Tribute To A Special Friend

It's a very sad time round here at the moment. Last night we got a call to say our good friend Eric had passed away yesterday afternoon. We've known Eric and his wife Ann for about 6 years; I met Ann through work and soon there was a little gang of 9 of us that would meet up for dinner and a few drinks. More recently Ann & Eric's grandaughter Olivia has become friends with Emily and we've often been round there for playdates; the last being just a month ago. They also never forget the kids' birthdays and are always on our doorstep with Xmas presents.

Eric himself was a lovely, homourous man; he would play prank calls on me, always had a hug and my glass was never empty with him around! He doted on his grandaughter and was such a lovely husband to Ann; I always knew my buddy was being well looked after by him.

We're just in shock here, it was so unexpected and we can't believe he's gone. Emily's really upset at losing her Uncle Eric, who always made her laugh when she saw him. Needless to say we're all going to miss him terribly.

So Eric, if you can get the internet in that great Jack Daniels bottle in the sky, here's to you my friend. Thank you for always being there and for being in our lives, you will be truely truely missed. Love ya.

Smile!

2 favourites here! First of all I've scraplifted my favourite layout by my scrapbooking friend Lauren. I just fell in love with what she'd done, weaving the ribbons etc and just had to have a go! I've changed a few things and also added some hidden journalling behind the picture,
but it's all Lauren's inspiration, thanks hun!!

So, for such a lovely layout, I had to pick a lovely picture. This has to be my favourite ever picture of Emily; she's only 7 months old and the expression on her face just melts my heart! We have this photo on our bedroom wall and I wake up to that gorgeous smiling face every day!

Heffalumps!

I've got yet another scrapbooking layout done this weekend. After struggling with colours at first, I had some inspiration from the old wise woman of all things crafty, Marie, on Friday and it was all I needed to get going!

I've scrapped the elephants that we saw at the safari park the other week. I also revived the old stitching on a layout for the pink on the leaf paper (thanks Marie!).

Speaking of haffalumps: I've put the whole family on a health kick this morning! Over Easter we've eaten far too much chocolate and all sorts of rubbish, and it shows! So, as from today we're all getting the standard 5 a day (and not 5 Cream Eggs a day, as has been the case!)

Ice Ice Baby!

We've had a lovely afternoon! My mum took me and Emily to see Dancing On Ice Live. The best part was we didn't tell Emily where we were going until we were stood outside the door to the arena, she thought we were going shopping! Once she found out she was ecstatic and got very excited when we got in there and she saw the ice and all the Dancing On Ice stuff...

Anyway, even though we had to spend the afternoon in the presence of Bonny Langford (really, she should have quit show business in the 80s. No second thoughts, she should never have started!) the show was fantastic! Highlight had to be Torville and Dean, I've loved them since I was 8. I even wasn't put off by the constant heart in my mouth feeling I get that they're going to fall when Linda Lusardi went flying (skating in a straight line too, seriously!).

The crowd were given score cards so Emily rated all the skaters along with the judges (she gave Bonny 1.0 and she was lucky to get that!) and she cheered and screamed for her favourite, Zaraah Abrahams, even though she was rubbish!

So Emily, how would you score this afternoon's excursion...

Have You Ever Tried...

... to get 2 18 month olds to look in the same direction at once? Believe me, it ain't easy!!

Today, we've been over them there hills to see this young lady...... my little crafty guru Marie, and her 2 cuter than cute munchkins, Gracie and Ewan. We had a lovely day: the girls got their arguing down to 50% of the time, Marie made us delicious home made pizza, and the boys both napped at the same time so I had time to catch up with Marie and raid her stash (crafting stash, for those who were wondering!).

Post naps, the girls were playing upstairs and so I thought I'd get my camera out and get a few pics of the boys. Hmmm easier said than done! No matter how hard I tried, I could not get them looking in the same direction at the same time; I swear these kids have a sixth sense. Anyway between the pics I think I have at least one of them looking at the camera on each one, so maybe a bit of cut and paste is in order!

Eh Xan, your mother's got that camera out again! Pretend you haven't seen.She's not still there is she?

Oooh, look at this speck on the floor, it's really interesting! She'll never catch me out Billy!

Look at the camera? I'd rather let the cat chew my arm off!

Awww, thanks for your help Xander, she didn't get one snap of me with that camera...Doh!

Crop

That's crop with an 'o' people!

So, today Emily and I have a scrapbooking crop with our neighbour and fellow scrapper, Lauren. Emily managed 2 layouts in the first hour (she had too much Hannah Montana to watch to mess about!). Lauren and I only managed 1 layout each all day, but in our defence we did have to break off for an emergency trip to Hobbycraft!

This is the layout I did. I love this picture of the kids on the steam train at Easter. They both look so pensive and I liked how their refelections show in the window. Also loving the retro colours around at the moment, expect a lot more browny oldy worldy work from me in the future!!

Spring Madness!

So, we get a little bit of sunshine and the temperature actually gets into double figures and we all go a little bit crazy!

On Saturday night we had our good friends Stef and Tony round for a curry and a few beers. So, after a few beers the Wii just had to come out for a tournament didn't it?! First up was Rob and Tony and a bit of boxing; as you can see they were all ready for the bell... ...and Round 1...
Stef and I did join in with the festivities but were more than happy to spend most of the time with our big bums plonked on the sofa, putting the world to rights, inbetween kicking Rob and Tony's bums on the Wii!!!
There will be some video of me kicking Rob's bottom once I work out how to edit the blooming thing! Watch this space!

On Sunday, we got the kids out in the garden to enjoy the Spring sunshine. It was a good opportunity for Xander to test out his fab new Roary The Racing Car trike...
...and Emily to wizz around on her new grown up scooter (it's for over 6's you know!)...
We were supposed to be following this with a Sunday Roast, but we realised at the 11th hour that our oven is in fact broken, and it's very hard to grill a joint of pork! So, it was burger and chips all round, followed by Xander feeding himself a yoghurt! Whether any actually made it into his mouth isn't clear, but it took a good 2 wet wipes to clean him up!Ooh, and especially for Rach, here's my LO from my crop with Emily. Couldn't post it the other day as it was for my mum's album and I hadn't given it to her yet!