Parties, Parties, Parties!

Over the last few weeks our weekends have been packed with parties and celebrations - here is a sneak peak of a few of them

Neighbours Christmas Party

The first party of the festive season, 10 of us headed to Three Rivers Golf Club for a Best of British Christmas Party - absolutely fantastic night, I am so lucky to have such amazing neighbours we all get along so well and are often hosting or attending parties at each others houses so it was so lovely that we could all get together to go out celebrate - The venue was decorated in red, white and blue and all the tables were named after landmarks - we were on Trafalgar Square Table, a Take That tribute band entertained us over a three course dinner and we then danced the night away to the house DJ - roll on our next night out!

School Mums Night Out

The next week I was out with mums from school, we headed to Marcos tapas bar.  The food was amazing, drinks flowed and had a brilliant night in the company of these fabulous girls.  We also did a gift exchange - budget was £5 and we had so much fun stealing the gifts - I went home with a lovely photo frame

Royal Brompton Hospital Christmas Party

Joshua was diagnosed with a congenitial heart defect (pulmonary stenosis) when he was 3 months old and we have been under the care of the wonderful Royal Brompton Hospital who now do check ups on him every 6 months. We were invited to attend the Christmas Party at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Kensington that the Brompton Foundation host for families.  The event was truly amazing 4 hours of sold fun and the boys had a wonderful time - there was Elf Entertainers, Disney Princesses, Face painting & Glitter Tattoos, Clown making balloons, Bouncy Castle and at the end each child visited Father Christmas and received a gift which was hand picked for them - Truly magical day out!

 

Kelly x

Joshua's 3rd Birthday - Who-liday Grinch Inspired Christmas Lunch Party

At the weekend Joshua turned 3, we had a low key celebration at home with family. Josh loves Toy Story so he received amongst other presents a Buzz and Woody which he loves.

Although we had a quite day I didn't want to let the day pass with out Joshua having a special birthday lunch and cake.  I decided on a Grinch Inspired Who-liday lunch.

For decorations I used what I had laying around the house - a red and white striped running, green spotted napkins and some cake stands, for the food I keep with the red and green Grinch colours

Lunch Menu

Red & Green mini jelly pots

Elf cake slices

Lattice Crisps

Cheese and Ham Pinwheels

Grinch Sticks

Here are a few photos of Joshua's birthday.

Kelly x

Oh Christmas Tree!

This week we pulled our christmas decorations and tree down from the loft.  Nothing gets me more into the festive spirit than putting on some christmas music and decking our halls.

The boys are so into Christmas this year it melts my heart - they loved helping to decorate the tree (even if I did have to rearrange a couple of them!) and I am loving creating lots of memories and family Christmas traditions.

 So onto Christmas in our house.....

Our Christmas tree is amazing! full of baubles and decorations with memories attached to them - holidays and trips, wedding, baby first christmas, decorations that were on the tree when I was a child - I love every single one of them!

Winter Porch

Our Christmas Tree

Some of my favourite decorations

Wooden Santa that I picked up at market whilst travelling in Russia

Nativity Scene - love to include the true meaning of Christmas

Sign that hangs in my Kitchen

Kelly x

North Pole Breakfast ... A look back

Last year before I started writing my blog, I decided to introduce a Christmas tradition of a breakfast with the arrival of Buddy the Christmas Elf.

Buddy the elf arrived on Joshua's birthday in early December and had been sent by Father Christmas to stay in our house until Christmas Eve and fly back to the North Pole each night to tell him about all the activities, good and bad that the boys have done throughout the day.

Each morning he is then found getting up to lots of mischief in the house - there is one rule however, that the elf must not be touched by children otherwise he will lose his magic and won't be able to fly back to North Pole.

For the breakfast side of things I kept things simple by preparing scrambled eggs, sausages, crossiants and some sweet treats.

