Catch Up

Hello Lovelies, 

I haven't blogged in a while *hangs head in shame*. So I thought I would share with you a few moments from that past few days. 

  If you follow me on instagram you may have seen most of these pictures. Over the past few days I've had some lazy pyjama days I have been feeling a little under the weather. 

Myself and Anthony have been doing some top secret hopefully soon to be revealed stuff and it has had it's ups and downs. It's been full on which is probably why I have been MIA. 

On Valentines day Anthony surprised me with a beautiful bunch of roses and a card. The top right collage is a few photos of myself and Anthony from the past few years. I can't wait for many more to come. Also once I have lost the baby weight I can finally get my ring resized and share with you how beautiful it is.   (I think there's a sneak peek on my engagement post).

Edward has changed so much over the past few days/weeks, he has started to smile and coo. It's so amazing to watch him change, it's hard though to put him back in his moses basket at 2am when he's cooing and smiling.

The Johnson's baby bedtime bath is a bit of a random photo but I have been loving this stuff and not just for Edward, it's so relxing. I asked my mum to watch Edward the other day so I could go for a long(ish) soak in the bath. This could possibly be making it's way into my February favourites.

 The Pret tea is from a caffeine filled day in Leeds, I met up with my friend from Uni whilst Anthony was working in the city. It was an early start setting off at half past 7, not easy with a baby so a lot of coffee and tea was needed. 

What have you all been up to whilst I have been away? 

xx

Quick Twists Recipe

Hello Lovelies, 

It's a quick impromptu post this evening. Although I am trying to shift the baby weight I couldn't help but have a go at a spot of baking. I had seen the recipe for Cinnamon Twists on a few blogs, I also had a quick look on pinterest as well. I have become slightly obsessed with pinterest my user name is Missbeth90 if you want to follow me (cheeky I know ). 

So I thought I would do my own quick twist on the recipes that I had seen (see what I did there hehe). To make it quicker I didn't make my own puff pastry I bought some in, didn't think that I would have the time to make it with having a new born. 

Here's a quick step by step for each recipe.

Preheat the oven at 200 degrees C for both recipes.

The ingredients that I used are:

• Jus-Rol low fat puff pastry 
• Nutella 
• Butter (around 100g)
• Cinnamon (2 tablespoons ish)
• Granulated Sugar (3 tablespoons ish) 

Nutella twists: 

• Cut off around 1/4 of the pastry which is already rolled
• Spread as much nutella as you want on 1/2 of the pastry leaving the other half plain 
• Fold pasty over so the nutella is sandwiched 
• Cut into 1" (ish) thick stripes 
• Then twist holding both the top and bottom of each strip   
• Bake in the oven for 10-15 mins or until golden brown 

Cinnamon Twists:

• Melt the butter either in a pan or a microwavable bowl in the microwave
• Brush the butter (leave a little for the top) over the remaining pastry
• Mix sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl
• Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the butter (again leaving some for the top)
• Cut pastry into strips and twist. I didn't fold it this time to make them longer. 
• Brush the tops of the twists with butter and sprinkle the remaining sugar and cinnamon.
• Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins or until golden brown   

Let me know if you have a go or have any other ideas for fillings. 

Enjoy!! :D

xx

Bakewell Walk

Hello Lovelies, 

I hope you all had a fab weekend. On Saturday Anthony, Edward and myself went to Bakewell in Derbyshire for the day.

Derbyshire isn't too far from where we live so we often like to venture out for country walks and a look around the villages.  

It was pretty cold so it's a good job that we all wrapped up. Edward slept almost all day, he only woke up once for a bottle but we still had a good time. 

After looking at these photos I desperately need to get my hair dyed roots galore haha.   

I hadn't been to Bakewell for while (possibly over a year or so) and was so surprised that they had a love lock bridge. I also forgot how busy it gets at a weekend so would suggest if you are going to visit do it on a weekday if you can. 

Let me know how you spent your weekend in the comments, also leave a link to your blog if you have one so I can have a peek. 

Thanks

xx

 

Project Life 2015 | Recording Our Family Moments

Happy hump day!

I couldn't help but add this picture in of Ozzy sat at the table watching me take photo's. (I didn't eat all of that chocolate although I may have helped hehe). 

This year as our family has extended I have decided that I need to record more of our precious moments together. Over the years I have had loads of digital photos, however as I have had laptop disasters or software failures I have lost a lot of these images. 

I was going to do just a normal family album or attempt to scrapbook but after watching a few YouTube videos I decided that I would give Project Life a go. 

All of the above were purchased from Hobbycraft online.

To start my project I selected a D ring binder in Jade , project life mini kit - the baby boy edition, the 3x4 Jade edition insert cards and the big variety pack of inserts.

This was enough to get me started. The pens that I began to use were the Sharpie fine point markers. After using these on a few pages I was not happy with the result especially when I had used them on the Baby Boy inserts, as the ink had ran through meaning that I could not use the other side to write on. 

Some people may be fine with this as it is possible to put a different card on the other side, trying to be thrifty though I would rather write on both sides so that I can stretch the cards out further.   

So I decided to invest in some different pens from Paperchase, I prefer to write in black rather than blue but these are available in both colours. 

Whilst in there I found the sticker stand and just couldn't resist buying a few packs to jazz up some pages in the future. I was surprised at the price as well, these packs were between £1 and £1.50, I thought that this was really reasonable.   

  This is just a sneak peek at one of the pages I have done so far. I have been finding it so enjoyable looking through the photo's of Edwards first few weeks and putting them into the album. 

I plan on posting more about Project Life, if there are any questions that you have about it feel free to leave me a question in the comments. 

xx

All opinions are my own and this post is not sponsored. 

