The Buckingham Blog

Krystal's Pizza Party

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:04:00 -0500

Today, to follow up Krystal's 6th birthday on Thursday, she got all dressed up and ready for her party at Pizza Express on Belmont Street.

We arrived about 10 minutes early to get into the room, only to find we actually had the whole of the top floor allocated to us - so a room with a big table set out with blobs of dough and another room with a big long table for the kids to sit at.

Krystal & Thomas

As all the kids arrived to join in the fun, hand over generous gifts and catch up with each other, it was time to get their gear on to make the pizzas. They all got numbered hats, Krystal number 1 as the birthday girls and Kory coinscidentally got number 8 which he was delighted with as that's his age. They also got aprons and washed their hands.

Chef Krystal and Chef Kory ready to get making some pizza!

it was time to head to the pizza making room. One of the managers, Luke, was taking the "class" and the kids were pretty good at listening to his instructions and actually following them. it was nice to see and somewhat surprising that they did!

They spent some time making the edge thin so that it goes crispy, squashing the whole thing flat. The kids all loved the feeling of the dough.

Next came the bit they loved the most, throwing the dough from hand to hand. This caused much hilarity!

Some professional help was required but on the whole the kids did really well!

Once they got them big enough to put into the pans, they got some white "glue" and had to stick the dough in to the edges. There were a few bases with holes in at this point but Luke was able to rescue them before any tears and tantrums occurred.

Best Friends: Kory & Amy and Krystal & Annabel

Once all the pizza bases were in the pans safely, it was time for what could have been a really messy part - the pizza sauce - passata I think it was called. Instead of spreading it on, the sauce was dolloped on the side of their base and they had to swoosh it, tap the base on the table or tap with their hands until the sauce was covering the dough.

Rather amazingly, there was none on the floor, the walls, the ceiling or even the aprons! Not sure I'd have been quite that brave with 11 kids.

There wwas then a choice of several toppings, ham, mushroom, olives, pepperoni, cheese. Poor Luke had to keep getting more as they were putting on so much, but they did look really tasty by the time they were ready to go to the ovens.

Thomas, Hannah & Josh (right pic)

Krystal with Erin (left pic)

James couldn't resist a shot of the hats

Pizzas getting put into a carrier by numbers on the hats

While the pizzas were cooking, the kids went back to the table, got some juice and all chatted. They were getting louder and louder by the minute but thankfully the food arrived just in time. Silence in the room. Lots of happy munching wee faces could be seen.

Just before it was time for everyone to leave, Krystal's cake came out, everyone sang happy birthday to Krystal (to which she looked really embarassed) and blew out her number 6 candle.

Krystal had a wonderful time, her friends seemed to enjoy it too and Luke was brilliant with the kids. I would highly recommend Pizza Express for kids parties.

Julie.xx

Christmas Parties

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:38:00 -0500

Well it's definitiely party season here.....well for the kids! There's been an anchor boys party, a rainbows party and 2 school parties so far. There's been a couple of birthday parties and another to go before the big day too.

Here's the best photo of each of them before they went out. Not the best quality as taken on my phone as we were in a hurry!

Julie.xx

Rainbows Concert

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:59:00 -0500

Tonight was the Cove Community Christmas Carol Concert (wow a lot of C's) and the Rainbows were taking part in it. Krystal really enjoyed singing in it with her friends Erin & Annabel. The whole group sang their wee hearts out, it was lovely and festive!

Here's to the Start of Christmas!

Julie.xx

Fixed!

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:10:00 -0500

I am lead to believe that after several months of not working that this blog is fixed (again) watch this space!

Julie.xx

Advent Calendars

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 17:15:00 -0500

The 1st of December and the first day of chocolate for breakfast!

Halloween

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 17:42:00 -0500

Having seen this costume on a friends child last year, Kory was offered it this year. A huge Pepperami.

Of course it would then have been wrong to put Krystal in a shop bought outfit so I set about making her a giant Rubiks Cube which she loved!

What do you think?

Julie.xx

Snow!

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 18:51:00 -0500

Just 2 days ago we were in the park taking Autumn photos, and today it's snowing. Looks like an early winter this year. It's pretty unusual to get snow BEFORE Halloween and Guy Fawkes!

Julie.xx

Autumn Photoshoot

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 18:16:00 -0500

Today the kids asked if we could go to the park to play with the leaves and take some photos of them throwing them in the air. given that I didn't have a better idea, off we went to Duthie Park.

Both of them were being very co-operative and I was really chuffed with some of the shots I got.

What a pair of posers!

Julie.xx

P.S. This blog entry is not sponsored by GAP!

Krystal Starting School

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 19:10:00 -0500

Well it's that time - my littlest baby going to school. Well she's hardly a baby at well past 5, but she's *my* baby! She's been really looking forward to it for ages, but the nerves were showing last night.

They were taking the kids in stages on the first day, so Krystal was in at 10:45am, but she was up and dressed early enough to get photos with Kory before he left for school.

As it was quite a nice day, we went into the garden for some photos, she's quite a wee poser when she's in the mood!

Finally it was time to go to school! We go there to find loads of Krystal's friends in the playground so we got photos of them together, sadly the sun was in their eyes so the results aren't great!

