Monkey Business in Lewes - soft play review

I'd only been to Monkey Madness once before, soft plays can get pretty expensive when you have two kids to pay for plus an adult entry, then inevitable snacks, drinks, etc as you can't bring your own in.  Luckily, when a friend suggested it on a recent blustery day, they had a deal on so it was only £9 for me and the twins to get in.  The last time we went they were only one so it was a very different experience now they're four and can properly climb and go off and have fun on their own in the giant climbing frames!  Plus it was a term-time Tuesday so it wasn't too busy and there were no big kids charging around to be fearful of.

We stayed there all morning and for a while after lunch too.  Kalyan has been asking to go back to "hotplay" ever since so we'll have to check when their next deal is on.

Cuckoo Trail - the ultimate bike ride

I'd never been to The Cuckoo Trail before so was really excited when we had a lovely sunny day in February and my friend suggested we meet there with the kids and bikes for the afternoon.  For those of you who don't know (hi Mum!), it's a path than runs for miles starting in Heathfield and going all the way to Eastbourne.  We obviously didn't go that far with our 4-year-olds but still had a jolly good ride along the sheltered fairly flat  path, having parked for free in the car park opposite Waitrose.  We found a small park part-way along too during one of the road crossings and stopped there for a little while on our way back to let the kids get a run about too.  Of course, it was finished off perfectly with ice-cream in the Waitrose cafe when we got back with 4 tuckered out little ones and two tiddly ones!

Sunday Roast at The Guildford Arms, Greenwich - review

There are roasts and then there are ROASTS!  This was the best Sunday roast I've had in a long time.  Seriously amazing.

The twins and I joined my in-laws for lunch one weekend Nik was on a course in London, at the Guildford Arms in Greenwich.  It's a modern pub with big bright windows and rustic furniture and a lovely daily menu.

Wilderness Wood with new friends on NYE

You might be getting bored of seeing Wilderness Wood on my blog but I never will, I love it there and we went back again on New Year's Eve with new friends we met at a school visit so hopefully the kids will be starting the same school together in September and the twins are managing to expand their friend circle already as am I.

Of course I took lots of photos again and loved seeing Kalyan hit it off with William as he's been left out of the fun a little when Priya gets together with Bella.  They're mutual friends with each other too so that's great for future play dates too :)  Since Christina's husband was also working on NYE, we met up for some company outdoors to tire the kids out, it worked perfectly and I had a lovely morning!

Advent Adventures

Last year I made a half hearted attempt at a homemade advent calendar of activities and treats but never got past day 6!  I found a beautiful branch, wrapped it with fairy lights and hung a few snowflakes and notes off it so this year I've converted that to just have lots of snowflakes hanging in the window.



This year I bought a cute little house advent to decorate from Hobbycraft.  I had great fun painting the little numbers and snowflakes in (you guessed it) rainbow colours!  I got all the bits from Hobbycraft and used my acrylic paints for nice bright colours.  I also put a little Grimm's rainbow on the chimney.

Rainbow birthday pinata fun!

We had one more surprise at the end of the party, the pinata.  I had to buy the rainbow pinata by Sunnylife (one of my favourite brands for rainbow stuff) from Paperchase (another favourite shop for bright colours and rainbows)!  I hung it from our banister on landing above the stairs so it could swing and still be secure and not damage anything.

Twins rainbow afternoon tea birthday party

I organised a rainbow afternoon tea party for the twins' 4th birthday and loved it so much! 

I was especially proud of my rainbow jelly!  I managed to find all the colours except blue in Tesco and ordered Jello from amazon to complete the stripes.  I filled some wine glasses and my Tiki Head glass with the extra layers which added more decoration and colour to the table setting.

Bing Live - review

We were invited along to see Bing Live in Eastbourne this evening and we had a wonderful time!  I was prepared with extra snacks for the twins this time after our first theatre outing to see The Snark and it worked for the most part.  Priya was pretty good but Kalyan was a bit restless as usual, I was glad to have my friend Alisha with me to help control things.  Regardless, we all loved the show, joining in with the dancing, cheering and clapping.  It started at 4, we had an interval at half past and it was finished around 5:15pm which was ideal and we went straight around the corner for dinner afterwards.

I was allowed to take photos of the show this time so these are all my own photos of the evening.

Trampoline party at Fun Abounds

I'm ashamed to say this was our first visit to Fun Abounds in Uckfield!  I have always fancied taking the kids but their special toddler sessions always landed on the wrong day/time for us and so we just never went.  Luckily we were invited along there for a birthday party recently and had an awesome time celebrating the twins' friend and having lots of bouncy fun!

