WIAW - Popcorn & DVD night

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!


Today’s post is based on Saturday, as I thought it would be fun to natter about what I do on the weekend, although actually this Saturday was a bit of a quiet one so this might be a relatively short post!

I’ve started going to a spin class on Saturday mornings at 9am. Consequently the children have decided that Saturdays are the one and only day they are going to let us sleep past 7! Gah, dragging myself out of bed when they are still sleeping/being quiet is not pleasant, but the spin class is a really good one so its worth it! My Mum goes to the class too which is nice for a quick catch up, and my littlest sister is going to start as well, she didn’t get in this week as it is such a busy class – you have to book on the Friday morning, 8 days in advance, to get in! My legs were very sore this week as I also went spinning on the Friday night, due to my normal Body Pump class being cancelled, I definitely prefer doing pump one day, spin the next rather than two consecutive spins. It was a one-off though...lesson learnt!

After spinning I came home and enjoyed a big bowl of porridge for breakfast/brunch. Pumpkin porridge with cinnamon, topped with Green&Black’s dark chocolate with crystallised ginger. The pumpkin and crystallised ginger went so well together, and of course chocolate makes everything better - definitely a combo I'll make again during "pumpkin season". Plus a much needed coffee – I didn’t wake up in time to have one before spinning this week!

I ate this outside in the sunshine to make the most of the (rare these days) lovely weather. I must get back into the habit of making porridge again – this was such a treat

I had another, unpictured, coffee mid-afternoon, but apart from that I didn’t end up eating again until dinner time. I’ve not been sleeping too well lately so when the children napped in the afternoon I took the opportunity to do the same, and by the time I woke up and then got hungry again, it wasn’t long til dinner.

Liam fancied greasy freezer food (meat-free sausages & burgers, onion rings and chips!!) which I didn’t fancy at all so I did my own thing, whilst still keeping it easy to prep. A Caribbean sweet potato roast from the freezer (a new product in the meat-free Tesco range, really good) with asparagus, two fried eggs, a little bit of leftover avocado and sweet chilli sauce…

Yum, this was just what i fancied – flavourful without being greasy! The sweet potato roast didn’t crisp up as much as I’d like, but I loved the warm chilli flavour that it had, a nice addition to the usual meat-free frozen range.

Once the children were in bed, Liam and I watched Chalet Girls – a DVD that my Mum had rented and then passed on to us to watch/return to the shop for her! Typical rom com, but quite funny and an easy watch for a Saturday night. Accompanied by two bowls of the most gorgeous popcorn…

I first came across Joe&Seph’s popcorn when Liam and I went to London in July – I had the cinnamon coconut caramel flavour that time. This one was caramel & sea salt and was equally delicious. Even without all the added flavours, I find the caramel itself so much smoother than on other toffee popcorns.

I noticed that Lakeland’s have started selling a few flavours of this – my local one has the sea salt one above, plus caramel with ginger; caramel macchiato with Scotch whisky; and goats cheese with black pepper. I ended up looking on their website on Saturday night though – there are so many flavours I want to try…I’ll be placing an order soon I think!!

What would be your ideal popcorn flavour? Have you ever tried Joe&Seph’s popcorn? I am most tempted by the seasonal flavours – particularly toffee apple, gingerbread and mince pie – and also the peanut butter flavour and the vanilla cream cheese and/or strawberry cheesecake, haha, I could go on but my bank balance might not approve!! They also do quite a few savoury flavours but I don’t fancy them so much, I had (a different brand) cheese popcorn once before but I found it tasted a bit too strong and artificial to me so I think I'll stick to the sweet versions for now. (and yes, I realise that raving about caramel popcorn is pretty much the opposite of yesterday's post...luckily my dentist only thinks to check that I don't use sugar in my hot drinks!!!)

If you live in the UK, don't forget to enter my giveaway for Jordans Granola and Nut Bars - you have until midnight tonight to enter!

WIAW - healthier breakfasts needed!!

Hello! Happy What I Ate Wednesday!


I have finally remembered to take photos of a whole day so that I can take part in WIAW this week. These are my eats from Monday, no spooky snacks were eaten unfortunately, but I did talk about Halloween treats yesterday bizarrely, so check out that post if you've already started making plans for the end of the month!!

I have been trying to get back into eating breakfast – it used to be my favourite meal of the day, but recently I’ve only “had time” to eat it at weekends On Monday I managed a bowl of Curiously Cinnamon – not quite a healthy breakfast, but I guess it’s a start!

