Amy's birthday Archives - Journeys Are My Diary

Week 11 – Monday Round-up

March 16, 2015 by Bel

Another quickie round-up this week as I’m watching The Walking Dead and apparently it’s a good one! After the girls had a late night last weekend, this week has felt very tiring generally. Megan was okay for the most part but Lily suffered pretty badly with tiredness and that was a headache in itself. They both had school Monday to Friday as normal, Singing Stars on Monday, at their Dad’s on Tuesday and Red Nose Day on Friday. Otherwise everything was fairly standard. Monday we were supposed to be having curry and beer for dinner but when the girls requested croissants and pain au chocolat, Chris and I were swung by that too. Instead Chris and I had curry and beer on Tuesday night, when the girls were out with their dad. Wednesday after school, Lily decided to grow her own prince. it was pretty funny as we’d had this frog thing for about 3 years and never done it and she randomly came downstairs wanting to do it. The frog disintegrated and left a tiny prince, who we were assured would grow full size (full in the sense of the full size it was meant to, not life size) within 72 hours. Sure enough it did and by Saturday she had a not so handsome prince.

On Wednesday I made a skirt for Amy, in the space of about 3 hours. I was pretty pleased with it too! I did learn a few things and next time I will be making it both longer and gathered, but she seemed fairly happy with it and that’s what mattered. That same day I started on Amy’s cake and sadly it all went a bit wrong but I didn’t have time to do anything about it. On Thursday I carried on with the cake but I also had cleaning and tidying of the house to do. Finally it was Friday and I had so much to do. A huge shop and leaving my bank card at home wasn’t the best start to the day but it turned out okay. I came home and started to cook – lasagne, macaroni cheese and profiteroles stuffed with butterscotch instant whip. After lunch, Amy and Olivia arrived and I sat down with them for a while before we all headed out to get the girls from school. When we got back, I had more cooking to do, including butterscotch creme brulee. Lily then helped me sort out the dining room and set the table as it was her murder mystery party that night. Everyone got ready and then people filtered in from 7pm onwards. We got started around 8pm and I served dinner and then dessert. The murder mystery was pretty basic but it was meant for kids – Lily seemed to enjoy it and that’s what matters. Afterwards the girls went to bed and everyone stayed for a cup of tea/coffee. My mum, brother and his girlfriend ended up going home after a little while but Amy was staying here and Tom/Nat stayed a little longer too. Once everyone was gone, we all stayed up to try and see Amy’s birthday in but gave up at 11.30pm. As it happens I was still awake at midnight so I text her and then went to sleep!

In the morning I was up and got Amy’s present, cake and balloons ready for when she came downstairs. We didn’t really do an awful lot that day to be honest, but it was nice and relaxed just sitting around. We headed out around 2.30pm as we had a dinner reservation over in Lincoln at 3pm. We all ate out at Damons and it was a really lovely meal. There was me and Chris, plus our girls, Amy and Olivia, Nat and her son Harry and our mutual friend Jon. It was nearly 6pm by the time we left though and that meant that once we got home, the girls went pretty much straight to bed. At around 7.30-8pm, Nat came back over to us and as Jon was still here, the five of us spent the evening playing Cards Against Humanity. It was a fun evening and after everyone was gone we managed to stick it out till just gone midnight and see Amy’s birthday out before heading to bed.

Sunday was Mother’s Day and the girls and Chris brought me breakfast in bed and some beautiful cards and a gift. I then got up and tidied up the house, before taking Amy to catch her train and popping to the shop for some food. I came home and cooked lunch for my mum who stayed for a few hours over lunch and left around 4pm. The girls got their homework done and then somehow it was pretty much time for them to go to bed. I was incredibly tired and just spent the evening monging out on my computer and blogging. It was a crazy sort of a week but I imagine the next two will be as well!

Disney Countdown – Days 23 to 17

March 15, 2015 by Bel

Monday (23) – March 9th – Play a Disney game
Tuesday (22) – March 10th – Make or Draw Disney
Wednesday (21) – March 11th – Paint Anna peg doll
Thursday (20) – March 12th – Read Disney
Friday (19) – March 13th – Watch The Lion King
Saturday (18) – March 14th – Dress up Disney
Sunday (17) – March 15th – Make Disney food

