#JanuaryJoy - Capture the Memories

This year I intend on sorting out the masses of digital photographs I have on my computer.

I also plan to do something with the piles upon piles of children's artwork that is accumulating.

My solution for both of these is going to be a huge coffee table book. That is if I ever get time to make it. I did say in January 2013 that I would do this & I still haven't gotten around to it - isn't that awful!

Now that the kids are a bit older, they love to look at the photographs that I have printed in an album, but I kinda stopped when the littlest was under a year old! So I have years to catch up on!!

I've been searching online and there are so many companies that offer design & print services for photo books, so if you are able to recommend one to me that would be much appreciated :-)

{image source}

I will get around to this - promise! I'm going to put it into my FiloFax (which I'm absolutely loving!) and it will get done.

How do you organise your photographs?

This post is for Florence Find's #JanuaryJoy.

{Happy Birthday to my Littlest}

My daughter turns 3 this month. Yes, three!!! Where has the time gone??

For her first birthday we threw an afternoon tea party and for her 2nd birthday I hosted a painting party. This year she's having a small Build a Bear party with her big brother and their cousins - I know that she'll love it.

I thought I'd pull together a few of my favourite photographs of her over the last three years...

Just a week old!

I did a lot of walking whilst the littlest was a baby as 

part of my fitness programme with my personal trainer. The baby carrier was great for this.

Out for tea and cakes with the girls!

Those cheeks!!

Dressing up for Halloween. I love a tutu!

1st birthday 'afternoon tea' party - and another tutu!

Starting to look more like a little girl than a baby!

Dressed as Robin for her brother's super hero party!

Aww!

Doing some gardening last month!

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{Disney on Ice - a review}

We were thrilled to be asked to review Disney on Ice in Glasgow, and in no time it was the weekend of the show! *squeals* (I'm worse than the kids!!)

We took a taxi to The Hydro as I wasn't totally sure where I'd get parked and how far a walk it would be, and I'm glad we did. (Hampden Taxi app was brilliant as I was able to book our return taxi from the comfort of our seat in the arena!)

We ended up being slightly rushed as our tickets weren't at the desk, but thankfully it got sorted out just in time and we made it to our seats just as the lights were dimming. This meant we didn't get a chance to grab any snacks prior to the show starting, but being the organised mummy that I am (ahem!) I had a couple of packets of crisps and Innocent smoothies in my bag for the little ones if they got hungry tummies!

Anyway, the show started and the littlest's face was just so adorable. Her reaction to the characters was just amazing. She was over the moon to see them all.

In awe!

Combine her wee gorgeous face with The Little Mermaid music and I had a tear in my eye!

The Little Mermaid was definitely my favourite part of the show. I think a lot of this is down to the music - proper Disney old school classics. Whereas the music from Tinkerbell, Cars and Toy Story 3 didn't have the same impact for me. The kids loved Mickey & Minnie, as you'll see from their YouTube video below!

It was the innocence of my son that was just so lovely... he said to me excitedly during the show "Tinkerbell waved at me!" and it was adorable that he was so absorbed in the show that he thought the characters were waving just to him. Very cute!!

I had requested tickets for the 2.45pm performance, but I hadn't anticipated how long the show would last. Toy Story 3 came on after the interval and I think it didn't capture the littlest's imagination as much as the other acts, it probably was more suited to slightly older kiddies (although she loved seeing Barbie!). She also got a bit tired towards the end and was keen to go home :-( Thankfully the taxi was outside at 5pm to collect us and we got home soon enough.

After dinner I got the kids seated on their wee kitchen stool to capture their thoughts on the show...



And here are the out takes!! The eldest seemed to find it highly amusing to leap on me every time I started filming!



We'd definitely go back to see another Disney show and I'd love to take the kids to Disneyland. It's on my 35 at 35 list!

We received complimentary tickets for Disney on Ice in exchange for an honest review. Thoughts, as always, are our own.

{my kitchen table}

I have so many great memories that are associated with the table in the kitchen of the house I grew up in.

