Do you love or hate Mondays? Mondays are often the most hated day of the week. I used to hate them as I worked 4.5 days a week as an Operating Theatre Nurse. Normally, I worked during office hour and occasionally did shift work. It meant I had to wake up at 7am to get to work at 8am. I have never been a morning person and after having a weekend rest, Monday was not my favourite day at work. More things seemed to go wrong too like making sure there were beds available for the patients, surgery instruments, etc. But since I am a SAHM, I now love Mondays!

Last year, I wrote a post about celebrating the little things for Freixenet and won a mixologist party. So last week was my birthday and I invited a few of my friends over for my cocktail party. It also tied in nicely with the blog I wrote not long ago about how I am going to plan my cocktail party. Do check them out!

The bartender, Luke came an hour early to set up his cocktail table before we started the party. I was amazed how he managed to set up his counter so quickly and neatly. He had plenty of supplies and even had a cocktail menu!

What to do with your spare time in your golden years? This is the question I often asked myself when I was in my 20s as I would dream of retiring and enjoying life. Now after having children, my thoughts are around what the children will make of themselves and what the future holds for all of us.

We love holidaying in the UK especially as there are so many places worth visiting like Bath, lovely beaches in Cornwall and Devon, the Lake District and holiday parks in Scotland. Also you are able to pack your must-have items that you unable to take on an overseas holiday!

Opel is my family dog who has been with us for nine years. He might be loud (seriously, he loves to bark) but he is a very huggable mutt. When I first met him, he was very mischievous and he is just the same even now. He used to love to chew cables, shoes and furniture much like any other puppy though he has calmed down a bit. He loves to steal food, especially food that is within easy reach. Even food placed out of sight is not safe at times as he will find a way! On a number of occasions we have found evidence where he has eaten raw eggs, fish, biscuits etc.

This competition post is an entry for #TigercubHideout summer blogger by Tiger Sheds.

Tiger Sheds have challenged bloggers to ask their child or on behalf of a friends’ child to draw a picture of their dream house. There are no limits or guidelines here: they want to see the craziest, most whimsical and avant-garde architectural marvels since Gaudi learnt to tile. The child can either draw their dream house by hand or on the computer. When it’s finished, ensure the drawing is labelled so they know what they are looking at.

Finally, upload the drawing in a blog post with the hashtag #TigercubHideout and send your blog link to tigersheds@tigerbox.co.uk along with a contact number. Entries must be received by midnight on the closing date of 29 August 2014. A winner will be chosen from the most imaginative and creative entries by the CEO and his wife.

My kitchen is a small and cosy place where I spend most of my mornings busily preparing and cooking for my blog post and my family.  We moved into this brand new house at the time seven years ago now. Recently, I had painted the kitchen walls yellow to make it feel warmer and brighter.  Now with a fresh coat of paint it looks so much better! My little cosy place is where all my kitchen gadgets are. I don’t think I could ever live without them.  Especially my rice cooker. I bought it in Singapore 4 years ago and it not only cooks rice, it can steam food and bake cakes!

Our cosy place is quite small, so we don’t have a proper dining table.  At the moment, it is a fold up table.  Whenever we need it, I just simply fold out the table and set it up in a minute.  We used to spend time having dinner together when both children were still young.  Nowadays, we hardly have time to eat as a family as both children have so many after school activities and Mr C has been working hard with long hours at work.  We seem only able to make time to eat together at the weekend.

Lichfield Bower is back again! It is the oldest traditional festival in Lichfield held every spring bank holiday. It is about 800 years old. This year it was held on 26 May 2014. Here’s a link back to what we saw last year.

Firstly, I would like to thank you my readers who voted for me through to Britmums Brilliance in Blogging Awards (BiBs) Video 2014.  I have not asked for any voting since the initial nominations but now I am absolutely thrilled to say that we have been shortlisted for the BiBs Video!  I would be therefore be hugely grateful if you could click here to vote for us under Section 9 – ET Speaks From Home!  If you don’t have time, it is fine!  But thank you for voting for me to go through to the shortlisting.

Recently, both Tami from Mummy of Two and Pippa from Red Rose Mummy had tagged me into Blog Your Heart Out Meme.  These are my answers to the questions!

Experts at Goodfella’s have taken 1,000 children aged 6 – 16 kids’ suggestions and recommendations about what they like to talk about at mealtimes to create a fun guide for parents, including 10 conversation starters that are guaranteed (more or less) to get kids talking at the dinner table.

The research show that there are 31% of parents don’t know what to talk to their kids about and 58% of mums and dads admit that their kids are bored of their tired chat.  My husband and I must admit that we always ask the most common but ‘boring’ question: “How was your day at school?”.

Last week, we spent some family time eating delicious Goodfella’s pepperoni pizza.  These are the five question most interesting questions to ask children aged 6 to 12 year old.

1. I heard you playing Justin Bieber’s new song earlier – are you and your friends all Beiliebers?
2. We can’t wait to watch the new LEGO film…
3. We heard that Match Attax cards are really cool – what are they all about..?
4. What’s your favourite video game at the moment, we heard Skylanders is really good…
5. If you could be any footballer, which one would you be?