jolly holly-days

And so we are all done for another year. We had a really lovely Christmas day, not too busy but not on our lonesomes, either. My brother and his wife and the spouse's parents both visited on Christmas morning and we had a few hours before we headed to the bottom of our road (literally about 400m!) to my parents for dinner with Beloved Wee Granny and Papa. And some Wii action - result! Santa-Spouse thoroughly spoiled me (again!) this year - my new watch and headphones (proper bins, not stupid uncomfy earbuds!) were what I asked for but he also picked me out a stack of books (myths and legends types and an illustrated "rhyme of the ancient mariner") AND tickets to see My Chemical Romance in February. Squeee!! Not to get all big-on-the-material stuff but every single gift I received this year was amazing.

Chook's  Christmas Eve bauble thingie went well, too. We put something in a big sparkly box every year for her and she gets to open it after her bath but this year wanted to get her a foot spa. That just ain't gonna fit in a bauble the size of a grapefruit! So we had a treasure hunt!                                    

                                    

Clue number 1 inside the box...

 ...Clue number 4-ish in her bedroom...

 ...and the grand prize!

My other mission this holiday season was to get a photo of our girlie four generations. That's the Chook, me, my Mum and Beloved Wee Granny (my Mum's Mum - yes, I know how lucky I am!). I have a stoater that was taken when the Chook was a baby (middle left in the wall art here) but we are terrible at forgetting to take a picture when we're decently dressed. It kinda worked...

It's not really a fabulous shot of any of us. Chook is doing her weird Chandler Bing "there's a camera - cheese!" smile, Granny's got terrible reflections on her specs and my poor Mam is about 10 minutes away from plating up our dinner and is under some pressure! But we're preserved for posterity at 36, 8, 87 and 54 years old. And I do believe we all share a nose!

final festive fabric fun

At last, some festive sewing I can share! Only because Chookie and her teachers don't read this blog. *g* First up, some jammies for Nigel the pony. Such a poser!

 The top was last year's elf jammie top (Santa's elves leave Chook a new pair of jams every year when she's in her Christmas Eve bath!) which I rescued from Spouse's rag bag and chopped down. And some fetching Amy Butler bottoms (thanks to Karen for the fabric!!) Chook assures me his favourite colour is pink!!

I thought I was all done yesterday until I was reminded that we hadn't got anything for her lovely teacher and classroom assistant. Rats. So mugs and rugs and sweeties it is!

pink for Miss F

 They are such fun to whip up and look really nice rolled up in the mugs with some sweeties and stuffed in a kraft reindeer bag.

blue for Mrs H

So I think NOW we are all done. I need to check that Chook's foot spa works (a surprise for inside her christmas tree bauble box - I'll tell you all about it later!) and I'm still hopeful that Nigel's brown friend Nathan turns up. He's been stuck in a postal depot for 10 days now! If I'm not back before Saturday have a lovely Christmas one and all!!

P.S. Chook had a great party at school - thanks for your finger crossing! Although she did walk home with her party dress and sequin pumps on and her anorak unzipped. So everyone could see her dress, presumably. *rollseyes* And she has sneezed all evening. Great.

P.P.S. I showed the spouse Nigel's jammies. He asked where I'd bought them. Result!!!

festive dressing

Of the dresser, that is, not me! Nothing too over-the-top since it's still in daily use. Some jingle bells instead of bunting and my Santa advent calendar.The Jack cookie jar stays - even if it looks a bit incongrous! I do love the Pooh Bear bowls and mugs on the middle shelf - a whopping 50p each in Morrisons!! Gotta go for those bargains! But my favourite purchase of this Christmas is that plate in the middle from M&S.

Check out wee Santa and his tree!! This is the Chook's favourite sandwich plate at the moment, it gets lifted down at every opportunity!

We've just had another inch of snow but hopefully that's us for the next few days. Chook's Christmas party at school is tomorrow and she was anxiously watching the flakes this afternoon in a paranoid state hoping that school isn't closed! It's looking unlikely but you never know what may arrive overnight! She missed such a lot over Halloween (that damn tooth!!) that I am really hoping it all goes ahead without a hitch. Bless her wee heart...

scraptastic strings

My string blocks from the Scraptastic Bee on Flickr have started arriving home! I supplied some strips of Moda's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and a little grey bella solid. Look how fab these look together!

I'm hoping for a vintagey feeling quilt and I think I should have nearly half of the blocks for a quilt once they all roll in. Exciting!!

Chook got on well at the dental hospital, BTW (thank you everyone who has asked!) and was delighted to have no work done. I think they're letting sleeping dogs lie - especially given the festive shutdown is looming! So hopefully we'll make it through to the middle of January with no hiccups. Fingers crossed!!

a snake by any other name

Yeah, so those cubs? Either like pythons or think I look snakey or could only remember one name coz my new assistant leader name is Kaa. *g* Which at least is easy to shout!

We're off to the dental hospital again this afternoon to see about the zombie tooth. The gum above it has started to get sore so I'm really glad we're going. I see more antibionics in our future. *sad face* Spouse and I are both really starting to wonder if this is worth it. In fact, he was wishing he hadn't found the fang when it bounced into that ditch. I can't believe it's only been 9 weeks - feels like about 6 months since it happened! But I keep telling myself it could be much much worse than a silly wee tooth. Some people are dealing with very sick kids so I am really very lucky. Enough moaning!!

10 days til Santa!!! *jaw drops* Really? Oh, hell........

Funky Gee's birthday.

My baby brother turns 29 today. Isn't it a terrible time to have a birthday? And his wife, Auntie Vixen, is next Wednesday. Gah! Anyways, we really bought him an Oscar the Grouch golf club head cover to match the Cookie Monster one we got him last year (he asked for another, it's not just that I can't think of anything else!) but I wanted something else to fill out his parcel. And with all the snow online shopping has been a no-go! So I fell back on that old chestnut, the junk jar.

