Our wedding: The hotel night, and the future funny story to look back on!

We had nearly fully booked the hotel out with just our guests and had done so many months before the wedding. There were only a handful of rooms that weren't our friends and family.

Unfortunately the management had changed from when we had booked it all-it seemed that some things hadn't been passed on to the new management!

We had a fair few of us that were late check-ins (for obvious reasons) yet when we arrived shortly after midnight the doors were shut and there was no one there to help us-until the night porter made an appearance-he seemed very unaware of any late check-ins. Great.

There was no bar open until 1am like we were promised-cue a bit of a flat moment. But that was just the start...

Now there were about 5 rooms that we needed keys for, he found ours-hurrah and we were told to go straight up to our lovely room by my Uncle and told us not to worry about it with it being our wedding night! We stayed for 10mins though as felt really awkward.

It was my parents, James' parents, James brother and fiancée (who had only flown over from America the day before and were flying back the next day), and my brother's waiting for rooms. For some reason the night porter couldn't work out which rooms were free and which keys corresponded with the rooms needed. It was horrible, it made the day end on a flat note, everyone was tired after after 15minutes of nothing seemingly happening or getting sorted!

We were made to go to our room, but we couldnt truly relax like we wanted too.

Eventually the right keys were found, everyone got sent to the right places...well that was until my brother's used the key to their room, only to find my Grandad in his undies getting into bed!!

My brother's waited until the manager was called in (I think) and by this time it was nearer to 2am. They still couldn't work out which room was empty! My brother's then each ended up with attic staff quarters, with no toilets, one of them had a filthy space with rubbish and dirty clothes strewn all over the floor!

My parent's didn't get the lie in they deserved as had an early toilet call from the boys!

Now we were completely unaware of all of this, we assumed it would have all been sorted out. We sat in our HUGE, comfy bed and opened all of our cards and presents like kids on Christmas day. The excitement not yet dulling from the wonderful day. I ate for the first time in over 24 hours, probably the wrong thing to do though-rich wedding fruit cake and crisps past midnight=bad stomach ache throughout the night!

We've only ever had one night away from the children, in fact it was when I was pregnant with Sam and we were at our house, so not sure that even counts. So we enjoyed the peace and quite and alone time, but forced ourselves up for breakfast at 9.30 like we had said we would.

There were a couple of sore heads, and many messy hairdo's that had been immaculate the day before! And all seemed well-until it got busy. We already knew they were short staffed as James' Dad in his 'jolly' state the night before had read on the staff clipboard and had mentioned quite a few times in the chaos of sorting out the rooms!

The service was unbelievably slow, we had to ask for everything. The help yourself fruit juices, cereals, and croissants weren't replaced, which left all the guests at the hotel wondering what on earth was going on. At one point James' best man had to ask for a wine glass so he could have an orange juice as none of the glasses had been replenished!

What was supposed to be a nice relaxing morning, catching up with family and friends before we all started heading off, turned into me and James being really embarrassed for organising this hotel (which was recommended by our reception venue).

But hey silver lining, we now have 4 rooms, meals paid for for another night in the hotel for their mix up. Doesn't make things right and I am absolutely gutted that this happened the night of our wedding, as it did promise so much and looks so quirky and beautiful. I guess in years to come it will be a funny story though!

I just hope we can blag our feature room back again it really was beautiful! (just excuse our wedding mess-it looked a lot nicer made up and without all of our belongings)!

Gingerbread house-fail!

I thought I'd try and decorate a gingerbread house.

I thought it would be a good idea as we have not made one before.

I soon began to realise that it was a bad idea-especially when 3 pieces had broken in the packet!

I 'glued' these together with royal icing which held for all of 5 minutes.

I found out the hard way that decorating a delicate gingerbread house with an enthusiastic 4 year wasn't the best idea I have ever had.

We got it all together with the support of candy canes and skewers, and slowly she came tumbling down within 5 minutes.

