A Candyfloss Easter Sunday

Hello ma lovelies and how we all this morning? Do we have a chocolate comma yet?  I woke up at about 6:30am this morning thanks to my cheeky monkey.  Man I miss the days when he woke up at 10am.  It's much more sunnier then yesterday when it was a miserable Easter Sunday. Well weather wise the day it's self was quite fun though it felt a bit hectic at times.  So what did I do for Easter then well your about to find out!

Me, Matthew and David woke up at about 7am.  Which I don't mind so much as that's the minimum time I do breakfast.  if he wakes up any earlier he has to wait.  It's not being horrible it's to make sure he stays his in routine, or he'll just wake up earlier and earlier. Straight away I made him his tea and a lovely hot cross bun!  Two infact as I wanted to make sure he was full.  I'm glad I gave him two as he only left a tiny bit, such a little piggy he he.  

We noticed that the table had got really cluttered again so we decided to clear it. That way I could line up all David's Easter eggs etc 

The Jake and the Neverland Pirates egg is from me and Matthew.  The bunny from Matthews dad and the little eggs from Matthews mum and step-dad.  These were perfect to use in our Easter Egg hunt which I'll tell you more about later on.

At about 10am I got the crafts out.  There was lots of card animals to make and included in the pack was googly eyes and colourful card.  I had also saved some yellow tissue paper and the sweet wrappers from mine and Matthew's Quality Street egg I had won.  David decided he want to try and cut and I was actually really impressed as he managed to cut some coloured paper.  He also drew on the bunny and we stuck down some googly eyes.  It wasn't long though until Matthews parent came round with the dogs so I had to quickly move everything out of the dogs way.  They had brung round a garden storage unit which was very handy.  Means I can put David's trike it in and other garden items.  They also took some stuff that was in the back in my garden to the dump so all I have to get rid of now is the Asda trolleys and wash the patio.  Me and Matthew were given a m&m Easter egg each and David some chocolate stars. He got given these as Matthews mum said I could just hand them out to him when he was good and I couldn't agree more.

I then gave David his first Easter Egg.  I was going to give him an Easter egg after dinner but he had been so good all day that I decided to give him his egg from me and Matthew.  He loved it I'm glad to say, I thought he would just be interested in the egg but he was fascinated with the bowl, spoon and cup as well, happy days! Oh I forgot to mention Matthew's parents gave David a baby pram, he absolutely loves it. He put his bag on the handle and everything.

I had to hide some of the crafts so he didn't glue everything together.

After Matthew's parents had left we went back to craft making.  It's to say since we don't have enough dining chairs and no proper craft table it's because a slight chore due to David's age at the moment.  As he's coming up to two his attention spam is very short and he becomes very impatient.  I'm going to be buying him a craft table for Christmas, it will make things a lot more easier.  

I moved it to the bigger table and he sat on my lap

After David got bored and I cleaned up a bit we moved onto making Easter biscuits.  I got this pack from Asda.  Basically the Easter version of the Christmas biscuit you can decorate.

ignore the tasty cupcakes in the background ha ha

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to decorate them on the high chair...nope worst decision ever.  It was more messier then doing it in the kitchen.  I don't even know how that's possible.  I tried showing David that the icing was like glue to stick the smartie like sweets down.  He didn't really understand though.  I didn't mind...until the sprinkle went everywhere oh god why! I had to quickly take a picture as David' started to eat it ha ha.

At about 3.30pm I put the lamb in the oven we got a massive leg of lamb for £12.07.  Most of it is still in the fridge now!  My parents came round at about 4:30pm, as my sister had work that day.  I asked my brother and sister if they wanted to decorate an egg and my sister was being a spoil sort and sorted want the biscuit.  She soon changed her mind though once she saw my brother Peter decorate his.  Such children still ha ha it's all good fun though.  During the time they were round Matthew went and got a chair from his dad's and came back with a beanbag too.  It matched David's walls in his bedroom I couldn't believe it.  Plus David loved it! My parents gave me and Matthew a Galaxy Minsterals egg each and David a Thomas the Tank engine breakfast set.

Here's a video of David enjoying himself on it click me

After my parents had left it wasn't long until the lamb was cooked.  We had it with roast potatoes and carrots.  David didn't eat the lamb which surprised me as it was so tasty!  When they sell this again at Aldi I'll be sure to buy it again.

After dinner I set up the eggs for David to hunt.  I did ask Matthew to do this but he said he "didn't have a clue where to hide them".  He lacks imagination poor lad ha ha.  I hid them around the living and dining room.  Examples were in the microwave in his kitchen, easel board, on his mega blocks table, sofa and other little hiding places.  At first he didn't understand but after giving him "hints" (aka pointing and going "what's that") he got the idea which impressed me, even looked under the table bless.  The the cheeky monkey ate the first one he got but he did put the rest in the bag which I was pleased about.  When he found them all I have him his prize. The chocolate rabbit Matthew's dad got him.  It's safe to say he was happy about that!

