Friday I'm in Love

With: Sneaky coffee dates, be it with my Husband or my children(one at a time) there's nothing nicer than a good catch up and giving total attention to that one person. 

Preferably with coffee, hot chocolate and cake involved.

With: Finding a piece of a lost and slightly forgotten project, it gave me a huge smile and gave me a kick start into doing something joyous for me.

With: Finding beautiful flowers, uncaring about the cold and flinging their little naked bright coloured goodness around my fair city.

With: The trailer for Joss Whedon's take on Much Ado About nothing, has a huge geek and Joss fan there's so much amazing-ness in this trailer my little Winter froze brain cannot cope.

Even more it's my favourite Shakespeare comedy/romance. 

This film can not get to my cinema quick enough.

What are you loving on this dreary Friday?

I'm not a baby

I'm a Big Boy.

Yes indeed you are my sweetest.

Happy 4th Birthday Lucas.

I love You.x.x

Mummy.

Maisie's Promise

This week Maisie officially became a Girl Guide entering at Rainbow level, she's been going every Monday during term time locally for about 8 months, and loves it. It gives her a different group of girls outside of school to interact with, which is really important to learn new skills and cooperation with others.

I'd always wanted to be a Girl Guide when I was little but no one did it in our area at the time, I joined the St.Johns Ambulance force and loved it.  Learning new skills(which could save a life), camping, crafting and I even met The Queen. I really wanted Maisie to be part of something like that and now she is.

She even has the badge to prove it.

 
At her Promise meeting all the newer girls stood in a circle and took turns to say the promise to the group, hers is "I will do my best to love my God and be kind and helpful" we did have a little sticking point with it has we don't really have a God. We don't practise any religion in our house choosing to let our children pick there own when older or choose not to. So Maisie was a bit unsure about this bit, she learns about religion at school so understood what they meant, but told me that when she said her promise she'd think about her family instead at that bit.
They received a small enamel badge for saying their promise, and also got 2 patches to celebrate The Diamond Jubilee and the Th Year of Rainbows.  They have been doing lots of Jubilee and birthday crafts at Rainbows the last few weeks to celebrate and I can't wait to add these to her others on her uniform. 

 

If you would like to learn more about Girl Guides click here their site has lots of useful information on how you can join in, and especially interesting is their report into girls attitude to role models.

Thanks for reading,
Amanda.x.

Longleat: Revenge of The Monkeys

Half term holidays over again, we loved Dorset so much last year we booked the same holiday house again to visit.  However this year the weather was against us again, but minus the snow and power cuts it worked out better than our other holiday this year.

Thankfully the holiday house had a swimming pool to drag (literally in my case) the children into when the weather was really bad.  

Also having been here before, we knew some places which were weather friendly. 

I love Longleat, you can use Tesco vouchers to get free passport tickets, and it has a great mixture of covered things to see and do for all ages. Although we did have some ticket issues they were quickly resolved, see Claire's post here for another take on this attraction.

This is my post from 2010 Day 1 and Day 2, quite a bit had changed since then. Much to Maisie disgust the teacups were no longer there, but everything else was and it's all been given a facelift to theme everything together in a Safari look. Previously the attractions all looked completely separate, I like that it all looks more cohesive now and can't wait to go back in a year or so when it's all completed.

I won't write everything again so feel free to look up my old posts. 

I loved seeing these guys really close up this time, you could almost here her purring over that bone.

Anne the Elephant came to give us a lovely welcome to, she doesn't always come outside as she's a little shy so this was a good treat. You can read her story here.

 So the last time we went the Monkey Enclosure was closed, but not this time. I will point out we have had our lovely car less than a month and although not brand new is still fairly shiny, the gates hanging with car parts were enough to put us off driving through. 

However Stu's Sister wanted to go with her kids as it was closed last time they came, and then Dave my Father-In-Law started to say how he wanted to see the kids looking excited at the monkeys close up. 

We were forced into it, we drove through...

This monkey owes me £8 which is the cost of a new antenna for my car, Maisie completely freaked out hearing the monkeys climbing on our roof; whereas Lucas was laughing like a loon. 

Ahh, however we were distracted from our car eating monkey by seeing, so close this lovely Mummy and her baby sitting on Claire's car in front.

As it then educated it's young in car chomping, beware the cute monkeys if you like your car. 

At this point it started to rain and there was no way we were putting the wipers on; we saw what they happened to other cars. 

We survived to go round the rest of the park though and had a great day.

What you been up to in the half term? 

Have you survived the monkeys?

Amanda.x.

Way of the Warrior

During half term we got the chance to take Maisie to Way of the Warrior, a exhibition of epic movie arms and armoury, being held at Tullie House Museum which we're lucky enough to have on our doorstep.

The props came from films such as Centurion, King Arthur, The Last Samurai and Gladiator.

This is Maisie unimpressed at the weight of the gauntlet, the exhibition is great as not only do they have the costumes on display, but most of them you can try on and get a real feel for how they would have felt wearing them. 

 Maisie styling in her helmet, having tried on these props I was surprised at how heavy they were, even ones made from new materials weighed down. I imagine it's not comfortable being an actor having to do a full day in this stuff, let alone what it would have been like in it's true era.

Just one of the full suits of amour on display.

 Ha ha. this was her favourite helmet she thought it made her look like a chicken, and a course we had to dress Daddy up too. The shield his holding was extremely heavy, I couldn't have imaged holding it for any length of time.

The display boards told you about the history of each era that the costume came from, and the comparisons to the film, they also have a competition to win a helmet which looked awesome.  

Well done Tullie for putting on another fine exhibition.

Amanda.x.

Maisie's Bread and Butter Pudding

Maisie and I have had a few conversations of late on food my Mum used to make me when I was growing up, Maisie thought Bread and Butter Pudding sounded really funny and not real pudding at all, I was shocked that it was something we'd never made together so set to put that right.

You'll need:

85g of butter

6-8(depending on dish size) slices of thick bread, we used wholemeal which gives a nutty flavour. 

55g of sultanas 

3 large eggs

300ml of milk

150ml of Double cream

55g of Caster Sugar

Some mixed spice

Handful of soft brown sugar.

 Pre heat oven to gas mark 4(about 180c) and get your helper to grease a oven proof dish. 

Cut away crusts from bread and cut into triangles, butter both sides, then lay out the bread in the dish while hiding fruit in-between each layer.

In whisking jug, add eggs, milk, cream, heaped spoonful of mixed spice and caster sugar. Whisk well, and pour over the bread in dish, leave mixture for about 20minutes so the bread can soak up the mixture. 

Poke down any sultanas not hidden well so they don't burn in the oven.

The joys of having a kitchen helper like Maisie is how proud they look when they've made something and know they'll to eat it themselves late on.

Sprinkle over handful of soft brown sugar, and and a little more mixed spice.

Place on a baking tray and into oven for about half an hour, or until golden brown on top.

 Opps, ours got a little overdone on sticky out parts but tasted delicious. Maisie was very impressed and asked what it would taste like if we put Nutella on the bread. 

People I have a genius living with me, why have I never thought of that? 

We'll keep you updated on the Nutella pudding. 

Please enjoy, and if you try our recipe and enjoy it please let me know.

Love Amanda.x.