In Pictures

Snippets

Work, work and more work. Cowboys held to ransom. Yummy, yummy Pancake Day. Jigsaw puzzles everywhere. All dolled up for Valentines.

Caramel Cupcakes

What is a party without some very cute and very tasty cupcakes?  Always looking for new recipes, I decided to make Caramel Cupcakes for Louie’s woodland themed birthday.

Making pretty cupcakes is always a little tricky for me (I think its my inner perfectionist), but I was surprised that the recipe was so easy, replacing the usual caster sugar with muscovado sugar giving the cupcake its caramel flavour. If caramel cupcakes aren’t your cup of tea (although, they are very good with a cup of tea!) you can find lots of other cupcake recipes here.

After combining all of the ingredients together, they went into the oven and that was the easy part out of the way. If you are new to baking, there are some great tips over on the Baking Mad website, including a nifty little video showing you how to make cupcakes. 

20 minutes later, 12 perfect little buns came out of the oven. After leaving them to cool, I began to make the frosting, so they looked like proper little cupcakes. The golden icing sugar gives a great depth of flavour to the icing without the need for anything fiddly. Of course, Louie decided it looked like too much fun so he decided to help me out.

And there we have it. Twelve (almost) perfect cupcakes fit for a 3^rd birthday party and goodness, they were very yummy!

Our Year, 2012

 January, a party fit for a bumble bee

 February, playdough fun

 March, a splashing party!

 April, a trip to Peterborough

 May, exploring Calke

 June, on holiday

 July, new favourites

 August, a birthday cake for Mother Hen

 September, camping in the Cotswolds

 October, the amazing Upton House

November, an autumnal walk through Swithland

December, The best Christmas to date.

2011

2010

Today we...

 Went Shopping

 Baked Whoopie Pies

 Snuggled

 Played in the garden

 Slept

 Lounged

 Washed

 Ate Al Fresco

 Played animals

 Played 'cat walk'

Hazy Summer Evenings

Okay so it may not technically be summer just yet, but the weather seems to think so! This evening after our BBQ, we went for a nice stroll into the fields that surround where we live. You don't have to walk very far to be in the middle of fields, and we love to spend our summer exploring, it has become somewhat of a ritual.

We found some cows

Nice hair do Mummy

Beautiful

 As you can see, we aren't too far from the city, you can see it in the distance. Further forward you can see the M1 which passes but 50 yards from our house.

It was a little bright!

We found a tyre swing

 On our way home, we stopped off at the park so that Papa and I could have a sit down. We had quite a walk!

What a glorious warm and hazy evening. We must do this more often!