Happy Birthday To....

Me!!

I'm officially 50 something now :-)

My 50th year was not at all bad, in fact you could say it was great, it was the year i became a Grandma (or Nana  as i am being called, and it's so good :-)

~~~~~~~~

The lovely Elaine sent me a birthday gift, i was very well behaved and didn't open it until today, look at that lovely bag, isn't it just gorgeous?

The tin contains some fabric, needles and buttons.

Thank you so much Elaine x

We are all going out for a meal tonight, at the moment i am still enjoying a very lazy day, bliss!.

There was another birthday celebration last Saturday, Jenny, my eldest DD was 30, WOW, i have a daughter who is 30, how did that happen, lol

Another Chocolate cake was made for the celebration

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another gift from Elaine, this time a Christmas ornament.

I think this long legged snowman is so cute, and Elaine finished him into a lovely hanger.

I do have some finishes to share too.  

Baby Row was completed and framed just in the nick of time to give Jenny on Christmas morning.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out, the frame is a lovely soft green which is hard to see from the photo.

I'm happy to say that It was well received :-)

Again finished in the run up to Christmas, this ornament for Oliver went into his Christmas Eve Hamper.

Not a bad first attempt at a heart shaped ornament :-)

And another cardigan for the little man.

I was worried that the random colour in the yarn would look odd, but it worked out ok in the end.

I hope everyone has enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, I haven't managed to get around to reading and commenting on as many blogs as i usually do because of the time of year but i will be back to normal soon enough and catching up.

I'll leave you with a Christmas Day photo of Oliver looking bemused at all the goings on!

(we did try to get his dummy off him but he was not giving it up, lol)

Until next time

Thank you for your visit today x

Stitching, Soups, Cake and Gifts

It was a very frosty Sunday  morning here in the middle of England, a perfect day for staying in doors and stitching.

I'm making good progress on Baby Row. 

With a bit of luck i may be able to get this one finished next weekend and off to be framed ready for Christmas.                  
I just realised that I still have some xx's missing from the 'd' !
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday afternoon was spent in the kitchen doing some freezer cooking, I made Super Speed Soup (Slimming World recipe ). It's very simple to throw together and makes a HUGE pot which I then put into pour and store bags before freezing, It makes a very filling meal, more like a stew than a soup, and best of all, it's Free  on Slimming world :-)

I also made up a batch of Leak and Potato soup, using this recipe from Slimming Eats It's a lovely creamy soup, again very filling.

When the soups are cooked I always blend half (this is before the blending) and leave half chunky, you don't need to, but that's the way I prefer them.

My other cooking yesterday involved a chocolate fudge cake for DD#2 who is 25 today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JO. XX
I hope you enjoy your cake :-) 
Yes, I know there are only 5 candles, that's all I had in the cupboard.
I wrapped it up in a fancy cake cellophane bag.

Stevie had bought her a DVD, so we made the present a little bit more interesting by putting popcorn, sweets and a bottle of Pepsi in a popcorn bucket (which i begged from the lovely cinema Manager!!)
The whole thing was then wrapped up in florist cellophane and tied with some fancy ribbon.  

Good eh?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And last, but by no means least, I was lucky enough to receive one of June's ornaments.

She also included a lovely needle minder and a cute Christmas card.
Thanks so much June, everything is truly wonderful and will 
be forever treasured   
   xx.

That's all for now folks, stay safe and warm, until next time. x

You Know It's Cold When...

Your cat starts to make a duvet out of your 

sofa throw.

Millie does like to be warm and cosy :-)

Time Off, Days Out & Baby Naming

I've taken some unpaid leave from work, I had planned to anyway when Jenny had had the baby, but I needed it anyway as it turned out to re-charge my batteries and just have a break from certain goings on.  I don't want to go into details, it's too long and would bore you all, but lets just say that there are some people that were telling tales and stirring up trouble for us girls on reception, It was related to work and wasn't true, if only the person they had gone to had bothered to hear what we had to say the matter would have been cleared up, but they didn't want to hear us, they just sent a rather nasty email and refused to see us.  I'm trying to forget it, but it's not easy, it upset me, a lot.  I hope I feel better when I return next Thursday, we'll see. 

In the meantime I've been out and about and trying to catching up on some chores and trying out some new recipes (which I will share later on my recipes page).

  Yesterday I went with Jenny and James to Blenheim Palace, there was a Christmas craft fair on and we had a little walk around the house too.  The day was very damp and misty but I did get some photos on my phone.

Just a couple of photos of the lovely goodies on offer

a lot of the stalls request no photographs though

You are not really supposed to take photos inside Blenheim Palace, but as I'd only got my phone I managed to sneek some, lol - although they are a bit grainy.

The next two are taken in the Library which is the second longest room in England in a private house

at 183 feet long.

