Best of 2013....

I have been looking over my blog from last year to see what the best blog was, the ones I liked the most and the one that got the most views.

It looks like everyone likes reading about Center Parcs as all the ones I wrote about it got the most views. I did enjoy writing about them as I do love Center Parcs.

But I do think I have written some better ones than that, like of Little Miss P and her cute outfits back in the summer http://en4t.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/cosy-summer-outfit.html,
and the one about her birthday party http://en4t.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/party-time-2013.html. I did really enjoy doing the one about the party.

Now back to the beginning of 2013 where I did a post called Mini Me http://en4t.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/mini-me.html and another one I loved called Disneyland Paris at Christmas http://en4t.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/disneyland-paris-at-christmas.html. I got some great photos of all of us and a great one of Little Miss P with the Disney Princess.

So if you have time please take a look at my old blog posts.

Love
Mrs P

20th - 26th January 2014

Monday 20th January - Monday was the first day back from Butlins and I felt like I had a really bad hangover. I didn't drink that much at the weekend so just thought I was extra tired. I just spent the day cleaning clothes and had a lazy day. Little Miss P had dance class after school, so had to sit there for an hour and a half with this head... ouch.

Tuesday 21st January - Today I have come out with a cold and my computer has broken on me, so all my filming I have done for YouTube is gone. Today hasn't turned into a great day, so I thought it was best I stayed in the house.

Wednesday 22nd January - I still feel like crap with a blocked nose and headache. I haven't done much again today and have felt really lazy, but I can't do much while I am feeling ill. I am still taking and picking Little Miss P up from school and doing all the mummy things I need to do. Just the thing in between have taken a few steps back.

Thursday 23rd January - It seems to be a week that I would not like to repeat as now the boiler is broken. We have our plumber coming over later on in the afternoon to fix it and see why it's stopped working. I have a good guess what's gone wrong and I think it's the fan that needs replacing.

He's now been and I was right, it's the fan. He's ordered the new one and is fitting it on Monday. It's working at the moment but he has said that it might stop again, so will have to wait and see.

Friday 24th January - The heating has stopped again, oh no, so we have a very cold house. We got the electric heaters on and my mummy has said that we can go round to hers for a bath, or even stay there for the night, but we will be OK. My nose seems to be clearing up but the cold has now gone down to my throat and it's feeling very sore. So I will be having soup for lunch; something nice and soft, then I'm off to get little one from school in a bit.

Saturday 25th January - This morning I got a lay in again, thank you hubby. I think he did it as I have a cold. It's now 1.17pm and I have taken Little Miss P to the shops on her scooter to buy a few things, we have cleaned out the Guinea Pigs and now we're going to have an early dinner and pop over to my mummy's house as my nanna is over for the weekend, so it will be nice to see her. We will be leaving Little Miss P at my mummy's for a bit so we can do our tax returns. At the moment she's just in her room painting.

Sunday 26th January - Today has just been another lazy one. We did leave the house to go for a little drive to Southend at 6pm at night. I don't really know why, but we did, and we even had a walk on the beach at about 7pm. Yes I know, we are a weird family, but that's what I love about it.

Other News 
Sorry I haven't put up a weekly vlog on my YouTube channel but my computer decided to give up and delete most of my things like photos and videos.

13th - 19th January 2014

Monday 13th January - Today I had to go over to my mum's house to wait in again for the man to come and look at the roof (as it's leaking again). I had to leave hers by midday though as I had a meeting at Little Miss P's school, about the new reading scheme. They didn't really tell me that much new, as that's the way I have been teaching her already, so that wasted about an hour of my life. While I was at mum's house my stepsister took over from me, so I got to see Little Miss Flack and have a play with her. Oh and I forgot to take my money to Little Miss P's dancing lesson, so will be paying that on Thursday. Spent £0.00.

Tuesday 14th January - Well today I am at home whilst Little Miss P is at school and I am just catching up on the housework, like washing, hoovering... all the fun stuff. Also went down to the shops to post something I have sold on ebay. I only sold two things but it made me £14.00 and it's things that i will never use, so it's worth it. Spent £5.20 (at the Post Office).

Wednesday 15th January - Put up my youtude video today and a little blog post. Been to the shops to pick up a few bits again like bananas and milk and also went into the Post Office to post some ebay things again. And of course it had to rain when I went to get Little Miss P from school. We didn't mind too much though as she loves skipping in the rain. Spent £5.00.

