happy birthday E

my little one is 7 today!



he decorated the cake himself, can you tell?

holiday traditions exchange part 2

this was in my parcel from Carolyn at Laughing Duck.

beautifully wrapped gifts



little pixies for the tree



a sample of teas



little notelets to organise me!



A signed copy of Carolyn's fantastic cook book for children
- check out her website, American Baker



a holiday music compilation



which is filling my house with Christmas spirit



I can't believe how generous it was, thank you again Carolyn.

happy birthday miss K

9 today!

Happy Birthday Miss K.

a fairy castle cake.

an early lighting of the cake because Grandad, Nana and uncle D were here last night.

lots of cards

a tree for jewels or decorations.

beautiful wrapping paper, I know it ends up in a scrumpled heap in 2 seconds but I couldn't resist it.

she opened some of her presents from the pool party this morning (well there were a few opened yesterday too), and will wait for the ones from us till this evening, because getting up at 6 to open them before daddy went to work wasn't a good plan, and opening them without daddy wasn't either.

the pool party was a great success, an hour of very loud splashing and jumping about, no one bumped their heads on the side, or got into mischief, we had some great water toys including some "sea weed" streamers which had one end that was weighted and sank to the bottom, and the other end was light and so they made ribbons in the water for little mermaids to swim through.


and then we escaped to the local pub for Sunday lunch!


It's the brownies Christmas carol concert tonight, so we've got a hectic day, I've told Brown owl it's miss K's birthday so I'm hoping they'll all sing!!!

and even though it's Miss K's birthday the postie brought a parcel for me today! From my holiday traditions swap partner Carolyn. It is fantastic, I feel incredibly lucky to have such a generous swap partner, thank you Carolyn, photos tomorrow, meanwhile I have a huge grin on my face and am just about to put part of my parcel on the cd player now!!!!

the calm before the storm

today was a respite in the midst of a crazy busy weekend.

last night was our nct group christmas dinner, 14 of us drinking eating and talking till late into the night.
tonight is a friends 40th birthday party
the inlaws have come to stay to baby sit for tonight
and to be here for pool party tomorrow...
at some point before Monday I really need to wrap miss K's presents
and make her a cake (she has requested a fairy castle!)

but today I had a lovely day with Beth on one of her felting workshops. I went with my sister in law and we drank lots of tea to revive ourselves after the excesses of the night before and we spent the morning making lots of samples, and in the afternoon we made two fabulous nuno scarves.
photos when I get a chance, and it's not dark which maybe never... Beth had an amazing little pop up tent to photograph inside which acts like a sort of light box, can I convince myself I need one??

soup

it's grey and wet and I'm full of cold.
it's a soup day.
this is my favourite recipe, but we don't have all the ingredients, so I'm making do with a tin of Heinz tomato.

Butternut squash and potato soup.1 oz butter
1 onion chopped
1 butternut squash peeled and chopped
1 large potato chopped
pinch of ground nutmeg
2 pints stock (chicken or veg)
salt and pepper

melt butter, soften onion
add squash, potato, nutmeg
cover and sweat for 10 minutes
add stock, bring to boil,
reduce heat, cover, simmer for approx 20 minutes till soft.
puree/blend.
season to taste.

garnish with crispy bacon bits, croutons, roast chestnuts, whatever is in fridge.

enjoy.

happiness is a pot of beads.

picture the scene, wet cold sunday morning, house looks like a tornado went through it at 200 miles an hour, E and hubby are feeling ill and very sorry for themselves, what I really want to do is go back to bed with a cup of tea and hide under the duvet.

Miss K "mummy can we do some sewing"
me "groan"
Miss K "can I use my beads, and make something Christmassy"

so we go for a rummage in the fabric box, and we find this little remnant that I bought several years ago, and after applying some wadding and backing, and making a few suggestions off she went.
all day there were requests to thread needles, but that was all I did,
and several hours later there was this!






Miss K you are way too clever to be my daughter!

holiday traditions exchange

here are the things I sent to Carolyn as part of the holiday traditions exchange.
you had to send Christmas decoration, so I sent some hearts,



and a mulled wine scented pear



and a Christmas recipe, and a tradition. I also sent her some Yorkshire Tea, as she said she was a tea drinker, and that's all we drink in our house!

other parcels that got posted last week were from the pay it forward challenge, so this felt flower went to Lina



and these went to Megan and Katie





Now to start making Christmas presents, can we say Christmas yet, we got our first card yesterday and it was still November!