I was waiting for this random woman to move to take the photo, but she wan having none of it, lol  Still It does help you to see just how tall this fireplace was.

Inside the chapel

I played around with this one in Picasa to bring out the colours more

Despite the bleakness of the day there were still a few signs of Autumn around.

This tree still had most of it lovely orange leaves.

And a lot of the ground was still covered with beautiful coloured Autumn leaves

I've been stitching a little too, something for TP (who by the way has a name now :-)  

Please excuse the terrible photo - It's Bent Creek, Baby Row, or it will be when it's done, I've made more progress since this was taken and as It's not too big I should be able to get It finished in time for Christmas.

As I mentioned baby TP now has a name here he is with his mum last Saturday, getting bigger every day :-)

Baby Oliver James (and mum)

Today is another day out, this time with Joanne and her boyfriend, we are going to Laser Quest, I think I may be a bit old for this activity, but I'll give it a go, lol.  

Have a great weekend, until next time x

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments I received on my last post, they were very much appreciated :-)

The new parents are getting used to endless rounds of feeding, changing, sleepless nights and the general chaos that baby's bring.  Jenny commented that she always wondered why her friends with children said they never managed to finish a cup of coffee - now she has first hand experience of why it take so long to do even the most mundane task, including drinking coffee!

They still haven't settled on a name for the little fella, nanny is calling him TP (tiny person) for the time being  They have an appointment on November 5th to register his birth so better get their thinking caps on!

First picture with Nanny 
(please ignore my double chin, it's why I don't appear in many photos, that and the fact that my nose always looks wonky!!)

He's all snuggled up in his car seat after Granddad rocked him to sleep :-)

We spent the weekend of Marks birthday visiting the Cotswold's  I had booked us two nights at the White Heart Royal Hotel in Moreton in Marsh as a surprise for him, the weather was kind to us and we were able to visit Chichester on the Saturday which is a lovely town with some great shops, I even managed to find a great little yarn shop which was crammed full to bursting!  We stopped in Bourton- on-the-Water later in the afternoon for the obligatory Cream Tea :-)
As you can see the weather was really good for October.

The stream is only ankle deep and in the summer they hold a fete and for a few pennies you can buy a yellow plastic duck and enter it into a race which is held later in the day when they put all the little yellow ducks in the river, if i remember right, they race them from one bridge to the other and the first past wins a prize - It's great fun for the kids and such a lovely sight to see all the yellow ducks bobbing down the stream.  They also hold a football match in the water, when i first heard about this i thought it was a joke, but no, they do actually play football in the stream!!  It's ,such a laugh because as you can imagine it is hard to run in water and to stay up right, there is lots of splashing going on too so you have to be prepared to get wet!
Sunday morning after breakfast we went to Stow-on-the-Wold where there was an Italian market selling wonderful Italian food and again some great shops for browsing.

We started for home Sunday afternoon and I'd arranged for the girls and their partners (and new baby) to meet us for lunch as another surprise for Mark, he had been in London all week so had not met his new Grandson yet!  
They walked in with balloons just a few minutes after we sat down, the timing couldn't have been better!  The girls had bought him a Stig (of Top Gear fame) cake and the waitress bought it in with candles on after our meal and everyone sung Happy Birthday, most embarrassing for Mark  as he doesn't like fuss, still, i think he liked his birthday weekend,  he phoned me at work on the Monday morning and thanked me for a lovely weekend, which was nice :-)

The 'Stig' Cake

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've had very little time for stitching or knitting the last couple of weeks, decorating is still at the top of my list of things to do and I'm on track to finish the majority of it by this weekend, (famous last words, i know!!)  I've been neglecting my blog reading too but i hope to get around to catch up reading later this week.

I will get a little break from the paint brush on Wednesday though because It's our monthly stitching night, so maybe some updated stitching next week to show :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you are anywhere near storm Sandy I just want to say that I hope you stay safe and well

Until next time x

I'm A Grandma!!!

Say Hello to my new beautiful Grandson :-)

Jenny called me at work Yesterday morning to say her waters had broke and we made it to the hospital just about 12 noon.

Her contractions didn't start until 9pm last night and she was a real trooper, managing with only gas and air until 5.30am this morning, she was having some real strong pains but this baby wasn't having any of it, so it was decided that after so long she would have to go to theatre and have a forceps delivery.  

I felt so sorry for her because she had been so brave all along and ended up having an epidural for the last half hour or so - you can never tell what's going to happen can you.

Baby was born this morning at 6.20am weighing 7lb 15oz.

Thankfully everything was ok and Mother and baby are both well and happy, and none of us can stop smiling :-)

Mum and Dad have yet to settle on a name, although they have a few they like.

