Primula sent me a couple of tubes of their cheese spread recently to try out some of their recipes. This is so simple that even big man helped me make it for him and the boys to eat. Even better is that they ate it! I know that not everyone is addicted to Pampered Chef products like myself, but if you do have their muffin pan it is perfect and means that you don't need to use streaky bacon.


Serves 1:

1 rasher of bacon
1 medium egg
1 tablespoon of Primula cheese and chive spread
1/2 an English Muffin
A handful of chopped mushrooms
2 sundried tomatoes.


Line a muffin hole with bacon.



Crack the egg and mix with the Primula. Pour this mix into the bacon lined hole and cook at 200 degrees for 15-20 mins.


Toast and butter half an english muffin. Scoop out the bacon and eggs and place on top of the muffin. Serve with sundried tomatoes and fried mushrooms.





For more recipes using Primula visit their website.


We were given 2 tubes of Primula to have a go at their recipes.

On 23rd November 2007 my life changed forever. Exhausted and high on drugs a little blue bundle of joy was extracted from me. Broken nights sleep commenced. I was projectile vomited over on numerous occasions. Just as I thought I was going to get some rest, a nappy needed changing. Without a doubt I can say that this was and still is the most special time of my life. The day where I became a Mum for the first time. The day that my gorgeous big man was born. Happy 6th Birthday big man xxx

Last month I got big man joining in with This Mummy Loves Draw with Me linky. Although he was slightly disappointed that his bricks weren't a winner he was happy to draw a picture again this month as he thought that little man would like the Gruffalo themed prize if he won. This is big man through and through, always thinking of others.

I have to admit I have been rather a rubbish Mummy this month as I may have been too eager to tidy away (in the recycling) his lovely toy pictures. I think this is version 3 - oooppppss! Anyway here is big man's toy picture. I found it quite strange that he insisted on drawing traditional toys rather than the toys he actually plays with. I have always thought Jack in the boxes are a little scary and if I opened big man's one I think I would let out a shriek! I am pleased to see that he is still insisting on the labeling - even if the spelling isn't quite there yet.


Oh the rubbish Mum status gets worse. I have now gone to link up to see that the competition closed yesterday not 28th like I had in my head. Might leave that piece of information out when big man asks who wins......

Once upon a time there was a young girl who loved LEGO. Her Dad bought her small models to make as a treat if he had been away with work. She liked to build houses but there were never enough pieces.


(I don't have a time machine so middle man helped out with this picture. Apparently every house needs a dinosaur. It also turns out that we need more DUPLO to finish a house!)

The girl grew up and got a holiday job selling ice cream at a fantastic theme park filled with LEGO bricks.


She went to university and met a man who was a black belt in karate and studied Economics.


She fell in love and married him. He bought her Harry Potter LEGO for Christmas. She bought him Star Wars LEGO. A few years later they had 3 gorgeous little boys together.


Their favourite place to go for a family outing was the theme park the girl used to work in. They particularly liked the pirate show.


Her young boys had a long Christmas list filled with LEGO!


As well as playing with LEGO with her boys, the girl loved having a strong coffee and blogging.


I'm afraid as fairy tales go this might not be the best. No evil wolf, no fire breathing dragon or a fairy godmother.


But this story is actually my happily ever after.


So as you may have guessed we are slightly LEGO obsessed in this house. My boys started their LEGO obsession with DUPLO.  They have some vintage pieces from my childhood and lots of modern characters too. I think the picture below shows how much DUPLO has changed in 30 years!


Writing this post has made me realise how much of an impact these coloured building bricks have made on my life and that of the boys. We are lucky to live near LEGOLAND and visit regularly. Star Wars Weekend was a massive hit with big man this year. We celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary at the Brick Brother's Restaurant.


We also celebrated middle man's birthday at the hotel and I found myself making a pirates of skeleton bay treasure chest complete with golden LEGO bricks.


Big man's birthday and Christmas list is full of the Star Wars range and I can see his room soon looking like the miniland experience! I even bought my Dad some LEGO TECKNIC last year for Christmas proving that LEGO really is for all ages!

Next year we have the release of The LEGO Movie to look forward too. I think if you watch the clip you will agree that it looks "Awesome!"


