4 days to go!

Can you believe it's only 4 days till Christmas! We're getting more excited in our house, are you? Mum, Emily and I went to Sainsbury's this morning (I'll be so glad when the snow is off the roads and driving is simple again!) and did what will hopefully be our last shop! We got there quite early (around 9am) so it was quite quiet to begin with but it didn't take long for it to fill up and at one stage I was close to "trolley rage"! I won't go into details but let's just say there are times when I don't think men should go shopping - Christmas being one of them. Have they heard of patience? Enough said! I had just finished unpacking the shopping when I noticed a little man under the Christmas tree ;o) - I think he thought I couldn't see him. You may have noticed we don't have many ornaments at the bottom of the tree - that was a precaution in case Charlie decided to hit them all round the room. He's been really good this year so we may attempt some closer to the bottom branches next year.

Once he realised he had been spotted he flopped down as if to say "what are you going to do about it?" He's been having some mad 5 minutes recently and is so funny to watch, especially when he chases the snow :o)

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I did buy myself a little treat today.

Mum and I always go to Starbucks for a coffee once we've finished our shopping (as I'm sure I've mentioned before) and today, they had a basket with little goodies in it at the counter. This tree ornament was too cute - it'll be our one new ornament for this year!

The second part of my treat was this mug! I love mugs and I'd been eyeing this one for a couple of weeks. Love the swirls, love the red inside and love that it's quite big. I've just had my first cup of tea out of it and think I may have to try a Chai latte, from Whitards, in it tonight!

And, we found our Christmas movie for Christmas Eve. I believe it's fairly old (it's certainly not new) but we've never seen it. They had it on special at Sainsburys and both Emily and I thought it might be quite funny. Movie problem solved :o)

This afternoon I've made another batch of Cranberry sauce

and I also made the base for the Christmas gravy (a la Jamie Oliver). We've been watching Jamie's Christmas at Home series and he showed how he was making his gravy in advance and then all you need to do is add it to the turkey juice on Christmas Day and it takes a lot of the hassle out of the gravy making. This was the final stages and it is now sitting cooling as I type before being poured into a container and frozen until Friday.

As you may have guessed, not a lot of scrapbooking has gone on today. I'm still hopeful that I'll be able to do a couple of pages tonight but it'll have to be after I've wrapped the presents that I need for tomorrow. If I get them finished, I'll do another blog post tonight.

xx

What I've been up to

I've had a busy and productive day today and am feeling quite happy with what I've achieved. Firstly, Emily and I went into town this morning to get a present for her friend in America. We stopped at Nero's for a quick coffee/hot chocolate before shopping but, unfortunately, they didn't have any soya milk so I couldn't have my chai soya latte :( and I ended up with a cup of tea instead because everything else uses too much milk! We didn't stay in town long as the pavements didn't feel safe and it was COLD!

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Back home again and I made some Cranberry sauce using the recipe Ruth had mentioned on her blog a few days ago. I had bought some Cherry Brandy while we were out this morning and had all the other ingredients at home. The cranberries had acutally been bought because I really liked this decoration Joni had made but when I tried it at home the container I had been going to use wasn't wide enough for the cranberries and the candle :( - Cranberry sauce was my alternative use for them and from what I tasted today, it should be rather yummy!

The rest of my afternoon was more or less taken up making little gift cards (which Karen had shown on her blog) using the Christmas supplies I already had. However, I can't really show you them or it will spoil the surprise for those who are getting them.

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Instead, I took a few photos of some of my favourite Christmas ornaments. I recently started reading Karen's blog (yes, another Karen!) and she was talking about having got a 50mm lens and had been taking some photos with it. I got my 50mm lens some time ago but haven't really tried it out properly so today I decided to put it on my camera and take a few photos to see how I got on. I think the reason I haven't played much with it before is because I've been quite lazy ;o), it's so easy to put on a zoom lens and zoom in and out as you please without having to move much. However, I do like the results I got with the 50mm and think I'll be playing a lot more with it in the near future. (I'd like to thank all the ladies I've mentioned, for the inspiration I get from their blogs and for the ideas they are happy to share with everyone who reads their blogs. Isn't the internet a wonderful thing! Thank you!) My glass Santa (above) and Snowman (below) came from a little shop in East Grinstead. They used to have the most beautiful ornaments but, unfortunately, they closed down a little while ago and although the new owners kept the shop name, it's not as nice as it used to be.I bought the ornament below when I was in Denmark in 1984! I stayed with my Dad's cousin and her family for a couple of weeks and had a fantastic time. I was there at the end of November (I think) and got to see the Christmas market - which I loved! I bought a few ornaments but this is one of only a couple that have survived our moves backwards and forwards between South Africa and England. One day I'd love to go back to a Christmas market in Denmark to stock up again. And finally, a photo of Emily. She is getting so grown up and is so pretty (I know I'm biased but I do think she's pretty!). It's not often she'll let me take her photo and although I only took this one tonight, I love the way it turned out. I hope you've all had a good weekend and are ready for the final countdown to Christmas! I hope to post my layout for today, tomorrow.

xx

JYC Day 18 & 19/ more snow photos

I was playing catch up again today - with all the snow we had when we woke up yesterday I decided to spend the day sewing. The knowledge that Christmas was only a week away was preying on my mind! I was hand sewing the binding last night and didn't get round to doing my layouts. This afternoon I finally finished the quilts (as in I am now finished with all sewing for Christmas!!) and this evening I did my two layouts!

For this layout I decided to back the tree and give it a border - I really like the way it turned out.

The letter to Santa prompt had me stumped for a while because I wanted to incorporate one of my snow photos. I'm quite happy with the way it came out though!

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And finally, a few more of the snow photos from yesterday and today. Although we haven't had any more snow today, we still have fairly thick snow lying on the ground from yesterday. The road outside our house is a little bit better today but still extremely icy. At least some cars have been able to get out. I haven't attempted it, I'm quite happy to stay at home and look at the snow from inside where I'm nice and cosy!

Emily went outside fairly early yesterday and was amused at Cloud's antics.

Spot the dog. Cloud just about disappears in the snow. She's so funny, runs around like a mad dog which causes the snow to clump on her fur under her tummy and then we have to get it off again.

This causes much laughter!

I loved the trees with the snow on them - if you look carefully you can see how all the snow was on one side of the tree trunks showing the direction the snow had blown in from.

Tyre tracks in the snow outside out house. The cars that haven't moved have stayed covered in a blanket of snow.

Hope you're having a good weekend wherever you are.

xx

Snow Day

This post is mainly for our family in South Africa :) This morning I woke to the sound of tyres spinning as someone was trying to get up our road in the snow. When I came downstairs this was the sight that greeted me Looking out the back

See how thick the snow is on the table and the top of the shed

Looking out from the front door

You can see the tyre marks in the road - that's where we always battle to get up the little incline.

I then walked out to the green and took a photo looking towards our house

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When I turned on my computer the first message to come through was from Emily's school letting us know that school is closed today. They break up a day early for their holidays - yippee!!!

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Glad I don't have to go out anywhere today :)

xx