Halloween DisneyLife

Belle, now 14, has always been massively in to Halloween. I think it’s something to do with the creativity of it. She really likes dressing up (remember last year she won that competition by dressing as a cereal killer?) and she loves doing make-up. I mean she really loves it. She has a massive make-up collection and she is the appointed make-up artist for this year’s school scary tours. (It’s a bit like a school show, but you walk around the school in small guided groups and spooky stuff happens to you. Kind of like a ghost train but you don’t get to sit down.)

She’s ace at it too. 

She did my Halloween make-up last year, and every time I look at the photo I forget that I have my eyes shut. Seriously, I just typed that, so I should know, but I still looked and saw big open eyes:

Halloween DisneyLife

One of her other very favourite things is watching TV, and so, today, I bring you…

Six spooky Halloween things to watch on the DisneyLife app!

See how smoothly I did that?

In case you’ve forgotten, we’re DisneyLife ambassadors, and we’re excellent ones at that. We all genuinely love Disney and apps. So it’s a no-brainer. Duh! The DisneyLife app has absolutely masses of content – it’s the best of Disney all in one place, and it’s only £9.99 a month. Even better, you can try it for free, so if you want to give it a go over half-term, then just sign up now. 

Where was I? Oh yes, spooky shows on DisneyLife. Presumably you’ve just gone and signed up for the free trial (such is my power and influence). Excellent. Now you’re all set to check out our top six Halloween picks. I picked out the films and Bee, who is now 21 but still a massive Disney fan, picked out a couple of Halloween-themed episodes from her favourite Disney TV shows. (The app is multi-generational you guys!)

Wizards of Waverly Place – Season 3 episode 2

“The Wizards of Waverly Place Halloween episode is great because they have to design a haunted house,” says Bee, “so it gets you in the Halloween mood. It’s really funny, as well as there being a couple of jumpy parts to try and scare you. If you like ghosts and trick-or-treating, then definitely watch this episode for tips on how to get enough sweets to last you a whole year!”

Hocus Pocus

A classic Disney Halloween film if ever there was one. Belle has never seen this so it will definitely be on our half-term playlist. It stars the likes of Bette Midler and Sarah-Jessica Parker. It has to be said, the make-up and wardrobe is slightly less subtle than in Sex and the City.

Hocus Pocus DisneyLife app

Toy Story of Terror

Toy Story has to be one of my favourite ever film series. I went to see Toy Story 3 three times at the cinema and I cried every single time. The characters feel like they are an actual part of my life. Honestly. I don’t know what it is about Toy Story, but there is a real connection there. 

Toy Story of Terror is a short film, exclusive to DisneyLife. I’d tell you what happens, but you already signed up remember? So you can watch it and see for yourself.

Frankenweenie

Nobody does creepy quite like Tim Burton. Expect some classic Tim Burton animation in this spooky tale about a boy who brings his dog back to life. Hilarity ensues, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Also on the DisneyLife app you’ll find a short behind the scenes film about the making of Frankenweenie. 

JONAS – Season 1 episode 17

“In the Jonas Halloween episode,” says Bee, “as well as loads of cheesy Halloween jokes and funny moments, the handheld camera shots make it really spooky and the plot twist at the end is totally worth watching the whole episode for. This episode is one of the best in the series and even though it’s quite light-hearted, there are a few jumpy moments, so it’s perfect to watch on Halloween night.”

And finally…

Mom’s Got A Date With A Vampire

I’ve been on my fair share of bad dates. Like that guy who twiddled the hair on his mole – remember him? He would make a pretty good Halloween short film. As far as I know, though, I’ve never been on a date with an actual vampire. Mom’s Got a Date With a Vampire is a film about two kids, desperate to get their mum out of the house, but it turns out they’re not the only one dying to get her on a date…

(See what I did there?)

Definitely worth a half-term watch.

What are your family’s favourite Halloween TV shows or films?

Halloween films DisneyLife app

Skeleton image –Burhan Bunardi Xie/shutterstock. I am a DisneyLife Brand Ambassador and this post was created in partnership with DisneyLife who have provided me with a free 12 month DisneyLife membership.

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You know sometimes you have one of those days, or an outing of some kind, and at the end you sort of sigh to yourself, and think ‘well that was lovely’?

Nothing hugely adventurous happened, you didn’t spend loads of money, but you did something that was just nice, that left you feeling all warm and content with life.

That happened to us a few weeks ago.

