One more day then its all over for another year!!  We have had a lovely Christmas.  Lots of friends and family.  Although my Mother-in-law did ruffle my feathers when she tried feeding Mimi a huge bowl of Sherry laced trifle.  Mimi has been totally spoilt and I have got a bad back after having to pull her along the seafront on her new scooter (we haven't worked out how to steer properly yet and can only go in a straight line).

Christmas Dinner was a success.  I managed to cater for 8 of us without any major issues.  I did however seriously over cater and we have been eating leftovers ever since.  I have made a couple of Turkey & Leek Pies for the freezer and a batch of Cornish Pasties.

I was obviously a good girl this year and got lots of lovely presents.

I got this really cool mug from my fab husband.  

Looks like we will be having a night in this evening as we don't really have a babysitter and we haven't got anywhere to go, but I am happy with this.  I think the plan is to get some good food, a bottle of champers and we might try to hold out till midnight.  I am fairly tired as Mimi has taken to waking me up at 4.30am with a bloody bell - (which is soon to be hidden).  I hasten to add that this bell was a Christmas Present from one of our friends who does not have children!  I have also noticed that Michael rolls over and turns up his ipod.

Festive Baking

Let the festive preparations begin...........

Shopping is all complete - just need to collect our meat and fish order first thing tomorrow morning.  House needs tidying from top to bottom.  The kitchen floor feels like you are wading through a puddle of treacle thanks to all of the Christmas baking.  But hey we had fun and it can all be washed!!!!

We made these cool Christmas biscuits using fruit pastels for the middle.  Do you know how hard it is to find boiled sweets I couldn't find them anywhere.  I think they would have worked much better with foxes glacier fruits.  Never mind Mimi likes them all the same.

Finally we made our Gingerbread House which I have to say I am very proud of.  We made one last year and I have a feeling this could become an annual activity.  I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food Website and it is great.  When you make up the dough you think it will never work but once the dough cools down it works beautifully.  We have got lots of off cuts left which hopefully later today I am going to make it into gingerbread stuffing ready for our Christmas Lunch.

We are hosting Christmas Dinner this year for 8 and I am really excited.  It is a bit of team effort with my parents bringing the pudding, cheese & biscuits and the veg.  We are in charge of the starter and the main.

I must get on with my jobs as we have friends coming up tonight and we are busy most of tomorrow.  Note to myself:  Must not drink too much tonight!!!!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

101 in 1001

I am pleased with my progress this week.  I have managed to cross off a couple of items off my 101 in 1001.

17     Make and decorate a Christmas Cake.

I made a grand total of four (3 of which are Christmas presents)!  They have been work in progress over the last couple of weeks.  In traditional form I made sure that they have been well fed with Brandy and covered in marzipan before being iced and decorated.  I used Christmas Cake recipe from Nigella's Christmas book.  I thought I was being really good until I priced them up and realised that it probably would have been cheaper to have brought them ready made. Although obviously mine have more love.

49     Upload something I have made onto Pininterest

For anyone who uses Pininterest you will know how addictive it can be.  It is a great source of inspiration.  Today I uploaded a couple of things I have made.

One of my uploaded images.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!!

We got caught out yesterday afternoon (Sunday) in a hideous, rain/sleet/snow storm.  In the process I had locked myself out as my keys were in Mikes car, so I couldn't even turn back.  By the time we got to the sailing club we were soaked through.  I think I need a new coat!  Maybe something to look for in the sales.

(Last night we had the battle of wills with Mimi, I think we can eventually say after half an hour that Mummy & Daddy won.  She just WILL NOT wear a dressing gown as she wants to dance like Angelina Ballerina.  Now I know this does not sound a major issue but our house is seriously cold.  I think it is safe to say that we are completely Angelina Ballerina mad in this house and keeping up the theme we struggle to get her into anything other than a dress.  The request today is for me to dress up as Angelina too!!!

Over the last two days I think she must have spent about an hour on the naughty mat for one thing or another.  Mike was fairly annoyed with her yesterday as she drew all over the table with a sharpie pen.  It looks like the table will have to be stripped down and re-varnished!!  Hey Ho - Happy Days!!!

