>>> New Year Eve! <<<

Can you believe it? It's the last day of 2008! Gosh, this year really flew fast! Just can't believe that it's almost over. Well, I had a good year.... got more involved in my boys' schools, more scrapping opportunities, travelled a fair bit, generally, a great year for me! Not sure what 2009 holds but fingers crossed that it will be just as good as 2008, if not better!

Saw goodbye to Ellen and her hubs! They were going back to her hub's brother place. Parting was sad but no tears. Told her I will seek her out in Aug. Fingers crossed it will happen!

After they left, it was a mad rush to pack and get ready as we were invited to Poole to spend New Year's Eve with my SIL and her family. Didn't even have time to sort the house out. As soon as hubs got back from work, we were off to Poole. Got there 3 hrs later and had a good rest till mid-nite:

Yup the kiddies stayed up late too and we welcomed the New Year with party poppers and champagne (only for the adults)!

Cheers! Happy New Year to one and all!

TTFN!

>>> Soon To End! <<<

I'm sad that my time with Ellen is due to end soon. She's also a crafty lady too but not in scrapbooking. She does quilting, box making etc. The best thing she did was to teach me how to make boxes. We spent Tuesday afternoon making a paper one and decorating it with my paper stash! Wednesday morning was spent making a fabric box! Gosh it was so fun! Best of all, I can make use of my existing stash as well!

My fabric box done under the watchful eye of Ellen. Thanx for teaching me! You're a star! That box will house my enormous amount of inkpads! In fact it was measured to fit them! :)

The last nite with Ellen and her hubs was spent going out to an Indian restaurant at Star City. Sheesh, the food was simply delicious! Unfortunately they didn't sell alcohol so when we got home, we indulged instead! But I will definitely go back to that place. In fact there was a constant flow of Asians eating in that place which only goes to show that it's a great restaurant especially if their own kind visit them! You know a particular restaurant (be it Chinese or Indian) is good if their own kind frequents it! That only means it's authentic!

The starter.

King prawn curry

Spinach with chicken

Nan bread

Us, all dolled up.
Hey, nite out as adults with no kids so gotta look good! Thanks to MIL who had the kids!

TTFN!

>>> Shopping! <<<

So the sales have started and boy have I been spending!!! Well, nothing crafty but loads of clothes, shoes and makeup! Figured I got enough stash to last me a life time so decided to turn to the fashion side instead. Not really a clothes person but had to satisfy my urge for cardigans and shoes. I'm desperately trying to get into wearing heels, high ones that is and bought myself a pair of 3" heels. Will be practising wearing them in the house so as to get used to it! Nothing worst than falling flat on my face!

So together with Ellen, hit the highstreet stores and frankly, I got bored after a while. You go into a store and the clothes are just hang on the rails and you have to riffle through them. Frankly, just bore the hell outta moi doing that... find it so messy and a big waste of time. I much prefer if they were hung according to designs instead. Makes it easier to look for clothes. If a store looks messy and I've to hunt through stack of clothes, I won't even bother going in, no matter how much discount is given!

On the crafting side, been creating a birthday planner for Ellen. I promised her one and I'm in the midst of it and enjoying myself. I had a parcel came on Sat but the blinking postie didn't bother to ring the doorbell and slip a note instead. Moi, didn't realised it was Sat and didn't go to the Post Office till 4pm and found it was closed. Urghhh! So annoyed with him... why couldn't he just ring the doorbell! 3 cars on the driveway, obviously there's people at home at 9.45am! In fact we were having breakfast! That's the 2nd time it happened too! And it's my DT kit as well.

Oh well, off to create... got tons of LOs to do.... TTFN!

>>> Boxing Day! <<<

So it was our turn to host the Xmas dinner. Hubs bought a large goose and proceeded to cook the Xmas dinner by himself! He's a great chef when it comes to Western meals (I suck at cooking it as I usually grill/bake too long... much better at Chinese cuisine instead!).

Have to say, hubs did a great job cooking the goose but not before stinking the house with vinegar the nite before! It was well received by the guests which consisted of SIL and her family (x4), my best friend & her hubs (x2), MIL & FIL (x2) and my family (x4).... in total 12! We had a great meal. I guess the best part was my best friend coming over from Shanghai, China to spend the festive period with moi! We chat online constantly but nothing beats being able to chat tete a tete. I was ever so pleased to see her! I leave with photos of the meal:

The cooked goose!