Thursday 15th January - One thing I learnt about 12 years ago, maybe even longer, is that everyone looks out for themselves and really only do things that make life better for them or better for their kids and that's about it. Even if you think you don't, i bet if you sit back and have a look at yourself you will realise that you do, and the last few days made me remind myself about it again.

Friday 16th January - Today it's all about getting ready to go to Butlins for Mr P's brass band competition. We ended up leaving the house to get on the road by 6.30pm. We had to drop off Little Miss P at my mum's house as she was having her for the weekend. We ended up at Butlins at about 10.30pm, so all we did was go to our room and chill out.

Saturday 17th January - The day of the competition. It's a weird day really as we sit around waiting to see when they will be drawn, and they were last so we had until 2pm free to do something. We ended up going bowling and having a light lunch. What happened after is that everyone goes to the pub then off to the results. They came 9th out of 22 so not bad going, after that it's really more drinking until you can't stand up. I was good as when I started to feel dizzy I went onto the water. We ended up going to a place called Jumping Jak's club, which is in the complex. Mr P ended up leaving at about 1am and I stayed until 2.30am, then left because my feet were hurting so much and it was really hot in there.

Sunday 18th January - Today was get up whenever and have a bit of breakfast, a walk on the beach, then off home. We left at about 2pm so Mr P could drive home in light. My mum dropped of Little Miss P at ours at about 6pm so we had some time of cuddles and a bit of reading before she had to go to bed as she did have school in the morning. That evening Mr P and I just watched TV as we were knackered. Not sure what we spent over the last few days; we weren't keeping count as it was a little holiday.

Love
Mrs P

ebay finds: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/201024608411?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jigsaw-puzzle-Crossword-puzzel-500-wood-pieces-20-x16-50cm-x-40cm-/181304373603?pt=UK_Toys_Jigsaws_RL&hash=item2a36953163

My Wedding Dress

My Wedding Dress

What can I say about my Wedding Dress, other than it's so pretty. It was about the second one I tried on in the first shop we went in. I took my Mum, Nanna and of course Little Miss P with me, even though she was in her car seat asleep while I was trying them on (she was only a few months' old at the time).  

I knew I didn't want a puffy one and not one like the Disney Princesses as that style didn't suit me. But the lady in the shop made me try all types on just so I 100% knew and i am glad she did. But I was right, they didn't suit me and it isn't really me that style.  

I knew I wanted a simple dress with not much detail on it, easy to move in and one that I could dance in without bumping everyone out the way. I knew it was the one as soon I put it on and I love it. I didn't buy it then; I left it for a day just to think it over and went back the next day to buy it. I had to wait 6 weeks for it to be made etc. and then had my fitting. It had to be taken up a bit as it was a little too long.

I spent all of my wedding day in it, but was glad to take it off at the end of the night as it was heavy. Everyone asked me what I would do with the wedding dress now and I say keep it. I will never do anything with it but i can't get rid of it and one day Little Miss P might even want to wear it. But I am guessing she will want a new one, and my guess is that Mr P would buy her which ever one she wanted.

So that's the end of my little story about my wedding dress. I hope you enjoyed it.

Love
Mrs P

Ebay link: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-style-White-Bridal-wedding-Party-Evening-dress-stock-size-6-8-10-12-14-16-18-/350881532999?pt=UK_Wedding_Dresses&var=&hash=item51b22b4c47

Goodbye Jimmy Choo: By Annie Sanders

Izzie looked at the newcomer. She winced as Madeleine's incredulous glance swept over the pink monstrosity. She had to say something. To dissociate herself both from the ghastly conceit of Barbie in a Victoria sponge and from the other women there, before she was dismissed along with them. Over here! she felt like shouting. I'm not like them. Honest!

Under normal circumstances bohemian, Skint Izzie would never have met Maddy, a Gucci-clad Beemer-Driver urbanite. But when they are dumped into the English countryside, Fish out of water, with Five young Children between them they discover a shared hatred of ghastly ladies' lunches and a longing for the mucky London streets and residents' parking permits they've left behind. Then the tragedy, and a chance discovery lead Maddy and Lizzie in a surprising new direction....

My View

The benchmark of a good read is feeling cheated at the end because I want to know what happens next to the characters and I really felt that Izzy and Maddy had become friends. It made me laugh out loud. A fun read and great for the just at home read inbeween the doing bits and bobs. I've never read an Annie Sander book before and now I have I will be looking at which other books she has written.

