect for Irish complexions! This summer, get the most out of your family time together thanks to Kellogg’s snacks.  So how can you win this great prize?

All you have to do is submit your favourite summer recipe to us!  It could be a recipe for your favourite salad, BBQ marinade, refreshing drink (alcoholic or not!), dessert, pasta dish, just whatever you love to cook when the sun is shining and you feel that summer has arrived!  It could be an age old family recipe or something that you’ve created or adapted from another recipe for yourself.  The winning entry will also be published on our recipe section so that we all get to enjoy it too.  Just enter your recipe in the comment box below here!  The closing date for entries is Wednesday 27th July 2011, winner will be announced on Thursday 28th July, so come on get going and submit your entry, you never know, you could have the winning recipe!

The lovely people in Woodies asked us to review their new range of gardening kits for kids, so we said (with our fingers crossed!) “why don’t you send us some  and we can try them out”………….and so they did!! (yipee!!)  My children were sooo excited when they saw them, and couldn’t wait to get planting the seeds that came in the kits. I have to confess the sets did sit for a week or two on my kitchen counter while I worked up the energy to garden with my children (being the super mum that I am!!),

So last week we set out all the seeds and tools and Stephen bought a “Giant” bag of compost and we eventually did our planting.  I have to admit I felt guilty for not doing it sooner, because the kids enjoyed themselves so much, they really loved using everything.  We were very organised and put Luke and Karla’s names on the trays (because they were fighting over everything!!) and I labeled the actual plants, so we knew what was growing where. (Make sure you do this before and peat is introduced!!!)

We planted the carrots, lettuce, runner beans, pumpkins and water cress, that we were sent. I have bought seeds before with a view to ‘planting’ them!!  and the children never got very excited about it, but the Woodies seeds have illustrations of animals and plats so they were very attractive to Luke and Karla.

We really had a lovely afternoon planting, and even though I was reluctant to at first,  we are definitely going to do some more gardening because the children are dying to use the kid safe ‘Secateurs’ (clippers!!) that came in the pack.

I know this is a sponsored product review but I can honestly say that I  loved everything about Woodies ‘ Little Garden Angels‘ range. The products are lovely funky colours, they are practical and creative, but more important my children LOVED them. I think this would make a BRILLIANT birthday gift  and something from range would be a fantastic alternative to Easter Eggs.  The pricing also makes them  very attractive with prices starting at €1.99 for the little trowels and €8.99 for the sets.( See here for a list of products and prices).

Thank you so much to Woodies for the opportunity to use their products, and also because they have inspired a new section for our blog ‘Gardening with Children‘.  Now a progress report – our watercress plants!!  also the carrots have started growing -making two children very happy.

I think its a good idea to plant watercress, it grows so fast and children want instant results (well mine do!!) and watercress only takes a few days to grow. So m-m-m who’s going to water the plants and take care of them ???? – well that would be ME of course!!!

Gardening Kits for Children

available in Woodies DIY Stores Nationwide

Children’s Gloves (Pink/ Blue) Only €3.99 per pair

Childrens’s Hand (Trowel/ Fork/ Rake) Only €1.99 each

Children’s Watering Can (Blue/ Pink) Only €6.99 each

Children’s Bucket €3.99 each

Children’s Kneel Mat Set only €8.99

Set includes Children’s Hand Trowel, Fork, Rake & Kneeler Mat

20cm (wide) Hanging Baskets Hedgehog/ Butterfly

Only 9.99 each

Busy little bee wheelbarrow set: €19.99

Disney Princess Piece Patio set: €49.99

Mickey Clubhouse Camping Chair: €14.99

Scrummy Healthy Veg €5.30

Sweetcorn, Lettuce, Cherry Tomato & Carrot Seeds

The Great Sunflower Race €5.25

Use the tape measure to find out how fast your sunflowers are growing. See who can grow the tallest.

Exam time!

