Category: Celebrations

My reading challenge: November ⛄📚

The penultimate installment of my reading challenge is here!

This year has gone seriously quickly.

I’m quite looking forward to reflecting on all the books I’ve read this year though.

So, without further ado, let’s take a look at what I read last month and what I’ll be reading this month…

What did I read last month:

The big little festival by Kellie Hailes

&

The Husbands secret by Liane Moriarty

I enjoyed both of these. The big little festival was a very easy read and I really enjoyed its cosy vibes. The husbands secret took a little bit to get into it and you had to really focus on each character to keep track. When the characters started to link together it was a bit easier to follow and towards the end the chapters were a much more manageable length which I liked, and this made it quite gripping as the story really got going.

This months books:

A Christmas Gift by Sue Moorcroft.

One Christmas can change everything…

‘Georgina loves Christmas. The festive season always brings the little village of Middledip to life. But since her ex-boyfriend walked out, leaving her with crippling debts, Gerorgines struggled to make ends meet.

To keep her mind off her worries, she throws herself into organising the Christmas show at the local school, and when handsome Joe Blackthorn becomes her assistants Georgines grateful for the help. But rheres something about Joe she can’t quite put her finger on. Could there be more to him than meets the eye?

Georgine’s past is going to catch up with her in ways she never expected. But can the help of her friends new and old make this a Christmas to remember after all? ‘

T’was the night shift before Christmas by Adam Kay

‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat… but 1.4 million NHS staff are heading off to work. In this perfect present for anyone who has ever set foot in a hospital, Adam Kay delves back into his diaries for a hilarious, horrifying and sometimes heartbreaking peek behind the blue curtain.

T’was the nightshift before Christmas is a love letter to all those who spend their festive season on the front line, removing babies and baubles from the various places they get stuck, at the most wonderful time of the year.’

&

A wedding in December by Sarah Morgan

‘The White family are gathering for Rosie’s whirlwind Christmas wedding. First to arrive are the brides parents, Maggie and Nick. Their daughters marriage is a milestone are determined to celebrate wholeheartedly, but they are hiding a huge secret about their own, they are on the brink of divorce. The last thing they need is to be trapped together on an irresistibly romantic Winter wonderland.

Rosie’s older sister Katie is worries that impulsive, sweet-hearted Rosie is making a mistake so she is determined to save her sister from herself, if only the irritatingly good looking best man, Jordan, would stop interfering with her plans…

Bride-to-be Rosie loves her Fiance but is having serious second thoughts. Except everyone has arrived – how can she tell tell she’s not sure? As the big day gets closer, and emotions run even higher, this is one family Christmas none of them will ever forget.’

I am so ready for cosy Christmassy, festive, reads 📚📚

This is definatly one of my favourite times of the year to grab a book.

I’m glad I’ve got mine ahead of time as it can get so busy at this time of year and these kinds of books are great for grabbing a few moments of calm in all the Christmas chaos.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Halloween party fun! 🎃

Today we had a little family Halloween party!

We all got a few bits together, costumes & food and headed to my twin sister Sarah’s house, with her family, my husband Tim, and my sister Charlotte and her family.

The kids (& me) were very excited.

Noah was desperate for a party and this was the perfect time to do it as we were all working on Halloween.

We popped on our costumes and Halloween themed clothes to get into the Spooky spirit.

& first things first, we needed to decorate!

Once everybody had arrived we tucked into some yummy party food whilst watching a bit of Hotel Transylvania.

(If you would like to know how to make these cupcakes head over to my previous post )

For our activities we had Spooky Halloween arts & crafts…

…A bat pinata,

& a game of ‘Pin the eyes on the spider.’

It was lots of fun!

🎃HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY🎃

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Halloween Bat cupcakes 🦇

I hope you enjoyed Halloween on Thursday 🎃

What did you do?

If, like us, you are celebrating Halloween this weekend then this little recipe will be right up your street.

These bat cupcakes are super cute, chocolatey and my ultimate favourite flavour combo, chocolate orange.

They are perfect for the spooky season, a Halloween party, to make with the kids or to just to help you indulge with a cuppa this weekend.

So, enjoy!

What you’ll need…

  • A chocolate cupcake packet mix (12 cupcakes)
  • 1 egg
  • 1.5 tbsp oil
  • Water
  • Chocolate buttercream icing
  • Orange extract
  • Jaffa cakes
  • Jaffa cake nibbles
  • White choc drops (for eyes)
  • Icing tubes (to draw on the fangs)

What you’ll need to do…

  • Make the packet mix as instructed
  • This usually entails adding your egg, oil and water to the packet mix and stirring.
  • Separate into your cupcake cases evenly.
  • Cook in the oven (See individual packets for times/temps.
  • Whilst the cupcakes are cooking, mix some orange extract into your chocolate buttercream.
  • Leave your cakes to cool before decorating.

