Things I'm loving

My Pampered Chef Chopper. I like to cook (I almost typed love, but that would be a lie!) but I hate chopping. I can never 'dice', I end up with massive chunks and it takes me ages. 30 seconds with the chopper and it's this:

Woop!

The Foxwise Etsy shop. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games AND Serenity, oh my! This I love SO much :

And this:
And if you don't know the second reference, you REALLY need to watch Firefly and Serenity. Trust me, you are missing out.

My favourite blog, www.epbot.com, run by Jen and John Yates, who are by far the coolest couple I've ever not met. Their house., oh my gosh, it's steam punk-a-licious. And Jen's penny desk. So so cool.

here is how they did it.

My Mother in law, Joyce. On Wednesday I had to take Ethan for his pre-school booster injections (which, incidentally, NO ONE loved), it was Grandparents' day at Ethan's pre-school, and also staff double discount day at Asda (thanks to my Brother in law, Sam, we had access to a card). Joyce kindly went to school with Ethan for an hour, waited at home with me til he finished, took us over to Asda after, paid for my shopping as I'd forgotten to get cash out, took us to the doctors, waited with Sam while I took Ethan in, waited again while I took him straight back in (screaming, I hasten to add) as he had a rash around his stab site, and then brought us home. Not to mention the midnight babysitting she has done 3 times now (4 if you count Sam's birth) for us when I've had to go into hospital. She is pretty golden! If I need help I know I can ring her and if she possibly can, she'll be over in a flash, just as I know my own Mum would if she was close enough. I'm very lucky!

Thanksgiving dinner. People of England (nay, the non-American world), we are getting gypped. On Wednesday night (yes, it should have been Thursday, but there was a lot on this week) I went up to church for the Relief Society Thanksgiving Dinner, and boy, was it delicious. It was like Christmas a month early! Turkey, gravy, roast potatoes and roast veg, broccoli in a delicious cheese sauce, sweet potato mash.

And the dessert. Pumpkin Pie. for something that is basically sludgey brown baked custardish stuff in pastry, amazing! I also, like a pig, had a slice of homemade chocolate cheesecake too. The night was perfect. Plus I sat with 3 pregnant friends who also had 2 desserts, so I didn't feel as bad :)

Next week is one of said pregnant friend's baby shower, where I get to give her my gift. I'm so excited, I made her this:

It's my first attempt at a baby blanket, and I love it, so I hope she does too!

P.S. It took me 3 edits to make those links work. I was at the precipice of the decent into rage, so thank goodness it worked this time ;)

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

Bonfire Night in Blackpool

We had a gorgeous (if freezing) day in Blackpool on Saturday with Richard's parents, and his Sister, brother-in-law and nephew Seth. It was lovely! We walked along the front and Ethan begged to be allowed onto the beach, where he ran around like a loon :)

Note the ever-present Raffey :)

Where there is a wall, it must be walked on. Such is the law of small children.

I've never been to Blackpool before, except for one year pre-children when Rich and I went to drive through the Illuminations after a temple visit. I love it, it's so... tacky! We went up the tower, where we saw a 4D movie that Ethan freaked out at a bit, I think the 3D felt a bit close to him, and then we got a bit wet and clouds and foam came out, but he calmed down and laughed when I got wet. We got to the top, and the little trooper ran straight out onto the 'sky walk' (ie glass floor :S ) while I stood at the edge and clutched a metal girder in fear. It took me by surprise actually, I've done similar before in the Sky Tower in New Zealand which is far taller! I eventually walked across, while holding Rich's dad's hand!

We then walked for AGES along the illuminations, which were lovely, but lasted for miles. I remember distinctly thinking at least I'm burning off the KFC I had for lunch. The only dark blot on the day was that I missed out on fresh donuts. That and the creepy stall guys on the pier who badgered us to play the games, then one of them followed me for a bit, it was really uncomfortable, but I got through it with a constant ignore policy!

I love this one, even though it's blurry, the web of lights and the moon were cool :)

These were my favourite decorations, Daleks and Tardises (Tardii?)

And to finish, something that amused in the view from the tower... how would you get your car out of this?!

All of these cars were parked, not one of them moving. I don't even know how they got in, let alone out!

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

My terrible typing skillz

Dear Readers (if there's anyone out there...)

Just a quick one, grammar errors annoy me so very much. However, I am a terrible typist, and make several mistakes that seem to slip through checkers. I apologise. I know my family (or atleast some!) will be twitching about it too, just know it's accidental!

Yours,

The Terrible Typist x

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

Halloween

The boys have had a brilliant Halloween - Ethan was a bat and Sam a tiger, who could be skinned to reveal a skeleton - it was a bit cold!

Ethan won first place in the Fancy dress competition at the Wakefield fun day, Hayley (his cousin) came second :)
The tiger costume was pretty hilarious, it was really too big for him, but when he walked around in it he looked like an ewok, it was too cute not to put him in it!

Too fast for a good photo!

We had a ward trunk and treat that was brilliant and I sadly took no photos. The games were all brilliant, including one car boot that had been lined and partially filled with compost, in which skeleton bones were buried, to be found an joined together in order to get the sweeties.

Ethan was desperate to go 'Trickle Treating' to a few friends on the street and we did our pumpkin, again, bats. Sensing a theme? The street really got into it, lots of pumpkins, and decorations, and Ethan liked going to his friends, but his favourite thing was giving treats to the Trickle Treaters that came to us, and I was so pleased to see him happy to give things away to the other children, and I was really pleased to see that we only had a few older 'kids' come, one set were bringing younger siblings, and all of them were happy to get sweets rather than money.

All in all, a good time! Ethan has since asked several times if it's Halloween again, and we're trying to get him looking forward to bonfire night tomorrow instead!

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!

Oh Dear!

So, it's been over a year since I posted, eek!

I have been very busy with the boys, Samuel Timothy was born on the 23rd of October (12 days late, the little monkey!) and maybe one quiet day I'll add that story and Ethan's too. For now a picture will have to do..

It's too bright out here!

Sam is now just turned one, and I feel a bit terrible that there is no record of him here, so I'm starting over, and will work much harder to get the blogging done! I thought about starting over with a new blog but I didn't want to ditch the old posts, so here we stay!

Ethan, who was only 2 and a bit at last post, is now 3 and a half, and at nursery school. He is loving it, and adores his teachers. They are wonderful ladies, amazing with the children, and far more patient than me! Ethan if growing up so fast and absolutely adores his brother, although sharing is a bit of an issue at the moment.

I will teach you in the ways of small boys, young padowan

They really do get on well and if Sam starts to cry Ethan will go over to him and sing twinkle twinkle to him and hug him. Or make silly noises to make him laugh, either way! Sam's favourite thing is to watch Ethan jump up and down like a loon, he laughs like a drain! They are my little darlings, my little terrors, my loves.

And sometimes, they're just a pair of animals :)

Update: This blog has now moved to www.undomesticaited.wordpress.com - Hope to see you over there!