I’ve spent the last few weeks searching for a winter coat for Poppy. I knew the type of coat I wanted for her, something simple and warm, ideally a soft, navy duffle coat with a hood. And I’ve just found the perfect coat in John Lewis…
I love the simplicity and classic styling of this coat and teamed with this cute red beanie hat from Next, I know she’ll be warm and stylish during the cold winter months ahead!
I’ve just been talking to my 4 year old about writing a letter to Santa and how it’s important to make a list, so he knows what to get her. This got me thinking of my own list at her age. What were the must-have toys of the eighties? What were the toys I circled in our copy of the Argos catalogue every year? Here’s what I came up with…
1) A Care Bear – I saw the Care Bear movie at our local cinema and remember being obsessed by the cuddly toys. It had to be the pink one with a heart, not the brown one!
2) Teddy Ruxpin – The amazing and original talking bear. I never got one and remember being very jealous of my friend who did.
3) Mr Frosty – I wanted one of these for years and had it on my list every Christmas. What a disappointment when I finally got one! The most unchild-friendly contraption ever!
4) A Rainbow Brite Doll – I was mad about this brightly coloured doll! And remember watching the animated series on TV. They should bring this back!
5) Jem and the Holograms Dolls – I loved the cartoon version of this too and was obsessed with the dolls, especially Jem and her special earrings that lit up. Jem was is a girl band called the Holograms and they had a rival band called the Misfits (who were evil).
6) A Play-Doh Barber Set – Good old Play Doh is still going strong but this was my childhood version of the Magic Swirl Ice Cream Shoppe!
7) A My Little Pony – I really wanted the pink one. Although, ended up with an orange one with apples on the side. I think he was called Apple Jack.
8) A Cabbage Patch Kid – This was another annual request! It was a big disappointment every year when Santa didn’t deliver on this one. Turns out my mum didn’t like them and decided that it wasn’t going to happen. I still feel slightly deprived by this.
9) A Fashion Wheel – I genially thought I was going to be a fashion designer after I got this genius toy. Can you still get them? Might look this up for my daughter.
10) A Sindy House – Yes it was Sindy back then. Where is she now? She was the British rival to Barbie and had a slightly fuller figure. Her house was epic!
11) The Fisher Price Adjustable Skates – Another big childhood disappointment, they were just unusable. I then got a pair of navy roller boots with a rainbow up the side, which were much better.
12) A Glow Worm – Not like the ones you can get now, these were green and substantial. I loved this toy so much!
Other favourites were Pound Puppies, Sweet Secrets, a Speak ‘n Spell, a Rubik’s Magic (not the cube, although we did have one of those too) and Keypers. Can you remember any of these or have some more of your own?
This is one of my favourite pictures and is now over two years old. It was taken on my bed a few mornings after we brought Poppy home from the hospital. I love the way they’re looking at each other so intensely, just getting to know one another with no words or contact, just a look.
On Sunday my 4 year old daughter broke her ankle, which means she’s missed the last week of school. She’s been so brave, despite being in pain and missing her friends. So to cheer her up, I decided to organise a little end of half term party for her and her school friends.
After spending a few hours on Pinterest, I’d found some great party food ideas and felt inspired to go with a Halloween theme. So last night I popped out to our local grocery shop and picked up some jelly, chocolate, custard, cakes, tangerines and some snake shapes sweets. Here’s what we ended up with…
The final set table…
Love this simple idea using a permanent marker and tangerines.
You can’t go too far wrong with jelly, chocolate custard and sweets!
Cup cakes are always a firm favourite, especially dressed up with snake sweets.
Keeping to the Halloween colours and theme.
As you can see from the pictures above, I also had a very stylish ‘Halloween Party Kit’, which I’d been sent by FeatherGrey.co.uk. Feather Grey is an online party shop, specialising in exclusive designer invitations, tableware, accessories and personalised party gifts. They sent me their new Halloween Kit (£15.95) and twelve Dessert Pots (75p each), which is what I used in the above pictures. The products are all of the highest quality and the designs are really lovely. I especially loved the dessert pots, they really made an impact on the table and I know I’ll be using them again and again.
