A Walk in the Park

It was our friend Nicola's birthday at the beginning of April & we went to Calderstones Park for a walk with her & another friend, Clare to 'celebrate'! It was a bit chilly! At one point I lost Luke on Nicola's shoulders! I'm not joking! I looked right at Nicola & asked where Luke was without seeing his head behind hers!! Doh!
Annie enjoyed a game of football while we were there....

....and we all fed the ducks & geese with....

.... a lot of stale bread just like this piece Luke is showing you! ;0)

There were some unusual ducks on the lake that day too!

Clare got on really well with the boys (not surprising as she is a primary school teacher!). Timmy especially loved talking with her. In fact, he liked her so much that when he first met her last summer he called her his 'other mummy'!

Claderstones Park is full of ornamental gardens. We spent a long time looking in the pond at the fish. There were some monster sized ones in there!

The Japanese Gardens are full of little hiding places & streams with stepping stones. The green Timmy is running towards is a pond so I just had time to snap a quick piccie before dashing to stop him accidentally diving in!

These stepping stones were much more manageable!

There is also a 'stage' in the Japanese Gardens so the boys put on a dance show for us all to watch. It ended dramatically with them all falling on the cobbles after spinning wildly round the pole!!!

And somehow Timmy & Luke always manage to get whoever we go on a walk with to pick them up! (Don't worry Clare 'only' lifted them off the stage onto the path again!). It was a lovely afternoon with Nicola & Clare even though we got rained on & had to take refuge in the tiny cafe & drink hot chocolate!

Mr & Mrs Galea!

My friend Lorna got married to Tony on April 26th in Heswall, Wirral. It was an amazing day...
... the service was fantastic- Annie especially loved the order of service! Yum!
The flowers in the church (arranged by our friend Claudia)...

...and the bouquets of flowers were gorgeous!

Lorna & Tony looked stunning! They are a lovely couple...

The views across the River Mersey from the church were breath taking & the weather (although the photo doesn't suggest it) was warm & sunny.

It was so good to spend time with friends especially Miriam & her husband Arpad & their daughter Zara (who is a few weeks younger than Annie). They moved to Ireland last summer so it was the first time we had met Zara. She's a cutie!

It was also great to spend the day with this cheeky monkey!

The food at the wedding breakfast was delicious, the speeches were humorous & moving. We loved the video montage that Lorna put together. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house!

And of course, the high light for me was the cutting...

...and eating of the cake I had made! I was SO relieved that the cake not only looked good but tasted delicious too! (I'll let you into a secret- I had never made a traditional fruit cake before & had no idea what it would taste like!!!)

All in all it was a fabulous day! Congratulations once again Mr & Mrs Galea! ;0)

Sugar Roses & Marzipan Fruits!

At the end of April I made my friend Lorna's wedding cake. I iced the fruit layer while Timmy & Luke watched one afternoon- they were fascinated! Once I had finished, they made some marzipan fruits with the left overs. It was great fun! We made rosy apples by rolling red & green marzipan into little balls & then poking a hole in the top with a cocktail stick....
... and luscious red strawberries by rolling the red marzipan in caster sugar (Luke 'drove' his marzipan round the bowl making car noises!!) & the boys also made yellow bananas with varying degrees of success!
The boys were really pleased with the results!

We made some little card baskets & put some of the fruits inside. Timmy & Luke gave a basket to each of their teachers at school. The teachers loved them!

I stayed up all night icing my friends wedding cake & this is the finished result! One layer of yummy fruit cake, one layer of plain madeira & two layers of chocolate madeira!

I made 30 roses out of icing & dusted each one with pink shimmer powder & put a little edible pearl in the centre. Fun! ;0)

Lorna came with her best friend Liz to collect the cake from our house. I was a bit nervous about it travelling in the car with them but Liz looked quite at home with it on her lap!

And Luke enjoyed sitting in the box we were going to use to transport the cake in (only it was too tricky to get it into it!).

Easter Weekend

This year we visited my parents for Easter Sunday. Easter is the most exciting day of the year! Not only is it fun to hide chocolate eggs in the garden & watch the boys search for them but it is also the day we remember that Jesus rose from the dead so that we can know God.

