• baking - gingerbread - gingerbread house - recipe

    Gingerbread and butter pudding

    Not sure what to do with that lovingly created gingerbread house? Why not make it into a tasty gingerbread and butter pudding? My romantic Valentine-themed gingerbread house needed to make room for my Easter-themed gingerbread house but I didn’t want to throw it away. The gingerbread was quite thin so I thought it might make a delicious gingerbread and butter pudding. Here’s what I did. You need: a gingerbread house, deconstructed a couple of slices of bread, buttered 1/2 pint of skimmed milk 100ml double cream 2 eggs 1 spoonful of granulated sugar Method: deconstruct your gingerbread house, removing any…

  • Uncategorized

    Where my son gets Chicken pox and I don’t realise

    You may remember a couple of weeks ago I was invited to an event to learn more about chicken pox. I’m ashamed to say that I obviously didn’t learn anything as a week later Big Brother, you guessed it, caught chicken pox! In hindsight he must have caught it at nursery when he attended his Monday session. When he woke up on Thursday the skin around his mouth was covered in spots but I thought nothing of it and packed him off to nursery. I picked him up as usual but when we went to hop on the bus home…

  • baby - playing - toddler

    Fisher-Price toys for pre-schoolers

    Last week I had one of those emails which I had to re-read several times because I couldn’t believe what it contained. It asked if the children would like to test some of the latest Fisher-Price toys. I may have written back in capitals saying OF COURSE! You see I have a love affair with Fisher-Price and they are top of my list of toys I look out for in a bid to recapture the essence of childhood. I just loved my Fisher Price radio and play desk <happy sigh>. Anyway, I digress. Little Sis received the Fisher-Price Tiger Stacker…

  • baking - Family Life - gingerbread

    Daffodil biscuits for spring

    The sun is shining so I thought I would make some daffodil inspired biscuits. Daffodil biscuits for spring I baked simple biscuits using a gingerbread kit from Morrisons. The kit contains a gingerbread mix with a cutter, a tube of white icing, a sachet of golden syrup and raisins, so all you need to provide is butter and 2tsp of water. The mix made a satisfying dough which came together really easily and smelled lovely. The golden syrup made it quite sticky so I used plenty of flour when rolling out the dough. Instead of using the enclosed cutter I…

  • housekeeping

    Top Tips for housework

    Today I thought I’d share with your my Top Tips for housework as you know I am a housewife extraoardinaire – juggling two young children, a husband who selfishly works from home, two cats and four fish. I love to blog, which means the housework may suffer a tiny bit, but never mind. My Top Tip is – pay someone else to do it. Seriously. I hope that doesn’t come across as terribly middle-class but it’s what we did whilst we could afford it. Unfortunately, we had a run of awful cleaners. I don’t believe any of them were actually…

  • competition - reviews

    Lalaloopsy Dolls review and giveaway

    To be honest I hadn’t heard of the Lalaloopsy but when I heard it was perfect for any young girl, especially one interested in craft, fabric, sewing and friendship, I leaped at the chance to review it with my family. If you haven’t heard of them before, Lalaloopsy are magical ragdolls who come to life when their last stitch is sewn. Each doll has their own individual personality created by the fabrics used to make them. They live in a colourful, whimsical world full of fun and surprises. Sew magical. Sew cute. We really enjoyed watching Adventures in Lalaloopsy Land:…

  • Gingerbread house finds - shopping - vintage

    Gingerbread house finds

    Amongst the piles of Thomas the Tank Engine and Bob the Builder puzzles I managed to sneak in this lovely vintage puzzle on my latest shopping trip. I absolutely love it, it shows the traditional independent shops you’d expect to see on your high street before the big supermarkets wiped them out – the baker, grocer, toy shop, greengrocer, chemist, Post Office, butcher and bank. The pieces are made from chunky board and when you remove them they reveal the inside of the shop! It’s made in England by G J Hayter & Co Ltd., Bournemouth, a member of the…

  • reviews

    The Little Green Sheep sleeping bag review

    Like many mothers I would love to clothe my children in organic clothes. Both suffer from eczema so we are really careful about the clothes we buy, the washing powder we use and cleaning products used around the house. I was offered some baby sleepwear from organic baby and bedding company The Little Green Sheep to try with Little Sis. Apparently their babygros are all organic and even the poppers are nickel free so I was happy to. We were sent one of their lovely organic sleeping bags, which contain no nasties and are made from certified organic cotton. We…

  • reviews

    Elimination Communication?

    I was reading the latest issue of Mother & Baby and there was an intriguing article about Elimination Communication. Basically it means not using nappies and just knowing when your child needs the toilet. Despite being a stay at home mum I just can’t imagine having the time to do this on top of everything else. Sorry but I love nappies – reuseable and disposable – I’m happy to use both on my children, but they will wear nappies until they’re potty trained! We were sent the latest bumGenius freetime to review. You may remember some time go we tried…