Belle and I went to Stourhead, a National Trust place about an hour away from us, and met up with a friend and her nine month old twin girls. (#Rinstwins if you want to check them out on Instagram – how awesome to be called Rin and have twins?! They are made for social media.)

The sky was a bright blue, the forecast promised sunshine all day long, and we had nothing to do and nowhere to be. (Apart from sat down at regular intervals for the twins to snack, which suited me just fine.) We hadn’t got quite as far as packing a picnic, because I love the treat of eating out in a cafe, but I had packed us a little rucksack of essentials – water bottles, mini-cheddars, suntan lotion, and Kleenex pocket packs. It’s weird, but although I was always the parent who forgot wipes, I’ve turned into the woman who always has tissues. There is something very comforting and satisfying about carrying tissues, and that feeling of needing one, and then actually having one – it’s ace.

autumn picnic Stourhead View Post

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Word up yo!

(That’s me being down with the kids to prove that I’m not a grandparent yet.)

I’ve got a little story to tell you about chips, but first…

This Sunday is Grandparents’ Day, and environmental charity Hubbub and Unilever are seizing the opportunity to highlight the importance of cooking with grandparents as a way to spend time together, pass on valuable skills and reduce food waste. They’ve set up an online resource to help you #CookSomethingGrand, offering tips and a whole load of great recipes.

To demonstrate the issue, Hubbub and Unilever conducted a survey of 1,000 UK parents. The results showed that eight out of 10 parents wish they had more time to teach their children to cook and over half expressed a concern that their children won’t have the skills needed to cook a meal for themselves when they grow up. Cooking skills are essential if we want to use up leftovers, maximise the value from our food and tackle the 7 million tonnes of food wasted in the UK each year.

Just to frighten you, by the age of 11:
– 44% of children have never boiled an egg
– 28% have never peeled a potato
– 28% have never mashed potatoes
– 23% have never chopped vegetables with a knife

68% of parents also said they’d like their children to spend more time cooking with their grandparents, hence the link to Grandparents’ Day. Take a look at the video that Hubbub and Unilever have put together if you need a bit of inspiration.

 

My story about chips

I have very fond memories of cooking with my Gran. We didn’t make cakes though, or scones, or anything traditionally grandparenty like that. The only things I ever remember making with my Gran were crinkle cut chips.

My Gran made an awful lot of crinkle cut chips.

crinkle cut chips Grandparents' Day View Post

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Bee is on the blog today, talking toys. Please make her welcome!

…

A lot of the time I lie awake at night pondering life’s big questions.

“Can birds catch a cold?”

“What did I sound like when I was younger?”

“When do people stop liking toys?”

I was thinking about this one today. I can’t pinpoint a time when I stopped wanting or liking toys. I can’t even pick a particular age that I think it might be. There’s even a time when you’re just becoming a teenager that you see some toys and thank God you have a little sister so that you can play with them “because you have to” but secretly you just want to play with them, and I’m sure there are definitely still some toys I would want to play with if I saw them.

I decided to have a little look at the Smyth’s toys website to see if there was anything out there these days that I thought I could genuinely enjoy playing with. I do like gadgets and things, as my MacBook Air and brand new iPhone prove, and I’m not against the occasional board game, so I was sure there must be some kids toys out there that I might secretly want to buy for myself.

When I was a baby I had a toy kitchen that I really liked (I didn’t know about gender roles when I was 2.) I used to “feed” sweets to a toy owl and then secretly eat them myself when he didn’t want to eat them for some reason. This might have been the main reason why I liked it. Upon finding the toy kitchens on the website I found out they are INCREDIBLE compared to the mid nineties. Better than my actual kitchen in my actual house! Check out this bad boy. Magnificent.

toy kitchen Smyths View Post

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I am a DisneyLife Brand Ambassador and this post was created in partnership with DisneyLife who have provided me with a free 12 month DisneyLife membership.

What are your favourite books to read to your children? When Bee and Belle were little, I loved reading them books that I remembered from my own childhood. 

With books that I particularly loved, I’ve not only read them to my own children, but I’ve also passed them on to my sister for my nephew and niece, who are now seven and five. When we were staying with them a few weeks ago, for my sister’s wedding, I had the chance to relive my childhood when it fell to me to be in charge of story time for my niece Mia.

She snuggled down into bed, and I picked out some of my favourites. 

“Can we read two?” she asked, with a sparkle in her eyes.