If, like me, you need help eating a healthy breakfast, come back to the blog tomorrow…I have a giveaway that might be perfect for you!

Same as yesterday, I had some baking to do on Monday…this time for my Mum. Gingerbread loaf topped with lemon icing…there was some leftover icing so I spread it onto a couple of biscuits for a snacky treat about 11.30am…



Delicious, but it did mess up my eating schedule for the rest of the day as I was too full for my planned lunch! This is the cake I gave my Mum anyway – apparently it went down well!



Instead of a proper lunch, I ended up eating three toasted teacakes, spread over the space of a couple of hours. The first with real butter…



But then the next two with spread (I’d given up photographing them by the 3rd!) as the butter was unsalted – good for baking, but not for flavour! I love toasted teacakes, but I proved to myself that I really can’t trust myself to keep these in the house – think I need to keep these as a Costa treat in future!!



I had Body Pump on Monday evening, and my pre-exercise snack ended up being 4 squares of this new-to-me chocolate…



Love the coconut in this, so good!

Body Pump was a bit different this week. My usual instructor is on holiday in Florida for two weeks (lucky him!) so the class was taken by a different instructor. She isn’t Les Mills trained so it was just her own weights routine, and to be honest it reminded me of aerobics with a bit of weights thrown in! Not brilliant, but better than nothing. My Tuesday and Friday classes that I also usually have with the instructor who is on holiday have been cancelled this week because they haven’t managed to arrange any cover, and it looks like next Friday’s will be too, boo, I really need to find replacements rather than not exercising at all as I did yesterday!!

After Body Pump I made a quick dinner of raw courgette using my new julienne peeler…



Topped with a quick “ratatouille” – just roasted peppers mixed with passata and sweetcorn, and then topped with nutritional yeast…



This was really good, the courgettes worked really well as a noodle replacement (and a way to get extra veggies in after eating none until dinner!!), although next time I would warm the courgette first – I ended up zapping this in the microwave halfway through as the cold courgette cooled the sauce down too quickly!!

For dessert, I ate two of Maria’s pb crispy squares, divine! Ignore the markings on the fudge topping – I ate these straight from the freezer!!



How do you deal with your exercise routine unexpectedly changing? Do you find new ways to fit in exercise, or do you take an extra rest day? & have any of you tried a class like Cardio Attack? (I'm guessing it might be a non Les Mills version of Body Attack...) I normally take a different class instead – when the Tuesday spin class was cancelled a couple of weeks ago I went to a Total Body Workout class that is on at the same time. However, a) I didn’t really enjoy that replacement class, and b) I had a million things to do last night so was quite glad for an extra evening at home. I really need to find a different class to go to on Friday though – my little sister looks after the children so that I can go to my normal body pump class, so can’t waste an offer of childcare!! I don’t really enjoy going to the gym on my own anymore – I definitely prefer classes – there is Cardio Attack at one of the gyms on Friday, a bit later than my usual class but still do-able for a week or two so I might give that a go! Would love to hear any experiences of it though as I'm a bit nervous of going to a class with absolutely no idea of what to expect!!

WIAW - Izzy’s Party

Hello! Happy What I Ate Wednesday!


I haven’t taken part in WIAW for a while, but thought I’d re-join the party to talk about yesterday…quite a “summery” day as it included a trip to the beach and then Izzy’s party. First though, coffee. Every day starts with coffee, and yesterday I got to enjoy mine in bed, bliss, thanks Liam!

I’ve gotten out of the habit of eating breakfast recently. I’ll still eat it some days, but yesterday wasn’t one of those days. Breakfast has been replaced by extra sleep though (love the lazy holidays!) so it’s not all bad. Once I’d drunk my coffee, showered and got dressed, it was time to get the children ready and head to the seafront. We were meant to be meeting my Grandparents but unfortunately they had to cancel at the last minute, but we decided to go anyway. The others enjoyed some ice creams…

And I went to Costa for the first time in about 5 weeks to get my favourite iced gingerbread latte, perhaps not so summery, but it is my favourite syrup!

I may also have had some of Izzy’s toffee ice cream, yum.

I was hoping for some of Toby’s mint choc chip but he gobbled it down too fast and then moved on to kidnapping Liam’s cone!!

After we’d all finished eating, we headed on to the beach for a little paddle. The waves were (slightly) rougher than they looked though…Izzy enjoyed squealing in faux terror and I got wetter than I’d anticipated!!!

Toby preferred staying nice and dry – throwing stones in is the closest he’ll get to the sea!

