How to make the perfect gingerbread man

Well what can I say, clearly I'm a total domestic goddess in the kitchen! This time I have totally excelled myself.

I decided to turn my hand to making Gingerbread men with the boys, I mean how hard could that be? I even cheated and bought a packet mix from the supermarket.

I actually don't own a pair of scales and hadn't read the instructions before buying which said add 30g of butter. Hmmm, I may have added a touch too much. I also don't own a jug so guessed 10mm of water.

Big mistake! The soft dough it described on the box resembled cake mix. I thought about putting it in cup cake cases but Damien was having none of it. So, nigella here, added a load of flour, self raising I may add,which turned my awful mix into something which I thought may work.

It started off promising, it looked good and rolled out well, then we got out the cutter. It just turned to mush. So I decided to turn them into round biscuits. All the mixture stuck to my hands as I just threw the random shaped biscuits into the tray.

Well, when I looked in the oven, I almost had a heart attack. This massive phallic biscuit was staring at me. See pictures below.

Just when I didn't think it could get any worse. I saw Damien's decoration of them. That was it, I was doubled over with laughter and have to say it made my day.

Tomy's Neil the seal

The lovely people at Tomy sent us gorgeous Neil the Seal and he is certainly a hit.

My 18 month old and three and a half year old fell in love with him instantly. He's colourful, great fun and very cute.

He loves chilling by the pool and being taken for walks. Or perhaps dragged my my youngest would be a more appropriate description.

I'm having the usual boy battle over whose turn it is to play with him and that is the making of a great toy when both boys want to share him.

Damien settled for wearing the box on his head and being a robot. So the product is really great value all round.

I would say Neil is aimed at children closer to Dennis's age, 12 months and up. But even the nine year old I was looking after couldn't get enough of him. "He's cool" were the exact words she used. In fact the boys had a hard time even trying to get a look in to start with.

The idea is that you push Neil along using his stick and as you do so, the ball rolls from the ground and ends up on his nose. We have had a fantastic time seeing how long we could each balance the ball on his nose for.

I would recommend this product to all my friends and we are certainly enjoying having Neil the Seal as a family member.

Try, try, triathlon

So I receive an email from work this morning telling me I've been signed up to do a triathlon. Am I still dreaming or have I really just read that?

For those of you that don't know me that well, this email has filled me with dread. I haven't exercised for years.

I tried snowboarding a few months ago and ended up pulling all my stomach muscles and being put on some prescription anti inflammatory medication after a rather embarrassing trip to the doctors.

I have several problems with this but I guess my biggest is that I don't own a bike! This could become problematic when it comes to the actual training and obviously the event!

Secondly, I haven't been on a bike since I was about 15. So I've basically not ridden a bike in over half my life.

I'm really not cut out for exercise. The last time I agreed to take part in an organised event, a 10K run, I fell pregnant and had to pull out after three days of training. This training consisted of running to the end of my road and back.

Anyway, in for a penny in for a pound and all, I'll give it a go.

As an after thought I actually don't own any trainers, if that isn't an indication of how unfit I am, I don't know what is.

Perhaps I can run and cycle in my wedges? Now that's a thought....

I'm back!!

My break from blogging is over and I’m ready to get back to being Miss Milkshake Mummy. Life’s changed drastically for me since I started the blog over a year ago and so you may see some subtle changes on the content since I first started out on my blogging adventure.

I won’t go into details although, needless to say, my life has been like an episode of Eastenders since January and all of it would have made for countless Christmas specials. Move over the participants of Jeremy Kyle, you have nothing on me.

I’ve upset people and been upset by people but things are much better now and hence the return to my blog.

Enough about me, let’s talk about the two little devils which inspired me to actually start this blog. Damien is now sleeping through the night whilst with mummy and in his own bed. Gone are the days of him creeping into mine and hogging the bed and there is no more five am starts. The back to bed routine worked for me and being consistency and persevering were and still are key.

Dennis is also sleeping soundly through the night and this happened through the awful, yet amazing power of controlled crying. Now he will sleep for 13 hours straight and I no longer have to rock him off in his buggy. That was breaking point for me, having to push the buggy with my foot at the end of the bed whilst cuddling a toddler to sleep at 1am,2am,3am etc was enough to make me realise that a change was in order.

Not only that, but when you can no longer function as a human being, you know things need to change. Leaving your front door open, handbag on the pavement, bank card in the fridge and your keys in the ball pit at the soft play gave me the wake-up call I needed. (No pun intended).

I’ve also started becoming late to things, never did this happen when my little men didn’t sleep, I guess when you have been up since 5am most days there really isn’t any excuse to be late for something which starts at 9am. I mean, I’d had four hours to get ready. I now have to set an alarm clock to get up and most days have to actually wake the boys up.

So I hope you all forgive me for my writing rest and hope you enjoy the rest of the journey!