Our Summer Holiday Break

So! The summer holidays have been and gone and on Tuesday my little ones went back to school. Over the summer we had a good mixture of being away and doing our own activities. The children have had their own days out and we've had some rest days too. In this post I wanted to share what we got up to, in a nut shell of course!

We kicked off the summer holidays in a rather wonderful way with our cousins wedding. Everyone looked amazing and we all had such a lovely time celebrating with the happy brides. Here's some photos from the wedding which the children enjoyed. I just loved the whole set up!

Geekfest 3:0 at Heartlands Cornwall

On July 1st myself, the mini cupcakes and Mr K headed to Heartlands for Geekfest 3.0, the third Geekfest to be held at Heartlands in Cornwall. This event celebrates everything geeky from Star Wars, Doctor Who, comics, merchandise, gaming, cosplay and so much more.

Next year I'm definitely going to go in cosplay because it looked so much fun and so natural. Little A dressed up as Captain America and Midge went with a Harlequin theme she put together herself. Sadly her bought outfit didn't fit her properly but ever the creative she tried her best with what she could find!

Captain America

Midge excited for Geekfest!

We explored the play area first which both the children loved and gave Mr K and I the chance to look at the map of all the events.

Burning rubber!

We saw some fantastic prosthetic  work from Gorton Studios. The characters below are all from Doctor Who, you will probably recognise them if you're a fan! We got to see some evil spirit make up being done by Morgan Kimber which was amazing. 

Little A loved the Ood and Midge loved the Madme Vestra mask.

Madam Vestra

Morgan Kimber from Gorton Studios doing an evil spirit make over

 We then went on to the Nerf area where Mr k, Midge and I watched A run wild with a Nerf gun for about 20 minutes diving behind hide outs and shooting random people with foam bullets. After this we walked to the main courtyard which had some large army vehicles  and a replica DeLorean time machine car from Back to the Future. Little A found a Creeper from Minecraft, a game he enjoys playing on his tablet.

Little A ready to do Nerf battle

Little A and a Creeper!

I bumped into an Edea cosplay which totally made my day. I adored Final Fantasy VIII as a kid and loved all the characters, Edea was a favourite sorceress of mine but I also loved Ultimacia and Adel but I'm thinking that as a cosplay wouldn't be easy to do!

The fabulous Edea from Final Fantasy VIII

There was plenty of Star Wars cosplay with Stormtroopers keeping things on check and a huge Chewbacca posing for photos with fellow geeks (much to Mr K's delight!)

Mr K with Chewbacca and a Stormtrooper

We ventured over to the tent which held some stalls but sadly it was this part that was a bit of a let down for me; the reason being that Mr K, who was using his wheelchair could only get around half the stalls (and with great difficulty given everyone was moving in a clockwise motion) so there were several stalls he missed out on not to mention in order to take the children to the face paints and comic stall I had to leave him alone near the entrance!

Other than that, there were some fabulous stalls. We bought key rings from Jimagination Creations, next time I'll be buying a Harry Potter bookmark which looked fantastic (photo below is from the facebook page where you can also purchase items!) We checked out Superhero Stash where I picked up badges (Captain America of course.) but they sold mugs, key rings, canvas prints and Funko Pops too. The children got some glitter tattoos while I browsed through the comics and graphic novels from Truro based comic store Bazbo Comics. I picked up 2 Wonder Woman comics and 2 Captain America ones for Mr K. I'm thinking of framing mine, I love the art work on the old comics. I want to go back and get some more plus there were plenty which my brother would like. 

One of my awesome Wonder Woman comic books

Harry Potter bookmark on my wishlist!

Before we left we had another quick wander around, saw some more cosplay and Midge took Little A to pose with the Stormtroopers. We all had an ace day!

Little A and Midge getting their photo taken by a Stormtrooper! Lucky little man got to wear his helmet!

Thanks Geekfest, we'll see you next year!

Cupcake Mumma

Visiting Duchy College Open Farm Day!

Last Sunday I had the urge to go out and do something. I wasn't 100% sure what but I needed to get the little ones out of the house for a change of scenery (not just them either!) I was browsing my social media during my morning social media catch up (we all do it right?) and came across Duchy Colleges open day. Rosewarne Duchy college is a local college a 15 minute walk from our house. I knew that the Mini Cupcakes would love the dog shows, the birds, horses and the different games that would be there. 

