Sale Shopping

In fear of lots of shops going into administration over the next few months we've been out today spending our giftcards.

Mike had managed to accumulate quite a lot in WH Smiths, and as our friend (who's quite clever) predicts that they will be the first to go that was our fist port of call. We then went to Boots, HMV and Waterstones. Although we were determined to spend, spend, spend, we have still managed to come back with quite a lot.

I've also bought a journal, with the idea that when I think of "stuff" I can write it down and then transfer it here when I get home. How often do you think that will happen!

Mike and I are going out for a meal tonight, even that is in a sale 50% off at La Tasca!

Back Home

Christmas has been a bit crazy this year. Lots of visiting family and friends. Jacob has had a brilliant time. It's his 2nd Christmas so is much more aware of things going on. He quite enjoyed unwrapping presents to a point. He is defnitely impressed with his new toys. We had Christmas dinner with my parents, they have bought Jacob a rocking snail called Stanley. Not quite sure where we are going to put him! We stayed over with mum and dad. They have celebrated 28 Christmasses in that house, I can't quite believe they are moving out at the end of January. Who knows where we will all gather next year. We got home on Boxing Day afternoon. It was then a quick turnaround and off to catch up with the Huttons on the 27th. We stayed there for a couple of days. The boys went to watch the football (Southend v MK Dons) and the girls stayed in the warm.

We took this photo (and about a million others) this morning before we left. If only we could get all of them to look at the camera at the same time!
On the way home we popped in to see the Abbots. This photo was more problematic, because Jacob wouldn't sit still so Mike had to be in it as well.

So, now we're home. Jacob is in bed, fingers crossed until about 8am! Got a couple of days to do some relaxing and then New Year shall be upon us.

Smart Haircut #2

I took Jacob to the barbers on Wednesday. When it was first finished I thought it looked a little severe, but now I really like it. He looks quite grown up. The lady used clippers on the back of his neck and around his ears, he really seemed to like them. We went really early so we didn't have to queue.

It was Jacob's Christmas party yesterday. Here are a couple of pics. He loves dancing, especially to Bob the Builder.

Here is Jacob with Jessica, they are playing pass the parcel. Jacob got to unwrap a layer but didn't win.

Here he is meeting Father Christmas. Do you think he looks a little wary? Well there was a room full of happy children until he arrived. He was quite exuberant which I think frightened the children quite a lot!

I'm still receiving quite a few postcards and Christmas cards in the post. I'm really enjoying receiving them, but I'm enjoying being rated by the people I send to more. It's such a lovely buzz when someone really loves what you send and you get a lovely comment and a heart.

Pretty much all the online shopping has arrived. There has been a bit of an error with one of the shops. I ordered a plastic table for Jacob and they sent me a kitchen! Not sure what I should do at the moment.

Lots of Swapping

Well, I seem to be getting quite a bit of post this week from Swaps, Over the last couple of days I have received a few postcards and Christmas cards. I think my favourite postcard is the one below, which is an old photograph of women making American flags. Then below there is a Christmas card and below that are the postcards and Christmas card I received yesterday.

Jacob, has just learnt how to climb on and off his quad bike. Unfortunately however, his legs aren't quite long enough to go forward, even when he sits crooked leaning so one foot touched the floor. He seems to know in principle what to do though, so fingers crossed his legs grow a little bit.

I went to Becky's house on Saturday. It was a proper girls night in, there was mulled wine, chocolate cake and some festive crafts, which included, card making, chocolate truffles, peppermint creams and gingerbread. We even managed to watch SCD and X Factor.

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8

I've made a real effort to catch up with JYC. I've done 6 days worth of entries today. Im really pleased I've progressed. Hopefully I can catch up some more tomorrow.

December 3rd: Christmas Cards December 4th: Christmas Perfection
December 5th: Counting Down to Christmas
December 6th: Chrsitmas Memories
December 7th: To-Do ListDecember 8th: Take photos todayabout what you saw.