“We can read three!” I told her, more excited than she was.  

I showed her where I had written in the back of the books when I was little like her. ‘It’s not very good writing,’ I admitted, ‘but I was only small.’

‘Writing is tricky though,’ she sympathised. ‘I was trying to write a card for Grandad and Clare yesterday and I accidentally wrote ‘multivitamin’ instead.’ We laughed at that for a long time. She cracks me up. View Post

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I always look forward to the summer holidays with a mix of emotions. I’m excited about not having to get up early every morning, (and by early I mean at about ten to eight, in time to make a quick sandwich for Belle and try to look involved), but also anxious about juggling work, and keeping everyone entertained.

As it turned out, this summer fairly whizzed by. Belle went off to stay at my sister’s for a week, (flying to Ireland on her own!), and then we all went over a couple of weeks later for her wedding.  (My sister’s not Belle’s.) Belle and I went to Newquay, we threw some axes, it was all going on. On the final weekend of the summer holidays, we had one final hoorah and went of to Valleyfest for the weekend.

Valleyfest is a diddy little festival, with a foodie twist, held on the edge of Chew Valley Lake. This sets it apart from all of the other festivals I’ve been to, as you have a stunning view of the water from everywhere in the site. Now admittedly, the weather was pretty shocking, but even so, it was  beautiful.

Valleyfest

We were there for the whole weekend, but were very lucky as we were put up by Tinkerbell Tent Hire, who were providing the glamping for Valleyfest. (I.e. the tents for people like me who are too lazy to knock a couple of pegs into the ground.) We were really grateful for it, as the winds did get up on Saturday night, and if we’d had been in a tent that I’d put up, we’d probably have blown away. Tinkerbell Tent Hire also hire out tents for things like weddings, so they are definitely worth a look.  View Post

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I have a bit of a thing for unusual museums. 

Whenever we’re away anywhere, I always look for the oddest sounding places to visit, or if I can’t find any, I’ll just drive around until I see a sign and follow it. A week or so ago I drove past a sign saying ‘stationery factory’ and got very excited, because I thought I might get to see how pencils were made, but it turned out it was just a regular factory and members of the passing general public weren’t allowed to just wander in. I had to turn around in the driveway by the barriers and try to look casual, like I had just gone the wrong way.

Over the years, visiting unusual museums has become one of those family traditions that you don’t start intentionally, but that you’re glad has happened, because it makes you feel like more of a team. Like an in joke, except the joke is on my children every time I take them to a weird museum about bees that’s actually just a creepy old man with an old beehive in his attic.

It’s nice though. It’s quality family time. A war time spirit almost – us against the crazy bee man. 

I’ve been meaning for ages to get around to writing a post about my unusual museums fetish, and so when Smart Insurance got in touch to say they were launching a campaign about the importance of families spending time together, having good old fashioned family fun, well, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. The Smart Insurance campaign has been inspired by the National Trust‘s mission to get children more connected with nature, and it doesn’t get much more ‘nature’ than bees does it? View Post

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Last week Belle and I had a valuable lesson in ‘the importance of trying new things’, or, more specifically, the art of axe and knife throwing.

You may remember how I teased you a couple of weeks ago with a post about taking on a challenge with the National Trust, where I asked you to vote for what you’d like me to do. Axe throwing won the vote and I was secretly very pleased as it’s something I’ve never done before, and hopefully, unless I find myself alone in the woods with just an axe and a ferocious bear, not something I will ever do again.

axe throwing south west outdoor festival national trust channel adventure

We were taught the art of axe throwing by a company called Channel Adventure, who are based not far from us, on the edge of Exmoor National Park. They run all sorts of adventurous looking courses and activities, and are heavily involved in the National Trust’s new festival, the South West Outdoor Festival. Channel Adventure are going to be offering various activities over the festival weekend, including rock climbing, rafting, kayaking and, you guessed it, axe throwing. If our little adventure tickles your fancy, do have a look at the South West Outdoor Festival, and you could have a go for yourself.

We rocked up at the venue at 10am on a Friday morning. Belle had made cupcakes, which immediately went down well with the two woman who were our teachers for the morning. (Didn’t I bring her up nice?) We were joined a few minutes later by a group of three teenage boys who looked like they were too cool to be anywhere other than Snapchat, and who kept their hoods up permanently to make the point. Apparently they were from Birmingham, staying with the aunt of one of them for a couple of weeks.