We’re now almost a week into our teenagers doing  the “Junior Certificate Exams” (for students in 3rd year of Secondary school).  Our son, Jamie, who is 16 is sitting these exams.  To say that we are proud of him would be a complete under-statement, we are thrilled to bits.  Looking back all those years ago, when Jamie was first diagnosed as being profoundly deaf, we wondered if he would ever be able to put a sentence together that could be understood in a coherent way.  His “Visiting Teacher for the Deaf” used to tell us stories of hope, stories of teenagers who he was helping to prepare for Junior Cert. and Leaving Cert. exams.  We could only dream back then, dream that someday, by some miracle our Jamie would be a future candidate for sitting these exams.  Well we did dream, and we dreamed big, we dreamed that Jamie would somehow make it through the education process to the point that he would be prepared and able to sit these exams.  We never gave up hope, we never let go of the dream, but more importantly Jamie never gave up.  He always believed that he could do and be anything that he wanted, that he just had to work a little bit harder but that he could achieve the same as anyone of his peers. Three years ago, Jamie started the second chapter in his education, he started Secondary School.  In preparation for him going through main-stream education, we had several meetings with his future educators.  One caveat that was stressed to us before Jamie began that September was that if by the end of the first year he was unable to keep up with the course work, that we would be accepting of the school’s recommendation as to whether or not he should continue there.  At the end of his first year, the reports were glowing and he had done fantastically well, in fact he was showing much promise and seemed to be extremely motivated and capable.  Roll on three years, and now he is sitting the Junior Cert. exams, he is doing the higher level paper in all subjects, except Irish (actually he is exempt from having to do Irish or French because of his deafness, but he has chosen to study both languages!) We are completely astounded by his focus and determination.  He’s now about half way through the exams, today he sat the second paper in Higher Maths, I asked him afterwards how he got on, his reply was that the exams were just getting easier!! (luckily he is naturally great at Maths, like his Dad, – but so unlike me!!).  Regardless of what results he gets in these exams, we are so proud of him, so proud that he has put 100% effort into doing them, so proud that he is motivated and has not chosen the easy route and dropped Irish & French (he’s focused on knowing that he needs a foreign language to get into his chosen University course – which happens to be Aeronautical engineering). This child is one that I know will live the life of his dreams, I can say that with certainty after seeing the effort he has put into achieving everything that he has already achieved, it doesn’t matter what results he gets in September, he has already achieved a massive goal and made his and our dreams come alive.  We are so very proud of Jamie, he is an inspiration to all kids who have a disability and to their parents, so don’t be afraid to dream and don’t be afraid to believe that your dreams can come true, because sometimes, somehow they can and for us they most definitely have.

Last week we got the opportunity to test drive the new Skoda Roomster. We went up to Dublin and collected a brand spanking new, lovely bright blue Roomster, we were to keep it for a week and drive it between us to see what we thought of it.

Before we give each of our (honest!!) opinions about the car, we will give you a short description of the car and its features, from the manufacturers description.

So for the technical stuff: The car  that we were testing was the
Skoda Roomster Comfort 1.2 TSI 63 LW (85 bhp)

Some of the standard equipment that came with this car;

• Driver, passenger & side air bags
• Rear Parking Sensors
• Front Electric Windows
• Cruise Control
• Passenger Airbag turn off switch
• Curtain Airbags
• Remote Central Locking
• Vario Flex Seating
• Radio & Bluetooth enabled

The retail price, excluding delivery and related charges is €18,140

Now for  what Yvonne’s Family had to say…..

Initially it was lovely to drive a brand new car with that lovely new smell and of course it was sooo clean – ok so that can apply to any new car!

Positives

• The boot space was brilliant, lots of room, I could fit all my shopping in and it wasn’t all squashed.
• The car had bluetooth so every time I sat into it, it picked up my phone in a few seconds, to answer or make calls you just pushed a button on the wiper arm, you can also play the ipod from your i phone through the car speaker system – my kids loved this feature.
• Although I didn’t move the back seats you can lay them flat to give you the capacity of a small van, or you can slide them out altogether which would be very useful for moving things, also you can take out the middle seat giving the remaining two seats lots of room which I think would be great for long trips.
• There is a power outlet in the back and as an accessory you can buy as extra an ice box and have it plugged in and keeping food cool for your picnic !! (or in our case Stephens beers!!!!).
• There is a sensor on the back and sides for reversing, and an image comes up on the radio screen, to show you how close you are to an object – I actually never realised before, how close I come to reversing into things lol!!

Negatives

• Although its supposed to be 3 seats in the back, the middle seat is really only a half seat, I think it would be a squeeze with older kids.
• The driver and passenger side windows at the front have a slightly raised curved bottom on the right hand side,  this makes it awkward to take the ticket from car parking machines.
• The back windows are not automatic, which didn’t suit me because Karla ‘thinks’ she’s car sick sometimes and I always lower the window to give her air, the windows are very stiff to wind down, the children found it hard to do.

Stephen thought the car was “grand for me”!!!  – he took it for a run and came back to say it “wouldn’t do 100 mph” – he wouldn’t tell me where he ‘leagally’ tested it to do 100 mph ???

This has actually prompted me to do a post on my ideal car and also to highlight where car manufacturers are ‘going wrong’ or should I say where they could do better with their designs!!

