Hello…I am still here :)

Hello everyone!! Emma here!!
I just want to say Sorry for the lack of posts recently!!
I am now 33wks pregnant, looking after my 17mth old and 3yr old….and we are moving house in 18 days!! Crazy I know, but we found a beautiful family home and couldn’t let it go…so I am a little bit busy at the moment 🙂
Once we have moved in and have unpacked..ish I will be back on to probably start the home challenge again in the new house and carry on with the alphabet activities 🙂
Thank you all for sticking with us 🙂
Emma xx

Crochet!!

Hello!!

Firstly…sorry I haven’t been on for a week, Jamie had some time off work so we had some lovely family time – I will start the Letter activities tomorrow again 🙂 Today however….the kids are having a nap so I am starting something new…again! This time…as ever….I am blaming my wonderful partner in crime Kayley!! She has the amazing ability to do anything she puts her mind to, then I decide I want to try! hehe This week she decided to try crochet!!

She has uploaded some amazing photos to her Facebook page, I as ever saw them and deicded I wanted a go 🙂 So I bought some hooks half price!! HERE which will be here tomorrow or Saturday 🙂 Thankfully I have a load of wool left over from when I went through a knitting phase, I enjoyed it but I couldn’t make anything as good as my mums and quickly gave up lol 🙂

Here are some lush pics of Kayleys work…..

and my absolute favourite………..

 

All of these and more can be ordered from her Facebook page HERE!!

So…I’m off to order some more crochet bits & find some patterns online I want to make 🙂 Exciting 🙂

Love to you all!! xx

 

Morrisons £5 Coupon!!

Hello! Sorry for being so quiet yesterday….our internet went down…for a whole day!

We decided to have a whole day out yesterday bargain hunting! On Thursday we managed to buy a stack of The Sun newspapers as they had £5 coupons on them for fruit & veg in Morrisons –

I had read so many posts on Facebook and Hotukdeals with people complaining about greed – I bought 1 newspaper in the morning in tesco, when I got home we checked Co-op and they had loads left so we got a few more….when Jamie got home he cleared the shelves 15mins before they shut. Lots of people had trouble picking up the papers but thankfully we live in a quiet village so there were plenty left for us 🙂

So…armed with our stack of coupons in my purse we headed off to Morrisons 🙂 May people think shopping with kids is boring or unfair on them – it depends how fun you make it! Deryn (who is 3) helps us find things on shelves, she chooses things that she would like, learns about money and counting etc – so we had a fun time working out what we wanted with out coupons – Ashton just like sitting in the trolley!

So after filling our trolley with yummy goodies for our weeks shopping, Jamie headed off to the self scan with £5 worth of food. The coupons stated it was £5 off and that a purchase was required – however as many people noticed the £5 came off as long as something in the shop was fruit & veg. We always spend at least £15 a week on fruit & veg anyway, I cook all meals from scratch so we have a lot of food here 🙂

The lady working on the self scans was lovely! She took our coupons with no problem and by the 9th one was laughing along with us as we split the hopping up into £5 transactions 🙂 Sometimes coupon shopping can be time consuming (this week we were very low on food shopping money though so the transactions were all worth it to get our family some yummy food this week) but in my opinion its completely worth it. My fridge, freezer and cupboards are stacked with yummy food – all costing us less than £5 with the few pence we went over each time and the cost of the Sun at 40p each 🙂

Our first lots of receipts 🙂 We bought such a variety of food for us all. Neither of our children go to nursery/pre school yet so we have 3 meals a day here, and we do lots of baking etc. Today I have planned a massive Roast Dinner for the family – All Free!

In all we had £65 of free food, meaning I now have some extra pennies to go towards fixing my car windscreen!

We got home, put away the fridge and freezer food and went straight back out again – busy day for us!

