A Christmas catch up! (A little late)

OK, OK. It's January and I am posting about Christmas, I apologise, but this is the last post catching up before we get into the new year-promise!

Early December we popped along to a local farm to choose our Christmas tree, we got a slightly smaller tree than previous years and actually I am glad we did. We got a 4-5ft tree, so nice to support a local farm, and the boys loved choosing it and were very excited about decorating it when we got home-I wish I was but in all honestly I was so tired and didn't really want it up the first weekend in December! 

When we got home we let the kids have free rein decorating it, I will admit on the Monday I did re-decorate it (I know terrible!), and got my craft wooden tree out for them to decorate on the landing upstairs. 

The finished tree

I think this is actually the best tree we have decorated, I stuck to golds, whites and reds, and there are a few of my own makes on there too! This actually lasted amazingly well, we had it up until the 5th January and it was still looking very green and hadn't dropped that many needles at all. I fed it with some lemonade and water this year and I think the lemonade definitely helps (for whatever reason I don't know)!

December was crazy busy! We had James's Birthday, Sam's birthday, James went to America for a week, Sam's birthday party, and then the last manic week at school with plays, discos, Christmas parties, fundraising and more (or course this was the week James was away too)! 

Alex's play was born in the barn, unfortunately I have no photos, we were able to take them but as he was at the back and I didn't have the best view it was just impossible, I was really hoping they would take individual photos in their costumes like in previous years, but apparently they didn't this year which is disappointing. He was a bird, so was in black with a big beak, singing his heart out, the kids all did a great job. 

Sam's nativity was on the last day of term, and it was super cute, the 3 and 4 year old's did an amazing job. Sam was a shepherd, handy as Alex was at preschool too so had no worried when sorting the costume. Sam loves singing and kept smiling away at me. They had some stalls afterwards, and we got lucky on the tombola for a change! 

Alex had Christmas jumper day on the Friday too, of course we had none and of course I then felt guilty and had to make one up on the Thursday night, sometimes being crafty has it's upsides! I had loads of people saying I should make these to sell next year...I'm not so sure after how long it took me to do!

As I mentioned above, James was away for a week in December, he went out to Florida with his family, his brother lives out that way and he whole family were heading out there until after Christmas. We all had the opportunity to go but in all honestly flying, especially long haul is one of my nightmares let alone when 4 month pregnant, and as it was for the week the boys were happy to stay home. With Alex being ill that week, and then seemingly developing big anxiety over eating and going out we were all very pleased to see James walk through the door that Saturday, he was so lucky with his journey home so was home about an hour earlier than we expected. 

That week before Christmas James was mostly off, we had our scan, and sorted the last of the Christmas bits, as ever we don't have the money for buying everyone presents so we did a big bake off on the 23rd! Photos can be deceiving though, it looks like we are happy families here, but in all honestly it was a day of the boys arguing and being hard work!

However we made lots, cranberry and orange shortbread, gingerbread with lemon icing, marshmallow, and cheese and rosemary straws. These all went down extremely well, I think my favourite were definitely the shortbread....although the other makes went down nicely too!

 Christmas eve was mainly spent having a quick tidy up, wrapping the last of the gifts, seeing a couple of friends and heading out to a Christmas service at the church we got married. It went by in a flash and it was soon time for pj's, hanging stockings, and leaving mince pies etc for the big man himself, Sam remembered we had reindeer food last year and was worried we hadn't got any this year so the boys quickly stepped out the front and sprinkled some oats out. It wasn't long before he visited!

I woke at 4am, and thought I could hear the kids, they were both up in Sam's bed chatting away like 2 old women, they sort of went to sleep at 5ish, Sam ended up in with us and I didn't get back to sleep, so was a bit tired the rest of the day! James and I didn't do gifts for each other again this year, and we purposely didn't get the kids much either, a. to save money and b. they just didn't need nor want much! The kids were happy with their bits, and actually didn't get a huge amount of time to play them as we went to my parent's for lunch, we were back there the following day as my grandparents were there, the following day we went to Reading to visit my other grandparents and all of my Mum's side of the family, as James' parents were back we also popped into them on the 28th, so it was a lovely but manic few days!! I will be honest even now in January the upstairs still has some of the boy's stocking fillers left on the landing as I haven't had the energy or time to sort much out!! 