We headed round the back of the school where the infants entrance. We met Kory in the playground as it was playtime.

Us parents got to go in with them for a little bit to see them ok, then got kicked out. Krystal was no bother at all going in, just said bye and off she went.

And so she' joins the treadmill of life!

Julie.xx

Florida

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 18:23:00 -0500

As most of you know we've been in Florida for 3 weeks of July. It was absolutely amazing, hot and great to get away for so long. I've finally sorted out all the photos and put them into an online album. There was so many that I didn't have the energy to be selective about which ones I put on here, so I've taken out the rubbish and put the rest for you here. It'll take a while, but if you want to see them, pop me an email and I'll give you the password to view them.

http://photobucket.com/BuckinghamFlorida

Julie.xx

In Print

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 19:39:00 -0500

One of my photos from October last year made it into "Black & White Photograhy" magazine's May issue. I'm told by some photographer types that it's a very well respected magazine, so I'm really chuffed to be asked if they can use it.

Julie.xx

Blair Drummond Safari Park

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 20:06:00 -0500

On Thursday, we drove down to see Dad & Tricia. We chilled in the house, the kids played on their scooters, and then we all headed to the park. By the time the kids had gone on the chute three hundred times, it was time to get dinner, and we went to the local carvery. I even got a meat free version and it was delicious!

On Friday morning we got up and headed to the safari park and met up with Mel, Liam, Leah & Hannah at lunchtime. We had already been round in the car part of it, the kids played in the adventure park, we ate lunch, we went on a boat to see the chimps, we saw the sealion show and went round the petting zoo.

Well, that's between swapping jackets several time between no jackets, summer jackets, rain jackets and winter jackets. One minute it was roasting, the next it was tipping down and then it was soooo cold!

We had arrived at 10:30am and didn't leave until 5:30pm. We stopped at an indian in Dundee on the way home, finally getting home close to 10pm. The kids were exhausted!

I think I'll let the photos say the rest! What a great end to the Easter holidays.

Easter Sunday 2012

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:14:00 -0500

As we always do for Easter, we decorated eggs and went to a hill to roll them. Well in this case throw them as they were slightly over boied and wouldn't smash!

This year we had a monster, a bumblebee, a princess and a chick.

It was a really horrible day, cold and drizzly so we decided for the first time not to go to Drum Castle and instead just went to Duthie Park. Where we were rolling, the eggs kept getting stuck in daffodil clumps!

The kids had their bikes with them so after we'd rolled, thrown and smashed the eggs we did a lap of the park. By then I was freezing and just wanted back into the car. I'm so not an outdoorsy person!

Steps

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:33:00 -0500

Tonight Steps played in Aberdeen as part of their Ultimate Reunion Tour. Melanie and I got tickets back in October. I loved Steps back in the day and was excited to go and see them. Although it was a great night, it was easily the strangest concert I've been at. Not the band, they were great, but the audience was really weird - not up dancing for most of it. how can you not get up and dance to Steps?

The odd thing about the actual concert was that they headed off stage for a costume change in the middle of one of their signature songs, 5,6,7,8! Weird!

Anyway, here's a few photos I took

Julie.xx

Kory's Birthday

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:59:00 -0500

It's been a busy old week of birthday activities for our 7 year old. Yeah, 7!! How can my wee man be 7 already?! It's like someone fast forwarded my life.

His hactual birthday was Monday, we were wakened very early to be told he was now 7 and to get on with opening presents! He got Skylanders for the Wii from us, as well as lego, books, transformers, pyjamas and a magic set. He got Lego, Scotland strip and tracksuit & Skylanders storage from others. He was delighted and there was nothing he didn't want or like (thankfully!)

He was at school in the morning, then I picked up him and his friend Amy at lunch time and took them to Burger King for lunch before returning them to school.

By 3:15pm when I collected him he was excited about going out for dinner too (it's been a bit of a tradition that we go out on bithdays) so we headed into town to meet James after work and go for some food. Chiquitos was his choice as it almost always is and considering he'd eaten a burger king, he put away some amount of food (5 fajitas to be exact - think he has hollow legs) It was a nice evening.

Yesterday (Friday) was the last day of school for the Easter holidays and I had decided in my wisdom to have a few friends over to the house. Only a few friends became 14 including Kory & Krystal. I am so pleased the weather was in our favour and it was warm and dry enough to let them outside to play.

They played football and with the garden toys, we fed them pizza, chicken, sausage rolls and potato wedges about 6pm, we did his birthday cake and played Just Dance on the Wii and soon enough it was time for most of the kids to be collected. All but 6 went away. There were 4 staying for a sleepover!! We had Jamie, Daniel, Leah, Amy and of course Kory & Krystal.

They played in the garden with some silly string for a while then came in, got into pyjamas, played on the Wii again, had wrestling fights, ate toast then went to get settled in for the night. It was nearly midnight that they went to sleep and were back up at 6am *yawn*

They all left about 10am having had (I think) a great time. Kory got stuck into opening his presents and once again did so so well. His friends know him well too, mostly getting things they know he's into.

One very happy and very exhausted little boy!

Julie.xx