Saturdays are our local bootsale day – I grew up going to bootsales every single weekend with my mum & dad. Fuf (my dad) would have us all ready to go early and we would either go to sell or find some bargains. I absolutely love going with my family now. Jamie is a bargain hunter too and in my opinion if I can get something cheap because someone else owned it first then I would rather wait! The kids have huge amounts of toys they love that cost us next to nothing – when they go to nursery/school they will be playing with toys that many other kids have played with, same at friends houses so why not? 🙂

We managed to get some lush Next clothes for Ashton for 10p each – most new too! Deryn was given a peppa pig hat (which she hasnt taken off since!) by a nice lady who also gave Ashton a teddy 🙂 Deryn also got some sparkly Minnie Mouse shoes for 50p! I got some lush Roxy skate shoes for £1 and my hospital suitcase (I don’t have a hospital bag…even after having 2 children! lol) for only £3! Then on the last look round we also found Harry Potter Scene It for £1! As you may know we LOVE board games in my house, and Harry Potter!! Deryn loves looking around at the boot sale and by then end she can run around in the field with Ashton 🙂

After a busy day out we came home to put away our bargains for the day and sit down together for a lush Curry Night – I love maing homemade curry for us all as its such a cheap meal and the kids love having snacks, naans and poppadoms everywhere!

So……that was our bargain day! I just had to share it with you all as we were so pleased with our coupon shopping 🙂

Off to prepare some veg now ready for our family roast 🙂 I will be updating the blog late this week as the kids are off to stay with Nanny tomorrow so Jamie and I can go out for our 1yr meal and go to the cinema 🙂

Love to you all 🙂

Emma xx

 

Letter R

Hello Everyone!!

So Today’s letter as chosen by Deryn was…R!

Firstly I was tempted to put my Rainbow DVD’s on (Everyone loves Zippy right?!) But I managed to stop myself…..Deryn likes Zippy and has cuddly toys of him, she even recognises him on my pj’s….but I let her watch Nick JR & Disney Channels instead 🙂

But on the subject of Rainbow…we decided to paint some rainbows first 🙂

We had lots of fun talking about the colours of the rainbow and how to make them. Lots of beautiful pictures were painted and hung up on the line to dry.

Both kids then fell asleep which gave me time to plan their lunch…..this bit I really enjoyed!!

ROCKETS!!

Ashton had a jam sandwich rocket, Deryn had a ham sandwich rocket. They were decorated with 2 types of cheese, radish & cucumber. The Flames coming out of them is Macaroni Cheese – absolute bargain in Asda at 20p for a box that is made up with milk….yummy!!! and to finish I cut out some grape stars….fiddly but looked fab!!

Both of them tried the radish but left them, I’m just happy they tried them…the rest was gobbled up!! (Literally by Aston who barely took bits of his rocket….pretty much ate it whole!)

In the afternoon we played for a while and decided to bake some Rainbow cupcakes! Ashton played with his cars and roads in the lounge while Deryn got baking.

She told me every ingredient that we needed – including the baking powder! Such a little baker 🙂 Then we followed the recipe I have used on here previously.

The difference this time is that we split the cake mix between 4 bowls once it was whisked and added food colouring to each bowl – Pink, Green, Yellow & Purple!

They would have been much brighter but we only had a few liquid food colourings here – Will be trying out some gels and other liquids soon to make a bright rainbow cake!

Deryn then decorated them with Rainbow hundreds & thousands, Rainbow sprinkles & Rainbow jellies!

Subtle colours inside but I think they look fab and I have to say they taste divine.

Nom nom nom!!

These were very much enjoyed after Dinner….which I decided to give a R theme too….

Sausages are a firm favourite here….The sweet potato mash was an attempt at getting Deryn to eat Mashed Potato….it almost worked!

So lots of R themed fun today, yummy meals….only one way to end the day once they were in their Pj’s….

Room on the broom was Deryn’s ultimate favourite, we used to watch it almost every night, then we bought her the book too, Ashton loves the Dragon! So we snuggled up to watch it, while turning the pages of the book too…perfect end to our day 🙂

Just before bed Deryn had the choice for tomorrow…..she chose…..O!

We are going to see Nanny & Granny tomorrow and have lots planned so I will update tomorrow evening for you all 🙂

Emma xx

 

Letter V

Hello! Today Deryn chose the letter V as our letter for the day 🙂 As you all know we have decided to do a special Letter of the Day each day as chosen by Deryn or Ashton and I have to come up with an art/craft idea, a lunch/dinner idea & a game 🙂

Today we started off with the Very Hungry Caterpillar (Deryn’s favourite) colouring.

The sheets are from the Very Hungry Caterpillar Place Mat Activity pad which I bought HERE for £2.99, They are fantastic! They have a choice of 30 activities to chose from – Deryn chose colouring in and Ashton joined in 🙂

For lunch I made the Very Hungry Caterpillar on a leaf!