It was only once it had all fallen down that I had the idea of cutting the broken pieces to the same size so we could make a house that was as stable as a gingerbread house can be but smaller than we had intended (I only wish I had thought of the after spending 2 hours (not joking) trying to make the broken one work!

So here was have our before and after shots, the after ones you can see me and Alex had pretty much lost all enthusiasm with the decoration and basically used what was already on it!

Before

After

Apologies for the cheesy photos Alex found it funny when he was watching me so I kept it.

I still can't quite believe how stressful baking and decorating can be!!

Wot so funee? Innocent minds

So I'll set the scene we'd just had a big pasta dinner with cheesy, tomato sauce.

I'd just took a big swig of drink, Alex turns to us and says "look, do you like my saucy face?!"

Cue a LOT of laughter from me and James, and me trying to keep my drink in my mouth without spluttering  it out or choking on it!

He then said "look my mouth is really saucy" and I started off again.

I love how innocent children's minds are :)

 

If only men could feel the pain of labour...

So a lot of men say, labour can't be that bad...

They think we over exaggerate...

They think they have better pain thresholds than us...

They think they would cope a lot better if they had to go through labour...

Well wouldn't you just love your man to feel just a little part of what us women go through in labour...

...I think they should make this part of parenting classes don't you? Tee hee.

That way maybe your other half might be less partial to go out and get that sandwich and drink, or fall asleep on the beanbag next to the bed whilst you are in late stages of labour...yes I'm looking at you James!

Wot so funee? Grumpy man

In a busy Asda yesterday, pushchair, basket, 3 year old.

3 year old points at a man, and at the top of his voice states "that man has a really grumpy face!"

I've never walked so quickly around the fruit and veg isle!!

When Pinterest gives false hope!

I admit I have spent many hours of my life looking through Pinterest pages, and I often pin things that I know I will never really get around to do, but when I saw these cute looking bunny buns I couldn't resist trying them for Easter.

Source

 Now I have never had luck when it comes to bread making, I am impatient, I don't like baking when you have to wait around, so waiting for for things to prove isn't something I'm usually prepared to wait the recommended time for! I thought I'd try to day though, just bought some bread flour that only needed water added to it, and left it covered in the airing cupboard. I didn't have a choice about giving in to putting it in the oven too early as Sam needed feeding so that worked out quite well, and for once the bread dough had doubled in size. 

I used scissors to snip the ears into the dough, and a cocktail stick to prick the eyes. Already they didn't exactly look great...

More like road kill bunnies!

I thoguht hoped something magical might happen in the oven...umm it didn't happen

Attack of the zombie bunnies!

So not all Pinterest makes are a success, especially in my case when it comes to bread!

Still they tasted nice and it was lovely to have warm rolls for lunch!

I thought Alex might have liked to have made these with me, but he wasn't interested as Daddy was home and had got his old scalextric set out of the garage so that was much more fun!

Hope you don't mind but linking up with PinAddicts as not all pins turn out nice and thought it might give you all a laugh!

Funny things my boy says...

Alex has recently turned 3, we have been saying "you're a big boy now so you try/can do ... now" when we are trying to get him to do some things for himself as he is a lazy boy!
His reply the other day, "I don't want to be 3 any more!"

Tonight after him devouring his dinner (even the vegetables without me asking him to) I asked if he liked it, he replied "Yes, because it had no mushrooms, it was yummylicious."

We bought our Christmas tree from a farm at the weekend, on the way back in the car he was chatting away to himself, "I'm going to put the star on top of the tree, but I have to wait until I'm taller", when I said Daddy would help him and lift him up I have never seen his face light up so much! I have no idea how he knew what we were going to do with the tree mind you as we hadn't spoken about it at all but his memory is so good he is remembering things that happened a year ago very clearly, although any time in the past is 'yesterday' so have to jog my memory a lot at the moment!

