Month: February 2016

So facebook reminded me that on this day (26th Feb) two years ago I announced that I was to become an Auntie for the first time!

I was so excited when I found out my twin sister was pregnant! I thought being an Auntie was going to be really good, I never realised just how awesome it was going to be and (unless you have your own children, which I dont) nothing prepares you for the love you feel towards that little person who isn’t even yours!

He makes me smile every time I see him and the way he smiles at me melts my heart ♡

We have lots of fun auntie and nephew times together (&fun with Uncle Tim too) here are some of my favourite pictures:

2016

I’m going to be an Auntie again this year! I can’t wait and I’m looking forward to Noahy being a lovely big brother, so cute.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

My older sister Charlotte turned 30 in January so me and my twin sister Sarah planned a day of fun as her present. We did this during the half term holidays when we didn’t have work.

We started off our day by driving to Colchester for breakfast! Sarah had found a nice looking place called Bills. It was delicious!!

Me and Charlotte had the Bills breakfast. It came with white toast,  streaky bacon, fried eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and sausages that tasted like they had chorizo in, they were so yummy. I added a hash brown to mine and Charlotte added beans.

Sarah had avocado on toast which she really enjoyed too. 

We shared a plate of buttermilk pancakes between us as they were the size of dinner plates and you got three in a serving. They were drizzled in maple syrup and adorned with fruit, easily the best pancakes I’ve had from a resturant.

After breakfast we made our way to Aqua springs spa, this is right next to the leisure centre. It’s such a great place as it’s got all the features of your usual spas, a nice cafe to grab a drink or snack and treatments to add on if you want! The upside being that it costs only £14 and you can stay as long as you like.

It was so relaxing just chilling in the Hydrotherapy spas and jacuzzi. They also have a steam room, salt inhalation room, and 3 different saunas ranging from mild to volcanic in heat.

We booked in to have our nails painted so at 1.30 Sarah and Charlotte had theirs done and at 2 pm I had mine done.

I love this colour, I just wish I could paint it on as neatly as they do!!

Once our nails had dried and we were feeling totally relaxed we got changed and made our way home.

Once we were back at Charlottes we prepared our homemade afternoon tea, our last treat of the day.

I made a lemon drizzle tray bake, here it is:

It was super delicious (if I do say so myself haha) I’ve put a link to the recipe below.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1892633/lemon-drizzle-traybake

I brought some red velvet cupcakes and sweet and savoury scones to have with jam and clotted cream, yummy!

Sarah made some sandwiches to go with all the cake, we had some cheese and some egg.

And of course tea!

It was a really fun day, very relaxing with lots of yummy treats!

Happy 30th Birthday Charlotte!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

So I recently blogged about our Valentine’s day meal that I made Slimming World friendly. It was really yummy and with a few select ingredients I didn’t feel like I was missing out either.

First course

Slimming World Tomato and basil soup.

I brought the tomato and basil soup from the Iceland frozen Slimming World range. It’s really yummy, super easy and syn free.

Second course

Slimming World lasagne with garlic bread.

I was really pleased at how well this came out.  Here’s what you’ll need:

(Serves 4)

X2 light Mozzarella balls
Light grated cheddar cheese
Tub of extra light philadelphia cheese
A splash of milk
Large plum tomatoes
X2 tins of chopped tomatoes
Garlic fry light
1 large white onion
1 red pepper
5 % lean mince
Basil
Salt & pepper
Lasagne sheets

Garlic bread
X2 wholemeal bread rolls
Butter
X2 Fresh garlic cloves
Parsley

Method

1. Soak lasagne sheets in boiling water.

2. Chop onions and fry in garlic frylight. Brown the mince.

3. Add the tins of chopped tomatoes and season with salt, pepper and herbs. Cook for 20 mins on a low heat.

4. Slice the large tomatoes and mozzarella.

5. Heat the philadelphia, milk, salt and pepper in a saucepan.

6. Once all components are cooked layer up the lasagne. First put some of the tomato and mince mix, then a layer of tomato slices, some mozzarella slices and the creamy sauce and top with pasta sheets.

