baking mad

ok, so i finally hae the house straight..its taken since april but from april-july obviously bump made things difficult and then baby made things difficult and then school holidays made...well, you get the picture! so now, with th exception of a few bits in our room to go to the loft (christmas christmas christmas) we are nearly sorted (lets see how long it lasts!)

now the kids are back at school i feel i have reclaimed the kitchen tooand am in the middle of a baking frenzy! i have taking to knocking up a victoria sponge or a batch of fairy cakes nearly every day. i can mix cook and serve up a victoria sponge quicker then i can cook a dinner. the husband is happy...the kids are happy cos they all gets to eat the spoils and im happy cos baking is the best form of stress relief i have ever known!

this past week i have made 2 victoria sponges, one filled with buttercream and one with whipped cream and jam (we had guests!!), one fruit sponge cake,6 batches of fairy cakes, 2 batches plain, 2 with currants, one with fudge pieces and one that was supposed to be buerfly caqkes but i never quite got round to giving the cakes wings so ....
i have also made a couple of recipes from my new super dooper cook book. the other day i made peppermint stick muffins with smashed up extra strong mints inside them.(sounds odd but they are delicious!)
tonight i have made som carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing yummy. so i have really been quite busy

crush the mints in a pestle and mortar

add to dry ingredients

top with some icing and ..voila!

as well as the baking frenzy, and the house tidying, we had visitors the weekend in the form of sons foster parents. they came to see the baby but it was the first time we had seen them in ages so it was lovely to catch up. i cooked a lasagne and roast potatoes and garlic bead for dinner and we had a lovely relaxed evening..the kids even behaved!!! then on sunday they took the older 2 out for an hour or so to give me some peace. mark was at work. would like to say i sat with my feet up but, well ou now how these things go!

and hasnt the weather been gorgeous, i got te grass cut sunday and tidied up the front of the house where there is a flower bed today, i have poted plantsw to go in but didnt want t break my ails carrying the pots through. for anyone who knows me this is incredible....i havent had long nails in 7 years since charity arrived  and then i had only had long nails for a year, i bite them yuck! but pregnancy made my nails grow, and they havent stopped growing yet and they are really tough (i cant bite through them!!)so will wait for the husband to carry them through one day and ill plant them up.

i dropped the kids at school this morning and decided the weather was just to nice to stay in so i would do the garden, but needed gardening gloves, our neighbours have cats(i HATE cats. mainly because im allergic to them but i do find them freaky evil little things, and honestly dont see the point, you cant walk them, they will let you stroke them when you feel like it, IF they feel like it..no, give me a dog anyday

our dog is certainly part of our family!

anyway, i went to get gardening gloves. i parked in tesco carpark, thought id pop in before goingover the road to the garden centre. in tesco i ended up having breakfaswt and coffee, walking round the shop i found some fabulous bargains, a ben 10 drink bottle for £1, kids little,cars drawing desks/clipboards for 99p (bargain, so i bought 6!) to story pen sets 50p(i got 2)and pink book ends 25p (i got 2 sets) n ice little stocking fillers i thought.

then onto the garden centre i got my gloves but....bad news...they had their christmas stuff out..uh ohso i also got.....

i got the hat by the way, not the baby

im going back for this hat next week

aint she cute!

so ive really had a productive and busy week(hence ive not blogged!)

conting down the days to christmas now...and im off to find the next recipe for me to bake...

come back soon  xxxx

christmas wishes,birthday dishes

i took the girls to the garden centre in the hope that the christmas decoartions would be on sale, and we were in luck! jamie was at a birhday party so we thought we'd try our luck! and we were in luck. I still find it amazing that just seeing christmas decoarations up lifts my spirits and i came out of that garden centre so happy!

Lexi found it all a but overwhelming bt aswe usually visit the garden centre to look at the decorations at least twice a week i think she'll get used to it! i must say one of the saddest things about jamie starting full time school is that my little christmas buddy wil not be able to come to the garden centre with me bu then had a thought, since moving we are now only 5-10mins away so wha a lvoely ater school treat!

i loved this heart but it was £15 and i didnt have the cash. i will be going back at the end of the month to buy it i think

charity listening to a story from father christmas

lexi's first visit with father christmas

so the trip to the garden centre was very worthwhile and i will be oing back at the end of the month as my lovely husband has ben working overtime and, well, someone has to spend the money ..right?

talking of the husband, he asked me what i want for christmas as he says he is completely stuck for what to buy since lexi came along ( i think his plans may have involved something to do with me going back to college but now that is obviosuly out of the window!!)
so i have decided its time for a nice food processor. last year he bought me a mixer on a stand, i hardly used the stand and bowl! but am going to do my research and tell him which one i want so i can make sure it does everything i need it to.

I have finally decided on the birthday cake i am making the older children for their birthday. they are having a make you own pizza party at pizza hut. J wanted a dinosaur cake, then a spider, then...well, i lost count how many times h changed his mind and charity just couldnt decide on anything so here is an example of what im going to make although this photo is actually pizza cookies and im making a cake...im gong to ask the staff to bring it out in a pizza box and im really looking forward to tackling it! they are both going to have a little tea party too because their birthdays are a week apart and they cant invite all the friends they would like because it would cost a fortune!

so jamie is going to have a little halloween party. he has a pinata in the loft we bought in the sale its a football but im going to drape a white cloth over the top to look like a ghost. its a pinata where you pull the strings rather then whack the life out of it.

i will make the little devil horns cup cakes i made last year and other halloween themed food.

i think charity would like a little movie /wii / pamper party..well she is 8 and 8 year olds like to think they are soooo grown up!

so come back and see what happens

i am on a baking buzz at the moment and hae taken to shipping up fairy cakes and victoria sponges on a whim. i love that i can weigh everything out, mix it, get it in the oven and on the table in 30 mins or ther abouts.

i have found some lovely recipes in the new cook book i found. one includes extra strong mints ground in a pestle and mortar and that seemed too unusual NOT to try so i am off to baby massage with lexi thismorning and am planning on camping ot in the kitchen this afternoon!

must fit in some ironing at some point as the kids have their school photos tommorrow!

i LOVE being a stay at home mummy xx

christmas dust to you all xxx

its beginning to look a lot like christmas....well almost!

