Easter Goodies

Im not sure about you but I think that in the age of Pinterest people are making much more of an effort and getting excited about the perhaps smaller, less anticipated events in the yearly calender - such as Easter. Thinking back to my childhood I really did enjoy Easter, but it certainly wasn't the hootenanny it is today!

So with that said and a little under a week to go until Easter Sunday, I thought I would share with you the things we have been buying and making for our growing brood of Neices and Nephews.

Jumping straight in with the boys, we purchased these Minion ceramic mugs with a milk chocolate easter egg inside. One for our 12 year old Nephew Bradley and the other for his younger brother Oakley. We bought these quite in advance and paid around £1.99 each from Asda, i'm pretty sure I have seen them in there since if you would like to snap one up before Easter!

For our 3 year old niece Mia we wanted to do something a little different as she will get lots of big Easter Eggs from the rest of the family and she is at the age where she is really beginning to get a greater understanding of things. We decided to create her an Easter Egg box filled with goodies which was so easy to make, good fun and as an added bonus it only costed a few pounds to put together! I love how it came together as a little scene, im sure she will love it too (especially the animals).

And last but certainly not least we couldn't resist putting something together our 5 month old Niece Lacey! She is far too young to understand what is going on, but we couldn't just give her elder sister Mia something and not her. So we bought her this super cute, super soft little lamb which i'm sure she will enjoy dribbling all over! This was also fun to put together and I simply couldnt resist putting it in an adorable Easter box. Both the box and the lamb are from Poundland, costing you guessed it, a pound each - an absolute bargain.

So thats everything we've been buying for our Nieces and Nephews. I really enjoy reading these sorts of posts on other peoples blogs, so I hope you enjoyed reading mine too!

A New Years Surprise!

Happy New Year Guys!

I generally like to blog as and when things come to mind, as opposed to coming up with something for the sole purpose of blogging it. So I certainly did not think i'd be blogging so soon into 2015, start as you mean to go on though right?!

So, anyways.. If you have been following my blog for a while now, or follow me on social media platforms you will know Myself and Simon have had what can only be explained as a naff old year! Of course with the miscarriage, but also with what felt like family drama after family drama (families eh?). We have been super super excited for a new year to begin and knew we wanted to have a special New Years Eve. When Simon returned to work after Christmas I got crafty and put together some decorations (including tinsel which I hate, but Simon loves), made him a card, and did lots of organising.

Inside the package.

With Simons birthday following closely after Christmas I thought New Years would be the perfect opportunity to start the year with a big old positive and spring the surprise. So his gift is a combination of an early birthday gift and a New Years gift! I ummed and arrred for months deciding what I could do to make his next birthday one to remember. I decided on a trip to Keswick in The Lake District for a couple of nights on the anniversary weekend of losing Snowflake.  In the package was a tiny wooden ticket which says 'this ticket entitles you to a weekend away' and after opening the package at 00:05am on New Years Day I gave him a card with all the information for the trip. 

The surprise went down incredibly well, and started the New Year of incredibly!

Snippets Of Christmas - Week Four

Happy almost New Year!

Today marks the final part of my mini Christmas series 'Snippets Of Christmas'. This has been the first ever series on my blog and i'm pleased to say it was one I came up with myself. I generally take a whole lot of pictures, but this mini project has had me taking a whole lot more, perhaps even of things I wouldn't necessarily have captured before!

This past week has been pretty darn wonderful, not just because of Christmas day, but because I finally managed to slow down, relax and enjoy myself! Early on in the week one of my closest friends came over and we had a baking session and made the edible place settings for christmas day dinner at my parents (and a Simon gingerbread too). 

Since myself and Simon became a couple around 6 and a half years ago, we have always spent Christmas Eve together having our very own little Christmas together and we continued the tradition when we moved in together. For 'Our Christmas' we got up bright and early to exchange gifts to one and other, and open those to both of us. We carried on a fairly new tradition of going to the pub for lunch with Simons family where we stayed for a good few hours before going on to the Harvester for tea!

On Christmas day we each went to our own parents for a morning of present opening and bacon barm eating before getting together again to spend the rest of Christmas Day at my parents house! My Mums Christmas dinner is absolutely huge and absolutely incredible every single year.

Boxing day to me is where Christmas ends and I begin to think about the New Year! We spent boxing day at simons parents playing with our nieces and eating more good food.

It wouldn't be a true She Andd Him blog post without Pookie now would it?

