Family Time at Prezzo

During the half term last week the children and I met up with my sister and her daughters for a lunch treat at Prezzo. The school holidays gave us the perfect opportunity to get together with the children to enjoy some food. 

Prezzo have made family dining even easier and family orientated with their new La Famiglia Feast sharing dish. We, as a family love to sit and eat together and regardless what others have everybody wants to dig in and try other meals which when you are out can be a bit difficult. But Prezzo have created the perfect feast for a family. One large bowl of pasta, side dishes, drinks and even ice cream. One bowl for everyone to share. This is ideal for families and a fantastic way to come together over some delicious food.

Saving Money on Foodie Days

Foodie days out are the perfect way to treat someone special in your life. Whether it is for valentine's, a birthday or just because you want to there are some fantastic deals out there to be had. Today I thought that I would share with you some of my top foodie experiences that are on my 'to do' list as well as some that I have already done!

Afternoon Tea

This is a classic English tradition that must be experienced by all. I was lucky enough to experience my first afternoon tea last year. I visited The Berkeley Hotel in London with the wonderful team from Carnival and dined on the exquisite Pret-a-Portea. We dined on sandwiches, cakes, scones and drank champagne! Before you book check out which hotels or cafes have any special offers running. A lot will have cheaper rates during the week!

Wine Tasting at a Vineyard

Foodieseeker Friday - Making Plans

From now until the big departure I will be posting a weekly Foodieseeker Friday post. We are now counting down the sleeps until we go.

Now that the holiday is getting closer I am thinking more and more about what we will need for our holiday. Being a family of five, and someone who does not pack lightly, I have a feeling that my lists are going to be long. But it is going to be important that I remember the holiday extras such as sun hats, sun cream and swimming aids for the twins. So far I have got the sun protection sorted and swimming aids are due to arrive. I will be telling you all about them in a future Foodieseeker Friday post!

Today I thought that I would tell you a bit about our accommodation on Carnival Vista and activities that we are most looking forward to.

Having children with a big age gap it was important that we would be able to have connecting rooms. This is exactly what the Ocean View Staterooms offer. So we will have the three children in one room and us adults in the other. This will enable us to let the twins go to bed before J and have their own space. It is important that J has this time with us in the evening as the twins do tend to take over.

27th May - 4th June 2016 - One Picture Everyday For One Year

What a week we have had. All week we have been up in bony Scotland for a holiday. We stayed in Aviemore which is in the Cairngorm mountains. This was a new part of Scotland that we have not visited before. The week has seen a lot of stunning sights, glorious sunny days, walks, distilleries and quality family time.

Here is my week in pictures...

Friday 27th May 2016

On Friday we set off on our holiday. We collected the children from school at lunch time and headed up to Scotland. As it was going to take a long time to get there we decided to stay over at Glasgow for the night.

Saturday 28th May 2016

On Saturday we set off on the final part of our journey up to Aviemore. On the way past we called in at my favourite distillery, Dewar's Aberfeldy and yes I left with some whisky! When we arrived at our holiday cottage we were delighted with where we would be spending the next 7 nights!

30th April - 6th May 2016 - One Picture Everyday For One Year

This week it has been lovely to enjoy the sunshine. It finally feels like winter has gone. This week has been a quick week thanks to the bank holiday Monday, it has flown by. This week I finally got my hotel booked for BritMums live next month which has started the excitement for the conference. Last year was my first year attending and I loved it. I am hoping that this year will be just as good, if not better!

This week has seen us watch the Tour de Yorkshire, a meal out, lots of yummy food and some pretty new nails!

Here is my week in pictures...

Saturday 30th April 2016

The hubby loves cycling so when we found out that the Tour de Yorkshire was having a finishing line in Doncaster we planned to visit. We managed to avoid most of the rain and hail stones and watched the riders head up to the finishing stretch. The kids loved waiting for the bikes and watching the police motorbikes going past. It was fun to see, albeit quick, but something we might not see again! We were even able to spot ourselves on the television highlights in the evening.

Sunday 1st May 2016

Sunday was a day in the garden for the hubby and time in the kitchen for me. This is a meal which I am planning to write about. Instead of a regular roast I made chicken breasts on a bed of leeks in a white wine sauce.

FoodieSeeker Friday - Carnival Vista Countdown!

Ok, it is official, the cruise excitement has well and truly begun! It is now less that 200 days until we set sail on Carnival Cruise's brand new liner for 2016, Vista! To say that I am excited is a slight understatement!

Preparation for the big holiday has really begun. Our passport photographs have been taken, our forms have been completed and they are ready to go in the post. If I am completely honest I still cannot believe that this is happening. This is going to be a dream trip come true. Italy is a country that I have always wanted to visit and I never thought that we would be going on a cruise together as a family.

