Saturday was

Lots of messy fun

making wrapping paper

Harry spent ages drawing on a massive piece of paper, I love using his drawings as simple, unique wrapping paper.

 

We painted potatoes, apples and bubblewrap then made prints on coloured paper, which look really pretty as wrapping paper and gift tags.

Now the boys are asleep I am finally going to get chance to have a nice cup of tea and read Lonny Magazine in bed
Nite Nite!

We are going to the Zoo

On Saturday we woke up to a beautiful, sunny and frosty morning. We decided to abandon our original plans of popping to town and doing some shopping to take the boys to the Zoo. Harry was so excited when we told him where we were going that the whole drive there he kept on saying 'see animals, see animals' and then he named every animal he could think of over and over and over again.

Harry loved seeing all the animals, he spent the whole time running from one thing to the next as there was just soo much for a two year old to take in. It was GREAT!

Dont they look a like? Both very handsome!

Harry’s favourite part of the day was definately riding on the monorail train with Luke, as when we were getting ready for bed all Harry would talk about was holding Daddies hand on the train.

Wordless Wednesday - Say CHEESE!!!!!

Mmmmm Pancakes!

Today is Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday which is traditionally a day of feasting before fasting for 40 days of Lent.

We love Pancake Day, so I made us lots and lots of pancakes for dinner tonight. I tend to make the thin, crepe style pancakes as you can eats lots of them before you become full and that way can try out many, many different fillings.

In preparation of tonight’s pancake feasting, I have made some felt bean bag pancakes for Harry to play with. We had lots of fun seeing who can flip the pancakes the highest in the toy frying pan.

Felt beanbag pancakes

Cut out two circles of felt, making sure that they will fit inside your toy frying pan or on a little plate. Using a running stitch sew the two pancakes together, leaving a gap through which you add a small amount of dried lentils or rice, then sew the gap closed.

Crepe style pancakes

110g Plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 large egg plus one egg yolk, beaten
290ml full fat milk
1 tbsp veg oil

Sift flour and salt in to a bowl, make a well and stir in the eggs and a little of the milk.
Continue to stir in the rest of the milk and then add the oil, mix together. Put the mixture in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Add a little butter to a non stick frying pan and heat, then pour in just enough mixed to cover the base of the pan and make a thin pancake.
Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the pancake is ready to be turned, if you are feeling brave you can now flip your pancake over (or use a fish slice) cook for 1 to 2 minutes on the other side.
Remove from the pan and spread a filling of your choice before rolling it up.

Harry and I like most fillings; ice-cream, banana, stewed apple and vanilla yoghurt, maple syrup, blueberries, apple and cinnamon... anything as long as it is sweet, Luke’s favourite is plain caster sugar and a squeeze of lemon. Little Ollie is not quite ready for pancakes yet so had fruit and vanilla yoghurt, but we did give him a little taste of ice-cream, which he loved and after the initial shock of the cold he kept on licking his lips wanting more.

After our massive pancake consumption before bed, Luke read Harry this book, which we all found very funny.

(Warning – the wolf eats more than just pancakes)

Pancake Day was great!

A little ray of sunshine

This brightened up my Monday morning.

Thank you Holly from Its a mummy’s life for passing on The Sunshine Award. Holly said that she nominated my blog because I am as she says ‘a lovely Sunshine-y person’ isn’t that great, thank you very much!

So now for the fun bit, I get to pass the award on and nominate blogs that I love to read, here they are:

Lindsay and Company
Bilbified
The NurtureStore
Different Dog Blog
Retro Wife
Sunny day today mama
Date at the Tate
Hawthorn Hill
Playing by the book
Mummy from the heart
Home Baked

I Love your blogs!!!

To all the people I have nominated, there is no pressure, I know it is not everyone's cup of tea to have to pass the award on to others. I just thought it would be a bit of fun for a Monday and a great way for people to visit new blogs. Have fun if you do decide to take part x


PS: here are the rules for accepting this award.
•Put the Logo on your sidebar, or within a post.
•Pass the award onto 12 Bloggers.
•Link the nominees within your post.
•Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
•Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Valentines Creations

Harry and I have been creating some things for Valentine’s Day. We made sweet little cards for some of our friends and family as well as baking fairy cakes and decorating them with giant heart marshmallows for Harrys friends at nursery.

