Giveaways

I saw this on Jacqui's blog and so went to investigate.... this lady is having a birthday and has put together the most awesome giveaway... just add a comment and a link on your blog and you will stand a chance of winning... but you must be quick it expires on 9 Jan.

Christmas/Holiday roundup

Right, now on to some old news and photos. This is what we did over the holidays....

Aaron helped me make table decor.... Father Christmas's for our placenames (I put little chocies inside and a bag of chocies for his sack). He also made a Christmas tree for our centre piece... and I added my quilled tree and Father Christmas off my convention model.

My folks spent Christmas Day with us and also slept over.... left after tea on Boxing Day. We just ate leftovers for supper Christmas night too.

Our menu for the day was:
Gammon
Bean, cucumber and feta salad (not a great one... looked and sounded yum but wasn't!)
Carrot salad
Country potato salad - now this one was nice... no mayonnaise in site!
Dessert was a fresh fruit platter and chocolate sauce or cheese and biscuits (especially for Keith who is not a pudding fan).

Aaron got thoroughly spoilt by Father Christmas with lots of nice goodies. Also got lots of stuff from both Keith and myself. He ended up with four different dvds as well as a new computer game... which has kept him very busy for the rest of the holiday. His highlight was getting a trainset with the engine that made smoke and four different noises (not quite what he had asked for but definately a hit!)

I was very blessed with CHOCOLATE... yip people know me well! Keith and Aaron also gave me a gift voucher for Cum Books (which I spent on Monday... got three nice reads). Keith got some gardening tools and seeds plus a new tea mug.

A tradition that I've started the last few years is having a family photo taken on Christmas Day. Well trying to get us all to look at the camera and behave is a mission...

And then I also decided to throw my folks in the mix too and little guy wanted to be there too, so more fun and games.

But we did eventually succeed:

Took this one with my self time... not to shabby!

We mainly spent the rest of the holiday just pottering around at home. The organising/cleaning up bug seemed to bite me and I got into sorting out some stuff... both in my scrap room as well as Aaron's bedroom.... managed to donate toys and clothes to Cotlands (through a church friend). I am in the process of getting some more shelves for my Scraproom so once those are in I'll show you the cleaned up space.

In amongst all that cleaning, Aaron found my pile of puzzles and convinced me to help him build one.... only 1000 pieces mind you! The most he has ever done is 100!!! And even then he has help. So being the puzzle enthusiast that I am I said sure and away we went. Three days later it was done.

And then the bug had bitten so I decided on 2 Jan to tackle another one... also 1000 pieces. I managed to do the whole puzzle in one day.... Aaron couldn't believe it on Saturday morning when he found the completed puzzle on the table.... the other one took three days and had the same amount of pieces.... yes but this one was soooooooo much easier... just build each bird and away you go!

So now I'm back at work and slowly getting into the new routine of things. From next week school starts so my "normal" travel routine will begin too. But I guess more on that to follow.

Right, I think that is me caught up. Off now to go catch up on my Google Reader blogs and see what you've all been up too!

Scrap Layouts

I told you before Christmas that I had scrapped a lot.... well here are those layouts... be prepared for lots of pics.. hehehe ... I've linked it to my Picasa web album so hope it works.

2008 Scrapbook Layouts

And just when you thought I was finished, I did two more over the weekend. These are both form my 2004 album... only one more page for that year's album to do now.

I'm fast on the way to completing two year's albums... 2006 and 2004... only got three between them to do. Now I must finish 2005, 2007 and 2008... yikes! Oh well I've got a whole year ahead of me I guess.

Happy New Year

It's 2009....

here's to a new year full of potential and adventure. God bless you and yours greatly throughout this year no matter what it holds.

With shock...

I found out today through my friend Helen in England that one of the authors of a blog that I follow, Bev from Crafty Moments, passed away last week. She had a bleed on the brain and next thing was brain dead. So shocking and sudden. And to think that she was only just 40 (my age!).

May the Lord be with you Bev and also with your family at this time.... not a nice thing to have to go through.