Here’s what Eavan’s family had to say;

My son’s first impression when he heard we were reviewing the car was “eh, do you think you work for Top Gear ??!!’‘  I replied “yeah, the IrishMoms version of Top Gear, which one of the guys do you think I am like?” Jamie replied “hmm, James May – Captain Slow!!” Well, I could only respond to that by laughing and telling him that he’d better watch this space cause we were going to be bringing home a nice, shiny new car very soon!

In anticipation of the car arriving, my daughter Aoife, decided to do a little research of her own on the Internet about the car – quite simply because none of us were familiar with what it looked like.  I’m going to be polite when I say that she was a little unimpressed with the look of the car, then again she is 14 and loves all things in life to be “cool” and in any teenagers eyes, a family car of any description is just about as “uncool” as you can get!

I have to say I liked a lot of things about this little car, but there were also many things I didn’t like.  On my list of “likes” would be the radio & bluetooth enabled feature; the massive amount of space in the boot (trunk!), the fact that all the rear seats could be repositioned, removed or just left as they are using a very simple to use, click and glide system (very easy for Moms to use!!); all the rear seats are independent of each other and can be reclined or put upright without interfering with the child in the seat beside you (very important for  stress-free journeys!), very easy to park with the sensors; very quiet on the road.

On the list of things I didn’t like; the central locking seemed a bit awkward as I seemed to have great difficulty getting the remote sensor to unlock the rear doors for the kids (I have central locking on my own car so am well used to using it, but it just didn’t seem to be working correctly on the Roomster) – I had to continuously press the button to unlock the rear doors, and on a few occasions had to do it from inside the car using the button beside the gear stick.

Like Yvonne said, I also didn’t like the shape of the rounded corners on the driver and passenger side windows, they were very awkward when trying to reach out to pay for parking tickets.

When we got the  Skoda Roomster, the fuel tank was full, we drove over 600km during the week and were amazed that we didn’t need to refill it as there was still fuel in the tank.  However the day before we were returning it, I filled it with petrol, just to see how economical it had been, (with a 1.3 engine I was expecting great things!!).  The guy in the filling station worked out that it was doing 38 MPG - I was very unimpressed with this (it cost me €69 to refill the tank) and I still had to put more petrol in it to return it to Dublin with a full tank the next day (incidentally it cost another €10 to top it up again the next day).   Comparing it to my own car (a 1.9 diesel engine) I found the Roomster to be a lot more expensive to run, probably because it’s a petrol engine.

The seats in the back are quite compacted and as I have 4 kids, it is just as well that the little one is only 6 years old, as I don’t think I would fit 3 teenagers comfortably in the rear seats (the middle of these seats is very small).

Looks wise, I felt that the car had more of a “van” look about it and maybe the designers could have gone to greater lengths to make it a little bit sexy! (Probably why my teenage daughter was unimpressed with the look of it!)

Overall though, I would say the Skoda Roomster is a nice little car, it would be perfect for an urban family as it’s so easily parked.  It would also be perfect for a Mom who has young kids and needs push-chairs or prams with her on every journey as there was tons of space in the boot, to fit shopping in along with all the stuff that needs to be brought everywhere for a young baby or toddler.  My kids are probably too big for us to use it as a family car (well, there are 6 of us and only 5 seats in the car) but I did enjoy driving around in this nice, new, shiny car for the week that we had it!

So we all know that Breakfast is one of the most important meals of the day, ok, better than that, is that Breakfast is THEE most important meal of the day! This week sees the launch of a new campaign; Back To Breakfast Week, which is promoted by the Irish Breakfast Cereal Association (IBCA) – their members include Flahavan’s, Kellog’s and Nestle Cereals.
Surprisingly good news though is that 96% of Irish kids are eating breakfast, but we need to ensure that this habit continues into the teenage and adult years as there is less parental control then and everyone often rushes out to school and work in the mornings, thinking that breakfast will cause an unscheduled delay!
According to John Flahavan, Chairman of the IBCA – “Breakfast sets you up for the day and can set you up for life”. So go on, make sure that your kids get a good, healthy start to the day. There are so many healthy breakfast options to choose from; hot or cold cereals, yogurts and fruit, even just a cup of tea with toast – whatever you choose, make sure that your kids enjoy it and they’ll keep coming back for more!
And it’s good to know that even celebrities like Miriam O’Callaghan (that super Mom who presents on RTE) even has to remind her kids to eat their breakfast, Miriam says “Many working people find it hard to make sure that their children eat breakfast, but I confess I do nag and I do run after my children to make sure that they eat breakfast before they leave the house in the morning. I don’t always succeed but I’ll keep trying!” If Miriam can do this, then we can all do it too!

Breakfast is Best!

We hope you spread the work and keep your kids coming “Back to Breakfast”!