Tulley's Farm Spook Fest 2018 - review

A Halloween festival, hell yes!  I was so excited to visit Tulley's Farm for their annual Spook Fest (the family friendly daytime version, not to be confused with the terrifying looking Shocktober Fest which is on in the evenings for older kids and adults).   I'd never been before but had heard it was good and was excited to spend a Halloweeny day with the twins since Nik and I were away for Halloween itself.  You know how much I love Halloween and when my friend Steph asked us to join her family there for the day I was even more excited, Priya adores her eldest daughter Bella and they are all so cute together, holding hands and generally being cute!

Baking with Hemina - Cheese & mustard scones recipe

As I mentioned in my Fuego Lounge review, my friend Hemina kept us occupied one weekend when I was feeling very down.  On the Saturday she came over to bake with me and the kids, Priya especially had a blast and the scones were so easy to make and tasted amazing!  We had them hot for lunch with some truffle salami from Aldi (highly recommended by the way).

Halloween Party Food Ideas

The food for the twins' party last year was so fun!  I got loads of ideas from Pinterest and some were easier than others!  The banana ghosts were the easiest, just chop them in half, draw some spooky faces on and stand them up on a plate.  Job done.  Same with the hard boiled eggs - boil them, draw on faces and they're ready to serve. 

The witches broomsticks were tricky - Nik made these out of cheese strings (NOT my first choice of cheese but this was style over substance clearly), shredded to make the broom ends and straight pretzels inserted in, tied with a chive.  The pretzels were hard to find, good old M&S came up trumps there and the cheese kept splitting where he pushed them in but he did such a great job!  I made the witches fingers out of cocktail sausages with flaked almonds stuck on with tomato chutney to make bloody fingernails.  The vomiting watermelon was easy, just chop off the top, scoop out the melon and turn it upside down, carve a mouth and place the watermelon bits and other fruits coming out of the mouth on a big plate.

I've already written about the epic saga of the cakes - they looked pretty awesome though and took me ages so I'm sharing them again!

The overall Banquet of the Dead looked fab on the spooky tablecloths over two long tables with my big black candelabra and Halloween bunting and various skulls and Halloween crockery to set it all off.

Nik's Mum made the eyeballs for us, simply Babybel cheeses with black sliced olives for the centre and red food colouring painted on for the bloodshot effect.

I had cheese balls in a big bowl with a scary ladle, Twiglets in a skull goblet and I cut pumpkin shapes out of raw carrot which was really easy too, just cut the shape out of one side before you slice them.  I ran out of time to carve the big pumpkins though!

Oh and we also had a "poison" bar for the kids and grown ups.  Coloured orange juice for kids and green dyed gin or blue vodka for the adults!  The red one is some Christmas liqueur I made long ago!

I just love coming up with spooky ideas for Halloween!  Tell me if you have any great ideas to share, I'd love to see photos if you try any of these too!

Halloween Party Ideas

For the twins' 3rd birthday I wanted to have a Halloween party for them.  I'm a big fan of Halloween and love all of the decorations, games, fancy dress and food ideas so I did loads of research in advance, mainly on Pinterest, and came up with a few favourites I wanted to do.  I hired a local village hall in Maresfield to keep the inevitable mess out of my home and had a great time making and baking for the big day.

The twins' first cinema experience at The Picture House Uckfield - review

We found out one Saturday that there was a sing-along showing of The Little Mermaid at our local independent cinema, The Picture House.  Turns out, the Saturday morning film is a regular thing and they often have sing-along versions for the kids (and grown ups) to join in.  Nik's Mum and I took the twins along as we thought they'd love it and I do love The Little Mermaid, such a classic.

K chose his own outfit (tights and top) and asked for a ponytail like Priya's

It's on at 10:30am every Saturday, the following week was Moana sing-a-long although they're not always sing-a-long versions.  This weekend it's Incredibles 2.

It started off really well, the kids were delighted with their own popcorn and loved sitting in the big seats.  When the film started they were initially mesmerised and Kalyan was dancing in the aisles!  Unfortunately it turned out they were still a little bit young for the cinema as it was quite loud in parts and K was very upset, covering his ears and asking to leave.  Once the popcorn was gone too, they became much more restless but we did make it until the end.  Kalyan has asked never to go back to the loud place though which is a shame, maybe next year when they're almost 5.