What a busy week! Monday was play a Disney game and luckily we all play Tsum Tsum daily – otherwise there would have been no time for anything! Tuesday was make or draw Disney and as the kids were with their dad/at Grandma’s they filled in their activity books. On Wednesday it was Paint the Anna peg doll and that’s now all of them complete! Thursday was Read Disney which was great as we really needed an easy and not too time consuming task. We read Chapter 3 & 4 of our most recent Never Girls book – from the mist. On Friday we were supposed to watch The Lion King but it was Lily’s murder mystery party so we didn’t get time. It was penciled in for the weekend but we still didn’t get around to it so hopefully one day this week instead. Saturday was dress up Disney which Amy’s daughter Liv was also here to participate in. Megan and Lily were Tinkerbell and Silvermist and Liv was Tinkerbell too. A whole heap of Disney Fairies! Finally came Sunday and the task was make Disney food. The day was so busy because I had to take Amy to the train station and my mum came for Mother’s Day lunch, meaning we really didn’t have time to do extra baking. Instead we cheated a little and used Amy’s birthday cake as our Disney food task!

I’ll be back next week with another 7 days of tasks, leaving only 10 until we go on holiday. I can’t believe it’s come around finally – it’s going to be here so soon.

2014 in Review – The Cakes

January 3, 2015 by Bel

As part of my round up for 2014, I wanted to recap on the cakes I’ve made this year. In May I did a sort of mid-year round up, but this is for the complete year. Though I’ve actually made far more than the cakes pictured below, these are the key cakes of 2014.

Though I did make a fairly simple cake for my sister’s birthday in February, March was really the first time I got busy. What with Lily, Amy and Chris all having a birthday in March, it was pretty crazy. Lily’s was my first and also one of the most important in the whole year. She was massively into Frozen (and still is) so that was the theme of her cake. Only 9 days later, it was Amy’s birthday and as I’ve always wanted to make her a Peter Pan cake, this is what I did. The three tiers made this the biggest cake of the year. It was a pretty impressive cake. Less than a week later, it was Chris’ birthday and I was pretty much caked out. As such he got a very simple Minion cake but he was happy nonetheless.

After a very brief break, my mum’s birthday came next in April. There was really no specific theme I could think of for my mum, so instead just asked what flavour she’d like. Having requested something with cream, I put my mind to something she’d love and came up with a Tiramisu cake. This as a huge hit and I’ve had several requests to make it since – most recently a few days after Christmas. Next in April was Erika’s birthday, though her party was technically in May. All I really had to go on was the fact she liked sweets, so I made a cake that somewhat looked like a bowl with sweets in it. My birthday was next but luckily I didn’t have to make my own cake as Nat did it instead. Good job too, given the theme (NSFW), as I”m not sure I would have pulled it off as well as she did! However only a week or so after mine, came my brother’s birthday. Since he was having a superhero party, I made him a superhero themed cake!

Only a few weeks after my brother’s birthday, it was Harry’s 1st birthday. While I don’t usually make cakes for other people’s kids, it was Harry’s 1st and that made it special (he’s also going to be my Godson). I really had no idea what a one year old would like so I searched around Pinterest till I came up with the idea of building blocks. It was a bit of a rush job but I think Harry’s cake turned out okay in the end. Luckily I managed a bit of a break then, at least until the following month. Even then the cake I made for my friend Chris, was a bit of break from the norm. His wife Hollie, suggested a cake that had been circulating its way around Facebook. Always up for a challenge, I figured I’d give it a go! Though the original cake had been Maltesers and M&M’s, I opted for Maltesers and Smarties – this was largely because nowhere I went had the smaller packs of M&M’s and I didn’t give myself very long to search! It turned out pretty good and seemed to wow everyone at Chris’ birthday party. Finally, I genuinely got a break – this time from between July to November. Then, amidst a heap of sewing, I had to make Nat a birthday cake. Sadly I can’t believe I never actually got around to blogging about her murder mystery, but we had fun with a fairytale theme. As her character in the murder mystery was Red Riding Hood, I decided to theme her cake the same. Megan actually helped me with the cake, solely making the Red Riding Hood figure on the top!

That brings me to the last cake of the year, which was actually for Megan’s birthday. Still bogged down with sewing, murder mystery planning and of course Christmas, Megan’s cake was a bit of a rush. Luckily for me, she’d enjoyed helping with Nat’s cake and had wanted to help with her own. Settling on a fairly simple Harry Potter cake theme, Megan actually made all the items on top of the cake (bar the scarf which I added as a surprise once she’d gone to bed). I made and iced the cake myself and once Megan was in bed, put all the elements together so at least the finished look would be a surprise for her.

While this coming year I will definitely be cutting down on the amount of cakes I make, I also know I will have more time to fiddle so I’m looking forward to developing more skills. With Megan be interested in helping, it also makes it feel a bit more enjoyable for me. Megan definitely has artistic talent that I do not possess!

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