Painting, cutting, sketching, colouring in, glueing, rubber stamping....all manner of arts & crafts! My mum was rather crafty & I loved being sat at the table on one of the benches doing art work.

We also used to sit at the same benches drinking earl grey tea & eating delightful almond biscuits after having been outside playing in the cold (hilarious I know, but it's true!).

My sister & I also used to eat our dinner there most nights with our mum (dad didn't get home from work until later)... we used to have pink grapefruit as a starter regularly (seems bizarre as it's not something I eat now) and I was made to drink cups of milk (which I very much disliked!).

Now as a grown up (cough, cough!) with my own children, I am creating memories at our table.

We do lots of arts & crafts... painting, cutting, sketching, colouring in, glueing, rubber stamping (notice a similarity!?) and we eat dinner together every evening. 

Baking cakes at the old house. Yummy!

I don't have a dining kitchen anymore in the new house, but I have a dining recess in the playroom/dining room which is attached to my small galley kitchen. I've taken the furniture from my old house with me, and thankfully it fits perfectly.

This was the space when I first moved in!

Mild chilli with rice and pasta (her choice!) made into a smiley face!!

The boxes weren't unpacked and they were still at the table drawing!

Getting there!

Creating more art for the walls :)

I've attached two Ikea curtain wires to the wall to display their artwork with plastic bird clips that I bought from cloudy blue in Aberdeen.

Now the walls are painted, and I'm nearly finished this room!

{Host Your Own Cocktail Party}

When I was asked if I would host a cocktail party in my own house with Social and Cocktail, I didn't need to think twice! I love a good cocktail and I love to host parties...

Basically, Social and Cocktail will provide the cocktail bartender, a mobile bar, cocktail ingredients, glassware, ice etc and will make amazing cocktails in your home for you and your guests.

This is the bar!!!

After agreeing on a date, I was then tasked with selecting 5 cocktails from their menu, which they've helpfully categorised into Dessert, Vodka, Rum, Classics and Non-Alcoholic.

I picked:

• Raspberry Mojito - Raspberry liqueur, white rum, lime juice, soda water, mint, sugar & raspberries
• Passionfruit Daiquiri - Rum, Passoa, Lime juice & sugar syrup
• Cosmopolitan - citrus vodka, Triple Sec, cranberry juice, lemon and sugar syrup
• Toblerone Martini
• Caipirinha - originated in Brazil where they are regarded as the national cocktail and contains Cachaca, sugar & lime

On the night, Evan & Damien arrived with Marc the photographer about an hour before the guests were due to set up the bar.

It was a bit like Transformers... and this is what the box became:

I had decided to use a scoring system for each cocktail for a bit of fun... so we each rated the cocktails in four different categories, Appearance, Smell, Initial Taste and Overall Impression, giving them a score out of 5.

I had a few moustaches dotted about the place.... we're supporting Movember!

Evan doing his thing behind the bar!

The Toblerone Martini... really creamy and was so nice! (spot the tache on my son's baby photo in the background!!)

Enjoying my passion fruit dacquiri

Katie had a shot and made her own cocktail...

Half way through we took a break as I had made a big pot of chilli which was warm in the slow cooker and I served with nachos, guacamole, sour cream and salsa. Just as well we all ate, as the evening wore in it proceeded to get messy! By the end of the night quite a few of us were playing Dance Central on the XBox!! Great fun.

So for the scoring...

Katie's comments were the funniest, the Toblerone Martini appealed to her oestrogen and for overall impression for the raspberry mojito, "marry me" was in her notes!!!

Here are the cocktails in order of preference with their total score *drum roll please*

1. Passionfruit Daiquiri - 84%
2. Raspberry Mojito - 81% 
3. Caipirinha - 77%
4. Cosmopolitan - 77%
5. Toblerone Martini - 65%

The Toblerone Martini score surprises me as I really enjoyed it, but I guess it's not to everyone's taste.

Our only real suggestion would be that the order the drinks are served could have been given a bit more thought as we started with the creamy dessert cocktail, whereas it might have been nicer to put this in the middle of the other more alcoholic ones to mix things up a bit. 