So from our home to yours, we hope you had an amazing Christmas, a lovely new year and all the best in finishing those Christmas food gifts to make a start on healthy eating again (please say that isn't just us)!

Ninja turtle party on a budget

Another pre Christmas post to catch up on!

Sam's birthday was in December and it was the day before James was due to head off to America so it was quite a quiet day, he had preschool all day too which I felt bad about but actually I think he loved being with his friends! We had presents opened on the bed before school and my mum popped over in the evening, he requested a picky tea and I'd made him a ninja turtle cake-his favourite character being Mikey!

 He seemed so grown up, he was super excited this year too, so proud to show off his bag with his badge on as he walked through his school gate. 

I felt bad but Sam's party was a little rushed in the planning, with James being away that week and little money it was hard knowing what to do and when to do it, in the end I had to do it when James was away, which wasn't ideal but it meant him having a party and not missing out!

He is mad on Ninja Turtles at the moment, in fact given half the chance I think he would sit there all day watching it! So the theme was easy, and I decided having a few of his friends here with my Mum's help would just about be manageable!

With my 2 included I think we had about 10 people, it was manic, especially the first half hour, but once everyone was there we sat them down at the table. 

I'd bought some green paper plates in Asda and cut some printables out to make some ninja turtle faces. I'd printed off ninja turtle colouring sheets too. I got the idea from this post on Mum's and Munchkins.

I'd also made a 'pin the mask on the ninja turtle' game for the children to play, with some only being 3 I think a few of them were a little scared to wear the blind fold to play!

After that we had all the ingredients prepared and ready to go to make some muffin pizzas, if you know ninja turtles you know pizzas are their favourite food!

These were really easy to do and were a big hit with the kids, the adults thought it was great to get the kids making the bulk of their lunch themselves too!

Simply cut muffins in half, spread with a little of tomato puree (or a mix of tomato puree and ketchup if preferred). 

Sprinkle on some grated cheese, along with any veggies, and hams and pop in the oven for about 10 minutes or so. 

Whilst I sorted food, we played pass the parcel-I always do a few extra layers just in case so it took up a fair amount of time ;)

After lunch and mini Mikey cup cakes we played some dancing games and gradually they left, and I collapsed for the afternoon whilst the boys played with the new toys, all in all the party was actually not too stressful and the kids all seemed to have fun which is the main thing. 

Alex's 7th birthday, Thor hammer cake

Firstly, happy new year to you all! I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a great start tot he new year too. 

Secondly I have a couple of catch up posts to write before getting into the new year posts so here is the first!

Alex turned 7 in November, he still really wanted a party this year, so we managed to scrape some money together for a bowling party, he had a few friends from school as well as James' younger brothers and Sam. They all had a great time, and it's the first party I've ever done where all I have had to do is supply the cake and party bags...apart from the price I can see why so many people do this as there was so much less stress. 

I just didn't think I could face a party at home this year with not long getting over the morning sickness stage, so bowling was perfect, and I think that age group is a great age for it too, anything younger I think it may have been more of a challenge! 

I made a simple Smartie covered chocolate cake for the party and then a 'Thor hammer' cake for back at ours later with our families. 

This wasn't the best cake I have ever made but Alex was happy with it, so that is all that counts really! I made a chocolate sponge, but the hammer was made from rice crispie cakes, really easy if not a little messy. I let the marshmallow/rice crispie mixture cool slightly before moulding into shape. I greased my hands up with butter whilst doing this and loosely wrapped in cling film too. For the hammer handle I moulded it around a kebab skewer leaving enough to stick into the hammer head. I let this cool in the fridge for a while before icing it. 

