This is what life looks like....in Leighland...

Friday 21 June 2013

Preperation in Leighland...

So there's only a matter of weeks left before the schools close for the summer...and until the 'Lil Monster graduates from Nursery eeeeeeeeeeeeekkkk!!!!!  I can not believe my teeny tiny baby is preparing to start school!  Where have the last 4 1/2 years gone?!

While sadly, I did not marry a rich man and so need to work to help pay the bills, bills oh and er...more bills....I am lucky that my sucky job allows me to work evenings so I get to be a stay at homeish mummy (yep, only in Leighland!!)  While I can not wait to have a whole entire 6 weeks one on one time with my Monster, I'm dreading the expense of keeping her entertained for so long!! I'm also dreading the seperation anxiety that will come at the end of those 6 weeks - especially when it sinks in that she's not just going to be away from me every afternoon, but that we'll be apart all day!!

So what can I do to both keep her entertained all day and prepare her for full time school??

Well, I'm arming myself with an arsenal of mostly free summer activities and school prepping exercises.  In the run up to the holidays I'm going to get the 'Lil Monster to help me make a diary which we will use to know what activity we will be doing on which days.  As usual I've been pinning away like mad and keep coming across free printables for meal planning and monthly calanders etc so I decided to make my own A5 sized daily planning printables  - which can be downloaded here should you wish to use them - then we're going to fill each day with 1 or 2 of the activities, at least 1 school prep activity and as the 'Lil Monster is the worlds fussiest eater and going to be staying for packed lunches, I'm going to start introducing her to nice healthy snacks etc...

I've started buying bits & pieces of coloured paper, sticky letters, googly eyes etc and Key Stage 1 work books etc so we'll have quite a bit of stuff to mess about with on rainy days!

I'll be starting Halloween & Christmas preparations soon - maybe even a garden party towards the end of the summer if we get nice enough weather so watch out for my handy hints, tips and printables coming soon!





Saturday 8 June 2013

How to make the best EVER Caramel Cupcakes!!!

Ok, so maybe second best ever....


On Wednesday, the 'Lil Monster wanted to bake cakes.  To save time and mess I usually use a boxed cake mix when baking with her and I had a Betty Crocker Caramel Cupcake box, so we whipped them up and boy were they good!!!

I'e never really experimented with flavours before, I usually stick to either chocolate or vanilla but the caramel flavour inspired me to find a way to make them from scratch and I'm soooooooo pleased that I did!

I'm not a big fan of fruit so I usually have a squeezey bottle of Sainsburys own toffee sauce in the cupboard.  Drizzle that over sliced apple and/or banana and there's not enough fruit in the world...it tastes amazing but more importantly not too sickly, so I knew it would make a perfect substitution for vanilla in my go to cupcake recipe!

Basic cupcake recipe:

Makes 16 large cupcakes                            
250g flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder                                
100g olive spread (room temperature)
1 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil
200g light brown sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
100mls almond or hazelnut milk
3tbsp toffee/caramel sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees
Mix flour, baking powder and sea salt in a bowl and put to one side
Beat olive spread, sugar and caramel sauce until light and fluffy
Beat in eggs one at a time
Add 1/3 flour mix then 1/2 milk, 1/3 flour mix, 1/2 milk and last 1/3 flour mix and mix until fully combined
Spoon into your cupcake cases and bake in the middle of the oven for aprox 16 mins or until a cocktail stick comes out clean
Completely before frosting

Once the cakes are ready, I prefer to turn the oven off and leave the cakes in for a further 3 mins to ensure they don't drop.

Frosting:
75g unsalted butter
175g icing sugar
2 tbsp caramel sauce

Dice the butter and soften with a spatula
Add caramel sauce and beat into butter until fully combined
Add icing sugar a bit at a time


Monday 3 June 2013

Death and Distruction the Leighland way...

Yep, I'm sorry to say that while away on holiday, I was responsible for a death.
R.I.P. my dear digital camera.  You captured many beloved memories during out time together and you will be sadly missed!

Luckily I was able to salvage the memory card!

So we've just not long since gotten home from 2 weeks in Nabq Bay, Egypt :'-(
Nabq Bay is a short drive from Sharm El Sheik airport, just beyond Sharks Bay and like both Sharm and Sharks bay is a town built solely for the tourist industry.


We were going there to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary!  We were planning to roll the celebration, the 'Lil Monsters first international holiday and some scuba diving into one holiday and celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary by booking it!  As our anniversary falls in May, it was booked before my accident last August so we weren't actually able to go diving, but we still had a blast!

We knew the 5* Jaz Mirabel Beach resort would be 100% perfect as we'd been before.  The last time we were there was New Years 2007/08.  As it was winter, we only ventured to the beach once for about 30mins, it was really windy and the coral sand kind of sandblasted you so we knew to avoid it from then on!  It's a shame too as when we went this time, in May 2013, we expected to walk in to the sea from the beach and snorkel.

When you're walking out you are straight on top of a coral reef which stretches about 1 1/2 miles out to sea.  The majority of the top of the reef is clear enough to walk on without causing damage and the sea is only really deep enough to tickle your bum!

Here you can see the 'Lil Monster watching waves crash over the edge of the reef on the horizon!
  There's not as much to see in this part as there are when walking in from Sharks Bay, or Taba (Northern Sinai Peninsula) but we met  puffer fish, lots of sea porcupine and even a sea snake!! 






The sad part, is that on one of the days that I walked out towards the end of the reef, my Dad and I came across a fishing net about 100yrds long.  We hadn't seen it before and didn't see it again and no one was able to tell us anything about it so we don't know if it had washed up or if it was there intentionally, but it was gone the next time we walked out.  Dad and I were able to rescue a pair of beautiful yellow Angel fish!  Unfortunately, the fish had sharp spines in their dorsal fins and the shock of a prick made me drop and kill my camera :-(