it was lovely

hope yours was too

here's what we've been doing

Visiting the Christmas House (the caretaker of a local school does this every year to his house, we only discovered it this year - big hit, we've been 3 times already!)

Choosing a tree, decorating it,

and then posing under it for Mummy's camera.

october afternoon mini album

it's beginning to look a lot like...

Christmas! I've been having a lot of fun with a Christmas project since the start of the month. Shimelle's Journal your Christmas. It involves a short project each day from 1 December until 6th January which encourages you to make note of what is going on, and to notice all the small details that make your Christmas so special. I've really enjoyed it so far and am reasonably up to date with the daily prompts. The album above will store all my pages, I decided to keep it quite simple and am using a 6" ring binder.

Below is the first page, which is a manifesto of sorts. In it I outline whyI'm doing the album, and I promise myself 15 minutes a day to work on the pages.

These are some of the pages. Above is the page about Christmas cards (spoiled the suprise now for everyone on my card list!), and below is a page looking at winter weather.

This page outlines a perfect Christmas for me-he, she, i and lots of food and decorations!

and the prompt for the page below was around counting down the days. Here I used a hambly overlay to show Katy gazing at her advent calendar and behind the acetate is a close up of the tree on which she hangs her ornament each day.

Another prompt asked us to look at perfect and/or not so perfect Christmas past.

Katy and I are going to buy our tree after school tonight so will try to come back tomorrow with photos of that.

beside the seaside

We went to Brighton this weekend. It was fab. We arrived on Friday evening and struggled in the rain and wind to our hotel. We had booked online and were pleased to find our risk had paid off; the hotel was great. We didn't go far on Friday, just fish and chips next door to the hotel.

The morning was bright and sunny so we went to the beach, which Katy loved. The wind was strong but it felt great to be getting some fresh air. We played there for an hour and then headed to the pier.

Katy loved the pier and had a great time on all the rides, which she had to herself for most of the time.

She especially loved the mini dodgems and we had many laughs at her expense as she tried to get the hang of things.

Here she is with the dolphin she won with Daddy on the hook a duck. We spent the afternoon wandering the streets and shops and came home for a nap and The Santa Clause on dvd. Then we had the most delicious meal in a Greek restaurant near the hotel.

We had hoped to go to the aquarium this morning but the weather was terrible, we had been afraid when we went out to walk along the seafront that if Katy didn't blow away that something would blow past and hit us, the woinds were so wild. So we gave up and came home.

What with finding such a great little hotel and fantastic restaurant, we will definitely be returning.

busy busy

Time has got away from me again. We've been so so busy lately. Had a marvellous time at the housewarming party last Saturday, not such a great Sunday morning. Katy's suffering with a rotten cold and cough and had Monday off school; she's back in now and getting excited about all the Christmas events, especially the nativity in which we understand she's going to be an angel. Can't wait for that.

I've also managed to remember to take photos of all my scrapping so I'll add a few. The above one is using my Sudio Calico kit, and those below using my little red scrapbook kit.

I have been really enjoying my all too rare crafting time lately, and am hoping for a few hours this weekend.

Katy's been scrapping

Just sharing a couple of Katy's creations. We had a nice afternoon making these, the first she did with some help from me, the one below she did all by herself. Not bad eh?

Carole (you know who you are) may I present the evidence

Just in case you didn't believe us, 'le camping 2006'
out at the moules place - in the evening (note the bare arms and general dryness)another day on the beach

going to the bar for the evening (flip flops and not a fleece in sight)

And in the positively toasty pool

And furthermore, 'le camping 2005'. An evening in the bar

and an afternoon in the pool

Nice eh?

halloween and other stuff

A super quick rundown from the past week. Halloween was total madness in our new neighbourhood, Katy had a blast handing out sweets to the trick or treaters that came by. Note to self: buy more next year! We had to bring our pumpkin in after we had given out 50 treats! Not totally impressed with the eggs and flour on the car the next morning though.

Last night was fireworks at Legoland-Katy had the best seat of course, and the fireworks were stunning.

Today was 'magic with Merlette' where Katy got to dress up and magic sweeties from a cauldron. She loved it, and George and I are enjoying the retro sweet collection. Love hearts and double dip anyone?

a good mail day

Seriously, how can a day be bad when we are woken by a postman bringing this? My kit from Little Red Scrapbook arrived yesterday, full of gorgeous treats. My craft space is taking shape and for once does not look like a dumping ground, so I will be able to get busy up there soon. I made the following in the past few weeks, using my fab photobox prints. I love that I can get 12" prints from them.

Happy Friday everyone.

Glasgow was gorgeous

And the Botanic Gardens were stunning in their autumn coats. katy and I had a lovely few hours there on Saturday, playing in the leaves and generally getting covered in them.

She even had time to admire the beauty of nature (check out the serious face!)

One of my favourites from the day.

Not at all posed, honest! Seriously though, how scrappable are these?! Can't wait.

It was great to spend some fun time with her, she is such a fun kid to be around, and we laughed a lot. We had a girls lunch in Byres Road, and an ice cream in the University Cafe.

We also had time to catch up with friends, Katy was delighted to see Angus and Gregor again and we also managed to catch up with Fiona. We came home on Monday night and landed 35 minutes early! Wonders will never cease.