Alex loved it, but it had a couple of crude comments from my brothers haha.  

Sam's 3rd birthday, and a Disney Cars and Planes cake

So last Wednesday my baby turned 3, and boy was he excited about it after desperately waiting after Alex's, mine and James' in recent weeks!!

Sam is a little character, every one thinks he is quiet, but he doesn't miss a trick and takes everything in! Once he gets to know you he will eventually talk, and he really can chat! He loves puzzles, cars and planes in particular, and can at times be a little lazy ;) he suddenly seems to have grown up a little, loosing his toddlerish ways, very good considering he will be starting preschool after Christmas (woop, woop)!

He is a HUGE lover of films, I will admit he often watches one a day when I need to get on my work orders, and it has become a little bit of a bad habit (oops). But he is a big lover or all things Disney and will happily sit through many of the pixar films in particular. His favourites being Cars and Planes, (although Toy Story, Wreck it Ralph and The Incredibles), and although it changed many times, he eventually settled on wanting a planes and cars cake-it was always going to be a chocolate one though!

I used the same chocolate cake recipe as Alex's Iron man cake, but I must admit I think I over cooked it slightly! I made one deep cake and then two smaller cakes and layered them up with some butter icing.

Then the fun/scary bit...decorating it!

He's asked for blue icing and that's what he got, it took me a while to do all the elements but it was really fun making the bottom half look a bit like radiator springs from Disney cars and then making the top half looking like the sky and using the planes shaped logo from the film cover.

I made some mini bunting for a finishing line using paper, cocktail sticks and a black pen, a little fiddly but it was needed I thought.  I cheated and used some of our mini figures as I didn't see the point in making icing ones!

We had a few of his little friends over for a party lunch, we didn't do games just had a play as in past experience, party games with 2 and 3 year olds is not a great deal of fun! Then in the evening we had family over for cake too.

He had a great day and loved all his gifts (mainly Planes themed surprisingly!) and is now looking forward to Christmas too!

How to create a simple Iron Man head birthday cake

So as you may have read Alex turned 6 on Friday and he had asked for an Iron man cake, at first I was filled with dread but in fact the cake was relatively easy, normally when I bake birthday cakes, or cakes of some importance something goes wrong, but this one time it didn't (phew)!

I baked 3 large rectangle chocolate cakes, 2 x 3 egg cakes and the bottom layer being a 4 egg recipe to make it slightly thicker.

I printed out an iron man template (plenty found online) and cut the template out of the cakes (each layer separately).

Then layered the cakes on top of one another on the board I was presenting the cake on with a thin layer on vanilla butter icing to bind them and underneath the cake so make it stick to the board.

Following some images online and the template guide I started to carve the cake into a shape, I probably could have shaped it slightly more, but I didn't want to go too far and ruin it-this was the first time I have tried cake carving after all!

Once I was happy I put a thin layer of butter icing over the whole cake and put in the fridge to harden for about 15mins creating the crumb crust (something I probably haven't had the patience for before now but I now know why it is vital)!

This year I bought my icing from Hobbycraft using the Renshaw brand. This is the first time I have used them and I will definitely be using it again, it rolled so nicely, I have never been able to ice a cake without it tearing or sticking terribly, but miraculously this time it worked pretty much perfectly for a novice baker like myself! I used as little icing sugar as needed and followed this ladies tutorial for tips-and it worked for me!

I covered the whole cake with red icing, then used my template for the yellow icing and likewise for the eyes.

For the black outlines I used some black decorating icing also from Hobbycraft, by squirting some into some decorating/writing tubes I own using two different thickness's. I will admit I wasn't as happy with the result of this but I think it looked better once it had dried as I liked the cake much more the next morning! You really need to concentrate and mind your hands with this, I had kitchen roll on hand to clean the nossle regularly which helped.

I was so pleased with the cake, and it got lots of complements, I hear the kids even ate it before they got to their cars (I did feed them honest)!