Decorating…

  • 12 Jaffa cakes
  • A pack of Jaffa nibbles
  • Chocolate orange Buttercream
  • Icing
  • White choc drops

  • Top each cupcake with a generous helping of chocolate orange buttercream.
  • Cut each Jaffa cake in two, to create wing shapes.
  • Pop the wings either side in the icing.
  • Pop two nibbles in between the wings for the eyes.
  • To add detail to the eyes, use a little leftover buttercream to stick a white chocolate drop onto the nibbles.

Eat & enjoy!

I hope you like this little recipe idea, they taste heavenly or should I say devilishly good 👹

🎃🎃 Happy Halloween 🎃🎃

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Autumn 🍁🍂🎃

Autumn, or fall as some as you may know it, is one of my favourite seasons!

& heres why…

A chance to cosy up with a good book.

U unlimited crunchy, colourful leaves.

T ime to warm up with a hot choc/Coffee or two.

U umbrellas & cosy coats.

M assive jumpers.

N ights in!

I love this breezy, crisp lead up to Christmas. Cosy, contented & colourful.

🐿🦔🦡🍂🍃🍁☕🎃🌾🍂🍃🍁

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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You started school today 🍎

5 years ago I was working in my first ever reception class, eagerly awaiting your arrival, proud as punch when you finally arrived and I knew from then onwards that my life was going to be brighter, more fun and full of even more love.

Now you are ready to start your own reception journey and Im just as proud today, if not more, of the little boy you’ve become! Go show them what you’re made of Noahy, be the superstar that you are. Auntie Ro Ro cant wait to hear all about it XXXX

First day at School, Tuesday 3rd September 2019

💙

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🔟 years!🎉

So, last weekend me and my Uni friends met up, but this time it wasn’t any old meet up, it was our 10 year friendaversary meet up!

Let’s take it back to the start

…

In 2009 I did my first year of university at the University of East London (UEL).

Whilst studying for my degree in Early Chiodhood studies (ECS) at the Stratford Campus I was introduced, at the beginning of a morning lecture, to Kirsty & Tarana and as they say, the rest is history!

And we’ve been friends ever since!

I only studied at UEL for a year before returning to my hometown to complete my studies, but we always stayed in contact and have met up at least every few of months, in London.

So, that’s the background, let’s see how we celebrate 10 years of friendship.

As I said, I went down to London last weekend to meet the girls and we had a fun day planned.

Meeting at Stratford, we headed to Leciester Square for lunch.

We always had a tradition of getting the pizza hut buffet after some of our lectures during the Uni year and so we thought this was the perfect tradition to start the day with.

It was really good!!

I havn’t had the buffet in ages 🍕

Once we had eaten and had a catch up we headed to the main event, Matilda The Musical!!!

We wanted to do something we had done together before, as it’s a special occasion, and we all love musicals so we chose this one as it’s a brilliant story (A children’s one, very apt for ECS graduates) and none of us have seen it before either.

The musical is AMAZING!! The actors were fantastic, really talented and very funny. How those children get up on that stage and perform like that is beyond me but it is aweosme to watch.

The music ans songs by Tim Minchin are brilliant too. You’ll be singing them for days, trust me!

If you are a fan of the book or the classic film (as I am) then I would 100% recommend this to you!! It won’t disappoint.

It was getting late once we had made it out of the theatre so we said our goodbyes and headed home.

It was a really fun day out and a great way to celebrate two of the loveliest people I know.

Even though I only went to UEL for a year I will always be glad that I did. It was a great experience in halls and I met some lovely people, including these two, so I will always be grateful for that.

I hope you are enjoying the last few weeks of the Summer holidays!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Holiblog: The Rome Edition

For my husband Tim’s 28th birthday I bought us a trip to Rome. As you may know from previous blogs, Italy is our favourite country and Tim’s favourite Italian city that we’ve visited is Rome, it’s been 7 years since our first visit.

Read on to see what we got up to!

Day One

It was a early start for us to begin our Rome adventure, from Gatwick!

This meant we had a whole day to start exploring.

But, first lunch! And an ice cream stop at the highest rated ice cream place in Rome, it didn’t disappoint!