As you probably know, Vista is Carnivals newest vessel. At the moment it is in the indoor preparation phase and soon to be going to sea trials. Then in April it will be delivered and ready to set sail with guests! Now that the vessel is almost ready we have got thinking about excursions.

When we set sail in the summer we will be going from Barcelona to Messina, Sicily Italy to Naples, Campri and Pompeii Italy to Rome, Civitavecchia Italy to Livorno, Florence and Pisa Italy to Marseilles France to Palma de Mallorca, Spain and back to Barcelona. As I type these destinations I am getting so excited. These are paces which I have wanted to visit for a long time. I used to live in Spain but I have never visited Barcelona. It has always been a must see for me as has Italy. So knowing that we will have the opportunity to spend time in these places certainly has got me thinking as to what we can do.

Whatever we decided to do will have to be child friendly. It has been a dream of mine to visit the Vatican, but unfortunately I do not think that this holiday will be the time to visit. The twins will only be four and will not thoroughly appreciate where we are. After all, they are children at the end of the day, so whatever we decide to do must be family friendly. As most children. the twins always need toilet stops and often want to do their own thing. So when it has come to excursions the ones that let you do as you want, in your own time certainly have been our preferred option. I envision us exploring the town or city where we are, the five of us, showing our children new cultures and simply taking in the atmosphere and discovering authentic places to eat. Who could possibly visit Italy without eating some authentic pizza, pasta and of course their tirimisu dessert!

When I sat and looked at the excursions that Carnival offer for our holiday I was amazed to see that they will be doing a whopping 75 excursions over the 8 days!

How will we be able to narrow it down?

There are so many places that I want to see and visit. I thought that today I would tell you about the tours that I think would be best suited to us as a family with an older child and smaller twins. Having children with a 7 year age gap it is essential that we do activities that please everyone and I truly believe that Carnival will definitely have what we are looking for!

Here are my favourite excursions that will be available...

Harvester Clifton Moor, York - Restaurant Review

The other weekend we took a little drive up to York to go out for lunch as a family. When it comes to finding a restaurant that we all like can sometimes be a little tricky and we tend to stick to our well know regulars. So when we were asked if we would like to try a family lunch out at Harvester in York we could not wait to try it.

We always love a day out in York so this was the perfect opportunity. Harvester in York is based at Clifton Moor which is a shopping and leisure area which is just north of the city and just off the ring road. So it is really easy to access and there are plenty of great shops about and even a cinema so you can certainly make a day of it.

When we arrived at the Harvester we were pleased to see that there was plenty of parking. We were slightly worried as there are other restaurants in that part and we did not know if parking would be a problem, thankfully it wasn't.

When we went into the restaurant we noticed that there were plenty of staff about so we did not have to wait long until we were shown to our table. The waiting staff were all friendly and helpful and always made sure that we had enough drinks and that we were ok. When it came to ordering drinks we did find that a couple of drinks that were on the menu were not available at that site. This was not a huge inconvenience but I do believe that if you have items listed on a menu as available they should be. This was maybe one down side of having a generic menu for all sites instead of site specific ones. The children enjoyed having their own menu and were pleased with their pack of crayons and colouring in place mats. Having these little added extras really do mean a lot when dining out with children.

Family Pizza Evening with Dr Oetker Ristorante

If there is one treat that we all love in the Hijacked By Twins house is a good pizza night! But as I am sure many of you will know that to treat a family of five to take away pizzas and sides is not cheap to do!

This is where pizzas Ristorante from Dr Oetker come in handy! They are a fraction of the price of a take away!

30th August - 5th September 2015 - One Picture Everyday For One Year

Wow what an exciting week we have had!

The week was started with a lovely long weekend. We had the hubby home for an extra day. As well as the hubby we also had the twins god father over which was lovely. They took to him straight away, it really was a pleasure to watch them with him.

The next big news was that my younger sister gave birth to a precious baby girl!

All of this combined with the return to school it has been a busy one!

Here is our week in pictures...

Sunday 30th August 2015

The twins are well known for their shyness so we were wondering what the twins reaction would be to seeing their god father Dom. But they took to him straight away. Poor Dom didn't get a break from them.

The Deep Hull - Review

We were recently invited to visit The Deep in Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. We do not live far from  Hull so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to have a day out as a family.

The Deep is one of the worlds most spectacular and deepest aquariums in the world. After opening in 2002 it has attracted over 4,000,000 visitors. It is not only an award winning attraction but is also the countries most successful millennium project!

