Girlie Shopping + lots of coffee & cake

Coffee and cake counts as a meal right?! I had two of those kinds of meals yesterday!!

First though, coffee in bed…this mug is so true!

Followed by a 9am spin class…I’d set my alarm for 8am, not expecting to really need it, but the children let us sleep in for once! So it was a bit of a rush to drink my coffee and get ready, but I made it! I’ve only just started going to Saturday morning classes so this instructor was newish to me – such a tough class! One of her regulars is off to Australia for 3 months and apparently someone else had joked that you couldn’t spin to classical music (this other regular’s favourite type I guess?)…well the instructor proved them wrong – lots of fast and high resistance, ouch!!

After spinning, my sisters took Izzy swimming while I showered etc, and then I went into town with my Mum and sisters for coffee & cake “breakfast”…

Caramel iced coffee

and carrot cake

This carrot cake was so good! When it arrived, Mum liked the look of it so much that she ordered herself a slice too! All of the cakes in this cafe were gluten free, but you couldn’t tell at all – delicious!

By the time I got home, Liam and the children had eaten lunch so we headed into Exeter. Liam needed to go to B&Q so he took Toby, and dropped me and Izzy off in town. It was so nice to spend some time with just Izzy – I spend lots of time with Toby alone when Izzy’s at school, but I hardly ever get alone time with her. First stop…Starbucks!

I had a pumpkin spice latte (!!) and an apple fritter doughnut for my "lunch"…

To be honest, I wasn’t overly thrilled with either of these the doughnut had no apple in it, and the pumpkin spice latte was only ok – it was perfectly nice, but didn’t live up to my (admittedly high) expectations – not much flavour except a bit of cinnamon. I’m going into Exeter again this week so I might try it iced and see if it improves things, I’ve seen people on Instagram having it as a frappe.
Izzy couldn’t decide between all the cakes, so instead of making a decision, opted for two chocolate coins instead (!!)

After Starbucks, I decided to take Izzy clothes shopping as she wanted some new clothes that made her look “pretty and cool”, haha, we headed to H&M – so busy, it was a little chaotic!!

Izzy insisted that she was too old to just try the clothes on in a corner (really??!) so after a long queue for the changing rooms, it was time to try lots of clothes on…

She had such fun twirling in front of the mirror, so I guess it was worth the wait!

I liked this first (wool?) dress, but Izzy wasn’t keen…

She loved the Hello Kitty top though!

And when we got to the grey party dress she started “posing”, haha, worrying!!

And there was also a pink spotty combo (the top was actually a two-pack with a plain green one too, but she’s wearing it with the skirt again today!)…

There were also several dresses that were deemed “no” by one or the other of us, and we finally narrowed it down to 6 items (because she’s 6??!) and went to queue for the second time in the same shop, yawn!

Clothes shopping done, we headed to Boots, where I resisted buying nail polish (the Essie stand was half empty!!) and then Topshop where it got the better of me…I did have a gift card though so only paid £2 for these!

I also loved this cake stand from Next, but didn’t buy it…Christmas present please Liam or Mum??  

When we got home, I took photos of the clothes Izzy had bought, and realised that the only thing I hadn’t got photos of her trying on was a jumper we picked up on the way to the till. So I asked her to quickly try it on for me, and then this happened…The first three photos are my daughter looking “normal”, if slightly hyper (!), but I have no idea where all the other poses have come from, aaargh, my 6 year old is growing up too fast!!!






So, food. You’d think that after coffee & cake for both breakfast and lunch, I might have something healthy for dinner? Nope, not really! I ended up eating 4 slices of pizza when the children had tea (roast veg…does that count as kind of nutritious?!) and then, as Liam was out for the evening, I had lots of treats lined up for last night…

Chips and dips (my favourite!):

Followed by chocolates and ice cream...this is my favourite chocolate mint ice cream - lots of different textures - I love the crystals of mint sugar in it!

And a magazine to fuel my Autumn obsession…good times!!

Have you tried, or are you planning to try, the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte? What did you think? After seeing it raved about so much by American bloggers, I had high expectations for it so am a bit disappointed. Although, thinking about it, I can’t really pinpoint what exactly pumpkin tastes like – it is usually accompanied by other strong spices/flavours. I’m tempted to either buy or make my own pumpkin syrup though to see what I like – Maria found a syrup to buy (which I've just noticed is out of stock - it wasn't a couple of days ago, lots of other people obviously have the same idea! The site normally gets stock back in quite quickly though, fingers crossed!), or there is a recipe that I remember being popular last year…so I’m not giving up on pumpkin lattes just yet!!

Pumpkin's Back!

Well, nearly. Before Liam stopped working at Waitrose (last shift today, whoop whoop!!) I asked him to find out something very important. Are they going to start selling Libby's tinned pumpkin again soon? The answer is YES! Apparently my local store is going to start stocking it again in a few weeks...I hope it's the same for other stores as I know some of you have also been having trouble buying it.

This means I can start using up the tins of pumpkin I've had stored in my cupboard since last winter - I didn't want to use them up too quickly until I knew I'd be able to replace my stash!

When I saw the rain pouring down this morning, one thing came to mind - Pumpkin Spice Lattes!

This was great, I loved having a different flavour to regular coffee, and it was less sweet than I was expecting from the recipe. As Averie suggests, I made a double batch of the pumpkin milk so I'd have more for coffee refills later...haha, yeah right!

I'd tried the pumpkin milk on its own as well and it was delicious, so I decided to pour some out to share with the children...

Needless to say, once the children tried this, I didn't get a look in!

As you might be able to tell from the above photos, Izzy didn't exactly get her fair share of the pumpkin milk either - Toby was very possessive of the glass/straw!!

So once Toby had gone for his morning nap, I used the last of the pumpkin milk to make Izzy and I some drinks - chocolatified! I'd left the pumpkin milk in the blender jug, so I re-blended it with cocoa powder and some agave nectar (plus a random splash of gingerbread syrup I had lying around) to make chocolate pumpkin smoothies...

I think I even preferred this to the coffee version...chocolate anything is usually a success!

Thanks for your well wishes for Izzy on my last post. She wasn't right at all on Friday - she even took herself off for a nap rather than having lunch which is definitely unusual for her! But she woke up on Saturday morning back to her normal self, and is now looking forward to going back to school tomorrow :) I don't know what caused it - she was only sick first thing in the morning, then just had a tummy ache all day - but I'm glad she's better now - I'll take bouncy, full of energy Izzy over quiet, poorly Izzy any day!

What are your favourite pumpkin recipes? Are there any other seasonal items you look forward to coming back into the shops? Next on my list for pumpkin recipes is pumpkin butter. I don't think I've ever tried any fruit butters before, but this recipe looks great, and pretty easy too. I do also love all the gingerbread type treats that Lidl seems to stock near Christmas. I noticed the other day that they've already started selling chocolate Santas, but I'm not ready for Christmas foods quite yet!