Love the little things, week 2

What a week, I've been sooo busy! But for the second week, here's me carrying on with butwhymummywhy to appreciate the little things that have happened this week. Here goes!

Read

I had a presentation to do for university so I have read a lot of text books and journal articles...how exciting, not!

Amelia has had me reading Beatrix Potter stories to her all week. These have been her favourites

 

 

Watched

The Apprentice- My goodness! I don't even know where to start! Relationship Guru?? If Stephen bought that home for us to play I'd probably hit him with it. I'm also pretty sure someone said that you didn't have to be a "rocket surgeon"? There was also one of the contestants (is that even the right word?) who was incredibly aggressive and it made me a feel a bit awkward watching. With a few little grievances aside it still made me laugh and think if these guys can be successful in business there may be hope for me yet!

 

The Fall- I loved the first series. Sadly due to a toddler who was refusing to sleep I didn't get to see all of it but iplayer is great! Although I like this, as it is filmed in Belfast/Northern Ireland I can't help but watch it and spend most of time trying to pinpoint where its been filmed!

 

Wore

My Boden raincoat, its been a must this week sadly. The weather has been horrendous! I have no pictures sadly as I have been running about like crazy all week!

 

Heard

I love The Script! I don't think they have released a song I dislike.

 

 



Made

I have been making granny squares this week. I want to crochet Amelia a blanket. Its slow work. I'm not a very good crocheter (if that's even a word?) but I'm going to give it a go and I've definitely got quicker as the week has gone on!

 

 

Pink is sort of a must for any blanket for Amelia!

 

I've also made knitted one of a pair of leg warmers for Amelia, in grey so I don't know whether they will go down too well! But they are a definite need if the weather continues as it has been!

 

 

and lastly...

The reason I have been super busy this week is that me Stephen have decided we are going to buy a house. We rent at the minute but have had issues with our landlord appearing at the doorstep just as and when she pleases. 

 

The whole process of buying a house however seems huge and with Stephen working a lot of the hard work seems to have fallen to me. So all week I have been doing house viewings! I've definitely found that I'm a lot more picky when it has come to buying instead of renting. I have also realised how important it is to view the houses that we like. There have been some houses we have been keen on and then viewed and they haven't been suitable at all and there are other we have been unfussed about and then loved after we viewed!

 

 

At the moment this is very stressful though and I really hope it gets easier! I keep getting reminded that the more work we put in now the better it will be in the long run!

 

 



Love the little things, week 1

I saw this on another blog, butwhymummywhy and I love this idea so here I am, week 1 of appreciating the little things in my life.

Read

I am excited for Christmas...far too early I know but I just can't help it. So I got this for Amelia to get her excited for Christmas. Although I have definitely pushed Santa with Amelia I'm not a hundred percent sure she really believes in him. She probably does and I'm thinking about it too much but I guess I'll find out closer to Christmas!

So I picked this book up while I was doing a bit of shopping and this is what we have been reading this week

 

 

 

You can buy this book here, I would highly recommend it!

 

 

 



Watched

 

Criminal Minds season 1

 

0! I love criminal Minds although it scares me a little bit sometimes. Its great. I also watched Home Alone with Amelia, what a great film. I have seen it hundreds of times but I still find it really funny. I think if Stephen ever stayed away for the night I would definitely booby trap the house like Kevin did.

 

 

Wore

Christmas pyjamas! They are from Next I saw them while I was looking for an outfit for Amelia, they are super comfy AND I figured they are Christmasy but not too Christmasy so I could get away with wearing them all year round. Fantastic!

 

 

Heard

Not very much, I only really get a chance to listen to music that isn't Frozen or Disney when I'm in the car by myslef! I did hear this Ed Sheeran song that I loved though

 







 

 

 

Made

Apple pie and home made pancakes. I haven't really had much time this week to make much! Unless you count my presentation for university...but I don't think you can!

 

There it is, my week! Hopefully the weather will stay dry this weekend!

 

 

 

Hillsborough and The Chesire Cat

Today was such a lovely day, there was also an argument about going to mother and toddler so I told Amelia we were going for a walk around a lake with Skye.

I decided we would go to Hillsborough forest. Its so lovely and we took some bread for the ducks. I've been here before, this was our spring time visit.

 

 

 So today Amelia decided she was going on her bike.

 

Getting pushed everywhere was tough work.



 

We had to stop every once in while to splash in every single puddle we found.

 

 

After our walk, very tired and with a very muddy dog we decided to call at a toy shop in Hillsborough called The Cheshire Cat. I love this shop, I remember when I was younger my mum and dad would take me, my brother and my sister for a walk and we would always stop at The Cheshire Cat on the way back. I even remember one day there was a French skipping rope (I think that was what it was called) I really wanted, it was an elastic that was in a loop and 2 people stood a little bit apart with feet a shoulder widths apart. Then you would jump in and out, it was great fun! We went all the way to Hillsborough to get it from The Cheshire Cat. I still find it hard to imagine how hard Christmas shopping would be without the internet!

 

 

 

So, when you first enter the door there is a big grey rocking horse called Dapple that Amelia 'needed' to sit on. Then you go through another door and there's a little sort of trinket/homeware/jewellery shop then at the back there's a room full of toys. On to what Amelia bought, she chose a little bracelet watch.

 



 

 

 

The bigger toy she chose was a set of wooden dolls. These are so sweet and Amelia is fascinated by the idea of family at the minute.

 

 

 There was a grandma and grandad, a mummy and daddy, children and a cat and a dog. She cuddled the box all the way home! I definitely think I might look at getting a dolls house or something like that for her for Christmas to play with them in.

