I’m on the move

I’ve finally joined the modern world and got myself a smart phone. I’m still getting to grips with it but I downloaded the WordPress app last night and thought I would start bloghing again.

The last time I wrote on this blog was two and a half months ago when it was Isaac’s first birthday I’m not sure why I stopped to be honest as I was enjoying writing my little posts. It was probably a combination of being super busy at work and having to run around after a now very mobile toddler. But now having the ability to at least draft posts on the move will help me get back into my blogging grove.

Emma

When I was one I had just begun…

The big birthday has come and gone. I had been looking forward to celebrating Isaac’s first birthday for ages and it definately did not disappoint.

Friday was his  actual birthday and it was spent doing some last minute party organising and having some fun in the sun. His main birthday present was a sand pit. He loves it and we had so much fun out in the garden.

Saturday was Party Day!! The weather has been amazing and so  we were able to have our planned BBQ. It was a team effort with Grannies and Aunties supplying the burgers, sauages and rice crispie buns and we did the rest. My pièce de résistance was the choo choo train birthday cake- which may not have been a work of art but I was all proud of my first attempt at making a kids birthday cake.

I got the cake tin after Christmas in the sales it was reduced from £15 to £3. I  think it turned out quite well except it didn’t rise as much as i had hoped so the wheels are missing. I used the recipe that came with the tin ( by Jane Asher) as i wasn’t sure of the quantity with it being an odd shape. It used yogurt as the raising agent which I’ve never tried before. I decorated it using chocolate buttons, dolly mixtures, jelly tots and wee tubes of icing.  I can’t really comment on the taste as it was scoffed before I got to try it but I was assured by everyone that it was yummy.

I can’t believe it’s been a year since the wee man has entered our lives. It’s been an amazing year with far more ups than there have been downs. Can’t wait to  find out what adventures this next year will bring.

My First Mother’s Day!

Yesterday was offically my first mothers day. I just missed out by a couple of weeks last year but I still got a wee card from the bump.

I had a wonderful day. Isaac bought be a lovely handbag that I had been oogling in Marks the past couple of weeks and a card with butterflies on it.

After breakfast we went to visit Isaac’s Granny & Grandad and gave Granny her cards and present. I got photo books made up for both Granny’s showing Isaac’s first year. It was a bit footery to make as we have some many photos of him and it was hard to choose which ones to put in bit I’m glad I got them now as they turned out lovely.  You can see the book here .

After we got back I got treated to a fabulous living room floor picnic. It was supposed to be a normal picnic but there was a rain shower just as we we’re about to leave the house. It was lovely and we’ve planned to start a wee tadition and do this every year on mothers day.

In the evening we went to see my mum to give her her photo book. Isaac also picked up a extra wee present for her of a royal wedding fridge magnet. I’m not really into the royal wedding (although do appreciate the extra day off work) but my mum loves it and can’t wait to watch it on TV and see the dress. I told her it was cancelled on Friday as an April Fool- she was so annoyed I had to tell her the truth straight away.

We have a busy week this week. It’s the wee mans First birthday on Friday and his party on Saturday. If the weather is nice we’re going to have a BBQ and if not just a wee afternoon tea. We don’t have much space in our wee house so I’m hoping it’s sunny as we have more room outside. I’m really looking forward to it- I can’t believe it’s come around already it seems like only last week we’re coming home fom the hospital.  

Happy belated mothers to all mums, mums to be, mums to angels and all the special women who may not be mums in the biological sense but who are just as special.  xxx

sneaky way of getting free personalised greeting cards

Just found a great way of getting free cards on funkypigeon.com.

Go onto the site and register an account when it asks for the account number of someone who has referred you type in 763938 (this will give you half price on your first order). Yes, this is my referral code but I’m really not posting this to gain the money I just thought it was a great way to send cards for free.  

Then put in 6 reminders onto your account ( for speed i just put in nonsense it doesn’t need to be real details) This will give you £3 credit which because of the half price offer you have already got you’ll be able to get 2 cards without spending a penny.- It would be worth deleting these reminders later to stop unwanted emails  (i don’t really want to be reminded of dfjadkfajd’s Birthday)

 To be really sneaky if you have another email address for work say just send a referral to yourself and then do it all over again with the new email address.

 Once the second email address makes the order for the 2 free cards the first account will get another £3 credit.

 Hope this makes sense. It does work I’ve just ordered all four of the mother’s day cards I needed to send (2 from us and 2 from Isaac) and didn’t even need to give my debit card details. 

There is a good selection of cards maybe not quite as many as moonpig but they are still lovely. Of course I haven’t received the cards yet so can’t comment on quality but I can’t really complain as I got them for nothing and if they are really rubbish i could always just buy/make some replacements.

To get them completely free you would really need to be sending them to a UK address however you would still get the £3 and half price discounts if sending them internationally.

