Journeys Are My Diary

Life, Adventures, Entertainment and more - A little bit of everything blog!

Happy 9th Birthday Lily

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Just a quick update from me today and I also know I’m yet to do my February Round-up. However I couldn’t let today go by without wishing my youngest daughter Lily, a Happy Birthday. We’ve had a lovely day that’s involved opening presents, muffins for breakfast, building Lego, eating at Pizza Hut for lunch, catching up with family and then chilling out. I’m actually quite sad the day is over but I think some of that is knowing tomorrow is Monday and the school run begins again!

So once again, Happy 9th Birthday Lily. I can’t believe how much you’ve grown and what a beautiful, funny and smart girl you’re growing up to be.

Movie Review – The Lego Batman Movie

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As I mentioned in my previous post about Sing, we were lucky enough to see two movies over half term and this was the other movie – The Lego Batman movie. If you have seen the original The Lego Movie, then you may well be prepared for the humour and ridiculousness of The Lego Batman movie, but if not then be prepared!

I want to start by saying, I did really enjoy The Lego Batman movie. It was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be. The humour was there in heaps. But so was the stupidity. If you were to say the movie wasn’t ridiculous in parts, then you’d be lying. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, but its just a fact. Kids will love it – they will probably even laugh at parts they don’t understand. People who love Batman, will probably love it or hate it. Adults will definitely find humour in it – but may well be divided on whether or not it’s a good movie. There are so many nods to older Batman movies, comics and even the original TV series, that you can’t help but appreciate the effort that has gone into the movie, even if plot is definitely somewhat lacking.

Anyway, the movie is obviously about Batman. He’s a loner. He doesn’t really like people. He doesn’t really do anything other than fight crime, but even then he’s just indifferent about it all. There are so many DC villains in this movie, it’s unreal. The movie really starts with the realisation that Batman just sort of takes everything and everyone for granted and doesn’t even care enough to dislike the Joker – shock horror! This upsets Joker somewhat and sets him on a path to prove that Batman wouldn’t be happy if Joker wasn’t there to be his biggest enemy. The story then gets a little far fetched – but in someways adds more humour, especially with the addition of other bad guys (my favourite being Voldermort). So without spoiling things, the movie twists and turns in a fairly predictable but still enjoyable (and funny) manner, resulting in a sort of sad/happy moment (where some may cry – my kids did – but I didn’t, as it was still a bit stupid).

I’m sure my review doesn’t make it sound great but it also probably doesn’t give it enough credit where credit is due. I laughed. I laughed a lot. I enjoyed it. But it was ridiculous. Would I watch it again? Yeah probably. Would I buy it on DVD? Nope…

20 Facts About My Disney Life Tag

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Amy over at Cocktails in Teacups tagged me in something called 20 Facts About My Disney Life and although its taken me a week or so to get around to it, I didn’t want to forget altogether! The idea is really simple – no questions, just list 20 facts about your life that are connected to Disney! Here are mine…

1. Every single room in my house has something Disney in it. Some rooms have more than others but there is at least one Disney item in each. Even my car has some Disney on its aerial.

2. I have collected Disney Traditions for the last 7 years and I have almost 30.

3. I have collected Disney Pop Funkos for the last 3 years and I have 14.

4. Amy is the cause of me starting both the Traditions and Pop Funko collections, as she bought me the firsts.

5. To be honest, I would collect pretty much anything if its related to Disney. We have so many Tsum Tsums, both plush and vinyl, I went through a phase of buying Disney t-shirts, I find it hard to resist Disney at Primark and most recently I started collecting Disney Lego Minifigures.

6. Tinker Bell and Belle have always been my favourite Disney characters. I don’t think it’s because of being called Bel (or “Bel”inda) myself, because I only shortened my name during my 20’s.

7. I started Closet Geek, largely to sell Disney inspired dresses. Though I’m happy to make anything, the inspiration for Disney related ones comes the easiest. 98% of my store is Disney.

