New Nuby Sippy Cups!

A few weeks ago I wrote a glowing review for the Nuby soft top sippy cups. I thought I would update that the very kind peeps at Nuby sent over a couple of extra cups and we are equally as thrilled with them. Not only are we having equal amounts of success with them but they are a refreshing step away from pink! That's what I call a sippy cup hat trick! Ta Nuby! 

Both items pictured in this post were given to me for free by Nuby, though all opinions expressed in this post are 100% my own and entirely uninfluenced by external parties.

FRESH AIR!

I tore myself from the ranks of the food-comatosed and sofa-stranded today as the rain clouds took a brief trip off elsewhere and allowed us 2 blissful hours to test drive Euna's new ride.

Santa's elves had been particularly busy on this item, the Dream Pink Smart Trike. I can't recommend it enough. Steers with minimal effort. It's sturdy and fits together beautifully. The finish is great. Most importantly; she LOVED it.

New Year's Resolution... No. 1

Stop swearing.

Steve and I are shamefully casual swearers.

So lax is our attitude towards bad words that conversation is easily blue before 9:00am. Our F's, B's, S's and (dare I admit it) even C's have lost all effect to us. They present so little impact to each other we litter our exchanges with them without a thought.

Shockingly, at work (as a teacher at a secondary school) I have only ever slipped out one rouge F within earshot of a student. (It was directed at my office door that wouldn't unlock and deserved a good telling, I didn't seen the year 7 behind me. It's a funny story... Unless that was your kid... Then you're probably less amused.) Otherwise I've confined myself quite successfully to "blooming"s, "flipping"s and "for the love of crunchie"s.

At home, however, this is not the case.

So, in an effort to ensure some of Euna's first words aren't littered with the same line of profanities, January 1st... We're going cold turkey and cleaning up our vocabulary.

New Year's Resolution 1: No more swearing.

Can you spot Euna's most recent First?

What about now?

Lesson:

Change is good. Lead by example. To get the things you want for your children, you have to start by looking at yourself.

A Couple of Christmas Recipes... Tried and Tested.

Before you start to wane at the mention of MORE festive cheer these recipes (though they worked great for Christmas) were not particularly Christmassy so I thought I'd share...

Goats Cheese and Red Onion Tarts:

Recipe I found here. I used the same pastry recipe as I did for my mince pies and I garnished the dish with rocket dressed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil. This was a bit of an "IN YOUR FACE LAST YEARS PREGNANT ME!!!!" and it was goooooood.

 White Chocolate and Raspberry Cheesecake:

This recipe started out as this recipe but as recipes do it evolved to...

Ingredients

180g Digestive biscuits
75g butter
200g Raspberries
120g Sugar
500g Cream cheese
200g White chocolate
1/2-1 tsp vanilla extract

Crush the biscuits. I used a blender, you could bash them in a sandwich bag with a rolling pin.

Melt the butter and mix the crushed biscuits in. Spread around the bottom of a 20cm cake tin and bake at 180 for 5 minutes. Leave to cool.

Mix the sugar, cream cheese and vanilla in a bowl. Again I used a blender (love that thing) but you could do it by hand and work off a few of the impending calories.

Melt most (Leave a few squares for grating later) of the chocolate (microwave or on the hob) and fold the melted chocolate and most of the raspberries in to the mixture. Don't mix too much. You want the chocolate swirled through and the raspberries kept whole.

Chill overnight.

Decorate with left over raspberries and grated chocolate.

VOILA! Unbelievably good cheesecake which takes NO longer than half an hour! :D

The Alexander Christmas Experience...

When I was a kid I never really understood why my Mum got SO excited about Christmas. I guess I just thought "but your presents are rubbish creams and perfumes and Dad has to buy them because you're too old for Father Christmas... What's to be excited about for you?!"

This year I found out. Oh it's so exciting. I'd even go as far as to say Christmas as a Mum is MORE exciting than Christmas as a child. 

To be privileged enough to give your baby presents. 

To feed your family good food. 

To sip a glass of something festive. 

To be able to give your loved ones their Christmas under your roof. 

It was amazing from start to finish and I'm still riding the feel good wave of festive glow!

I feel so lucky and so grateful. I feel so loved and in love. What a wonderful time we had... MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone!

Silent Sunday... Let the Celebrations Commence...

Christmas Baking

This is NO foodie blog. Granted. But lets forget that for a moment and marvel at my efforts to pretend for a day...

Tomorrow we will host an open house for our friends, family and neighbours. We're offering mulled wine, some baked goods and bucket load of festive spirit. I have been FAR too enthusiastic with my invitations and I can only hope people bring coats and so are happy to stand in the garden...

A couple of recipes I plan to serve up are...

My Mum's recipe for mince pies;

500g Stork baking margarine (or any other butter)
1k self raising flour
3 jars of mincemeat (shop bought... like I said... this is no foodie blog)
2 beaten eggs

Crumble flour and butter into a breadcrumb like consistency with your fingers. Make a "well", pour in water, knead into a dough. Don't overwork.

Roll out to 5mm thickness. Use large circle cutter to make bases. Add a teaspoon of mincemeat. Brush egg around the edges. Cut out a smaller "lid". Place on lid. Brush top with egg. Bake at 180 celsius for 10-15 minutes.

Gingerbread;

I found this one. 

 Chief in charge of tasting...

 Did I mention I LOVE her?

 "I'm getting a hint of winter snowflakes with an undertone of blackcurrant and old boots..."

Lesson:

Bake. It's Christmas. Shop online (with wine) and sit in all day baking whilst you wait for deliveries.

Wordless (ish) Wednesday... Daddy Time

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Calling for Back-up! Here's my response team in action...