7. Repeat.

8. Sprinkle with grated cheddar and bake in the oven until the cheese turns golden.

Garlic bread

1. Toast the bread lightly in the oven.

2. Whilst the bread is toasting melt some butter and garlic together in the microwave.

3. Take the garlic butter mix and smear over the bread. The heat will make the bread absorb the butter. Make sure you put plenty on.

4. Sprinkle with seasoning and parsley.

The philadelphia cheese can be counted as your HEX A allowance, the wholemeal roll for your HEX B allowance.

Dessert

GU chocolate soufflés

These are so delicious, a great treat and just enough to round off the meal nicely. They are exactly 15 syns which is your daily allowance.

I thought this was great because although it uses all your syns it’s a great dessert. The creamy philadelphia and mozzarella make the lasagne seem really indulgent, paired with the garlic bread and yummy chocolate dessert and you’ve got a delicious 3 course meal without going completely syn crazy.

So my top pointers:

☆Get the most out of your Healthy extras. Use them to make food and meals more indulgent! Make a meal you never would think you’d be able to eat on Slimming World.

☆Use your syns! Treat yourself, you won’t succeed by denying yourself what you want. If your having a special meal find a dessert that is 15 syns or less and enjoy it, if you go over a little bit it’s not going to be as bad as it could be and your still in control.

☆Sneak in lots of S foods. Recipes like lasagne and Bolognese are great for this, garlic, chilli, onion, tomatoes, pepper, mushrooms! S food-tastic!

I hope this has given you some inspiration! Happy eating.

Until next time,
Roseanne 🙂

This year will be mine and Tims 5th Valentine’s spent together, I can’t believe that next year we’ll be celebrating as husband and wife!

We decided to go to one of our favourite places together, the zoo, but not before we’d exchanged presents.

I got these for Tim from Sainsburys. He loves pizza & pasta so I thought these were right up his street and useful too. I also cooked us a delicious 3 course meal.

Tim got me some lovely flowers and he paid for our tickets to the zoo.

Here are some pictures of the zoo:

Marli (Tims adopted Warthog) even came out to see us this time.

Lunch stop! It was nice to warm up.

More animals…

After a few hours we made our way home to cook our yummy dinner. Tim’s always really supportive and he even suggested we made our Valentine’s meal Slimming World friendly to help me stay on track (only 2 weeks until my next dress fitting). Ill be doing a blog post all about the meal with recipes and top tips. Here’s what we had:

First course

Tomato and basil soup.

Second course

Lasagne and garlic bread.

Third course

GU chocolate soufflés.

Once we’d finished we snuggled down on the sofa to watch LOTR: The return of the king.

Happy Valentines day ♡

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

On Sunday me, Tim, Sarah and Noah went to Colchester swimming pool.

I used to love going there as a treat when I was younger as it is so much fun.
It has a couple of different pools, slides, flumes, a waterfall, jacuzzis and rapids.

Time to get ready!

We had such a fun time! Noah loved it now that he’s a bit bigger. He loved the slide and we took him on the rapids too.

After swimming we needed to refuel so we stopped off at the Cafe in the Leisure Centre.

Tim got a cheesey jacket potato and Noah had some yummy milk.

We drove back to Ipswich after we had chilled out for a bit at the cafe and we got back just in time for dinner!

We all went together to The Mermaid for a carvery (Tim had a burger).

Afterwards we went home to put Noah to bed and finish making some more wedding invites.

It was a lovely day and a great way to spend Sunday before going back to work.

I hope you all had an awesome weekend.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

Me and Tims mum organised a Harry Potter book night at the library where she works.

It was yesterday and ran from 6.00-7.30pm.

Here are some pictures of the night:

Hanging letters and Hedwig.

The Quidditch Pitch.

Harry Potter books and games.

The Sorting Ceremony.

We has lots of activities going on. We had a potions ingredients hunt, make your own wands, create your own spell and potion work sheets, colouring pages, Honeydukes sweet shop, a quiz and much more!

Honeydukes: Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Chocolate frogs, cupcakes and Butterbeer.

Chocolate frogs.

Harry Potter photo booth.

…and of course we were in costumes!

We had a great night and the kids really enjoyed themselves, it was worth it to see another generation of fans enjoying the wizarding world of Harry Potter as much as I do.

The stories we love best do live in us forever, so whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