Blogmas Day Three: Festive Decorations Haul ๐ŸŽ„

I love it when you start to see the Christmas decorations in the shops and now that it is December all the shops are full of the most festive of displays.

Me and my eldest Nephew had a look round one of our local stores (The Range) to see what festive decorations they had to offer, and we weren’t disappointed.

Here’s our little haul ๐ŸŽ„


Hanging decorations


Hanging berry star with gold glitter.

Rustic Heart woodland wreath.

Hanging bell decorations.

Tree decorations


Red glass ‘Merry Christmas’ bauble.

Clip on red and gold glitter birdies.

Rustic bell decoration with foliage.

So festive!

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Blogmas Day Two: The Christmas Tag ๐ŸŽ…

To start Blogmas off I thought that I would do a Christmas tag. Christmassy questions to get into the seasonal spirit. I love hearing about peoples Christmas traditions, food, favourite songs etc so I thought this would be a bit of fun.

I have chosen these questions from various different lists, and hopefully you guys will find these questions interesting. I’ve split the questions up into categories just to mix it up from last year.

Lets go!


Decorating

Is your Christmas tree real or fake?

Our Christmas tree is fake. Its what I always had growing up and so that’s what we had when we moved into our own home.

How do you decorate your home at Christmas?

Like a grotto! (that isn’t an exaggeration!!) I go all out with a different colour scheme for each room, just to maximise the festiveness.

I also love to have a wreath on the door.

What is your favourite Christmas colour?

I love the traditional Christmas colours of red, gold and green.

What tops your tree?

We have a red star that tops our tree. This came as part of the tree decoration set that my mum bought us when we moved into our own place.


Food

What do you usually have for Christmas dinner?

Tradtionally, my family always had turkey and gammon for our Christmas dinner. We usually have either Turkey or Chicken at my father in laws.

What is your favourite sweet treat at Christmas?

A Terry’s chocolate orange.

What is your favourite Christmas food?

It has to be the Christmas dinner, in its entirety. All those delicious components together to make one amazing meal. Pigs in blankets tho.

What is your Christmas day breakfast?

Although I am a firm believer that chocolate is 100% a legitimate breakfast for Christmas day, as a child my mum always made us have something proper for breakfast, therefore I always make me and Tim something. I usually make something we wouldn’t usually have such as dippy eggs and soldiers (A classic) or Pastries (Pan Au Choclat, Crossaints etc) and fruit juices.


Christmas Day

Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve?

No. We have Christmas eve boxes for the boys but we open all our presents on Christmas day.

Do you wake up early on Christmas day?

Oh yeah! I’m such a child when it comes to this aspect of Christmas. Anything from 6am is fair game to me. You get more Christmas day if you are up earlier haha.

Christmas day attire, Smart or Casual?

When I was younger I used to wear something nice or new to my Nana’s for Christmas lunch. However, as an adult I now choose comfort. I have even been known to wear a Reindeer onesie all day. I do usually opt for a Christmas jumper at the in laws though.

What would be your dream place to visit for the festive season?

I would love to go back to Florida at Christmas. I bet the theme parks look so cool and Disney would be SO magical. America does holidays well.


Christmas traditions

What is your favourite Christmas tradition?

My favourite tradition is driving around our local town together, on Christmas eve, to see the Christmas lights. Its a fun Christmas eve activity and makes you feel really festive and excited for the big day.

Name a Christmas tradition from your childhood.

When we were children and went to my Nana’s for Christmas day we used to have little present bags from my Nana. We would open our main presents from Nana at home in the morning with mum and dad, and then once we had, had Christmas lunch Nana would get out the little bags and we would open those. It spread the presents out a bit and it was a nice little bag of goodies, usually chocolate, socks, Shower gel and so on.

When do you start getting excited about Christmas?

Urm October??!! haha. As soon as Halloween is out of the way its fair game I’d say. Although, from the 24th November on wards I start decorating and that’s when it gets super exciting.

Do you have an advent calendar?

Of Course! I always have a chocolate advent calendar which is usually Cadbury’s. I have previously had different beauty advent calendar’s but I couldn’t decided on which one to get this year (Some are so pricey!!). I’ve also had colouring advent calenders too which are cool and super fun!