There is one thing however, that I don't like about LEGO. There is always one small piece that manages to escape the box. Treading on LEGO really hurts! What are your LEGO memories? Did you love it as a child and now love it as a parent?

Along with a lot of Gruffalo themed goodies for his birthday, my sister wrapped them in the most gorgeous Gruffalo Child's wrapping paper. It was too good to throw away so I decided to have a go at using it for decopatch instead. Usually you would use a thinner paper, but I think that it has worked well on these children's coat hangers.

What you need:

Some nice wrapping paper
Wooden coat hanger's
PVA glue
scissors

Take some lovely wrapping paper and cut half of  it into strips (you can cut it up more later if you need to.)



Using the PVA glue wrap these strips around the coat hanger. Then cut out some of the characters from the print.

Glue these onto your coat hanger.


Leave to dry and then it is ready to use.

My social life is pretty non existent at the moment, both in real life and online. Social Media is a big part of my life. This is a double edged sword. I like that by blogging my brain is kept active. I love going to toddler music groups and soft play, but after six years of doing this, I need something else. This is where my blog comes in. It is my "job" just not a conventional one. One of the things I miss the most about working is my colleagues. There was always someone around to pick you up if you were having a bad day. Now twitter takes that place. I love that a quick tweet and someone is there offering their advice or picking you up with a joke. A lot of people don't realise how social blogging actually is. There is a lot of interaction on posts and across the many social platforms. Indeed there are a lot of social events in London. You just need to live near London or have some childcare arranged to pick the kids up from school.

Life at the moment is pretty hectic. I find it hard enough to keep up with my blog let alone with the rest of social media. It is so easy to waste time on social media too. I click onto Pintrest and an hour later I have a board full of cake ideas that I don't gave the time to make. I get lost in twitter conversations, where I barely know what is being talked about because I have got distracted by something happening in real life. I know that my real life is far more important but I struggle with acknowledging that I can't do more than I already do. For my blog to grow further I need to be more social in social media and I just haven't got the time. I am sure that in a years time when I have more time, I will be wishing my children back home. When I have the time to be social on the social media front, I wonder if I will.

Maybe it's just a case that I need to be more organised with my socialising. Keep an hour aside a week to visit my favourite blogs and others that catch my eye. Limit my time looking at cakes on Pintrest. Only join the linkys where I know I have time to visit the majority of the writers. Next year I will try and get to a couple of blogging events to actually meet more bloggers.

Is it me or do you struggle with keeping social in social media? Do you have any tips on how to manage my time better?

A few weeks ago I told you about how we have had a British Gas Smart Meter installed. Well here is my first update on how we are getting on. Do you know how much gas and electricity you use? Are you guilty of going out and leaving the boiler on?

 

Until recently I lived in blissful ignorance. Well no more! I have been monitoring our usage over the last week and it has ranged from £4 - £6 a day!

I am at home most of the day and last week due to middle man being ill I was in all day everyday. I have found that by putting the electric heater on in the conservatory rather than heating the whole house, I can save around a pound a day. Now that will add up! These are only rough calculations but the smart meter has got me considering our consumption and turning off unnecessary lights. (My Dad will be proud of me!)

If you are a British Gas customer, you can register for a free smart meter here. You might also like to watch this video for more information.


I am going to continue monitoring my usage over the next few weeks and hope to get my usage down to around £4.50 a day to start with. I will make a point of only heating the room I am in and I am wondering about whether drying the towels on the radiators rather than the tumble dryer might be a small change for the better. What energy saving tips would you recommend so that I can get my bills down? Have you got any energy saving ideas you would like me to investigate?




We were already British Gas customer, so the smart meter installation was free of charge, but I have been compensated for writing about this post to raise awareness of this scheme.

Daddy works away a lot. Middle man was missing him this week and feeling poorly as well. The school run caused a total breakdown about how much he missed Daddy and loved him. We decided that we would draw Daddy a nice picture. Middle man decided on a dinosaur.

"Oh Wow! That's amazing!" I piped up when I saw what middle man had drawn.


"It's just a green squiggle Mummy" he said looking at me strangely

"Now I will draw a dinosaur...."

I waited before saying anything this time. But apparently this is not a green squiggle, it is a dinosaur!

