A Day Of Celebrations

This morning, Izzy was celebrating going back to school (especially to see her beloved teacher again!)

I made her a special back-to-school breakfast - banana porridge with what was meant to be a heart made of chocolate and peanut butter chips, with an almond "I" in the middle (art was never my strong point!)...

Once we'd dropped Izzy at school, Liam, Toby and I headed into town for our celebration of Izzy going back to school - breakfast in a cafe in (relative) peace!

I had a latte...

and scrambled eggs on toast...

plus half of Toby's scone (he had a few bites of my breakfast in exchange)...

Delicious, but I was so full after all of this! We went and burnt some energy at the local ball pool (located at the back of a toy shop so nice and quiet) Toby had great fun!

Then, just as we were leaving the toy shop, Liam got a phone call that was another cause for celebration - he got the job!!! :-D A week or so ago, he had an interview for a job which he didn't get. But just hours after he found that out, he got phoned by another company he'd applied to ages ago, offering him an interview! So he had that interview on Thursday and today he found out he got the job! We're so excited - it's a graphic design job which is what his degree was in, so it's great news. We were anticipating that his job hunt might take much longer than this! He had to give two weeks notice to leave Waitrose, so he starts this new job in two weeks, yey! :-D (and I have two more weeks to make the most of Waitrose discount, haha!)

Of course, news like this called for...Costa!! I was too excited to remember to take a photo, but I had a soy gingerbread latte, and when we got home we had chocolate brownies with white chocolate chunks...

Yum, these were the best shop bought brownies I've had in a while.

We then went to pick Izzy up, and there was a balloon release to celebrate the start of the new school...

Toby was fascinated!

Izzy, however, was rather the battered! Only the first day and she's already destroying her uniform!

You can't really tell in this photo, but as well as the cut on her knee, she also has big grazes on her forehead and nose - apparently she slipped over in the playground head first :( Still smiling though!

When we got home, I needed something to eat as I hadn't felt hungry enough to have lunch before going to pick Izzy up. I only fancied a snack though so decided on one of the bars my Dad bought me from Wholefoods (I will post about everything I got soon), I decided a Pulsin "Bliss" bar was quite appropriate for the celebratory mood!

This was nice, but I prefer the Pulsin raw chocolate brownies for the big chunks of nut in them.

This evening my Mum, her partner Colin, and my Grandma came round to help us celebrate Liam's new job. I was inspired by Happy Healthy Mama to make vegetable crisps - I used parsnips, as well as sweet potatoes and beetroot...

More sweet potato and beetroot crisps were in the oven

I also made roasted red pepper houmous (1 tin of chickpeas, 2 cloves of garlic, lemon juice, tahini, oil and then 1 red pepper that I roasted and peeled the skin off)...

and guacamole (two avocadoes fork mashed with lemon juice and sweet chilli sauce)...

and, of course, we also had champagne (with creme de cassis in mine)...

Champagne glasses we were given when we bought our wedding rings

The vegetable crisps didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked (the slices needed to be thinner), but they were still tasty and the dips were really delicious. The company was great too! :)

Liam and Colin

Mum and Grandma

Izzy, who reappeared from her bed when she heard us all chatting!!

Congratulations Liam, I'm so proud of you! :-D