Squashy Soup

Jacob has recently decided he will eat soup.

As part of weaning you spend so much time trying to progress from smooth pureed vegetables, to small lumps, to food that can be chewed to eating family meals. It is then a bit odd trying to get them to eat soup, which in our house, is essentially pureed vegetables mixed with stock.

Squashy Soup, is roasted butternut squash soup. Jacob helped make it. He likes dipping his bread.

I mixed the squash with a tsp ginger and a tbsp of garam masala and then roasted it in olive oil for about 40 mins, then I blended it with vegetable stock, easy.

November 16th Challenge : The Studio

I saw this challenge on the Studio (thank you Google Reader) and thought I would have a go. There were three parts to it. Title should include a number.

Use eyelets

Complete your journaling in a list style

I was up at 6:30am this morning, to feed the baby. He went back to sleep but I decided to stay up and make the most of all the boys still being asleep. It was lovely scrapping first thing in the morning.

I used one of the scrapagogo kits to make this layout, which included this fab journaling stamp, I stamped this out 4 times, They are things he has learnt, things he likes to do, his friends and some of his significant injuries (he is a little accident prone - at one point we were signing the nursery accident book weekly!)

Children In Need

It's Children In Need today. The tag line is "Do Something Different" so this year I baked Pudsey Bear's favourite muffins. I'm now pedaling my wares shamelessly wherever I go to raise money.

I bought the muffin cases from Lakeland last week and split them with my friends, so hopefully we should raise a few quid for Chidren in Need.

Double Chocolate Chip and Banana Muffins

I made two batches, the first came out really well.

Unfortunately I forgot to put sugar in the second batch, so they are relying on the natural sweetness of the banana (oops).

I've finished

I'm not normally a person who finishes things, so this is a major achievement for me (and hopefully a sign of things to come!) I've really enjoyed this project, thanks Shimelle for a fabulous class.

So, here is the 30th September. When asked to eat some chicken, Jacob replied, "No daddy I like rice"

I also managed to complete a 12x12 layout last night as well. This is based on a sketch from the September :BE INSPIRED creativity prompt from the blog A Matter of Memories.

These photos were taken earlier this year at the Valley of the Monkeys in France.

Cooking and Baking

Something very strange is happening. I think it might have something to do with living in a male dominated household. I just want to cook and bake all the time. I've made cake, shortbread, biscuits, soup and pasta sauce in the last week alone.

These are the cupcakes I made last week. I slightly overfilled the cases, so I cut the tops off before I iced them. They were so easy to make, put all ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Topped off with lemon butter cream icing. I had the girlie cake chicks round last week so fortunately they were able to help me polish them off.

It's Children in Need here in the UK this Friday. I have 25 Pudsey Bear cake cases. So, I shall be making cakes this week and accepting donations for them. Not decided what flavour to make yet.

Fruit & Veg

We had our first organic fruit and veg box delivered on Friday. It was on the step when we got up.

We had been thinking about ordering it for a while, but we have recently decided to try and eat more fruit and veg.

Delicious looking apples and bananas

Broccoli

Potatoes, red onions, pomegranates

Carrots and green cabbage.

I worked out how much it would've cost to buy this fruit and veg from the supermarket and it was about 50p more. We have said we will buy one box a week until Christmas and if we can use it all then we shall carry on into the New Year.

We had some of the veg and potatoes for tea followed by a pomegranate. I was quite surprised how much Jacob enjoyed it.

A very Industrious Day

I've had a brilliant day today. Just me and three friends locked in my conservatory scrapping. I completed 7 pages of my learn something new everyday album. Only one day left to scrap and then I've finished.

19th September is about my amazing sister. She is the most fabulous auntie and completely adored by Jacob. She took Jacob swimming for us just after Daniel was born. She has been a great support and I love her so much.

24th September. I love this photo, it was taken by the medical photographer, Jenny at the Countess of Chester hospital. When we had Daniel we were asked by one our midwives, Helen if we would be on the front of the home birth leaflet that she had put together. We said yes. I saw Helen yesterday and she said that they are currently at the printers. I can't quite believe we are going to be on a leaflet.

25th September. The thought of giving Daniel formula milk made me feel sick, a failure, a terrible mum etc etc. However, by this point Daniel was feeding all the time, I wasn't getting any sleep, I just felt awful, so we took the plunge and gave him some formula. The world didn't end, my child had a full tummy, I got some rest and I don't feel a failure.

26th September. I found keeping a journal through September extremely cathartic, especially after Daniel was born. I've managed to capture how I was feeling then. The plan was to continue post September, I haven't!

27th September. How cute are my boys! This was the day when we first heard "Jacob hold" He loves holding Daniel. We thought that maybe the novelty of having a baby brother would wear off quite quickly but it hasn't.

28th September. One of the huge blessings of being part of Christ Church is the fabulous meal rota. After having a baby food is delivered to your house every day for a week. We had the most delicious meals delivered each day. However, my friends from one of my house groups hadn't been included in the rota, so sent me an email asking if they could cook for us. "Please say yes" it said, so we said yes. Thank you fabulous friends

29th September. I love autumn and all the colours. After spending a couple of week pretty much in the house with my newborn, it was a bit of a surprise to see those beautiful reds, oranges and yellows in the trees. I can't believe I missed the start of autumn.

