Me and my shadow

Little Ollie has been following me around all day, he is well and truly crawling.

Where ever I go he is right there with me, smiling away.

I love those little chubby cheeks.

I love this

After a busy weekend of visitors, shopping, a great night out to celebrate Emma-Louise's birthday (mexican food, cocktails and cupcakes!!) and a BBQ, we are having a quiet week at home.

I have just finished reading this book. It is a sort of recipe book but the recipes are in with stories from Molly's life - not sure I explained that very well but it is brillant, I have loved it.

This afternoon I made banana bread with chocolate and ginger (page26) and it was soooo good.  It went really well with a big cup of earl grey, maybe a bit too well, Luke and I have already eatten over half or the loaf.

Tomorrow the weather is meant to be even warmer, so (after I have got a few jobs done) I think we will spend it in the garden, with a little walk to the ice-cream van that now seems to be permanently parked at the playground at the end of our street.

Happy St George's Day

It is St Georges day today, Englands National day.

Unfortunately it is not a public holiday, so Luke had to go to work, but he did wear his St George's Cross cufflinks. He is very proud to be English.
It is a real shame that we do not celebrate this day in the way other countries celebrate their National day although that seems to be starting to change and we saw many shops, pubs and houses displaying the the St George's cross and there was a special farmers day market in a local village near us.

I always think of this poem today, it is normally sung as a hymn. Both Luke and I liked it so much we included it in our wedding service.

Jerusalem by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountain green?

And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the countenance divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among those dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!

Bring me my arrows of desire!

Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

Happy weekend x

This is my 100th post

Happy 100th Post Day

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog and especially those of you who have left me little comments.

I hope you enjoy the next 100 posts.

X

My little thumb sucker

I was looking through some photos on my computer last night when I noticed that I have loads of Ollie sucking his thumb. This is not surprising as he loves his thumb; in fact there is nothing Ollie likes more! I couldn’t resist posting a few.

Little treats

Normally I am not a big fan of Monday's but today has been a good one. The sun has shone all day and while the boys were napping I managed to get all my jobs done, bake some more delicious raspberry friands and have 5 minutes to myself.

Raspberry Friands

1/2 cup of caster sugar
1/2 cup of plain flour
1/4 cup of ground almond
4 egg whites
125g (4.5oz) of butter, melted
A handful of raspberries, halved
Icing sugar for dusting
Madeleine molds or small fairy cake tins

Combine caster sugar, flour and ground almond in a bowl. Add the egg whites and stir well, then add melted butter and stir well to combine all the ingredients.
Spoon the mixture into the tins or molds (pre-greased if required)
Press several pieces of raspberry into the cake mixture in each tin.
Bake in the oven (350F) for 10 minutes or until the edges are golden, test the cakes by skewering with a clean knife, if it comes out clean the cake is ready.
Remove cakes from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Sprinkle with icing sugar just before serving.
You can store the friands in a air-tight container for up to a week.


Plus today is my wonderful friend and Godmother to both my son's Birthday.

Happy Birthday Emma- Louise!!!
I am so looking forward to seeing you and celebrating your special Birthday on Saturday! Hope you had a good day at work and your students went easy on you!
Have fun tonight.
Lots and love and kisses xxx

I think it will be a good week

Friday again

Wow it is Friday already! Is it me or has this week just flown by?

As I have been a bad blogger this week, I thought I would write a little summary post of my week. In no particular order, here are the high lights:

Hindu wedding
On Saturday night we went to Emma and Akhil's wedding reception. The wedding celebrations had been going on all week as Akhil comes from a very large Hindu family and there were many different ceremonies. It was a huge party with 400 people for a sit down meal, there was entertainment from amazing dancers and a wedding cake made from hundreds of little cupcakes, which were yummy. We had a brilliant night.

Rhubarb
As field grown rhubarb is in season at the moment, I brought two bunches of it on Monday and stewed them up with some brown sugar. I have kept the yummy stuff in a big container in the fridge and been enjoying it all week, on top of pancakes, in a crumble or just cold with some organic vanilla yoghurt, it has been delicious.

