The Trouble With Holidays

The Trouble with Holidays.... is that you get nothing done. The kids are off and the sun is shining so you sit outdoors while they play with bubbles, bounce on trampolines and learn to ride a bike. OR . The kids are off and the rain is pouring so you sit indoors and watch movies, rubbish telly or them to make sure they don't get the paint/playdough all over the floor and walls. What you don't do is get anything done. All those things that were absolutely pressing before the holidays now get shelved in favour of doing nothing in particular with the kids all day. When your hubby gets home and asks 'so what did you all do today' the kids answer "nothing!" and you nod and say "well, I had to watch them didn't I?" Okay, so you still cook and tidy up... but that's not doing anything, that's just ticking over.... and so, the blog gets neglected and the crafting stuff gathers dust.

Well, after today that is all going to change. Because? Well, the holidays are over and the eldest one officially went off on the bus back to school to start Primary 2. She's grown up so much over the past year! I have a feeling that this year is going to fly by.

So, all those pressing things that needed doing before the holidays have all come rushing back to sit on my shoulders again. The thing is I know they're still there and that I need to do them, but just for today I'm going to tell them to go sit quietly in the corner while I blog a little and get back to my poor neglected desk. Ahhhhh, that's better! So here's my starting point.... I'm sure there will be quite a few proper projects on this desk fairly soon.

Until then I've got a list, on this piece of paper, of various challenge blogs that I might use to inspire me and get the mojo going again!

I'm looking forward to getting back into a regular posting schedule again, picking up routines again and getting stuff done again.... but just for today.... I'm going to pretend it's still the holidays! I might even get to hop around some of the other blogs on Julia's WOYWW just to see what everyone else has been up to. But first.... A Cup of Tea!

No Tasty Tuesday

For anyone expecting a Tasty Tuesday post today, sorry! As we are away for a week's holidays I can't post a recipe today. Well, I've got photo's of food but the recipe book got forgotten at home! Oops.

There won't be a WOYWW post tomorrow either. However, i will be back later this week with a  few photo's and some news from our holibobs.

See you soon!

Part 1: The girls

I promised you an update on all our comings and goings during 2010, however, it's been harder to put together than I anticipated! Firstly, I'm so out of practise with this whole blogging thing that the words dont seem to flow very well. Secondly, I wanted to include some photo's but then realised that, along with blogging, organising my photo's isn't one of my forté's so I felt the need to sort and organise first! (Procrastination, however, IS one of my strong points!) However, being the numpty that I am I somehow managed to delete almost my whole Picture folder!! So I have spent ages using various free programmes off the web to restore all those memories that I lost... and then because the programme just dumped it all in once place I've had to go through and sort it all out again! Methinks I should just have posted the update and ignored the mess on my hard-drive!

Anyway, now that photo's have been recovered and restored and reorganised and re-sorted I shall finally do this blogging thing again! Thanks for all your patience!!

So in January 2010 - which is about the last time I mentioned either of them in a blog post - Herself was 4½ years old and still at nursery. She was very much looking forward to her birthday in July and starting 'big school' in August although she was still rather enjoying nursery!

The Little One was only 16 months old and had only just gotten the hang of walking!

In May the girls enjoyed having Grandma and Grandad around for a visit from Down South. Especially as Grandad is always up for a bit of this:

In June Herself performed in the nursery 'end of year' play and did really well! Never the shy, retiring type she was very pleased to be given a 'solo' part!

As the weather improved we all spent more time out in the garden, which Himself and my Little Bro had childproofed for the girls.

We also went on holiday where Herself started learning to ride the bicycle ....

..... and so did the Little One!

In July, my pre-schooler turned 5!!

.... and so she officially became old enough for 'big school' which she duly started in August. There was quite a bit of excitement from Herself on the big day (and a fair few tears from myself!)...

Meanwhile the Little One had progressed to running everywhere and talking ten-to-the-dozen. She turned 2 in September!

In October we had a lovely (if somewhat chilly!) day picking apples in the back garden.

With all the snow bringing so much disruption in November, we ended up staying at home a lot! We tried building a snowman but the Little One didn't enjoy the experience!!

Gosh, I can't believe what a fun year we've had with our two growing girls! It has been fun, frantic and very special. I wouldn't have missed it for anything!

Finally, I leave you with this image. The Little One has been brushing up on her computer skills so she can take over the blogging from her mother. Perhaps this way you might get more regular updates!!

Thanks for your patience and thanks for dropping by! Later this week I shall be updating about my weight loss progress. It will be significantly LESS photo-heavy I promise!!

Going Digital

This weekend I was supposed to be tidying up, cleaning the house, putting up rollerblinds and generally getting ready for our visitors who are set to invade next weekend. However, after realising that we are going to be away for a full two weeks over the Christmas period... and that I'm going to be bereft of scrapbooking gear for the duration... and that I will therefore have no way of keeping up with Shimelle's'Journal Your Christmas' class, I thought I would look into Digital Scrapbooking. Ha! "Look into" turned into almost a full weekend of fiddling about with Photoshop, surfing t'interweb for free digital kits and generally having fun in a non-gluey, non-sticky, non-cutting way! So absolutely nothing got done in the way of cleaning or tidying, but I *am* most definitely going to be doing digital scrapbooking for those 2 weeks over Christmas. I'm quite proud of the results of this weekend's labours, especially as last week I couldn't even figure out how to print out my photo's from Photoshop... and yet this weekend, I have managed to suss-out layers, changing colours, using brushes and merging!

