Busy Busy

Hey folks, we are soooooooo busy at the moment this is all we can manage today! High fives to all the super busy mummy's out there! Keep going its nearly Christmas an you can have a rest (after you have cooked the dinner of course)

Have a great day!

7 sleeps left!!

Wow theres only 7 sleeps until the big day!! I can hardly wait!

Most people will be nearly sorted for presents by now and be well away with wrapping or just starting! I like to leave Chris and the kids wrapping to christmas eve its my own little tradition!

When will you be starting your wrapping?

Heres some of my fave wrapping paper available the moment if you haven't already got yours!

WH SMITH £5.99

WH SMITH £5.99

NEXT £6.50

JOHN LEWIS £3.00

JOHN LEWIS £4.00

PAPERCHASE £3.50

PAPERCHASE £3.50

Have a fab wednesday everyone!

Christmas eve Surprise

Hello Hello! Its the last Toddler Tuesday before christmas eve!!! Its also 6 whole months since we started our blog!! Thanks for all the kind words and encouragement everyone has given us over the past 6 months! We love our little blog and we are so happy lots of you do too!

So today I'm going to talk about a christmas eve surprise box! Some of you may already do this, i usually have just new pi's for all of us to open on christmas eve but i saw this idea floating around Facebook and loved it!

Its basically a box with new pj's, a film, popcorn and hot chocolate with the idea that you all watch a family film before bedtime on christmas eve! Its a lovely idea and a nice easy tradition to keep up!

So in my box for christmas eve will be 

GAP pj's both £19.95

a christmas carol in 3D £9.99

They have started selling this in the American section of my Tesco and i have always wanted to try it! 

I'll get a selection of American treats cause they are just the best!!

There will also be a couple of personalised mugs for hot chocolate along with a pen and paper to write our wishes to santa! 

We always write them on christmas eve and leave them in our stocking which we hang on the door before bed!

What will you be up to on christmas eve?? Im soooooo excited!!

Christmas breakfasts

Yay it's Monday (said no one ever) haha

Today we having our first Christmas themed breakfast - Ella the Elf has left Honey Christmas themed cookie cutters to make lovely shaped toast!! 

So we thought we would share some of our favourite breakfast ideas 

Yum yum yum - Honey and Sienna will love these!! How fabulous to have a magic breakfast!! 

Have a very merry breakfast 

All our love 

Jade and Leeanne 

Xxx 

Sunday Funday x

Good morning

Can't believe it's Monday again tomorrow! These weekends go far to fast! 

We are off to our Church Christmas Dinner today and mission wrapping is going to commence!! 

Now Honey has broken up from school and I'm trying to come up with things to do! 

So about some whole family fun, free, take your own snacks and music fun?? On Friday night (5pm) we went out in the car - me honey and rocco - and we went on a best Christmas lights treasure hunt!! 

Wow Honey absolutely loved it!!!! Some peoples houses are absolutely magical!! One house near us is amazing!!! Chris and Nick both think lights are tacky and they are Scrooges haha but next year I'm buying Lee the tackiest light up thing I can find haha!! 

But it's a lovely family adventure - you can always go to the drive through for dinner and have a wonderful hour!! Then when you get home get your little one to draw a picture of their favourite lights!!

The below houses will be mine and lees next year haha 

Lots of love 

Jade xxx 

Hey everyone! A big massive thank you to my lovely jade for doing my last 2 days posts for me I've been so super busy i have barely had time to even wash! (i have though i promise).

So today i'm going to share with you Jamie Olivers get ahead christmas gravy! We had this the year before last with our christmas dinner and it was delicious and...... (don't fall of your chair people that know my husband)... Chris made it!! Chris doesn't cook, he can do bacon sarnies and normal sarnies but thats about it so for him to make a contribution to the Christmas dinner was like a life altering moment!


He Watched Jamie make it on the tv programme he did and he said he really wanted to do it so he did and it was lovely! And the best thing about it is you can make it up ahead of time and freeze it so its one less job on the big day!

Here's the recipe hope you like it, have a lovely Saturday!

