Project 365: #138 Happy Birthday Danny/New Year's Eve

I'm quite rubbish at wrapping presents.  I can just about cope with boxes, but anything that's a slightly odd shape gets wrapped in vast amounts of paper and Sellotape in an attempt to cover my lack of skills.  Danny's abnormally good at wrapping so I felt extra pressure to wrap his presents well and spent quite some time doing so - I think I managed!  The present on top is a belt - you wouldn't have guessed though, right?

You might've guessed from the title of this post that Danny's birthday also happens to be New Year's Eve (yes, this post is very late!)  We went to Frankie & Benny's for a late lunch with his parents, brother and brother's fiancée then headed home to get started on preparing things for the house party in the evening.  Despite the fact that his sister and brother had invited most people, we managed to get the short straw and spent a good two hours cooking up any number of party food treats - I do love mini sausage rolls and cocktail sausages though!  Yummy! :)

Project 365: #137 Birthday prep

Danny's not really a cake person but admitted to liking gingerbread the other day.  Unfortunately I didn't get around to making him a cake (which I'd been planning to do in secret!) since I spent most of the week before his birthday either with him or busy doing other things, but when I arrived home the day before his birthday, it turned out that Mum had made him a ginger cake!  I iced it (as you can see!) and presented it to him whilst carrying a lighter and singing Happy Birthday!  Unfortunately we didn't have any birthday candles so the lighter was the closest thing I could get - I think it worked quite well!

Project 365: #136 Bubble and squeak

I headed over to Danny's on Boxing Day evening and experienced their family tradition of bubble and squeak, which they have every Boxing Day.  In my experience, bubble and squeak is fried leftover cabbage and potato but Danny's version is literally everything leftover from Christmas Day, all mashed up and fried together with some onion.  And I have to say, it's absolutely delicious!  Max obviously agrees - look at him closely guarding Danny!

Project 365: #135 Christmas Day

I spent Christmas Day at home with my parents and Rob, grandparents and auntie.  We always have Christmas together as a family and this year was no exception.  Christmas morning is spent opening presents  and our stockings before the others arrive, then a big family lunch followed by chilling the afternoon away.  Bliss!  And as you can see, what with all the presents above and my present from Danny yesterday, I was very spoilt :)

Project 364: #134 Christmas Eve

Since we spent Christmas apart, Danny and I exchanged Christmas presents on Christmas Eve this year.  Although we both knew roughly what we'd got from each other (I'd asked for a Pandora bracelet and he'd mentioned that he'd like an Xbox), the actual charms I got were a surprise and I absolutely love them!  I'd wanted a Pandora bracelet for a while and wanted the charms to mean something to me.  I pointed out the teal butterfly charm when we were in the shop, purely because I love the colour, but the heart and shoe are perfect!  The boy did good :)

Project 365: #133 My first Deborah Lippmann polish

I've heard a lot of good things about Deborah Lippmann nail varnishes, so when I received Razzle Dazzle in my December GlossyBox, I couldn't wait to try it out!  It took three coats to get the look I wanted, which seemed like rather a lot, but it was incredibly chip resistant - it took 8 days before I had any chips at all which I thought was pretty impressive!  A perfect nail varnish for Christmas parties!

Project 365: #132 Tapas

Clockwise from top left: pan catalán, ensalada mixta, pollo ajilo, tortilla Española, brocheta de chorizo y pollo, albóndigas en salsa de tomate, cordero guisado con jerez y pimentón, pollo empanizado con salsa de ajo, patatas bravas

Time seems to fly recently and it had been ages since I'd had a catch up with my best friend, Bee.  She asked me if we were free for dinner and drinks with her and her boyfriend, Sam, just before Christmas so we all met up one evening at El Sabio - a new tapas restaurant in Newbury.  I love tapas and we've only just got a tapas restaurant in Newbury so I'd been dying to try it out.  Danny and I tried to go one Saturday night but it was fully booked so I was pleased to finally try it!  Definitely worth the wait - it was delicious!