Well that is all from me and my Snippets Of Christmas. I hope you all had the most fantastic Christmas, and a big old Happy New Year to you too!

Snippets Of Christmas - Week Three

Only 4 sleeps to go!

This year feels like it has gone super fast, but this December, well it has gone super super fast in my books. Christmas is only four short sleeps away!

This week has been insanely hard and insanely awesome all at the same time. I have been really run down, and I've had a number of break downs (one of which at Tesco, no fun!) If Simon wasn't by my side, it was our fur-baby.

On Wednesday I finally began to feel like myself again, just in time for a get together with our friends! I don't usually drink, but with all the stress I decided to have a couple to relax me. It worked! We had a wonderful time.

The latter half of this week has been the awesome part! Filled with a nibbles night at our house, being treated to lunch in Garstang by Simons parents, meeting my best friends new boyfriend over lunch and a cinema trip. All in-between the madness that is getting ready for Christmas!

By the next Snippets Of Christmas Santa will have been! 

Merry Christmas :) 

Snippets of Christmas - Week Two

December week two is complete!

It has been a very hectic Christmas week once again, started wonderfully by an spur of the moment date night at the Harvester. I'll admit I was feeling a tad overwhelmed by the first week of December, it was lovely, but with pack after pack of lights failing and trying to keep Pookie out of the tree I was feeling quite defeated. So a lovely Harvester date was just what I needed to get back into the spirit of Christmas! 

This week I started helping my Dad with his Christmas shopping, it's a little tradition of ours and it's something I look forward to each year! I help him choose all of the presents he needs to get and wrap them for him too. We of course came back to our house for hot chocolate and biscuits (yummy!)

One thing I love about December is a busy calendar filled with lovely events with family and friends! One event we was especially looking forward to was catching up with my Grandad (who we haven't seen since Tenerife in February) over dinner with my parents and also my Nanna. We had a really wonderful time and it really kicked of the festivities! 

The festivities continued into the weekend as we had my Nephew come and stay with us, we saw Penguins of Madagascar at the cinema and did a spot of baking (much to his initial teenage disapproval!) 

Now to cosy up on the sofa to catch up on Strictly Come Dancing like the OAP's we are!

Goodnight :)

Snippets Of Christmas - Week One

Happy December everybody!

I've decided that this December I am going to do a little Christmas project here on the blog, each week I am going to share a few snippets from our week. As I've mentioned before I loooove Christmas, it is my favourite time of year and this project will help me to capture all of the moments throughout the festive season!

The first touches of Christmas arrived in our bedroom, I have been super excited to make our room all cosy and festive so we decorated in there first! We bought our scandinavian duvet set here. We also have a little tree on our dressing table and a musical sleigh, which I am sure I will share in future snippets!

 This week has been a typical December week, whilst Simon has been at work I have been doing lots of wrapping of presents and writing of cards. Anybody with a cat or small child around will know, these things don't get done very quickly with them around! The evenings have been extremely cold recently, which makes perfect weather to snuggle up and watch a movie, we have been watching The Santa Clause films!

The rest of our house slowly became more Christmassy as the week went along, today is Sunday and the tree is finally up! It's having slight technical difficulties, but it is up, finally. Well just about, until Pookie gets her paws on it. We rewarded ourselves with a hot chocolate at Dobbies, and later on we are looking forward to watching Hannah Maggs' weekly vlog!  

Christmas bucket list 2014

Christmas time has always been my favourite time of year, I feel like my best and happiest self around the festive season. Like the vast majority of people, there is lots and lots I would like to do and get done this December and I find the best way to do this is a bucket list!

Here's what's on our Christmas Bucket List...

Deck the Halls

Make our bedroom festively cosy

Get my Christmas on to Mr Buble

Bake lots and lots of gingerbread (yuuuuum!)

Donate

Wear glitter (Tis the season!)

Put together a hot chocolate bar

... And drink lots of it

Ice Skate

Write and deliver cards to family, friends and neighbors

Late night christmas shopping in town

Say 'yes' and get involved

Have a craft day

Make paper snowflakes

Wrap gifts

Celebrate our Christmas together on Christmas eve

Catch up with friends over scrummy food

Watch Christmas films, lots of them

Take our nephew to see Penguins of Madagascar (smile and wave)

Peep at santa (This still makes me so giddy)

Bake a biscuit tree

Go to Toysarus and have more fun than the children

Help father in law set up his Christmas villages

Make the place settings for Christmas dinner

Make festive marshmallow pops.