8. I absolutely love making adult cosplay, especially Disney. All the people I would love to dress as are Disney characters but sadly once I’ve made them and put them on, I don’t really feel that great about myself in them.

9. I’m sad to say that I’ve tried hardly any Disney Park food. Despite visiting DLP a few times and Florida for 2 weeks, we hardly eat in the parks. I’ve never had Dole Whip, Mickey shaped ice cream, turkey legs or whatever else that Disney Parks are famous for serving!

10. Beauty and the Beast is my favourite Disney movie of all time. Not only is Belle my favourite princess, I love the Beast, I cry every time I watch the movie and I really love all the characters. I even have a BATB tattoo.

11. I own nearly all the animated Disney movies on DVD but I pretty much never watch them. I’m sad about this really but I just hardly ever but dvds on.

12. Over the last two years I’ve started to buy a lot of Disney artwork. I think it started with the Disney Kinkade pictures being released (and I bought one at LFCC) and ever since then I’ve noticed artists at cons and online a lot more. This year I have discovered lots of new favourites and I made a post called Artist Spotlight.

13. I love this new movement that is “Disney blogging”. I honestly wish I could be a full time Disney blogger, but I don’t think I have enough interesting to say about Disney to do it all the time! Not that my life is any more interesting or anything, but I think I would run out of Disney stuff to say.

14. The only songs I know all the words to are Disney songs. When we were younger my brother and I would listen to VHS tapes over and over to write down the words and then learn the songs. We would even break them up into individual parts and we had a folder each with our own parts in it. I should probably be embarrassed about this but I’m not.

15. I’ve always worn scarves a lot but mostly it was just winter ones that I continued to wear once I walked back in the house. Over the last 2-3 years I’ve started buying lots of sheer scarves (I blame Hot Topic) and all but one are Disney!

16. I’ve been married (and divorce/separated) twice so I’m not especially keen to do it again. If I did though, it would have to be a really unusual or extravagant wedding. Ideally I’d like it to be either in WDW or Disney themed (where people dress as Disney characters).

17. Nearly all my mugs are Disney themed. At times they have got a bit out of control and Chris has now put a ban on any more mugs! However I recently moved a few to my display cabinet and tossed a few non-Disney ones out so hopefully I’m free to add a few more now!

18. For the first time ever, I’m seriously considering an annual pass to Disneyland Paris. This year I’ll have been at least three times and getting a pass might be a great excuse to go more. I would love to go during Halloween.

19. I can hand on heart say I have never wished to be a Disney Princess. To be honest, if I had a choice, I would be a sassy Villain or a character like Megara.

20. Before I started sewing, I had a couple of years where I made cakes for all my friends and family. Each person had at least one spectacular cake during that time. My all time favourite was the Tsum Tsum one that I made (with Megan’s help) for Lily.

I very rarely tag anyone in these things but if you’d like to do it then please let me know you have!

Week 10 – Monday Round-up

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Well it’s been a busy week, I can tell you! I can’t quite believe it’s gone past already! Anyway, here is my brief run down of the week – as I remember it!

Monday to Friday was school and work for the girls and Chris. I don’t honestly remember what I did most days but I’ll give it a bash when something sticks out! I do remember that I won a competition on Twitter on Monday, with BooHoo.com – getting me an outfit worth £100 that arrived later in the week. Otherwise I think it was probably just a day of housework and blogging. The girls had singing stars after school and so it was late when we all got home and had dinner. The girls and I made a Queen of Hearts bow before Lily had to go to bed and Megan and I worked on her cake. We’d started it on Sunday but knowing we only had a couple of hours each day, meant we had to do a little bit every day.

On Tuesday again the girls were at school and when they got home we had to fit in two Disney tasks as they were busy the following night. We watched The Princess Diaries and read some of the new Never Girls book, all before Lily went to bed. After she did, Megan and I worked on Lily’s cake again. Next day Chris was off work and the girls were going to their dad’s after school. This meant a really leisurely day because I didn’t really need to be anywhere at any particular time. I don’t remember an awful lot of what we did but I do know we were naughty and had takeaway for dinner, just before the kids came home! Again, after Lily was in bed, Megan and I worked on her cake. We got it finished and I was really proud of it!