Christmas favourites

What is your favourite Christmas Song?

Last Christmas By Wham!

What is your favourite Christmas Film?

I don’t know if I have a favourite but I like ‘Deck the halls’ and ‘Elf’. I also love to tape the ‘Made for TV’ Christmas films haha.

What is your favourite Christmas activity to do?

I love going to the annual Christmas panto in our local town, a bit of Christmas shopping, stopping for a hot chocolate, decorating.

What is your favourite TV to watch at Christmas?

The soaps usually get pretty good at this time of the year, especially Eastenders. I also love watching I’m a celeb which is usually on at the beginning of December. The Doctor Who Christmas special, Harry Potter & the Philosphers Stone.


Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald โšก

As you may, or may not have seen, the new Fantastic Beasts film has recently come out in cinemas.

Me & my twin sister Sarah LOVE Harry Potter and were very excited about this new release.

This is the second film in the new series of magical movies from JK’s Wizarding World.


The last film came out in 2016 so this has been highly anticipated…

…. & it didn’t disappoint.

We couldn’t go to the Midnight showing that our local cinema put on, like last time, but I did notice that they had a special preview showing on the Wednesday before it was officially released.

The preview was a double bill, the first film followed by the latest one, SO exciting.

With our Florida Gryffindor jumpers on (From Diagon Alley, Universal!!) Gryffindor scarfs, and a Starbucks in hand we settled down to watch the latest instalment.

The film was fantastic (No pun intended!) and was a brilliant sequel to the last one, much darker and with lots more detail into the Wizarding world and the story of Grindelwald, Dumbledore & the Lestrange family, all headed up by the adorable Newt Scamamder, the hilarious Jacob and quirky Queenie.


Definatly worth a watch! ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป

We will give going again for sure!

*But remember #protecthesecrets

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Autumn OOTD ๐Ÿ๐Ÿ‚


๐Ÿ Autumn Outfit of the day ๐Ÿ‚


Autumn is here and it’s time to grab those cosy jeans, comfy knits & a hot chocolate cause it’s about to get chilly!

But, I have to admit, in terms of clothes, Autumn is probably my favourite season. Nothing beats being comfy!

Let’s take a look!


New Look, Jeggings ยฃ15 Jumper ยฃ9.99

New Look, Earrings ยฃ3.99

New Look, Rose Gold Pumps ยฃ17.99

I will definatly be grabbing a couple more of these jumpers as they did some lovely Autumnal colours, burnt orange, mustard etc, plus they are so comfy!

The Jeggings are brilliant as they are really super skinny but also very comfortable as they have an elasticated, high waist.

A great and super cosy Autumnal outfit ๐ŸŽƒ๐Ÿ‚๐Ÿ

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Holiblog: Florida edition pt 4


FOOD


Of course I had to include food in this little series because,lets be real, if you’ve been to America you’ll know that the food is INSANE and so tasty.

I will include my favourite foods/meals and the best places that we visited to eat too.

My favourite American eatery was by far…. Denny’s!! I loved it.


Denny’s


It was everything I imagined an American diner to be and the food was incredible.

My favourite meal (I had it both times that we visited) was ‘Moons over my Hammy’ A delish breakfast sandwich served with their Hash browns on the side.

Their hash browns are a little different to ours but they are super yummy.

I also loved the Dennys milkshakes, I had the Oreo one the cake batter one too.

The cake batter one was amazing, cake-tastic!


Chuy’s Mexican food


My sister noticed this Mexican restaurant when we were in a taxi on our way back from Wal-Mart. The food was incredible, probably one of the best Mexican meals that I’ve ever had.

You were never going to go hungry as they bring over lovely warm and salty tortilla chips (refilled as soon as the basket is empty) These go perfectly with the guacamole ๐Ÿ˜

The meals are insane, typical giant American portions but so flavourful.

I went for a combo, which was great as it was made up of different Mexican meals, perfect if you want to try lots of different dishes or can’t decide what to go for!!

We all really enjoyed this meal.