The Snowman™ and The Snowdog Great Festive Bake Off Blog Tour! #SnowmanSnowdog

We had a fantastic opportunity to receive and review some Snowman and the Snowdog products, a popular Christmas item for many families any Christmas! I know I always loved watching it as a child and you can get the chance to again this Christmas with his new companion as the Snowman and the Snowdog will be shown on Channel 4 again this Christmas.

We received a beautiful 'The snowman book' hardback deluxe edition, £12.99 from puffin books. Perfect for story telling and for letting your child's imagination run free, and a chance to reminisce for the parent's too! This would make a wonderful present, or a treat for the family before Christmas if you can't wait until the 25th! A large book as it measure approx 24 x 29cm and is full of illustrations in the style of the original film.

 Unfortunately our chocolate that was sent to review didn't have the best ride in the post by the looks of him! The poor snowman got a little broken!

However here is a photo of him in one piece, and he still tasted delicious as you'd expect from Thornton's chocolate. There is a whole range available on their website and in store.

Now I will admit, I do find it hard to get overly festive until after Sam's birthday on the 9th of Dec as he is the last out of us 4 (we have all 4 of our birthday's between 20th Nov and 9th of Dec!!!), and I will also admit to slightly being a bit bored of baking after my mammoth bake last week, but it was fun none the less and made a yummy pudding for us all!

The boys had a good time making the biscuits, and using our Snowman and Snowdog cutters to make the shapes. We used the recipe on the back of the cookie cutter packaging which was a little sticking to roll so we did have to add a bit extra flour to help. The cookie cutters are great and are available in John Lewis and Party Delights for around £3.

Recipe

350g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

125g butter

175g light brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat oven to 180C.

Add the dry ingredients to a bowl, mix. 

Add butter, mix, stir in the sugar. 

Lightly beat egg and syrup together and mix with the other ingredients.

Knead dough until smooth and cover and put in the fridge for approx 15mins. 

Roll dough to about 0.5cm thick and cut out shapes. 

Place on baking paper on a tray and cook for around 12-15 mins. 

After they cooled, and we'd finished our dinner I got our icing and decorations out, we each decorated a Snowman and Snowdog and then I let the boys run wild with the rest which they found fantastic- I will admit I can be a tad OCD when baking with kids, I just can't handle it so I think they were enjoying no panicky and fussy mum!

Alex's aged 6

Sam's aged 3 (nearly)

My attempt, we had no black icing so had to improvise which makes them clown like!

The boy's creations together! 

As this is a blogtour it would only be fair to mention who is next, please check out Jenny's blog the-gingerbread-house.co.uk tomorrow for her #SnowmanSnowdog post. Search #SnowmanSnowdog on twitter to find all the posts so far too

Green bean and radish warm salad with Peter Rabbit #Tastytales

I've been invited to take part in the Happy Feaster Blog Tour by Ladybird Books and The Happy Foodie.   We have been asked to take storytelling from the page to the kitchen by creating a Spring recipe inspired by the Tales of Peter Rabbit!  I've decided to create a green bean and radish salad with my little bunnies (Alex 5 and Sam 2). 

For more Spring recipes, inspired by Peter Rabbit and friends, why not head over to The Happy Foodie and discover how celebrity chefs and their children are joining in!

As part of this campaign we were given 3 brilliant Peter rabbit books to inspire our ingredients or ideas behind our recipe. 

Peter Rabbit: A big box of little books RRP  £9.99

Sam and Alex both like this selection of short board books, with brief short stories of the main characters in the Peter Rabbit tales. we love that the reverse of all the books create an image if put in the correct order-we only discovered this a few days after we had first read them!

The world of Peter Rabbit: A pull-out pop-up book RRP £5.99

I love how this is a great decoration/backdrop as well as a short story too.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit: Penguin edition RRP £9.99

A special edition for Penguin's 80th anniversary. A really lovely story-we didn't have any Peter Rabbit stories beforehand (I must ask Mum if she kept my collection I had as as a child!) and Alex and Sam have both sat down and listened nicely to the story.

