Free Dining at Walt Disney World, Florida

We are still on a Mickey-Mouse high after our Disney experience this summer in Paris.  We made amazing memories together as a family.  While we were staying at Disney we made the most of our dining plan and the girls loved being able to choose their favourite meals in the resort restaurants.  This autumn, if you book a 2016 Walt Disney World Resort holiday, you could make the most of their 2016 Free Dine offer and, to celebrate, Walt Disney World sent the girls the wherewithall to make their most favourite meal of all - spaghetti bolognaise!

It doesn't matter where in the world we are, or how fussy the girls are feeling, both Lara and Holly will always opt for spaghetti bolognaise if it is on the menu!  Across Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, there are over 450 places to dine across a phenomenally wide range of cuisines so there is bound to be something to suit everyone's tastes.  To bring the Disney dining experience into our own home we cooked the girl's their favourite meal and served in some exclusive Disney Store cookware!

We sprinkled our spaghetti bolognaise with grated cheddar cheese.  But did you know that more than 89 varieties of cheese are used by Disney theme park and resort chefs to help serve up some of the 55 million meals that are served annually in the parks?

Our home Disney dining experience was great fun.  If you'd like to experience Walt Disney World Florida's food offering first hand then you can currently dine for free if you book before the 3rd November.  As part of the Walt Disney World Resort Free Dine Offer, a family of four people could save upto £1000 on a 7 day holiday.  Full terms and conditions are available at www.disneyworld.co.uk.

Rainbow Bedroom - Getting started with our latest DIY project

Well, it has finally started.  Mr. B. and I have started work on our latest DIY project - a total change of style for the girl's bedroom.  Goodbye girly pinks and purples, hello Rainbow bedroom! I've been collecting ideas for a few months and finally we have taken our first steps to making it happen. We've sanded, filled and scrubbed the walls ready for painting.  I can't wait to share it with you when we are done (P.S. this could be some months away!)

Follow Emma Button's board Rainbow Bedroom on Pinterest.

It is going to be a massive change to Lara and Holly's bedroom but with really minimal effort.  Mr. B. and I have so little spare time at the weekends that we can only manage a few small tasks every weekend and it may take us some months to complete but we are planning on simply re-painting, fitting a new curtain pole and curtains, replacing the plug sockets, installing a smoke alarm and then adding in a bunkbed and a wardrobe to keep the room tidy and simple.

BEFORE!

Because we don't have a lot of time or cash to spend on home improvements, we have opted for some simple DIY hacks.  We've chosen white walls which means we can buy plain white emulsion paint in bulk to save a few pennies.  We've also roped the girls into sanding and washing the walls! Rather than painting a rainbow mural, I'm planning a stick-on wall decal.  We've also collected a few

Mr. B. is desperate to get the girl's bedroom done and dusted so that we can move on to our grander plans.  I think he is struggling to get into the mindset of a quick bedroom re-paint when he knows that we have a lets-knock-all-the-walls-down-and-spend-our-life-savings type of project just ahead of us.

We are planning on opening up the whole of the downstairs of our house and adding a conservatory.  Obviously it is going to take some planning and a couple of years of heavy saving to make it a reality.  When you're planning a home improvement project on this scale, you need to think about the impact on your house insurance and your mortgage so it isn't a project that we undertake lightly.  I don't think that our grand plans for the downstairs of the house will be do-it-yourself though, it seems like a bit too much for us to take on.  For now, I'm just trying to concentrate on getting the girl's bedroom complete and saving those pennies for our future building project!

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post but that doesn't stop it being fun to read. DIY updates coming soon!

Wine - I Deserve It!

It has been an emotional few weeks.  After the chaos and exhaustion of the start of the new school term I decided to mix things up a bit with a series of job interviews, a very difficult decision and finally, my resignation from work.  Combined with the extra runs I'm having to fit in as preparation for my second ever half marathon race in a couple of weeks time, I'll admit I've been feeling the pressure.  When Aldi told me that I deserved to put my feet up on the sofa with a bottle of wine from their Exquisite Collection, I couldn't disagree!

Anyone who follows me on Facebook or Instagram will know that I like a glass or two of wine :-)  I like to spoil myself a little when it comes to wine and what better excuse to spoil myself than to celebrate a new job?  Aldi pride themselves on the quality of their wines at affordable prices - lots of their bottles have won awards even though they cost well, well under a tenner (and in some cases even under a fiver).

These two celebratory bottles shaped my weekend.  The Gavi, a crisp Italian white wine was very tangy and was perfectly suited to our warm, almost summery, weekend.  I paired it with a sausage buttie (!) but I think it would probably work better with a chicken salad or an Italian risotto - perhaps even a light pizza.  I enjoyed this wine, but I don't think its one I'd actively go looking for again (I generally feel this way about Italian wine!)

Saturday night was lasagne night and so I added a slosh of this New Zealand Pinot Noir during cooking.  Obviously, I saved most of it for drinking but if the wine isn't too pricey then it doesn't feel like such as shame to add a bit during cooking!  This Aldi Pinot Noir was a surprisingly light and zingy red wine packed with fruity flavours and it was more than able to stand up to my beefy homemade lasagne.  If I had blind tested this wine, I don't think I'd have spotted that it was a New Zealand wine, I would probably have said French! At £6.99 a bottle for a double medal-winning wine I think it is great value.