Enclave Suites


Our hotel served some amazing food.

The breakfast was all inclusive and thanks to Virgin we were upgraded ๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿป

The hot buffet & continental options were fantastic and they changed each day.

My favourite were the Mickey Mouse waffles ๐Ÿ˜ Pancakes & their incredibly crispy bacon, it was to die for (put the pancakes & bacon together and your onto a winner)

I also discovered a love of fruit loops too haha!!

Their lunchtime food was also delicious. They did a lovely BBQ on a Saturday which included the usual burgers and hot dogs, as well as some A-MAZ-ING nachos. All very reasonably priced too.

They did delicious sandwiches, crispy fries, quesadillas, platters to share and more. I loved the sound of everything on the menu tbh, it was always a hard choice so we often got the platters to share, as a group, so we could try a bit of everything.


Universal Studios


Now of course the Harryer areas of Universal were my ultimate fave! But the food was actually pretty good too.

At the two separate parks (Islands of Adventure, Hogsmede & Hogwarts castle and Universal Studios, Diagon Alley) they have eateries based on places from the Harry Potter books.

Me and my twin sister Sarah ate at ‘The Leaky Cauldron’ in Diagon Alley during our Harry Potter day and on our last Universal day we all ate as a group at ‘The Three Broomsticks’ in Hogsmede.

They served traditional British food and the fish and chips were to die for!! I had them both times because they were so good.

The ice cream at Florean Fortescues in Diagon Alley was amazing too. There weren’t that many good ice cream places in the area that we were in so this ice cream was a welcome treat and they did some really interesting and very yummy flavours.

The food was so amazing in America, one of my favourite cuisines.

Definatly one of the holiday highlights.

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Summer diaries: Week Five & Six ๐ŸŒž

Here is the final instalment in my ‘Summer diaries’ blog series ๐ŸŒž

Enjoy!

Monday 27th August 2018

As its a bank holiday me and Timmy went out to Woodbridge.

We went out for lunch and then had a lovely walk through the shops in town, sat in one of the parks to start planning our next holiday and walked back to the car, along the river.

It was a lovely chilled out bank holiday and it was lovely to spend sometime together.

Tuesday 28th August 2018

I spent my Tuesday in the library as it was my last day volunteering for the Summer Reading challenge.

I’ve really enjoyed helping out again, this was my 6th year.

I LOVE reading and I hope by volunteering I’ve helped some kiddies carry on their love of reading too.

Friday 31st August 2018

Today was an awesome day, it was mine and Evie-Mae’s Auntie & Niece day โ™ก

We had lots of fun together.

Our first stop was the park to eat our lunch…

Our second stop was the library to have a look at some books. We had a lovely time exploring the library and we read a few books too.

In the night garden was her favourite.

Our third and final stop was soft play! She loved going in and out of the soft tunnels, sitting in the ball pit and going down the slide together.

I can’t wait for our next day out together !!

In the evening I went to Chiquitos for dinner with some of my lovely work friends.

It was great to have a catch up, accompanied by some yummy food.

Saturday 1st September 2018

Today I went into town for a spot of retail therapy. I love shopping and no matter what my husband says, it’s a legitimate hobby!! Haha.

Whilst I was in town I went to Debenhams to see my friend Demi. Demi works for Dior and she wanted me to try out some of Diors new Autumn collection.

If you want to see what I thought of all the beautiful products you can check out my blog post here .

Sunday 2nd September 2018

Today I went to my first football match of the new season. It was a very important one for my local team as we were playing our local East Anglian rivals.

The match wasn’t the best but it ended with a draw which isn’t a bad result.

After the footie me and all my friends from our group gathered at Sam & Livy’s to celebrate Livy’s birthday.

We had a lovely BBQ in the sun and it was great to chill out and catch up with each other.

In the evening the boys came over for a sleepover, which was awesome!

We didn’t do much as it was late by the time we got home from the BBQ but, there was just enough time for a treat!ice creams all round.

Tuesday 4th September 2018

Me and Noah went to the cinema together this morning. Our local cinema does ‘Movies for juniors’ showings in the mornings and this morning it was Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’.