  We arrived (dog in tow) and set off exploring the flowers and stopping every few moments to allow Little A to pet the many dogs going through to the dog show. We found diggers and tractors which Midge loved and Little A spotted a mini steam train so hopped on that for a ride before posing with a Massey Ferguson tractor.

Midge played a couple of games on the picnic lawn with A before we headed to the first field and watched a bit of the dog show, said a quick hello to some school friends and having a tasty ice cream. We then explored some of the farm. We only saw turkeys (I'll never eat another one, they are rather beautiful creatures!) because all the cows, sheep and donkeys were out in another field. 

We ventured down to a large field where we met Peanut the rescue pony and got to see several beautiful horses galloping up and down the field with their riders dressed up and showing off their horseback archery. You can actually go to St. Ives and visit the Old Mill Stables horse riding school to learn to do horseback archery. I adored the horses and wished there were more horses to look at. There were several more with carriages but sadly we missed that event.

We all had a really good day out at Duchy college. I do like being slightly spontaneous and really enjoyed the horses.

  As usual I asked the little ones what they thought was the best part of the day:

Midge: "I really loved the horses, Peanut was my favourite because he was a pony. I liked the games because i had fun and won two times. The ice cream was really good too!"

Little A: "I LOVED the horse bow and arrow shooting, I want to do that!" 

Cupcake Mumma

The Cupcakes Go to Cambridge ~ Beyond The Ice House 2017

Every 2 years we venture up to Cambridge to visit family and listen to local music at Beyond The Ice House on my Aunt and Uncles land. We meet up with cousins from Cambridge and Portsmouth plus Grandparents, several aunts and uncles and a lot of friends of the family including a real friendly bunch from Mount Dora, America, who were camped out in the meadow we were in.

The Mount Dora Crew

The ice house is an invite only event my Aunt and Uncle run every couple of years. There are drinks, live music, loads of food based on the bring and share theme plus laughter, games and plenty of people to chat to. The main aim of this event is not just about having a good time but raising money for Camfed, a charity that works to educate girls and support young women in rural communities in Africa. My Uncle worked in Zambia years ago and saw first hand the lack of education for girls. Ever since then Beyond The Ice House has raised money for the charity. The total I've just seen for this year is £6550.15 which is AMAZING

The Holiday

As usual we had ourselves a little caravan, it was difficult to be here given this was our first holiday as a single parent family. The kids took a day to adjust too. By Saturday we were all much happier. We had bacon in the field in the morning, then went in to Cambridge (that was a near disaster, thankfully my friend rescued me!) we managed to catch up a bit whilst the children played but didn't spend nearly enough time together so have decided to do a girls day out somewhere in the near future!

When we got back it was pool time which is probably the highlight for all the children. Mr K met us at the house too which was so wonderful. We all got to chill out together with the children getting to know him a little before going back to swimming. We listened to some local bands and some American groups (including those folks from Mount Dora who got people in the spirit!)

Here are some photos from the holiday:
With thanks to my sister 

 I asked the children what their favourite bits of the holiday were:

Midge: "My very favourite part of the holiday was having loads of fun in the swimming pool, especially when I swam on my own! I loved seeing all my cousins so much"

Little A: " I liked the swimming pool and eating 'macon' (bacon) in the morning."

A successful event and a successful first solo parenting holiday for me!

Cupcake Mumma

April at The Cupcakes...

Finally it's the 1st of May. April wasn't awful but it wasn't exactly my idea of a good month either. It's taken me every ounce of strength, some wonderful friends and my children to get me through April and I'm keen to look ahead and put April behind me and keep moving forward.

As I said however, April wasn't all bad so here are a few things we got up to:

• Costa with the Mini Cupcakes
• Beach cleaning at Porthleven with the little ones, my Mum and Dad
• Beach fun in Porthleven. Paddling, sand art, running, picnics, sunbathing and photo taking!
• Dad helped with the beach cleaning!
• Little A spending time with his Dad at the park doing football practice
• On a bad day we went trampolining in town with friends, it was tough but the children had a lovely day out with their school friends and I had some distraction

• We spent Easter at my parents and had plenty of eggs, a roast dinner and  chilled weekend
• I read some books this month which was nice
• I did some crafting and put together my postcard frame, I like to swap my postcards around
• I went to Tehidy Woods twice. Once with my aunt for dog walking, which Peppa loved and once with the school for an all day trip
• We saw lots of animals, had an outdoors story, walked in mud and saved a few wanderers!
• I volunteered at school reading, doing phonics, handwriting and just generally being helpful. I'm gutted I have to step down soon thanks to the lovely job centre but I intend on sticking to it for as long as I can, I'm gaining more confidence every time I go in
• The pooch and I chilled out on my down days, I got a lovely photo of her smiling in her sleep
• My sister sent me a brand new toaster which is one of the best things I've ever had (I'm serious!)
• We celebrated Trevithick Day on Saturday 29th April and it was such a great day with the Mini Cupcakes, Mum and Dad. I took plenty of photos and will be doing a separate post so do look out for that!

