Yesterday we went to Old Holly Farm which isn’t too far from where we live. We managed to get out quite early again so we could go and have a fun morning but still get home in time for lunch and for Gabe to have his nap at home. Read more
I’ve been on a weight loss mission since my 39th birthday at the end of May. So far I have lost a total of 17 lbs and most of that has been following the Shake That Weight VLCD. I have been keeping a diary of my thoughts and feelings as I edge closer to my goal weight and you can read the previous Fit by 40 posts here. Read more
If you saw my post about the cake we made for Toby’s fourth birthday recently then you may have noticed me mention my fool proof sponge cake recipe. Well, I thought that sponge cake deserved a post all of its own. So here is my step-by-step guide to the perfect fool proof sponge cake, and if you are a seasoned baker then please forgive me if I am patronising you – I really wanted to go basic so that anyone can follow this recipe and get great results every time. Read more
It’s that time of week when another blogger is going to be sharing their childhood memories. This week’s Remembering Childhood comes from Lauren from Sophie’s Nursery.
1980s
My earliest memory is going on holiday to Wales with my mum, dad, nan, grandad and great gran! Read more
I can’t really think what we did last week – the weather was pretty awful so we did quite a lot of staying at home and playing with trains! My mum and dad came back from their holidays so we went to see them on Friday and the boys got a load of freebies that they had picked up when they were watching the Tour de France. Toby also got a little booklet that I think had come free with National Geographic – it’s about surviving in the rainforest but it’s all LEGO characters and pictures. And he’s obsessed with it! He’s not stopped ‘reading’ it since he got it.
When it comes to building though we are still all about the DUPLO in our house Read more
*This is a collaborative post
My Timehop has been reminding me over the last few days that it’s a year since we moved to our new house. Moving to a new home with children can be a stressful time for everyone. During all the organisation, it’s easy to forget about the effect it’ll have on the kids. Different children will, of course, react to things differently, but it’s important that they feel involved, and there are some ways to ensure the move goes smoothly for them too, even if they are only small. Read more
It’s that time of week when another blogger is going to be sharing their childhood memories. This week’s Remembering Childhood comes from Eva from Captain Bobcat.
The ’70s. I’m nearing 40, which is the new 30. Am I right?
I’m not sure if it’s a real memory or I’ve been told this story so many times by my parents (and also have photos about it) that I think this is my earliest memory: my 4th birthday party, summer afternoon, wearing a pink and white checkered summer dress, barefoot, eating the chocolate cake (still my favourite) my mum made for my birthday and I have my friends from kindergarten over at our house. This was my first real birthday party.
A few weeks ago it was Toby’s fourth birthday. He absolutely loves the CBeebies show Numberblocks and had asked if he could have a Numberblocks cake for his birthday. ‘Sure’ I said, that can’t be too hard! To be fair the cakes themselves weren’t too tricky, it was the decoration that was the hard part. But if you’re here then I guess you’re up for the challenge of making a Numberblocks cake of your own so I’m going to share a step by step guide as to how we did it.
We made numbers one to six at Toby’s request – I was only planning on doing up to five but we had to make six as well because purple is Toby’s favourite colour. My first top tip if you are going to make a Numberblocks cake is to just make one number – if I’d have thought about it I would just have made number four for Toby’s fourth birthday!
However if you want to make more numbers like we did then you need to start with the cake. Read more
July has been another fairly quiet month for us. At the start of the month we had a trip up to the Lakes to see Barry’s mum and dad, and we went on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite railway (I’ve still got a vlog to edit about it that I’ll get round to doing one of these days).
We had Toby’s birthday this month too of course, but the celebrations were quiet ones at home. It’s Gabe’s birthday in a few weeks too and we’re planning a little family party for bot of them then.
Other than that we’ve had a few trips to the park and not much else really. Toby is slowly getting used to the idea of starting school soon, we’ve even started a countdown wall chart so it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise when it happens, and I managed to get him to try on his uniform the other day, after a bit of a protest! Read more
I don’t know what the weather has been like with you the last week but it’s been pretty awful here. We’ve managed to get out of the house a little bit but we’ve had plenty of quiet times at home too. On Friday the boys stayed in their pyjamas all day and we brought the train set down from where it had been living upstairs.
My brother and sister-in-law bought Toby a massive wooden train set for Christmas but it’s been in our spare bedroom since then. Toby has been going up to play with it sometimes but when we first got it Gabe was a bit too young to appreciate it and we could just see it causing arguments when he destroyed the track or took the trains. Read more