Join in the Easter fun with the National Trust!

This post brought to you by National Trust. All opinions are 100% mine.
Are you stuck for something fun and egg-citing to do over Easter with the family?
Why not Join in the Easter fun with National Trust and kick off the Easter holidays with one of the Cadbury and National Trust Easter Egg Trails and family activities happening at over 240 locations. There is the fun new egg and spoon races on Easter Monday, plus the chance to go on bug hunts, climb trees and build dens, as well as a whole host of Easter celebrations including egg rolling and duck racing.

Cadbury Easter Egg Trails - running from 29th March until 1st April
Taking place in some of the UK's most beautiful ourdoor spaces, the Cadbury and National Trust Easter Egg Trails as an element of joy to the traditional egg hunt, with plenty to see, do and learn in the great outdoors. Whether you're a child or simply young at hear, adventrue is sure to lie ahead; you can follow cryptic clues around the spring gardens and parkland, complete fun-filled challenges and enjoy nature and fresh air in the nation's most spectacular outdoor places to hun down a delicious Cadbury prize.
Sounding fun; what are you waiting for? Hop on an Easter egg trail with National Trust and Cadbury!
Each trail is totally unique to its place and offers a wide range of outdoor activities for all to enjoy such as:

• Design Your Own Egg Head - children can enter the competition for the chance to see their design come to life on a real Cadbury Easter Egg Head
• Giant snakes and ladders - fun for all ages
• Sack races - leap ahead and bring out your competitive streak
• Face painting - a sure fire winner with people of all ages

Egg and spoon races - Easter Monday, 1st April
Brand new this year! Families can take par in another traditional Easter favourite - the egg and spoon race! National Trust is calling all racers, young to old, to join in with the fun and come armed with their lucky spoon to kick off the race of the season!
In the spirit of April Fools' Day, there will be races in fancy dress, three-legged, blind-folded, as well as an attempt to achieve the nation's biggest egg and spoon race!
Wider Easter offer - outdoor adventures
The Easter weekend is jam-packed full of Cadbury and National Trust Easter Egg Trails and activities as well as the silliness of the egg and spoon, but the family fun doesn't stop there!
Throughout the Easter holidays, there's the chance to go on bug hunts, climb trees and build dens, as well as a whole host of Easter celebrations including egg rolling and duck racing.
You can Find a fab family Easter event by typing in your postcode. A list of local places will display and you can click on each place to see what activities they will be running over Easter. Also, it will display the times which the trail starts and ends.
I found that 3 local National Trust locations are running trails. Two have face painters and one has face painters aswell as a game area; which I know Jack would really enjoy.

Zappar & Asda host a reality enabled Easter Egg hunt!

Zappar and Asda bring to life the classic Easter Egg Hunt

Zappar, the leaders in Augmented Reality (AR) - enabled products and entertainment experiences, has teamed up with Asda supermarket for the UK’s first-ever augmented reality enabled Easter Egg Hunt. Asda shoppers will be delighted to set off on an in-store Easter Egg Hunt, guided by an augmented reality Easter Bunny powered by Zappar. The fun will be taking place from 10am – 4.30pm on Saturday 23^rd March.

Specially designed Easter Egg point of sale will be hidden around almost 400 Asda stores across the UK for children and adults to discover. When zapped using the Asda app, each egg will transform into virtual 3D Easter Eggs revealing an Easter Bunny hidden inside that will display a secret letter. The letters will form a password that once completed, will entitle the successful treasure hunters to a free gift!

Shoppers will only need to download the free Asda app onto a smartphone or tablet and then get zapping in Asda stores across the country. The fun starts when the Easter Bunny will leap out of his hole from a floor mat and tell kids and their parents all about this magical hunt. It will also be possible to pose with the AR Easter Bunny to take photos and video to share with friends!

For those without a smartphone there will be Events staff on hand with iPads so everyone can enjoy the fun.

