The Magic of Snow

Its just a little frozen water, but when the white stuff arrives in the UK, a magical winter wonderland descends upon us and transforms everyone and everything

Besides the visual beauty and widespread excitement around us, we are reminded of how much we appreciate being part of a community. Whether its shopping for an elderly neighbour, sharing milk supplies or helping dig a strangers car out of snowy rut, we suddenly forget the self-imposed rules of busy lives that keep us to ourselves for for fear of our plans getting interrupted.

This January we had a glorious week of snow, and were sure to make the most of it. It was the first time both girls were big enough to enjoy toboganning and snowman building. Good thing we had the correct attire, we spent most of our days out there!

Here are some pics

Woodlands Park Hotel gardens

Katie's Mr Plod Snowman

Chloe enjoys a cup of hot chocolate after some serious tobogganing

Enjoying a swim... as you do in the snow!

Dora the explorer

A splash of colour in your toast!

Now heres one way of spicing up some wholewheat bread! We added a few drops of food colouring to water and painted our toast before eating ... great fun :)

Katie 2 Shoes proudly shows off her spotty creation :)

A Feast with a Gruffalo ....

Its amazing how one little bedtime story can have such an impact on a 2 year old kid! Katherine spends her days as a Gruffalo and therefore there was no question about what theme she wanted for her third birthday party. Thank goodness for eBay, I was able to get the usually highly overpriced gruffalo merchandise for something a little more affordable! Katie was thrilled to have Gogo fly out to join us but unfortunately the poor munchkin came down with chicken pox days before her big day! Nonetheless the show must go on, and the doc said she should no longer be contagious so we sent out a mail letting everyone know the situation and thankfully it all went ahead perfectly as planned

Here are some pics

The front page of the invitation :)

The party was held at Piglets play centre, here is the goodies table

My gruffalo cake, pity we didnt get a better pic, it was made of Rice Crispy treats, covered in fondant.. i had lots of fun making it :)

Its a great theme to have fun with :)

Roasted Fox Lollipops

Purple Prickle Grapes

Gruffalo Cake

Gruffalo crumble biscuit pops

Owl Ice-cream

A happy birthday girl

Gruffalo centrepieces which we conveniently made at a Gruffalo workshop!

Little Spot laughs at the dismembered Gruffalo cake ...

Party packs meticulously decorated by Gogo 

Included Scrambled Snake popcorn, Owl Ice Cream, Roasted Fox and Gruffalo Crumble

... And best of all I managed to sell these decorations off on eBay for more than i paid for them :-)

Halloween fun

Halloween in the UK is a big thing these days .. apparently it is now the third highest spending festival here and after having kids & getting caught up in all the fever and parties i can believe that! We met at Garsons the Sunday before for our usual pumpkin picking and carving ritual, and all had a blast. Of course, Katie is a little Halloween pumpkin so in our household its an extra special occasion. Unfortunately though this year, the poor mite ended up with a bad case of chicken pox on her big day... but still managed to rustle up some smiles and a couple of rounds of trick or treating (from a quarantinable distance of course). Sadly we missed out on the Halloween street festival and Piglets party .. but here are some pics nonetheless ...

Eerie shop window!

Katie pics out the VROTest pumpkin on the patch

The Spooky pumpkin carvers

Dont mess with these scary KOTBs

Our masterpieces

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Eerie shop displays

My cute little pumpkin

Our spooky home 

Not forgetting Katie Pumpkins birthday cake!!

Winkworth Arboretum in Autumn

Today we headed to Winkworth Arboretum with the Coopers and Venters to see the beautiful deciduous autumn trees. When we arrived the place was covered in a thick fog which made it feel eerie and special. To top it off the colours were quite spectacular...
Here are some pics