Some photos from the festivities

Anyways, I thought I'd pop on a couple of photos taken recently in the festive season:

Marianne's new fur baby "Ebony" - a Crimbo pressie from her boyfriend:

The gal herself - with her vibrant pink "make a statement" hairdo and fabby long lashes:

Crimbo Update

Hope you all had a good Christmas all you peeps out there!

I certainly did ;o) We started Christmas morning at 6.50 am our time with a telephone call from my uncle John in Oz which was lovely though quite early LOL!!

Kids loved their pressies - they all got what they wanted with the exception of the Nintendo Wii - cos that was for the whole family :o) Got guitar hero for the Wii [not yet played it] seeing as I had been playing Guitar Hero on the PS2 heh heh heh!!

Kids got me Lacoste "pink" perfume along with new earphones for listening to music on the PC - yay!! Got a fabby new purse from BIL, fabby new handbag from the PIL, got a couple of new CD albums to fire on the PC and then onto my IPOD - Kings of Leon, Pink, and Nickleback. BUT the bestest pressie I got was my Nikon DSLR + 2 lenses [big thanks to hubby!!]. Got my eye on another lens but I'll need to sell my bridge camera and it's additional lens/accs to compensate- but hey I can cope with that LOL!!

A couple more Crimbo cards

Yay the Crimbo tree is up!

Not before time too! Eventually got round to buying a Christmas tree yesterday after disposing of the fibre optic tree in summer. Thought we would never get one at a decent price. Put the tree up last night. At least it looks like Christmas is going to arrive in this house afterall. Up until Monday this week, we really thought Christmas would be cancelled for us thank heavens its not!!

Blog Candy

Wow! you should pop over and visit Linanna Designs blog - fabby selection of blog candy!

Snowman Soup for the kids' teachers

A lovely cup + 2 bars of chocolate; 2 x candy canes; bag of freeze dried snowballs [marsh mallows]; snowman poop [tic-tacs]. SU stamps + glitter used.

A slight variation from my colleagues with the mug instead of gift bag. The poem reads:

When the weather outside is frightful
Snowman Soup can be delightful
May it warm your spirit and your soul
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

When you feel a chill or ‘burrrrr’
Use the peppermint stick to stir
Add hot water and sip it slow,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Snowman Soup for my work colleagues

The marshmallows are "freeze-dried" snowballs!! And mint tic-tacs are snowman poop!!

I've used Cuttlebug embossing; SU snowflake stamps and stampin' glitter; SU scallop punch.

A sad sad day ....

Heaven bless him...

Our gorgeous dog, Sunny, has gone to doggie heaven today. Suddenly taken ill, Sunny was admitted to the vets as an emergency this morning. Poor soul.

We got him around 2 weeks before Christmas 2005. He had 'served time' in the German Shepherd Rescue Centre. Poor chap had suffered terribly at the hands of another human being. When we got him he wouldn't even go near my hubby, only following me around constantly. Eventually hubby gained Sunny's trust and they became best of friends, and very protective of us as a family. He'll be very sadly missed.

Altered Kit-Kat

Turn this:

Into this:

I made this altered kit-kat this morning just before taking the kids to school! As a member of both my kids' school parent council and fundraising group, Emma Stewart always obliges our groups whenever we ask Emma to do anything such as photocopying etc. Always cheery, never flustered, Emma is a star! Yesterday I asked Emma to do a wee bit p/copying for our parent council meeting last night and the bundle was ready for the meeting. I thought I'd make this up for her as a wee Friday morning coffee break treat. Thanks Emma - you are a star!!

I used plain cardstock, stamped randomly with SU stamps in purple. Scallop punch with another SU stamp. Ribbon used. Scallop circle mounted with foam squares. I used the paper ribbler to do the ends of the cardstock.

Hectic goings on!

I can't believe just how quickly Christmas is coming in. It'll be here before we know it. Have I done any shopping? Only a little. Trying not to go too mad spending as my hubby has taken redundancy. I say taken redundancy, purely because he would have worked his socks off until the end of the year/early 2009 just as he has done, except more particularly in the past 18 months working longer hours all in association with a relocation. The company are relocating and, currently making redundancies. For the existing workers who will be 'kept' in employment, to be transferred will be receiving new contracts - that's a joke. And for what? Only to feel used, and hugely let down + a reduction in salary - after him working for 17 yrs in the same place. I can't say too much "just in case" or the legal eagles will come back and bite me on the bum LOL!! Scenario: new contract received 1 Friday with new T&C + details of reduced salary to commence a week later!! Not much time to be consulted is it? So, hubby feeling the way as described above, took the redundancy. All in a week's work! I can't say I blame him. We are all going to enjoy spending more time as a family - more than we have probably done in the last 18 mths to 2 yrs I suspect! As long as something 'turns up' soon for him jobwise [he has been looking and applying] hopefully we will be okay.

