Friday Treats....#6 Definitely No Tricks

Good evening lovelies! Another Friday, another treat for Biscuit! 

I enjoy Halloween, but I strongly disagree with the concept of Trick or Treating. It goes against everything I tell my children the other 364 days of the year. It's just a personal thing. 

Despite that I love a good Halloween accessory and I've always been a big fan of dressing up! I'd promised Biscuit that this year she could invite her friends over to enjoy a "Spooky Tea". This would mean she still got to enjoy the fun, but safely indoors. 

This week's Friday Treat is in preparation for that:

Friday Treat: Halloween Bowls, Halloween Cups, Halloween Plates, Halloween Party Bags and Halloween Party Invitations. 

Price: £1 each, so £5 in total. 

Reaction: Very, VERY, Very excited! She has taken everything but the invitations into her room "to keep them safe". I've been asked to promise faithfully we can write invitations out tomorrow despite a busy day ahead. She also wanted to know how any days until her party, and whether they could have green jelly with eyeballs inside. Yes, yes, you can! 

Have great weekends!

Love, love, 

What's going on?

It occurred to me that I have written a life update post for yonks and yonks, so I thought I'd better rectify this and let you know what's been going on round these here parts!

Two weeks ago we went to my dear friend Berg's beautiful wedding. It was so lovely. Apart from the bit where My Darling Boy got a migraine and had to have a little sleepy in the car. Poor love! One of the most memorable things was the amazing samba in the evening. It was ruddy bloody brilliant! Probably the closet I will ever get to Mardi Gras and certainly one to remember! 

Last weekend we had lunch with two of our lovely pals. They are both our children's Godparents and we are so, so lucky to call them our friends. They rock! They told us that not only are they about to buy their first house, but they're also expecting their first baby. Happy news indeed!

After enjoying a lovely lunch together we all went for a stroll through their local park. It had a bandstand with a fantastic brass band playing, I love a brass band! Wheel me over and park me in front of one when I'm an old bird! But I will be needing a tartan blanket...

I had a bit of a splurge in Sainsbury's last week, they had 25% off all their clothing so I took advantage and snaffled myself this little piece of gorgeous:

At only £22.50 it would have been rude not to, right? And I deserved it!  I've rather wonderfully managed to lose an entire stone in weight! I've been religiously calorie counting using an excellent app called My Fitness Pal. I've got a little way to go yet, but I'm very pleased with my progress. 

Having said that, I'm going to have to be a bit careful this weekend, it's my Mum and Dad's Ruby Wedding Anniversary. My Aunt and Uncle are coming to visit and I haven't seen them for ages. I can't wait! We're all going to a lovely swanky restaurant in Sunday to celebrate. I'm so excited! 

Hope you all have great weekends too! 

Love, love,

The Active Life....#6 Bowlin', Bowlin', Bowlin'...

 

This weekend saw Biscuit trying out something new. She'd been talking to a friend at school who'd been bowling with her Daddy and decided that she'd like to give it a try. We were happy to agree, the weather wasn't great this weekend and we knew we would be busy all day Sunday so we thought it'd be a good idea. I can't go bowling. It's not pretty. I get Bowling Rage. In stage one I get competitive, stage two means I get sulky. I am ashamed. 

Biscuit however took to it like a duck to water! No fear, no caution, just a lot of fun! 

We'll be going back on another rainy day.

No Bowling Rage for my girl!  

The last shot shows Biscuit's slightly nervous peering through Daddy's legs to see what's happening pose. Crazy. 

Hope you've all been busy, busy, busy too!

Love, love,

The Incredible Smugness of Soup...

I love squash. I love the look of them, the colour of them and they are both delicious and easy to cook.   However, I don't like faffing about trying to peel them and chop them so any recipe that doesn't involve me skinning my knuckles trying to do just that is a good one by me!

Last week I decided to go crazy and buy a butternut squash from Aldi for all of 89p. I used it to make the most delicious, but incredible simple soup.  Honestly it couldn't be easier, it's the kind of thing you shove  in the oven and leave whilst you get in with something more important. 

You simply:

Scrub the skin of your butternut squash really well. This is important as it forms part of the meal. Chop it in half, remove the seeds and put them to one side.

Rub the flesh with olive oil, season and place in a roasting tray together with two fairly large potatoes and one red onion.  I hate this picture, it makes my baking tray look hideously grubby, but trust me it is clean, just well loved!!! I also added one clove of peeled garlic which I halved. Each half went into the neat little hole in the squash. 

Bake the whole lot in the oven for around 45 mins to 1 hour, until lovely and squashy (excuse the pun, hahahaha).

