Holidays are over ..

Christmas Day was spent with my son, daughter in law and grandchildren and the rest of the hols with my family up North. It was soooooo cold. It's a long time since we've had that much snow and I'm just so glad that it has now all gone.
There was just so many toys around on Christmas Day I don't think the children knew which one to play with first but the look on their faces as they opened their gifts was a joy to see. I've decided too I need a new camera or at least I need to remember to take pics.

My sister got 3 tickets for her, mam and I to go and see Winter Wonderland at the theatre. We take mam in her wheelchair as she can't manage stairs so we had a box to ourselves and a great view. It was a lovely night.

We had a very quiet new year just mam and I. We watched TV until after midnight and then by the time we had telephoned family to wish them a Happy New Year we made it up to bed around half one. I don't think mam has been up so late in a long time.

All too soon though it is back to normal and work tomorrow but it was lovely.

Christmas Rose

Remember Egbeart? ... little Egbeart the sugar paste bear with a head bigger than his body but my first attempt at sugar craft. Well that was about 9 weeks ago and since then I've progressed and made a spray of Sweet Peas - now I loved doing these, much better than trying to get bear proportions right, and I have to say I enjoyed doing the flowers and they turned out rather nice although I am not sure what I shall do with them.

But now for the finale - we had to decorate a Christmas Cake. Now I can hear some of you say oh she's made the cake and decorated it. I hasten to add take out the word 'made' - cooking is not one of my things. If I can put it in a kiln and fire it then fine, if I have to put it in an oven - not so good ... so I bought the cake from M&S and then rolled out the marzipan and covered it, week later rolled out the icing and covered it. The result was OK but then I added what we had been working on for the last few weeks of the course ....... Christmas Rose and holly leaves, berries and some other named leaves .... and the result .... pretty good even if I do say so myself. Not bad for a beginner - so what d'ya think?

Happy Birthday Kristen

A big Happy Birthday for tomorrow to my sweet niece Kristen, who I don't get to see as the miles separate but she has a place in my heart always and I hope she has the most blessed birthday ever. (sorry sis, hope you don't mind me pinching the pic but it's such a cute one). x x x

I'm a sleepy head

I should be well and truly in the land of nod by now but I think I am just far too tired. I was babysitting (sleep over) last night and my beautiful granddaughter decided to waken at 11.30 just as I was going to bed. She stayed awake until almost 2 a.m. and it didn't matter what I did she just wasn't tired. Don't get me wrong she wasn't crying or screaming just talking and chattering to herself so loudly that she would have woken the boys so it was a case of in bed with me for a while, back in her own bed, changing nappy incase it was that, getting her a drink of milk but all to no avail. She just wanted to play and finally fell asleep just before two. My son came home from work at half two so just as I was falling asleep I heard his key in the door and woke up again. I was then just nodding off and heard Tom crying, looked at the clock at it was only 4 a.m. He wouldn't settle and wanted to sleep in bed with me and as I finally fell asleep I was awakened at half six by Ben getting up and coming into bed with us. My alarm went off at 6.45 which is when Livvy woke again. I gave in, got up, gave them all breakfast, then realised I'd left my work shoes at home along with some other things. Sam came in at 7.15, Marc woke then to take over and take the children to school and child minder so I left, came home, got dressed for work and started work at 8 a.m. Quite a full day really and here I am typing when I really should be asleep zzzzzzzzzzz oops did I nod off.

Had a lovely week visiting mam and she is doing really well after her stint in hospital. She still gets very tired but is beginning to potter around and do things. She's a tough little cookie.

I am now most definitely off to bed. Night all.

My Mam

is in hospital again. She was taken ill a couple of weeks ago and went into hospital for a few days. Doctors didn't really know what was wrong with her and said it could be one of three things but they let her out the day before her 85th birthday. She wasn't well last week again so they took her back in. She had a scan done today and they found out she has gallstones so may need to operate. She's been through such a lot this year that she could do with the gallstones just going on their own but it doesn't seem likely that she'll pass them. She's worried they will put a camera down her throat and she hates anything like that. She is a tough little thing but I'd value your prayers that all will go well. We don't know exactly when they'll do something but we're hoping it will be soon.

My but the weather has turned cold, we are still in September and I've had to put the heating on. I've been hearing all the old wives tales about us having a bad winter again and the main reason seems to be there are lots of berries on the trees. Don't ask, I have no idea why berries or lots of them on the trees means a cold winter but apparently it does. So if any of you folk out there know why, let me know too please.

Meet Egbeart

I'd like you to meet Egbeart. Egbeart is my first attempt at making a bear in the new sugar craft course I am taking. He is not the most eloquent of bears; his fur is rather bitty and his arms are not very well rounded as a bear's arms ought to be; but you have to admit his smile is contagious and he has a cute nose. Egbeart is most surely going to need some tlc though as he has now broken his leg. He seems to think someone handled him a little too rough but I think he was messing about in his box doing what bears do best (looking for the honey) climbed and tree and fell and broke his leg. Alas we shall never know the truth of the matter and sadly Egbeart may never walk again.

They make me smile

I just can't sleep tonight and I've tossed and turned since 11.30 ish so decided to blog a little and see if I get sleepy.
I took Ben and Tom to church youth club last night. It's the first time they've been and they seemed to enjoy it although last night they didn't really seem to do much. I was helping out as one of the girls was on holiday.
The boys do make me smile -
The youth club is having a shoe box appeal and the teacher was telling them some of the countries they would be sending the shoe boxes too after they'd been filled with goodies. She mentioned several places and then said 'We'll also send some to Swaziland'; at which 3 year old Tom piped up "I love 'smartie land' Nana" (First Smile). It took several attempts to get him to realise she wasn't saying Smartie Land.

On the way home 6 year old Ben had been telling me he liked his learning lesson with his new teacher Mr D'Veen (I've spelt it how he pronounced it). He'd been learning about the fire of London. I asked if he liked Mr D'Veen and asked if he was young or old. "He's young Nana", he said "He's not old, old people can't teach because they would get tired and fall asleep all the time". (Second Smile).
I said I wouldn't be able to teach then as I was old to which he replied "You would be able to teach anyone Nana, you're not old, you're young". (Third and biggest smile, so I now have it on the authority of my grandson that at 60 I sam still young - don't you just love them).