“They don’t want to be here,” said the aunt as she dropped them off, “but I’ve booked them in and they’re doing it.” View Post

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As a blogger, I get to do lots of interesting things, but I can’t say I ever expected anyone to ask me if I wanted to learn how to throw an axe. To be honest, I’m not even sure why you throw an axe, unless you’re a Viking or something. I imagine them chucking axes about and roaring ferociously.

I have been challenged by the National Trust though, to do something outdoorsy – something that I might not normally think to do, and you get to choose what that is.

NT SWOF Jo Middleton Adventures 1

It’s to celebrate the South West Outdoor Festival, a totally new kind of festival, being held in Devon from September 23 – 25. It’s being hosted by The National Trust, together with Cotswold Outdoor, Panasonic, Exmoor National Park and lots of local outdoor experts. It’s a festival for people who prefer rafting to raving, and who’d rather been foraging for wild food than queuing for a burger. View Post

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Bee emailed me the other day. ‘Do you realise,’ she said, ‘that you’ve been writing your blog now for half of Belle’s life?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’d never thought of it like that. It’s a good thing though, as it means that when she asks me questions about things she did as a child, I’ll just be able to Google them.’

(I have a terrible memory.)

I’m sure there are masses of parents who’ve been writing blogs for more than half of their child’s life, but that’s because the children are all about six months old. It feels like a bit more of an achievement when the child in question has just had their 14th birthday.

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When I first started blogging in 2009, I didn’t even think about what my life would look like in 2016, let alone what my blog would look like. In a weird way, I feel like my life and blog have evolved in unison – in 2009 my life felt very commercial, (office hours in a job I didn’t like), while my blog was more fun, with more time to be creative.

And then I jacked it all in to write for a living.

Hoorah!

I don’t think anyone would dispute the fact that my blog has become more commercial, but that’s been balanced by my life outside my blog becoming less commercial, with more time for fun. The fun pendulum has swung in what feels like a positive way.

Does that make sense? Sometimes I feel guilty about the growing commercial aspect, but if that just means I’ve created a business for myself that frees up the rest of my life for adventures, then that has to be a good thing doesn’t it? We shouldn’t feel bad about being successful.

But Belle.

I wonder if it feels weird for her to have such a huge chunk of her life documented like this? I wonder if she even remembers a time when it wasn’t? I try to be sensitive when I write about her, (as is clear from the picture above), but I’m sure there are things I post that I think are adorable, but that she thinks are horribly embarrassing. But then that’s a parent’s job isn’t it? To be embarrassing?

Except perhaps not always in quite so public a way.

Anyway, happy birthday Belle!

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This is going to be a post about two of my favourite things – travel and Disney. In particular, the DisneyLife app. (A new branch of the ‘favourite things’ tree.)

If you’ve read even a handful of my blog posts before, you’ll know that Belle and I are pretty much permanently on mini-breaks, holed up in some caravan somewhere, and in case you were in any doubt at all about the Disney element, here’s what hangs, pride of place, on the wall at home. I’m not sure whether Bee was more excited in Disneyland Paris, meeting Stitch, or at Camp Bestival, where she met Seth Lakeman. It’s a tough call.

DisneyLife app

The DisneyLife app

We are all very excited though about being part of the team of bloggers working with Disney to help people discover the DisneyLife app. And honestly, when I say I am excited, I really mean it. Not like when I say ‘I’m excited to be working with this new brand of high fibre cracker!’ (Although you know, it’s always nice to have work). This is proper ‘I might get to work with Disney! I can’t wait to hear from Disney!’ type excitement. Ask my fiancé, he’ll tell you how annoying I’ve been in the run up to this project going live. View Post

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I have a quiz for you today! It’s only two questions, it’s not The Krypton Factor or anything, so give it a go. It has a ‘back to school’ theme:

Q.1. When it comes to labelling Belle’s clothes and equipment for school, do I:

A. Carefully iron labels onto everything, including individual socks, whilst listening to wholesome podcasts and humming classical music quietly to myself.

B. Assume that because she is now nearly 14, she’ll be able to carry a jumper and lunch box to and from school without accidentally throwing it in a hedge or leaving it in a bin.

Q.2. How many times have I had to pay to replace lunchboxes, bags and items of uniform, including a whole PE kit plus trainers, so far?

A. None. Because of the labels. Dur!

B. More times that I really care to mention. Certainly enough times to wish I had answered A to question 1.  View Post

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