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

My Sunday Photo ~ Beautiful Tulips

My favourite flowers are Gerberas, Tulips and pink Roses. These have really made smile this week. My week has ended so much better than it started and every time I look at these flowers they make me smile. I can't wait until they open.

Cupcake Mumma

My Sunday Photo ~ Ready Made Art

Porthleven Beach, Cornwall.

Plymouth Aquarium

A week ago I went to Plymouth Aquarium with year 1 including my little man. We did the panto and Pizza Hut too but it's the Aquarium I want to blog about because I love them.

We were greeted by two members of staff and were soon being shown around by Stu who was lovely and energetic. We started the tour looking at starfish which I love but I have to say I distracted Stu somewhat by asking about the Spider Crabs which I was fascinated by. He didn't mind and all the children who were fascinated along with me got a quick education in rather cool looking creatures. We moved on to a starfish chat and a little story before heading over to the Jellyfish, another sea creature I love.

Lots of lovely Starfish!

Close up of the Starfish

Beautiful Spider crab 

The Jellyfish didn't disappoint anyone least of all me. I took to the upside-down Jellyfish because of their beautiful colours. There were slightly larger Jellyfish, some smaller and a tank which must have been full of baby Jellyfish but I forgot to ask. All their colours were amazing.

Upside down Jellyfish

Beautiful, brightly coloured Jellyfish

Next we moved on to the big boys, the sharks. There were some big ol' sharks swimming happily around the plane wreck in their tank with their fish and stingray friends. Enzo the shark was hard to miss given his bizarre shape. Turns out he's a sand shark, one I've never heard about before. It was quite surreal being this far down, trying to imagine how much water was above our heads! Stu gave us a brief chat on the different sharks in this giant tank and a talk about the anatomical structure of some fish.

We viewed another part of the tank, going even further down! Then moved on to the last section of the tour before lunch. The beautiful octopus who stayed still in his corner during a quick talk soon showed his beautiful long tentacles off to us adults the moment the children moved on. Something that looked so bunched up, small and vulnerable suddenly didn't look much that way once his tentacles splayed demonstrating he was easily the length of his tank.

Octopus giving us a show!

We learnt that octopus can stick their tentacles up their noses and can reach around up there fairly easily. There were some other gruesome facts but they made me feel a little sick to be honest! The final stop was to look about the reef where the children spotted their favourites (Nemo! Dory!) It was sad that the turtle had passed away but she lived a much better life with Plymouth Aquarium than she would've done in the wild; something to do with her shell I think but I forget. It was a great tour, I really enjoyed myself and really want to go again with my family so we can look around the whole aquarium and take our time (the one luxury you don't get on a school trip with 5 year olds!)

Little crab walking along his tank

Cupcake Mumma

*Apologies for the photo quality! Understandably you can't use a flash as this upsets the fish..and my isn't what it was *laughs*

The Simple Things...

Wonderfully large Bumble Bees coming out to find my flowers. I've had to rescue several already from my kitchen. They seem to be able to get in but not get out quite as easy.

A wrap and a hot chocolate whilst reading the paper on your own.

Starting to stick my letters and some wonderful stamps in the scrap book I've owned for 2 years!

Beautiful Blossom

My son starting to write properly and drawing pictures not just for me but for his teachers too. So proud.

Having a tidy house, donating a bag of old bits to a friend who does car boot sales, reading a good blog post, finding inspiring recipes for next weeks meals, eating a healthy dinner with the children, walking to school with my husband, my daughter cycling to school looking so grown up, simple bread recipes, a clean bathroom, a shower after a workout, a thank-you e-mail, a .good morning, I love you' text and many other things.

Can you name some wonderfully simple things from this week?

What We've Been Up To...

For the last couple of weeks we've had lots of appointments with Little A and a lot of school things going on. There are school plays coming up, more meet the teacher days and more settling in sessions to come- it's all rather exciting (if a little hectic!) Although it's been busy and although Little A has been getting on great, we are having a pushing boundaries phase on top of some self regulating problems at home. Nothing too bad, it's just that it can all get a bit stressful! We have had fun though! Here are some photos of our last couple of weeks!

