July 2010: Drool it, maul it, crawl over it - that's how our threadbabes would eat a creme egg. But why the Creme Egg?!

[CakeandRoses]

Will that do us?

/panic

I totally agree, Chulita! I have completely fallen in love with loads of the Blue Zoo stuff. It doesn't bode well for my salary, since Debenhams is within easy walking distance in my lunch break... I'm trying to restrain myself to only buying things when there's a sale on, though!

My local barbers is run by a lovely husband and wife team, memphis. :) She does all the female clients, and is very good with trimming my hair back and feathering it a little around the front.

Added bonus that it costs about £6 each for DH and I to get our hair done. We don't have to make an appointment either, just wander in when we feel like it.

£6?! a decent London haircut, you're looking at at least £60, then another £40 odd for a bikini wax. I feel so robbed!

Morning all'

Okish night her she didn't go down till after ten as we went to Asda after scott finished work so she napped when she shouldn't have. Anyway she woke 3 times then got up a 9.15 I am in shock and managed to sleep in for school

Memphis you have been through a time of it but my goodness you have shown those docs.

Cakes are your legs aching after wearing heels? Hope you get what your wanting in terms of jobs.

Mlic I worke with xdp its definately no fun especially after an arguement. Could you get a black out sheet and pin it over the window?

Mellissa just think L will be finished teething and settled before most of our lot, still only 4 teeth here. How's his ears?

Dh is sing and sign the same as bounce and rhyme? You must have met loads of mummy friends in rl?

Spireal do they not tell you why the visas are taking so long? I don't know anything about emigrating except dps cousin has a fantastic life in austrailia. Hope it happens soon for you and you keep chatting.

Chulita what dvd is it?

Woods is the visit to the nursery today?

Kk I go to the same hairdresser I have had since I was 16 but she does it in her house. I won't know what to do when she stops as she is really good with my mega thick hair. How's E? Did she love her sunny hols?

Tsc is C any better? Did she go to the loo?

How many words are lo's saying? R says daddy, hiya, jack, what, yeah and mum but not to me oh and she says tata does this seem about right? [Paraniod mother alert]

M doesn't say anything at all yet, Stac! So I don't think you have much need for paranoia. She also only has one tooth still.

It's all very confusing with the immigration process... Basically they changed the rules about three days after DH and I applied to only admit people who were on their 'wanted' profession list and hopefully reduce the backlog of applications. People who applied in the old system were still going to be processed using the old rules.

Except, what actually seems to have happened is that everyone who applied before the cut off has fallen into a black hole. DH and I can't remove our application and reapply because our occupations aren't on their wanted list so we'd be rejected. So we're just stuck twiddling our thumbs and hoping they get round to us someday.

It's not helped by the fact that they've already exceeded their quota of immigrants for this year, so aren't processing anyone right now, until the counter resets in June.

However there is a possible hope in that they're supposedly going to renew efforts to clear the backlogged people once the quota resets. So I remain tentatively optimistic we might hear something before the end of this year. Maybe...

spirael What a shame that the immigration office is so slow. To be honest I would find it extremely difficult to be so patient and to not know what the future holds without being able to influence the outcome. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good news soon. We don't have the immigration troubles, but I am getting increasingly nervous about moving back to the UK. I seem to have a strong "the grass is greener on the other side" thing going on and as soon as we'd decided to move back, I started seeing the good things in this country. Sigh.

We're going over the first week in June to look at areas and maybe houses though, so maybe that will help me feel more settled and into it.

stac Glad you're better. How is R at night now?

wss So sorry you are feeling so low. I'm sure it must be hormones. I felt a little bit sad when I stopped but so so glad to have my body back (for a short while anyway). It must be harder though cos it's your last. Or is it....

needle Good to see you. I really giggled at your DH calling it the decorators.

kk Thanks for telling me about your friend. It really helps to hear other people have come out the other side. How do you find it being back at home? Do you have the post holiday blues? I always get it and only my cat makes me feel better, cos I usually can't take her on holidays. We did take her when we went for three months to Spain though. She like it.

cake I hope the outcome of the meeting is positive. Are you getting excited about going back now? I bet it felt nice to dress up. I realised yesterday that I only ever get to use my lovely handbag now when I go for doctors appointments. Otherwise it's the changing bag Luckily it's a nice Cath Kidston one my SIL gave me as a present so I like using that one too

I really like the look of those leg warmers but have to ask a stupid question. What are they for? What is the advantage of them compared to tights? Ta.

chulita I really like the Davina workouts. Well done on doing it. Unfortunately I won't be joining you for a while yet. My doctor said no sports in this pregnancy (at least no bouncing, yoga is probably OK, but I only count it as exercise if I'm sweating) cos the placenta is too close to the baby or some such. Seems like I will have to start eating sensibly in order to stop gaining weight like a big fat loser.

mlic I really laughed at noisyboy and naughtyboy. Are you going to do something special with your DH being off?

You might be able to put half a tick next to my name for broodiness, Trudyla. DH and I had a long conversation last night about baby 2, including a discussion about potential names.

However we're going to need to wait for the moment since a) Our house is too small for another child. b) We're not sure what's happening with Canada. c) We cannot afford 2 children in nursery or to live off one salary while one of us is a SAHP, as we both earn pretty much the same.