Trip Advisor: Best Gelato in Rome

We stumbled upon the National Museum of Rome and this was a great find. The architecture was amazing and we had a audio guide which was really interesting.

After all our exploring and walking around we had a chilled evening back at our room. We grabbed some take away pizza slices and a couple of ice cold cans of coke zero and enjoyed a them in our cosy room.

Day Two

Today we headed out early to have a look at the Colosseum. We went inside it on our last trip to Rome so this time we just went to have a look at it again from the outside, as well as the area around it.

We enjoyed a nice lunch and some ice cream before heading back for a siesta and our evening activity.

That evening we enjoyed our Italian cooking class, the first of our three planned activities for the trip.

It was originally going to be a pizza class (my husband is obsessed with pizza and this trip was planned by me for his birthday) but they changed the menu to pasta, as a summer alternative. Even so we had a great time!

We made pasta, a similar one to tagliatelle, Gnocci and then for dessert we made an amazing summer berries and white chocolate tiramisu. It was so good and it was so fun to cook proper pasta. You can really tell the difference.

Day Three

I think this was my favourite day of the holiday.

We had a nice early start to have a look round Palentine hill and the Roman Forum. We missed out on seeing these last time as we didn’t get there early enough and it is horrendous in the heat!

So, we made our way there nice and early and spent the morning having a look at the amazing Roman Ruins.

For lunch we headed over to the highest rated pizza place in Rome and it was delicious. This was my favourite meal and the man who owned the shop was so helpful and friendly. It’s a small little shop but so worth it.

Trip Advisor: Best Pizza in Rome

In the evening we headed to Piazza Campo de’ Fiori to have our second planned activity, a ‘By night walking tour of Rome’ Our guide was absolutely brilliant, born and raised in Rome so very knowledgable.

We saw so many different sights that we hadn’t seen before, such as the Pantheon and my favourite, the Trevi fountain (Which is SO beautiful) and much bigger than I expected. I’m so glad we got to see it this time.

Day Four

On day four our planned activity was an evening walking food tour, unfortunately it was cancelled so we had another think about what to do.

In the end we booked a morning trip, including a guided tour of the Vatican city. The tour included access to the Vatican museum, the Cistine Chapel & St Peter’s Basillca.

These places were all amazing and the artwork, tapestrys and architecture were amazing, as well as the history.

After a delicious lunch of Caprese salad, Pizza and the most amazing tiramisu we headed home for another afternoon siesta!

In the evening we took a stroll down to the Colosseum, after dinner, to have a look at it all lit up at night. It looked beautiful!

Day Five

On our final day we didnt fly out until the evening so, we wanted to make the most of our last day.

At breakfast we had a look on Viator to see what we could do.

As we didn’t make pizza at the previous cooking class we booked onto a pizza class for midday.

We stumbled across the Spanish Steps whilst we were looking for the cooking class location which was cool! Another landmark to tick off.

The cooking class was brilliant, with a lovely group of Americans & a Canadian lady. I really enjoyed making an authentic pizza in Rome and I loved seeing Tim make his favourite cuisine too.

They were really tasty!! A great lunch for our last day.

One of the other members of the cooking class mentioned a 5D experience that they were visiting later that day and as we had no other plans we thought we would check it out too!

We went for the full package 5D experience watching the history of Rome, the evolution of life and we looked around Roman landmarks with a VR headset on.

Once we had done all this it was a good time to slowly amble back to Termini to grab our bags and get the coach to the airport.

A great end to the holiday.

We had a brilliant time in Rome and I would 100% recommend it to anyone thinking of visiting Italy, especially if you are a first timer as there is so much to see and do.

& of course the food is amazing.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little post about our trip!

I wonder what next years Holiblogs will be about!? Time to start thinking for 2020.

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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Windermere 🏞🍃☀️

I’m not going to write alot in this post, just simply share with you a beautiful place that me and my husband recently visited for out 3rd Wedding anniversary 💍 (3 years since my blog began, in preparation for the wedding!)

So, enjoy!

Windermere, The Lake District

Orrest Head (Walk) Winderemere

Claife Heights (Walk) Winderemere

Cautley Spout, Windermere

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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What I got for my birthday!

As you may know from my previous post ’28 🥳’ I recently celebrated my 28th birthday.

I love reading/watching peoples ‘What I got for my birthday’ blogs/vlogs so I thought I would do it again this year.

**Disclaimer**

I’m not boasting, I really just like to show my appreciation for my presents and remember them when I look back on my posts & I know some people like these kinds of blog posts too.

Let’s get started.

My main birthday present from my husband Tim was my coffee machine.