Fun purple star biscuits// Very happy little ones with their baking// Homemade fish with chips for dinner by Mr B// Back tickles for A// Walking to school together// Digger mad!// Walking over hills and in between daisies after a day out swimming// Cheeky biscuit in Costa// Baby chino!

My #Paperhaul box arrived!// Happy tasty mail// I actually had a night without Little A in my bed!// Hill top pose// The Moon, Mars and Jupiter// Little A out with his Mumma on a breakfast date// Summery card from #Paperhaul// Cupcakes// My new score on the TOTS100 which made me smile

I've also been carrying on from my #30dayswild and taken many more photos of nature. Here's a few favourites from my week:

I hope you've been all enjoying some sunshine and nature too despite how hectic our lives can be! Next week we meet Little A's reception teachers properly, will enjoy a teddy bears picnic, hopefully go to the local pool again and buy our holiday train tickets!

Cupcake Mumma

Beautiful Nature..#30DaysWild

I love nature. There is so much out there to see and enjoy and be thankful for. I love pointing new flowers out to the children (I think flowers must be my favourite thing) and the children love to point out birds and butterflies. I recently signed up to #30dayswild which has opened my eyes to new beautiful flowers around me and I've actively looked into breeds of birds and butterflies and asked online if people knew the names of flowers I'd found. It's been great so far! Here's a collection of photos from my first couple of weeks of being more open eyed and connected to Mother Nature.

Little A has really got into nature on your school runs

The colour on this flower is just stunning.

Busy bees!

I love Bumble Bees

A Blog Break & Catch Up

I've had a week or so off from blogging. I've not really been doing other things, I can't remember the last time I did something I enjoyed to be honest. Mr B has been on night shifts so I've been doing everything alone and found it quite tiring to be honest! Also lonely. I've not wanted to do much once bedtime is done other than curl up and watch something on the TV. Mostly I've turned it off at 10pm and gone upstairs to deal with Little A and his wake ups.

Anyway, I've had a little break, although I wanted to blog I just didn't want to sit and edit photos but here's a little catch up of our last few weeks:

I went to Bath with Midge in the half term where we enjoyed a huge park, her first cinema visit where we watched Paddington and we both had fun on the train journey. She was scared of going over the bridge that connects Plymouth but seems to have gotten over that fairly quickly! We enjoyed our first Shakeaway, the dairy free milkshakes were delicious. The day after I came back I spent some time with both children. We had breakfast out and bought them a toy each.

I visited my Gran with Little A this week to celebrate her 82nd birthday. I made her a lemon cake and enjoyed a lovely lunch with her, my Mum and my A. I've been enjoying nature as part of 30 days wild which I've seen over on social networks. I've spotted some lovely flowers and am nurturing my own tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes and some flowers. We've bought some pebbles and a swing seat so the back garden can take a step in the right direction! We need to mow the lawn, give the decking another coat, buy more pebbles, get a bench and finally we'll use fencing to split the garden for the children and the dog. To finish the week, I had Little A's parent meeting which was really positive and baked 50 cupcakes for a friends wedding which we went to the reception of last Saturday. I had a lovely couple of hours but had to come home early because Midge was sick during the first part! At least I saw the first dance and the cake cutting and I saw all my cupcakes with the wedding cake and I felt so proud. I've banged on about it loads and I know people can make them so much better but I don't care, I loved them! (And so did the happy couple so that's all that matters!)

Now we really are on count down to the summer holidays with only six weeks left! Midge has lots planned for the upcoming weeks and on Tuesday she had a swimming assessment. She has a birthday party at the local pool to look forward to this weekend. There's an inset day on tomorrow, where I have a doctor appointment for A but otherwise nothing else planned. Mr B is back to normal work shifts and I'll just be plodding along in my usual way. I hope you're all enjoying the sun that's come out in the last week or so! I know we have!

Cupcake Mumma