Emma

Pro and anti

I’ve being having a nosey through the winners of the Irish Blog awards which took place in Belfast at the weekend. It was nice to read some Irish Blogs as nearly all the Blogs I read are from America or the UK. Anywhoo I came across the Antiroom ,the Blog describes itself as “the home of many Irish ladies writing about everything from fashion to feminism, pop culture to politics, and lots of things we haven’t even thought of yet”. It is the home of this years winner of the Irish Blog award for best blog post:  ”Being depressed just means you’re not a moron“- this is an excellent blog post and is so well written it almost made me a bit embarrassed of my feeble writing skills. As I do with every new blog I visit I checked out the About page and they have a very neat way of introducing themselves just by simply listing what they are pro and anti. I thought I’d give it ago and also invite any visitors to my Blog to do the same, it’s such a simple wee exercise which sums up what I’m about without unnecessary justification. Well here goes:

Emma is….Pro: cuddles, strong black coffee, long walks by the beach, cake, minimalism, charity shops, birthdays, knitting, HBO box set marathons, picking the perfect present for someone,watching that person open said perfect present,Christmas,seeing my baba at the end of a long day at work, VW  Campers, cold glasses of water on a warm day, going on the swings, good stand up comedians crumpets, good manners and home-made vegetable soup…and is anti: baked beans,leaving my baba everyday to go to work, cheap instant coffee, celebrity magazines, people who list shopping as a hobby, the increasing consumerism of childhood, negativity, the vast majority of female stand up comedians (sorry).  

I could do this all day listing things but I’ll stop there. Why don’t you have a go and leave me a comment with your list?

Emma

Dont ya just love a long weekend

Last Thursday was  St Patrick’s Day so we had a stay off work I took annual leave on Friday to make it a super dooper long weekend. We didn’t get up to too much W was working on Thursday so I went out to lunch with my mum, sister and my brother and his girlfriend. We kept with tradition and had gorgeous Irish Stew. Even the wee man loved it and gobbled up a big bowl all by myself- not too shabby for a boy who seems to never eat.  I have never made Irish Stew myself but I’m thinking I might give it a whirl in my slow cooker.

On Friday we went to our usual day off haunts of Portrush and Portstewart. I love these two seaside towns so much. We lived in each for a year whilst at University and it was such a happy time. I would love to move back someday unfortunately there isn’t many jobs around there but if the plan comes together and we become  location independent we would definitely consider moving  to this part of the world.

 Whilst we were there we visited my favourite cafe in the world Ground Espresso Bar.  I don’t know what it is about this wee coffee shop but it’s just so relaxing. I could sit all day in their lovely cosy sofas drinking their beautiful coffee and munching their homemade buns (esp their peppermint slices) . Unlike a lot of cafe’s they are very baby friendly, if you spend over £3 you get a free jar of baby food, there is a big play area with loads of toys suitable for babies and they even give you free nappies and wipes.  Speaking of cafes if I ever make it to Ballinspittle (great name) in County Cork I definitely would love this try this place- just reading about the food they sell is making me drool.

After that we went for our obligatory go on the swings. Whilst there I was reminded from a bit out of the film Knocked up when Paul Rudd’s character says “I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything as much as my kids love bubbles” well I definitely don’t think I’ve ever loved anything as much as Isaac loves swings.

Saturday was taken up mostly by me filling in an application form for I job am interested in. It’s been a few years since I’ve filled one of these bad boys in and it took a lot out of me. I emailed it off this morning so fingers crossed. It’s a very interesting role connected with Derry being the UK City of Culture in 2013, don’t want to say too much about it in case I jinx myself. 

On Sunday we had a family day. It’s my sister’s birthday this week so I made her favourite, pineapple upside down cake. I used this recipe and it turned out  really well. I had actually never had pineapple upside down cake before and I was surprised how yummy it was.

Toodles

Emma x

Brownie Recipe

Here is the Brownie Recipe I was talking about in my last post. It’s from the Londonderry Girl Guides Centenary Cook Book. I was a girl guide from Bunnies (rainbows ) to ranger guides. I loved it so always try to help them out by buying their cook books etc.

ingredients

125g Butter

250g caster sugar

50g self-raising flour

40g Cocoa

2 eggs

75 g chopped Walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 18oC. Grease and line a 8″ square shallow cake tin.
2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the cocoa powder and blend together with a wooden spoon.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar together until light, then add cocoa and butter mixture.
4. Sieve the flour over the top of the mixture and fold in with a large metal spoon.
5. Add the nuts if using (chopped chocolate can also be added here)
6. Bake in oven for 25-30 minutes
7. Leave in tin to cool before cutting into 2″ squares

The wee man has decided to break the o key on the keyboard. it still works it just needs an extra hard press. It’s doing my head in and making it really hard to type so I’ll leave this post short..

I’m going out for dinner tonight with my two best friends Julie and Kathleen. Kathleen is visiting from the States and we haven’t seen her in a year so I’m really looking forward to tonight.

Emma