Keeping to the Halloween colours, I decided to half fill these pots with orange jelly and top them up with chocolate custard. I made chocolate custard by melting 100g of dark chocolate with a can of ready made custard – easy and delicious! In the other pots I had strawberry jelly with snake sweets wriggling out from the sides.
These two had a great time and loved their Tesco costumes. Poppy was a little devil and Lili (with a poorly foot) was a glamorous witch.
Disclaimer: I was not paid for this review, I honestly believe in the Feather Grey products and would highly recommend their range. They also have a selection of other themes for girls, boys and adult parties.
Linking up to #BrilliantBlogPosts #TheOrdinaryMoments
I’ve had a few days away from my laptop this week. We went to Kew Gardens on Sunday, a place I’ve wanted to go to for years, we only live around half an hour away but for some reason we’d never made the journey. As always I took lots of photos and we had a great day. That was until the very end, when my little sunshine fell and broke her foot. She’d been running around all day and was having a great time at the playground just before we were ready leave. She decided to come down the fireman pole by herself, which was much too big for her little arms, half way down she let go and dropped straight to the floor.
So after a beautiful day spent in one of London’s beauty spots, we spent the evening in our local A&E. Lili was (and continues to be) so brave. It breaks my heart to see her little leg in a cast but she keeps smiling and telling me not to worry. Don’t you love the resilience of a 4 year old?
If you’ve never been to Kew Gardens, I highly recommend a visit. It really is a beautiful place, where you can walk along the tree tops and wonder through a Japanese and Mediterranean garden, amongst other things.
You can now understand why it has taken me a few days to look at these pictures but here are some of my favourite shots from our visit to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew. And should give you a flavour of our day, before the fall…
The joy of climbing a tree.
Sisters.
Running along the tree tops.
The view from the tree tops…
Enjoying the Japanese garden.
Another shot from the Japanese garden.
Just taking in the colours of this beautiful day.
The Royal Botanical Garden
Cuddles with my girls
Linking up to #CountryKids
This picture was taken over two years ago. It was the first time Lili ever made a cake with her mam-gu (Welsh for gran, in case you were wondering). Today, she loves baking and helping in the kitchen…
Welcome to our brand new Sunday Stars linky, a place for you to share your favourite posts each week.
Myself and a group of lovely bloggers have decided to start this linky together. We wanted to create a place where all our favourite posts from the week could be easily shared and then thought why not let everyone join in! We’re going to take it in turns each week to host but we’ll all be commenting and re-tweeting throughout the week.
This linky is designed to give everyone a place to show off their favourite posts and make sure they don’t go unread. So for this week it’s myself and Amy from Everything Mummy who’s hosting and we can’t wait to read your star posts!
Tweet your posts to either of us and @SundaysStars using the hashtag #sundaystars and we’ll RT. We’ll also be pinning your posts to the Sunday Stars pinterest board.
Next weeks hosts will be the lovely Karen from Mini Travellers and Jess from Mummy of Boy Girl Twins so keep an eye out for them next Sunday.
The Rules:
• You can link up to 3 post old or new, anything that you are really proud of and want to share.
• Add our badge or a link at the bottom of your posts.
• Share the love – try and comment on at least three other posts. After all that’s what it’s all about.
Did you know the iconic Burberry trench coat is now 100 years old? It was initially designed as an alternative to the heavy greatcoats worn by soldiers in the First World War (developed prior to the war but adapted for use in the trenches, hence its name).
Over a century later and the trench coat (or Mac) is as popular as ever, a classic coat that will never go out of style and loved equally by men and women. I for one have the Burberry Trench high up on my ‘dream designer’ wish list. However, until I win the lottery, I’ll have to make do with the high street versions.
