A pocket of my life

I think December 2024 has been the busiest month of my life, along with moving, working and Christmas all taking up time, I am glad for the little best of quiet before going back to work next week. December started off with us moving house , this has been the craziest thing ever and it still doesn't feel real that we have moved and won't be going back to the flat ever again. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't wait to move but I will miss the view from the flat and it makes me emotional thinking about all the memories we have made together there. I have also been trying to keep it as normal as possible for the kids so we took a trip to a festive day at our local shopping centre, they had a merry-go-round, hook a duck, candy floss and Sanea reading stories. We also managed to visit Santa properly the week after which Olivia loved.  In the middle of the month we took a trip to Sheffield park for The Snowman event that they had running, this was a chance to catch up with my Da...

Another show ticked off for 2024, this time one of my favourite and one we can all enjoy, a Panto. This year local pantomime was Peter Pan at the White rock theatre. This years celebs are Emily steel, AKA Dynamite from Gladiators plays Wendy and our Tinkerbell was portrayed by Alexandra Mardell who plays Emma in Corination Street. Both ladies were brilliant and both had great singing voices too. We also had to familiar faces in the Hastings Panto of Ben Watson and Tim Mcarthur who return every and have amazing repore between each other and the audience. The show had all the classic panto moments with lots of audience participation such as 'oh yes it is, oh no it's not' and 'it's behind you' along with the pie in the face a d tongue twisters.  The songs were all on trend and worked well with the story and were all sung with passion, the dancers were brilliant too and filled the stage with colour and fun. The story was a little different this time as i...

What a festive, beautiful afternoon on a hunt for The Snowman. We took a drive out to Sheffield park in Sussex where they have a beautiful event celebrating the beautiful stories written by Raymond Briggs. The walk around the enchanting gardens involved finding 12 decorated sculptures along with some painted boards with the characters and parts from The Snowman and activities along the way, such as snowball target practice and making music. Whilst walking around the trail you are treated to some of the music from the films making it feel like you are fully immersed in the story. With loads of photo opportunities to including a sleigh and decorated trees, you can treasure the memories for years to come. We were very lucky to be able to have met The Snowman too, he is at the event on the 21st of December. It was honestly the best event I've been too and definitely brought me back to my childhood, the girls loved it too.

These cupcakes are so delicious and simple to make, you only need a few ingredients and take 30 minutes. to make and cook. This mixture made 16 - 20 cupcakes. Ingredients Eggs - 3 Medium Eggs Marge - Weight of Eggs in oz Sugar - Weight of Eggs in oz Flour - Weight of eggs minus 2oz Drinking Chocolate - 2oz to make up the flour Chocolate frosting Red m&m's or smarties curly wurly bits Edible eyes Method 1. Preheat your oven to 180oC / Gas mark 5 2. Cream the sugar and marge together until it resembles whipped cream. 3. Add 1 egg at a time, if starts to curdle add a small amount of the flour. 4. Once all eggs are mixed in slowly sift in the flour and drinking chocolate and slowly mix. 5. Separate your mixture into cupcake cases evenly and place in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until springy to touch. Once cooked and cooled its time to get decorating: 1. spread your chocolate frosting evenly over the cakes. 2. Add your eyes and nose to the cakes 3. push your curly wurly ...

Over the Christmas holidays from school I love to keep Lils entertained with a lot of baking,  we usually share our makes with family and friends. This time we have added a very yummy recipe to the list which is Peppermint creams, these were one of my Mums favourite sweets so will now be a tradition to make them in memory of her. This recipe only has 4 ingredients and is so easy to make and requires no baking.  Recipe 400g Icing sugar 1 egg White Juice of half a lemon 1/2 tsp Peppermint extract  Method 1. Beat egg until a foam appears on top.  2. Add a small amount of lemon and mix.  3. Add the icing sugar and stir to form a dough.  4. Add the peppermint extract and stir into the dough 5. Roll the dough out on an icing sugared surface to about the thickness of £1 6. Cut out shapes and place on a tray.  7. Put in the fridge to set.  These are so good and go down a treat after dinner but just a warning that they are though very sweet. I hope you enj...