We also tried to go for lunch in the Picture House Restuarant after but their behaviour got worse and became uncontrollable so I had to take them home just as the food arrived!  Gutted.  Luckily Ma and Dadaji brought it home for us to eat when they were finished.  I didn't see the point in us all having to leave although it did leave my friend, who met us there, having lunch with my in-laws!

The next day was more successful as we went to our favourite place - Wilderness Wood.  Always a hit and this time we managed a nice walk around the woods too and not just in the play areas.  And lunch of course with some cake after our walk and more cookies as big as the kids' heads!

Exploring Buxted Park

Despite living a stones throw from Buxted Park, we haven't ever managed a full walk around the country estate.  After our Sunday Roast at The Buxted Inn at the weekend, we went to explore it properly and actually try to make it down to the "duck pond" at the bottom which we knew the twins would love.

We parked by the church near the hotel and started our walk through the old gate at the back of the churchyard.

Kalyan was most distraught by all the nettles guarding the last of the brambles he could see and P loved being the gatekeeper.  We then wandered down, past all the grazing cows to reach the big pond/small lake.

Twin cows and twin dragonflies ;)

Then we found a little island with a path across and the kids liked throwing twigs in to the ducks (who soon swam off when they realised it wasn't actually food) and I may have encouraged some kissing action which resulted in some hilarious laughter photos!

They had a bit of a run around away from the cows so we didn't scare them and we slowly made our way back up with lots of rests as K was too tired apparently.

We only found a few acorns (I suspect the squirrels beat us to the majority) but we collected some colourful leaves and have yet to find any Horse Chestnut trees for conkers.  We thought we'd hit the jackpot but it turned out to be sweet chestnuts.

I had a close encounter with a cow, took a few fern photos and some autumnal scenes though and the kids cheered up once we reached the church again and there was no more hill to climb!

It was a lovely afternoon, despite the whinging coming back up the hill!

Cuckfield Recreation Ground (& paddling pool) - review

We made an awesome discovery this summer, Cuckfield Rec Ground has a lovely park with a big paddling pool!  It wasn't too busy either despite being the holidays so was a good hidden find about half an hour drive away from Uckfield, we had a little trouble finding the way in but if you manage to get there it's worth taking a picnic to spend the whole day.

Wilderness Woods - review

We've been to Wilderness Wood plenty of times but I thought I'd write a little update about our latest visit as we had so much fun and there was a new cake too which I'm hoping will make a regular appearance as it's my favourite ever (I don't even have a photo of it, it was wolfed down too quickly)!  The cookies went down well with the kids though - they were as big as their heads!

Summer fun in the garden!

Sometimes we just want to stay home, especially when it's been SO hot.  I just can't bear the thought of being stuck out in the sun somewhere or even getting into the roasting hot car before it cools down with the air-con.  Luckily we have a decent sized garden with a paddling pool and playhouse to keep the kids entertained and plenty of shade in the form of porches and brollies too!  Plus - free fun days at home are always good, we can't afford to be going out every day, especially when I'm barely ever organised enough to make packed lunches.

I took a few photos on one such day and I love them so I thought I'd share them here as a bit of inspiration and as a little intro to my revamped Bexphoto site too!

Of course, a hot day in the garden isn't complete without a Mini Twister or two (and a Nobbly Bobbly for me)!  The twins adore these treats and were more than happy to get up on their playhouse porch for me to capture them eating their lollies.  (Kalyan is looking exceptionally pale due to the usual Factor 50 Fight!  His is not rubbed in very well!)

Knockhatch Adventure Park review

We've been to Knockhatch before but it was ages ago and only in the winter, when the twins were smaller they got in free and I get 25% off with my NHS discount (bonus!) so the indoor soft play was perfect for a rainy day.  This time we went with a new friend (whom Priya is obsessed with) and discovered everything else the park has to offer.  I don't have photos of everything as I wasn't there to review it but of course, being me have quite a few snaps anyway so thought I'd share my thoughts here as we had a great day out!

Willow & Wild Box Subscription - review

We recently received a subscription box from Willow & Wild Box to review.  The boxes were founded by local Mum Roz with the idea to share her passion for teaching her kids about planting and growing seeds.  Read more about the concept here, it's about making it easy for parents to enjoy spending this time with their kids which I love and appreciate as a busy working Mum with two of them keeping me on my toes!  They're for kids aged 3-8 and inspired by nature, designed to get the kids interested in cooking, crafts, outdoor adventures and conservation, learning and having fun.