To help us remember the true meaning of Easter we have some special eggs called Resurrection Eggs that we hide with the chocolate eggs. Inside each egg is an object to help re-tell the Easter story.. it has things like a little donkey to remind us that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, a tiny wine cup to represent the last supper & a stone to represent the tomb... The boys love opening each egg up & listening to what each thing symbolises.

My mum & dad cooked us a lovely Easter meal (thankyou!) & for pudding we had the simnel cake that Jordan decorated with 12 candles to represent the apostles.

Annie loved the candles being blown out! After lunch we watched the animated film The Miracle Maker which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

On Easter Monday we spent the day at Delamere Forest exploring & collecting bugs in the boys new bug boxes that my parents had bought each of them.

The boys really enjoyed climbing on the log piles....

...posing for photos....

... and jumping off the end! It was great fun! Jordan said he hadn't realised before that exploring could be THIS much fun! ;0)

Jordan Lee

Jordan was delighted to get this very large Lindt chocolate bunny for Easter from his Godmother, Fliss. He was so enamoured with it I was surprised that he ate it. He told me it would be ok if he ate it as he would still have the ribbon & bell to remember bunny by. He was very good at sharing the chocolate with his brothers too.
The very early Easter took us by surprise this year but we did manage to make a few Easter cards. Jordan added his artistic flair to the chick's legs. I think it looks like an Irish dancing chick!

Jordan is very caring & loves to help his brothers (even when they don't want it! LOL). He has surprised me on a few occasions by how empathetic he can be when one of his siblings is upset. He's so sweet!

I suddenly realised yesterday, that Jordan isn't a little boy any more! He's done so much growing up recently. All of a sudden it seems he is reading 'proper' books....

... and writing his first novel! (You saw it here first!)

When he was 18 months old or so he used to take all his toy vehicles & line them up bumper to bumper all around the garden or round the playroom & spend hours driving them from one end of the line to the other (used to take ages to tidy up!). He still builds car parks & roads in his bedroom but now his cities are more elaborate & he develops little story lines to go with his playing. I love going into his bedroom & finding his creations!

Jordan's latest passion is jumping! He loves trampolining so much! It's a good job he's friends with the boy next door because he has a trampoline that Jordan can go on almost whenever he likes!

Timothy Asher (including Chef Timmy!)

Timmy loves his baby sister Annie! He has got into the habit of asking me over & over 'What's the baby's name?!! I guess it's because he hears adults asking me when we are out & about. He talks a lot about his baby Annie Joy when he's at nursery.
Timmy has developed into a fearless tree climber....
...and is excellent at riding a bike. He had a go in the neighbours kid's go kart a few weeks back & surprised us all by driving it brilliantly! The teenage girl said 'He's a natural driver isn't he?' He is certainly very good with spacial awareness & balance. As you can see here he loves to dress up just like Luke, any time or place! He comes out with some cracking things every now & then that make us laugh. The other day he put on his ladybird costume & I was expecting him to be wearing it all day (as he usually does) but within minutes he had taken it off. I asked him why & he replied 'I can only wear by ladybird costume once a week you know so I had to take it off again'!

Timmy made us all a fruit salad for our pudding one teatime. He loves sticking his finger into the satsuma so he can peel it!

He chopped up the pear with the big sharp knife & thankfully missed his fingers!!!!!!

He squeezed on the lemon juice with great enthusiasm...

...and just before serving he chopped up the banana & added it to the bowl. Timmy can even peel a banana by himself now! One meal time he insisted on doing it by himself so Lee let him have a try. Lee had struggled to peel the banana for Luke so we thought Timmy wouldn't be able to do it. We both nearly fell off our chairs as he snapped the top of the banana skin on his first attempt like he'd been doing it all his life! He is very independent...

Timmy served up the fruit salad for us & it was very tasty! We all enjoyed the blueberries that were left over from when we had made blueberry muffins together a few days before.

Timmy is coming on in leaps & bounds with his school work & loves to colour. He is amazingly good at maths too.

He was very confident about drawing his teapot & the 4 spoons had to be just right! I think he stacked up his 3 cups because he drew the circles for them inside each other! He made sure they all had handles too! We love our little Timothy! Mwah!