Baking with Baby Baby

I'm not known for my baking.

I'm the first to admit that I prefer cooking savoury dishes. Add to that Presley's fear of the food mixer* and you'll understand why we don't do that much baking together.

*I used to make a thick gravy for the boys by whizzing cooked vegetables into stock with my handheld food mixer. Yeah, I know, I said I'd never hide vegetables either, but I said a lot of things before I became a parent. Presley freaks out the second he hears me plug the mixer in. Most days when I tell him what's for tea he replies 'no noisy gravy'. It's okay, I still have pasta sauce that I can hide vegetables in (without making a noise).

Biscuits, on the other hand, require no food mixer. The children can join in with measuring out the ingredients and mixing with wooden spoons or little hands. They can watch their creations cook through the glass in the oven door. Then - the best bit - they can decorate them, with melted chocolate or icing and hundreds and thousands.

The other day we made gingerbread men.

As you can see they haven't quite got the hang of where to put the buttons. Oh and the one with a foot missing was Cash pressing down with the cutter before I was ready!

When they had cooled down we got out the icing tubes and started decorating. This is one of mine. Those icing tubes aren't the easiest things to use.

This is another one of mine, celebrating summer!

It was a family affair. Here is Andy's effort. 

Nope, me neither. He was particularly proud of the stockings though.

Here are the finished gingerbread men from all of us.

I think the boys did really well with theirs!

What's that you say? English Mum's having a bake-off? Oh well, I'll have to enter with these fine fellows!

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I wonder if there's a prize for the worst entry?

Yes, it's a cupcake.

Like I said, I'm not known for my baking!

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Baking with Baby Baby

The Gallery: The Changing Seasons

The theme for the Sticky Fingers Gallery this week is nature. If you haven't entered before, this may be the week to start. There is a prize on offer for the best entry. The prize is a Green & Blacks hamper. I was going to say it's not to be sniffed at, but if you won you would sniff it. A LOT.

The themes in recent weeks have been tricky, but I've found this the most difficult theme of all. For a start, nature is a big theme, it covers so much of the world around us. 

I took some photographs this week of a squirrel eating a nut on our fence, but they're not great photographs. I took them though a window, using 12x digital zoom. I've got the squirrel in focus, but I wouldn't enter it in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition!

So having failed to find anything new to photograph I looked back through the thousands of photographs on my laptop. When I found one I liked, I copied it into my Gallery folder. I then went through and deleted loads, finally settling on a short list of 78.

This is when I decided I needed a theme. I know Tara likes trees, so I deleted everything that wasn't a tree. Finally, we're getting somewhere! I'll save the sunbathing blackbird for another day. I have my entry.

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Seeing these trees made me think of how they clearly reflect the changing seasons.

Spring

Sticky sap rises, the dead wood comes alive.

Summer

The shade of lush leaves on a sunny day

Autumn

The rustling of falling leaves, crunching underfoot.

Winter

Cold bare branches wait

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The Gallery: The Changing Seasons

Kitchen Sink Drama

There is one thing I wish my husband and I DIDN'T have in common. We're both D-I-shY.

It would be useful if one of us was handy around the house, or better still keen on DIY.

Having said that, if something needs bodging, Andy's your man.

Exhibit A:

This, friends, is the underside of my kitchen sink. A fine bodge I'm sure you'll agree.

Even more impressive when you see this,

Exhibit B:

Yes, my sink is propped up by a bowl, a tin can (Napolina plum tomatoes, no less) and some free newspapers.

This bodge has been in place for two and a half years, since the unfortunate washing up incident. The one where I poured a bowl of dirty water into the sink and the bottom fell off the sink. The one where there was a flood and I cried. That was the day we bought a dishwasher.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the hot tap packed up last year so I am without hot water in the kitchen. It's okay, I can boil a kettle to wash up anything that doesn't go in the dishwasher. And let's face it, most things go in the dishwasher.

Then on Friday the cold tap started to feel unusual, I could tell it was heading the way if the hot tap. I freaked out. I must use that tap millions of times every day.

We Googled for solutions. 177,980 sites offered help with a dripping tap, but none - I REPEAT, NONE - dealt with the tap not producing any water at all. Thanks Google. Thanks for nothing.

We decided to bite the bullet and spend a little money - eek, moths etc. We decided to buy a new sink. We went to B&Q.

They had our sink, exactly the same one. But, as is the way with Sod's Law, it was a returned one, in a battered box. If I'm getting a new sink I want a shiny one, with the plastic still on.

So we picked up everything else that we (and our plumber) would need. We bought new taps, the plumbing bits for under the sink and lightbulbs, a new bedside lamp, more lightbulbs and some lining paper for the boys to paint on. B&Q isn't as bad as Ikea for going in for one thing and coming out with fifty things, but it is still a shop!