Love
Mrs P

I found this link where you can buy the book here

Week Two 2014: 6th -12th January

Monday 6th January: Today has been a bit of a low day, I don't really know why, I just felt a bit like blah blah blah... nothing seemed to be going my way. It was one of those days where I really just needed to go and hide under my duvet cover all day and Little Miss P had a dancing lesson so I had to take her to that. Spent £7.50 (on Dancing lesson).

Tuesday 7th January: Tuesday was just a day at home as Little Miss P had school the next day and wanted it to be a very chilled out. All we did was go to the shop and get a few supplies like milk and fresh fruit. Spent £7.00.

Wednesday 8th January: Today Little Miss P went back to school and she was excited to go back, but I think she was a bit nervous as she woke up at 6.30am rallying to go. I always ask Little Miss P what she has done at school and I normally get nothing or not a lot. But today she was very proud and told me that she got a Merit for reading the most in the school holiday.
While she was at school I had to go to my mum's house and stay there as a handyman was due over to fix the leak in the roof. Mr P had an extra rehearsal after work for his brass band as they have a contest next weekend. Spent £10.00 (on my Nanna's birthday gift).

Thursday 9th January: This morning was like any other morning when Little Miss P goes to school. So I decided to sort out some of my old things and put them on ebay and have a look what was going on ebay as it's just been Christmas so I guessed that people might be selling things that they got for Christmas and didn't really want. I will put a few things below to show you what I thought were good. Oh, and Little Miss P had a drama lesson. Spent £5.00.

Friday 10th January: After dropping Little Miss P at school I came home and decided to make Banana Bread as the bananas were starting to go off (I didn't want to throw them in the bin as that would have just been a waste of food and money). Mr P and Little Miss P can have it over the weekend as I don't like Banana so I will not be eating it. Spent £0.00.

Saturday 11th January: Has started off with me getting up at 9.15. Mr P took Little Miss P downstairs to watch a film while I had a lay in... it was lovely :-) Then we headed out to Hadleigh Country Park for a bit of lunch and just over an hour's walk in what seemed to be mainly mud! We all had fun though. When we got back home we had a lovely dinner, watched a bit of telly then off to bed.
Spent £13.45 (car park and a bit of a lunch for the three of  us).

Sunday 12th January: It's been a fun day today as we went to see Sleeping Beauty at Sir Hawkey Hall in Woodford and it was great. We went to see it with my mum, sister, Little Miss P and Master Hill. Little Miss P got so excited when she saw one of dance teachers was in it. Afterwards we went to see my sister's new house that she moved into only on Friday. I have just got in and am doing this last bit to my blog post so I can put it up tomorrow. Spent £9.00 (on Little Miss P's packed lunch things and bread). We always seem to need bread.

Love
Mrs P

Cupcake Fun with Five Year Olds

Little Miss P had her Friend over for a few hours the other day, as I said to them one day soon she could come over, and I thought why not today.

Was I a nutter having two five year old girlies making cakes from scratch, or brave for doing it?
I always use recipes from a book called 'Bake Me, I'm Your Cupcake'.

There are some nice cupcakes I can make and which are really easy. I thought that if i can do it, five year olds should be able to do it.

This is all you need for the cupcakes: eggs, flour, sugar and butter. I will put the ingredients below if you want to give it a try!

As you may have guessed it got very messy with sugar going all over the floor and flour in the kids' hair and me having to dig out some eggshell from the mix. It was a lot of fun though and Little Miss P and her friend loved doing it. Next time we will be making some cookies together. I might do them on my own first just to make sure I can make them.

In the end the cupcakes did taste nice. Half of them went to her friend's house and the other half stayed at ours so we had them that night while watching a movie.

Ingredients 
225g slightly salted butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
5ml vanilla extract

All you do is pre-heat the oven to 175'C then mix all of the ingredients together (I added the eggs one by one). Spoon the mixture into the cake cases and place in the center of the oven for about 15 minutes.

Take them out and leave them to cool, then have fun decorating them and let your tummy enjoy!

Love

Mrs P

OOTD: 8th Jan 2014

Little Miss P looks so grown up in this photo that I had to put it on my blog, so I thought I would do an outfit of the day.

She wore this just for playing around the house and going to the shops.
Her Gap jumper was from the Gap Outlet, age 6-7 years and was only about £10 I think.

The Monsters Inc. top was a gift from her nanny and goes really well with her Gap jumper as it's the same pink.
The leggings are Hello Kitty from Sainsbury's' TU range. They came in a pack of two.