Megan wrapped Lily’s presents and then headed to bed, while I also wrapped Lily’s presents and wrote her card. For once I felt pretty organised which is a nice change these days! Thursday was Lily’s birthday and she woke us all at 6.30am. We opened presents in bed before getting up and having breakfast, then getting ready for school. The girls were both going dressed up for World Book Day and they were also both going as Harry Potter characters. Megan was Luna Lovegood and had Ravenclaw robes, while Lily was Hermione Granger and had Gryffindor robes. From what I can gather they had a good day! After school I picked them both up and we went for dinner at Pizza Express. The food was delicious but the girls were tired and I wasn’t feeling very well, so there was definitely a disappointing vibe.

After that we went to Sainsbury’s though and the girls had their savings with them and I’d emptied out my weightloss savings box in order to change the money into dollars. We all did ours individually – Megan having the most, Lily next and then me (no surprise!). We then headed home and Nat arrived for a visit just a little while later. I let Lily stay up so she could open her present and then both girls went to bed. Nat stayed for quite a while but not too late as I was feeling a bit rough and was dying to go to sleep!

On Friday neither girl really wanted to go to school but I packed them off, knowing it was only one more day to get through. At midday I took Chris to work, called at Morrisons and then went to see my mum. She had been away in Israel for a week and a half so it was really nice to see her. I picked the girls up from school but we all had dinner with mum before heading home. When we got back there were quite a lot of parcels waiting for us which was pretty exciting. One of them was my BooHoo delivery which was my outfit worth £100. There was a dress, a handbag, some shoes and a shirt. The next day was Saturday and we had a trip to Leeds and X Factor planned, but in the morning we tidied the girls room and sorted out some more packing for Florida. Another parcel arrived from BooHoo which also went with my parcel from the day before, this time a pair of black trousers. Over lunch we watched Sleeping Beauty and then we got ready for going out. We finally left the house around 4pm but we needed to call at Tesco and also get some petrol. We had a fairly uneventful journey to Leeds and got there around 6pm. However traffic was horrendous and it took half an hour just to do 3 miles. We eventually parked, found McDonalds and had something to eat. Afterwards we made our way to First Direct Arena and settled in for the show.

At first I think it was a bit loud for the girls but they soon settled in and began enjoying themselves. Lily spent most of the second half stood up and dancing so that was lovely to see. It was 10pm by the time we left and we rushed back to the car as we’d been warned it could be a long wait afterwards. Unfortunately we didn’t miss the queues and instead sat still in the car for almost an hour, without even moving an inch. Finally at around 11pm we got out of the car park and headed home. I missed a few turnings and sadly put about 10 minutes on our journey and it was 12.20am before we got back. The girls went straight to bed and Chris and I sat for a while before we did too.

On Sunday we managed a bit of a lie-in but I also had to get up and get on as I was spending the day at mum’s. Chris needed to be at work for 12pm and as there are no trains back in time, I arranged to stay at mum’s and wait for him, while the girls went to bed there too. As such we needed everything to occupy us for the afternoon, along with school clothes etc for the next day. It was a pretty hectic morning making sure we had everything and then we needed to leave around 11.30am. Mum wasn’t in when we first got there but eventually she turned up and we had lunch. The afternoon was spent with Megan doing her homework and Megan and Lily making a Lego Rapunzel tower with mum – all while I dozed on the sofa. Later Lily had a bath while mum made dinner and then we all sat down to a roast chicken dinner. Afterwards Megan had a shower and I put Lily to bed. Megan went to bed about an hour later and it wasn’t long after that before I headed out to get Chris. Together we headed home, watched some TV together and then I blogged while he went on his Xbox. We eventually headed to bed at just gone 12am.

It’s been a good week but its gone by so fast. As of today it’s 23 days until we go to Florida and I honestly don’t even know where the time is going! This coming week and the next are going to be busy so I apologise in advance if my blog posts are lacking!