So, only one more day to do. I'm going to try to sneak off tomorrow and get it done. I can't wait to get on with some 12x12 layouts before JYC starts.

Some Colour...

...to brighten up your Thursday.

I was chatting with my mum today and we got onto the subject of the Sony Bravia adverts. I remembered the balls one and the one with the paint, but I'd never seen the bunnies before. So, we went on the internet (what would we do without it) and found it.

Hope you like it too.

Sunflowers & Not Sleeping

So, here are a couple more Learn Something New Everyday layouts. 22nd and 23rd September.

The 22nd was the first day I had left the house properly since Daniel had been born. After several sleepless nights and hormonal crying, it was so lovely to see the sunflowers we had planted all tall and smiling in the afternoon sun. I can't wait to grow more next year.

The 23rd was a day that followed a night of little sleep. I went back to bed mid-morning but couldn't get to sleep. So instead of getting upset and in a tizz with myself I got my book out (nothing too highbrow - chicklit) and just rested and read for a couple of hours. Although I had not been to sleep I still felt so much better.

I don't really like this layout though. I think I may need to re-visit once I've finished.

So, I'm nearly there. I'm off to print the last batch of pictures now.

I Don't Like Mondays

For the last few months I have been taking Jacob to Didi Dance on a Monday morning. We grew like a seed, we danced in a circle, we galloped and at the end we got a sticker. Sounds lovely don't you think. Well, if Jacob was a willing participant then yes it would be fabulous. Over the last few weeks he has got worse and worse, to the point today I decided that I didn't have the energy to fight with him. So instead we went to the local play barn (love these places). I had to renew his membership anyway and then I paid an extra £1 to join in with toddler morning. Juice & toast & activity (bargain).

It was great. Daniel went to sleep, so I climbed up with Jacob and we went to the top and then down the slide a few times, then he had some juice and toast and then we did some painting. I don't do painting at home and you can see why in the photo!

This would be the one and only time we have had paints out at home. There was more paint on Jacob than on the paper. I leave this activity to the professionals.

Anyway, so until this week I didn't like Mondays. I think we'll knock Didi Dance on the head and go to the toddler activity instead. Cheaper and less stressful. Win win me thinks.

National Sausage Week

On Tuesday my husband asked "do we need anything in town?" My reply "yes, sausages from the market". At this point in the conversation he stopped and looked at me quizzically. "Any reason why?" he asked. Well, surely it was obvious. It's National Sausage Week in the UK (2nd -8th November), the reason it had to be from the market is because Dave Joinson, the butcher is donating 50 pence for every pound of sausages sold this week to Cancer Research.

As is often the case my husband indulged me in my randomness and we went and bought 6 award winning pork and apple sausages from the market.

We had them for our dinner last night with mash, peas and gravy. The perfect comfort food meal to be eaten when the weather is so cold and wet outside.

Blogging For Scrapbookers

Another month another online class. You would think that as I have not finished Learn Something New Everyday from September that signing up for another would be craziness. You would be a little right there. However, in my defence the beauty of this course is that it isn't daily, there may be some scrapbooking but it won't be a mini book but will form part of my 12x12 album. There are prompts and I will do them but in a willy-nilly fashion.

The thing that appealed to me about this class is all the fabulous technical blog stuff that Shimelle is imparting to us all and all the lovely blogs from my classmates that I get to read. (The 2nd bit is driving my husband insane by the way) I'm trying to read as many as possible and to leave at least 10 comments per day.

I started to think about Journal Your Christmas this week. I have some ideas for this year but I'll leave them for another day.

A bit of a blur

I have to confess, the first couple weeks after Daniel was born were all a bit of a blur. I just about managed to keep up to date with my Learn Something New Everyday Journal with a view to scrapping things when life became less hectic. It was really interesting to go back and read some of the extremely hormonal things I had written. It is amazing how much stuff you forget about that first couple of weeks as time goes by.

So, here are my pages for the 18th, 20th and 21st. The 19th is to follow, I haven't printed the photo yet.

Breastfeeding had been a huge problem first time round. I was determined to do it but Jacob didn't have a very strong suck, so ended up being fed through a tube. It was a huge relief in that first 24 hours that Daniel was a natural at it.

The baby blues had well and truly set in by the 20th. Bring on the random crying, for absolutely no reason at all. In fact I spent a considerable amount of the day in tears. The only thing that stopped it was the bedtime routine with Jacob. I really enjoyed running his bath, putting him in and making his hair spiky with the shampoo, putting his pyjamas on, reading his story and putting him to bed. I felt normal for a whole hour.

For someone who would ideally like 12 hours sleep per night, having just a couple of hours really isn't good. The downside to Daniel being a brilliant feeder meant that he wanted to do it all the time at the beginning, which meant I just had to grab 40 winks when I could. I love my bed.

Kleptomaniac

We have to check Jacob's pockets every time we leave somewhere, especially nursery. Emptying them before bath time is all part of the routine now. He can now say kleptomaniac, which is pretty impressive for a two year old.

I wonder if it makes me a bad mummy that when I ask "is Jacob a kleptomaniac?" he says yes.