She has the moody look going on here... it's was so funny and I didn't even tell her to do this pose, she just started doing it!

Love
Mrs P

P.S.: Don't forget to check out my Instagram http://instagram.com/nickigparker

2014 Week One: 1st - 5th Jan

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you had a great 2013 and will have an even better 2014.

Wednesday 1st January: I didn't get out of my PJs all day. We spent most of the day just doing a bit of tidying up and had the Allens turn up for a bit so made them a tiny bit of food. We also saved some money and remortgaged our house, saving about £80 a month on that. And we have both changed our mobile phone tariffs over and that has saved us £14 a month. Money spent £0.00.

Thursday 2nd January: Day two of the New Year and still haven't been up to much. Mr P had to go back to work and after that he went off to teaching. Little Miss P and I spent some of the day playing, went to the shops to buy some bread, milk etc. and we got round to tidying some of her room. Oh and we even uploaded our weekly vlog. Money spent £4.95.

Friday 3rd January: Today it's been raining again so we spent the morning at home playing with Little Miss P and her new toys. In the afternoon we headed out to my mum's house as we were meeting Mr P from work to go and do a bit of sale shopping in Lakeside. We did well, only thinking of what we needed and what would work well as gifts. And we did a little Tesco shop were we set ourselves a limit of £70. We went a tiny bit over at £72.75 and on the rest on the Lakeside trip we spent £83.18.

Saturday 4th January: Well today has been very boring. Not been up to much. Mr P and Little Miss P woke up at about 10.30 and i didn't get up until midday... it felt so good. We had a very late breakfast, then went to the tip to send off our old TV of 12 years. Then we had a little family walk around a local lake. Money spent £1.00.

Little Miss P and me at The o2

Sunday 5th January: Today's been a very fun day. We had to get up at 8.30 as Little Miss P and I got picked up by my mum to go and see Disney On Ice. It was so much fun; Little Miss P loved it and I have to say I loved it too and had a little dance at the end. Money spent £0.00.

Love
Mrs P 

P.S.: Mr P might be doing so guest posts on here about daddy life and some other bits, or he might set up another one for him, not sure yet...

Sunday 29th December 2013

The next day we were off to Mr P's Mum and Dad's house for the big family get together, where there are about 9 kids and 12 grown ups I think... (sorry if I have forgotten anyone).

It's a funny one where dinner is always an hour later than it's planned to be and the kids don't really know what to do, as they open their presents after dinner and the younger ones just can't wait to open them. Dinner is always a little bit burnt and for dessert you can only have Christmas Pudding as that's all they have, so for the people that don't like it they don't get any dessert. So Lttle Miss P and I didn't get any dessert. 

When it comes round to opening the gifts it's down to the little ones to hand them out from under the tree. It's funny as Little Miss P can't read all the names yet and had to come over to me and ask what the names where. She got the hang of it in the end though.

We got some great gifts from the family so thank you everyone for my gifts :-)

It was also Master T's birthday that day so i bought a cake for him as last year he didn't get a cake and I think everyone should get a cake on their birthday. He turned 15 this year.

 And this is what happened at the end of the night when we're all tired and thing's start to get a little crazy (after a few cheeky beers or glasses of wine)...

 Have a great day everyone!!

Love

Mrs P

Hope & Dream for 2014

Hopes and Dreams
for 2014

2014 is here so it's about time we think about what we would like it to bring.

2014 is a bit of...well, I'm not sure what it will bring; I know what I would like it be, but I don't think all of it will happen. We will just have to see.

The main thing for 2014 is saving money as this year (2013) we have spent so much money and I don't really know on what, other than lots of takeway food and random bits and bobs.

• My dream for 2014 is to pay off some more of the mortgage. It's at £175,000 at the moment and it would be great by the end of the year to get it to £150,000, but that will take a lot of saving, and not really having a life for the year.

• Pay off the credit card - that will always be a nice dream, but it's doable

• And to get the business that we want to buy, but as time goes by I just don't see it happening anytime soon, and now just really see it as a dream as Mr P get's pissed off talking about it. So don't really see the point with it any more.

2014 Hopes

• That Little Miss P carrys on doing well in school

• That we carry on just being a happy little family

• Try and have as much fun as we can possibly have, without spending lots money

I have only got a few hopes and dreams as I have a good life, so I shouldn't ask for much really.

So bring on 2014 and let the games begin!! :-)

Love

Mrs P