New shoes
I bought this really cute pair of nude ballet pumps from topshop this week. They are so pretty, I can’t wait to wear them at the weekend. New shoes always make me soo happy.

A trip to the farm
We managed to have a family day this week and took the boys to the farm to see the new baby lambs. The lambs were just too cute and I took far to many pictures of them, I could not resist. We all had a great day, seeing the animals, riding on a tractor and we even had our first picnic of the year.

Aviators
Luke brought me a pair of Ray Band aviators in the airport after he had been working away, it was a real surprise. I love them and I love that he choose them for me - they are the exact ones that I would have chosen for myself had I been there!

Happy weekend, I will try and be a better blogger next week x

It's SPRING!!!

Today to cheer me up and help out with the boys my parents and littlest brother Jack came over for the afternoon. The weather was beautiful, so we went to a near by village for ice-cream and to feed the ducks. Thought I would share some pictures of our lovely afternoon.

The weather is meant to be even more lovely over the next few days and Luke will be home to share it with us.

Happy weekend x

We miss you Daddy

Luke is away with work this week and it sucks, we all miss him so much. Tonight I had to put the boys to bed separately, which they both didn’t like one bit. Ollie went first and the whole time during his bath and bottle he moaned and kept looking about for Harry. Then it was Harry's turn, he just kept on asking for Daddy, I must have told him over fifty times Daddy was at work. When it came to story time he looked decidedly bored as I cant do all the voices and accents that Luke can, so all the characters sound the same a bit average.

Now that I have done all the tidying up, loaded the dish washer, made Ollie’s bottle, put the washing away and finally sat down, I am a bit lonely, is that weird? So I have been catching up on some blog reading and thought about this cute blog good night moon, it is letters written to a marine by his wife while he is currently deployed in Afghanistan. It makes my week without my husband sound silly, although I can’t help missing him, it did put things into perspective. Going to bed now, only two more sleeps and Luke will be home.

(I love this picture of Luke and Ollie)

Dear Luke
 Please don’t ever get a job that takes you away from us, please, please don’t!
We miss you to much
xxx

New Shoes

Yesterday Luke and I took the boys on a quick shopping trip before having lunch in the park. As a treat for Harry we let him pick out a pair of new shoes for spring. He decided on these bright red converse, they are so Harry.

He is very proud of them and when we went out this morning he stopped to show everyone his new red shoes, that he chose all by him self.

Easter Sunday

Ok, so maybe I was a bit hasty!! After chatting to a blog friend and my family I have decided to continue this blog along side my flickr site, sorry about my last post.

We have had a fantastic Easter Sunday, which started the only way Easter Sunday can with chocolate before breakfast. Then we were off to spend the day with my family for our annual egg hunt. This year Harry had a very cute 1970's yellow plastic basket to collect his eggs in.

I could not have had a more perfect day, wonderful family, delicous lamb dinner cooked by Mum, even (after days of what seems like non stop rain) the sun came out and we spent the whole afternoon in the sunshine, drinking tea and eating more chocolate.

Nanny and Grandad really spoil the boys (as they did me when I was little) and always give them a present instead of an egg. This year it was a new swing, which Uncle Matt helped try out.

The hunting

High tide at Nanny and Grandads

Dad had his canoe out in the garden for repairs ready for the summer, we saw a photo opportunity.

Happy Easter

A little blog break

Hi friends
Hope you are all well and enjoying/have enjoyed the Easter break. We are having a wonderful time, have caught up with some friends and been for a lovely walk in the Surrey downs, I am now just about to get Harry's Easter basket ready for tomorrows egg hunt.

(Harry covered in mud after his long walk)

As you can see from the title I am going to have a little break from writting this blog, well slow it down at the very least. I have decided to have a little time out and concentrate on taking photo's, which has always been my favourite part of blogging away.

You can still see what we are up to on my  flickr site. If you click on a photo on my flickr site on the right hand side under 'tags' you will see that I will be writing a mini blog type thing.

Thank you for all your lovely comments and emails, I will be blogging periodically so do pop by and it would also be great to hear from you on my flickr site.

I will of course still read and comment on all your wonderful blogs.

Lots of love
Emily x