Wednesday 31 December 2014

Good Bye 2014

Well 2014 is all but over and I for one am so glad!

This year didn't start out the best, my lovely great aunt died at the end of January. She had taken ill at start of December and we knew she didn't have long left.

Then we lost my nannie end of May, well that completely destroyed me as I was so close to her and James absolutely adored her.

But on a happier note I started this blog and have made so many new blogger friends.

2014 ends on a good note though as my best friend is making me an auntie end of May and I'm so excited for her and her husband. They are the best aunt and uncle to James and he absolutely adores them.

2015 well I hopefully we will be buying a house and have just had a mortgage agreed in principle. So its time to start house hunting so we can finally lay down some proper roots for James especially as he is due to start nursery school in September. And of couse get the dog we have been wanting since we got together!

March will see our 4th wedding anniversary and then just after James turns 3 we will be celebrating 7 years together.

April is a big month for me as I turn thirty eeek!!!

So its good bye 2014 and Hello 2015!!!

Monday 29 December 2014

Big Reunion Boybands - The Photos Part One!


Well this concert was actually at the end of October and its taken me till now almost the end of December to actually get onto the laptop at home and sort out all the photographs I took at the show and Share a few on the blog!

Tonight I'm going to share a selection from the first half of the show, although I cannot really say first half of the show seeing as they got rid of the interval due to all the bus problems the poor boy bands had on the way up from Liverpool the night before!

First up its A1








5ive





Damage




911






5th Story





3T





And Finally for this post 

BLUE!!!!!




Look Out for part two coming in the next few days!

Thursday 25 December 2014

Christmas 2014

So that's it over and done with for another year!!

Next year I'm definitely going to try and be even more organised than I was this year even though I was still buying Andy little bits last week.

So was James spoilt??? Of course he was!
His main present was his own tablet! Yes I know he is only two but he can work YouTube better than me and I'm almost 30 (eek). He's spent last few months totally obsessing over my iPad and daddies Google nexus wanting to watch his nursery rhymes and also helicopters, fire engines and erm bin lorries on YouTube, so getting him his own seemed like a brilliant idea as it would stop him stealing ours and also means I can get some work done using the iPad again!!

He also got a remote controlled car from Andys parents and a digger, a fleecy jacket and best of all his very own camera from my parents! My best friend got him a thomas book with some figures which he loved and my mums sister got him a my first drum kit lol which will probably be going to live at nana and gagas house in the near future!!! 

We were expecting an early start from James as he normally wakes up between half five and half six, but no today he decided to sleep in and wake at nearer to eight am!! He must be taking after his mummy as apparently when I was a child my parents would have to wake me up on Christmas Day!!! 

Other little bits he got were some push along thomas and friends trains -Thomas, Percy mad Harold, a George pig dressed as Mr dinosaur, and probably his all time favourite - grandpas little train. He loves the train so much lol the episodes about it in peppa are his favourites now he can play with it and sing the song all day long! 

I'm just wondering when I'm going to have to change the batteries in it as it's been on all day!!!


Sunday 21 December 2014

Chocolate and Orange Cookies

So as its Christmas and I'm currently obsessed with baking again I'm going to share my recipe for chocolate and orange cookie.

All the ingredients are weighed in ounces as its a basic recipe I got from a cooking program a few years ago:

4oz caster sugar
8oz butter (I used Stork)
10oz plain flour

I then added
1 bag chocolate chips
Zest of one orange
Splash of the juice from one orange

1. Beat the butter and sugar together till pale and fluffy.

2. Add in the zest, chocolate chips and splash of the juice.

3. Add in the flower spoon by spoon, you made need to add a few extra spoons of flour depending on how much juice you add. 

4. Wrap dough in cling film and chill in fridge for at least an hour. (I actually left batch in fridge 24 hours and it was brilliant)

5. Flour work surface and roll half the dough into a long sausage

6. Cut chunks of dough about a centimetre wide, roll into a ball and slightly flatten.

7. Put in oven on gas mark 4 or 170/160 fan for 10-12 minutes 





 

Tuesday 16 December 2014

No Heating argh

It's every parents worst nightmare - the boiler going off meaning no heating or hot water.

We noticed a puddle of water on the floor under ours at the weekend, so notified our landlord who got someone to look at it last night. 

