Good Friday Hot Cross Buns

One of the things I love about having a blog is being able to look back at what I was doing 6 months ago, a year ago etc. Last year's Good Friday started exactly the same way as this one...

...queueing for hot cross buns!

The children were very pleased with their paper bags...!

Despite Toby's expression, he really enjoyed the hot cross bun - he managed one hot cross bun and half a creme egg before the mess got too much for him - so then I had to pop the rest of the creme egg in my mouth and eat his 2nd hot cross bun - my favourite! ;)

Izzy on the other hand adored all her bag - 2 hot cross buns, a creme egg and an orange disappeared in minutes!!

After we'd finished eating, we headed to the park with some friends to burn off some energy! Izzy can climb all the way to the top of the wall on her own now (although Liam doesn't believe me so still followed her up!!)...

After we'd stayed at the park for a bit we walked over to my Grandma & Grandpa's house as my Uncle and Auntie were visiting from Norfolk. The weather was surprisingly nice this morning (it got grey again later), which was great as it meant the children could run around in the garden. They tend to get a bit grumpy if they're stuck inside the whole time!

Playing hide and seek!

Once they'd had enough in the garden, Izzy came inside and did some colouring with my Auntie...

and my Uncle and Toby sat on the wall watching Horrid Henry!!!

Toby wasn't too impressed when Richard "borrowed" the phone off him!!

It was really nice to see them again - we did see them at my Grandparents' 60th Wedding Anniversary at the start of February, but we don't usually get to see them very often as they live so far away.

Once we got home, it was time to think of something to eat. Our fridge has been broken since Tuesday so food has been a little boring recently. Until today, our "fridge" was a coolbox outside the back door. So annoying. On Tuesday we noticed that the fridge wasn't cold and, despite the fact the freezer was working fine, a couple of people recommended that we defrosted the freezer to get the fridge working. So we did that Tuesday night, and now neither of them are working!! Gah. The fridge is room temperature, and the freezer is just about cold enough to act as a fridge...

Luckily we also had a small second freezer into which we have crammed as many frozen foods as possible, so we've managed to get away with not having too much wastage. Phew.

One casualty was 1.5 bags of frozen blueberries though - they were in the fridge/freezer and I noticed last night that they had defrosted and blueberry juice had leaked everywhere. So as not to throw them away, I used the 1.5 bags of no-longer-frozen blueberries for lunch today... plus 2 bananas and a splash of milk = super purple blueberry smoothie all round! I topped mine with some coconut and a few cocopops for crunch!

This was ok, but not cold enough. And it didn't keep me full so lunch #2 included other things that needed using quickly - a toasted bagel, half with houmous, half with goats cheese and grapes...

Mmmm, both sides were equally delicious!

We didn't really do much this afternoon, just relaxed at home. My iPhone arrived back, kind of repaired, yesterday so it's so nice to be able to read blogs on my phone again! I must've lost track of time as it was soon time to cook dinner!

A great way to use up foods from the freezer, this reminded me of Christmas lunch - but even better! At Christmas I had the same nut roast wellingtons, with a few (normal) roast parsnips and other ok veg. Today I had the nut roast wellingtons, lots of honey roast parsnips and one of my favourite veg - red cabbage (it must've been in the freezer over a year but was still delicious!)...

Liam and the children ate up some pork chops that had also been in the freezer for over a year...I'm glad I had a reason to eat my tasty wellingtons instead!!!

I finished the meal off with a little pot of frozen yoghurt...

A fantastic end to a really good day!! :)

Do you have any family/personal traditions that you will be following this weekend? My family doesn't really seem to have traditions on Easter Sunday in the same way as we do at Christmas, however queueing up for hot cross buns is something we've done every Good Friday since we moved here, when my little sister Olivia was small. The children love receiving the bag full of treats, but it's also a lovely way to catch up with people as most of the families in our town do come to it - we were able to chat to loads of people both at the event and then at the park afterwards...good fun.