We had a great time watching a Disney classic and enjoying some snacks.

As this was my last day off I spent the afternoon chillin’ out. The perfect end to the summer hols.


And thats it, the end of the Summer hols! I can’t believe they are over already,

They seem to get quicker and quicker every year.

I hope you enjoyed this little mini series, taking a look inside my Summer hols and what I got up to.

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Dior’s New Autumn collection 2018 ๐Ÿ’„

Last weekend I went into Debenhams, more specifically the Dior counter to see my lovely friend who works there.

She wanted to show me, and try out, some of the amazing products from Dior’s latest Autumn collection.

The collection boasts a wide range of products from lipsticks with a new semi matte formula, highlighters, eye shadow and blushers.

They are all so beautiful and I loved trying them out.

So, let’s take a look at the collection…

The collections are the ‘Dior An Diable’ & The ‘DiorRouge Ultra Rouge’

The An Diable collection includes some eye shadow palettes and some beautiful highlighters.

The Ultra Rouge collection is permenant and includes their new Semi matte lipsticks that last for 12 hours!! Within the lipstick collection they have four reds so you can choose your perfect shade. Who doesn’t love a red lip!

It also includes nail varnishes, the colours have been selected to compliment the other products in the range, this is a brilliant idea.

Everything in these collections is Limited edition except for the blushers and highlighters.

So, what products did I try out?

  • The Blusher is no 219 in the shade Rose Montaigne Shimmer.

This is a lovely kinky toned blush with a lovely shimmer running through it. This added a lovely rosy flush to my cheeks.

  • Highlighter Shade no 02.

This is a beautiful highlighter and it is SO pigmented. It gives you a lovely irredescent glow and is just so pretty.

Like the blushers these are the perfect size for popping into your handbag on the go, I’m not a fan of bulky packaging.

  • Ultra Rouge Lipstick in the shade Rouge 485.

This lipstick was a pretty pink tone. As I said it is semi matte but wasn’t at all tacky and it really did last on my lips.

I also love the lipstick packaging, it looks so sleek.

  • Eyeshadow palette in the shade 837 Devilish.

This eye shadow palette is so pretty. I love the range of colours and it has some perfect Autumn shades for day and night time looks.

Those goldy tones and the rosey, burgundy are just beautiful.

The colour I wore was the pretty and subtle pink shade in the top corner.

Again, a super handy size!

I had so much fun trying all these products out and I will be going back in to Debenhams to purchase a few myself!

The collection is well worth checking out, especially for all you make up and beauty lovers out there!

It’s very reasonably priced for such good quality and high end make up.

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Summer diaries: Week Two, Three & Four!

Apologies for the delay! But my ‘Holiblog’ series kind of took over!

But, the summer hols are only just over so I thought I would finish the series up and update you guys on how I spent the middle weeks of the holidays.

The reason I’ve lumped a few weeks together is because I’m not going to actually explain what I did in weeks Two and Three as that is when we were in Florida…Instead I will leave the links to my holiblogs…

Weeks Two and Three

Florida 18 Holiblog pt1

Florida 18 Holiblog pt2

Florida 18 Holiblog pt3

Week Four

Thursday 23rd/Friday 24th August 2018

Tonight (Thurs) I slept over at my twin sister Sarah’s house.

We had a treat dinner before heading to bed ready for the celebrations the next day.

Friday 24th August 2018 marks two years since my beautiful youngest nephew Casey James was born.

I am so happy I am waking up there and being able to experience his birthday with him first thing. We have a fun day planned!

Our first stop was the cinema to watch

‘Luis and the aliens’

It was brilliant and we had a great time, especially with some yummy snacks and drinks included.

The film was one of the best kids films I’ve seen in ages!

Next stop! McDonald’s for a birthday treat lunch.

Stop number three, Pennikkity Pots!

Here we did something a bit different but fun and creative. The boys both chose a ceramic and they painted it. Casey chose a fish whilst Noah painted a shark.

They loved it!

Nana & Grandads in the evening for more presents opening and cake!!

It was a jammed packed but fun day to celebrate Casey turning two!

