Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee

This weekend it was Queen Elizabeth 2nd's diamond jubilee.  It has been 60 years since she became the queen of this country.  The celebrations have been incredibly nice.  The BBC has Pictures of the celebrations & a short video of Prince Charles paying a tribute to her majesty.  There is also a main article on the entire weekend if you are interested.  Monday & Tuesday were public holiday & we have really enjoyed the time off with family visiting us. My gorgeous baby boy is also 8 weeks old today.  Time is flying by fast & I'm looking forward to starting some baby friendly Christmas preparations soon.

I have taken various photos of merchandise in shops to share with you & hope you enjoy them.

Merry Christmas in June!

Lily

Queen Elizabeth II, photo courtesy of Google Images.

Cupcakes :)

My Baby Boy

We welcomed our beautiful baby boy, Cody Pasha, on the 10th of April weighing 7lbs and 9oz.  I had an emergency c section after a 30 hour labour but gradually getting better.  Special thanks to my amazing and wonderful hubby for looking after me & Cody in every possible way.  Thank you all for your prayers :)  I will try to keep up with the blog as much as possible.  Hope you all are ok.

Lily

Bob Ross style paintings

Hi all

Hope you have all been doing ok.  I have been so incredibly busy lately that haven't been able to blog much.  I do miss it so much.  Baby hasn't arrived yet & I can't wait to meet him. If you also believe in the power of prayers, please pray that all goes smoothly for all of us.  

I have been having painting lessons to learn to paint like Bob Ross. I am huge Bob Ross fan (both his work and his attitude towards life) but had never dared to try to paint like him.  I have had 4 lessons & here are the pictures.  Obviously I have a long way to go & so much more to learn but have really enjoyed painting so far :)

Hope you all have a really great Easter if I don't get to blog again until then :)

Lily

1st lesson

2nd lesson

3rd lesson

4th lesson

Leap Year

As you all know, today was leap day & I spent most of the day making a Thomas Kinkade jigsaw puzzle. Confusing, isn't it?!  Every time leap day is here, I say to myself I should make a little more effort & start a mini family tradition of some type but this time around (since I have a huge bump) all I wanted to do was sit still.  The only thing that hubby & I did, which was remotely related to leap day was to watch the movie Leap Year.  It is such a sweet romantic comedy & has an old fashioned feel to it. Some modern romantic comedies aren't elegant but this film has a lovely charm to it. If you haven't seen it & enjoy films like Sleepless in Seattle or You've got Mail, then I would really recommend this film.  Do any of you have a tradition of any type for leap day?

I hope those of you who live in the Midwest region of the U.S are safe & sound.

Lily

Valentine's Day

Another festivity has passed this year already.  Did you all have a nice Valentine's Day?  I had a fantastic evening.  Being mid-week, hubby was at work all day but I met up with him over his lunch hour (I do that most days if we're both free or I'll miss him too much). In the afternoon I decorated the house a little & cooked us a dinner. 

I was spoilt so much this Valentine's. I had a dozen of beautiful roses, a gorgeous card, a bird feeder for the garden (I really wanted one), a brand new girlie DVD & tickets to a fantastic Waltz show for Saturday night. I can hardly wait, it looks amazing. The dancers will have traditional 19th century Vienna costumes & of course there will be live music by Johann Strauss Orchestra. If I didn't have a big bump, I would desperately try to wear something old fashioned for the occasion but a maternity dress will do :) I am so very excited. Trying to do some "date nights" before our baby arrives as we wouldn't want to leave him with a sitter once he is born.  

Hope you all had a great day whatever you did & hope you enjoy the photos.

Lily 

Salad for starter

Heart candy

A friend gave me a recipe for middle eastern style kebab with rice, it actually tasted nicer than it looks.

Strawberries & cream for dessert. 

Happy Groundhog Day

I wanted to wish you all a very happy Groundhog Day.  Do you celebrate it where you live? If so how? What are your traditions?  Hubby & I like many people around the world know about it because of the movie & would absolutely love to visit someday in the future, hopefully with our little boy.  Usually we watch the film on February 2nd but tonight we went to the cinema instead to watch  The Descendants which was absolutely brilliant. Hopefully we will watch Groundhog Day over the weekend.  

Punxsutawney Phil, thanks to Google Images

I really enjoy watching the TRAILER for the film too. Hope you all are having a great week.

Lily

Christmas Dinner

How was your January? I cannot believe it already is the first of February, how fast the time goes by. I thought I'll share a few photos with you all of our Christmas feast. It looks like a lot but to my delight there weren't much left overs. I was glad because that meant everyone enjoyed their dinner & also I don't like wasting food. We had some cold Turkey sandwiches the next day so that was nice but we finished everything else :) This year I followed a Jamie Oliver (a popular British cook) Christmas recipe & he does everything from scratch. I'm not drinking at the moment as I'm pregnant so I thought I'll put a little more effort into the food this year & actually it turned out very nice. I may do the same recipe next year although it might be a little challenging with a little boy around. We're almost done decorating the nursery now, the furniture has arrived & we're doing the finishing touches such as curtains etc.  I'll upload some photos as soon as it is all done. Hope you all are having a lovely Wednesday/Thursday.

Lily