In fact we bought everything but the kitchen sink.

Then it dawned on us.

There's nothing wrong with our current sink, it's just everything attached to it that has failed, is failing or has perished. We don't need a new sink. Phew.

Now to find a reputable plumber before the cold tap packs up completely.




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Kitchen Sink Drama

2 for 1 days out and WIN a Merlin Annual Pass

*This is a sponsored post*


2 for 1 days out are back in The Sun!

Starting in tomorrow's Sun (and continuing until Friday) you can collect tokens for 2 for 1 days out at hundreds of UK attractions. In Wednesday's Sun there will be a pull out section listing participating attractions, along with some bonus vouchers.

For more information see 2 for 1 days out are back.

Some of the attractions that will be included in the 2 for 1 days out are:
Thorpe Park
Chessington World of Adventures
Alton Towers
Legoland
Warwick Castle
Madame Tussuads
Lego Discovery Centre


These are also some of the places you can visit with a Merlin Annual Pass.

There is a prize draw running across Baby Baby and few other blogs to win a Merlin Annual Pass, worth £150.

To enter you need to leave a comment on this blog, correctly identifying the attraction where this picture was taken:

Tricky, isn't it? 

I will give you a clue. You can find the answer somewhere in this post!

The prize draw closes on Friday 30th July. 

A winner will be selected at random from all of the entries across the participating blogs.

To increase your chances of winning, look out for this promotion elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Also, please remember to leave your Twitter id or email address so that we can contact you.

UK only.

Good luck!!



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2 for 1 days out and WIN a Merlin Annual Pass

Cold Toast and Cringing

Yesterday I made myself two slices of toast. Up popped the toaster. I ignored it, busying myself with being a mother. I waited until the toast was cold. I took it out and cut each slice in half diagonally. On my four triangles of cold toast I spread real butter. The knife scraped along the slices, depositing a thin smear of yellow butter on each one. I stood in the kitchen, while the boys watched Mister Maker (I love him in spite of the gurning), and ate my toast. It was chewy and tasted of butter. It was wonderful.

I can't remember the last time I made my toast like this, but I can remember the first time.

I am eight years old. We're staying at Uncle Dave and Aunty Maggie's house. They're Mum and Dad's friends. They keep moving to different bungalows. Aunty Maggie has a bad back. She tried to lift me out of the bath, but it hurt. She had to go and lay down. I think she cried.

Uncle Dave shakes. His cigar shakes in his hand as he holds it. I can hear the ice cubes clinking in his drink. They don't have children, but they do have a dog. Her name is Mandy and she is a black terrier. She likes to fetch balls if you throw them for her. She is quite slobbery.

Mum says she can't understand why they got cream carpets when they have a dog. The carpets smell new. They are springy under my bare feet. It's mostly boring round Uncle Dave and Aunty Maggie's. They talk to Mum and Dad and we have to sit and listen. I can't get a word in edgeways. Each time I look at Mum, pleading at her with my eyes to let me speak, she holds up her hand. This means grown ups are talking. By the time she asks me what I wanted to say, the conversation has moved on. It's too late. It doesn't matter.

In the morning we sit at the table for breakfast. It is already 10 o'clock, but we're just having breakfast. The table is smoky black glass and the wicker on the chair scratches my legs. Mum and Dad and Uncle Dave and Aunty Maggie are still talking. I drink my orange juice. It has bits in it, I spit them back in the glass. My brother Peter sees me and does the same with his orange juice. We take slice after slice of cold toast and slowly, carefully spread it with the curls of butter in the dish. I feel grown up. This must be how grown ups eat their toast.

Later, I put my hands in Mandy's woolly coat. I wish we could have a puppy. I throw the ball for her and shout 'fetch it, Goldie!'. I realise what I have done. I've called her by the name of the Blue Peter dog. Goldie is Simon Groom's dog and she goes with him to his parent's farm in Dethick. Everyone laughs at me. I can feel my cheeks burning, I am going bright red. They keep laughing. I want to go home and not come back.

This post has been written as part of the Sleep is for the Weak Writing Workshop.  This week I chose prompt no.4 Share a powerful memory, or memories, from your childhood.

There was another prompt asking about the last time you cried. That was just now. I was looking for a photograph of a particular moth caterpillar that my friends and I found in someone's garden one summer. We collected them in our hands and placed them in our gardens. Poor things, they probably starved after we moved them away from their food source. They were quite distinctive, two inches long, fat and green, with red heads and spiked tails. As I searched through the vividly clear photographs I realised that I have a bit of a caterpillar phobia. I clicked away from Flikr with tears in my eyes. I never did find what I was looking for and  in the end I wrote about something else.

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Cold Toast and Cringing