 The jar itself is one of dozens they have in their garage from a Vixen jam making escapade and we nicked some for our chutney making. I thought he might get a kick out of getting one back since they're desperate to get rid of them! Filled with jelly beans which are apparently his favourite. He said he prefers cheese to sweeties but that's really hard to fit in a jar!! And, of course, some Fimo fancies for the top.

Buck and Lola the bunnies were his babies til they died suddenly a few years ago. We had a photo of them so they're not bad likenesses - Chook had great fun making Lola. I've been hand sewing ickle hearts the last few nights, too. But that's  another post!

enough with the snow!!

We were just about getting back to normal after the very early snows of last week. Roads were clear, poeple were getting to work, schools were back (people were still panic buying bread and petrol but they are nutters...). And then we had several more inches of the white stuff overnight. Grrr. It's pretty, though, and I haven't ever seen our phone lines look like Christmas garlands!

I was lucky(?!) enough to be able to walk into work this morning. The roads were pretty slippy (there were stuck lorries at the end of our road) and while we reckoned our "man car" would make it (that's spouse's moniker for our Forester!) I was worried about getting stuck at work in the car park. So on with the Doc Martens and iPod and off I went. It was really lovely - white and calm and hardly a soul about as the snow fell. And, even better, I got sent home at lunchtime when we closed the shop. Result!! Isn't my back garden bonnie? That snow looks like frosting - it must be the thawing/snowing/thawing process that makes it all fluffy like that.

The bad news is Cubs got cancelled tonight. So no naming for me or reindeer making. But we've also had to cancel the Christmas 10 pin bowling next week so we may do reindeer if it's on! Chook is really disappointed so I foolishly said I'd make Nigel something to cheer her up. She's picked a nice easy (!!!) bathrobe. Made from leftover minky. Eek.

Festive fun

I can't say my tree is much different from last year! We're back to the holly berry covered branches up the top but I don't think I've bought a new bauble. No, wait, there's 2 felt cupcakes that I couldn't resist in Tesco about a month ago. And that's it. I do love getting the boxes out the loft, though, I always forget what I have!

And this cheery wee chap is Little Nigel. We bought the Chook a Nigel (you say it NEIGH-gel, with a horsey noise at the beginning!) for going to the dental hospital last month. A being-brave cuddly. He has been SO loved and now has his own quilt and pillow as well as a woolly hat and scarf that I knitted on Friday night. I even remembered how to make pompoms! Anyways, my youngest niece is 2 and last time we visited she just adored Nigel. So this is a smaller version (the perfect size for a 2 year old to trail around) for her Christmas.

He, too, has his own quilt and pillow and a note about his cousin Big Nigel who stays with Chook and said that niece will take care of him. It's the bellybutton and horseshoes that really does it for me!!

teeth and snow and foam.......oh, my!

Man, this is definitely the longest I've gone without blogging for 18 months. I've just had nothing doing, really. I've made some bits but they're Christmas gifts so I can't show you and I've been a bit distracted with the visit back to the dental hospital yesterday with the Chook's tooth. It went okay. Not really, a bit rubbish actually but not for the reasons we were expecting. She needs the dressing changed every 3 months for the next 2 years because her tooth (being a new tooth - as in, only been erupted for a year) isn't the right shape for the root canal to be finished. We knew all this already but they wanted to see her after only 1 month to check the progress since they didn't think it was going to take at all. So, the lovely dentist took out the dressing and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Which it really shouldn't be doing. So after 15 minutes of mopping up she went for a word with the consultant. Who said she's seen this a few times before and - get this - the tooth (being a new tooth full of beans) is trying to regenerate itself! Bless its wee heart, it's trying to produce pulp since it's all been cleaned out. It's a dead tooth but it's trying so hard to live - it is in effect a zombie tooth! There's not much hope it's going to succeed and it leaves us in limbo a bit because they can't put the dressing back in while it's wet. Which blood is. So it's packed with cotton wool, she's on antibionics and we're to trek back in a fortnight. Blah. But, on the upside, I reckon if it's trying so hard to be healthy then it might just stick. Pleeeease!!!

What else. Um. We've had some snow. I've never been so glad to have a 4x4 car! There was no school here Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday even though most of our roads were clear. At least in our county they were. It's very pretty - I may take photos if I'm about in the daylight - but we're all getting a bit fed up of it now. We can't remember a time when it snowed on so many consecutive days, usually we get a couple of days and a whump of 6 inches in one night and then we're on clean up. But our 6 inches have come an inch or 2 at a time for the past 6 days. We're very lucky, some of our neighbouring regions have had serious falls and people really are stuck in their homes. And if you've a git of a manager like the Spouse then you need to take a days holiday if you can't get out and about (no wonder so many desperate people are getting stuck on the roads!!) but luckily I have a lovely boss who told me to take the whole day off yesterday instead of just the afternoon for the dental shenanigans. So I got my tree up!!

Lastly, it's my first day as ACL (assistant cub leader) on Monday. I've got my shortlist of monikers for the cubs to pick and then we're going to do some Chrimbo crafts. It's hard finding cool but quick things to do with a mixed group! But Spouse spotted this wee chap on the internet and me an' Chook made him up as a test on Tuesday.

You draw round your hand to get the basic shape, cut him out of fun foam and stick some bits on. There's a peg on the back so you can clip him to your tree or onto your card strings or wherever you like. And hot glue guns and pom poms are the business!! So hopefully he'll be fun for the pack on Monday and I'll come home full of good cheer and with a new name!