But all in all we were thoroughly impressed.

The cocktails were all lovely - as you can see from the scores above - and everyone was uber impressed with the service.

I would definitely consider hiring a bar in the future. For £25 per person for 5 cocktails, you can't really go wrong. It's less that what you'd pay if you were in a bar in town and yet you don't even need to leave your house! Fantastic given the freezing weather and the wait that you can sometimes have in a cold taxi queue! Evan even cleared up after himself and at the end, the glasses, bar etc was all packed up and away it went. Very professional and I'm seriously really impressed. Great value for money I reckon.

The Social and Cocktail bartenders are all professionally trained and they focus on three key aims - service, mixology and entertainment. Evan was brilliant and we were all really impressed! He delivered on all three :-)

We were suffering the next day... so a cooked breakfast was in order!!

We enjoyed a cocktail party at home free of charge in exchange for this review. Opinions, as always, are my own and are honest.

{35 at 35: family portrait session}

The other day we ticked off one of the items on my 35 at 35 list, 'Have a family portrait session'.

I was very excited to have a festive mini session with Zoe Stewart Photography. Her work is just beautiful and I've been following her blog for a while now. As soon as she released the dates of the festive sessions, I snapped one up! It was £45 for a 30 minute session.

Zoe has decorated her studio with some amazing bare trees covered with fairy lights and stars, complete with a wooden sledge and furry blankets/rugs. Isn't it just adorable!!

Here's a shot of her daughter Ruby - she's gorgeous {image source}

And again :-) {image source}

Zoe's studio is in Edinburgh. It was really easy to get to & parking wasn't an issue either. We were welcomed in by a very friendly Zoe, and I promptly got the kids changed into their clothes for the shoot. I definitely wasn't risking any accidents in the car on the way through from Glasgow!

The studio is perfect... I was seriously in love with all the accessories and props that Zoe has dotted around the place. So many baskets, blankets and bows for the baby portraits. For the Christmas sessions she had giant marshmallows, candy canes and (non-alcoholic) mulled wine... and the Christmas tunes were on her music player. 

Zoe Stewart Photography

I urge you to go look at her website... www.zoestewartphoto.com 

The baby photos are just so amazing!

Anyway, we were made to feel very welcome and Zoe was great with my two wee rascals! My son decided that day to start with some crazy smile and kept sticking his chin out (honestly!) but from the sneak peeks it looks like Zoe has managed to get some lovely shots despite his silliness. 

I'm really looking forward to seeing the rest of the photographs. Watch this space :-)

Zoe Stewart Photography on Facebook

{A weekend of hot chocolate!}

It's been a weekend of indulgence!

I was through in Edinburgh for the weekend with the new man and I had a brilliant couple of days. I'm not a coffee drinker, so had a few hot chocolates to keep me warm. I would have happily had some mulled wine from the Sunday market in Stockbridge but was driving, next time! Feeling very festive right now! (Remember to enter my competition for Country Living Magazine Christmas Fair tickets here).

On the Royal Mile

Maxi's in Stockbridge

I was sent some tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits from Ringtons to review and keeping with the hot chocolate theme, we did a blind taste test comparing the Ringtons one with the supermarket own brand that I had in my cupboard. I'm a scientist... it had to be done! :-)

A few followers on Instagram had said they liked the look of the one of the left which is the Sainsbury's one, but in actual fact both the man (who didn't know which was which) and myself both preferred the Ringtons.

The teas were also lovely. A friend tried the blackcurrant one and unlike other blackcurrant teas she has tried this one wasn't tart. I quite enjoyed the breakfast tea.

We weren't sure on the coffee, but I think that's because just one little sachet wasn't really enough and probably doubling up would have been the way to go.

The biscuits were good, but nothing that I'd rave about and if they were in a shop I'm not sure I'd choose to buy them.

I'd definitely buy the hot chocolate though, it was yum!

I was sent some complimentary tea, coffee, hot chocolate and biscuits in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own.