Sorry for the rubbish quality David wouldn't sit still

So that's all our fun we had on Easter Sunday.  I did forget to do the polystyrene egg craft though so I shall be doing that will David tomorrow as this week's weather is going to be awful! Watch out for my blog links this week as I'll be doing TWO parental blogs this week.  Gosh aren't you folks lucky, ta-ta for now.

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Review | Flora Buttery

Hello my fellow soon to be Easter bunnies! hope you're all having a swell day.  So this review should of actually been done before Christmas!  Why do you ask was it not?  Well I simple reason really there was a big mess up.  I was supposed to be reviewing this product in October then there was a delay which I didn't mind until November. Then they said they sent out vouchers but hardly any of the people who were on the panel received them!  Basically in short I didn't receive my voucher to test this until late January.  This was a very upsetting experience in a bloggers eyes as I had planned to bake so many wonderful things with this at Christmas, but it didn't happen.  So basically I had to wait until I was baking again, I don't bake often you see even though I love to bake.  

So what did I bake with this?  Well if you have looked at the Spring Wishlist I've been doing over at my blog post, you will notice some flowerpot cupcakes.  Well my fellow fluffy clouds I decided to give them a go.  I got some silicone flower pot moulds at Hobby Craft for only £1!  I then got the rest of ingredients and made them with David. I did indeed replace the butter with Flora Buttery as requested in the panel.  They turned out like this.

So the taste test.  The good news is it didn't seem to taste any different to the normal un-salted butter from Asda which I normally use.  I didn't have to use too much for this recipe so maybe it would save you money instead of having to go out and get some butter? the buttery taste did come through though on toast but I for one like the butter taste so that was a win. However my other half did notice that the lid was kind of difficult to get off.

The Price

Now I know what your thinking "price doesn't always matter" but I'm pretty sure when your in a pickle it will. So can you save money by buying this, and then cooking with it if your known for excess amounts of baking?

Flora Butterly 500 g £1.70 (or 2 for £3)

I can't believe it's not butter  500G £1.65

Taken from Asda

Now obviously looking at that the "ICBINB" wins all by 5p.  But it also depends what sort of deals they have on at your local supermarket.  It also depends how much butter you need to use.  However seeing this and if you only need to use say 50g, then it would be well worth buying a pack of Flora, and using it as a cooking replacement for butter.

I hope this review put this into good perspective and there was a lot of helpful information.  I know this is not a good Easter Blog but I'll blog that (hopefully busy life and all that) on Monday the day after Easter. Should be a good one.  I'll show you what Easter activities we got and show you the Easter eggs my son got.  Until next time ta ta!

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Review | Upbeat Protein drink

Hello my lovelies!  Today I am reviewing the upbeat protein drinks!  The lovely guys over at upbeat sent me a massive parcel of goodies along with 2 vouchers for free drinks.  Here is what I received below.  I am so grateful and a lot has come in very handy, even if it did take me and my friends a while to figure out what the "egg" thing was ;D (It's a MP3 player by the way)

We've already used the bag for our lunch when we visited a park in a different town!  Now I'm not going to lie I wouldn't normally buy these,  there just not something that comes to mind.  If I'm low on energy I normally buy a snack bar or something similar.  With high protein and low fat though maybe I should be thinking of these more often?  However it does come along side the problem of actually remembering and of course finding them in the shop successfully (I'll come to that later on).

Before I was given this chance I had never heard of upbeat.  Anyone else or just me kept out of the loop again?  Upbeat is own by the company Good Whey, yet again I've never heard of them (opps). They have a website located here. Which I had to use as I couldn't find the drink in my local stores.  I advice everyone else using the site as well to find out where there nearest is sold.  

That's the number on problem I found with this site.  Even after using the site to find where my nearest store was it still wasn't available even after looking in where it was supposed to be sold.  Eventually I did find it sold in a Holland and Barrett store in Chelmsford.  First I tried the Mango and Passion fruit.  The texture was much like yoghurt so it didn't offer anything new to the department of healthy protein.  The taste was bitter I was not a fan of the Mango club.

However when I tried the strawberry it was much nicer on my tongue pallet.  It went down like a dream. I'm still not a big yogurt fan though so I doubt I would be in a rush to buy these again unless maybe I was on a diet.  However I have told myself not to diet this year.  Instead I am focusing on my teeth (which is going REALLY well bring on September!) 

I do however feel like this is a good product for mums to have if they have the convenience of a shop providing these on their doorstep or near their children's school.  I mean how many mums out there skip breakfast?  Come on own up I bet it's quite a lot right?  Also how many of you go through out the day snacking more then having a proper lunch as your to busy doing housework or work related stuff.  Like this companies aim is it's to "fuel the gap" and I think this will benefit ALOT of mums.

So all in all this drink is not for me but would be very helpful to mums out their that skip breakfast or need more energy throughout the day. Until next week!

*I was sent this product to review and asked to give my opinion about not only the product but the company too.  ALL opinions are unbiased and my own.

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