Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's day. A chance to show all the lovely people in my family how much I love them and use pretty china, flowers and hearts as I do it. Win Win for me!

Happy Valentine's Day!

💖

Valentine's treats for the Podlings greeted them in the morning. There may or may not also have been doughnuts for breakfast as a special treat.

I made these little Valentine's treat boxes for the Podlings. Ladybirds for the boys and roses and lace for the girls. They are filled with Love Hearts.

Presents for the dolls, the little heart shaped boxes I made were filled with Love Hearts and given to the dolls with a bouquet of paper roses.

Our Valentine's tea (the picture is very dark for some reason)

Heart-shaped fairy cakes with pink and white icing, pink glittery sugar and red and pink roses (I loved making the roses!). They couldn't be more perfect for a Valentine's day tea! 

Christmas Day

Opening their stockings

Lily is almost always the first one awake in this house and never more so than on Christmas morning. We have a 'not before seven' policy which means they are given short shrift if they show up before seven in the morning. I heard little feet trotting down the corridor several times from half past six (and Lily says they were awake much earlier than that!) as Emma kept coming to check the time on Mark's alarm clock! On the dot of seven, two excited girls and a sleepy little boy who had been woken by aforementioned girls appeared in my room with their stockings. It is hard to be quiet when Father Christmas has filled your stocking whilst you were sleeping! We always have the stocking opening in our room before going downstairs to open the presents from us.

Much excitement (and mess!) ensued downstairs with the present opening and the Podlings were all pleased with their gifts. As usual, I didn't take many photos later in the day, but we had a really nice, relaxed Christmas. Mark's parents came over in the afternoon to spend the day and enjoy Christmas dinner with us and we had a really nice day together. Another wonderful Christmas to add to the store of family memories.

Someone was pleased with his chocolate Santa!

Waiting for Daddy to come downstairs.

One very excited little boy!

When I told him they were all his!

Waiting to start!

Lily is Harry Potter mad and her favourite present was the complete Harry Potter wand collection.

Carnage!

We are not big fans of traditional Christmas cake, so I made a Christmas Victoria sponge instead.

Valentine's Day

 

 

Baskets of treats and cards made by Mummy awaited the Podlings on the morning of Valentine's Day, along with the special treat of pink iced doughnuts for breakfast. Alex was understandably thrilled to be greeted with a basket of sweets and was soon tucking in to strawberry laces! I greeted the girls from school with pink foil wrapped chocolate lollipops and they came home and started on the baking for our Valentine's tea (Tom prefers not to join in these days). Lily made the fairy cakes and they decorated them together. I had bought some pink and red fondant icing so the girls could make some decorations for the cakes. Lily really enjoyed this and made some really lovely decorations. I made the larger cake and then Lily had a free hand in decorating it. She did a lovely job. We sat down to a lovely Valentine's tea together where we all consumed far too much sugar!

 



Our Valentine's tea

Lily's very pretty Valentine's cake.

Lily, Emma and Alex had fun decorating the fairy cakes

I made this wreath last summer, but it seemed appropriate to bring it out for Valentine's Day

Little Emma received her first Valentine from a little boy in her class. So sweet!

Celebrating Tom's Success

 

Tom has had his own YouTube channel for nearly two years now. For a boy who often has problems in the real world, it has given him somewhere he can just be himself and I believe it has really helped him. He started out doing Minecraft gaming videos and is now making his own object shows. He has taught himself how to use PowerPoint and is using it to make and animate his own shows and I am so impressed with how much he is learning and how creative he can be with it. When Tom becomes interested in something he really immerses himself in it and his shows get better and better with every episode. I am so proud of what he has achieved with it.

 

Tom has seen a slow and steady increase in subscribers over his time on YouTube, but the end of last year saw a sudden surge in subscriber numbers, mostly due, I think, to his most recent object show. I told him that when he hit 1000 subscribers I would make him a cake and this week he hit the magic number! I made him a chocolate cake with lots of chocolate on top and we celebrated his success with a special tea. The chocolate 'wall' on the cake is a reference to Tom's YouTube name.

 

Well done Tom...keep up the good work!

A Birthday Barbecue

My Dad's birthday is three days after Christmas and since my parents were staying with us for Christmas we were able to spend it with him this year. We decided to be a little different and celebrate with a winter barbecue. With a December birthday, Dad had never had a barbecue on his birthday before, so we were pleased to be able to give him a first at the age of 62! Starting the barbecue was no mean feat as we think the coal had got a bit damp from being stored in the conservatory. Dad was determined to start it and kept at it long after we would have given up. His dedication and perseverance paid off and we eventually had a splendid fire to cook on. Mark took charge of the cooking and produced a veritable feast. We could probably have fed half the neighbours as well!

The girls made and decorated a birthday cake for their grandad, which  we were too full eat on the day! We ended the evening by roasting some giant American marshmallows that Tom had been given for Christmas and kindly shared with everyone. I think my Dad had a lovely birthday, we certainly all enjoyed it!

Yes, that is a pith helmet!

Lily's Tenth Birthday

A Pegasus cake for my Greek mythology loving girl. I was really pleased with how the cake turned out. I tried some new things when decorating this cake and I think they worked really well. Lily loved her cake and was sad that we had to cut it.

Emma decorated the fairy cakes for her sister