Funny things my boy says...

I had to laugh yesterday, my top had ridden up whilst I was sat on the sofa (I had been half asleep and very uncomfortable it wasn't bothering me enough to sort it out), Alex came up to me and prodded my sticky out belly button (which is freaking me out...eww, I swear it didn't do that until about 8 months pregnant with Alex).
He then said "It's babies nose, is baby ready to come out now"? hehe, then "Where's the rest of it's body"? I tired to explain that it was in fact not the nose and the whole baby is in my belly, to which he replied "it's in your leg"!

I guess it's just too much for a nearly 3 year to take in, I did have a good giggle!

The clean up begins!

Wow, it's amazing how much stuff a two year can get for Christmas. It's also amazing how much packaging is still all over our house, Christmas gift bags that can be reused are just left on the floor getting dog eared, me and my partner have our bags full of the little gifts that we haven't found spaces for (well my partners is all of his stuff as he hasn't put any of it away), there are tins of chocolate, boxes of chocolate, & chocolate wrappers EVERYWHERE! Also the washing up hasn't been done for days (I know gross, right) but we literally have barely been here, plus the laundry basket is full to the brim!

Typically I piled up a lot of the cardboard for the recycling last night, but as it was raining didn't actually go down to the garage and put the recycling in the boxes or put the recycling bins out for this morning...and typically the recycling lorry came at 8am not any time after 11am like it usually would!

Today we have to wait in until something of my partner's get collected-this WILL make us tidy up (it's not like my partner is still in bed, me and little man are still in PJ's, none of us have had brekkie or has showers etc yet)!  Because my partner works loads and we never get much time to go out as a family we are terrible and always go out when we are at home together, hence why the upkeep of the house is always last on the list of things to do and always seems to get avoided!

I did make a small start yesterday by buying 2 large storage tubs in our local Asda Walmart * these have soon filled up with various bits and pieces of my sons toys. I still actually have no idea where these tubs are going to end up once the house is all sorted...as they are rather large, but I am now happy I didn't go for the biggest tub they had!
  
Any tips on being ruthless? I don't really want to end up like that man with the obsessive compulsive hoarder on the channel 4 programme the other day as I am such a hoarder myself! I am terrible..."that will be ok for card making, that will be ok for Alex, oh we will keep that encase we have any more children, oh the top with the holes in can go in my scrap material bag even though I never use anything that's in there because none of it is good enough" I am sure you catch my drift!

So today I will tidy the house and sort it out and get rid of bits because our 2 bed coach house is bursting at the seams! Might be easier said than done as my son whilst me typing this has tucked into some chocolate coins, emptied a huge bag of marbles all over the lounge floor, got pens outs and just generally making a mess...wish me luck!

* NEVER walk in the wind with 2 large plastic storage boxes stacked on top of one another, the wind will blow off a plastic lid and smack in onto your nose right after crossing a zebra crossing with a big queue behind it. **cringe** and ouch, how embarrassing!

The mess on Christmas morning-before all other gifts were given from other people, so it's 10 times worse now!

Toddler troubles and lots of Chocolate!

So I was busy cleaning the bathroom (and when I say clean I mean bleaching everything, and scrub scrub scrubbing away, get all the scummy stuff off the bathmat and my sons bath toys...so I had been in there a little while)!

I thought it had been dangerously quiet for some time so thought I'd better go see what little man was up to...he'd shut the lounge door which was a sure sign he was up to something!

Opened the door to find this...

He didn't even flinch or stop or anything when I walked in! I didn't know whether to laugh or scream..that will teach my partner to leave his Birthday Toblerone lying about in little man's reach!!

Luckily there was no chocolate on the sofa, and surprisingly not much on his clothes too...cleaning used to be a lot easier before kids!!!

Oh and encase you are wondering why he is dressed in his Santa top it's because he had his playgroup Christmas party yesterday and wouldn't wear anything else this morning!