Family time exploring local places

My brother came to visit from Darlington with his partner and my nephew.  It was so nice having them to stay and of course my furry nephew too, I loved having a dog in the house!  We showed them some of our beautiful countryside with a nice walk near High Hurstwood.

Raindrop cushion - Pin It Do It & Tutorial

Well, here's a post I started writing in November 2014.  I'm sure you can imagine why that was such a busy month (what with the twins being born!) and it never got finished.  But, we have the return of #pinitdoit, I was reminded to finish this one and I recently shared a pic of the cushion on Instagram too.

2 years to the day

I missed out on booking Laura for the twins' birthday this year.  I left it too late, having been convinced by Nik that we didn't need any more photo shoots since the bump-newborn-one package.  A week before, I panicked, I knew I'd regret it forever and got in touch but I was already too late.

Turns out I was right and immediately regretted not having got in sooner.  Laura has had a super busy November but luckily she had one morning where she could fit us in.  It was 15 days after the twins' birthday.  So the same day she first came to meet them 2 years prior.  We decided to start with another home shoot as we did for their newborn session and then go on our favourite walk down to our new favourite cafe at Oast Farm.

For the very first time, we had sunshine on the day of our shoot.  The sneaky peek images are stunning, I cannot wait to see the rest, but I'm not nervous, I can honestly say I trust Laura completely and can totally relax on a shoot with her, she's so talented and I know I'm going to love the photos no matter what.  It helps that she's also an amazing person who I'm lucky to also call a friend (although she may rethink our friendship after reading my utter fan girl cheesy comments!) and my kids adore her!  Even K who is extremely fussy about who can talk to him without him either hiding behind his hands or just having a full on meltdown.

Anyway, here is a little before & after (you know how I love those!) of the twins, newborn to the toddler years.  Two years apart.  To the day.  Thank you Laura!

Also how funny that they are on the same sides.  Entirely coincidental I swear!  We only have a few sneak peek images so far but as soon as I receive the rest in a few weeks, I will undoubtedly be putting them here with yet more girl crush thoughts I'm sure!

I've officially booked Laura for next year already.  I've worked it out and although it can seem a total luxury to pay for someone to come and take photos of you, the sheer pleasure of having the best family photos that we're all in, as well as being proper art, it's so worth it.  Plus, over a year, it works out at less than £25/month yet will last a lifetime.  I love that we will have at least one set of amazing photos to record each year (ideally their birthday) with us all in and without me getting stressed trying to take ALL the pictures ALL the time.

If you're thinking about booking a photo session, particularly with Laura, I cannot express strongly enough how much I think you should go for it!  You can always make more money, although I do know we are very lucky to have pretty secure jobs.  But you can never get these moments in time back.  You may have heard the saying, you don't regret the things you do, you regret the things you don't and in this case it is so true.  You won't regret booking Laura to freeze time for you.  I adore the memories Laura has captured of our family and know with certainty that I will treasure them forever.

To see more from our sessions with Laura, here is our maternity shoot, our newborn shoot and the twin's first birthday at the aquarium and on Brighton Beach.

Meeting Alasdair - Impromptu newborn shoot by Bex

Like I said before, sometimes pictures just have to skip the queue!  For those of you who don't know Gemma, she's one of my most amazing friends, (3 of whom have given birth within a month of each other!), and I was so excited to see little A at just 13 days old!  I had the absolute pleasure of meeting the scrumptious new Alasdair on Friday and took my camera in case the equally gorgeous parents wanted any photos.  Not that they had much choice ;)

Not only were they keen to have a few photos taken, including their first as a family of three, they also let me have lots of cuddles with the wee man who snuggled in and fell asleep on me for about an hour and a half, lush squishy newborn-ness!  We had a good old catch up over tea and biscuits (them not me as I'm on my 90 day plan), I can't wait to see our children playing together!

Anyway, here are a few of my favourite pictures from my first meeting with wee Alasdair.  Isn't he adorable?!  Congratulations again Gemma and R!!

Seriously, aren't they just such a gorgeous family!?

Doesn't that smile just say it all?

Gemma has of course seen all of these (and the rest!) and has kindly allowed me to share my favourites here :)  I'm really pleased with how they came out and I'm SO glad Gemma likes them.  I'm really trying to learn to be a better photographer (with such inspirations as Laura, Clare and Anna, to name just a few).  Obviously having stunning subjects, their awesome flat as a backdrop and some lucky bright light helped a great deal but I'm still pretty chuffed :)  It was lovely being able to capture these precious moments with them.

Homemade Mummy's Meals - a review by Bex

One of my friend's from my post-natal class, Hannah, has set up her own business selling home-made toddler meals.  I recently bought a couple of her taster boxes and the twins loved them!  I offered to take a few pictures and write a review as I was so impressed.  Also, she's lovely!

Hannah's meals are an absolute bargain (see full price list below) and home made locally with local ingredients and no added salt or sugar.  Hannah uses eggs from Five Chimney's Farm, meat from Bird in Eye Farm Shop and organic milk and cheeses.   A taster box is just £5 and contains 2 savoury muffins, 1 chicken curry, 1 chilli con carne, 1 sausage and lentil stew, 1 haddock and sweetcorn risotto, 1 bolognese and 2 chicken nuggets!  All you need to do is add pasta, rice or, a handy tip from Hannah - couscous which is much quicker!

Considering the cost of good ingredients and the time taken to cook meals, I think they're a pretty amazing deal!  

The speedy super veggie muffins are perfect for lunchtime.  Just microwave from frozen for 1 minute.  They're jam packed with goodness, they contain peas, carrots, butternut squash, parsnip, sweetcorn and sweet potato.

As for the other meals, they all smell delicious, I had to taste a few and can confirm they are yummy!  I bought the kids an Ella's pouch once and they wouldn't eat it.  I tasted it and it was so bland.  Hannah's meals are full of flavour but still without any nasty additives.

Also, how cute is her daughter, Isla!?  Such gorgeous blue eyes...

 
The twins obviously thought so too as there was a bit of a snogging sesh before we left ;)

You can check out Hannah's Homemade Mummy's Meals page on Facebook.

Baby led weaning flapjacks - date & banana - a recipe by Bex

I obviously meant to publish this way back in July, when the twins were 8 months old, but I just found it when I thought I'd make these flapjacks again.  Shows you how often I actually bake these days, even something this easy!

While staying with my parents here in Saudi, I'm finding a bit more time to experiment (and blog at last!) with some baby food recipes.  I thought I'd try baking some healthy flapjacks for the twins and dates and banana seemed a good option.  Turns out there are quite a few similar recipes already but I just made this one up as baking flapjacks doesn't need to be accurate like when baking cakes.  It seems to have worked well so I thought I'd share my version here.  It's pretty simple with just 4 ingredients and the babies love them!  (So do I!)

1 banana, mashed (115g)
55g chopped dates
150g oats
50g coconut oil or butter (melted)

A rule in our house when it comes to oven cooking anything is "if in doubt, 180oC" so I preheated the oven to 180oC.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, compress into the bottom of a shallow baking tin.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.