Christmas Food Shop

Today was the day we did our Christmas food shop! Now, I have never properly been on a Christmas food shop but as we are having everyone round here for Christmas my Mum and I have been organising what we are going to have and need to get etc.

We spoke first thing this morning, and she really wasn't keen on going. We both knew that we wanted to go either today or tomorrow as we felt that Sainsbury's would have been a bit hectic if we decided to put it off any later! Eventually we decided it would be a good idea to go today and get it all over and done with.

First thing we did when we got to Sainsbury's, to prepare ourselves of course, also Alice and I hadn't had breakfast, was go to our favourite place! Starbucks of course. I'm going to tell you now I had my camera with me but didn't take any photos, I don't think anyone really wants to relive a Christmas shop through photos if I'm honest haha!

We managed just under an hour in Starbucks before we decided that we should go and tackle it! The thought of it had filled me with dread as we both knew it wasn't going to be easy whilst we had a 2 year old with us as well!

In total we spent a good hour going around the shop picking up everything we needed, including a Disney Princess magazine and some Smarties Cookies to keep Alice happy!

I cannot tell you just how exhausted I felt after all of that! I was extremely out of breath, I do forget just how heavily pregnant I am! I'm a lot smaller than I was when I was carrying Alice so for me to stop and go "take it easy you are 38 weeks pregnant" doesn't really happen a lot!

Once we got back to our house, my Mum helped us unload the bags from the car and then she was off again on her many errands. I swear she is like Super Woman some days. I really just don't know how she does it all!

I wasn't going to allow myself to rest as we had plenty of things that needed to go in the freezer so my first port of call was to unpack all of the shopping so that I didn't have to worry about it at a later point. I managed it a lot quicker than I expected! It felt good to have it all out of the way. I honestly don't think I have ever had a freezer as jam packed as I do right now!

I also now have my baking things all sorted now. I am cheating I must admit! I'm using cake mixes rather than making it all by scratch but I really don't think I want to be making cakes from scratch on Christmas Eve with everything else that will be going on!

Once I had everything put away it was time to relax, well as much as I can with a 2 year old about the house! We were putting on her jewellery from her Disney Princess magazine and looking at bits from a Cinderella gift bag that we got. It was going to be saved for Christmas but unfortunately Mummy wasn't too bright whilst hiding it in the trolley and she ended up sticking out and being quite noticeable!!

But once she started to get tired she relaxed a little.

Whilst Alice was having her nap my friend Sam came over and we just sat and chatted for ages about all sorts. The time went past and the next thing I knew it was 4:15pm and little miss was still sleeping! I feel horrible when I have to wake her up from her nap but it was getting close to dinner time and I really didn't fancy having an extremely late night after last night!

As soon as she came downstairs and saw Sam, well she calls him Uncle Sam, that was it! He was dragged off to play and all sorts. I came into the kitchen at one point to find there were stickers on the kitchen counter!

He is extremely good and plays anything she wants. She can so easily wrap people around her finger it's quite funny!

Anyway I think it's time I headed off to bed. Hope you all have/ had a good day :)

Claire
xx

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

This morning I decided that I would get out my Christmas books and see if I could find any recipes that I could make either in the lead up to Christmas or for Christmas day itself.

Alice also wanted what she calls "her book" from my recipe book collection. This is basically just a book full of children's birthday cakes. She absolutely loves looking through it, in particular she likes the cake that is shaped as a puppy.

We didn't really get up to too much this morning really. Chilled out mornings are the best in my opinion, if I can save something to do until the afternoon I will.

Around 10 is when I tend to get Alice settled down for a nap. She gets her bunny and her blanket and she has a bottle of milk and a dummy and we just blob on the couch and she relaxes before eventually going off to sleep. Well, mostly that's how it goes and it was going well as you can see.

But it didn't take long for my little angel to start being a pickle. Unfortunately, she can be so funny I just cannot control myself and I just have to laugh! Which as you can imagine, makes her play up more. She certainly is a character my little Alice. This next photo is not her looking her best as she was pulling a face whilst saying cheese! I think her Aunt and Uncle are responsible for her making faces at the camera if I'm honest, wouldn't you agree Mum? ;)

She did eventually fall asleep whilst I watched This Morning. Ever since Alice was tiny she has loved labels on things, it's like a comfort thing for her. I once bought her a ball which had little tags on it because they are like labels. Well, this little girl is one smart cookie! She was not fooled by the tags and managed to find the actual label on that ball haha. Oh I do love her, anyway the reason I brought this up is because just before I went to put her in her cot I noticed those little fingers of hers still griping the label of her blanket, bless her cotton socks :)

After Alice and I had lunch I had decided that I wanted to do some baking. After making sure I had all of the ingredients I got to work making some chocolate chip cupcakes. Alice certainly didn't complain and enjoyed watching me go through the process of making them!

 
And how could any child sit through the process of watching Mummy make the cupcake batter without letting them have a little taster ;)

And whilst she had to wait for the cupcakes to bake, she kept herself happy by playing with her Dora the Explorer fridge magnets.

And then the cupcakes were done. It didn't take us long to try 1......or 2! I didn't get a picture of how much she enjoyed eating them as, obviously, I was too busy enjoying them too!

And then, as you may have guessed, we chilled out. We do that a lot... I'm sure you are all sick of me telling you but we did. Alice's Daddy came to see her once again and they had lots of fun. Unfortunately he's not very good at keeping quiet. He gets to take her out this weekend and he likes to tell her where they are going, Alice then gets excited thinking they are going at that moment, and then she gets upset as she realises that they aren't going today... Poor thing, but I'm sure she will have fun on Saturday when he does go take her to see some animals.

And that is it from us today. I'm honestly impressed that I've managed to keep this going for 6 days in a row haha! Now I am going to blob on the couch and watch a new episode of Big Bang Theory and 2 Broke Girls before heading off for an early night!

Claire
xx