What is it with Christmas you do the shopping then you always think of something you missed off the list. So this morning we are off to complete the final bits of Christmas Shopping!  Then this afternoon we are going to make a Gingerbread House.

Yay Christmas Holiday's

 Yay Christmas Holiday's are finally here.  It has been a tough term.  

Last weekend we finally got around to buying a Christmas tree.  This year our Christmas tree search proved much more difficult than normal.  I am sure that last year we paid about £17.00 from B&Q.  We originally thought we would go there again this year, however they ranged in price from about £16.00 (although these were brown twigs with a few needles left) to £49.99.  Now I am not a scrooge however £50.00 for a tree for 3 weeks seems a little excessive especially based on my recent resignation. So after some trips to some local nursery's we found a beautiful locally grown tree with plenty of needles for half the price of B&Q.

Mummy's little fairy!!!

I have as always got a few projects on the go.  Here are a couple of my latest projects:

A fabric Birthday card for my friend D

I decided to design and make some Christmas Cards.

First of all I made a quick sketch of a Robin.

Then using various fabric scraps I appliquéd my
Robin on to the front of my card.

Also this week we have picked up a bargain on ebay.  We got a whole heap of Brio train track.  One lot cost £4.19 and the other £15.00.  One evening I spent about 3 hours putting together this great track design only for it to be trashed the following morning in about 3mins.

Tonight we are off out to Pizza Express and then a Carol Concert at the Cathedral which I am sure Mimi will just love.  

Thank Goodness for Online Shopping

Yay, Christmas shopping is almost complete thanks to the beauty of online shopping.  I attempted a trip to the shops the other day with Mimi but it was so stressful I gave up.  I did see lots of nice things to buy for myself and had to keep reminding myself why I had actually gone shopping.

At the start of the year I decided that we were going to budget to allow for Christmas as last year I was shocked to have to find the extra money in December.  This has panned out quite well and so far so good.  I would like to think we will do the same next year but my looming unemployment may put pay to that.  We will have to wait and see!!!

This weekend we have been fairly busy.  I helped my Mum deliver a wedding cake yesterday.  She is the most amazing cake artist I know.  She is very talented however she only really does it as favours to friends now and usually runs at a loss!  Despite all of this the cake was AMAZING.  I wish I could create something this beautiful.  I think she said that she made something like 700 flowers.   She is mad in one of the local cake decorating shops these retail individually at about 10p each and she charged about this for the whole cake!!!

I recently saw a great pin on pininterest where someone had made gift tags out of salt dough.  So after finding a recipe on the internet we got down to the messy business of using "big girls" Playdoh as Mimi called it.  I was quite pleased with the outcome.  To speed up the process I put them in our Microwave/Combi oven thingy at about 50degress for about an hour.  (Our cooker is still broken!!  This is Mikes job to sort one out tomorrow whilst I am at work!)

I considered buying a Christmas Tree today out at the local vegetable shop but decided they were a bit pricey so I think I will make this my mission for my days off this week.  Also I think I might take Mimi for her first adventure to the Cinema to watch Arthur Christmas.

Yay two weeks until the end of term!!!!!

1st down 100 to go.

One of my goals on my 101 list was to resign from my job.  You know when something isn't right and this Monday I handed in my notice.

1. Resign from my job.  Finish date February half term.

I am fairly nervous as it will mean that I will be skint, however sometimes you just need to put trust in fate and see where it takes you.  All I know is that I am not destined to be a Home Economics Teacher!!

What a bugger, we are sitting here waiting for our dinner when I went to check on it I have discovered that the dam cooker has decided to pack up 3 weeks before Christmas!!!  GREAT!  The nice bottle of wine we just brought as a Christmas Present is looking rather appealing!

Cooker aside I have completed some of my Christmas shopping and I have made two of my Christmas Cakes- good job I decided not to cook the other two this evening otherwise I would have been really hacked off.

This week I went out with my friend K for the day and we stopped in at Poinsettia Walk.  I would never have gone there if K hadn't suggested it.  It was a really random place.  They supply trade and have lots of green houses just full to brimming with Poinsettias.  I always thought that there were only Red Poinsettias, but they had different shades of Red, White ones, Pink ones, you name it they had it.