It was the original Peter Rabbit tale where we got our recipe inspiration from:

Peter Rabbit is partial to pinching some of Mr McGregor's radishes after all!

"First he ate some lettuces and some French beans; and then he ate some radishes"

Green bean and radish warm salad

A small bag of green beans

1 small red onion (diced finely)

2 cloves of garlic (diced finely)

1 tsp of grainy mustard

1 tbsp olive oil

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

A small handful of radishes

Method:

-Chop the ends off the green beans and put on to boil for 4-5 minutes.

-Slice the other vegetables finely.

-In another pan sweat the onions and garlic for a few minutes, meanwhile mix the oil, mustard, and lemon juice in a small jug, season to taste.

-Add the onions and garlic to the oil dressing.

-Drain the beans and mix with the radishes, toss with the dressing.

-Enjoy!

This dish will be the perfect side dish to barbecues, we enjoyed it last night with chicken and sautéed potatoes.

If you've enjoyed this then why not stop by Over 40 and a mum to one tomorrow to check out what delicious Easter ideas she has for enjoying with your families. 

Also follow the hashtag #tastytales to see what other people and bloggers have been inspired to make. 

We also did a quick bunny bake last night, now I am sure if you have little ones you would've sung the song 'Peter Rabbit's got a fly upon his nose'...

Well with that in mind we a quick batch of biscuits-with cinnamon cranberries for the fly upon his nose! I don't think the people at Biscuiteers have got anything to worry about as it's not a patch on the surprise Peter Rabbit biscuit we received-we haven't had the heart to eat it yet as it just feels wrong as it looks so good!

Review: Gousto meal box

We had the pleasure to review one of Gousto's meal boxes for two last week-and what a treat it was!

Not heard of Gousto? Well they are a brilliant company that deliver food boxes right to your door, similar to veg boxes you can get from other companies however Gousto's boxes include everything you need to make the meals.

Everything was packaged nicely in the printed box. I must admit I was intrigued as to how it would be packaged with such a variety of ingredients! 95% of the packing is recyclable and from renewable resources which I think is a great thing for companies these days, the meat and cheese was kept cold with a couple of large ice packs and everything protected by a bag of wool which also helped with keeping it all cool. The box was in to compartments which stopped the vegetables and fruit from getting bruised. The only slight problems we had were that the spring onion looked a little limp and the vinegars had very slightly leaked from their pots and bags, but to be honest I wouldn't know a better way to package these. 

It was very exciting to have all the ingredients ready to go for the meals, I am very much an 'open the cupboards and see what dinner I can make from it' kind of girl normally! As I said all the ingredients are there, the only things we needed extra for our meals were house essentials such as milk, butter, salt, pepper and oil.    

We had a box which was for 2 people, which included 3 separate meals:

Steak and blue cheese

Pork and braised apple

Sausage and bean mash

Each meal has a menu card, showing clearly the ingredients needed, quantities (as you can get boxes for 4 people too), time, cuisine, and calorie count per portion. What I really liked about these recipe cards is the easy step to step instructions with photos for each stage, now I am relatively ok with cooking but if say my hubby or my brother was cooking a meal they may need these photos a bit more than I did (shh I didn't say that about them)! I also came across a video icon on one stage on the pork and apple meal which lead to a short tutorial. 

I'd say each meal pretty much took the same amount of time said on the card, I liked that they were all cooked within 15-30mins each, I think I have always been of the thought that tasty meals took ages to prepare and to cook!

All three meals were great, the stilton (which I don't normally like) was delicious, the pork and leek sausages were the best sausages I have eaten in a long time, and I think the pork and apple meal was our favourite out of the 3. 

