The Great Egg Hunt 2015

The Podlings always look forward to our annual egg hunt. We were spending the Easter weekend at Mark's parents' house this year, so we had fun hiding the eggs in their front and back gardens. Now that they are getting older we have to get more creative as to where we hide them or they find them too quickly. Mark's parents had bought a big pack of foil covered chocolate eggs to add to our usual selection, so they had a lot more to look for this year. It was lovely to have these extra eggs as it kept the hunt going that bit longer and they all had a fabulous time.

They had so much fun in fact that we had to hide the eggs again for them after it was over! Then they hid the eggs for Mark and me to find. Then they hid them again for Nanna to find! We had to call a stop to it in the end as the eggs were starting to look a little worse for wear, but it kept the girls busy all afternoon!

Extreme egg hunt! Mark managed to get this chocolate egg to balance on a cobweb on the garden fence. Impressive!

And they're off!

Nanna hunting for eggs

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Alexander's First Easter

My gorgeous little man with his special Easter bunny. Love this baby so much!

I've given all the Podlings a special teddy for their first Easter. This one is extra special with his personalised jumper. I think it's adorable!

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Happy Easter!

Christ is risen! 

"The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake." Cardinal Basil Hume

After church on Easter Sunday

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Baby Love

We are spending the Easter weekend with Mark's family and were thrilled to be able to see the newest additions to the clan again on Saturday. Greg and Kelly came for lunch on Saturday, bringing their adorable twins Taylor and Freddie with them. Lily loves babies and is a proper little mother, so she was thrilled to get cuddles with both babies. She held Taylor for over an hour and only then gave her up because we promised she could hold her again after her lunch!

I was also in my element, having two gorgeous babies to cuddle. I love babies! I'm rather sad about the fact that I won't have any more of my own, so it's nice to have a tiny niece and nephew to fawn over! 

Handsome Freddie

Sleepy baby girl!

Beautiful Taylor

Freddie has such an expressive face. He's adorable!

It all gets a bit much for Freddie!

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Easter Crafts

After school Easter craft

I set a couple of Easter crafts up for the Podlings to come home to last week. The girls in particular love crafting, but even Tom made an Easter bookmark. Happy Podlings!

Card making supplies

Never happier than when she's crafting!

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A Good Haul

Vintage Ladybird books bring back memories of my own childhood and what English child doesn't love Enid Blyton? I read her books voraciously as a girl!

It is no secret that we are a family of bibliophiles. I have a particular fondness for children's books, especially old ones, so was rather thrilled with my good fortune this past week. Lots of lovely books from some local charity shops and then the discovery that our library was selling off some of its old stock. Lots of happy readers in our family this week!

When the library are selling off books at 20p a time, who can resist buying a huge stack!

Tom becomes a Cub

Tom has been going to Cubs for a few weeks now and was invested on Monday. It's fair to say he wasn't keen on the actual ceremony, but was quite happy to be a fully-fledged Cub after it was all over. It is so nice to see Tom taking an interest in something like this. I love the Scout and Guide movement and the many opportunities and experiences it offers and it is lovely to see Tom wanting to be a part of something like that. Highlights of his experiences so far have included star gazing and a visiting speaker from Jodrell Bank observatory, which Tom particularly enjoyed.

After we got home, we celebrated our new Cub Scout with a special (and very delicious!) cake I made earlier in the day and a few extra treats. Love my big boy!

I used the recipe I use to make Tom's favourite double chocolate chip muffins to make two cakes which I sandwiched with jam and buttercream, topped with melted chocolate and decorated with mini Smarties and dark chocolate sprinkles. It was delicious!

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