December catch up, part one

Hmm, I've discovered I've quite a few photos to catch you up with my blogging gap, so I'll post them over a few days rather than one big lump! This post includes the December up until Christmas.

At the beginning of December we had quite a lot of snow, like a lot of people in the UK I think! My daughter loved it, especially throwing snowballs:

and making a snowman with granny (yes Sian, he is wearing the hat you knitted, it suits him I think!):

My daughter made this green and glittery xmas tree decoration for our wall:



We had some fun at the park once the snow had melted:

And on the 12th of December Father Christmas came to our town. There's a Christmas parade every year and the man himself goes down the chimney of a hotel/pub in the town centre, and greets kids in the grotto at the bottom. We didn't queue to see him in the grotto but the parade was good:

We also visited Winchester Christmas markets and bought a few pressies:

On the 19th we went to our friend's wedding in Bedford, I was quite impressed we made it there as the weather was terrible, snow everywhere. I don't really have any pics from the wedding that I can share, but here's the card I made for the happy couple:

And the final photo for today, the Christmas cake I made. The recipe is Mulled Wine Christmas cake, and I really like the flavour. I make it with Rosie and then we split the cake in half as it makes quite a big cake. Then we decorate our own halves. She clued me in on painting the icing with a paintbrush dipped in food colouring, which made it quite fun:

There's still a tiny bit left, I think I might go and have a piece now!

Back soon with Christmas pics, xxx

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Why I've been blog lazy...

Okay, I know it's been over a month since my last post - I'm really sorry. I can offer you some left over xmas goodies to apologise? The remaining snickers and mars chocs (which we don't like!) from a Celebrations tin? Some gingerbread which I made and then forgot about, and is now only edible if dunked in tea? Perhaps not. I'll try to do a giveaway of slightly more tempting things in the near future instead!

Anyway, I shall do a little catch up on my December within the next few days, but for now I just want to tell you the main reason for my blog laziness:
                     

I'm now 13 weeks and 5 days pregnant! Due on the 7th of July. Being pregnant in the run up to Christmas frazzled me out a bit. I don't get morning sickness too bad, just feeling quite queasy every now and then, but I do get really, really tired. You know, the sort of tired where you can barely lift yourself out of bed in the morning. Which, with a nearly-3-year-old little girl running around is real fun. Especially when you're also trying to xmas shop and prep the house for the festive season!
                         

So, I've been cutting back on all non-essential activities. I ended up not making any gifts for xmas, and barely any decorations. I baked a few goodies, the main one being a Christmas cake. I didn't do any of Journal your Christmas, which makes me feel bad. But I know that really it was more important for me to use my energy playing with my daughter and cooking dinners!
                          

That's all for now. Sorry I haven't been reading anyone else's blogs either, I've barely been on the internet at all which has felt quite wierd! I shall try to catch up as much as I can now that xmas is out of the way. Hope you all had a good one. And Happy New Year!

                
xxx

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Starting the new and finishing the old...

Sorry my blogging has been a bit sporadic lately, I need to try and get my groove back! Something that should help is that I've signed up to Shimelle's Journal your Christmas class, which I'm excited about as I {heart} christmas! I'm really looking forward to this year as I think my daughter is going to start realising what it's all about too, and I want to record it properly now so that she has a great keepsake of her christmasses in years to come. Here's the manifesto for the class which Shimelle has given out for us to use (as decoration and a reminder of why we're joining in!):

One of the prep things that was suggested for JYC was to put all the bits of paper and embellies that you want to use for the project into one place, to ease along the process of making something everyday. Now, I have a box for such projects, trouble was, it still contained items to use on my unfinished LSNED album from September. I thought I'd better finish off that journal before starting on another daily project! So here's the final 5 pages from my LSNED book. They aren't my faves as I was out of the habit of making them, and also trying to finish them off quickly, but they still record my lessons of the day (click on any to see them larger):

It feels good to have finished it! Now I can really relish the Christmas prep. Speaking of which:

You can check out my Christmas page for a couple of updates on things I've been making. Now I'm off to fill aforementioned box with festive scrapbook products! xxx



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