For decorations I used the North Pole as a theme.  I found a cute North Pole sign on Pinterest that I put in a frame,  I used a red and white table runner that I already had and picked up some plastic gingerbread plates from pound land.  The milk bottles are Starbucks Frappuccino bottles which you can pick up in any supermarket, I took off the label washed them throughly and attached a printable for Snow Milk I also found on Pinterest.

Here are a few photos of the breakfast....

Some of the fun things Buddy got up to during the 2015 Christmas visit to our house!

It was such a fun way to start of the Christmas Holidays I can't wait to a Christmas breakfast again this year especially since the boys are into Christmas even more this year - I just need to think of the theme!

Sources
Elf on a Shelf
North Pole Printables
Snow Milk Printables
Gingerbread Plates

Kelly x

Bonfire Night Party

On Saturday we had a few of the parents and kids over to ours for a Bonfire Night Party full of fun, food, drinks and fireworks.

I wanted to keep the food and drink simple so I wasn't in the kitchen all night - for the adults I did mulled wine in the slow cooker and I wanted to make something special for the kids to drink so I borrowed my mums slow cooker and made huge vat of hot chocolate with all the trimmings (plus some booze if the adults wanted a spiked version)! 

I took lots of photos of the food and kids but forgot to take any photos of all us parents having fun!

  For dinner I made typical Autumn Bonfire Night food - Sausages, Baked Potatoes and a Chilli (non meat version as one of our guests is veggie) together with Toffee Apple Crumble for dessert

After dinner we went out into the garden for the firework display and sparklers - all the kids loved it apart from my little Joshua who decided he would rather stay indoors watching toy story! which is why there are no photos of him.

 

Kelly x

Operation Christmas Child

During half term week the boys and I packed our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  We do this each year and I think it is a brilliant project for the kids to get involved in and also a great opportunity to get them to think about children in other countries who are less fortunate and do not have the nice things they do.

We packed our shoe for boys that are the same age as Zack and Josh and the boys loved packing the items into the shoeboxes and we spoke about the children who would receive them.

If you would like to pack a shoebox you still have time - drop off week is 14-21 November 2016.  The website gives you lots of information about the project,  a list of suggested things to include (as well as prohibited items that you should not include) and also your local drop off points.

My top 10 tips for packing a frugal Christmas Child Shoe box

1.  Shop throughout the year for your shoebox items, you are more likely to pick up a bargain if you keep an eye out whilst your out and about plus it helps spread the cost.

2.   Shop the seasonal sales, places like Poundland discount seasonal items by 50% after Christmas and Easter so its a great opportunity to pick up stickers, craft items, cuddly toys etc.

3.  Buy multipacks and split the contents through a couple of boxes (or save for another year) for example you can split up packs of colouring pens and pencils and make up pencil cases, divide up hairbands or toy cars.

4. Keep the free toys from McDonalds Happy Meals, whilst these items are often overlooked by our children to those in another country who have nothing they maybe come a treasured item.

5.  If you knit or do craft the Operation Christmas Child Pinterest page has some great patterns of items to include in your shoebox.

6.  Hotel freebies,  items such as the soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste, pads, pens make great items for your shoe box.

7.  Free promotional items,  these are things you usually get given out at stalls in shopping centres or fairs.  Types of things in this range include - tote bags, pens/pencils, keychains these are all great items to include in the shoebox.

8.  Free mini lego kits, periodically throughout the year newspapers such as Daily Mail give out free lego kits throughout the week when you purchase the newspaper these are great items especially for the older boy shoe boxes

9.  Look out for items at Boot Sales or Garage Sales.  Items included in the shoeboxes need to be new but often you can pick up brand new unwanted items such as stationery kits, baseball hats, disney playing cards etc.

10.  A nice touch is to include a christmas card or photo in your shoebox to make it a little more personal.

Do you make Operations Christmas Child Shoeboxes? I would love to hear what you put in them and any tips you have!

Kelly x