Received some swaps today. Here is a postcard from the Netherlands. This is from the Random, Fast International Postcard swap.
Here is a Chrsitmas card, from......you've guessed it a Christmas card swap

And here are some maagazines from the magazine swap I'm in. I've receieved all my magazines noow. All I need now is time to sit and read them!

Lots of Deliveries

Lots of deliveries today. First my new chair arrived. It is from Pier. I have always loved this chair, but we just don't have room for one in our house. However, as Pier is closing down I didn't have a huge amount of choice. It needed to be bought, my fabulous sister got me a really good deal and as she had someone going to pick something up anyway she had it picked up, stored at their unit and then delivered when they had a minute. Well, it may have been an absolute bargain, but we really really don't have any room to put it, currently it is taking up about a quarter of our living room. I'm going to ask mum and dad whether it can go into storage with their stuff when they move in January. All we need to do now is sell our house and move somewhere big enough for the chair!The next deliverie came from the parcel postman. There was my big yellow box from Scrap-a-go-go and a tube, which turned out to be some magazines from swap-bot. Iwas really pleased with my magazines, as I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that my swap partner was in Leeds! However, she has sent me three magazines and a bar of cadbury dairy milk yum yum. So, I have rated her as a 5 and given her a heart.My monthly subscription fro scrap-a-go-go is really lovely, some very christmassy paper and bits, with some gorgeous coloured crdstock, can't wait to have a play with those.
Then I received a couple of deliveries from the Early Learning Centre for Jacob's Christmas presents, which included his new red chairs. I hope he likes them.He slept the whole night through last night. I am very happy to have received an uninterrupted nights sleep.

Off on my Christmas night out in a couple of hours so I need to go and get ready before I pick up Jacob.

Jacob in a box....

...the contemporary twist on the classic Jack in the box.
Jacob was playing with his empty washing basket, so I put him in it. He tried to crouch down and pull the lid down, but kept squashing his head. He then decided it would be easier to duck down and spring up in a peek-a-boo fashion. Very funny, except I was running his bath at the time and there ended up being a bit too much water in it.

Here is the postcard I received the other day from Dallas. I posted my Food and Drink swap postcards today, as well as the fashion magazines. I'm in a blog swap at the moment, so helloooo, if you've stopped by to check out my ramblings.

Not much else happening at the moment, I'm really really behind with my Christmas Journal, so I must must catch up. I've got some Christ Church things to do first tomorrow, so if I get through them then I can play. It's our work Christmas meal tomorrow night so I'll need some time to get ready for that as we are meeting in the pub at 5:30pm. When I told Mike, he said it was practically an all day-er!

Bits and Pieces

Today has been a good day. I packaged up my magazines for my swap this morning so just need to take them to the Post Office.

Neen came around this morning. It was so good to sit and talk, not just about the little jobs but about all sorts. I have three jobs to do. I need to contact the local media about the Christmas events, Make bunting for the Newtown Reminiscence day and create a spreadsheet with the questionnaires, sounds simple enough. I think the bunting will be the most challenging and the most fun. Ike is coming tomorrow to give me the jobs for the Christmas Service sheets.

I did my Christmas shopping this afternoon, all online. I'm 90% there I think, it should all be delivered in the next week.

Had a swap postcard from Dallas today. I'll shall photograph it when I get a minute and put it on.

Off to bed now, got a bit of a headache and it needs to be gone by the morning, as Jacob will be at home with me tomorrow so I'll have to play.

Wintry Weather

I finally got around to the second prompt in the Journal My Christmas project. I actually really enjoyed doing this page and although you can't really see in the photo, my snowflake is all sparkly from the stickles. The photograph is one of the pics I took last week in Delamere when we went for a wintry walk with Faye and Dusty.

Jacob thought he was really funny this morning climbing into mummy and daddy's bed, he's never really done it before so Isnapped a few pics of him giggling away.

