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Raisie Bay

baking

This is Halloween 2019

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two little witches
My girls dressed up as witches when they were younger

I’m not a fan of Halloween if I’m honest. I get spooked pretty quickly and I definitely don’t like monsters, and spiders and anything creepy. It’s not always been the way though. When I was 13 yrs old I discovered James Herbert, my neighbour gave me his copy of The Rats to read and I ended up getting a whole pile of books from the library. I did buy copies later on and as a hoarder, I still have a few of his books. Rest in Peace Mr Herbert, please don’t come back and haunt me.

Horror

I still read the occasional horror story now but I don’t like watching films, unless they are zombie films. There is something about zombies that fascinate me. I’d be no use in a zombie apocalypse. I have no survival instincts, I’d just be meat. (Unless they were the zombies from World War Z that avoided sick people.) Maybe Brad Pitt would come and rescue me. (I can dream can’t I…if not Brad Pitt then it has to be Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead.)

I like horror games so long as someone else is playing. I like to watch. I remember the infamous P.T. which was meant to be a playable teaser for an up and coming Silent Hill Game. (I loved the Silent Hill Games, although not the film.) The game never materialised but apparently we are to be treated with Death Stranding soon (with Norman Reedus.) (I silently scream with fear and excitement.)

What About the Kids?

Well, the girls have lost interest in Trick or Treating, and the Little Man has always refused to dress up. So each year we try to do something just to mark the day. We have had Halloween food and treats including these rather nice Toe Nail dusted cakes.

We do love to pimp up a pumpkin for Halloween though. Here’s some we made earlier. We do tend to go for Pokemon themes, or cats, cats are nice!

two pumpkin lanterns
two pumpkin lanterns

We used to carve our pumpkins at home but for the last couple of years we have been going to a local farm where they hold Pumpkin carving sessions. We buy our pumpkins and carve them in a huge marque while surrounded by witches and demons and spooky music. We are doing this again on Wednesday but here’s a photo from a couple of years ago.

three children and a purple witch holding pumpkins inf ront of a spooky background.
Pumpkin Parlour at Beckett’s Farm

Way back in 2014 (Was it really so long ago?) We visited local Hatton Adventure World where we picked our own pumpkins from the pumpkin patch and had a fun day out as well. Unfortunately, pumpkin patches are not that wheelchair friendly so we haven’t been for a while.

My kids don’t seem to get scared easily, I mean my Little Man even picks up spiders eek. I’ve decided that this year I’m going to do a bit of a spooky Halloween Scavenger Hunt which I downloaded for free from Justins Juggles. I don’t know if I can get all the little items but I can subsitute some of them for pictures and a little sweet treat. It will make up for not going Trick or Treating. I will try and get the girls involved so they can work together, and I’m turning the lights off and giving them a torch.

More Ideas

If you are still a bit unsure of what to do for Halloween here are a few more ideas.

Kim has made some Halloween Spiders to munch on…oh yummy!

Ashley shares her favourite Halloween Movies to Binge Watch

Amanda shares some spooky stories to read

How about some cute dogs dressed up for Halloween from Jo

Joanna shares a photo of an old fashioned Halloween dressing up costume

How to make a pumpkin spiced creamer from Cheryl

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a spooky Halloween whatever you do.

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BLOGTOBER 2019 POSTS

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My Sunday Snapshot, Boo Bakes Cakes and Biscuits

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My Boo has always loved baking. She loves cookery programs and is always willing to help in the kitchen. But most of all she loves making cakes and cooking. Today’s photo is blast from the past.

Photo of Boo baking, with a large bowl of cake mix and shes licking the spoon
Who doesn’t love licking the spoon?

I think this photo captures Boo perfectly.

Baking with Bee Berrie

We were talking the other day about the last time we went to London with the kids. I’ve been since I’ve been in a wheelchair (And hated it) but the kid’s have not been for years now. The last time I went on my own with Boo for cookery class with Bee Berrie when I was a Happy Eggs Ambassador in 2015.

We woke up at 5am to get the train to London in time for the class that started at 9am. I had woken with a migraine hangover but I knew I had to do this for Boo. We drove to the station and caught a train to London, where we then caught tubes to the place we needed to go.

Boo spent the whole morning baking cookies and cakes and we had such fun. When it was over we had about four giant boxes to carry back to Birmingham.

After leaving the class, laden down with boxes, we managed to take a wrong turn and got horribly lost. I put all the boxes down outside a shop and tried to find a map to see where we had to go. The shop owner came out and asked if he could help. He gave me a big bag for my boxes which made things easier. (It’s no wonder I got lost the boxes were so big I couldn’t see where I was going!) Then he gave me instructions on how to get to the right tube station.

Baking Cookies

We have a ton of cookery books and you can find some really good ones for great prices at The Works.

