Mummy & Moose
clapping, napping and yapping our way through the day

Meal Plan – Spaghetti is the best invention ever. Not a debate.

This was nearly a week of flamboyant Gousto box style meals. It turns out though that I am not eligible for their new customer deals so it was back to the drawing board and the cheaper options – I think I will do a DIY version of those boxes one week though.

MrG has zero confidence in the kitchen even though he is actually not a bad cook. If I print off a recipe and get the bits and bobs for him to be able to follow it easily I might actually get out of cooking for a few nights. That will require planning and this week that is just 1 ball to juggle too many.

February is pretty much over (does the 29th even count as a proper day?!) but it is freezing today and I think that has influenced many of this weeks meal choices. I am pining for the warmer weather and lovely fresh salads. I hope we get a decent summer this year – in the meantime at least we have spaghetti.

chicken parmigiana

This week in food

Friday – No going out for me as Bess isn’t well. She nursed a bit of toast and butter. We will have Chicken Korma.

Saturday – My heart says Chinese takeaway but I must resist. I think we will have Chicken Parmigiana (or at least my half arsed attempt. Zero effort with all the reward) with roasted veg.

Sunday – Good old Roast Chicken with veg and some homemade yorkshire puddings.

Monday – Burgers and chips

Tuesday – Roasted veg with sausages and cheesy mash

Wednesday – Fish in butter sauce with pasta and peas served with freshly baked bread rolls

Thursday – Chicken goujons with potato gratin and salad.

Breakfasts will be porridge mainly and possibly more pancakes.

Lunches for me will consist of whatever we have in the cupboards. I have really gone off nibbling in the day which is unlike me. Probably not a bad thing though. I might make up a batch of soup early in the week to use up the slightly sadder looking veg we have in the fridge.

 

Katykicker

Funatic foam – good clean fun!

We were sent these products for the purpose of writing this post – all opinions remain honest and my own. 

The first thing I noticed about this foam was the amazing scent – this was because I managed to spray myself in the face. Great start. Moose found it funny and luckily the big ingredient in Funatic Foam is soap!

Moose absolutely loved bath time when he was a baby. He was never happier than when he was sploshing around. Then he had a change of heart when he was around 2 years of age and all of a sudden bath time became less of a dream and more of a nightmare.

He HATED his hair being washed and wasn’t massively keen on playing in the water anymore and to be honest I could never really pinpoint why. Nothing had ever happened as far as I knew to put him off. Weird. After chatting with a few other Mums it turned out that this was a common issue!

So after that I decided to try to make it fun again. I felt like injecting the fun back into the bath time experience was absolutely necessary if we were ever going to conquer this.

What is it?

Funatic Foam is a super soap. It comes in a recyclable spray bottle with a reach of 3 metres! It’s safe for little eyes and I found it to be a really good cleanser and kind to Moose’s skin. He can be prone to rashes with some products but Funatic Foam was great for him!

The foam is available in 3 scents; Blue Bubblegum, Green Apple and Pink Berry and to add to the fun the foam is coloured too! Moose had great fun spraying the wall and himself with the easy to use trigger.

I did notice that the foam made the floor a little slippery so as with any products used in the bath/shower I would urge a little caution. The cost of the foam isn’t bad at £5.99. It’s not dissimilar to the cost of single use products such as bath bombs and this has more than one use!

In the summer Funatic Foam would be a great product to use outdoors!

We really enjoyed playing with Funatic Foam and I would buy it as a special treat. Funatic Foam is available to buy from Tesco and Smyths

Meet the plastics and old skool Pac-Man – Living Arrows week 5 2020

“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth”

Each week I like to (try and) link up to a series called Living arrows which is about celebrating childhood. You can find out more here

 

pac-man board game

Just lately we have really got back into the practise of playing games together and I love it. Most of the time. Don’t get me wrong it can head south pretty quickly if a certain someone starts to lose (no, not me…) but in the main it’s a nice way to spend some time together. MrG got this retro beauty down from it’s dusty hiding place and Moose loves it!

The best board games are the ones that don’t take long to set up and are easy to play. This one definitely ticks all boxes. It’s nice that MrG has quite a few fun things from his childhood. I have the odd bit but being the eldest of 5 meant that most of mine was passed down to my siblings when we were still young.

Bess and I popped to a local shopping centre this week. We had a bit of time to kill so we went for a browse for pretty dresses, as you do. Bess thought that these mannequins reminded her of “the plastics” from mean girls so of course she wanted to get a photo – I love it when she lets her inner goofball out. I might have to go back and buy those boots on the middle mannequin…

 

 

Living Arrows

[ad gifted] Sweets for the sweet – Valentines with Swizzels

I received these product for the purpose of writing this post. All opinions are my own.