Here’s my pick of the best on the market…
From left to right
1) Topshop £79
2) Topshop £69
3) Mango £69.99
Linking up to #FashionFriday
Yes, you read that right, there is a Hello Kitty Secret Garden! We found out about this exciting fact from a flyer my daughter picked up at the theatre last week. The flyer was for Drusillas Park, in East Sussex and on the cover was a picture of Hello Kitty and the words ‘New for 2014’.
Now, to say that my daughters are fans of Hello Kitty would be an understatement. My eldest daughter was given a Hello Kitty soft toy when she was just six months old and instantly it became a favourite. So as you can imagine, the girls were pretty excited when I told them on Sunday morning that we were going to see Hello Kitty. Drusillas Park is around an hours drive from our house in Surrey, so we set off reasonably early with two very (for a change) obedient little girls.
The Zoo
The Park is in fact a zoo, although as its tagline says it’s ‘No Ordinary Zoo’. I completely agree with this statement, it’s so much more than just a zoo and is ideal for younger children. The animals on display are active and fun – basically lots of leaping monkeys and no empty enclosures on this zoo trail!
There are no big animals but this adds to the charm, as I personally don’t like seeing larger animals held captive. We especially loved the monkeys, meerkats, birds, llamas and penguins. Interaction is a big theme, you can walk amongst the lemurs, feed the birds and chat with the animal hands who are more than happy to talk about the creatures. They’ve also made a huge effort to ensure that the kids are educated on all the animals, which I found so impressive. There are voiceovers, games, challenges and the zoolympics – all of which we really enjoyed.
More than a Zoo
As I’ve already mentioned the park is more than a zoo. During our visit we also rode on ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, ran around the numerous play areas (there are three in total, one is a water park, which was not open on Sunday but would be great fun in the summer months) and got lost in the ‘Eden’s Eye’ maze.
Of course, as I’ve already mentioned, the big pull for us was the new ‘Hello Kitty land’ – as the girls called it. The Hello Kitty Secret Garden has three fun rides, a photo spot with (a plastic) Hello Kitty and a Hello Kitty house, where the kids can get their face painted (and meet Hello Kitty on certain days). Lucky for us, there were no queues on Sunday morning, so the girls literally ran around from the tea cups to the Kitty cars and the jumping cloud ride, again and again.
We went to Drusillas because of the Hello Kitty Secret Garden but we got so much more out of our visit and we’ll go back for the zoo, the play areas and of course the rides.
Park Details
Drusillas Park is located in Alfriston, Ease Sussex and is open every day of the year except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Summer Opening (BST) is 10am – 6pm with last admission at 5pm. Car Park closes at 6:15pm.
Winter Opening (GMT) is 10am – 5pm with last admission at 4pm. Car Park closes at 5:15pm.
Prices for a family of three start at £37.50 and a family of four start at £50. For more information on opening times and prices, click here.
These pictures should give you a taste of our day…
Linking to #CountryKids
We’ve been making this ‘Rice Krispie Chicken’ for years now! It’s a healthier version of your usual fried chicken or processed nuggets and so quick and easy to make. As you can see from the pictures below, my girls like to get ‘stuck in’ and help in some ‘conveyor-belt cooking’.
Ingredients (for a family of four)
4 skinless and boneless chicken fillets, cut into strips or goujons
250g Rice Krispies
Mayonnaise
Salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
2. Put the cereal and some salt and pepper in a bowl and lightly crush with your fingers.
3. Put the mayonnaise and seasoned crushed cereal mix in 2 separate shallow bowls, ready for dipping.
4. Dip each piece of chicken first in the mayonnaise, rubbing off any excess, before dipping into the crushed rice krispies.
5. Place the covered chicken on a prepared baking tray and bake in the oven for 35 minutes until golden, turning half way.
I like to serve them with sweet potato chips and peas.
Do give this recipe a go, you’ll be surprised at how easy they are to make, how moist the chicken is (due to the mayo) and how crispy they are!
Linking up to: #TastyTuesday
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