I’ve wanted one for a little while but it’s a bit of a luxury so I haven’t bought one, my birthday seemed like a good opportunity to add it to my list and I was very lucky to get one.

Tim bought me the Nespresso Lattissima One.

I love it! Especially the milk frother as it makes delicious lattes, my favourite coffee. 😋

My sister bought me these cute glass mugs to go with it.

I love reading! So I always welcome receiving books for my birthday.

Mrs Hinch’s book was on my list as I like her, her insta is hilarious!! My older sister got me this one.

My work friend got me a little book all about Mindfulness as I really enjoyed the positivity of my ‘Mindfulness March’ challenge.

& Tim chose the book ‘The house across the street’ for me as he thought I would enjoy it 😊

I LOVE bath stuff, especially Lush bath bombs! And I got a good little haul this year. I cant wait to try these all out.

One of the most exciting bath bombs I got was ‘The Comforter’ it’s my absolute fave Lush product as the bubble bar but now it’s a bath bomb too 🙌🏻

I also picked out these lovely bubble baths when me and Tim were in Tesco just before my birthday. They smell incredible.

Fruity and honey/vanilla scents are my ultimate fave when it comes to bubble bath and these are just amazing, they almost smell good enough to eat!!

I also got lots of lovely shower gels and a super cute polka dot travel toiletries bag that can hang up in the shower, pretty & practical!

I got a couple of Harry Potter bits for my birthday too.

I got this cool book from my brother in law which has all the different character wands in it and lots of information about them which is really cool.

I also got this cute little coin purse from my Mum. This is perfect for travelling and when using a smaller bag, plus its in the shape of a golden snitch, what’s not to love!

Along the lines of Harry Potter, my lovely husband Tim bought me and Sarah a Harry Potter activity themed day out in London. We will be having Magical Harry Potter afternoon tea and attending a magical potions cocktail class in the evening. Its going to be so epic, I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!! ⚡⚡

I’ll pop the details below incase you are interested in that kind of thing:

‘The Cauldron’ Cocktail potions class

The Potions Room Afternoon tea

I also got lots of yummy chocolatey treats…

& a great selection of new nail varnishes including some pretty pastels, summery coral and colour changing heat/cool gel nail varnishes.

& the standard birthday pyjamas.

I love my Auntie presents from my favourite little people too 🥰

I hope you enjoyed having a little look at my pressies.

Here’s to my 28th year!

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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28 🎉

28

So here it is, my 28th birthday! 28 years of me, 28 years of us🎈

I mean, I couldn’t blog from the age of 0-10 so I feel like this may be the most poignant 10 years of my life so far (that I am capable of blogging about)

This year, 2019, mark’s 10 years since I turned 18 and that is just so crazy to me because it honestly feels like yesterday.

10 whole years of being a fully fledged adult (who by the way totally doesn’t feel like one even now)

But aside from that I feel like these last 10 years, the first 10 of my adult life have been quite important!

10 whole years of working with children in one setting or another, whether it be on placement, work experience or employment.

I completed my compulsory education and A Levels…

Then went to Uni for 4 years and completed a Ba Hons degree.

It’s been almost 8 years in my first childcare job and 5 in my job as a Teaching ssistant, a job I love, the career I strived to have.

I met the love of my life & best friend during these 10 years ♡ We visited what has now become our favourite country, Italy (Several times) and we got engaged there and are now Husband and wife, for almost 3 year! (8 together)

We have a mortgage!!! We own our own home, which is very adult and sensible (& at times infuriating haha) Who knew owning your own home was so expensive!!

We got our own pets, 2 Guinea pigs. Sadly Remus is no longer with us but Captain is still going strong.

I’ve become an Auntie 3 times!! And it’s the most wonderful, lovely, fun, heart bursting, love filled, hilarious and joyful role that I’ve ever had. I love those little guys, they are so awesome.

& last year me and Sarah finally made it to Hogwarts ⚡ Florida ’18 was a holiday of a lifetime and it was as amazing (infact probably more amazing) than we could ever have imagined.

I think 18 year old Roseanne would be pretty pleased with how it’s going so far.

But, what do the final couple of years of my twenties have in store?

What do I hope to achieve before I enter the realms of my thirties?

  • Learn to drive
  • Visit a few more places in Italy
  • Complete a half marathon
  • Reach my SW target
  • Continue to improve my running
  • Re visit the HP tour with all the new bits.
  • Learn to be more content
  • Worry less
  • Have a short break in New York to celebrate our 30th birthday

What’s on your list?

Until next time,

Roseanne 🙂

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