So that was our April. The children enjoyed our little day trips, they've been doing school stuff and enjoying their outside school clubs too. They're pretty happy and that makes me really happy, I'm doing something right anyway!

May should be a nice month. I have to job search, and visit the dentist and doctors for all my reviews and I start some counselling which I really do need. I also plan on having more Costa mornings with my friends, reading more, Midge is off to London on Wednesday, A starts his football club next week and we have half term at the end of May too!

Hope you've all had a good April, here's to May.

Cupcake Mumma x

Fuzzikins Craft Dozy Dogs ~ Review

Fuzzikins Craft sent us a lovely set of little Dozy Dogs puppies to decorate! They are so cute! In the box you get 3 different sized puppies to decorate with different coloured pens and fabric to put their little beds together. There is even a cape, eye masks and stickers for your little pups!

Both the children loved decorating their dozy dogs. I made the beds because they were a little fiddly. I'm sure Midge could've made them with some more patience, especially as there are several lollipop sticks to aid the making process but never mind! We all coloured a puppy in and every one is super unique as you can see!

 Midges, Little A's and Mummy's Dozy Dogs

All tucked up in bed

Both the children gave the play set a thumbs up. Midge said it gets a 9/10 because all the dogs should've had capes, which I agree with. My only criticism is that the ink went all over our hands (you'll need some warm water and soap to get this off) as proudly shown by Midge below:

Check out the Fuzzikins Craft Facebook page!

Cupcake Mumma and The Mini Cupcakes

The Story Corner Story Cards and Colouring Pages - Review

We love books, we love stories and we love using our imagination. Midge is gradually moving onto bigger and more difficult books preferring to delve into the writers own world of fun characters and their adventures. Little A is improving every term with this reading and I try to encourage him wherever I can. 

As A is only 6 he's still really into imaginative play and he loves the visual aspect to stories. At school, stories are shown on projectors. He tries to tell stories by their illustrations before reading the words and we've just started using The Story Corner's story cards. We've got 2 sets of these cards, both wonderfully illustrated and packaged safely in attractive boxes for safe keeping. Midge used one set and found it all quite fun. I sent this set to year 1 which is the year Little A is in. His teacher thought they were great and would come in really useful.

A found it a little harder to get the idea but as I made up names and told my story he soon joined in. He used the space story cards to tell the story of a girl called Dora who went to space with her bunny friend to eat sandwiches and zap aliens who tried to steal her!

We also had some great fun colouring in one of two big nursery rhyme posters from The Story Corner. I actually had a huge amount of fun with this activity. We haven't finished our fairy tale poster yet but I will show you our nursery rhymes one below. We had great fun trying to figure out all the rhymes, then singing them over and over again. A really tried hard to stay in the lines. He's normally one to just scribble and walk off, but because his sister and I were involved and visibly enjoying ourselves he was up for the fun too! We were all really pleased with how these came out.

I had a look at The Story Corners website and have recommended them to my children's school. I volunteer in reception and the class teacher thinks the story cards are fabulous! We were sat one day with some children and I told her how we had been discussing space a lot when she said about making a space themed corner! I said I'd bring in some cards to show her and since then I've shown the children the cards who really like them! Initially they struggled to grasp the concept but with a little modelling they had fun making up similar space themed stories as A did at home.

I think both activities are really fun ideas for home especially for chill out time. I also thought home school parents would enjoy the cards. I really love the story stones which yet again look wonderful with delicate illustrations. The Story Corner kindly sent me some story cards and colouring sheets for this review and I've loved discovering both mine and the children's imagination and creativity all over again.

Cupcake Mumma

*Update 2026: I can no longer find the item for sale but if you search 'story cards', 'story dice' or 'story stones', you will find lots of great products similar to these*