Not so Silent Sunday

We had a busy few days this week, which isn't unusual on this time of the year. With me working Thursday to Sunday there isn't much time left to enjoy family life together but that is only for a few weeks and come Christmas I'll finally be able to take some much needed time off work.

Of course having a ultra active toddler at home is "holidays mummy but not as you know it". still, not having to commute or rush around to get chores done is already a good break.

Until then I'll try to enjoy myself, family and friends the best I can.

Today I meet a very dear friend for some child-free catch up accompanied by cheese and wine, not a bad end to a work week is it?

Tomorrow we start the week networking with other bloggers at the Christmas Networking event put together by BritMums. I have been looking forward to what will be my first blog related event in two year.

It seemed hard at first, the thought of taking Harry with me but then BritMums started nice buzz on Twitter and helped me realized I wont be the only one trying to look after a toddler between a chat and a canape.

So here is to the start of a lovely week and the count down to Christmas - 1 month to go!!!!!

Magic Moments - Lill guy and the balloon

Last weekend there was an End of Summer Festival at pram town, even though the weather was rubbish, with rain on and off AND both Harry and I had a nasty cold, 

we still had a nice time enjoying our Sunday out with Daddy D. 

Lill guy is certainly into exploring as much as he can manage to and when we are out we will let him run around whenever possible. We had a lovely time at the park but this little moment sure was my favourite, my gorgeous boy running around with his balloon and dancing to sitar music. 

How magical is this?

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Day out with the boys #MagicMoments

Photo taken by Daddy D.

Today Daddy D. took us to the mall to buy me a birthday present  - he doesn't like to buy women clothes and that is what I need at the moment, so he let me choose and he paid, how nice is that?

It was a simple but lovely day out with my boys. We sat together for lunch and dinner and both times Harry enjoyed his meal and was his usual cheeky self. At dinner time i tried feeding him some mash potato but he kept on turning his nose up at the spoon then daddy suggested that I should use the fork as the lil guy seems to be going through a faze of mimicking his dad. Surprise surprise, he had mushy peas, mashed sweet potato and Cumberland  sausage for dinner, all off a fork, just like daddy. He also munched on a bit of pastry from my pie and nicked a potato wedge from daddy. After months struggling  to get him to eat, Harry seems to now have  this huge appetite.

After a whole afternoon of walking around, we done what was meant to be a quick pit stop to change Harry and get him ready for bed - in case he felt asleep on the way home. There's a little play area inside every family room at the mall and in this play are there were two brothers playing and soon that became the two brothers and our cheeky chap. They must have been 4 and 7 but Harry was chasing them around as if they were his age. This little game of tag went on for a good 20 minutes and by the end lill guy was so worn out that he didn't even complain when we put him on the pram to head home.

It was truly magical to sit and watch my little boy, my not even 14 month old little guy, my toddler, who just the other day was a little baby playing like that, a happy child with a big smile on his face.

...even getting him to bed tonight was an easy job, hooray!!

Motivational Monday - even though today is Tuesday - Week 3

So it's been just 3 weeks since the Motivational Monday started and on the second one I was already too busy to post. Almost gave up doing it this week as well but if anything I think this is one more thing I can do for myself. 

I was doing well on the health eating front until the weather went freezing and I ended up stuck at home with a teething little boy. I'm not too worried about that as I know health eating for me is a marathon, not a sprint. Also I know I'm a bit limited with choices at the moment as i can't really cook everything from scratch as I used to do but the they will come and I shall be able to change that.

We were snowed in for a couple of days, with Harry having just recovered from his ear infection I didn't want to be out and about on the cold. When Sunday came it all got a bit too much for me so daddy and I went on a snowy walk with lill guy. It was rather hard work but it was also quite fun to just walk about watching kids - and adults for that matter - running around starting their snowball fights and parents dragging their little ones on sledges of all shapes and sizes. Above all it was good to have a nice little break and enjoy daddy's company while Harry had a kip all cosy in his pram.

With the weather my plans of treating myself to a hair cut had to stay for another day, maybe this weekend coming.

Now the most lovely thing i done for myself was yesterday. I took lill guy for a walk and when he was just about to fall asleep -instead of keep on walking and then get stuck outdoors because he is all wrapped up and would be too hot if i went into any shops at all - I went into my favorite tea room at pram town, gave him a little feed and got him down for a kip in his pram so I could enjoy a lovely lunch accompanied by a book that I have being trying to read for weeks. Such a simple pleasure but it felt great to have some ME time during his nap rather than end up being in front of the laptop working, walking on the cold or even just laying in front of tv with a pointless daytime show.

This is it, slowly but surely I start to feel like myself again.

This is a Blog Hop

Happy Belated Halloween

Yesterday we had a lovely day. It was my other half's sister's birthday and to celebrate I cooked them lunch while they enjoyed a few cuddles with Harry...or at least tried as he's been a bit our of sorts with something that feels like a bit of a cold. I wonder if he took after me with heavy sinus once the air turns cold. Let's hope not!
It's amazing the difference a few weeks make, I felt a lot calmer having people over now that he is 4 and a half months than just over a month and a bit ago. Not only he is a lot more sociable now and in fact he loves seeing people but feeding is a much more pleasurable and a lot less demanding routine now.

Of course it also helped that I've chosen a really easy and quick dish for lunch instead of the more elaborated  meals that I've been known to put together.

Also to celebrate Halloween and auntie R's birthday I made my very first pumpkin pie and i have to say, I like it! Again of course I looked up the simplest recipe possible - I'm addicted to recipe websites and if you do research a bit you'll realize that there are just about millions of different versions to this humble dessert.

So if you wish to have a go yourself just mix a can of condensed milk (carnation milk but NOT EVAPORATED, make sure if condensed), the same measure of pumpkin pie - thats about 1 cup - 2 eggs and about 3 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spices (click here for the recipe). bit it all to combine, it will be a very liquid mix. Pour over pastry crust and bake for 15 minutes on pre heated oven at 220C then turn it down to 180C and bake it for another 30 to 45 minutes (mine took 40) until the edge of the pie seems cooked, the middle will finish cooking as it cools. When you cut into it you should see something like a NY cheese cake type of consistency.
Just FYI; I cheated here and used stored bought shortcrust pastry to save me time, you can use whatever you fancy, I think anything will go with it but it has to be a pastry that will take 1 hours in the over
Let it cool and serve it. You can easily freeze it but I doubt there will be any left overs lol.
The Americans serve it with whipped cream but I went for vanilla ice cream and it was just perfect!