Not sure if it counts as broodiness though, since my main thoughts were along the lines of "Boo, I'd have to do pregnancy/birth/babycare all over again!"

I'm not a very good Mum for a baby, it seems. [winks] I suspect I'll be better as M gets older and I can do more stuff like craft and baking with her!

even!

can i be a crap conversationalist and hijack it quickly to ask two things i keep forgetting to post when i'm on?

• trudy sorry, didn;t mean to ignore your post about pics. did you post them to our group for a day? would be nice to see what you look like too! tis only fair, you've seen all of us!

• I'm determined to create a Lemon and White chocolate muffin but my two attempts so far have been just so so and i've ended up adding lemon butter cream to give it a bit of flavour/gooeyness which kinda defeats the ease of muffin-making.

Anyone got any ideas as to what i could add in terms of a third thing which adds some gooeyness/flavour? doesn't have to be vegan as i can probably think of an alternative to it, iyswim.

Have you tried using an adapted lemon drizzle cake recipe? I've got a delicious basic recipe for lemon drizzle cake, but it's at home and I'm at work - so you'll have to wait until later if you want me to post it up!

What I'd do is make up the lemon drizzle cake batter, then mix in the white chocolate however you wanted to do it. Pour into the muffin cases (rather than the usual loaf tin) and cook.

Then afterwards make the lemon drizzle with fresh lemon juice and icing sugar and pour it over the top. That should create the lovely sticky, gooey effect as it'll trickle its way through all the little air holes.

Then you can always ice on top of that with either white chocolate icing, or lemon butter cream as preferred. :)

needle a haircut around here costs £34 and upwards, I've just booked myself in on Saturday, going to take a book and see what happens.

trudyla the legwarmers are like tights but easier to change a nappy cos you don't have to take them off. L doesn't like shoes on either so they're good for her.

stac it's Davina's super body workout.

cake cream cheese/cottage cheese? they make muffins lovely and moist.
What can I do with Tahini?

cake what about replacing some of the flour with ground almonds?

chulita are you one of the veggies? I've got an amazing slow roast pork belly recipe (nigella's) which uses tahini.

I'm not a veggie no, and DH would probably agree to pretty much anything if I ever cooked him slow roast pork belly

ah, some brill suggestions there chul, needle and spirael. Knew i could rely on you guys. Thank you

Think i'll approach this scientifically and only try one of these suggestion each time i bake them

chul how do you add the cream cheese? i ought to know stuff to do with tahini but i've always struggled with the bitter taste of it. i used to have a pasta sauce recipe including it if you want me to find that.

needle what % would you swap?

spirael lemon drizzle may well be exactly what they need and isn't starting to make them too cup-cakey.

Lol, strategically administered pork belly has a similar effect in our house. It's long winded but very easy and totally amazingly good. I'm on my phone so won't type out the whole thing now, but i'll see if i can find it on Google.

cake personally I'd swap 100% because I ADORE ground almonds in cake, but you could start with half and half and work up if you like. You can also use half ground almonds and half rice flour, which makes a gorgeous, moist, wheat free sponge. Dove's farm organic white rice flour is available in sainsburys.

+update+ chulita if you Google "nigella's slow roast pork belly" it links to the recipe on her website. Once you have learnt the secret of the magic roast, pass it on to another worthy wife.

argh am battling the nap. He woke up at 7.30am so hasn't had a morning nap (normally gets tired 3 hours after waking but we were out from 9.50-11.20). I had hoped he might nap from 12-2 and then we could go to toddlers this afternoon (it's on from 1.15-3pm) but since he's not yet asleep that ain't going to happen. He has been in bed since 12.10 now and still not asleep! I know I could get him to sleep on me but I have things to do. Maybe I should get on and get the housework done and then if he's still not asleep get him to nap on me then...

woodlands I say if he's content, leave him to it and get on with jobs x

Cheers needle I'll have a look!

cake you can either cream the cheese with the butter and the sugar at the start of the whole process or you could bake white cho muffins, then once they're cooked scoop out some of the top and fill with a dollop of cream cheese/sugar/lemon zest then put the top back on (I've got a recipe for similar that use yoghurt...yoghurt may also be an option)

woodlands S didn't want to go down either today, I filled him with calpol though cos I reckon it's his teeth

still wide awake. just tried to settle him on me, but no, he wants to investigate all my teeth. think i might go to P&T anyway. can't believe he has been wide awake since 7.30am.

finally asleep on me now, only 2 hrs after startedtrying to get him down...

Ah woodlands what a little pickle!

needle and chulita isnt belly pork really really fatty? I want some chesp cut meat recipes in an effort to cut food bill.
cakes dh doesnt look at his food as he eats and he loved that pie!!! I loved that garlic in the pie,he thought it had meat in it?!?!?! but I tried to make the plate look fuller and make yorkshires but picked up the wrong pot and used sr flour!!!!
mlic how do I get more strict with bedtimes, I try and get L down at 7.30 but he doesnt always go down i cant put him in cot as he would scream for over an hour if i let him then he would be struggling to breath, the only advice i get is let him cry it out