Severe wind and weather.

Source: metoffice.gov.uk

Birds Eye spooky Halloween meals.

To help make Halloween fun for little ones Birds Eye has commissioned food artist, Georgina Besterman, to create a selection of frightening food serving suggestions to give meal times a hint of spookiness.

To make so yummy meals with a spooky and fun twist for your little ones to enjoy this Halloween take a look at the step-by-step guides for recreating Birds Eye’s spooky meal suggestions.

Halloween Bat.

What you will need.

*  Birds Eye Chicken Space Shapes

*  Birds Eye Garden Peas

*  Birds Eye Field Fresh County Mix

*  Birds Eye Field Fresh Very Fine Green Beans

How to make your own scarily yummy Halloween Bat.

*  Body: place two Birds Eye moon shapes facing each other with a star balanced on top

*  Face: use one carrot disk out of the country mix and place two peas on it for eyes, a strip fine green bean for his mouth and two shards of cauliflower for his teeth

*  Wings: slice a Birds Eye potato waffle in half, jagged and diagonal 

*  Legs: sticks of green beans with claws cut from carrot disks

Awesome orange and ginger cake - Ella's Kitchen recipe.

Charity raffle for Cancer Research UK and Bliss.

The lovely Twin Mummy and Daddy are taking part in a number of events to raise money for two brilliant charities, Cancer Research UK and Bliss.

Their very first event will be a skydive!

Twin Mummy and Daddy would love to raise £2000 for each charity but to raise money for two very worthy causes they can’t do it without your help.

Their first fundraising event is their Fabulous Charity Raffle which is open right now!

Here are the prizes you could win with Twin Mummy and Daddy’s Fabulous Charity Raffle.

*  £50 Experience Gift voucher to spend at Experience Days

*  £15 iTunes voucher courtesy of Twin Mummy and Daddy

*  £10 iTunes voucher courtesy of Twin Mummy and Daddy

*  £25 voucher to spend at Bunnie Knitwear

*  A personalised word art print of your choice from Baby Cakes Treasures

Silk or velvet: Which is the best for a luxurious bedroom?

Your bedroom should be the most relaxing room in the house. This is the room where you should be able to shut out the rest of the world and devote some time to yourself, so why not give your bedroom a glamorous makeover with the most luxurious materials?

Luxury bedroom.

Both silk and velvet are synonymous with luxury and any room decorated with these fabrics will look very stylish. Beautiful fabrics can really add to a room: not only will they look lovely but they’ll also feel wonderfully sumptuous. These fabrics can be used in a variety of ways; you could simply use them as bed throws or you could have velvet curtains complemented by silk bedding. Some people have a sofa or chair in their bedrooms and there’s nothing more elegant than relaxing on a velvet covered chaise lounge at the end of a hectic day.

Bedroom inhabitants.

If younger family members invade your bedroom, make sure that they are aware that grubby fingers and velvet curtains don’t mix. A silk throw is relatively easy to clean and it will also give your bedroom a distinctive touch. If you are going for a neutral effect rather than a room with palpably feminine overtones you could always have a light coloured throw over a darker coloured duvet cover. If your room is decorated in light colours then try to achieve a contrasting look with a dark coloured velvet chair or sofa. Velvet curtains can look beautiful but they will dominate a smaller room, so silk curtains may be a better option.

Internet safety.

Swirly whirly cheesecake - Ella's Kitchen recipe.

Smiley spiral apple tarts - Ella's Kitchen recipe

Who knew apple tarts could taste this good? Little ones will love to get involved using pastry cutters and decorating the tarts with apple slices.

Halloween fancy dress costumes.

Lee is like a big kid at the moment, getting all excited about dressing up for Halloween.  As well as wanting to dress up for our spooky Halloween party he is also dressing up for work as they are doing a week-long celebration for Halloween and all of the staff are dressing up in Halloween inspired fancy dress to wear whilst they serve the guests who come to enjoy the celebrations and activities being hosted at the holiday park’s pub.

Whilst browsing the internet for the perfect fancy dress costume to wear to celebrate Halloween this year Lee has found a number of costumes he loves and wants to buy to dress up this Halloween (and being the big kid he is I suspect to wear throughout the year too whenever the mood hits) on mrcostumes.com.

As Lee is a fan of Batman he would love to dress up as the man himself and pretend to be Batman.

Being a fan of the Batman series he would also love to dress up as the character Joker.  

Mrcostumes.com has a gorgeous Joker costume and I am sure Lee would manage to pull of the mad man look very well ;-)

As I love Johnny Depp especially in the Pirates of the Caribbean films I would love Lee to dress up as a swashbuckling pirate.

I am also tempted to get Lee to dress up in a Buzz Lightyear costume as I know Bug would love seeing his daddy dress up as one of his favourite characters, Buzz, from Toy Story.

*  PR collaborative post *

Wednesday Words - Be Kind.

Quote by Ian Maclaren.

Coming apart (Project 365 - 283/365).