Yesterday Boo said she wanted to bake, she hasn’t done so for a while. So I went in the kitchen to watch while she got all the ingredients she needed, weighed them and baked chocolate chip cookies all by herself. I’m so glad that she’s not lost her love of baking. I may ask her to make a cake today 🙂

Here’s the cookies she baked yesterday.

a plate of chocolate chip cookies that Boo Baked by herself.
Chocolate chip cookies
My sunday snapshot blog button
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We Survived Half Term

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Last week was half term and for us it was pretty relaxed. I love having the kids around, they are not too demanding now that they are older and it’s just nice to have their company. I’ve been thinking a lot about mortality lately, especially as a really lovely lady I know has been told that she has probably just three years left. It certainly makes you think. And I just want to spend as much time as possible with my family close by.

Halloween

We hadn’t planned much this Halloween as Graham had to take Ash (the kitten) into the Vets for his operation. Only, I got the time wrong and he was too late, so Ash still has his manhood intact for the time being. 

This means that there was no-one to take the kid’s trick or treating so I made it up to them a little by baking cookies and letting them decorate them with spooky creatures. They had loads of fun. It’s funny how a simple gingerbread man cookie cutter can be used to create monsters. The other cookies I cut out free hand.

a collage of three photos showing in 1. a green iced monster, in 2. skeleton, ghost, witches hat and monster cookies and in 3. a plate of different decorated halloween cookies.

They also enjoyed answering the door with a big bucket of sweets to hand out to all the visitors. 

Bonfire Night

The rest of the half term week was fairly quiet with us staying in and keeping warm and occupying our time with homework, laptops, and lego. I just enjoyed not having to get up and rush around in the morning to get everyone ready for school. 

Our friends invited us over to their house for fireworks on Saturday night. There was no bonfire but plenty of explosions to enjoy.

If I’m honest, I’m not a huge fan of garden fireworks and after the first few the Little Man decided he couldn’t handle the noise (he does have sensory issues.) So we watched from the window. I had to go in because the cold and noise was making me feel ill too. Pretty soon, Boo joined us along with two of our friend’s kids. I was surprised at Star who stayed out and enjoyed every minute, she’s never enjoyed fireworks before. But she was with a good friend which I guess made a difference.

The sparklers were a better hit, and so were the hot dogs that were served. Overall, it was nice to catch up with friends and do something different. 

Back to School

Monday saw the kids going back to school. We had everything sorted, clothes, homework, p.e. kits, school bags etc the day before. It still turned out to be a manic morning. What is it about school mornings that things just don’t go smoothly? 

The kids going back to school made me think about our friends, the ones we spent Saturday night with. When we lived in our old house, all of our kids went to the same school and that’s how we met. 

I remember one day, some 7 years ago, I was waiting in the school playground with a baby Little Man in his pushchair. It was nearly time for Boo to finish her day at nursery. Then this man, who I don’t ever remember seeing before, came over to me and started telling me about how he’d fallen off his bike and hurt his knee. 

He then proceeded to lift up his trouser leg and show me the hurt knee. Then he showed me his hurt elbow and I remember thinking ‘who is this strange guy showing me his body parts in the school playground?’ 

After that, he sought me out every day in the playground and spoke to me, it turned out that our three children were all very similar in age. Before long, they were knocking on our door in the morning and we were walking to school together. 

Over the years we have become good family friends, despite us both moving house and school. Of course I don’t see them every day now, but it’s still nice to catch up when we do. 

Debs Random Writings

The #ItsOK Linky

Weekend Box of Dinosaur Activities, a Review

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The Little Man loves structured activities and he loves receiving a Weekend Box in the post. This Weekend Box was dinosaur themed and he really couldn’t wait to get started on it.

If you are unfamiliar with The Weekend Box it is a subscription service where you can receive a box addressed to your child every other weekend, or once a month if you wish. In each box you can choose to have either two or four activities and each one comes with everything you need. (You may need  scissors though.) Having the things supplied means no rummaging around to find stuff.

I do have a huge box of craft bits and pieces at home but nothing excites The Little Man more than a box in the post and he’s much keener to get on with it.

Dinosaurs

The box we reviewed had four activities and was dinosaur themed. The activities come in coloured wallets, generally blue, green, red and yellow.  Also provided is a booklet with all the instructions, a sheet of stickers to put in the booklet when each activity is finished, a certificate for your child when the activities are completed, a little cartoon to finish and a colouring page.

Let’s start with a joke;

Q. What do you call a sleeping dinosaur

A. A dino-snore!

The Blue Bag

The blue bag contained everything you needed to make a dinosaur claw. This involved cutting out a template, drawing around the template and cutting that out. Adding little finger nails which were provided as stickers then threading a ribbon through it so you can tie it onto your own hand to look like a dinosaur claw.

a little boy with a green dinosaur claw made of card tied to cover his hand.

