Snow and a freebie!

The two photos below are showing a few pages from the booklet I received this morning. It's a Facebook application that lets you select photos and change page backgrounds, amount of photos per page etc, then it prints them and sends you the booklet for free!!! Not only that, you can get one free each month!! Amazing! I only did mine last week, not really believing anything would come of it. It's brilliant! I shall do another one next month just of Christmas photos.
You can make your own at HOTPRINTS.COM it is free only for the UK, US, and Canada.

Below are some photos of when the snow started again last night. It's been snowing on and off since the end of last week. I can't remember the last time when snow was on the ground during Christmas time!
Matthew loves the snow... dad slipped over on the ice yesterday, didn't break anything thank goodness!

This one was from lunchtime today... we went up town for the second time today, despite saying that was it now till after Christmas... we needed to buy bread!!! Ended up getting bread, HP brown sauce, bacon, and Cherry B bottles!!

Stained Glass Christmas Tree biscuits.

We made our biscuits... they turned out quite well, despite having to re roll a few times as it kept breaking, so a little bit more butter added and I finally got the thickness right. We have 5 hanging on the tree as a couple of the others broke, nevermind, we ate those ones, lol. Gorgeous!
All you need to do is make a shortbread recipe, use any cutter, then cut out a shape in the centre. Bake at 180c for 4 minutes, then add a hard boiled fruit sweet to the bit you've cut out and return to the oven for another 5-6 minutes, leave to cool on the tray before attempting to move.

Busy busy busy!

Below is a picture of some cinnamon fairy cakes that I made... as you can see, I'm no baker!! LOL! But they did taste lovely, and any visitors we had asked for another one so they must have been good. Tonight we're going to make Christmas tree biscuits to hang on the tree. I bought a packet mix in Sainsbury's this morning because I wanted the cutter and in the centre you put a boiled sweet so you end up with stained glass trees, pretty good I thought, so watch this space for those! The box was slightly damaged so I took it to customer services and got 49p off of it, lol.



Here is just a little tiny video of our tree... I was just fiddling with my mobile phone really...

Some new photos of Elijah!

These photos are from Monday night just after we'd been babysitting Elijah. He had been a good boy, and is now smiling quite a lot. The photo below is how he often likes to fall asleep - all crumpled up in a heap lol.

The Christmas spirit?

Here's just a few pics to get you in the mood for Christmas.
We put our tree up last night, Matthew sneakily put his up on Sunday night!! I have altered the tree very slightly... moved the odd icicle and added a bead chain, but no doubt there will be updated pictures over the next few weeks.



Getting tree up!

Matthew's tree in his bedroom.

The little hoodie.

Here is Elijah's little hoodie that I knitted for him last week. My Auntie Janet sewed it together for me as I wouldn't have had a clue about attaching the hood. I'm getting on with the next cardigan now. I've completed both fronts and now onto the back. I shall take it to work to knit during my breaks. I'm enjoying knitting along with my friend, Jacqui, who's knitting two Aran jumpers for two teddies.

Video of our little cutie!!

Here's our grandson Elijah. We were babysitting on Saturday night. He's a good boy... but only if you're holding him, lol. I have got him this Thursday from about 2pm till 8.30pm...
I am knitting him a little green hoodie - his mum loves him in green. I've just got the hood to finish and then I'm handing it over to my aunt to sew together, lol... I hate that bit! I've bought a couple more balls of wool to make two more cardigans for him.

Click on the arrow/triangle to view the video.
He is laying happily on his grandad's lap looking at some pictures on our wall he's fascinated with.

The weekend.

We had a great weekend with Justin's dad and step mum. They travelled up from Devon to spend the weekend with us.
Saturday we went to two big garden centres looking at all the Christmas decorations and Yankee candles! We were in the first one for about 2 hours and we still only went round half of it. Santa also turned up, but we didn't get to see him, but Matthew got to see the reindeers while they had a rest. I took some photo's but they're on my phone, so I'll have to take them off of there first before uploading here.
We went to Frankie and Benny's for dinner at night. I had New York Chicken... gorgeous chicken breast in bbq sauce with herby potatoes (small roast potaoes), cheese and bacon topped the chicken, and I also had my first corn on the cob dripping in butter and bbq sauce... I've only ever eaten sweetcorn off the cob before and not that impressed by it, but on the cob and dripping in butter... wow, scrummy! For desert I had a soft bake cookie with cream, ice cream, red berries and chocolate sauce. MMmmmmmmm.

Frankie and Benny's click here to see why we rave about it.

Our Beautiful Abby...

Betdonayr Princess Abby (her pedigree name)
July 1999 - November 7th 2009.