On a separate tray place the washed and dried squash seeds coated with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper. Toast the seeds for around 10 minutes until they look crunchy and golden. 

Once the vegetables have cooked and they're lovely and soft, scoop them out if their skins and add them to vegetable stock.  Blend until nice and smooth.  Heat through so it's lovely and piping hot.  I use the end pieces of sliced bread, which nobody in our house seems to like eating, so make croutons.  Chopped into little squares, and toasted in a pan with a little salt and a little butter.  Don't do what I did and get distracted by a spot of washing up, as those pesky, but delicious little squares can catch in moments.  Lesson learnt!

Serve your soup with the croutons and the toasted seeds on top.  Forgot to take a picture, belly over brain.....

In fact, one squash and two potatoes made so much soup I had to refrigerate some to have for my lunch another day!  Not bad huh?

Are you a soup lover or a soup hater?  Do you make your own?  If anyone can suggest any flavours to try out I'd love to hear your recipes, I'm always on the look out!

Love, love, 

39/52

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2013.

39/52 - Wiggles in her sling.  With a beak

39/52 - Biscuit copying Mummy's sling.  Beakless

During a spot of geocaching with my lovelies, I took these pictures.  I love the picture of Wiggles, her eyelashes!  I really don't know where she got those from, it wasn't me or Mr Husband, but I love them.  She has taken to sling sucking for entertainment.  I should stop her, but it's cute!

I love this picture of Biscuit too, she wanted to wear her dolly, Rosie-baby like Mummy was wearing Wiggles in her sling.  She ignored all my protestations that she should be facing the other way, but hey!  Details eh?  I love the way her hair looks scruffy, but to me she just looks shiningly beautiful.  Oh those girls, they make my heart swell up!

Friday Treats....#5 - Cheers Big Ears!

Good evening lovelies! Had a good week? Yup, me too! Once again it's time for my Friday Treats post.

This week I'd spent too long chatting over curry when I realised I had yet to buy Biscuit's treat. A quick trip to Wilko's where they had a very useful toy sale going on soon solved that! This week lucky, lucky Biscuit was honoured to receive: 

Yep, you heard me! Comedy ears! Hahaha :)

Friday Treat: Comedy Ears 

Price:  Reduced from somewhere around £2 to 50p. I have to admit that I didn't look at the full price all that closely. I was too busy chuckling at COMEDY EARS! 

Reaction: She thought they were pretty funny and particularly loved the idea of tricking her Daddy into thinking that her ears had just mutated. What more could a five year old want out of life?

Have great weekends!

Love, love, 

This weeks curry was Chicken Dhansak, with spicy mixed beans. Lovely and herby, 7/10. Mmmmmm :) 

The Active Life....#5 - Strollin', Strollin', Strollin....

 

Once again, this weekend was a busy one and we only had one day out of two to get some fresh air into the small people.  After a stressful, but necessary stroll around the supermarket in the morning we decided to hunt for some of the Geocaches that have been evading us locally.  The lovely thing about doing this is that it takes you to places you wouldn't otherwise know existed.  I carried Wiggles in her beautiful sling and spent a considerable amount of time wondering whether carting around a 24 pound baby on a two hour walk would burn off extra calories....that would be nice! Biscuit decided that she would like to have a sling of her own and with the help of an old dressing gown belt, carried her dolly on her front, just like Mummy.

We found the first cache fairly easily, we'd been unable to before due to a herd of cows that had plonked themselves right where we needed to be. This is our celebratory "We found it!" photograph, but I must admit I rather like it.  I like the fact that we're all in it, that everyone is looking at the camera (for once) and that it shows just a smidge of Mr Husband Sir's naughty Game of Thrones tattoo.  A Targaryen sigil on his lower arm for anyone who's trying to work it out...

Anyway, despite some slightly ominous looking clouds we strolled off up hill and down dale quite happily.  

When I wasn't contemplating calorie burning I was pulling what Mr Husband refers to as my "photo face".  Displayed excellently here:

Yeah, cheeeese!

I'd coloured my hair earlier in the day, a much darker brown, but one that is usually quite standard for me.  It had become so lightened my the summer sun that I felt like someone else whenever I looked in the mirror, so I'm glad to be back to my old familiar...

In the end we found a beautiful lake, right in the middle of nowhere, that I didn't know existed!  A lovely reward for our efforts!  There's nothing I like more than a walk.

Here's Biscuit staring out and looking thoughtful. It's unusual for her to sit still! 

Hope you've all been busy, busy, busy too!

Love, love,