Little man must be wondering what is going on at the moment. He is currently experiencing the longest second birthday ever! It started back in October when my parents visited. He had cake and we went to Peppa Pig World.


Then he had an "early" birthday party with more cake.


Then this weekend my sister came over. So more cake!


It is still a week until his birthday where there will undoubtedly be cake. Due to the fact that middle man has chicken pox we wont be able to see my inlaws until after his actual birthday (more cake!) Luckily little man loves blowing out candles and being centre of attention. The fact that we have celebrated so much already, is slightly taking my mind off the fact that my baby is very nearly 2!

I haven't linked up to R2BC for a while. Things have been rather manic and I just haven't had time. Sometimes I feel that this is the best link up to do when you are feeling a bit sorry for yourself as it makes you put things into perspective. Which is why I am joining up this week. This week hasn't been the best. My OH is working away again and to top things off middle man has got chicken pox so we are pretty much inside all day. It also means we are unlikely to be able to see some family before big and little man's birthdays. Little man has hit the terrible two's a couple of weeks early and is testing every boundary possible. Roll on Friday.

So lets focus on the positives!

Whilst middle man has a high temperature and a few spots he doesn't seem too ill. Hopefully if he is going to pass it onto the other two then they "should" get it before big man's birthday party. Whilst being confined to the house all day, I have been able to do some sorting out of the boys toys and I am much happier knowing where everything is. It also isn't long until Friday where I am off over to a friends house for the in thing which will raise some money for Cancer Research UK.

So how has your week been? What are you cheerful about?

.......to read through through things before showing them to your child!

Somehow thanks to Guy Fawkes I have put my son off ever going to the United States of America. This will be problematic when I am wanting to visit the Harry Potter World and Discovery Cove!

It started with him asking me to tell him the story of Guy Fawkes. I was tired and I headed to my favourite resourse, Twinkl, for a powerpoint presentation. Being a teacher by trade you would think that I had learnt the lesson by now that you should read through stuff first. I didn't. It mentioned cutting off heads. This had e of apparently been missed off the school's version of events.

I'm not surprised as it caused a lot of questions!

To cut a long story short, big man doesn't want to visit America in fear of tornado's and being wrongly excused of something which could result in the death penalty.

Then came a general talk about prison. Worried that prisoners weren't allowed to eat, I assured big man that they were fed, but couldn't go to nice places like Legoland.

"Oh that's not good is it? That would be really bad!"

So no visits to the States for big man and hopefully he is now put off a life of crime too.

I didn't realise how much I needed a break.

It wasn't even that long. But it was very welcome!

I love my boys dearly but I see them day in, day out, all day, every day. I spend my time tidying, cooking, tidying, playing, tidying, breaking up fights, tidying, doing homework, tidying, fixing toys, tidying. I wouldn't mind, but my house still looks like it has been burgled most of the time.

Yesterday I went to meet an "old" friend. I had 6 child free hours. I ate lunch without having to cut up anyone's food. I could take as long as I wanted to eat and wasn't worried about keeping anyone sitting down. There were no colouring pencils broken in half and I didn't feel the need to add a huge tip because of the mess all over the floor.

I got to try on clothes without anyone revealing my not so stunning body to a shop full of people.

Instead of talking about whether Spongebob was alive or not, I got to talk about my friends upcoming trips to Norway and Patagonia. I may have shared one too many poo stories to guarantee she never has any children of her own.

I was able to have coffee and cake without having to swop the cake for one I didn't want because someone thought mine looked better after we had sat down to eat it.

I got to sing loudly in my car to some 90's music without anyone screaming "stop singing Mummy!" or "can we listen to the knights CD?"

I got to be me.

And to top it off I arrived home to 3 little men falling over themselves to kiss me because they had missed me so much.


Do you ever get any time do yourself? Does it make you appreciate your children more? How would you spend 6 child free hours?

Room on the Broom app features all the lovely characters from the Julia Donaldson book.  There are lots of finding games - for example find the witches hat falls and you tap where you think it is. My favourite was the dragon eating chips game. I still can't work out how to ride my broom to collect the letters to make the word owl. I will have to ask big man in the morning! He enjoyed playing it, but I think that it is probably better for a pre schooler.