These were Ham & Phili sarnies in a leaf shape, grapes and a slice of cherry tomato, mini sausage, mini egg and some cucumber 🙂

Deryn – My usually fussy eater tried the cherry tomato and even though she pulled a face she ate it, she even tried one piece of cucumber! Everything else was eaten very quickly 🙂 Ashton dropped most of his on the floor…his new favourite game, but enjoyed what actually made it to his mouth 🙂

Now…..our original plan was to make Vanilla biscuits and cupcakes in the afternoon….but the kids fell asleep! So I decided to dust off my sewing machine and made a story sack! I had some Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric which I bought to make Deryn a dress ( I must finish that!!) and decided to cut out each of the yummy foods that the hungry caterpillar eats, as well as some backing and stuff them with cotton wool balls! (My stuffing is in the spare room somewhere so I improvised!)

The kids had a lovely bath and we talked about lots of words that began with V -(Vase, Volcano, Vinegar, Vanilla and Van) I was tempted to try the volcano trick I saw on Pinterest but at 27wks pregnant Vinegar smell just doesn’t agree with me!

Then when they were out I got out the kids new Very Hungry Caterpillar story sack!!

(I have a Very Hungry Caterpillar to add but I need the fabric for Deryn’s dress first!)

Cheesy!!

Deryn read the story to me, She is only 3 so can’t read the words but after hearing it so many times she can speak it all off by heart! Along the way she added the foods to the page! Deryn counted while Ashton pointed! 🙂

Very clever 🙂

Matching & counting game 🙂 Ashton enjoyed pointing and looking through all the food and playing with them 🙂

 

All done 🙂 Lots of fun with our bedtime story. The Story Sack can now be put away and new games made up with it too 🙂

So that was our V day – Deryn chose our letter for tomorrow which is………………R!!

Time to go and plan something fun 🙂

Emma xx

Alphabet Activities!!

Hello All – Emma here!!

So the lovely weather we were promised this week appears to have got lost on its way…the rain found us though! So I have come up with an idea for the kids to keep us all busy while we are stuck indoors. Tonight I have printed off the letters of the alphabet for Deryn & Ashton to take in turns picking out of a bowl to decide what we do the next day 🙂 I then get to plan out some fun ideas around that letter for them 🙂 My choices are for: Lunch, Arts/Crafts and a Game.

Every day we eat lunch together at the table or out as a picnic so I can have a letter theme for each meal 🙂 Both children love making things so we can have a nice messy activity each day and a game 🙂 I love playing games, many of Deryns Orchard Toys games get played more by me than them……oops!

So keep a look out for out posts each day, feel free to message me with any of your own ideas too 🙂 We love testing out new things 🙂

Tomorrows letter as chosen by Deryn is……V!!

Emma xx

Baking Cupcakes with Deryn :)

Hello followers!! Emma here! 

So as you all know we love baking here at The Not So Perfect Housewives…any excuse for cake! Today the weather was just too hot for playing outside. I’m not one to moan about the nice weather but we have a backyard completely enclosed with no breeze coming through….so we decided to bake indoors until it cooled down outside 🙂

Today’s recipe came from one of my many cupcakes books – Neapolitan cupcakes!!

You will need:

140g Self Raising Flour, 1/2 tsp Baking Powder,  140g Softened Butter, 140g Caster Sugar, 2 large eggs – beaten, 1tsp Vanilla Extract, 1tbsp Milk & 1tbsp Cocoa Powder (made into a paste with 1 1/2 tbsp hot water!)

I put all the ingredients out for Deryn ready for her to bake 🙂 In her lovely apron 🙂

Cheesy grin 🙂 

First sift the flour & baking powder into a large bowl….

Then add the butter, caster sugar and eggs….

Then give them all a good mix! I used an electric mixer after Deryn had a little go herself 🙂

Next is the fun bit! Split the mixture between 2 bowls – then add the vanilla extract and milk to one of the bowls and the cocoa powder paste to the other and give them both a lovely mix. You now have vanilla and chocolate cupcake mixes to use. Add your cupcake cases to the tin – Ashton chose the hearts this time 🙂 

Then add alternative scoops of each mix into the cases 🙂 No need to be neat – They look fab with lots of different splodge of choc & vanilla in them!