Gousto box prices are:

• Meat box for 2 people - £34.99 per week
• Meat box for 4 people - £49.99 per week
• Veggie box for 2 people - £33.99 per week
• Veggie box for 4 people - £47.99 per week 

If you ever need to cancel or pause you can do so, you just need to make sure you do it before noon on a Sunday before the delivery. I have also discovered you can do a monthly delivery from reading on their website 

Now if I am honest we couldn't afford to get one of these boxes weekly at the moment what with having just moved. But having said that if we did have enough money I would definitely be considering it as it takes the stress out of deciding what you want to eat when on the food shop, everything is ready to go and the meat and vegetables were all of a brilliant quality. 

"Our sourcing team channels an unfathomable amount of effort into finding the best possible quality for you. Not that we're complaining, it keeps us in shape! Our smoked fish, for example, comes from a smokehouse in Wiltshire. Our meat is 100% British and always will be. Take our chicken, it’s supplied by a family owned butchery in Lancashire (and they get it from Cumbria). And our eggs? They come from a free-range farmer called Steven Rowbottom – you couldn’t make it up! He’s based a mere 2 miles away from our warehouse, in egg miles that’s less than a stone (or egg’s) throw. And if all that’s not enough, our sourcing team also do their utmost to buy from ethical suppliers like Suma and Mr. Organic, and family-run businesses like Direct Poultry. Phew!"

Also I am not sure about you,but do you end up cooking the same old meals every week or two? Gousto have a nice range of menus and I know from looking at them there are many things I normally wouldn't cook (or even really try as I tend to stick with what I know) so it brings a bit of variety and an eating experience too. They bring out new menus each week for you to choose from so there is always something new and exciting. 

Now what I want to know, is there a pudding option somewhere on the horizon too? (Sorry- ever the sweet tooth)!

We recieved one Gousto Meat box for 2 to review, but all opinions are our own. 

  

  

Sam turns two!

(Before I start his birthday was last week...oops!)

Well it 2 years since you made your slightly early entrance into the world-two years, how?!

You have grown up so much this past year, you are generally such a happy soul.

Your blonde curls made an appearance in the first months of the year- I am not quite sure where you get them from as neither your Dad or I have curls! But boy don't you get a lot of comments on them-and you love it too although you shy away and hide with a little coy smile on your face!

Like many 2 year old's across the country Peppa pig is one of your favourite programs and you pretty much know all the characters which I am not sure is a good thing or not! Although to be honest you will happily watch many children's programmes given the chance-one thing I know we need to try and stop a bit is the tele watching!!

Happy with his George pig top!

You adore your older brother (squabbling aside!) and want to be just like him, you can often be found copying his games or trying to join in a be much older than you really are. It is so funny and wonderful to hear you saying things like 'come on buddy' when playing your cars.

Talking of cars, you love them! You can often be found lining them up and creating races, sometimes getting half of our Hot Wheels cars out and taking over the lounge floor!

In contrast to Alex you aren't scared of many things, I always find it funny (and frightening) when Alex is scared of glass balconies in shops with split level and won't go anywhere near it yet you press your nose against the glass and look down, and sometimes can even be found trying to climb up!!

You are generally quite a quiet boy who just gets on, you potter around ours and other family members house and sometimes we almost forget you are there as you are very content. However you are very strong willed and when you want to (or don't) do something we know about it!

Along with your logic you are also pretty amazing at talking, you are now stringing together many words to make sentences, and are even managing to get the tenses of some words right which does surprise quite a few people. Your funniest thing at the moment is doing a Welsh accent with a saying that my Welsh Grandma says-it's actually pretty good as far as impressions go!

We didn't do too much for your birthday as you were a little unwell (and I think we were all birthday'd out!) but your friend G came over for a short while and a small amount of family in the evening for cake.

The cake requested was a 'chocolate Peppa pig cake' so of course that's what I made-not my best cake but you certainly didn't seem to mind!

You had no trouble knowing what to do with the presents this year and got straight into opening them and were obviously desperate to get the items out of their packaging!

on his new wheels!

Happy 2nd birthday! Now we need to work on the terrible two paddys that have appeared since your birthday! But until then I am really looking forward to a Christmas with you and Alex this year!