Get-ahead gravy

Makes 1 litre

Ingredients

• 2 celery sticks, trimmed and roughly chopped
• 2 carrots, roughly sliced
• 2 onions, peeled and quartered
• 5 fresh bay leaves
• 5 fresh sage leaves
• 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 2 star anise
• 2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, the best quality you can afford
• 8 higher-welfare chicken wings
• olive oil
• sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 4 tablespoons plain flour
• 60 ml sherry or port , optional
• 2 heaped dessert spoons cranberry sauce, for finishing
  
  
  
  
  Method
  I reckon gravy has the power to transform, or even save, a meal. What I want you to do this year is open your mind to a slightly radical idea: making it a few days, or even weeks before Christmas. If you do this, you'll have it on standby, so you can finish it on Christmas Day. I use chicken wings to give the gravy that roasted bird flavour base. Not only are they dead cheap, they're also the most flavourful part of the bird.
  
  Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/gas 6. Put the veg, herbs and star anise into a sturdy bottomed roasting tray. Scatter the bacon on top. Break the chicken wings open then put them onto a board and bash the bones up with the end of a rolling pin; this will release more of their flavour. Put them in the pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over a few pinches of salt and pepper then toss everything together and put the tray in the oven to cook for 1 hour, or until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.
  
  Take the pan out of the oven, and put it on a hob over a low heat and use a potato masher to really grind and mash everything up. Keep mashing, moving and scraping all the goodness from the bottom of the pan as you go. Gradually mix in the flour to thicken the mixture. The longer you let everything fry, the darker your gravy will be. When the flour is combined pour in 2 litres of hot water, turn the heat up and bring to the boil for 10 minutes, till thickened, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you want to add 60ml sherry or port for flavour, do that now.
  
  When it's reached the consistency you're looking for, check the seasoning then push it through a sieve into a large bowl. Really push and mash everything through so you get as much flavour as possible. Discard anything left behind. Once it has cooled down to room temperature put it into containers or freezer bags and pop it in your freezer. You'll finish it off on Christmas Day.
  
  Finishing the gravy
  To finish the gravy, take your it out of the freezer when you're ready to cook your turkey. That way, it will defrost as your turkey cooks. When the turkey is perfectly cooked, put a carving fork inside the cavity and use that to pick the bird up and tilt it over the pan so all of the juices inside run out.
  
  Spoon away as much of the fat as possible, then pour your pre-made gravy into the pan with the rest of the turkey juices. Bring it to the boil over the hob and scrape all those flavourful bits and pieces from the bottom of the pan. Have a taste then add the cranberry sauce. It won't taste sweet but it will add a wicked background flavour.
  
  Once your gravy is piping hot, strain it through a sieve and into a pan. Leave that on the lowest heat to tick away until you're ready to serve. Skim away any fat that rises to the top and add any extra resting juices from the turkey before serving.
  
  

13-12-13 i love dates haha

Today is the 13-12-13 - another cool day to be born on!!

Today we are all off to Snow White on Ice!! So we are going to wrap up warm and get in the Christmas Spirit!

So this is a Christmas jumper blog!! Nick really wants a christmas jumper so i think i'm going to find the worst one and make him wear it Christmas day haha!!!

Here are some that i'm loving at the moment!!

www.ebay.co.uk £18.50

www.newlook.com £27.99

www.asos.com £19.99

www.asos.com £30

I've got this one for Rocco 

direct.asda.com £7

direct.asda.com £10

www.asos.com £38

Love this for christmas day with thick tights! super comfy

www.newlook.com £17.99

www.newlook.com £24.99

www.Next.co.uk £25.00

www.next.co.uk £18-£25

I can't believe how many there are to choose from this year, last year they were hardly any! 

Hope you have a fab Friday!

Cool Bananas

Guess what!!! The 1st time Nick reads my blog and it was yesterday haha so he now knows what he's getting haha!!! But he did love them all especially the calendar idea!!!! He said maybe it should be weekly rather than monthly haha! yeah ok then!

Its Thats Cool Thursday and i was going to talk about a really cool new kids reading app but i'm going to save that for next week so i thought i'd do another thing for us mummys!!

Today i'm going blonde!!! Eeeeeekkkkkk last time i went blonde was about 10 years ago! But i'm taking our own blog advice and making time for me!!! Granted the children are coming with me but i love the idea of once every 6 weeks i get a day for me to get my hair done!!! Normally as its natural brown i rarely go to the hair dressers so this will make me go!! I am going to the lady who did my wedding hair - can't wait !!!

So yesterday was all about things for husbands so today i'm just going to put up some pics of some things that i'm loving at the moment for me!!!

These are my pics of the week!!! 

Hope you all have wonderful Thursdays will show you my hair tomorrow!!