Playing Catch Up

Can't quite believe it's Sunday night already. I've had one of those weeks with lots to blog and no time to actually blog. So I'm attempting to catch up.

It has been so cold this week, but on the whole still, clear and absolutely beautiful. We went to Delamere Forrest on Wednesday with Faye and her puppy Dusty. That is one crazy dog, she is just so excitable. It was completely frozen in some parts, at one point I ended up on my bum. If I hadn't been holding onto the pram, I reckon I would've ended up at the bottom of the hill.

Thursday was totally manic. We walked into town in the morning, I needed to but postcards, which are not the easiest thing to find in Chester. We bumped into a friend whilst on the hunt and following her advice found some gorgeous ones in Paperchase. After lunch we went to see Julia for a coffee and a catch up. Then we picked up my friends two sons Matthew and Jonathan from school. They came back to play for a bit and have some tea. We made pizza. There was some interesting toppings! Jonathan had ham, carrots and peas. I then had PCC in the evening. I'm definitely making progress, there were only about three errors in my minutes for the previous meeting, whoop whoop.

I finished work for Christmas on Friday (kind of, got a couple of things to go in for on Monday). It feels brilliant to have four weeks off work. I've got quite a few plans over the next few weeks, hopefully everything will come to fruition.

I'm totally behind with my Christmas Journal. I have completed ........ 1 entry. How rubbish. I'm determined to catch up and keep up. I've not really been able to do any this weekend, as Jacob's naps have been non-existent. Today however in my determination I made all my numbers for each entry. Hear is a photo. Just in case you thought my photography skills were improving I can confirm this photo was a little bit of luck and quite a lot of trial and error!

Not had anything swap wise, however I've sent some postcards and Christmas cards and some more postcards will be going off in the post tomorrow. I've been a little disappointed by a couple of them as the swap hosts haven't assigned partners and I've had to drop from them, I hope that doesn't happen in the chocolate swap.

We've bought our Christmas tree this weekend. Not quite as impressive as the one at church, but we love it!

Caroline

Today has been an important day. It was the funeral of my friend Caroline. It was very sad to have to say goodbye, but I feel very relieved to know she is with God in heaven.

I only really got to know Caroline this year when she started to come to our small group. She immediately helped bring the group together and has definitely been a catalyst for our developing relationships.

She was a bright beautiful shining star with amazing style and a stickler for matching underwear! She was strong, brave and extremely honest. She was kind, generous and cared deeply for the people around her.

She brought a lot of laughter to our small group in the time she was with us. She had some slightly obsessive compulsive tendencies which included, restricting toilet roll at home, keeping the cushions plumped and cleaning the skirting boards with the bathroom towels on the way to the washing machine.

When Jacob had his final set of immunisations Mike was unable to come, due to work. Caroline came, she met us in the surgery and distracted him while I held him close. He was certainly distracted by this slightly mad woman, who kept saying she wanted to take him home. I was overwhelmed by her kindness on that occasion and she will always have a place in my memories.

1st December

Well, a crazy old weekend is over. It was great to see my Father in Law this weekend, it's just a shame that Jacob is being quite suspicious of strangers at the moment, so no-one gets cuddles except mummy and daddy.

Not much swapping. I'm just waiting for partners to be assigned in the magazine swap.

We decorated the church for Christmas yesterday evening. The tree is amazing, Luci did a great job organising everyone. I love the nativity scene that the Faith Finders made, it's just gorgeous. Only a couple of weeks to the big day, I would like to say the Christms choir is coming along nicely, but that would be a slight untruth, I'm sure it'll be alright on the night.

I opened my Fair Trade Advent Calendar this morning. Yum yum.

I started journalling my Christmas this evening. Here is my first layout, I just hope I can keep up, I have a feeling that tomorrow things might all go to pot. However I know exactly what I'm doing, so it shouldn't be too time consuming.