This is the wedding cake I made this week for our friends Heather & Mike. It was fun to make! The house smelled very strongly of chocolate for a few days I can tell you!
Luke wanted to eat the cake! Good job I had some left overs for us all to taste! It was yummy! ;o)
The boys & I were playing in the garden the other day when we suddenly spotted Mr Frog watching us from the corner by the paddling pool! We have no idea where he might have come from as none of our neighbours has a pond. It was nice of him to hop by & say hello.
As I mentioned a while ago, the boys are snail mad! And there are plenty to be found on a wet walk home from school. It takes over an hour to walk home sometimes with so many snails to inspect!! We stood outside a house so long looking at the snails one day that the owner of the house came out to see if we were OK!!!
There are so many different varieties of snails too. Stripy ones, yellow ones, orange ones, old ones, common ones, baby ones....
Timmy & Luke had been learning all about snails in nursery school as they had found some snails eggs in the nursery garden. It really grabbed their interest & they have talked about snails a lot! Timmy said to me today, 'Mummy did you know that snails lay eggs out of their shells?' He also informed me that slugs are his favourite animal....
I can't say that I share his love of the slug but I do love this baby snail that Luke is holding! It's sweet! I like that it's tiny body is translucent & you can see it's eye stalks moving in & out! Hee hee!!
This is a slightly bigger snail that Timmy is holding. It's shell was all wobbly! 
Well, that concludes my little post about frogs & snails! I am in the middle of making a chocolate wedding cake tonight so perhaps my next post will be entitled 'sugar & spice' who knows! Hope you are all well! ;o) 
We visited Erddig Hall with my parents a while ago & I completely fell in love with the place! The house hasn't been modernised at all so it really is like you're stepping back in time. We loved seeing the laundry room with the huge vats surrounded by red bricks, the model of the house, all the servants bells & the shower in the nursery bathroom! I loved the room that was enclosed in glass walls to preserve it & climbing the rickety stairs to the servant's quarters. Squire Yorke lived there alone until he gave the house to The National Trust to look after in 1977. There is a room for every week in the year, a bedroom for every day in the month and a staircase for every day in the week. That's a BIG house for one man to live in alone!!
This is the front door looking out across the Welsh hills...
...and this is the view from one of the bedrooms on the first floor (don't worry I turned the flash off my camera!). Wouldn't it be amazing to have a garden this big?! Mind you, you'd need a lot of money to pay a lot of gardeners to maintain it wouldn't you?!
My parents treated us all to a horse & carriage ride around the grounds which was lovely. (Thankyou!).
This was the lovely horse who pulled the carriage for us. He was very sleepy & on a strict 'no grass' diet!
There were little secret hidey holes all around the grounds. They were cool & relaxing. I agree wholeheartedly with Squire Yorke that Erddig is an oasis in fast changing world.
We all enjoyed some ice cream sitting in one of the larger ones. The tea room even sold my favourite honeycomb ice cream! Yummy!
Jordan had fun running backwards & forwards along the path trying to beat how long it took him to run each time!
Later on all three boys had a race (if you click on the photo you should be able to read more about it!)
We had great fun exploring the grounds.
I love the back door!
The stained glass windows in the background are part of the house's chapel! It was lovely & peaceful in there.
I loved all the gates surrounding the grounds. I think it's because they remind me of The Secret Garden... there's something magical about them....
... this little house was a bit magical too. The boys knocked & knocked but no-one was in!
Even the trees in the gardens had smiles!!
The boys had a great time rolling down the hills & almost into the lake!!! There was much excitement because we saw Henry the fish in the lake! Apparently, according to the lady who drove our carriage, Henry is very very rarely seen as he prefers to stay in the cooler deep waters! Timmy & Luke spent a lot of time calling for Henry after we saw him the first time & then Timmy announced that he wanted to eat Henry for his tea so understandably we didn't see him again after that!
Timmy enjoyed stopping to smell the roses!
The flowers in the garden were certainly very beautiful. Luke & Timmy asked why there were daisies on the lake! They were delighted to see all the bees drinking the 'connector' on the sea holly too! Their enthusiasm for nature is wonderful!
Jordan can tell you what this Welsh sign says...or at least he could when we were at Erddig. I wonder if he remembers what it says now?? So, we had a fantastic time at Erddig & I can't wait to go back there & see the rest of the house & gardens. It's just so nice to see the boys running around exploring in relative safety & discovering new things. Thanks Mum & Dad for the National Trust membership- it's great!
It's my little sister's birthday today! We celebrated with her & my parents yesterday. We had fun playing party games & eating birthday tea. The boys & I made the chocolate cake covered in choccies for her. (It was a dummy run for the wedding cake I am making for some friend's wedding this Friday that doubled up as Helen's cake!).
This little boy is very very funny! He told me the other day that he LOVES to make people laugh. He has been experimenting with telling jokes lately (as have Timmy & Jordan) with varying degrees of success. The boys favourite joke is this;
Our friends Ruth (who is one of Annie Joy's Godparents) & Tony (affectionately known as Tony ten Bellies on account of how much he eats!) got married on July 5th at Mossley Hill Church.
It was the most amazing ceremony that we have been to in a long while. You could really sense God's presence in the worship. The vows were beautiful (I think they wrote them themselves) & I really believed that they meant them too! As you can see from the photo above, they are so happy together!
The church is beautiful & oddly enough, I had picked a library book up a few weeks earlier called The Sailing ship Tree by Berlie Doherty which happens to be about the nearby stately home, Barkhill Mansion, which Mossley Hill church served. (Barkhill Mansion is now I M Marsh college. Just look at what fits on the estate today!) There is a detailed description of the church in one of the early chapters! It was great to visit it in the flesh after reading all about it!