Our beautiful 10 year old Golden Retriever, Abby, was put to sleep on Saturday evening...
Abby had been breathing strange for a few days and didn't seem to be getting any better. She was unable to lay on her front like dogs normally do, and had to lay on her side, but still couldn't breathe properly - she'd start off breathing hard in and seemed to have to force the air back out, then after about ten minutes her breathing would be quick, something like 4 breaths to my one.
We took her to the vets and saw a lovely lady. She said that because Abby had had a mastectomy earlier on in the year, it had probably spread to her lungs which was making it uncomfortable for her to breathe in certain positions. She said that we could give her water tablets to lessen the fluid in her lungs but it was just delaying the inevitable and it wouldn't make her better. We couldn't face taking her home again knowing that it was to be so short lived...

She was one crazy dog who loved the water and fireworks. She was like a puppy still, and could do head over heels. She would trim all her toe nails and would wash Sophie's face and ears... she will be sadly missed by us all here for a long time...

Guy Fawkes Night

Matthew had some sparklers in the garden this evening. We don't buy fireworks, not only because we have a small garden, but they're much too expensive and a waste of money. So he is happy with a few packets of sparklers each year.
The dogs were in the garden with us as well. Abby loves fireworks, but she was disappointed this year as there wasn't very many of them. Sophie used to be terrified of them, but since she's now going deaf, she can't hear them, lol.

Click on the photo's for a better view.

HALLOWEEN 2009

Matthew got dressed up to go out Trick or Treating.












Matthew calling on a friend from school, Megan.



I should have taken a photo of the man who opened the above door, he was dressed as the Grim Reaper and looked fab! He was really into the spirit of things.




Two really friendly witches who came out of their house to hand out sweets as no one was knocking on their door.







Matthew back at our house with our pumpkin on the doorstep.

Below are two photo's of Darryl popping in after work tonight dressed as The Joker. He'd been to work since midday dressed as this, lol. You looked good Darryl xxx

It's almost Halloween!!

First of all I have to show you all a card that I made with one of the stamped images that my lovely friend Dawn Marie sent me. Thank you so much Dawn, I love all the images that you sent to me.

The following are two ornaments from a pack of three that Matthew got from our new 99p shop in the old Woolworths shop. It opened here on Tuesday and the stuff they sell is so much better than the pound shop sold, lol. Matthew still has santa to make, then there's another pack of three he can buy and that one has an angel in.

Below are photo's from the evening that we babysat Elijah on Monday just past. He managed about half an hour sleep, lol.

Elijah and Matthew.

My 3 boys! (From the previous day!)

Me and my son and grandson.

Candle holder now bagged!!

I have now added snow to my candle holders and bagged them in celophane, and added a ribbon and a tag... lovely! The snow looks lovely on them when there's a lit candle inside...
I have been offered £4 for one, woohoooooooooooooo!

Forever Friends candle holder.

Here is a Christmas "little extra" pressie I made this morning... well this is my "prototype" lol, as this one I'm keeping. I have been buying Sainsbury's conserve at £1.43 a go just to get some nice jars!!! I've got another two jars empty, and I bought another one this morning. The Hedgerow one is lovely, lol. The Forever Friends image is from a transfer sheet, so I can get three out of each sheet at £1.50, then of course I've got to supply the tea light candles... I'll probably put about 6 of those into each jar, so by the end of it each one will probably cost about £2.20. Oh, and then there's the ribbon for the top!!! Need to buy more of that!

Ok, so what else is in the news.... I've just cooked a lemon sponge cake that I will fill with lemon buttercream and a slither of lemon curd, and I think I still have some teeny weeny orange and lemon slices that I bought when Sainsbury's were having a cake making clear out.

We babysat Elijah last Monday night, and he was as good as gold. He is such a good baby, they're so lucky!! Darryl was a right old whinge bag till he was three months old, lol.

Oh, and yesterday at work I got to press the fire alarm!!!!!!!! I've wanted to press that for I don't know how long, lol. Little things make happy you see.
You got to picture the scene... left for work at 7am commenting to dad that it smells smokey outside, dad said it was probably someone's bonfire, lol... anyway, walking through A&E I can still smell it, so it's more than a bonfire, but no one of us have a clue what it is. So about 4 hours later the smell finally goes... Helen says that if the smell has gone she's nipping out for a cigarette, I said that the smell had gone so she should be ok... 2 minutes later she's back in the staff room saying that the smell is even worse!! Then someone's yelling that we DO really now have a fire... there's a taxi on fire outside the main entrance of the hospital right next to A&E and the smoke is horrendous. The smoke is pouring in through the doors to the hospital... so then.... I got to PRESS THE BUTTON!! Wooohoooooooooooo, lol. I could imagine all the staff moaning about the alarm going off coz it really is deafening.
So anyway... fire brigade turn up and take about ten minutes to put it out. The driver of the taxi was a woman, and she had to be told by someone else that the car was on fire as she was reading the paper waiting for a patient, lol.