More fabulous flowers from the garden

I realise its all gone a bit floral around here of late. Bear with me it's just they have all been so fantastic and after such a long winter to have fresh flowers from the garden is a pretty good feeling. My neighbours brought over a bunch of wonderful billowy peonies too and we have been enjoying some of the last tulips.

Saturday morning baking

Tarte Citron for a dinner party this evening. 

Banana Chocolate cake for the weekend. 

Vacances photo dump

This week is the second week of the children's two week school holidays. Its been busy (to say the least) not a stitch sewn (as if I had time?!) as my sewing machine is in at the menders. It's going to cost me 85 euros to get fixed and I think little fingers may have something to do with messing up the tension and other general issues. Anyway it's coming back next week....

So it's been a week filled with cake making, swimming in the pool, gardening and a facial (the girls suggestion after I visited the spa whilst skiing last week and they wanted a taster of what it was like. Super cute so I brought the spa to the bedroom and they loved it) The holidays have been a blast.

Today's flowers from the garden

Wonderful tulips are ready in the cut flower bed. All of the back breaking work to get them in the ground is paying off and I couldn't be any more pleased. Growing flowers for inside the house is just so satisfying. I'm hooked! 

Avoriaz 2013

We have had the most amazing week skiing (and spa-ing for me!) in Avoriaz. Fantastic hotel with swimming pool, sun, apres-ski, happy kids and lots of snow. So much fun had by all and definitely one of our best family holidays.

The only bad thing was that I forgot to take my knitting with me. It somehow got left behind on the sofa in the chaos of packing 3 kids into the car. Arghhh! I had to make do with looking at crafty things on my iPad and I pinned a whole load onto Pinterest.

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(Mr L would like to point out these are my sunglasses !)

Two

It was my gorgeous little boy's second birthday last week.

The day involved lots of tractors, Bob the Builder books, a Postman Pat birthday cake and some Peter Rabbit cupcakes. I suddenly realised the girls are getting a bit too grown up for Peter Rabbit so I want to enjoy it while I still can.

We cannot believe he is 2! I've nearly finished the decorating in his bedroom and I've been pinning lots of ideas to boards on Pinterest (I'm a little late to this but I love it. Someone wrote on their blog the other day that joining Pinterest will make your life better and I totally agree. It's so inspirational)

Midweek baking and cuttings

Blueberry Muffins (no sugar just maple syrup!)

A handmade loaf straight from the oven.

Another bake, this time from a few days ago - Banana & Cinnamon Muffins (again, no sugar. yay)

Tulips from the garden. The parrot ones are my favourite.

Treasure

One of the things I love the most about living in France is the brocantes. They can be a little hit and miss and you can find yourself in the strangest places but sometimes you find treasure! We jumped up this morning and headed off to a brocante in Cognac. With three children under 7 in tow it can be hard to rummage but my husband spotted these canvasses from a far. A little bit of haggling later and we purchased two for 25 euros! What a bargain! And such an unusual looking couple. I love her cardigan with the red buttons too. Might just have to add that to my very long knitting list.

New cake book alert

I keep being sent annoying little reminders from Amazon about books I might like. Mostly they go into my trash but this book stood out.

I've been experimenting with making my cakes healthier for a few months now. I started with the changing the sugar to stevia, then read a horrible article about how stevia damages your liver and that your body can't really cope with this much fructose. Suddenly the cake didn't taste all that good anymore. 

Then I went back to the drawing board and swapped the nasty white refined sugar for whole canne organic. It's good but when it comes to cakes it has it limits. Not wanting to sound too much like Mary Berry it can make them a little on the dense side and sometimes the taste of the sugar is a little overpowering. Hmmmm.

So I purchased this book in the hope it might provide a new take on healthy cakes. One cake down and I'm quite impressed. It's called lemon drizzle but really should be something more like "maple syrup, apricot, lemon drizzle". Although that sounds horrible its not and its really rather delicious. Suddenly I feel inspired to bake again.

Spring Sunshine and Smarties

We had a wonderful walk to collect my youngest from the nous nous (nanny) yesterday. The girls have Wednesdays off school so we walked through the vines enjoying the sunshine and collecting pine cones and flowers along the way and eating Smarties (as you do......)

In a bid to be more organised I've changed my desk location today and written a very long to-do list. Wish me luck.

That was March......