Making cards gave me the perfect reason to use my new alphabet stamps and I was really pleased with the cute results – cant show pictures of them all as it would spoilt the surprise for the people receiving them.

Wordless Wednesday - I love yoghurt!!

Simple soup and Rustic round loaf

This week I have made us this lovely and soo simple soup and bread, I throught would share the recipe.

Simple Vegetable and Red lentil Soup

1 tbs Olive oil
1 Onion, finely chopped
2 Cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 Stick of celery, chopped
1 Cup of red split lentils, washed thoroughly in cold water
2 Carrots, peeled and chopped
1 Parsnip, peeled and chopped
2 White potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 Sweet potato, peeled and chopped
1 Leek, washed and chopped
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
Season to taste
500ml of vegetable stock
1 litre water

Heat a large saucepan over a medium heat, add olive oil and fry the onion, garlic and celery for a few minutes.
Add in the rest of the ingredients, cover and simmer for about 50 minutes or until all the vegetables are soft.
Remove from heat and whiz it up with a blender.
This recipe is so easy and you can really add any other vegetables you have that need to be used up, I sometimes add broccoli or a handful of peas nearer to the end of the cooking time. You may need to add a little more water as you add more vegetables.
It will serve 6 so I often freeze half in anticipation of one of those cold, wet, grey days when we need some wholesome soup to warm us up.


Round Rustic Loaf

500g Very strong white bread making flour, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tsp Salt
25g Butter, diced
1 tsp Easy bake dried yeast
300ml Hand-hot water

Place flour in a big mixing bowl, add the salt and butter and rub into the flour using your fingertips, until there are no lumps of butter left.
Stir the yeast into the mixture until it is evenly combined.
Make a little well in the centre of the mixture and pour in the water, mix quickly using a fork to form soft dough.
Using your hands draw the mixture into a ball and turn out onto a lightly floured surface.
Knead the dough for about 15 minutes until it no longer feels sticky and is smooth and elastic.
Shape in to a ball and place onto a baking sheet, dust with flour.
Cover the dough and baking sheet loosely with an oiled piece of cling film and leave in a warm place for about 1 ½ hours until the dough has doubled in size.
Uncover and using a sharp knife cut a shallow cross pattern into the surface.
Place the baking sheet in to a cold oven, leaving room above it for the loaf to rise. Turn oven to 220c, gas mark 7 and bake for 25-30 minutes.
The bread should be golden brown and when you tap the bottom of the loaf it should sound hollow – if not place it back into the oven for 5 more minutes.
Leave to cool – if you can resist the temptation of warm bread!!

Proud to be called Mummy

At lunchtime while the boys were napping I thought I would see what is going on in blog land. I came across this post from It’s a mummy’s life which was responding to another blog about why they are proud to be called Mummy (as opposed to parent or mother, who some were saying was a better label for what we do?). I left a little comment on her post and carried on my day. However, this afternoon I started thinking about the post and decided to write a little one of my own.

These are some of the reasons why I feel proud to be a Mummy today.

This morning, while Harry was at nursery, I went out to do the food shopping with Ollie. We were happily going around the supermarket laughing at each other and with Ollie blowing raspberries from his trolley seat, when we were stopped by an elderly lady who wanted to look at the ‘little man’. Ollie gave her the biggest smile and made cute noises, we stopped to chat to her for a while and she told us about her grown up family and it was very nice. At the end of our conversation she said to me what an adorable son I have, I was so proud. We did actually get stopped a couple more times by different people who wanted to coo at Ollie, he was very happy to have all the attention and he made a few people smile in the process.

The second proud event happened a bit later on, when I arrived to collect Harry from his morning at nursery. He was busy playing when he looked up and saw me from across the room, gave me the biggest smile, dropped the cars he was playing with and ran over to me and shouting ‘Mummy!! ’. He was so happy to see me and I was just as happy to see him, I am so proud that he has become such a fun loving, confident little boy (and that he loved seeing me more than playing cars!).