After a while we headed back home to get some lunch before the party – a sandwich with Philadelphia, basil tofu and cucumber…

Followed by one mini peanut brittle bite from this pack I bought in Lidl…I’ve been loving these as a little sweet thing to finish off meals

Before we knew it, it was party time! Izzy had a joint party with two other children, so there were about 30 children in the hall in total, fun but hectic!! We had a bouncy castle, face painting and a couple of party games, plus food…the 2 hours ended up going by really quickly! I don’t feel comfortable sharing photos of other people’s children on here (still can’t quite decide whether to put the party photos up on Facebook…any thoughts/opinions either way??) so you’ll have to imagine all the other children, but here a couple of photos of the empty room and my two…

(the church hall we held the party in provided the bouncy castle, complete with slogan!)

Angel Izzy

Liam did Toby's face painting - incl devil horns!!!

Plus the all important food…I had quite a few egg and cheese sandwiches, plus carrot sticks, grapes, cheese straws, crisps etc etc…

and then a slice (or two!) of delicious cake…

Once the party was over and we’d cleared up the hall, we went back home and after a little sit down (and an unpictured cup of tea) I headed out to spinning. The usual instructor is on holiday this week so this class was taken by a woman who I’d never spun with before. The class was very different, but really fun! Mostly fast tracks (although not as high resistance as the usual class) and a few resistance moves thrown in – one track she made us suck our belly button in 25%, then 50%, then 75% then back to 50% for 2 minutes spinning. Then another track felt a bit like body pump as she had us working our triceps whilst spinning by doing kind of push ups off the handlebars? I really enjoyed it anyway! She takes a class on Saturday mornings so I might try to go to that one sometimes.

After spinning, I came home and gulped down a glass of chocolate milk too quick to photograph, and then Liam made me a pitta bread filled with falafel, mayonnaise, blue cheese and cucumber…messy but delicious.

What kind of birthday parties did you have when you were younger? And/or what are your favourite type of children’s birthday parties to organise? This was my first time doing a joint party and, whilst it was kind of fun, I think I will go back to smaller parties next year!! Izzy was still only allowed 8 friends, which is the same number as I let her invite to her beach hut party last year, so in that respect there wasn’t any real benefit to holding a larger party. Plus both the other birthday children were boys, and the girls found them a little rough on the bouncy castle!! Izzy has been to a few at home parties recently which she enjoyed too – one at the start of the holidays, they all made bracelets and necklaces which I thought was a great idea, so maybe I’ll try to do something crafty next year, we’ll see…need to recover from this one first!!

WIAW - Butlins

We took so many photos in Butlins that I am finding it a bit overwhelming sorting through them and deciding which ones to post. So I've decided to write about our first full day at Butlins - the Saturday - as a WIAW style post, and then I will tackle the other photos another time!


 

Thanks as always to Jenn for giving me a template with which to organise my thoughts!

 

We had breakfast and dinner included in our stay at Butlins, and I'd made the most of an email I received the week before to upgrade to premium dining for half price. The main differences this made were carvery roasts and freshly cooked stir fries at dinner - neither of which I took advantage of, but the others did - and freshly cooked pancakes and omelettes at breakfast...now you're talking! The pancakes had actually been made earlier in the morning and then re-heated to order, so I decided to go with an omelette, which were freshly cooked in front of you. A tasty cheese and mushroom omelette, plus some sauteed potatoes and ketchup...

 

 

followed by melon and 2 mini pastries (the cinnamon apple was my favourite, but the apricot custard one was good too!)...

 

 

followed by muesli with milk and tinned pineapple...

 

 

I love buffet breakfasts!! :-D I also had several glasses of orange juice - Izzy's favourite part of our meal experiences was that she could serve herself at the juice machines, so she kept offering to get us drinks too! - and two unsuccessful attempts at coffee...what is it about machine coffee that can sometimes be so disgusting?! I had the same problem at our hotel in London too, yuck! Luckily on the second day one of the waitresses told us that she loved the machine hot chocolate, so I switched to that for the rest of our stay!

 

On Saturday morning, Izzy and Liam went to do an arts & craft thing, and I took Toby to Bob the Builder Land...

 

 

Unfortunately I wasn't allowed on any of the rides with Toby, and he found it a bit scary on his own! So we ended up going outside and splashing in puddles instead (!!)

 

After a change of clothes, Toby went to a taster session at the nursery from 11am-12pm, and we took Izzy to the fun fair. She wasn't allowed on a lot of the rides because of her (lack of) height, but I went on one ride with her...

