halloween hama

a star for her sister and candy corns for herself

truth of the day

boo!

just pretend i am a black witches cat and then i can be a halloween decoration

i is hiding behind my paw of invisibility

halloween treats (not tricks)

candy corn candles

toffee apple bath bombs

vampire teeth soap

all packaged up for the ladies

all hand-made by lottie

for my wife (she knows who she is)

don't be melancholy

this is true beauty

this is you

embrace and rejoice

and believe

monkey bizness

we went to here to meet up with tommy george for his birthday

they got to paint pumpkin plates

lottie very methodical

tommy very random

(stay still boy!)

halloween craft night

lottie made these cuties

ellie made these

then lottie and i watched some exorcism film (ellie was too wimpy and seeing as it was rubbish, she saved wasting 90 minutes of her life)

toasty love

chimney sweep arrived this week to brush decades of crud but actually there wasn't much (and his name wasn't bert but it was exciting watching the brush reach all the way to the chimney top and pop out)

so lottie and i built a hearth using the bricks we knocked out to open up the fireplace

the fire basket hasn't turned up yet so we used a wire shopping basket

just elder wood from the garden

happy winter to us

fan mail

lottie adores jesse j

whilst trawling through the internet, she found jesse's management company address and that if you send ms j a sae, she will send an autograph back to you

so she wrote 2 x a4 pages of utter begging, we popped it in an envelope with lots of glitter confetti and the aforementioned sae

because lottie's writing filled the front of the envelope, jacky at the post office found it tricky to stick the recorded delivery notice on, so she gace lottie a very thoughtful and sweet (and free!) lesson on how to address an envelope

so we have promised to show jacky the autograph when it arrives

exciting (!)

conformity? no thank you...

simple really

kitty dressing

boo is a model in his spare time

crop top and denim mini (and a muffin top i might add)

winter woolly and matching scarf

hippy fleece wrap

so photogenic

halloween craft night

we made stained glass pumpkins using black card and sweetie cellophane

these are lottie's (she loves her jack skellington)

these are ellie's

and i wanted to watch scooby doo and the witch's ghost but they didn't want to

poo to them

"i'm a hex girl and i'm gonna put a spell on you"

one size does not fit all

baking (again)

lottie and i love this book

so she made black bottom cupcakes

you look at the ingredients list and you really can't fathom how they make a dark chocolate sponge with a cheesecake partner

but they do and they did and they taste great

fluffy bath paint

what do you need after working hard?

a bath

and what is the best thing to have with your bath? (my answer is a g&t but it wasn't my bath)

yep, bath paint!

cheap shaving foam mixed with food colours

painted on tiles

fingerpainting

beautiful marble rainbows!

heavy work

hired a sledgehammer £5 and opened up the lounge fireplace

lottie carried all the rubble out into the garden

earnt herself pie and chips and a tango

she learnt the reward of hard graft

a great lesson

a new dvd

lottie loves mean girls

(actually we all do)

today she found mean girls 2

(never knew they even did one)

so today we celebrated all things fetch

autumn cupcakes

4oz butter

4oz sugar

1 egg

3 grated apples (no skin)

4oz flour

spoldge maple syrup

180C 20mins

buttercream frosting

painted leaves from rolled fondant icing, yellow and red food colour

"the autmun leaves float by my window..."

today's titter

halloween craft night

every friday in october is halloween craft night in our house

we make something then watch a favourite halloween movie

last night they made countdown calenders using bog roll tubes flatterned to make pockets to put treats in these pockets were attached to stiff card and decorated

this is lottie's

this is ellie's

then we all piled into ellie's bed to watch hocus pocus

"a black river!"

"tis firm"

home economics

lottie has a nasty cold and was flagging today so we stayed in and made red cherry ice cream and banana cinnamon cupcakes

adding half can hartley's red cherry pie-filling to small pot whipped double cream

after adding a puff of icing sugar and a bit of vanilla extract, plop into a container and freeze

leave to soften for 20mins before eating

 (if you can wait that long)

creaming 4oz vanilla sugar, 4oz butter then adding 2 eggs and lots of cinnamon

slopping the 4 bananas in before adding 5oz flour

bake 180C for 20mins

we sandwiched 2 cakes together with butter cream and covered the top with the same

sprinkle of grated dark chocolate and some fairy dust (because lottie said the library ladies needed some which is who she was making them for as they see her get out all these baking books and hinted that lottie should bring some in...this obviously sat in her mind because she said "mummy i want to make some for them"...so we took them today and they were tres grateful)

mmmmmmmm

message for a friend because the comment feature isn't working on this blog

D B (chicken lady)

i am arranging a visit to the newhaven RNLI station and boat and wondered if you and C want to come with P and I? all in the name of home-schooling...if you speak to C and throw some days of the week that are good for you both at me, i'll sort it...be great to see you all x

i want to ride my bicycle...

i want to ride it where i like

so look out for those beauties oh yeah

you say smile i say cheese

hot dog i say cool it man