Hi guys, welcome back to my channel and to a back to school evening routine. This video
has been highly requested since the boys went back to school. So today I'm going to show
you everything that we do in terms of homework, I'm also going to show you the cleaning tasks
that I get done and how I get the kids involved in cleaning, I'm going to show you our family
meal, bath and bedtime, playing in the garden and my skincare routine and just everything
else that I do to get ready for the next day. So I hope you really enjoy this video. And
with all that said, let's get into it. So once I get the kids home from school, they'll
normally play either outside or inside with their toys and I will get them a snack, they're
normally really starving after their long day at school or preschool, and it's pretty
much always crisps or fruit. So, today you can see they're eating some crisps outside,
the weather here has been incredible this autumn, it's been really warm and sunny, so
we've been making the most of it. So they were pretty much outside in the garden, Fraser's
always got a football nearby, Caleb's pretty much always on this bar, and then Jackson
is out there playing with some toys as well. So while they're doing that happily, the first
thing I'm going to do is empty their snack bags from school or their lunch bags. This
is so important because I have left this before, and it's really not a nice thing to be faced
with in the morning when there's like bits of leftover food in there. So I will take
everything out immediately, give it a good wipe if it needs it and then wash anything
else that I need to wash out of the bags so that they're ready for the next day. I tend
to just leave them out on the side for the next day. And I normally prepare their snacks
for school fresh in the morning, I don't tend to do it at night.
Now, the boys are inside, Jackson is still loving Lego, Caleb is chilling out watching
Henry Danger so I'm going to get on with dinner. And tonight we're having a meal from our HelloFresh
box, it arrived just yesterday, so I have three different family meals to choose from
and HelloFresh have also sponsored this video and said that my viewers can have an amazing
discount. I'll put the code onscreen here and there's also a link in my description,
if you use that you'll get 50% off your first HelloFresh box, and then a further 35% off
your next three boxes. So it's well worth giving it a try if you've never have before.
I love ordering from them because they have such a variety of easy meals that will suit
anyone's lifestyle. So I've actually been ordering a lot of vegetarian meals from HelloFresh
recently because we're trying to eat less meat and they have a great recipe ideas on
there, I think there's six every week. But they also do premium meals, if you wanted
something special, or they do balanced meals, which means they're under 600 calories. But
my personal favorite ones to order are the rapid meals, which means they take just 20
minutes to make. So that's what I'm going to do tonight, I'm making some meatless spaghetti
and meatballs, which I know the whole family will love. So you get all the fresh ingredients
sent to you all pre proportioned out, down to the little pot of Italian herbs, and all
I have to do is follow the recipe card, which I've always found a very easy to follow.
I also love to save the HelloFresh recipe cards and remake our favorites over and over
again. Some of the meals we've had from them have become our staple dinners that I make
all the time. It's also a flexible subscription, so you can pause or cancel whenever you want
to. And I feel like whenever we have a HelloFresh meal to make, it's just a stress free, easy
dinner night. And I was also thinking with back to school, this would be such a good
thing for a uni student, if you wanted to send it to your kids at uni, or you are at
uni yourself, it actually works out really reasonable, I think it's like £3.44 per portion,
that's what it starts at. And it's obviously fresh ingredients, from scratch, still homemade
dinners, and it definitely gives you some great ideas, confidence in the kitchen, and
my mum used to always send me groceries, especially at exam time. So it might also be a really
good thing for uni students and college students to try out. But anyway, I'm going to get on,
make our dinner and then quickly tidy up and then get everyone to the table.
I can't believe the tongs just broke as I was serving up the spaghetti, but they're
actually so very old, they were actually my mums and she gave them to me when she moved
back to Canada, so very well loved. But anyway, I'm going to serve up dinner, get everyone
to the breakfast bar. We tend to always eat there as a family now, we rarely use our dining
table. And once we've eaten, we then are going to get Fraser ready for football training
because he has that tonight, we've only really been doing two clubs since we've been back
to school and that is football training and swimming as well.
So he's getting ready for football, but before he goes, he needs to do a little bit of homework.
During the week, we have to timetables, reading and practice their spellings every night.
And then we also do more homework on the weekends, but they always have to do those three things
every evening, which doesn't actually take very long.
Then I was putting any leftovers in the fridge, which I think I'll have that for lunch tomorrow.
And then I'm going to quickly fold some laundry and tidy up while the two little ones are
chilling. Matt has now taken a Fraser to football training, so it's just me and the two little
ones tonight. Oh, and I should also say that once the boys are done their dinner, they
have to put it into the dishwasher or wash it in the sink. So Caleb is doing that now
and they need to do that before they get dessert. And tonight for dessert, Caleb really wanted
to have a smoothie lolly. So it's literally just a kid's smoothie that I freeze in the
freezer and they really love to have them. So I managed to get all of the laundry put
away and then I also changed the sheets on Jackson's bed because I decided to wash them
today. Now I'm going to finish all of the dishes leftover from dinner. I always try
to do this before we go upstairs for the bath and bedtime routine, because there is nothing
worse than once the kids are all bed, you come downstairs to a messy kitchen, I just
hate it. So I always try to get it all cleaned before we go up. Now, Caleb is helping himself
to a biscuit that I said that he could have, and now we have to tidy up all of the toys.