A part needs replacing so that's being done tonight, but we woke up this morning with nothing - no heating at all so today has been a day of layers, hot drinks and lots of sunggles under a duvet for mummy and James. 

Friday 12 December 2014

Sudocrem Moisturising Mousse

DSo as you can see from one of my previous posts, we won a goody bag from Sudocrem a few weeks ago. One of the products was their moisturising mousse.

James seems to go through phases of having dry skin on his legs, so this product couldn't have come at a better time. 

We have been using it on his whole body on a night after he has a bath and it seems to be doing the trick his dry skin is not as bad as it was. 

The only downside is the can costs £8.99 but it is brilliant stuff and you only need a tiny bit to do whole body.


**we won this in a facebook giveaway and were not paid for this review**

Sunday 7 December 2014

Sudocrem Goody Bag Prize

So a week past Friday, November 28th, I was browsing my facebook timeline and saw a post from sudocream saying they had three goody bags to give away and all you needed to do was comment #imexcited in the comment box. 

So I did his and forgot all about it till a few days later when I saw they had replied to my comment saying I was one of the winners. I gave them my mums address as I work there two days a week and there is normally always someone home when the post comes. 

They goody bag came on Friday and I opened it last night when I got to her house. There was a tube of the new care and protect cream, a tube of normal cream and a can of their moisturising mousse.   There was also a cuddly mousse which James has already claimed lol!!! 

 


Silent Sunday

Thursday 27 November 2014

Remembering loved ones at Christmas

2014 hasn't been the best year for my family. 2013 ended bad and 2014 started bad.

On 3rd December last year my dad got a phone call that his wonderful aunt had collapsed and was take to the RVI at Newcastle.

It was the next day when we found out she had actually had a spinal stroke. Unlike a stroke where blood clot goes to the brain, in a spinal stroke the blood clot goes to the spine and basically paralysed you. My lovely great aunt was basically paralysed from the chest down.

She caught many chest infections before the final one, when she finally lost her fight on 28th January.

My dad has always talked about the little westie she used to have and how much she used to spoil him. So when looking at the Christmas shop in John Lewis we spotted a westie tree decoration and knew we had to buy it in her memory.



Then in May we lost my Nannie, which I blogged about at the time, so yes 2014 hasn't been great. James though has kept us all going. We just need to find the perfect decoration for our tree in memory of nannie. 


Friday 7 November 2014

Homemade vegetable soup

So now that winter is creeping in, homemade warm food is a must! 

Today I decided with the quantity of vegetables we had in, I would make up a batch of vegetable soup for lunch and also for the freezer.

This batch consisted of leeks, carrots, swed, sweet corn and onions. 

The carrots and swed were put in boiling water in one pan and the leeks, sweet corn and onion went into our wok with hot water.

 

Once they were soft they were laidled into our blender and blitzed to a purée.


Once it was blitzed it was poured into a large bowl to await serving.


It was totally yummy and plenty left to be frozen for another day.


 

Saturday 1 November 2014

Big Reunion Boybands

Argh what a night we had!!! 

The show was amazing. I'm guessing most people heard about the drama that went on after the Liverpool show on the Tuesday night, where the bus broke down again!! The poor boys finally got to Carlisle at 6am. They then left Carlisle at 1pm in a new bus and finally got into Aberdeen at 6:45pm. They had to move the meet and greet to after the show instead!!

Ok onto the bands:
A1 - I had last seen them about 10 years ago and omg I swear they have got better looking with age! Ben Adams is still a hottie! 

911 - I saw them a few months ago on their own tour, just days before this tour was announced.

Damage - I had never seen them before so wasn't sure what to expect.

Blue - Well I last saw them years ago, think it was 2004, when I went to their album launch at a club in Leeds. They were just as good as I remember.

3T - I used to love their music, just not really them, I think it was the fact they were Jackson family that put me off.

5th Story - this band was put together by itv of ex solo and band members. We had Dane Bowers, Kenzie, Adam Rickett, Gareth Gates and Kavana. They were absolutely brilliant would love to see them again!! 

So due to the late arrival after the Liverpool show and they bus changes, the show was late starting, so they just scrapped the interval so the show finished on time. It was so much easier to get out of the AECC than Newcastle arena. We were back in the car and on our way by about twenty to eleven.

Demanding toddler hasn't given me a chance to download the proper camera photos, but these are the snaps off my Samsung S3. Will do a photo post when I have downloaded them!