The Little Man with his dinosaur claw

The Little Man really enjoyed this activity and loved his claw.

The Green Bag

This activity was making an egg hatching to reveal a baby dinosaur. Boo was keen to have a go at this and set about drawing an egg and adding a baby dinosaur.

First the cracked egg was drawn on white card and then she cut it out. I pushed the paper fastener through the card so that the two halve of the egg would open and close. Then Boo drew a dinosaur head onto a piece of green paper. The egg and dinosaur were decorated and Boo was really pleased with her work which, apart from the paper fastener,  she had done all by herself.

a decorated egg with a little baby dinosaur inside

Baby Dinosaur hatching from it’s egg.

Yellow Bag

In the yellow bag was a Clothes Peg Dinosaur and this was rated as the most difficult activity. First The Little Man coloured in the clothes peg with the black felt tip provided. While he was busy doing this I cut out two rows of dinosaur teeth on the white sticker paper provided. Then we used the template to cut out a dinosaur head on red paper. I stuck the teeth onto the peg and The Little Man stuck the head pieces on. The end result was a cool looking dinosaur which actually roars.

The Little Man holding his dinosaur peg head

A Dinosaur that roars!

The Red Bag

This bag contained everything you needed to make Dino Egg Nests. We were provided with a little amount of chocolate, a small bag of Rice Crispies, four mini eggs, a sachet of honey and two cupcake cases.

The instructions said to melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water, but we put ours in the microwave for speed and ease. Then we stirred the Rice Crispies into the chocolate and when they were all coated we added the honey.

They were then put in the fridge until set.

 

The Little Man and Boo couldn’t wait to tuck in!

We had great fun with our weekend box and now you can try a mini box ( 2 activities) for free or a bumper box (4 activities) for just £1. Just follow this link where the discount will be already applied https://www.weekendboxclub.com/af/deliver

Here is a little video we made;

We have been fans of the Weekend Box for four years now, you can see our first review themed St Patrick’s Day here, our Chinese New Year box review here,

Our Mini Weekend Box review here,

And a special Face Paint Box review here.

 

 

The Great British Bake Off – Chocolate Molten Puddings

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This week it was pudding week on The Great British Bake Off. We had steamed puddings for signature bakes, molten chocolate puddings for technical and Trifles for show stopper bakes.
Now my  miserable family are not keen on puddings unless they are chocolate so I didn’t have much choice but to go for the molten chocolate puddings for my bake.

The next problem was…there are seven of us and most recipes for individual puddings were for 4 or six. So I had to do some adjusting and my recipe makes seven puddings, made in regular ramekins.

If I’m honest, they were not perfect to look at, but they did pass the taste test.

I added a little white chocolate to the kids puddings, both in the middle and on top. For the adults we had to make do with dark chocolate because the white didn’t go very far (or it may have got eaten by a family member when I left it in the fridge!)

molten chocolate pudding
As you can see, the white chocolate in the middle was trying it’s best to escape before I took a photo. This was the best of the batch of three, the others had already oozed out. I didn’t manage to make a neat job of spooning the white chocolate on the top either. Trust me, these puddings are alive, they ooze, they collapse they fall apart, all before you get the chance of a good shot….but they tasted yummy. I give them 10 for taste and 1 for presentation!
I’m not sure if you can tell by this photo but the sponge was light and fluffy and the inside gooey. Isn’t that the objective? Okay, I guess looking nice would be good too.

The other puddings fared even worse for presentation…it’s a minus 4 from me! As soon as I took them out of the ramekins they collapsed as the middle bit oozed out. Too much chocolate maybe? I think they might have needed a little more cooking. I was under the impression that they had to be served straight from the oven, which I’m sure contributed to them breaking up.

Here is my recipe (if you want it!)

Ingredients:

  • 200g butter
  • 200g dark chocolate
  • 100g white chocolate (if adding)
  • 5 eggs
  • 100g caster sugar
  • 75gg self raising flour
  • tbs of cocoa powder.

Method:

  • Melt the dark chocolate and butter in bowl over a pan of hot water. (or carefully in the microwave) set aside to cool
  • in a large bowl whisk together the eggs and sugar until pale and light
  • fold the chocolate into the egg mixture
  • add the flour and cocoa powder and fold in
  • grease 7 ramekin moulds
  • divide the mixture between the moulds place on a baking tray. If adding white chocolate put a chunk into the top of the mixture, no need to push it in as it will sink while baking.
  • bake in a pre-heated oven 180C/gas mark 4 for 10 – 12 minutes
  • when baked, loosen the puddings and turn out carefully onto serving plates.
Serve them with cream or melted white chocolate sauce.

Mummy Mishaps