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! 

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!

Through the Rabbit Hole at Erddig House

 

 

On Sunday we packed up a picnic and drove to Wales to visit Erddig House near Wrexham. We wanted to do the Alice in Wonderland trail there before it finishes at the end of January. The house itself is closed for the winter, but the garden has been turned into Wonderland by a team of artists and sculptors and they have done a lovely job. I love the book, so I tried to bring the story alive for them as we walked around the garden. Emma is a particularly imaginative child who delights in make-believe and she thoroughly enjoyed pretending to be small after drinking from an imaginary 'Drink Me' bottle and then being quite anxious to find the sculpture of the caterpillar so we could eat some of the mushroom to grow big again. We had a really lovely time following the trail through the garden and the Mad Hatter's tea party was wonderful. It thoroughly delighted my sense of whimsy and Emma and Alex in particular loved pretending to eat the very realistic pretend cakes.

 

It was a very cold day, so we were very glad of our hot winter picnic. We warmed up with tea, soup and sausages in the car park before climbing back in the car and heading back home.  I thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Wonderland and we intend to go back in the warmer months and explore the house and estate further.

 

This bold little chap hopped into the ticket office and explored behind the counter whilst we were in there and then posed beautifully for me outside.

There was a dress-up area, so Emma was in her element

There were distorting mirrors to make you appear bigger and smaller, like Alice in the story. Alex really loved these, especially the one that made him bigger.

Two little caterpillars

I'm late, I'm late!

Alex thought the Cheshire cat was a tiger...Emma found it rather scary!

 

She's getting so grown-up this one!

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

 

Alex looking longingly at the pretend cake and, I suspect, wishing it was real!

The Mad Hatter's tea party was so beautifully laid out and was my favourite part of the trail.

This squirrel was having the time of his life on the bird feeder!

Painting the roses red

A winter picnic. Tom was very cold and opted to sit in the car.

 

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!