The picture is of my brother flying an awesome kite on the beaches of Northumberland in August 2007 when we went camping together for 10 days. The beaches were beautiful, the scenery was stunning and the weather was atrocious! (Except for this particular day!!) Oh, and thanks to ShabbyPrincess for the free digi-kit!

Today I am starting our Christmas cards... and my arm is already sore! Perhaps punched edges and borders for 100 cards was not a good idea!! I'm currently considering buying 'Sure Cuts a Lot' for my Cricut so that it can do the rest for me! Anyone have experience of this software and can tell me if it would do??

Oops I did it again...

How bad am I at updating? Terrible, I know! Feel free to reprimand me in any way you feel inclined to! I suddenly realised how bad I was when both my Sister-in-law and my Dad both asked me when I was going to update again. Oops!

Anyway, so here I am. Its been a manic few weeks. We've been away on holiday, been to a Ruby Wedding Anniversary 'do', my parents have moved house, my in-laws have found a new house and started a new job,  my sister has graduated university and landed herself a brilliant job, had two major announcements from family members and some sadness thrown in too. As I 'speak' I'm currently in Glasgow where my parents moved to. I am staying here for two weeks - having brought herself with to spend time with 'Ouma' and 'Oupa'. Himself, on the other hand, is still at home. He's working during the day and then spending his evenings doing DIY to finish off some projects that were started well over a year ago. The only way to actually get things done is to take herself and myself out of the picture completely... as toddlers and doing DIY quickly do not seem to go hand-in-hand.

The holiday was great. We joined my parents for a 9-day camping break in Northumberland. The campsite wasn't up to much and not to the standard we have enjoyed at other CCClub sites, however, the area was stunningly beautiful. When the weather co-operated (and sometimes even when it didn't) we did loads of walking, saw some stunning castles and beautiful views, went to plenty of National Trust properties, went to Alnwick Gardens - which was amazing, and even flew some kites! Oh, and I almost forgot.... we also went to Lindisfarne... wow what an awesome place that was! Here's a piccie or two from our hols.

My sister graduated university this summer having gotten a 2:1 in her Contemporary History with Journalism degree from Queen Mary University in London. My parents, brother and her partner Alex attended the ceremony in July. Unfortunately due to limited places being made available by the university Himself and Myself were unable to attend. We were there in spirit tho' and are really proud that she has accomplished so much. During the remainder of the summer my sister applied to various companies for jobs and finally started her new job on a graduate training programme with DeLloyds, one of the top five auditing/accounting companies in London.

After only 4 weeks of working for DeLloyds she found out that she was pregnant. Wow! What a shock that was! However, it was short-lived. After 3 weeks of complete emotional rollercoaster ride, she miscarried. Everyone's initial reaction to the pregnancy was a bit reserved due to the timing of it. We were all concerned about how her employers would react, however, they have been brilliant. Our reaction to the miscarriage is shock and sadness... we had gotten used to the idea of another little body in our family. I think my sister and her man were just getting used to the idea too. They are saddened and grieving - naturally, but I know that they'll come through this time too. Our heartfelt condolences go out to them.

The other shock announcement came from my brother (the one flying the kite in the picture above). It seems that he has decided to apply to the Army. That decision has completely suprised me as I didn't think it would be the type of thing he would be interested in doing. At the moment, his application is going well and he is currently working on his fitness for the physical tests. He has to undertake endurance and strength tests and has to make a certain grade for acceptance onto the next stage of his application process. We wish him all the best for this process.

Anyway, That's about all I have to share at the moment. I will try to update more often from now on!! Feel free to email me with your tirade or post on the comments section about how disappointed you are in my updating skills!

Update part deux

Our next major trip away was down to Charmouth in Dorset, where we rented a cottage with the parents-in-law, my sister-in-law and her husband and their two boys.  Nine of us in one cottage for the week was rather fun! Lots of trips to the beach (which was only 5 minutes walk away), plenty of sightseeing and loads of walking kept us busy for the whole week.  Erin and her cousins particularly enjoyed building 'santastles' on Charmouth beach.

Here's few piccies from that trip

There are so many other beautiful piccies taken on that trip I wish I could share them all with you!  Keep a lookout for them as I'm sure they'll be appearing in future scrapping projects!

We are away on another camping trip from tomorrow (Friday 17th) and will be returning on Sunday 26th.  I'll update some more when we get back.  Think of us camping in the pouring rain up in Northumberland and pray that we get some decent weather!!

Beach Babe

Just wanted to share my latest Layout with you. The photo's are from our first family holiday in September, I have been looking for a way to scrap these for a while as I didn't want to wreck the photo's!  I am pleased with the result! Here's the LO...

Thanks for looking!