I love being a Mummy, there is nothing I would rather be (in the good times and the bad) and I think it is all I have ever really wanted to be and I am proud of that. I know a lot of people would think there is more to life or that I should maybe ‘get a life’ but I don’t care, my boys make me the happiest of all.

Weekend Highlights by Harry

Normally on a Monday morning I would write a little post reviewing my weekend:

Which this weekend would have included, our at home movie night were we watched a really sweet film, 500 days of summer which has an awesome soundtrack featuring one of my favourite songs by The Temper Trap. And the relaxing Sunday we spent at my parent’s house, where mum cooked us a delicious slow roast leg of lamb with butter beans and we ate homemade pastries.

But this Monday instead of me going on, I thought I would write about Harrys highlights from the weekend instead:

 

Harry's weekend highlights

1. The bouncy castle at his friend Henry’s 3rd birthday party
2. Eating two cakes and four party ring biscuits for lunch at the party
3. Sitting in a Fire engine at the Fire station charity car wash for Haiti
4. Driving Daddy’s car along while the Fireman washed it (on Daddy's lap)
5. Watching Charlie and Lola with his muzzy before bed
6. Chasing Nanny and Granddad’s dog around the garden
7. Trying to ride the dog like a horse
8. Riding his trike to the sweet shop with Granddad pushing him
9. Eating chocolate
10. Playing with Uncle Jack, Uncle Andy and Rachael climbing on all the cushions from the sofa
11. Playing cars with Daddy
12. Eating a bit more chocolate
13. Staying up until 8.30pm on Sunday

What a great weekend!

Fish Friday

My Nan always used to cooked fish on a Friday, it was one of her many little 'things' -  like it was always roast on a Sunday, wash day Wednesday, thinking that turning the TV off in the afternoon was a good way to let it 'rest' and the strange thing of putting everything into a little plastic bag before putting it into a container or into her handbag.

 When I am planning our family’s meals for the week I often find myself putting a fish dish in Friday’s space of the chalk board. So I thought today I would post, what is probably my families favourite fish dish and what we are having for dinner tonight.

Salmon baked in honey, mustard and cherry tomatoes

Ingredients

2 Salmon fillets
2 Tbps Olive Oil
3Tbps Honey
3 Tbps Wholegrain mustard
1 Garlic clove, chopped
Cherry tomatoes, halved (enough to cover both salmon fillets)
Half a lemon

Rub Olive oil over the salmon fillets.
Place the salmon fillets on to two separate pieces of silver foil (you will be making them into parcels at the end).
Mix the honey and mustard and spread on top of the fillets.
Scatter over the garlic.
Place the halved tomatoes on top; make sure they are close together, covering the whole of the fillet.
Squeeze lemon over the top and draw the foil up to meet above the fillets, making a parcel.
Bake in the over for about 30min at 190c, until the salmon has cooked through.

Serve on a bed of wild rice with steamed green beans.

It is so simple and quick to do. Enjoy x

Wordless Wednesday

Ollie - taken by Harry

January is over...

And February the month of LOVE is here!

Cheesy I know, but I did say I wanted to practice my photoshop skills this week

We made pink vanilla scented play dough

This is the easiest thing to make, and you can make it in any colour and add scent too for fun.

There are loads of ways to make play dough, here is how I make it:

2 Cups plain flour

2 Cups warm water

1 Cup Salt

2 Table spoons sunflower oil

1 Table spoon cream of tartar

Food Colouring and essential oil

Mix all the ingredients (apart from the food colouring and essential oil) together in a saucepan and stir over a low heat.

It will begin to thicken, keep stirring. When the dough pulls away from the sides and forms a clump in the middle remove from the heat. (If it is still sticky you need to carry on heating it in the saucepan)

Turn out the dough and knead

Divide the dough into balls ready for colouring

Now mix food colouring and essential oil in to each of the balls and knead. (I always wear plastic gloves)

It makes quite a lot but it stores well in an air tight container or you can give some to your friends.