Grandma’s Great Egg Hunt – Family Time put Simply

There is only just over a week left of School before the Easter Holidays and I got to thinking about what we will be doing during the Half Term.

We are off on holiday for the first part of the holidays but then after that we have a full week to participate in Easter activities

Including out annual family easter hunt!

Every year grandma hosts an egg hunt.

She buys boxes of little eggs to hide in the garden and each child gets a basket to store their eggs

A couple of days before a set of eggs per child are labelled with their name and on the morning of the hunt they are put out around the garden. sometimes in-between downpours of rain!

Then after all the eggs are found and many consumed we have a lovely buffet style tea where we can catch up with family and friends.

Its a great day for all of us and the kids really look forward to the egg hunt.

Sometimes the most simple things are the ones we remember arnt they.

I think we can be guilty of overcomplicating some of the holidays and celebrations throughout the year.

We love Christmas for example and if we are not carful we can make Easter as complicated and exuberant as christmas but our egg hunt is such a fun little activity and it doesn’t require loads of stuff. Just lots of work from grandma & grandad who put the effort in sorting the eggs and then creating the delicious food!

DO you have a easter egg hunt? What activities do you do in the Easter Holidays? is Easter as big as Christmas is your house?

Nina x

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Meal Plan Monday. – 25th March

I’ve been think for a while about doing weekly meal plans on here.

I’m terrible at thinking of new ideas though and struggle getting healthy meals into my kids.

Years ago when I first started blogging I use to partake in something called meal plan Monday.

It really helped me to stay on track and plan more.

That’s what I need now. We spend far to much money in the local shop for bits and bobs due to not having a plan.

Doing this (fingers crossed) will get me back into weekly shops and saving more money.

Meal Plan

So after a rather rambley intro here is my meal plan for week commencing 25th March

Monday – Cheesy pasta mixed with veg

Tuesday – Lemon Chicken with new potatoes and salad

Wednesday – Hot dogs.

Thursday – Spanish omelette, ham, steamed veg & sweet potato fries.

Friday – Take out Friday

Saturday – Kids – nuggets & chips Adults – cheese board after kids have gone to bed.

Sunday – I’m hoping for a Sunday lunch somewhere for Mother’s Day

I’ll try and remember to come back next week. With another Meal Plan.

Meanwhile please let me know what’s on your meal plan for the week.

Nina x

Im jointing Katy Kicker’s meal plan linky

Katykicker
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Dreaming of…….. a Cornwall Retreat.

Literally dreaming. I got woken from an amazing dream a couple of nights ago.

Myself & Spencer’s ARC Daddy we’re in Cornwall. I’d fell in love with it.

And knowing how much I love to wander around potential new homes he had set up a surprise house viewing.

Now before I could go and look around or even finish my coffee in my dream Melody woke me up.

But it had me thinking about it all day long.

What would our new house be like?

Must haves in my Cornwall Retreat – These are a little like my ideal house that I go to in my head when I need a quiet moment a little meditative trick from the Calm book.

  • Green Front Door – I love the look of a pale green door. Sadly mine is an old PVC door and I’m not sure it would look the as good painted green as some wooden ones I have seen.
  • A large open Plan Kitchen and Lounge – I like to entertain and it think its just feels better to have one huge room to entertain I love the idea of having a big island that I can prepare food around while chatting with friends or family.
  • A nice garden overlooking the sea. Maybe a a gate leading to the beach. With places to entertain, a BBQ area and decking.
  • Keeping with the garden I’d love a veg patch and chickens but separate from our main garden.
  • Oh and a pool.
  • I will also need an office to write in!
  • Im not too fused about the rest of the rooms only ones that are easy to keep tidy and quite simple.

The main living area is the most important to me. its where I would entertain, where our kids would do homework or school work, where I could grab a quite cuppa.

Maybe this is what my Cornwall retreat would have been like?

I love having dreams like that one. Ones that fire your imagination and puts some goal inspiration in front of you!

What would your Ideal House looks like? Maybe you already live in it?

Nina X

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Hello I am…….?

Nina?

Well yes that’s my name but I’m not actually sure who that is anymore.

(I’m just going to break for a moment after reading this post back it’s very metaphor heavy and for that I would like to apologise now. I’m not about to start chanting or become some kind of hippy (no offence) it’s just how the writing took me and felt the best way to write how I feel. I’ll also apologise incase you find it a little rambley – right you may continue with the post)

I’m a mum to two sets of twins.

I’m a wife to my childhood crush.

I’m a step mum to a teen.

I’m a daughter, step daughter, in law, auntie, cousin, niece and friend.

I’m a survivor of placenta percreta, I live with mental illness, and am going through the menopause.

Do these things define who I am?

I’m not sure. Of course they are part of who I am but I’m not solely those.

So who am I?

Lately I’ve struggled with knowing who I am, what I truly want out of life.

I’m not going to lie I’ve struggled with the above, being a mum to two sets of twins is hard work , and I often suck at being a wife and even daughter and friend sometimes.

I’m not sure if it’s part of my anxiety / depression or if I’m under in influence of social media and FOMO but mostly at the moment I’m struggling with knowing what I want to do next.

For ages I thought being on social media or being a blogger/ vlogger was the right thing for me. Maybe it still is but as I’ve focused on trying and failing to make me a living from it I’ve fallen out of love with it. Which has affected my creativity so I’m having a rethink.

When I was growing up I never wanted to be married, never wanted children. But then I got together with my childhood crush and he already had a son. I wanted to make us more of a bonded family and have our own children together.

A path I never would have thought about as a teenager or even in my early 20s.

I never thought I would fear my own mortality.

I never knew that I would struggle daily with anxious thoughts.

I didn’t even really know what I wanted as a career.

Now approaching 40 I’m still wondering what I want to do when I grow up.

I recently had a meeting with a family support worker who did a little life coaching with me.

She made me realise some of my passions,

She made me see a long term goal and some short term ones too.

So taking some of those guiding tools I’m going to do a few mind mapping exercises to pick my next path.

Who knows what’s at the end of it or if the destination will change along the way.

So in answer to my own question…

Who am I?

I am Nina, I’m on a journey to discovering who I am.

My first step – Fixing my mental health with some CBT. Maybe then the next path will be come clearer.

If you have any tips of finding out who I am please let me know.

I’m not talking a trek over Kilimanjaro or a week volunteering in a Buddhist temple.

Just little achievable things that I can do during nap time or maybe over a weekend.

Nina x

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Menopause Diary – Entry 4.

When you decide to start a family or expand your family you know that it’s going to change your life considerably but what I didn’t realise Is what an impact my last pregnancy would have on the rest of my life.

If you’ve visited the blog before, know me in real life or have followed my Instagram for a while you will know that I suffered a rare but life threatening pregnancy complication with my last pregnancy. Which resulted in a cesarian hysterectomy. I suffered quite a few complications from the surgery. (Twisted bowel, split wound, sepsis, 11 units of blood transfer)

But what I never took into account was that after the healing from all of those , that there would be more issues to come as a result.

The menopause isn’t something I thought about before a year ago.

It was just something that happened to older women.

Something that I didn’t really need to think about Yet.

Yet here I am 38 years old with my fingers crossed that the HRT I was given just 2 weeks ago will make me feel human again.

Will stop all my aches and pains.

Will help with the anxiety I’ve been feeling creep back up.

38 years old what should be the prime of my life really. Often though in a morning I feel more like 88.

I’m trying so hard to be healthy, lose weight, get fit, look after my body and my brain.

I’m finding this new part of me a little bit scary and overwhelming at the moment.

Please feel free to leave any tips for me to get through this new chapter in my life.

Nina x

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