Buying for a 4 year old for Christmas is so much fun. She is fully into everything right now and is such a grateful little girl. Ken doll Polly pocket Wooden food Wooden hairdress belt Bath letters Vet costume   Gruffalo garden set Lenovo tablet She loves everything and has been loving using her Ken in her Barbie house from Santa. This year was the first year that she fully understood it all and have loved pretty much every second, down to the eating lots of treats and picky dinners. Victoria xa

I am findng it harder every year to find gift ideas for Lilly, she is now 12 and has really grown out of toys. I have finally managed to get a few together and thought I would share to help others in the same situation. Pepsi cherry Stitch slippers Make up brush holder Byoma set Squishmallow Warrior cats   Hair straighteners Alcohol pens   (Afternote) Some of these were requested and others are finds that I know she'll love. She has been so grateful this year which has made me a happy Mum knowing that we have managed to find bits that make her happy. She also loves the from Santa which was a vanity mirror .  Victoria x

 It's probably no secret that me and Lilly love a good karaoke session in the car and it doesn't get any quieter over Christmas, Lilly absolutely loves all the holidays and takes any chance that she can to celebrate and belting out Christmas songs is her favourite.  I too am a lover of the Christmas songs and I for one can't wait for them to come on the radio and have them blaring out much to Liam's dismay.  Each song mentioned makes me feel so festive, some are more emotionally attached to me than others, like my number 10, this was one of my Mum's favourites and I do love a bit of David Bowie. Others bring back amazing memories like number 6. We have been loving having kitchen discos to these songs. Slade - Merry Xmas everyone Elton John - Step into Christmas Lady Antebellum - A holly jolly Christmas Arianna Grande - Santa tell me Michael Buble - Christmas (Baby please come home) Darkness - Christmas time (Don't let the bells end) Mariah Carey - Al...

So here I am trying out blogmas. I do vlogmas over on my YouTube and would love to grow my blog too. I hope that you enjoy my content over the next 25 days leading up to the big day and would love you to give me a comment below on any. We have a tradition in our house now which is to make our annual Christmas cake, its something that is important to me, to make memories with the children and teach them how to cook some yummy Christmas treats, something that they can pass on if they have families of there own. This Christmas cake is a 6 inch round cake which works for our family as its just me and Lilly that eats it so far. I love the decorating of the cake too, this is the main part that Lilly loves as she gets some of the leftover icing and marzipan. I'm not going to lie, its not the easiest bake but its well worth it if you like Christmas cake, and its rewarding when its done. My Recipe 700g Mixed fruit (can be pre-soaked) 25g Ground Almonds 50g Glace cherries 150g Pl...

  We are moving house!  We have lived in our current flat for just over 12 years, it has been the only home that both the girls have every really known and this makes me emotional but I am excited for the next chapter. At the beginning of last month we got a house viewing and absoloutly loved the house so put an offer in for rent, we were told that he had a difficult choice to make as there had been a lot of interest in the place. A couple of days went by and we got a phonecall offering us the house which I still can't believe. fast forward a week and the references were going through and the deposit was being paid, then it was time to get boxes for packing. This has been the most stressful part I think as our house has just been a constant mess of boxes, charity bags and rubbish bags as we have had a huge clearout at the same time.  We have booked a moving company to help as Liam's mates all work and we didn't want them using there holiday to help us, so we have had to l...

Welcome to Blogmas, here I start with my November recap a couple of days late. With Blogmas I will be posting every other day, mostly festive content. November has been a long one, we have had so much going on behind the scenes and it has been mentally exhausting but this is the start of a new chapter. So if you watch my YouTube you will know that we are moving, we have been working through all the preperation of moving through this whole month and it has been ridiculously stressful but it will be worth it in the end. I will so a seperate post on moving as I want to be able to look back at it myself.  The first part of the month was quite quiet with just working and normal Mum life, we did take a trip to the park with Dad and Angie and had some yummy chips and a warming drink, the girls ran around and we fed the ducks too, it was just what we needed and I appreciate any time with my Dad. The middle of the month has been full of sickness bugs and Olivis had her second bo...