And the magic of this augmented reality Easter Egg Hunt does not end in store! Participants will be able to take home a face mask from stores that when zapped, replaces the wearer’s head with that of the Easter Bunny.

This exclusive experience has been made all the more possible with the recent installation of Wi-Fi in all Asda stores.

Max Dawes, Head of Partner Relations at Zappar, said: “Our specialism at Zappar is in creating AR-enabled products and entertainment experiences! Everyone loves an Easter Egg Hunt; it is definitely one of the highlights of the holiday in many children’s minds. To be able to provide a sprinkle of Zappar magic dust to the in-store experience and create the first ever augmented reality Easer egg hunt in partnership with Asda on such a grand scale is just fantastic.”

Steph Hughes, Head of Events Marketing at Asda added, “The AR Easter Egg Hunt is a great way to get across the Asda personality and another example of how Asda stores are a destination for mums and kids. We are really exciting to be embracing this new technology and incorporating it into the Asda app.  Hopefully everyone enjoys meeting the Easter Bunny!”

Kate Cuthbertson, Head of Mobile Innovation at Asda added, “More than two million Asda mums have already downloaded our mobile grocery app to do their online shopping with, saving them stacks of time which they can then spend with their families. We are now looking at how the app can come to life inside our stores so we can help make the shopping experience more fun and enjoyable for them and their families. Free WiFi in all our stores opens up all sorts of exciting opportunities, including the use of augmented reality (AR).  Our Easter Egg hunt is a fun way to promote the Asda mobile app to even more of our customers, demonstrating how easy it is to use, while wowing them some amazing new AR technology.”

Zappar for iPhone, iPod and iPad:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zappar/id429885268?mt=8

For Android:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.zappar.Zappar

AMAZING CADBURY'S CREME EGG BROWNIES!

What you will need:

• 185g unsalted butter 
• 185g best dark chocolate 
• 85g plain flour 
• 40g cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs 
• 275g golden caster sugar 
• 6 Cadbury’s Crème eggs cut in half

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 160C and grease a 20 cm square baking tin. 
2. Melt the butter and dark chocolate together either in the microwave or in a bowl over boiling water. 
3. Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip in 275g golden caster sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes. You will know it's ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume. 
4. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, and then gently fold together. 
5. Hold a sieve over the bowl of eggy chocolate mixture and sift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to cover the top evenly. Gently fold in to the mixture. 
6. Pour into the baking tin and cook for 15 minutes then take out of the over and gently press the cadburys crème egg halves into the mix, spacing them apart evenly. Put back in the over for another 5-10 minutes. 
7. Leave to cool before removing from tin and cutting into squares. 

Recipe found via a Facebook friend.

Easter egg hunt tips & ideas!

Easter Egg Hunt

It's a long-standing Easter tradition - and for most children, the highlight of the day (once all of the chocolate eggs have been eaten) - but making an awesome Easter Egg hunt is a lot harder than just finding good hiding spots! If you've got a group of little ones headed to your house for The Big Search, consider spicing up the hunt with these handy tips.

Pre-hide the eggs

When it's time to start the hunt, no one wants to hit the pause button while the host searches the garden for good hiding spots. More importantly, hiding the eggs before your guests arrive gives you a chance to optimize the hunt. Also, factor in the age of the searchers. If they're merely toddlers, the eggs should be fairly easy to spot, but if you're dealing with a group of 10 or 11 year-olds, try to add some challenge by hiding a few eggs in the low-hanging branches of a tree.

Think plastic

Plastic eggs not only allow you to push the hunt back as long as you'd like, they give you the chance to offer prizes to all of the participants. They could be filled with small toys or sweets.

Colour coding

Expecting a group of children that cover a wide age range? Separate them by egg colour. Blue eggs could be for under 5s and hidden in fairly obvious spots, while yellow eggs could be for children aged 5-8 and hidden a bit more thoughtfully. This not only prevents the older children from spoiling the fun for little ones, but it encourages the egg hunters to help each other out when they see someone who's down on their luck.