On the other hand, the poor bloke has hardly seen me this week really! I am currently 1 of the school fundraising organisers and we have a HUGE Christmas market which is being held next Wednesday. There is so much involved behind the scenes with this and I've also been preparing for our Parent Council meeting [I am secretary] - so been really busy!!

A Christmas-like photo

Just faffing around taking shots of the flame from a lovely candle received as part of a birthday gift from my friend Denise. Looks quite Christmassy!

Ali at the skatepark

A quiet moment:

In monotone - on the ramps:
In colour - on the ramps:

We had promised to take Alwynne to the skate park when there was a weekend I wasn't working which was weekend just past. It's my wee boy's 11th birthday tomorrow and we had a sleepover at the weekend hence my not being at work. Anyways, had time on Sunday afternoon to take her to a skate park not far from us. It was a wee bit daunting for her as there were kids just doing their stunts in their in-line skates just a wee bit too fast! She did okay considering but to be honest, probably felt a bit self conscious as a newbie!

Baby boy diaper cake comission

Some of the contents minus the 45 nappies!

Planning stages:

Seeing how it would look in layers:

Everything positioned and 'wrapped with the pram sheet and wipe cloths etc:

All gift-wrapped and bow: As a follow-on from my recent baby girl nappy/diaper cake comission on behalf of my cousin, Lisa bagged be another one! :o) This time it was for a baby boy!

Fireworks display

I played around with the speed settings on the camera and achieved different results - unfortunately I had to keep wiping the lens as it was raining so there are rain drops on the images :o(

In the run-up to our authority organised fireworks night, our local primary schools take part in making lanterns for the parade. My son's class did it last year as it is a primary 6 activity. This year there was a call-out for stewards to help out on the night. LOL guess who volunteered? Yep - moi! So last night [Friday] I helped escort the children up to the required area of the field. Unfortunately the weather was absolutely *pants*. It rained. The bonfire proved difficult to ignite. The fireworks however were good though! Just a shame the field ended up to be a muddy nightmare, it was that muddy a few folks landed on their butts it was so slippy!

Oh so busy, so busy me dear!

LOL!! Not been able to do any crafting whatsoever this week!

I've been totally involved with school related stuff this week. Myself and Sharon volunteered as parent helpers for our boys who are in P7, on a field trip to East Fortune. They are currently learning about WWII and what it was like to live in those days. We had to practice drill and know to curl up on the floor and protect ourselves when the air raid siren went off!! My mind kinda wandered when we were doing drill and I got the moves all wrong at one point - should I really be admitting that I was in the RAF cadets as a teenager and we did drill regularly?!! When that siren went off, I had to stop myself laughing - no not at the sound of it or how the kids were getting on, I was laughing at myself - I just couldn't land on the floor or rise from it gracefully! I am so overweight and so unfit!! So guess what I want to be doing come January? Yep get myself sorted weight and fitness wise!

That same night we attended a training session to do with health and safety/risk assessment which was interesting. We had to know what we needed to do from a fundraising point of view. I am secretary to our parent council plus active fundraising member of the subgroup too - there are never enough hours and never a dull moment!

I spent Wednesday getting all the paperwork printed off and display titles organised - these relate to our parent council and fundraisng group which took a good while to do. Then again on Thursday, Sharon and I were in school in the morning to sort our display boards, photos etc ready in preparation for our school christmas pudding tasting session on Friday morning which went very well indeed!!

Baby girl diaper/nappy cake

Chelsea's 9th birthday

A birthday card, gift tag and hand crafted ribbon bow for Chelsea's birthday. Hope you had a fabby time!

Halloween = my birthday!

Hi folks

Hope you all had a good Halloween! I know I had! I also had one of the best birthdays in my puff too! :o)

Family, the girls in SWOT [school fundraising group], Kirsteen and Kerryanne [you know who you are girlies!] just made it one of my most memorable birthdays! I was laden with cards and lovely gifts from the girls. My prescribed medicinal 'bottle' from Sharon had me in hoots with the 'script' instructions. We usually have our fundraising meetings on a Friday in the school and this is where I was presented with all this AND in the staff room at break time, they surprised me with a full room of staff, us and a birthday cake with lit candles! Just a terrific bunch o' girlies! Many, many thanks for that - really made my year!

We spent the afternoon for a wee whilie at Chelsea's birthday party - though regrettably we had to scoot off as the kids and myself had a cinema date with High School Musical 3! Anyone seen that yet? It's the best out of the 3! What a fabby day!

I had made these for the kids to give to a couple of chums, I also gave some to the girlies and the kids' 3 teachers for Halloween!

Morven's birthday choccies

Ella's thank you token

Small gift tag:

Package open a little with bagged contents:

SU grossgrain ribbon closure:

Not quite finished:

Whilst I was on annual leave and off to Stobo Castle last weekend, Ella, my work colleague, covers a tiny fraction of my post typing reports and urgent docs for our consultant whom we both work for. Having worked full time in the GI Unit a few years ago, I know only too well what the workloads are like - it's certainly not reduced these days! Anyways, just enjoy with a wee cuppa Ella and thank you!