27 September 2013

Things I'm Loving: Spring, Perseverance, Amazing Mornings and Dinosaur-tastic



I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something you can be thankful for..no matter how simple it is.

Spring
I can NOT get enough of spring this year. Maybe it's because I know we're going to miss a whole month that I've been determined to pack in as much spring action as I can before we go. Or maybe it's because we had such a mild winter that spring feels like it really has arrived early this year. Either way I'm not complaining...I'm just soaking it up!




This time of year
I have also been blown away these past few weeks with the number of amazing sunrises - almost every morning they are gasp-worthy. I must make a mental note for next year that September is definitely where it's at for capturing the glory of the morning as she rises.




Not resting on their laurels
I love how Whittakers don't sit around assuming they've captured the whole chocolate market with their existing flavours. Recently, they brought out L&P white chocolate and although opinion was quite divided I really liked it. So I was intrigued to see a new milk strawberry version come out.


And tasted just like you'd hope it would - if that makes any sense?!

All about the dinosaurs
Noah's class have just finished doing a whole classroom module on dinosaurs. The kids have loved it - they've brought in dinosaur books, made dinosaur crafts and even made up their own names for dinosaurs - Noah created Pentastyracomegalotrachelosaurus - meaning five spiked huge neck lizard. I love it.


Just outside the classroom they've also got a breakout space set up with a whole lot of dinosaurs that the kids have brought in as well as a making a life-sized stegosaurus dress-up. So cool.


Even without this additional classroom learning, Noah absolutely adores dinosaurs. We play the Guess which Dinosaur I'm thinking of? game a lot. He always kicks my butt, I feel pretty useless as he knows the names of so many obscure dinosaurs, and would you believe it he even discovered by doing some research on the Natural History Museum kids dinosaur site that there's a dinosaur called Noasaurus. True story, here's a picture to prove it.



So after that discovery, we decided we'd all better have some dinosaur names: mine is Megalosaurus, Mylo's is Microraptor and Mark's is Marshosaurus. All real-life dinosaurs, really!

Coldplay does Hunger Games
I'm waiting excitedly to see the 2nd Hunger Games film Catching Fire when it comes out in a couple of months. And so I was rapt to see that Coldplay have composed the main song for the movie.


Perseverance
So that cake I did last weekend, oh boy it was a doozy. I very nearly gave up on it several times during the course of making it. Once we'd cut it into thirds, I soon discovered I wasn't going to have enough of the big pieces to make the little square bit that sits out to the right hand side....gah! So I had to stack a whole bunch of off-cuts on top of each other to try and make one. Which made for no easy feat trying to ice this part of the cake with lots of random crumbly bits falling off the minute my knife got near it.


And don't get me started on the rolled icing - which I might point out that I'd never used before. The first time I had the grey road all rolled out and ready to go on the cake it totally stuck to the board I'd been using as I tried to lift it so I had to start all over again.

So this simple cake that looked so easy in the book took about 3 hours to decorate as well as the time it took Mark to cook it. But I'm glad I persevered despite the obstacles as I think in the end it looked like we'd pulled it off!

How about you? Have you ever embarked on a cake making exercise that looked like it would be a piece of cake (ha ha - mind the pun!) but turned out to be a total mission?! I'm keen to hear your experiences.

Here's how you can join in this week:

Link up below with your blog post telling us what you're loving, and grab the Things I'm Loving button below for your post too. Don't forget to share the love by visiting all the other lovelies who have joined in - the linky is open till same time next week!






4 comments :

jacksta said...

eek. So looking forward to the next hunger games installment. I sure hope Donald Sutherland stays alive to make it to the third installment! Gosh Im morbid?!

Same thing happened to me when I tried fondue icing. I think is the trick is to sprinkle icing sugar...kid of like flour on the dough board.

Leonie said...

Keep practising with the fondant - eventually you get there! So many things to love again! Hope you have a great weekend x

bee said...

Lots to love, dinosaurs drawn by kids are awesome. I haven't braved fondant yet but I love your cake- the tic tac road markings are super cute : )

Bron said...

What a fantastic cake...the things we do for a photo opportunity...hope it tasted good too.
Those morning shots are beautiful...some payoff for having to be out and about so early. xxx

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