 

 

and she & Liam went on the dodgems...

 

 

Then it was time to pick up Toby. He'd had such a good time at the taster session that we decided to put him in again 2-4pm that afternoon. £6 for a 2 hours session at an Ofsted registered nursery seemed like good value, plus he was being a pain it meant that we could take Izzy to the water park which Toby would have hated - he doesn't like swimming at the best of times, let alone big, busy, splash world!!

 

First though, we all had lunch together. I had a falafel wrap and an iced latte...

 

 

And then the children went in the soft play area together. Toby was old enough to go in the main area rather than the baby area, which meant we weren't allowed to go in with him. Luckily his big sister kept him happy!

 

 

We then took Toby to the nursery and headed to Splash Waterworld. No photos of the inside, but this is one of the outer walls...

 

 

This place was huge! There was an outside pool, which we didn't use, and also an inside normal swimming pool and a couple of jacuzzis. The parts we did use were a huge lazy river (which actually had quite a strong current so you could just lie there and it would push you round), a wave pool, and 3 out of the 4 slides (Izzy was too short for the "space bowl" slide which I was quite pleased about!!). At first we went on a slide that used an inflatable raft, and meant Izzy could ride in the same raft as me, but after that she got brave and went on the slides you can see above on her own. The time flew by and soon it was time to get out and go pick up Toby from nursery.

 

He'd had a fantastic time, and had made chocolate crispy cakes!

 

 

The children had one each as an afternoon snack, and then Toby fell asleep on Liam for half an hour. Not ideal as it was much later than his normal nap (which he'd missed because there had been too many things taking his attention at nursery!) so he was not happy when we woke him up, but more food at dinner gave him another burst of energy!

 

The restaurant where we had dinner had a little "toy room" in the middle of it, so we always made sure to sit at a table near the only entrance to it, so that Izzy and Toby could play when they'd finished eating without being able to run off without us noticing!!!

 

Not sure which meal this was - a rare time when no other children were in the play room so I could take a photo!

 

There wasn't a huge amount of choice when it came to vegetarian options at dinner - usually two things plus salady bits. On Saturday I combined both vegetarian options by having mushroom stroganoff, but on top of vegetable risotto instead of plain rice...

 

 

This was a bit stodgy but still tasty. There seemed to be a lack of green vegetable sides - or if they did have any they were overcooked - so I tended to stick to lettuce and cucumber for my greenery. Still not bad for buffet food though!

 

For dessert I had rhubarb crumble and cream...

 

 

This was lovely - with huge chunks of rhubarb - but not quite sweet enough for me, so I stole a bit of Toby's ice cream to add some more sugar!

 

 

There was a self-serve ice cream machine which both children loved - pudding for them every day!

 

After dinner, we went back to the main pavilion to watch a Mike the Knight show...

 

 

and then back to the apartment for the children to go to bed. I don't know how other parents managed to stay out later - by 7.30-7.45pm each night Izzy was begging to go back as she was tired!!

 

Izzy and Toby were sharing a room and the first night was pretty rough (Toby found it too exciting to be so close to his sister, plus there was a screaming baby in the room behind us, and noisy drunk people walking past at all hours!) but by Saturday night we were all so tired that we slept right through!

 

 

We had such a great weekend at Butlins! I'd never been before and, to be honest, didn't have great expectations of how the weekend was going to go...but it was fantastic! It was all so child friendly and there were constantly things to see and do, plus the food was pretty good too! I felt a bit bad putting Toby into the nursery, but a lot of the things were just too old for him, so if we hadn't put him in nursery either Izzy would have missed out on a lot of things, or Toby would have spent most of his time stuck in a pushchair! This way he got to have a great time at nursery while we did older things with Izzy, and then we could focus on the younger things when he was with us - win win!

 

Do you like buffet meals or do you prefer to go to a restaurant where you just order one meal? As I said at the start, I love buffet breakfasts! They have always been one of my favourite parts of a holiday - I'm actually kind of disappointed if the hotel we stay in doesn't include breakfast! I love the variety of things you can have and, for breakfast, they all tend to be "my" kind of foods.

Dinner however, I would prefer to order off a menu. I'm not a fan of hot food that has been sitting around for a while (I don't tend to eat any of the "fry up" parts of buffet breakfasts for the same reason) and the food is often stodgy. The dinners at Butlins were ok, but breakfasts were definitely my favourite meal...although I did love the desserts at dinner! :)