The majestic Norwegian Fjords.

Lately I have been thinking about my future and things I would love to do and achieve over the years, in essence things I want to do and achieve for a bucket list.  A strong theme in many of the things I would love to do is travel.  Over my lifetime I hope to travel to numerous countries across the globe to experience and witness a variety of places, cultures and sceneries. 

Since I was a child when I saw photographs and heard tales from my Mamgu and Dadcu about their holiday to the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland I have had a strong desire to visit those countries myself and witness their breath-taking natural beauty in person.  As I hope to holiday to the Scandinavian countries as my grandparents did, holidaying in any of the Scandinavian countries is top of my travel bucket list.

As going on a cruise in my lifetime is also on my bucket list, the idea of combining both my desire to see a Scandinavian country and take a cruise by going on a Norwegian fjords cruise holiday really appeals to me.

Unique outdoor wedding venues.

Lee and I are engaged and have been for a little over three years now.  After Lee romantically proposed to me we started discussing tying the knot, dreaming of how and where we would love to get married.  But before any firm wedding plans were made, a little over a month after getting engaged we found out we were expecting Bug and decided to put getting married on hold and focus on our bundle of love instead.

Recently we have renewed our desire to get married and as we hope to be husband and wife in the near future rather than waiting yet another three years, we have revived our wedding plans.  As well as finding the perfect wedding dress, photographer, flowers, table centres, invites and decorations we have been considering a number of venues to find the perfect one for our magical day.

Initially we wanted to get married abroad and have an intimate beach wedding and then a safari honeymoon in Africa we have decided to get married in the UK instead as there are so many amazing places here where we could get married and getting married in the UK would mean that our friends and family could be part of our big day.

Even though I think traditional church/chapel weddings are beautiful, both Lee and I would love our big day to be at a unique outdoor wedding venue and have fallen in love with 5 stunning and unique wedding venues that offer outdoor weddings.

Little Tikes Hen Friends review.

Asda have a new range of Little Tikes toys which is exclusively sold at Asda.  The new Little Tikes range of toys for little ones consists of a number of colourful, interactive, engaging and fun toys.

From the new Little Tikes range of toys Asda sent Bug the Little Tikes Hen Friends set to play with.

Little Tikes Hen Friends is an early learning toy aimed at little ones aged 12 months+.  Hen Friends consists of four colourful hens that click together to be stacked, nested inside of each other or played with as four individual little friends.

Little Tikes Hen Friends is a lovely stacking and nesting toy and great for little ones to play with, learning as they have fun exploring, investigating and playing with their four hen friends.  I think it is great that the Hen Friends can be played with in a number of ways and I think the eye-catching hens are perfect for imaginative play, hand eye coordination and developing motor skills.  I love how colourful and cute the hens are and I think the vibrant hens are very appealing to little ones with the adorable hens making fab little friends.

Hen Friends are described as hens that ‘click closed’ and ‘click’ together, unfortunately we have found that the hens do not click securely closed as such they do not stay together when you move them and even when you nest them inside of each other often when you open them up again the smaller hens inside are no longer stuck together.  The benefit of this is that little hands will not struggle to prise the hens apart as they would if the click connection was stronger but the downside is that one little knock and the hens come apart and I have found little ones get frustrated that their little hen friends do not stay complete especially when attempting to move them.

As Bug is 2½ years old, even though he has played with the Hen Friends and has enjoyed hiding little treats and his Lego Duplo friends inside of the hens, this stacking and nesting toy is a little young for him so he has shared the hens with his little friend who is 15 months old.  Bug’s little friend is at the ideal age to benefit from playing with the Hen Friends and every time he visits for a play date he loves playing with the colourful hens and giggles galore can be heard when Bug hides little treats inside the hens for his little pal to find.

Overall I think the Little Tikes Hen Friends set is a lovely stacking and nesting toy and even though it is a shame that they do not truly click together, little ones can still have lots of fun playing with the little hens which priced at £8 is great value for a toy that provides entertainment, encourages imaginative play, helps develop hand eye co-ordination and motor skills.

Along with the Little Tikes Hen Friends set there are a range of other Little Tikes products available now in Asda stores and online at www.asda.com.  A few of the other toys available from the Little Tikes range of toys exclusively available at Asda include –

Little Tikes 3-in-1 Pony Walker £35

Little Tikes Wooden Alphabet Spinner £7

Little Tikes Play Food Shopper £5

Little Tikes Noah’s Animal Arkestra £18

Little Tikes Pirates Quest £23

Little Tikes Discovery Farm £26

As we love Little Tikes with a great range of Little Tikes toys available exclusively at Asda I think a visit to Asda is called for to get Bug a few Little Tikes toys for Christmas….I know he would love the Noah’s Animal Arkestra, Pirates Quest and the Discovery Farm.

*  We were sent this Little Tikes Hen Friends from Asda to review for free but all views and opinions are my own and those of Bug and his little pal *

Bugs Bunny (Project 365 - 274/365).