Busy Day

Hello Lovelies, 

Yesterday we had our appointment to register Edward, we had to wait 3 weeks as the register office is so busy at this time of year. 

We had to be at the appointment for 9am, we had to set off at 8am and only just managed to make it on time! I forgot how crazy the traffic can be in Sheffield on a week day. 

We had to find somewhere to feed Edward as he was getting restless. Luckily there was a Costa close by. I was also in need of a coffee after the early get up (we shared a cheeky chocolate twist as well). 

After a quick trip to the hair dressers for Anthony we had a look around a few shops and then headed to Meadowhall. Anthony treated me to a Zizzi's, I would definitely recommend the calamari starter it's delicious! 

So after a busy day yesterday I am staying at home, having a pj day and watching Les Misérables. 

I hope you all have a great day whatever you are doing. 

xx

Everything's Changing | 2015

Hello Lovelies, 

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year. This years Christmas for me was a little different, if you have been following my blog or instagram you will know that my due date was on the 26th of December. 

From Christmas day until around my Birthday on the 3rd of January all seems to be a bit of a Blur. We welcomed our bundle of joy on the 27th of December after my waters broke at midnight of the 26th. (It just so happens that this is the day that the deep snow decided to fall in Sheffield). 

Anthony dug the car out of the snow as soon as my waters had gone to prepare for the journey to the hospital. We went in at 4.30am and by 7.16pm on the 27th we had welcomed our little boy, Edward Anthony. I am so pleased that I did not have a birth plan as I think I would have been very disappointed. I may post about my labour at another time.

I can honestly say that I have never been so in love. Our lives have changed completely and we wouldn't change it for the world! 

Week one :D

 I will hopefully be blogging a lot more this year along with recording our family memories in different ways. Anthony very kindly bought me a new camera for Christmas with some accessories and for my birthday I also got a selfie stick and other accessories from my sister. 

Thanks for reading

xx

Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes

Happy Thursday Lovelies, 

This weekend it was my Sister in laws birthday, we spent the weekend visiting Welbeck open art studios and baking cupcakes. 

We had to use an american recipe for the cupcakes as Sannie did not have any weighing scales and I didn't take mine. I will list the recipe that we used and a recipe with measurements in grams as well. 

Cups 

• 1 cup of unsalted butter
• 1 cup of caster sugar 
• 2 and 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
• 3 eggs 
• 1/2 cup of milk 
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder

Grams 

• 150g unsalted butter 
• 150g caster sugar
• 150g self-raising flour 
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder 

You can add any flavouring to the mixtures, we chopped up a cheap chocolate bar to make choc chunks and added these. 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees F
2. Place bun/muffin cases into a muffin tin 
3. Cream the butter and sugar
4. Mix in eggs and flour a little at a time 
5. Add baking powder and mix
6. Mix in chopped chocolate   
7. Spoon mixture into cases 
8. Place in oven for 10-12 mins or until golden brown on top
9. Place cupcakes on a cooling wire and leave to fully cool 
10. The fun part DECORATING time!! 

We forgot to add baking powder ooops!!

To decorate the cupcakes we cheated and bough Dr. Oetker chocolate icing in a can.(I would highly recommend this if you are not to keen on having to wash a lot of dishes) I did find that the can only decorated around 8 cupcakes though. 

For toppings we used Asda's own popping candy and chocolate toppings which included; white chocolate stars, white, dark and milk choc covered cereal, milk choc covered toffee pieces and brownie pieces. 

We also had a bag of matchsticks, I found that I ate more of these than I used for decorating haha. 

This was the result!!

 

Nearer Christmas I will hopefully be doing more Christmas themed baking, as long as I have the time and energy. Baby is definitely taking up a lot of energy at the minute and when he's here I'm sure I will be very busy, but I will hopefully have more mummy and baby posts :D.   

Let me know if you have a go at making your own cakes or any cheats that you have for decorating. 

xx

Big News / About Me

Hello, 

I know I've been pretty quiet on the blog front recently, hopefully this post will explain why. 
It has been a very busy few months for me and my boyfriend Anthony. In October we decided to move in together after 7 years we thought it was about time. 

We moved in together, at this time I started working as a teacher after studying Early Years with Qualified Teacher status at university. I thought this would be my dream job and I would be doing this forever. I was wrong, after three months of trying my hardest but slowly being ground down and ending up feeling not too good I made the hard decision to leave my job. This was a very hard decision as Anthony was still working hard at uni studying Energy Engineering for Sustainability. 

Over the Christmas holiday's I spent everyday filling in application forms and sending CV's, I was offered a job in a call center and took it as I needed to pay bills etc. 

So that was the beginning of the year and now 6 months later Anthony has finished his degree and fingers crossed has passed with a 1st!! Not only this but he has accepted a job as a Trainee Manager in Energy and Controls. I'm so proud and excited for him as he has worked so hard. I am still working in the call center but feel so much more relaxed and better than I did before Christmas. I probably will go into teaching in the future again but for now that's all on hold because . . . 

We are expecting a baby!!!! We are so excited I have been keeping this a secret for so long now and thought it was about time that I shared this news. We had our first scan 2 weeks ago where we were told that the baby was 12 weeks and 3 days old. The scan was amazing to see the little heart beat, it made it all so real. I had already told my family and Anthony had told his, everyone has been so supportive and excited. 

   I started this blog to distract me and keep me busy, I love writing on here. You can expect a lot more posts from now as the news is out. I will be keeping the beauty posts up but will also be including a lot more pregnancy/ baby/ lifestyle posts as well. 

I know this has been a long one but I hope you feel that you know me a bit more now and I am excited to share the rest of my journey with you all. 

Thanks for reading, lots of love. 




 xx