If you do not know Hull, The Deep is really easy to find as it is clearly sign posted all the way from the Humber Bridge. We visited on a Saturday and when we arrived the car park was very busy. We also did not realise that the car park would be pay and display but thankfully we had some change for the ticket. So if you do visit go prepared!

When we entered the building we were greeted by the big welcome sign and beautiful dolphin statues hanging from the ceiling.

Our Holiday at Center Parcs Whinfell Forest

Last week we spent an fantastically relaxing week away at Center Parcs.

We normally visit the Sherwood Forest resort but this time we ventured to the other side of the country to visit the Whinfell Forest resort. We are huge fans of Sherwood Forest and hoped that Whinfell Forest would be as great. It certainly lived up to our expectations! We had such a relaxing break and came away feeling well and truly recharged.

We spent the week with my parents which was lovely for all of us. It is a huge help for the hubby and I to have the children's grandparents there to lend a helping hand, the children adore having them around, we always have lots of giggles and I also enjoy having the quality time with them!

As always we decided to hire bikes for the week. For us, having the bikes is part of the Center Parcs experience. Riding through the forest is all part of the fun and the escapism from day to day life. No cars, just riding the bikes and walking. Plus Joseph loves having the freedom to go on bike rides to the park, the twins have so much fun in the trailer and the hubby and I feel a little less guilty after all of the over indulgence.

Holiday From Your Holiday!

Any mum will know that planning a family holiday is manic.

Finding the right place to go, the right family accommodation, planning meals while away, activities to do, the packing, the list goes on and on.

At the moment we are getting ready to go on a holiday of our own. I always find the run up to holiday the stressful part. Remembering to pack everything, knowing what we will need while we are away, scheduling posts so Hijacked By Twins keeps ticking over and making sure we have a shopping delivery arriving on the day we return.

Knowing how stressed I get, I was delighted to receive a pamper kit from Al Fresco Holidays and knew that having a pamper evening would help to relieve some of the pre holiday stress.

Word of the Week - 3rd April 2015

This weeks word of the week is...

Family

With it being the Easter holidays the hubby has taken an extra day off work which is giving us five whole days together! After the Easter holidays our weeks are going to change with the twins being in nursery for three hours a morning. So I am making the most of spending some quality time together.

Point + Shoot - An Autumn Walk

This weeks Point + Shoot post is from a lovely autumn walk that we had at our favourite place to visit, Normanby Hall. We love seeing the changes in the gardens that the seasons bring.

Ice creams have been replaced by chocolate lollies, flowers have been replaced by fallen leaves and beds that were full of vegetables are now empty.

This is how Normanby Hall looked on a cold Novembers day.

As always I am sharing my post with two lovely ladies Em from Snowing Indoors and Aby from You Baby Me Mummy

A Night In With The Muppets Most Wanted

At the weekends we love spending quality time together as a family.

Saturday nights are family night for Joseph. Having the twins has meant that Joseph cherishes these moments even more as having his mum and dad to himself is often a rarity.

We were recently sent Disney's Muppets Most Wanted and saw this as a perfect film for our family night.

We all sat down with some treats and watched the film.

Disney's Muppets Most Wanted is full of the best loved Muppets characters. As they always do, the Muppets provided us with giggles and laughs.

Whilst on a world tour the Muppets get caught up in a jewel heist that is organised by an evil Kermit the Frog look alike called Constantine and his sidekick Dominic Badguy played by Ricky Gervais. Without giving too much away Constantine gets the real Kermit captured and imprisoned in his place so that he can carry out the jewel theft as Kermit the Frog.

This film is full of famous actors and actresses in bit parts. It became part of the fun of the film spotting and recognising them! We spotted Tony Bennett, Puff Daddy (P-Diddy/Sean Combs), Celine Dion, Lady Gaga, Salma Hayek, Ray Liotta, James McAvoy, Usher and Danny Trejo to name a few.

All three of us had a great family night, with a fun film.

As we all know sometimes DVD's can be expensive to buy, so why not consider buying second hand ones!

Disclosure: I was sent the DVD for the purpose of this post. No payment was received. All views and opinions are my own and 100% honest.

Point and Shoot - 4th October - 5th October 2014

This weekend certainly saw a mixture of weather! We really did have a bit of all sorts!

On Saturday we saw terrible rain and wind in the morning, which was followed by glorious sunshine. Naturally after so much rain there were plenty of muddy puddles which gave me a fun idea for the twins. So on went the wellies and coats and off the three of us went on the hunt for puddles. They giggled and chuckled the whole time. As their jumps got bigger inevitably so did the splashes. By the time we decided to go home and show the hubby what we had done they were soaked! But they had such a good time and every child should jump in muddy puddles!