After the ceremony we went to the wedding breakfast at our church Frontline. The main room was set out beautifully by Jude. She did a fabulous job of transforming the room into a romantic cosy dining area. Our church building used to be army barracks & the main room was were the tanks & other army vehicles were stored!
The cake looked gorgeous although we didn't get to taste any as we left before the cake cutting!!
I was really excited to see that Annie Joy had her name on the place settings at our table! How sweet!
We all enjoyed the love heart favours! :o)
The speeches were funny & moving. I loved that Ruth's Dad used old photos of Ruth which were projected onto the screen behind him as he talked. This is Ruth when she was born. I loved that her Dad began by thanking his wife for making the wedding possible by bringing Ruth into the world in the first place! Tony's brother was the best man & was really funny! Tony is the only one in his family who is a Christian & it was great to hear how much Tony's family respect his faith after the changes they have seen in him since he started following Jesus.
Annie Joy was as good as gold throughout the speeches. she enjoyed exploring the room when the meal was done. The candle bag lights on the bleachers at the back of the hall gave us all on our table a bit of a scare when one of the tea lights started to scorch the bag! (They were fire retardant bags so they wouldn't have caught fire but even so...!)
I couldn't resist taking a picture as we left of all the Shloer & wine bottles that had been cleared off the tables!
Annie fell asleep before the band started singing but they were very good! It was a lovely day & we had fun chatting with friends & sharing Tony & Ruth's wedding day. We think they will be very, very happy for many, many years to come. ;o)
Well, it isn't 08/08/08 today obviously, but I wish I had posted a blog on that date just coz it's fun. As it was I was too busy on Friday playing with the boys, walking to Tescos, seeing friends, watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics & taking delivery of 120 chocolate truffles for the wedding cake I am making next week! 
As you can see from the photos, Jordan perfected the blowing of giant bubbles despite very wind weather conditions!
He said this bubble looked like a car without the wheels!
Timmy was great at blowing stream of bubbles too! (Luke is very good at bubbles too as you may remember. If yuo don't then you can look here & here!)
Annie Joy loved watching the bubbles (or closing her eyes & not watching if the wind blew them towards her face!) & the boys all enjoyed blowing them for her to giggle at. Aaaah! What simple, lovely fun!!
I feel like I have a touch of blog block! It's proving quite tricky to blog while the boys are off school as the days are so full of this & that & I am just so tired at the end of a fun day I can't quite seem to manage to think creatively about photos & words.... Sorry about that! I am also a bit distracted by a sudden enthusiasm for sorting paper work having discovered that I can make boring paperwork pretty & creative. I have been having a lot of fun customising some little wooden drawers that I bought 10 years ago & never did anything with! Anyway, while I wait for inspiration & clarity to arrive here are some random photos for you! 
A while ago Jordan did football training after school with his class mates. Jordan loves to go in goal & during one session he saved a goal in the most sensational way ever! All the parents watching cheered wildly & the Dad who runs his own kid's football team came up to me afterwards & said he wanted Jordan for his team! When I told Jordan this he asked if he would be playing in a stadium in front of a huge crowd. I said no & asked why, wondering if he was setting his sights on a footballing career. He replied simply that he just wanted lots of people to see him & cheer for him. I said 'Did you hear everyone go wild when you saved the goal this afternoon?' to which he said 'No! I just closed my eyes & saved the goal!' He's a funny one sometimes! ;o)
While we waited for Jordan to get changed after football training Timmy & Luke had fun reading the books in Big School. They sat so beautifully reading books on anatomy & the like! I was so proud of them!
These are the thankyou cards the boys made for their teachers at the end of term. (L-R: Luke, Jordan, Timmy). We had a lot of fun making the cards & I love the way the same design has each boy's unique interpretation. Luke chose beautiful colour combinations from opposite sides of the spectrum- brown & red, yellow & pink, orange & blue, green & turquoise, blue & red. Jordan chose his papers for the star punch outs so carefully & Timmy enjoyed adding a bit of sparkle with some acrylic gemstones. He also insisted on branching out from the design by adding an extra button! The one thing all 3 boys chose to use though was a brown button which they thought looked like a chocolate button! Each boy also stamped the wording onto their own card too.
The necklaces above were the gifts we gave to the teachers. They were hand made especially for the teachers by our friend Rachel (who is also the twins Godmother). I had wanted something extra special for the nursery teachers as it kind of felt like the end of our time with them. Having seen them both almost every day for 4 years it will be strange not going into nursery regularly again until Annie Joy is 3 years old. I think the necklaces are fantastic & so did the teachers! A few weeks earlier Miss H had commented on how lovely the necklace was that I was wearing which was one that Rachel had made so I thought it would be a great idea for a thankyou present.
Here is my customary end of nursery photo of Timmy & Luke with Miss H & Mrs S. (If you look closely you can see they are already wearing their necklaces!)
For our wedding anniversary Lee bought me a Giant Splongy Bun!! It's from Roald Dhal's The BFG story apparently (I don't really rate Mr Dahl's stories although I have read The BFG) & it is a really giant fairy cake covered with butter icing & sweeties! We all enjoyed sharing it one lunch time. Yummy!
Jordan disappeared off into his bedroom for quite some time the other day & was very very quiet. That in it's self isn't really unusual- he likes to play quietly with his cars & bricks especially after a busy day at school, but on this particular day he came down the stairs after 20 minutes of so wearing his 'eye plugs' & ear plugs looking a little grumpy saying 'You're making too much noise everyone! I'm trying to have 20 winks!' After a little persuasion I got this cute piccie of him! Bless his little heart! 