Puzzle it out

Easter egg hunts are all about finding treasure, so why not take that a little more literally and turn the party into a pirate treasure hunt? Draw up a treasure map, tear it up into a few or so pieces, then put those pieces into your hidden eggs. The children will have to work together to piece it together, which has the added benefit of turning the typically competitive day into a co-operative experience.

Happy Easter!

Me and Jack just wanted to wish everyone a 

We hope you have a fantastic day and don't eat to much chocolate!

Even though Jack has chicken pox; he still managed to eat chocolate for breakfast!
He was very excited to see the Easter rabbit had been; but got Easter confused with birthdays. I did a little Easter egg hunt and he loved it!

Lush Easter Collection & gift ideas

Donkey Oaty

£1.95/120g

Donkey Oaty Ballistic

All Lush products are handmade in the Lush Kitchens. This lovely donkey smells of their chocolate scented Charity-Pot lotion and is packed full of rice paper ribbons. This will leave your skin feeling soft and it's colour spectacular of summery colours will send the dreariness of winter packing once and for all. This is a very fun and surreal Easter gift for kids.

Fluffy Egg

£2.95/140g

Fluffy Egg Ballistic

Egg-cellent, sweet and outrageously camp bath ballistic egg, made fresh by hand in the Lush Kitchens. This ballistic is great for kids and anyone who loves the bubblegum and banana scent of Snow Fairy shower gel (a Christmas special). It'll transform the waters into a pink wonderland of candy floss sweetness and scent your body for the rest of the day. Layer is with Godmother soap and you'll be irresistible. This Fluffy Egg makes a perfectly fluffy Easter gift for girls and guys with a sense of humour.

Hippy Chick

£1.90/75g

Hippy Chick Ballistic

Chicks everywhere need this zesty grapefruit bath ballistic. The bohemian, refreshing scents of frankincense and citrus essential oils will perk up even the most boring baths as it fizzes off into the water. Drop it in when you're in need of a spring in your step this Easter. Anyone who loves grapefruit-loaded Happy Hippy shower gel will love the Hippy Chick. It;s clucking great, so buy-buy-birdy.

Happy Easter Gift

£12.95/500g

Happy Easter Gift Set

Let's face it, Lush Bath Ballistics are better than chocolate. So this year, you can give a Ballistic egg to wish someone a 'Happy Easter' rather than giving them the choccy alternative. With zero calories, three different ballistics (Avobath, Fluffy Egg and Hippy Chick), as well as a mini Knot-Wrap that you can use again and again, you're bound to give a very Happy Easter indeed.

Bunny Knot-Wrap

£2.50/3g

Bunny Knot-Wrap

Have you tried knot-wrapping? Knot-Wraps are a great fabric alternative to paper wrapping (you can use them again and again, or fashion them into a stylish kerchief or scarf - the possibilities are endless!) Now you can knot-wrap at Easter with this fun little Bunny Knot-Wrap. You can wrap him around your bath ballistics, your Fluffy Egg or even a bar of soap.

Easy Easter Cooking

I love easter and now that Jack is a little older I can't wait to arrange egg hunts! I used to love running around the house looking everywhere for eggs which had been hidden by the Easter bunny.
I have found a few simple recipes I would like to share; most you toddler can help you with. You will remember making most of these when you were a child! I remember making Easter Nests at first school and the misshapen nests I took home were obviously a delight to my family as they were eaten that night after dinner (and still are today!)

Easter Nests

You will need:

Cereal (cornflakes or shredded wheat) 

Cooking chocolate 

Mini eggs

Method:

Combine cornflakes (or crushed shredded wheat) with melted chocolate and shape into nest shapes in bun cases. Before the chocolate has set, place 2-3 mini eggs into your chocolate nests.

For a simpler alternative, cover Rich Tea biscuits with icing (mix icing sugar with a little water and colouring if desired). The children can then decorate them with a variety of small sweets and sprinkles.