I live with the least romantic man on the planet. To say that Valentines day is a bit of a non event in our house would be underplaying it massively. After 18 years together (what he lacks in romance he does make up for in other areas..) I have just accepted that he’s no Prince Charming and if I want to celebrate things like Valentines day then it’s best not to rely on him to present me with lavish gifts.

I do like an excuse to spoil myself.

Like many other Mums (and a few Dads I expect) I don’t really think of myself much when it comes to gift buying so when I spy something like Valentines day coming then I use it to it’s full effect!

I wouldn’t like to go mad with it. Let’s face it, most of the time our budget simply wouldn’t allow me to anyway. This week I got a surprise in the post from Swizzels and it actually made me squeak with excitement when I opened it. Yes, I am nearly 40. Doesn’t mean I don’t have a sweet tooth though!

sweet hamper

The best thing about being a grown up

As a responsible parent I made sure to open my goodies away from my children. The moment I got back from school run though I couldn’t help myself! Luckily the best thing about being a grown up is that I can eat sweets whenever I like. Swizzels have nailed Valentines day this year. I had no idea that you could shop for Swizzels sweets online!

The full range of sweets and hampers can be viewed and purchased at Swizzels shop. And if you order before Feb 14th 2020 then you can get 15% off the whole site by using code V15.

personalised love heart sweets

Personalised goodness

First off, you should know, dear reader, that I am going to keep this tube forever! My name isn’t even that obscure but I never see it on stuff. Priced at a very reasonable £9.99, the personalised love hearts gift tube contains 25 mini love hearts rolls. The tube can be personalised with any name but no swear words please. They will do anything for love, but they won’t print…that.

Pick your own

The online Swizzels shop stocks a bigger than expected range of sweet hampers. They suit most peoples budget, some can be personalised and they range from £2.99 to £21.99!

The hamper I received is called the Retro Red Sweet Hamper and retails at £7.99. A small price to pay to make someone as happy as I was when I opened it.

 

 

Our January likes and loves

Now that what felt like the year of January is drawing to a close (finally!) I wanted to start something new for the blog for 2020. I want, at the end of each month, to just take some times to think about what we have done or what I have done during that month. I’m hoping that this moment of reflection will be a chance to breathe it all in I suppose.

2019 kind of rushed by in a bit of a blur – sometimes literally thanks to my dodgy eyes. Taking the year month by month will mean that I stay focused. Each month will be a bit different. Some will be duller than others but I think it will be a cool little project for us.

January then

Birthdays

Bess turned 14 this month. I cannot actually believe this has happened and I am a little bit in denial. She’s growing up to be such an incredibly cool person. Way cooler than I ever was at her age. She has an amazing sense of self and I love it.

I asked her what she wanted for her birthday and she had no idea. That’s the trouble with having a birthday so close to Christmas I guess.  In the end I ordered her a copy of The Handmaids Tale, a new sim which will mean that she has unlimited data every month (and really, what teen doesn’t want that) and I made her a bit of a geeky gift. She loves the musical “Be More Chill”, if you get it then you get it…

birthday gifts

We ended up spending a day together and did a spot of clothes shopping. I bought her a few new bits including a dress to wear to her uncles wedding next month. We had a lovely day in the city centre, it’s not that often that we have time with just the 2 of us and it’s something that I want to make happen more throughout 2020. Even just 1 day a month would be quite nice.

Going out

Earlier this month we were invited to a new inflatable theme park. Inflata Nation is the very first permanent inflatable theme park in Cambridgeshire and Moose flipping LOVED IT!

We were invited as The Knight Tribes plus ones (plus two?) and you can read all about it here.

We were fortunate enough to be invited back to The New Theatre Peterborough for their showing of Cabaret.

I had never seen the movie or the show so my knowledge of it was limited to 1) it had Liza Minnelli in it and 2) it was set in Berlin. The amount of songs from the show that I was already familiar with was surprising. I have to admit that I left the Theatre after the show just utterly dumbstruck. It was a fantastic show and one that I think anyone who likes musicals should see. I warn you though, it gets very dark.

john partridge

Staying in

It is fair to say that I have been making good use of our subscriptions to both Netflix and Prime. Here are some of our favourites from January.

Terrestrial Tv

For me, it has been all about Sunday evenings. Doctor Who followed by Call The Midwife is very much my idea of a good time.

Netflix

  • The Witcher
  • The Good Place
  • Blue Planet II – I know its not new but we love it.
  • You

Prime

  • The Marvellous Mrs Maisel
  • House (Bess LOVES this too)
  • Jackie. Rob Delaney stand up.
  • Bananaman
  • The Storyteller
  • Picard