And the way that I get the kids involved is I do the same thing that I've always done,
and that is put on at the tidy up song on our Google Home, and it's basically just a
two and a half minute song and while it's playing, the boys have to help me run around
and tidy up all the toys and games and it's amazing how much we can get done while the
song is playing. Caleb's really good at helping out, I noticed that Jackson who was supposed
to be tidying up Lego, was pretty much just playing with it. But another way that I got
them to help so quickly was because I promised them that once we tidied up, that they could
have a little bit more time outside playing in the garden, and we're also going to have
a go on Jackson's new little ride along car. And then I'm also going to wipe down surfaces
and turn on our robot vacuum as well. Anyway, after a little bit of time out front,
I'm going to let Caleb go on the bar for a bit longer. And I should have mentioned that
he's wearing pajamas because as soon as he gets in from school, he likes to change into
his comfies, it's his favorite thing to wear and he pretty much lived in PJ's during lockdown.
But anyway, they love playing outside, so it was always really hard to get them up the
stairs to the bath. So what I normally say is, "I'm going to win." And then when it's
a race they really want to get upstairs. So now I'm going to do the bath. I pretty much
tend to use a Childs Farm products on their skin, they're really sensitive and that seems
to work really well. So I'll just put in some toys to the bath and let them play.
And then once they're out of the bath, or even sometimes when they're in the bath, I
will get everything ready for the next day. So I will lay out their uniforms. I always
have three piles on our banister like this and then it's really easy in the morning to
save the boys, "Go and get dressed." They know where their clothes are, everything's
together and ready to go. And then after the bath tonight, we're going to play loom bands.
The boys love playing with this, and I feel like it really calms them down. Don't get
me wrong, normally after we've played loom bands, we will go and have a little dance
party in Fraser's room, but they love to make little bracelets out of this.
So before they go to bed, I normally let them have a song on the Google Mini that is in
Fraser's room. It's their favorite thing to do, have a little dance party before bed.
And you can just ask it to play anything you want. So at the moment Jackson always wants
the Trolls soundtrack, it's the cutest thing. I would play the music for you here so you
could see him, but I know it's copyright music, so I don't want to get in trouble, but he
really loves it. And people in the past have asked me if letting them have a dance party
like this gets them hyper before bed, but they seem fine with it and they always promise
that after one or two songs that they'll go to bed.
So when it is time, I'll take Jackson into his room, he's just finishing off his milk,
he still has just cow's milk before bed. And then I'm going to brush his teeth with his
little electric toothbrush. And while I'm putting him to bed, Caleb is in his own room,
either reading his book or if he's really exhausted, I'll let him have my phone for
the 10 to 15 minutes that I put Jackson to bed. And I'll show you what stories I'm reading
to him tonight. Tonight, he wanted to read The Short-Sighted Giraffe, he really likes
that book. And then we're also going to read The Otter Who Loved To Hold Hands. So it's
normally two books and then he goes to bed quite easily. And then I go into Caleb's room.
So before Caleb goes to bed tonight, we're just going to practice his spellings, read
for 10 minutes and we'll also do his timetables on my phone. He does Times Tables Rock Stars
and it's really easy to do it on there, it's not ideal doing homework right before bed,
but it's the way that he works best. So I just need to go with it for now. Then Fraser
got home from football training, had a shower and then started reading his book. At the
moment he is reading Around The World in 80 Days, he loves adventure books and he really
did enjoy this one. But anyway, once they are all in bed, I have
got into the habit of washing my face and doing my skincare routine before I go downstairs.
I just find it makes life a bit easier when I go up to bed, I hate when I'm like, "Oh,
I've got to do my whole skincare routine." But first off, I'm going to do a pre cleanse
with a Dermalogica PreCleanse. So it's like a little cream that you put onto your face
and then it comes with a little mitt and you rub that around and it kind of foams up, breaks
down all of the oily makeup and really helps to get it off. But my biggest tip with skincare,
not that I'm some skincare guru or anything, but if you're interested, I always double
cleanse. So I'll always do a pre cleanse and then I will cleanse again. And I tend to always
use a flannel, I just feel really clean once I've used a washcloth. So, as you can probably
see, all the makeup from the day is coming off.
So now that I have all of that off, I'm going to clean. And tonight I'm using a Skin Resurfacing
Cleanser, it's quite a strong cleanser, but I only use it at night and I use a softer
one during the day. Then I'm using a little resurfacing pad, I only tend to use this three
times a week. Then I'm going to tone my skin using a Multi-Active Toner also from Dermalogica.
And then I'm going to use my night cream, which is the Sound Sleep Cocoon, I really
like it. Then I'm just going to get into my comfies,
come downstairs and make myself either a decaf coffee, or I've got really into herbal tea,
but I think I'm having a decaf tonight. And then once I have that, I'll either just chill
out on the sofa or to be honest, most of the time I will get on and do some work. So tonight
I'm editing a video, I'm also going to be doing a voiceover like this. So I'm just going
to get on and do that. Got some Haribo to cheer me up because I'm working. But that
is pretty much it. That is all that I'm going to do today. So thank you so much for watching.
And I really hope that back to school has gone well for you and I'll see you on my next
one. Bye guys.