After it had been cut up by my FIL!

Yorkshire Puds... something you can't go without! Believe me, that plate was cleaned out by the end of the meal!

The Vegs.

The Finale: our boys played for the guests as they wanted to hear them, having heard about them playing in concerts! They didn't disappoint!

The next few days is gonna be fun, fun, fun! TTFN!

>>> Merry Christmas! <<<

The day started early, not surprising! Oliver woke up first, demanding to open his pressies, followed by Zac shortly. Anyway, got them down and the ritual began! Have to say, this year's pressie were modest compared to last year. What do you buy for them when they do have literally everything, well, almost! They do get toys throughout the year. The biggest items they had was a huge box of Lego set each which both boys luv to play with.

The setup! Makes it easier for me to take photos!

The squeals of joy! Oliver went thru' his pretty quickly while Zac was still looking into his santa's sack!

The finale for Oliver!

The finale for Zac!

The aftermath!

The afternoon was spent at Mil's place where we had our Xmas dinner. There the boys were greeted with more pressies... toys again. As if they don't have enough! I sometimes wish their aunts would give them money instead of buying them toys which generally become a white elephant after time! Needless to say, we gave cash out instead of buying useless pressies and getting stressed out for nothing! Since I'm usually in charge of the present buying, the practical side of moi refused to buy stuff just for the sake of buying! So MIL, FIL, and the bigger niece and nephew were given a handmade money wallet (with cash in it) instead.

I'm off to recuperate and have a chill out nite. Christmas time just stess me out and frankly speaking I much prefer to take a holiday instead of indulging in all this unnecessary expense! I would imagine it would have stress out a hell of a lot of people who unfortunately lost their jobs due to the credit crunch. TTFN!

>>> On Display! <<<

The Homegrown Winter Survival Programme is currently on. Enjoying the kit as it's packed loads and I've been trying to use them up as much as possible! Along with it comes a weekly PDF filled with inspirational works from the DT members. This last for 6 weeks. Here's what appeared in the first 3 weeks of the PDFs:

This LO is for a song challenge and I chose to use Britney Spear's title.

Just completed a mini album and another LO which I will display as soon as it appears on the PDF. TTFN!

>>> 2 Days To Christmas! <<<

2 days to Christmas and I suddenly realised I've not brought the boys to visit Santa! We always make it a point to see him in his Grotto so made a trip to Melbicks Garden Centre to see him. Currently, it's a yearly ritual until I guess when the boys are old enough not to believe in Santa anymore! At the end of it, they both got to choose a toy. Managed to snap a photo of them with Santa as well (now that's more for moi, actually more for my pages!)


As for myself, I headed towards the craft section for a nose and all I bought was 2 pens! That's right, 2 pens, a black journaling pen in nib 0.4 and a sparkly brown pen. They did sell Nestabilities but as I can get it far cheaper on the net, gave that a miss. Couldn't really find anything that was worth buying... thank god! TTFN!

>>> A Weekend Of Fun! <<<

So I had a party to attend tonight and have nothing fanciful to wear. Headed off towards the Fort to try and get something. While hubs sorted the boys out, I went hunting and found a lovely black, sparkly dress. Even better was the price which was reduced to half price. Also found some heels to go with it. I chickened out getting a 4" heels as there's no way I could walk in them, let alone dance! Eventually settled for 2.5" which is high enough for me!

Sil and her boyfriend came along with us to the Xmas party. We had a great nite. SIL and I danced the nite away. It has been ages since we hit the floor so we took advantage of it. I probably lost the calories consumed for that nite I reckoned! :) I leave with some photos...

Hubs & moi

Sil & moi

Have to say, luv my black dress! Just have to ensure that I encase it in a plastic bag if I ever do carry with me as the sparkly bits do get everywhere! TTFN!

>>> Finally, It's Over! <<<

The school term that is! Oliver finished his yesterday due to his Headmistress leaving (for retirement). Zac ended his term today. I can't tell you how pleased I am not to have to get up early to sort them out for school. It's getting progressively colder too and therefore harder to get up early in the morning.