PAYDAY! woohoo is all i can say to that!
took jamie and lexi to tesco for breakfast to celebrate lol (its been a long month!)
the parents hamper is coming along very nicely now lots of treats  and some basics as well. last night we bought my nephews christmas present off of the auction channel on tv its basically a cheap imitation of a wii £40 with lots of games pre installed comes with all the controllers etc, i think they will be happy with that. they will have to share, they are twin 7 year olds so they should be used to sharing.they actually sare a birthday with charity, how weird is that! we were introduced to charity on her first birthday, as we were meeting her my sister was being wheeled into theatre for her c-section!so they are one year apart to the day.
oh, i digress...
so after tesco (i spent £90 and managed to get about four items of actual shopping.....it was all christmas presents!!)then over to teh garden centre. jamie want to know if the christmas decorations are up yet (i dont know who was more excited him or me!lol) they arent there yet but we could see through the big black curtain that it was nearly time and the sign said early october....eek, not long now! after school we went to our other big garden centre as i know the 2 seem to have a race as to who can get their stuff on sale first, sadly aother big black curtain greeted us but again, it wont be long!did manage to buy a babies first christmas snowglobe and a little sockin ornament. the children get at least one ornament each year i write their name and the year on it. mypla is when they leave home they will have a box full of ornaments to start their own trees with. i have ornaments my nanny gave me and they are my most cherished christmas decorations.
talking of trees...
charity (chats) usually has a pink pre lit tree in her bedroom this year as she and jamie are sharing at the moment ive told her she will have to have a green tree and when she starts sharing with lexi they will have the pink tree in their room so for this year it will be in lexi's room i ill have tothink of a theme to decorate it and a theme for the tree in the kids room...decisions,decisions!
and theres still those birthday cakes to decide upon......well, j has decided on a big spider sitting on a spider we and chats well its down to  a tray of cupcakes or a handbag/nacklace/mirror combo or a fairy toadstall or a tasselled cushion topped with tiara and sceptre which is my favourite idea at the moment...watch this space
today we finally managed to get all the junk into the loft so the babies room is useable

treats all round

jamie off school again today he hasnt not stopped talking for a second. he stopped lexi sleeping/woke her up so many times it just wasnt funny.
ended today with the husband coming home early from work so we took the kids over the road to sainsburys for a treat of hot chocolate topped with cream and choc chips and a pain au chocolat. and coffee for mum and dad (i needed it after a day with jamie chattering) jamie then went into complete meltdown in the middle of sainsburys then lexi woke up and started screaming because she wanted feeding. so i have to carry her round the supermarket sucking on my finger to stop her screaming, jamie is screaming and shouting his head off that he doesnt want to go to bed (omg we sound like a right rough family, we are not,honestly!)when we got home jamie has been scratching his chicken pox when i dont know as ive been wachig him and he's ben wearing fleecy all in one pj's but im gonna guess whilst in the toilet cos the ones he has scratched are on the top of his legs! i told him they will scar if he scratches them and he went into complete meltdown again for about 30 minutes!
anyway, ive bougt a couple more items to in hamper im putting together for my parents fo christmas and i treated myself to a fab cookery book in sainsburys called baking magic by kate shirazi. the husband says well i like baking the cakes and he likes eating them so everyone is a winner!its got some lovely recipies in and i cant wait to try them out, once jamie is back at schol and my head stops spinning!
mark bought home half a dozen fresh eggs from the customer he was working for today signed on top of the egg box 'with lots of love from * cottage' bless! so ham egg and chips for dinner the cutest tiniest eggs you ever did see!

well, this is me!

so, here i am a 'blogger' (ive be called worse!) for someone so technically inept this is quite impressive!
the title of my blog.. kids, cakes and christmas tells you just about everything. lol
im a stay at home mum with 2 adopted children charity,8 and jamie,5. charity is my angel(with a slightly dented 8year old halo) and jamie is my whirlwind leaving a path of destruction behind him!jamie started school full time on monday..today (thursday) he is at hme with chicken pox...that says it all. Nothing in this house is normal, nothing is calm! but J starting scool couldnt have come at a better time.
I suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome (pcos), oh yes i couldnt just ha polycycstic ovaries, i had to have a syndrome too! ha ha! 20 years ago we started trying for a baby and nothing...we had 10 years of tests and hormone tablets but nothing. in the end we gave up, well we gave up thinking it would ever happen, you never get over the need or the longing.  so we moved from heathrow to north devon, a beautiful place. 7 years ago we adopted our daughter at age one. followed 4 years ago by her brother also then aged one and life went on. this april after feeling continually unwell i decided enough was enough and took myself off to the gp to find out i was 4 1/2 months pregnant. to say we were shocked is an understatement and little lexi was born on 10th july and i am completely an utterly in love! people keep asking if i feel differently aboutthe older two childen, but i have to say, they are ALL my babies and my feelings for the other 2 have not altered at all.
so with a 10week old baby in the house i dont honestly have much time for anything else we moved into our home in april and i am just this week finding myself able to get the house properly sorted! and now i have 2 kids birthdays coming up (the older 2 are a week apart)  Then in december its my 40th (surely not!) and then christmas!! i am christmas mad and so are my kids but this year im a little less organised then normal so i am currently looking what birthday cakes to make the kids...watch this space