 

 

Heres a link to the dolls if you can't get to Hillsborough to buy them!

 

 

 

 

Apple Pie

It might not look amazing but this pie tastes amazing and compared to my previous attempts at pastry its a masterpiece!

Here is how I made it:

Pastry

285g plain flour
285g hard butter cubed
1tsp salt
2tsp sugar
120ml water

Put the flour, sugar, salt and butter into a bowl. Rub the butter into the flour through your fingertips until it resembles breadcrumbs.

Add the water and use your hands to mix it together until it forms a dough.

Divide into 2. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and put it into the fridge to chill.

Filling

3 or 4 cooking apples (I used some from Stephens parents tree)
65g of sugar (you can add more if you want)
3tbsp flour
1/4tsp ground allspice
1/4tsp ground nutmeg
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
1tsp vanilla extract

While the dough is chilling in the fridge peel, core and finely slice the apples. Put them in a bowl with a bit of lemon juice to stop them browning, 1tbsp or so.

Mix the flour, sugar, allspice, nutmeg and cinnamon in a bowl then pour in with the apples and use your hands to coat the apples. Add the vanilla.

Get the pastry from the fridge. Use the first ball of dough, roll out and then place in a pie dish.

Tip the apples into the pie and use the other ball of pastry to roll a top bit out.

Press together the edges. Use an egg yoke and mix with a tablespoon of cream and brush the top of the pie.

Cut slits in the top for steam to come out. I added little leaf shapes I made out of left over pastry.

Bake in the oven at 190 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes or until the crust starts to brown. Turn the heat down to 170 degrees and cook for 45 min to an hour but keep checking to make sure it doesn't burn (if you find its burning before the 45 minutes are up then put a bit of tinfoil over the top.

Autumn Colours

My most favourite thing ever has to be when the leaves change and fall in the autumn I love it. Even Amelia at 2 years old likes autumn, if I ask her "Amelia what is your favourite thing about Autumn?" she will tell me its the pretty colours of the leaves.

I also love getting scarves, hats, gloves and boots on and going for walks. That is what we decided to do. Go to Crawfordsburn Country Park with Skye (Toby is too old to walk very far anymore).

 

 

 

A couple of months ago Skye was so scared of water she refused to walk through puddles but one day she jumped in a river and loved it!

 Olaf had to come as well

 

 I will admit I have always met Stephens suggestions to go to Crawfordsburn with a "do we have to??" We went on boxing day 2012 and it was so busy I hated it. But today I was so surprised there is a lovely walk you can do through the forest bit when you come in! Stephen likes forests it enables him to behave like a child!

We had a mission to find the waterfall Stephen remembered from when he was a child. We found it!!

Amelia had a great time and even walked quite a bit of the way.

 

I love Amelia's anorak, its from Boden and she wears it all the time. She got this a few years ago but they do one every year, here is the link. It's fleece lined and really cosy and it's shower resistant. Its a little bit expensive BUT Amelia's is 2-3 years and I reckon she'll still fit into it at least for the first half of next year. Boden often have quite good discounts as well if you like their facebook page.

Boden fleece lined anorak

Halloween

So Monday this week was the start of Halloween in this house. It began with a trip to Castle Espie for their Spellbound day, with Amelia's second cousin Robyn. It was great fun until Amelia decided to be a torture in the café while trying to get lunch!

We made toffee apples

These were a bit of a disaster due to my impatience. Here is the recipe, just make sure you don't make the mistake I made and boil it up long enough.

6 apples
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of golden syrup
1 1/2 cup of water
Skewers

Stick the skewers in the apples and put them on a baking sheet
Put the sugar, golden syrup and water in a pan and boil, make sure you stir it plenty.
When it is hot enough to solidify if a drop is put in cold water, dip your apples in and then leave to set.





Amelia helped me make her costume this year (she's a cat) I'll post how to make a cat costume this week even though its a bit late as Halloween is over! One of Amelia's favourite things to do is dressing up and I know she will use it all year round.

 

 

We carved pumpkins...Only with a happy face though Amelia does not like pumpkins if they have pointy teeth.

 

 

Finally we went to a Harry Potter night at Crawfordsburn on Halloween night followed by trick or treating. It was a bit too old for Amelia and she got a bit scared by all the people dressed up but she loved seeing the owls.

 

 

 

 

Mummy I have lost my brains

"Mummy I can't stop being silly I've lost my brains"

This is something Amelia said to me on Saturday while at my mum' house for dinner. On further quizzing about this she told me that she lost her brains at night and also she looses her brains as she gets bigger...When I asked her where she went she told me "out the back of my head".

This made me laugh for about half an hour.

One of the best things about being Amelia's mummy and I'm sure all mummies feel the same are the little things our children say that are just really 'laugh out loud' funny.

Here are a few of my favorites:

"Dogs you are just impossible. You never do anything I ask you to." Someday Amelia will realise that Toby and Skye don't do anything I say either unless I have food for them. Then I might get half a sit.

When asked why she was sad "I don't have a cuckoo clock" I've no idea why she wanted a cuckoo clock or where she heard about cuckoo clocks from.

"Mummy for your birthday I am going to get you a slug and a snail.".As lovely a thought as this was I was quite glad Amelia forgot to get these for me. Now it's coming up to Christmas I have been told I will be getting a Doc McStuffins chair this year.

When asked to help me tidy up her toys "I just can't mummy I'm so stressed out about all the things I have to do" when I asked what she had to do she went quiet and stated "I can't tidy up because my arm muscles are too weak."

All these little memories are so special and I'll definitely laugh about them with Amelia when she's older!