Saturday 25th August 2018

Me & my friend from work met up this evening to have a meal together.

Nandos was delicious as usual and the halloumi starter proved as difficult to avoid as always.

It was great to catch up after my holiday and have a good old chat!

Sunday 26th August 2018

Casey Jame’s second birthday party.

It’s kind of a tradition to have a little party each year, with all the family! So of course this year was no exception.

At Sarah & Dans we had party food, present opening, fun, games and of course cake!

There was a definite dino theme amongst his presents and he loved his dinosaur Jurassic World birthday cake.

We rounded off the day with a delicious impromptu (always the best kind) Chinese takeaway.

That’s the penultimate week done, its the last week next week ๐Ÿ˜ฑ

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Holiblog: Florida edition pt 3


Disney โญ


The other main reason for visiting Orlando, Florida was to go to Disney World.

& if you havn’t been, but love Disney, I would highly recommend it! It’s just so damn magical โœจ

My husband went as a child and always said this, but I really think you have to experience it to understand.

If I was to try and describe it to you I would just say that it feels really magical, and you wander around in this magical Disney bubble and it’s just fun and happy and full of colourful mickey ears and characters and people bursting into song as if that’s just normal, because at Disney it is, and it’s just awesome.

Disney has loads of different parks so I will share some pictures and memories from each one for you. I will also include a bit on the parades/shows that we saw as they do them SO well at Disney.

Enjoy!


Disney’s Magic Kingdom โญ


The most magical place on earth!

& it really is.

As soon as you walk in you see Mickey shaped topiary, buildings that look like something straight out of an old school Disney film (think Mary Poppins) balloons, lights, vehicles carrying parades and then right at the end of this upbeat Disney street is a truly magical sight, the Disney castle!

Magic Kingdom is home to loads of great rides such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ‘Its a small world’ ‘Haunted Mansion’ ‘Space Mountain’ ‘Thunder Mountain’ ‘Splash Mountain’ and many more!

They also do fantastic character parades that are well worth a watch. They really do unleash your inner child!

The ‘Happily Ever After’ Fireworks are also amazing and 100% worth a watch! So magical ๐ŸŽ†


Disney’s Animal Kingdom ๐Ÿฆ


Animal Kingdom was probably one of my favourite parks out of all of the Disney parks. They are all so well themed and this was no exception!

The park is split into different continents such as Africa and Asia and the animal attractions are themed accordingly.

It is all set around the tree of life which is at the centre of the park and is quite a beautiful sight to behold! (& a great photo point)

It hosts many AMAZING shows, and FYI the Finding Nemo Musical is not to be missed!! Seriously one of the best musicals I’ve ever seen and it doesn’t take up hours of your life!!

The Safari is also brilliant! Its such an awesome feature for the park and the array of animals that you get to see it fantastic.

Animal Kingdom is also home to the largest Rainforest Cafe in the world. We had our lunch in there and it’s really cool inside. If you’ve ever wanted to experience lunch in the rainforest then it’s definatly for you!


Disney’s Epcot ๐Ÿ”ฎ


Also one of my faves (unexpectedly) was Disney’s Epcot park! Epcot is quite different from the other Disney parks but is so interesting in what it has to offer.

The great thing about Disney World is the variety that all the different parks offer, there really is something for everyone.

Epcot is so interesting because it’s very much about the future and how we can improve the world and build on the world we have using our minds, skills, resources and technology.

This is shown through experiences, games and rides.

One of my favourite rides, Soarin was a fantastic 4D simulator ride over different landscapes and it was phenomonal.

It also has a cool ‘Finding Nemo’ section within the Aquarium which was cool. The different sea life was great to see.

Plus, they did the best mac and cheese that I had the whole time I was in America haha.

Aside from these things it also boasts a MASSIVE lake that is surrounded by buildings and eateries all themed around different countries, so you can take mini tour around the world as you walk around the lake. It’s like nowhere I’ve ever been to before and it is really well done.

& not forgetting the Epcot fireworks which are hands down the best I’ve ever seen. It was an absolutely fantastic show and the fireworks, lights and music were so impressive! Again, not one to be missed.