~~~~~~~~~

I'm off to try and get a few hours sleep if i can, we have all been awake for around 27 hours now it's just adrenalin keeping us going :-)

From one happy grandma :-)  Until next time xxx 

To Celebrate The Cooler Weather.....

.....I have a finish

If you've been visiting me for a while you may be forgiven for thinking that I had given up on cross stitching, but no, I just needed to find my enthusiasm for it again.

I found it when I dug this cute little piece out that I started some time earlier in the year.

I seem to remember stuffing it back into it's zipper bag In disgust when I miss counted the stitching on the roof.

When it did finally see the light of day again it really only took a week to finish it off.

I'm so pleased with it, and I have Mark at my local stitching shop to thank for the lovely framing, again.

It's yet to have a hanging place because I'm knee deep in decorating at the moment and all my walls are bare, so for now it has a place a top the fireplace in my bedroom.

DD#1 and #2 took ourselves off  for the day on Saturday, It was Jenny's due date and we thought a day out would keep her occupied, (and maybe help things along!)

We did a trip to some farm shops looking at all the goodies on offer, the fruit and veg looked so much better than what the local supermarkets have on the shelves, I wish there were farm shops more local to me where I could buy my green grocery, but sadly we don't have a lot of choice now. 

We had a lovely drive in the countryside and ended up at Webbs of Wychbold.  

They had the most wonderful Christmas displays out, I couldn't resist taking a few photos.

Wouldn't it be great to have this in your garden?

or these cute little fellas?

We called this the 'Home Alone Tree'

Because it looks like the one in the Home Alone film :-)

My favourites are the Santas though.

So many different ones!

Don't you just love their happy chubby faces!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been having a bit of a clear out because of the decorating.

Lots of things I've taken to the charity shop but I came across this craft book and wondered if anyone would like it?

It's brand new, and there are lots of projects to try out.

If anyone would like it just say, If more than one person shows an interest I'll put the names in a hat (or something like) and draw a name.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jenny is 2 days over her due date now so we are all on alert for a phone call, every night I'm going to bed expecting to be woken up.

I hope he or she makes an appearance before Sunday, It's Marks 50th birthday and it would be nice to have his first grandchild here for that :-)

~~~~~~~~

Until next time xx