I made some Xmas tags (as opposed to cards) for the boys' classmates and some little gifts for his teachers.

I didn't go overboard as I'm quite busy with DT assignments and didn't want to overstress myself. I also made a fair number of Xmas cards and made use of my Cuttlebug and the embossing folders. OMG! Have to say I luv them! I had such a field time playing with it that I've no doubt it's gonna be used a fair bit now. I managed to add stamping into it and it was a good mix... stamping and dry embossing.


Went out for a curry nite with work colleagues. Meal was great and you could bring your own drinks so my friends did! Had a great time!

Ordered a king prawn chef recommendation curry. Made it madras too and it was absolutely delicious!

My dessert! Ohhh, it was another killer too, absolutely fab!

Off to create some pages now as they are long overdue. TTFN!

>>> On Display! <<<

Here's what I did with BackPorch Memories December Medley kit:

Paper by Bo Bunny Winter Whisper.
LO based on sketch by Becky Fleck. As usual, I can never follow a sketch exactly!

Papers by Sassafralass Life at the Pole

Paper by Dream Street Mairzy Doats

Cards made using leftover scraps

TTFN!

>>> Wow! <<<

Finally the last of the boys' concert was held today. This time it was their Suzuki workshop concert. They attend these workshops twice a month and today was the Xmas concert. The boys played a repertoire of songs. Mom, Dad and Nan was there to watch and cheer them!

Santa came along and gave out pressies (supplied by their parents of course!)

TTFN!

>>> Another Concert! <<<

The boys have been attending Strings Orchestra practice every Tuesday after school. Well, it accumulated to a concert today.

They played four songs and it was quite impressive.

On the flip side, hubs smashed his Jag in an accident. He was going around the island and suddenly this car in front of him stopped suddenly and b'cos it was so sudden, he didn't even get a chance to brake and smashed into it. The right headlight bashed against the left brakelights of the other car. Thankfully, hubs wasn't hurt but he was shaken badly. TTFN!

>>> Another One Bites The Dust! <<<

Another week gone! This was a very busy week for me. The PTA I'm in held it's first Xmas Fayre and it was a great success. I reckon we raised about £300ish. Anyway, I was in charge of face painting and I worked solid for 2 hr 15 mins non stop!!! The moment the first kid sat on the chair, I was on the go till the last one who patiently waited for a long time! Never realised the popularity of it and I think in future, 2 people will need to be assigned to it. The only breather I had was when I went to the toilet to get fresh water to clean the brushes and sponges. Well, it was great fun though. It appears that spiderman, dog and butterfly designs seem to be quite popular!

Well, the boys were involved in a Xmas violin concert on Friday nite. Their teacher holds its every year in a school and it's very well attended by his pupils. I leave with some photos of them.


TTFN!

>>> Ohhh I Got Cable! <<<

What a busy week! Well I finally succumbed and got Virgin Media to install the new V+ box for cable TV. Somehow managed to net myself a package with massive discounts thrown in and this came with a landline as well (which I had resisted for a few years). But the best was having a cable box installed in my craft room as well. Hey, since I'm in there all the time, why not! I'm hardly in the living room, in fact never at all! I had a play with the new V+ box and got my fav programmes recorded for weeks! :) I can't tell you how many TV programmes I had missed in the past due to overlapping of times! TTFN!

>>> The Weekend! <<<

Ohhh this is the last day of November, before mayhem starts!

Woke up early this morning so that we could get to the town centre early to visit the German Fair and to get a space in the free parking areas! But seriously, I was warned that it would be extremely crowded at the German Fair and therefore, didn't want to be part of the crowd. We arrived there at 10am and the stalls were just beginning to open. We had a good walk around and got myself a packet of sweetened macadenia nuts and a plain pretzel to munch on. Didn't buy anything as I didn't find anything worth buying really.

My favourite store - sweetened nuts

Munching on plain pretzel

The boys

Then we took a walk around the Bull Ring but again, it was more window shopping as I didn't find anything worth buying. Managed to get some free DS stylus as they were having a promotion of the Imagine game.

On our way back to the car, true to what hubs said, the German Fair was packed out with people. So glad we weren't part of it as I hate crowds! The rest of the afternoon was spent crafting while the boys did their homework and watched TV after! TTFN!