Saturday 22 January 2011

January Joys

I used to hate January. Such a depressing month: Christmas is over, the weather's freezing and we're all starving ourselves to lose those mince pie bellies! But these days I quite like January. I think I have ever since Em was born; with her birthday being in February we always started planning parties and presents in January and it made the beginning of the year that bit more exciting.

One thing I look forward to about January is books. As you know I love reading and normally get a good haul for Christmas. I was already reading this book at Christmas:
 and so that turned into my New Year read too. What an amazing book, I would defiantely recommend it, so beautifully written. I raced through it a) because it was so good, and b) because I had this pile of beauties to get started on, my Xmas books!

 Aren't they pretty?!

I love this too, a new bookmark that my friend Shaughn at work made me. Only been there a couple of months and already she's making me presents, got to love that!

 Winter Ghosts was first (I do struggle with Kate Mosse but actually made it through this one!). I'm now on One Day which my SIL bought me which I'm really enjoying. It follows the story on the same date every year which I think is a great idea.

And of course dear reader, there has to be a crafty project on the go! I've been dying to do this for a while, since some ladies in my crop group made some beautiful ones, but it's quite a big project and so I needed a use for what I made. So then Miss Emily decided she wanted her bedroom decorated purple - oooh oooh oooh, excuse excuse excuse! So, I ordered the wool and have got completely addicted to the fabulous granny stripe blanket. Here it is so far:

 Mmmmm, lush!

We've also had an exciting delivery here at Chez Gillard, a super comfy new bed! I loved my other bed, we got it when I was pregnant with Em and so have had many snuggles with tiny bubbas in that bed. But, it was getting too small now that a certain special little man likes to creep in at 5am and I was sick of hanging off the side! And let's face it, he ain't going to get any smaller! We were also in need of a new mattress as the current one wasn't much good for my dodgy back and Rob's dodgy insides. So, we went the whole hog and got a new bigger bed:



Only trouble is, we can't get out of the blooming thing on a morning, it's just too comfy! I swear that mattress moulds itself into that dodgy spine of mine!

And of course, we had to have a bit of homemade on there, so out comes the sewing machine to whip up some matching bolsters:
Right, better fly, I've had half an hour off from granny-stripe-blanketing and I'm getting withdrawal symptoms!

Saturday 15 January 2011

60 Mummy and Loo Roll Mummies

I'm rubbish, 3 weeks past Christmas and I still haven't finished blogging it! Here's the final Christmas post before I begin blogging 2011 in June!

Boxing Day is mum's birthday but this year was a big one, she was fifty-ten! Typical ain't it, you finally get your bus pass on  a day when the buses aren't running! She had a party at her house so I went over early and got her started on the party mood with a bit of the bubbly stuff!

We had a fairly quiet week that week but on the 29th we went over to Auntie Nadine's. We had some lovely food and cocktails courtesy of my baby cousin Hettie (note, she isn't a baby anymore, she is 22 so is allowed the odd cocktail!). I've trained her well!

The highlight though was the games. Auntie Nadine is a Brown Owl and so had a few games up her Brownie sleeve. Watch out for this at future Gillard soirees, Loo Roll Mummies!



Right that's it, 2010 done! On to 2011 posts...eventually!

Friday 7 January 2011

The Big Day!

So, Christms Day morning we woke up to find these:

 Well, I'm not sure about this. You would have thought with all that magic Santa could have a spell or something to clean up after himself!

Emily woke up at 2am...

...yes I said 2am!

Emily was told that 'I couldn't care less if it was Christmas Day, GO BACK TO BED!'. I caved at 5am and let her open 1 present that I knew was a dvd she could watch in her room. Eventually once that had finished we let her open her presents. Emily does have THE best present opening face ever, I love it!

 Yup, we got her a mobile phone. Not something we'd planned to do at this age, but with her playing out in the lighter months I'd feel a lot calmer knowing she could get in touch in an emergency. Plus it has a camera and MP3 on it so plenty to distract her from racking up a phone bill! Of course there were many equestrian related presents that she was delighted with:

 Now as for the other one, you'd think at 4 years old he'd be bouncing off the walls from the wee hours...er nope, 8am still snoring his noggin off! We decided to wake him but we were told that no Santa had not been and he didn't want his presents. After 4 weeks of  'Can I open my presents yet?' he now didn't want to know!

We managed to get him downstairs at least:

 Eventually, after Em had opened just about all her presents, Xander agreed to have a look at his:

 And I think we found the turning point in his mood with this one:

They got some fab stuff, my kids are so lucky. We had a few hours before our guests turned up for Christmas Dinner so we had plenty of time to play!

The rest of the day was lovely, we had a lovely dinner and it was so nice to spend the day with family.

Oh and we all love Buzz!

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Christmas Retrospective Part 1!

So thought I should probably actually blog our Christmas now the tree's down and we're all on our way back to work/school! Today is Christmas Eve!

Me and Em went out for a nice Christmassy walk just before the sun went down:


 Ain't it beautiful? We had a look out over the city to see if there was any sign of Santa yet:

 And went to say a happy Christmas to the horses in the field:
 Then back home to trach Santa on Norad:
 The kids then got out the reindeer food that Xander made:
 And sprinkled it outside for Rudolph & co:
 They then got a phonecall from the big guy himself so he could letb them know he was on his way! Once the kids had their new Xmas jammies on it was time for the traditional Christmas Eve story. However this year we had a new narrator:
 She did a great job and has rendered Mummy well and truely redundant! Then more food for Rudolph plus a nice spot of brandy and a mince pie for Santa:
 Then off to bed for the impossible task of trying to actually sleep when you know Santa's on his way. They must have got to sleep eventually because look what happened in the night and not one of us heard!
Awww, I love Christmas Eve, it's so exciting! Tomorrow we'll look at the carnage that is present opening on Christmas morning!

Sunday 2 January 2011

Happy New Year!

OK so I've not blogged Christmas yet but wishing you all a Happy 2011 on 20th Jan seemed a bit wrong so I thought I'd do that first!

New Year's Eve was fab, we went to Steve and Ally's as usual and this year took along Rob's sister Zoe as she was staying with us for a few days. We went out for an amazing meal:
 Before back to S&A's for some Just Dance on the Wii:
 And setting fire to the neighbour's gardens...er, I mean setting off Chinese lanterns!

 Then up into the market square to see in the new year with the locals, the mayor and an excellent steel drum band (ah the Antiguan memories!)

So, 2011 eh? Well, 2010 was definately an annus horribulus. Not much good happened last year and we won't go in to the bad stuff that did happen. However, we have a brand new shiny year ahead now so hopefully we can start looking forward. I don't do resolutions but I do like to get planning in January and already have a couple of projects in mind (and Rob already has a list of jobs I want doing!).

So, I hope 2011 is a lovely joyous year for you all!