Easter Rainbow Cake

(You could even make mini rainbow cakes; just divide the coloured mixture between cake cases)

You will need:

Vanilla cake mix (mix according to package directions)

Food colouring (pink, green and blue)

Vanilla icing or frosting

Method:

Divide the vanilla cake mix into 3 separate bowls.

Colour each bowl a different colour using the food colourings.

Grease and flour 2 cake tins and layer the different coloured mix in the tin.

Once the cake has cooked (follow cake mix packet instructions) allow to cool before spreading a thin layer of frosting between the 2 cakes.

Put one on top of the other and cover in icing sugar or frosting.

Easter Bunny Biscuits

They are also brilliant for wrapping up as Easter gifts for friends and family.

You will need:

125g butter, softened

75g caster sugar

1 egg (separated)

200g plain flour, sifted

Quarter tsp of ground cinnamon

Quarter tsp of mixed spice

Zest of 1 lemon

75g currants

2 tbsp milk

Method:

Preheat oven to 200°C/329°C/gas 6. 

In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together using a wooden spoon or electric whisk until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolk, keeping back the whites. Using a round-bladed knife gently stir in the sifted flour, spices, lemon zest and currants. Gradually stir in the milk until the dough starts to come together.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured worktop and knead gently until smooth. Roll out to about 5mm thick the cut out the biscuits using a rabbit-shapped cutter or a cutter of your choice.

Place the biscuits on 2-3 greased baking trays and bake each tray in batches for 10 minutes and the remove from the oven.

Whisk the reserved egg whites very slightly, brush lightly over the biscuits then sprinkle with sugar. Then return to the oven for a further 5 minutes until golden. Remove biscuits from baking tray and place on a cooling rack.

Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day!

Pancake Recipe

Yummmmmy!

Ingredients

For the pancake mixture:

110g/4oz plain flour, sifted
pinch of salt
2 eggs
200ml/7fl oz milk mixed with 75ml/3fl oz water
50g/2oz butter

To serve (optional):

Caster sugar

Honey

Chocolate Spread

Lemon juice 
Lemon wedges

Preparation method

Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl with a sieve held high above the bowl so the flour gets an airing. Now make a well in the centre of the flour and break the eggs into it. Then begin whisking the eggs - any sort of whisk or even a fork will do - incorporating any bits of flour from around the edge of the bowl as you do so.

Next; gradually add small amounts of the milk and water mixture, still whisking (don't worry about any lumps as they will eventually disappear as you whisk). When all the liquid has been added, use a rubber spatula to scrape any bits of flour from around the edge into the centre, then whisk once more until the batter is smooth, with the consistency of thin cream.

Melt the 50g/2oz of butter in a pan. Spoon 2 tbsp of it into the batter and whisk it in, then pour the rest into a bowl and use it to lubricate the pan, using a wodge of kitchen paper to smear it round before you make each pancake.

Now, get the pan really hot, then turn the heat down to medium and, to start with, do a test pancake to see if you're using the correct amount of batter. 2 tbsp is about right for an 18cm/7in pan. It's also helpful if you spoon the batter into a ladle so it can be poured into the hot pan in one go. As soon as the batter hits the hot pan, tip it around from side to side to get the base evenly coated with batter. It should take only half a minute or so to cook; you can lift the edge with a palette knife to see if it's tinged gold as it should be. Flip the pancake over with a pan slice or palette knife - the other side will need a few seconds only - then simply slide it out of the pan onto a plate.

Stack the pancakes as you make them between sheets of greaseproof paper on a plate fitted over simmering water, to keep them warm while you make the rest.

To serve, sprinkle each pancake with freshly squeezed lemon juice and caster sugar, fold in half, then in half again to form triangles, or else simply roll them up. Serve sprinkled with a little more sugar. Try this step with chocolate spread or honey to make a yummy sweet treat. You could even add strawberries or oranges!