So What's The Problem With Green All Of A Sudden?

With it being the last day of school, I needed to make Emily something to take in for her teachers. Foolproof year after year, mini Christmas pudding chocolates; I've made them year on year and they never fail to please.

So, off I troop to Asda with my list of ingredients: chocolate, check; nuts, check; glace cherries, check; angelica, er...hello, angelica? Nope, not a sniff of angelica down the baking aisle. OK, so maybe there's not must call for little pieces of green jellified sugar anymore; I know, I'll go buy some green sweets instead. After all, they're only to make teeny tiny holly leaves for the top of the Xmas puddings: sweet aisle - nowt, not a green sweet in sight! But surely kids like eating green things (Emily certainly seems to like to every time she gets on stage at Christmas plays!).

Not to worry, we have a cupboard full of sweets at home, I'll just improvise when I get home. So, puddings are made and chilling in the fridge, chocolate's all ready to be melted, cherries are diced into mini cherry shapes and into the sweet cupboard I go - no green sweets! What?!! Aha, I spy a tube of fruit pastilles - off comes the wrapper and I empty out the sweets - there's 1 green one! I look at the 52 sweets I've just made, each needing 2 leaves: hmmm, 1 fruit pastille cut into 104? I'm guessing that ain't going to work...

So, routing through the baking cupboard, I find a bottle of green food colouring! Woohoo! And, a bag of mini marshmallows! Double woohoo! So, after chopping each mini marshmallow into 8, out comes the pastry brush and on goes the green!

At this point, the phone goes, it's Kay:

K - "Hi, what are you up to?"

L - "I'm painting marshmallows green"

K - "Er, sorry?"

L - "I told you, I'm painting marshmallows green"

The only words I heard then inbetween the laughter were on the lines of 'saddo', 'what would Nigella say?' etc etc. Anyway, for Kay's benefit, here's the proof that yes, her friend is the sort of sad cow that will paint 104 individual marshmallow pieces green:

However, they were worth it in the end:

Kay, bet my green marshmallows aren't so funny when you want to test one are they?!

In other crafty related news, I've done a bit of scrapbooking this week. I just had to scrap the snow pictures from the other week and after a bit of blog hopping, came across this sketch which worked perfectly!

Right, better toodle, have a busy weekend and believe it or not, even more marshmallows to dye green!

Here Comes Xander Claus!

The day Xander was born, Rob went home and told Emily she had a little brother called Xander. She went into school and told everyone she had a little brother called Santa! But, maybe she had something there...

Today was Xander's toddler group Christmas party and it was fancy dress; he decided to go as the big guy himself:

Also there were his Christmas helpers: The Christmas Fairy (aka Poppy!):

and The Christmas Elf (aka Kyran!):


First up, Santa and the Xmas Fairy checked the Naughty & Nice lists:

And Santa personally checked the presents:

Then a pre-sleigh ride snack:

Oi! Who's this imposter:

As every year, it was a lovely party and the kids had so much fun! Look out for Xander out on his sleigh next Wednesday night! ;)

What Christmas Is All About

This picture just sums up perfectly what Christmas is all about, especially this year for me after everything's that happened.

Last week, my best buddy Ally Andbag came down with hubby Stevie Sandwich (nope, still no idea!) and my little buddy Elise (we really need an appropriate nickname for her!). The tree was up, we had a roast dinner whilst listening to Xmas carols, then went off to the German market for hotdogs and hot chocolate! It was lovely and just summed up everything that's good about Christmas.

Have lots of meetings coming up with friends and family and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with them!

Somebody Get RADA On The Phone!

This morning was Emily's Christmas Play, in which my darling daughter had the starring role of Whoops-A-Daisy Angel (may have mentioned that once or twice before!!).

She was FANTASTIC!! She was nice and clear, remembered all her lines and made the audience laugh with her funny whoops-a-daisy expressions! She looked great too, even if I do say so myself (skirt made by moi one teatime last week!).

Anyway, we weren't allowed to take pictures in the performance and there was strictly no video, so here's some pics of our very own Miss Whoops-A-Daisy after the show, before she got mobbed by her fans (erm, I'm not even kidding either!)

Now, where did I put RADA's number....

Decorator For Hire!

This weekend saw the official 'trimming up' of the Gillard household. We decided it wasn't even worth fighting with the kids over who did the tree, so we left the munchkins to it. They got in the festive mood straight away:


And then Emily set to putting up the decs:


She actually did quite a good job! However, her brother's method of tree decorating was a tad unorthodox!

If in doubt just wang them at the tree instead!

Emily and I have also been busy with Christmassy crafts. We made some ornaments for the tree (with expert sequin sewing from Emily!):

She made Christmas crackers for our Christmas dinner:

And I made a garland for the fire place:

So come on, who wants to hire Xander to decorate their tree? He gets it done very quick but I can't guarantee your baubles will all be in one piece by the end of it!

Frosty The Snow(wo)man!

I don't think my kids have ever seen 'proper' snow; I know Xander certainly hasn't. So when a couple of inches of the white stuff dumped itself on us in the early hours, there was a lot of excitement all around! There was even more when Emily's school made it onto that magical list on the radio: 'schools shut due to snow'.

I have never known her get dressed so quick, it should snow every day! So, by 9am we had a couple of very giddy kids out in the back garden:



Of course, the first order of business was to build a snowman, which Emily got started on straight away:

With a bit of help from Daddy (not that he needed much persuaion!):

Xander helped pat down this strange white wet stuff that had appeared in his garden:

Poor Frosty nearly ended up without a nose:

But eventually, Frosty was complete and was renamed Mrs Frosty due to her girly hat and scarf:

And then, what snowy day would complete without the obligatory snowball fight:

Which Xander thought was hilarious:

Anyway, everyone's now back inside, drinking hot chocolate and watching the snow melt. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

Sanctuary

Whilst in Costco the other week, my beady little scrabooking radar picked up on this kit of lovliness:

Although an absolute steal at £25 (the albums must be worth that alone), I really couldn't justify it in the middle of a credit crunch. ***SIGH***

That was until I dragged my scrapping buddy Lauren down there and we went halves, giving each other the other half as a Christmas present! Woohoo! OK, so it took us an hour and a half to divide it up (we were both being far too polite about taking the best stuff!); but finally I ended up with this little pile of scrappy goodness:

So, last week me and Lauren decided it was high time we had a crop. What with babies (well, one baby who is extremely cute and I love her dearly; but she does get in the way of scrapping!) and hospitals (damn cardiologists interferring with my hobby time!), we haven't scrapped together since July and had both been very unproductive since. So, last week we had our first crop for a long time so I decided to use my Christmas pressie!

You may remember this post from back in September after our holiday to Center Parcs. It was so relaxing and, what with everything that happened since, it was fortunate we got to chill out when we did. Anyway, it had been on my mind in hospital, how lovely and peaceful that break was, so that became the subject of this layout:

The colours were just ideal for this picture that Rob took of our chalet at night. I love that picture, the chalet just looks so warm and cosy (which it was!)

And also, yet more chilled out pictures:

Aaah! Feel all chilled now just thinking about it; which is a good place to be as need to do the schoolrun in the cold slush soon!

Hopefully now, Lauren and I will get to scrap weekly so all being well, the Garlics scrapbooking gallery can be updated very very soon!