Merry Christmas

This is the morning of our Saviour's birth and we as a family would like to wish you all a very blessed Merry Christmas. May Jesus be especially near to you and your family today as you celebrate together.

Remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.

The build up to Christmas

Our house has been a hive of activity the past few days. Yes I've managed to do a bit more scrapping (2 more pages) but have also done some tidying up too.

On Monday Aaron helped me to make mince pies.... yummy

Yesterday was some last minute food shopping for me... got the fresh stuff for the makings of my lunch for Thursday..... spent the afternoon scrapping. Even Aaron has managed to scrap 3 pages over the last few days.... (I promise that I will post all these scrap pages soon soon... just need to scan and then upload.)

In amongst that Aaron has helped me make some table decorations for Thursday too... will show you after the event!

And so it is on to Christmas Eve.... boy has it been busy. This morning I cleaned house!! Yip vacuumed and got the dust bunnies all collected. Even scrubbed the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms.... so it's all nice and clean for my folks to come stay. Then I spent the afternoon cooking.... did our gammon and made three salads. Just got a dressing and the pud to do in the morning.

After supper tonight we found this site awaiting us outside:

Stunning or what??? We might not have a star to guide us to the Lord Jesus tonight but He sure gave us a beautiful sunset to show us that HE IS LORD!!

Keith and Aaron even found time for a quick game of Chess.... they've played a few games over the last two days and each one gets a bit easier for Aaron to comprehend the rules. Nice to see Father and son bonding.

And then it was bath time.... with bubbles.... and so it seems like Father Christmas arrived early in our house....

Oops, my mistake.... it's just Aaron having fun in the bath.... hehehe.

And lastly before bedtime Aaron put our milk and cookies for Father Christmas... or at least a mince pie... and only one mind you as Father Christmas has all those cookies to eat at all the other houses too!

So now just a last few gifts to wrap before heading for bed. Sleep tight and sweet dreams.

Why so quiet???

Well I did warn you in my last post that you might not hear from me for a while... and here's the reason why.... I've been SCRAPPING. Yip have done amazingly well.

Thursday.... 6 layouts
Friday.... 5 layouts
Saturday 4 layouts
and today 3 layouts and finishing journing on a few of the above.

And the only reason each day's tally is less is because I've scrapped for less time each day!

Thursday was really spent at home and didn't do much except washing in the morning and scrapping in the afternoon/evening

Friday I did ironing, went shopping and then scrapped in the afternoon before we went to the carols service at church (will post photos next time). I said to someone at Church this morning that Christmas doesn't really start till I've been to a Carols by Candlelight and so now it is really there.

Yesterday we were out all day just about... birthday party for one of Aaron's classmates.... lovely beach party... and I was even in the pool.... pics to follow. So I only managed to scrap last night.

Today was church all morning and then after lunch Aaron and I have been scrapping.... yip even my boy has caught the bug.... he did two sweet pages to my 3.

I've also involved Aaron in a few of our Christmas Day decorations but you'll only get to see those after Christmas.

So now you know where I've been... and no Helen I'm not ignoring your award.... will pick it up and post it soon soon.

Signing off to do more scrapping....

Butterflies... part 2

Remember Jacki's post about her butterflies going overseas? Well I decided to join the bandwagon and send a few of my own. So here they are:
and there they go.......

So why not visit http://www.hmh.org/minisite/butterfly/index.html and find out how to send your butterflies to them too.

(See part one of this post here)

Christmas decorating

Well we came home from seeing Madagascar 2.... such a fun movie... (I really love those sneaky scheming penguins)... and then after a quick lunch Aaron and I put up the Christmas tree. Here's the proof...

So we had Christmas Music in the background, me humming along and Aaron chatting up a storm hanging decorations. A real festive mood. Now the silly season has really begun! All my Christmas shopping is done... must just get wrapped so now I plan to sit back and do some serious scrapping over the next few days so you might not hear from me again for a while... don't miss me tooooo much!