On Sunday it was a cool but lovely sunny day. On days like that, we headed out to our favourite place to visit, Normanby Hall. This year we really have had our monies worth out of our annual pass. It has given us so many fantastic days out for free! During this visit we all noticed how the signs of autumn are really showing. There were so many dried, fallen leaves. The children loved ruunning through them and listening the the crunching and rustling under their feet.

This has been a lovely weekend full of quality time together as a family. Just as we like it!

Here is our weekend in picture...

As always I am sharing our weekend in pictures with the lovely Em at Snowing Indoors - Point + Shoot

Our Holiday Full of Firsts at Center Parcs

This summer we visited Center Parcs for the first time. Little did we know, this would not be the only first during the week.

During August we visited the Sherwood Forest resort. We had heard a lot about how lovely the resort was but seeing and experiencing the resort first hand even better than we could have imagined.

As soon as we arrived we relaxed. The calm and tranquil environment immediately puts you at ease. This was like no other holiday we have ever had.

This was the first holiday where I completely relaxed. I usually find it hard to truly unwind, having three children keeps us busy and on our toes. But on this holiday we even found that the children were calmer and they were all so content for the week. I found that the car free, forest environment had a huge role in the tranquillity that we all felt. We loved waking up and looking out onto the forest, having squirrels at the door, watching the ducks and swans waddle by and hearing nothing but the sounds of nature.

While we were there we hired bikes for the week and a trailer for the twins. It was the first time since childhood that I had ridden a bike. It was the twins first time riding in a trailer behind the bike. It was the first time that we had all been out on a bike ride together as a family. We all enjoyed the freedom that having the bikes gave us. We rode around for hours, not going anywhere in particular, just going wherever the path took us.

Before we arrived we knew that we would be taking the twins swimming for the first time. We knew that Isabella would like it as she is the more confident twin, however we were not sure what Taylor would make of it. We took it slow with him and after a while they both loved being in the water. This was the first time that we had taken them swimming together as a family. The pool area at Center Parcs was the perfect place to experience this first. The toddler area was an ideal place to start but they soon wanted to go in the "big" pool. We hope that this is the start of lots of swimming in the future. During our holiday my mother in law offered to look after the children one evening so that the hubby and I could go for an evening swim together. This was another first for us, we enjoyed it so much, having some time out, that we have decided that we are going to try and do it more often. Joseph is a keen, strong swimmer so he enjoyed having a bit of freedom and going on the slides by himself. This was the first holiday that I have felt at ease letting him go off on his own. However I did have fun going on the slides and rapids with him too!

The twins had so many firsts on this holiday. The first time seeing squirrels, the first time seeing swans at the back door, their first time swimming, their first bike ride, their first holiday that they really understood.

Leaving the comforting bubble that Center Parcs holds you in was hard. This was a first for me. Usually, by the end of a holiday, I am ready for home. But not this time. I had accustomed to the peaceful, stress and worry free environment. This time I was not ready to go home and I left with a heavy heart but knew that we would return.

We are due to return to Sherwood Forest in November as part of the Center Parcs Family Blogger Club to enjoy the festivities their Winter Wonderland will offer. But since returning from our perfect week away we have also booked to return to Sherwood Forest for a pre new year mini break and to also visit Whinfell Forest at Penrith for the first time next May half term and believe me we cannot wait!

We experienced so many firsts on our holiday but did you know that we are not alone!

During September 2014 Center Parcs have conducted a survey with OnePoll to see what the extent of family firsts were while on holiday. They asked 2000 families about their personal experiences and the survey revealed the following:

• Bravery Steps - 42% of children are more confident to try new things while away on holiday
• Baby Breakthroughs - 11% said their children started to crawl, 10% said that their child learnt to stand and 10% said that their child learnt to walk on holiday
• Early Escapes - Parents took their first breaks when babies were just 4 months old
• Brave Children - Children felt more confident to try an assortment of new activities such as building sandcastles 37%, swimming 29%, going down a water slide 19% and kicking a football 10%. Parents felt that this was down to interaction with other children 61%, quality time spent with the family 57% and being in a completely new environment 54%
• Active Parenting - 67% of parents try their hand at new activities whilst on holiday as a family. Popular new activities include swimming for the first time 32%, going down a water slide 23% and even rock climbing 10% and zip wiring 10%
• But 31% of parents said that they'll never let their child do an activity on their own and 21% of families have never tried anything new while on their break

What do you think of these statistics?

Are there any that surprise you?

What have been your holiday firsts?

Disclosure: I am part of the Center Parcs Family Blogger Club of 2013/14. The statistical information was provided to me by Center Parcs. No payment was received. All views and opinions are my own and 100% honest.