Epcot was also epic because I got another character photo with Goofy (my fave) in my Goofy hat & he signed my hat! Awesome.


Disney’s Hollywood Studios ๐ŸŽฌ


This is one of the newer parks and is home to lots of the Star Wars action.

Again, this was really well themed.

The streets looked like old style American New York sidewalks with skyscrapers, theatres, gas stations, diners and so on.

The main stage always played host to a show or performance which was cool to stop and watch as you walked around.

We turned up just in for the ‘March of the first order’ of Stormtroopers. Even as someone who isn’t a fan of Star Wars I thought this was really cool. It was so realistic and you just get so swept up in it all that you kind of forget it isn’t real.

Hollywood Studios also has great features and rides such as ‘Frozen’ the ‘Indiana Jones Stunt show’ ‘Tower of terror’ ‘Rockin Rollercoaster’ and loads more.

It’s also home to the brand new ‘Toy Story Land’ which is so cool. Everything in this part of the park is seemingly made out of toys, Knexs for the fences, giant Jenga pieces, building blocks, and so on.


Disney’s Blizzard Beach โ„


Disney also plays host to two different water parks. Again these are really well themed and lots of fun.

The one we made it to was Blizzard Beach.

I was really glad we managed to see one of the water parks however, our day didn’t turn out as planned as a storm hit as we arrived and we were unable to go on any rides. Eventually we had to give up and find something else to do for the day which was a shame.

We did get to walk around the park and see all the themeing for a little bit before the storm struck but, we didn’t really get to experience it in its full glory.

However, this was where I had my first photo with Goofy so every cloud!

The other park is called ‘Typhoon Lagoon’.


I’ve always been a big fan of Disney films but I was never that fussed about visiting Disney, however now that I have been all I would say to you is GO!

Disney truly is SO much more amazing and magical than I could have ever imagined and so much fun, for all the family! It really does have to been seen to be believed and experienced to be appreciated. I’ve definatly got the Disney bug now so next stop Disneyland Paris haha ๐ŸŽข๐ŸŽก๐Ÿฐ

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚

Back to School stationary โœ


Back to School Stationary


And yeah it counts, because I work in a school! Haha.

I love a bit of stationary, any excuse! But one that’s actually legit is ‘Back to School’ at September time.

I work as a learning support assistant (Or a TA, whatever you like!) in a primary school, So stationary is essential! But also, who doesn’t love a pretty notebook & pencil case!?!

So, here’s my mini haul ready to go back to work this September! Let’s take a look!



Diary/Planner


Pink is one of my absolute fave colours, especially this dusky shade! teamed with the gold font and I was sold.

This diary is perfect for this time of year as it starts from July 2018 and goes all the way up to August 2019.

I really like the timetable section as this will be super handy at work for keeping track of where I need to be and when.

This was ยฃ8.99 in WH Smith’s.


Notebooks


I have two of these Harry Potter notebooks ready for the coming year and they are SO cool.

They are a simple lined notebook with a ring spine.

Perfect for taking notes and keeping on top of lists.

These were both given to me as a gift but there is alot of Harry Potter merch around atm so I’m sure they, or something similar, would be super easy to find!


Pens


September means Sharpies!

I always get a new set of these bad boys in the ‘Back to School’ sales and this year was no exception!

I always look in Tesco as they usually have a great stationary sale around this time of year and it’s all so pretty.

This is a limited edition set of Sharpies that comes with 30 pens. It has 24 Fine point markers and 6 Ultra fine point markers.

Sharpies are great, the selection of colours in this set is awesome and they last ages.

This set was ยฃ15 in Tesco.


Highlighters


These highlighter are beautiful ๐Ÿ˜

I use highlighters all the time at work and they are just super handy when making notes, taking observations and doing assessments.

I had to pick these up in pastel colours because, just look at them!!!

SO cool.

This pack was a bargain at ยฃ2.99 because I was buying the planner at the same time. Kind of like an add on item!

ยฃ2.99 in WH Smith’s


Enjoy your time back at school!

Until next time,

Roseanne ๐Ÿ™‚