Pop them in the oven on 180 degrees (350f or Gas Mark 4) for 15-20 mins – ours were ready after 15mins as we have a fan oven but keep an eye on them.

Baked and looking yummy – We let them cool down while the kids went outside to play. We were going to make up some buttercream of our own but decided to try Betty Crocker Vanilla Buttercream Icing 🙂 The tub can be popped back in the fridge for up to 30 days afterwards so we can make more yummy cakes this month too! Deryn chose 4 different decorations from our crazy amount of Tesco, Asda & Dr Oetker decorations we have collected – many on offer recently from as little as 25p! 

She chose Hundreds and thousands which we popped in a bowl so she could dip the cupcakes in them, mini marshmallows, hearts & butterflies! They looked fantastic!!

So – the final verdict……

Ashton gave it a sticky thumbs up….scoffed the lot 🙂

Deryn ate all hers….as well as Daddy who chose the biggest one for himself 🙂

I love the swirly choc/vanilla mix – by far my favourite cupcake recipe to date – it was soft and moist, they lastest less than 24hrs with the 4 of us 🙂 Will be making more for sure!

Emma xx

 

Update: Father’s Day Present!!

Hello!!

So a few weeks back you may remember me adding a link to a T-Shirt I wanted to make from the children to their Dad…well I made it and it was his favourite gift that day!

The template was easy to print off – (the link is in my previous post) and once the 4 pieces of paper were sellotaped together I popped them under a “Fruits of the loom” T-shirt I bought on ebay (£2.19) and got out my new Carioca Fabric Art Pens from Amazon (£2.63) and set to work!!

The template was easy to trace through the T-shirt and the pens were very easy to draw with! 

So I drew around the template and added a few extra’s of my own! The original was rather too American for me so I added a Dojo (Jamie is a karate instructor!) and Asda……because Deryn loves shopping there….and finally called it Pascoe Town 🙂

 

Originally this was meant as a fun present for him & the kids….however once he opened it he loved it and put it on straight away….the kids had fun racing cars over his bck, but hen he kept it on for lunch (not so good with a white top & spaghetti…….) and then wore it to the car boot afterwards!! As he said – No-one else would be wearing the same top! He likes things that are a bit different so I may be adding some more personalised T-shirt posts in the future….

So back to the spaghetti…..Once you have drawn your pattern on the top, you simply turn it inside out & iron the back to keep the colours on….then it can be machine washed; this one obviolsy needed a machine wash. The result – Perfect! Washed on a 30 Degree wash in our machine and came out with no washed out colours or smudges – very impressed!

Looking forward to the next design now!! Please feel free to message us if you have any ideas!

Emma xx

 

 

Princess Birthday Cake!!

Hello everyone!!

So a few weeks back I added a post about the Princess birthday cake which I added a Frozen twist to ready for Deryn’s 3rd birthday…..this time round it was Kayley’s turn to make one for Iylah’s 4th birthday!!

So a few changed this time – We still used the same tutorial from Youtube but Iylah’s cake is Disney Princess themed! 🙂

So for the sponge – Kayley used this RECIPE – (Which I have to admit worked better than the sponge on my cake as it was just too soft to hold up the 3 layers) Check out the pics below – I will get Kayley to add a bit of info for you all soon too 🙂 How lovely does her cake look though! Iylah loved it!! 🙂

 

 

 

Amazing work and one very happy little girl 🙂 

Emma xx

20 Day Home Challenge…..Catch up!

Hello! Emma here…..

So….the 20 Day Home Challenge….I had a few days off for Deryn’s 3rd birthday….been so busy baking, playing & having fun 🙂
Today I decided to randomly pick my hallway to do to get me back in the mood for decluttering 🙂

The main hallway was filled with shoes, coats, buggies, bags & an alternator to a car scrapped 3 months ago…..
It was a struggle to get in the house & instantly made me miserable walking in……

So we bought 2 sets of coat hooks, one for me & Jamie & a lower down one for the kids, a shoe rack & a key rack in tge shape of a key….no more toddlers hiding keys in this house!!

The end result……

Taken from the lounge looking towards the door, it looks empty coming in now which is lovely!! 🙂

Organised, tidy & no more tripping over alternators…..

Emma xx