Nevendon Manor - Hatters Wonderland

Today Zack and I tumbled down the rabbit hole to the Hatters Wonderland at Nevenden Manor with a few of his school friends and their mums.

I was totally blown away with this magical experience.  During the hour long tour you accompany Alice as she guides you around the beautiful manor gardens meeting all the characters from Alice in Wonderland as the story is told in various scenes during the walk.

The attention to every detail was amazing, as was the talent actors and actresses who made the experience truly enchanting for both kids and adults - the four children in our group were totally immersed in the make-believe world of Alice!

There was also some lovely touches like the gazebo in the car park where you start and finish the tour which served very reasonably priced tea, coffee and soft drinks (£1 each), bags of sweets £1.50) and themed face painting (£3)

I would throughly recommend the event and I cannot wait to go to the next event in August - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

For more details on all the events visit the Nevenden Manor website

Kelly x

May Bank Holiday weekend

We have had a lovely bank holiday weekend ... this is what we have been up to....

On Friday night I went out for dinner followed by cocktails with the mums from school who have children are going up to big school in September, it was lovely catching up with the mums I know and also meeting a few new ones!

Saturday as it was such a lovely day we decided we would go to Barleylands in Billericay to the farmers market - to be honest it was a bit of a disappointment as there was only about 6 stalls there - although we did pick up some delicious sausages from the Giggly Pig Company stall to bbq that evening.

Whilst we were at Barleylands we decided to take the boys to the farm park which is also onsite. This is a great place to visit if you have young kids with plenty to do - tractor rides, little ride on tractors which the kids can ride around the park on, feeding the goats and sheep,  Reptile house with snakes, reptiles and mini beasts,  lamb national racing and a great indoor play centre. I am thinking of purchasing an annual ticket for us all.

On Sunday we went to the Lazybones car boot sale in Rettendon, I wasn't sure what to expect but it was huge with plenty of people selling and buying.

I managed to pick up a few bargains -

• 2 murder mystery games which I am looking forward to having some friends over to play one evening - £5
• white serving platter which I am thinking would be really nice filled with fruit or veggies with a dip - £1
• A cute little glass jar with christmas trees on it - which I am going to fill with sweets over the festive period - £1
• Mediterranean terracotta dish which matches a lasagne and salad dish I brought years ago from debenhams - 50p  

The weather turned windy and cold on Monday so we decided to have a quite day indoors, chilling out and watching movies and thats a wrap on our Bank Holiday weekend and we are back to work tomorrow.

Kelly x

Five on a Friday

Another addition of Five on a Friday

ONE: On Saturday Zack went to one of his pre-school friends Evy's Scooby Doo themed swimming pool party.  The kids had a brilliant time playing about in the pool and after had a lovely lunch in the hall.  Evy's mum Vicky made an amazing Scooby Doo cake and dog tag biscuits for the kids to decorate.

TWO: With the kids tucked up in bed, Danny and I ordered takeaway pizza and settled down with a glass of wine to watch the Eurovision Song Contest - I love Eurovision even though the UK will never win its still so much fun to watch! This year they changed the voting system by separating the professional jury and the viewers votes - oh my this new voting system was so exciting and when the views phone votes came in it really shook things up - those countries at the bottom of the board suddenly jumped into the top 10 and made it a real nail biting final! - Ukraine won in the end and I am looking forward to next years contest in Kiev

THREE: We are lucky to live in the country in a riverside setting, so this morning I took the kids down to the river to feed the swans.

FOUR: Since we moved into our house nearly six years ago we have done a lot of work on our garden - decking, raised bedding etc  - at the weekend we took a trip to the garden centre to purchase some pots and plants to give our backyard a bit of colour - lets see how they turn out!  Also going to be making some hanging baskets in the next month or so to hang from our shed.

FIVE:  This week one of our neighbours has organised for 5 couples on our street to have a Christmas night out at the Three Rivers Country Club, such a fantastic idea and I am so looking forward to having all these fun things to do over the festive period!

via

Kelly x

Fun in the Sun - Backyard BBQ

OMG wasn't the weather amazing at the weekend!

With the sun out we spent the whole weekend out in the garden and as I am married to a South African this was perfect opportunity for our first bbq (or braai!) of the year - so on Sunday we invited our good friends Steve (who is also South African) his wife Alison and their son over for a few drinks and a bbq, whilst the boys playing with their water guns and in the paddling pool.

Frozen Movie Night

Over the weekend I gave the boys a Frozen themed movie night and dinner.

I have two boys who love their cars, fire engines, playing outside, buzz lightyear and superheros - so imagine my surprise when my 4 year old came home from pre school and wanted to watch Olaf. The boys now love the movie and they actually call it Let it Go rather than Frozen!

As it was a bank holiday weekend I wanted to something fun, I wasn't looking to throw a party or decorate the whole house,  I just wanted to plan a dinner that tied into the movie.

Here is what I planned - 

The kitchen table was decorated in a plain white table cloth and I put a runner of blue wrapping paper down then centre, I have a snowflake punch in my craft cupboard so punched snowflakes out of silver and white wrapping paper and dotted them around the table along with some Christmas snowflake coasters I have.

Our menu consisted of

• Troll Stones - Swedish Meatballs
• Elsa's Snow - Mashed Potato
• Olaf's Noses - Baby Carrots
• Christoff's Ice Blocks - Blue Jelly Cubes
• Frost Bites - Vanilla Ice Cream, Marshmallows and Blue Smarties
• Frozen Waters - Water with ice cubes.

After dinner the boys bathed, put on their pyjamas and we snuggled up on the sofa with blankets to watch the movie - I even had some more frozen themed snacks to pass around - Frozen themed juice cartons and biscuits I found in my local supermarket!

I had so much fun planning this evening, I can't wait for us to have another family movie night.