December is here and the countdown is on, the Advent calenders are filled - well the girl's one in the kitchen is anyway. I totally forgot/let time get away from me and only managed to pick the goodies up at the last minute - bad Mammy !!


Little Santa is living on the dresser as Rachel thought it was great skit to dismantle him every couple of minutes - so for his own safety he is place up high so he can survive the month in one piece.



I also decided at the last minute ( I seem to be doing that quite a bit at the moment ) to make my own version of the Christmas countdown. I loved the ones that Ali Edwards and Shimelle are doing but to be honest I lacked the time and the equipment to attempt either but I still wanted to give it a go.
I brought some 6 pocket pages at the beginning of the year - I thought I might use them on a 365 project but like all other scrapbooking this year it got shelved. Anyway I pulled them out and using a gorgeous free kit from the Shabby Princess I had a play on the computer.


I quickly made the first two "pages" - they are hybrid layouts - digital printed onto paper with elements to decorate added on. Quick, easy and I will have 2 of the 6 pocket pages with 24 6 x 4 inch layouts and one big 12 x 12 for the Big day itself (anyone following that ?) and I will use pictures I take daily.


They all match too which makes the pages more cohesive, so I am cheating and it won't be as pretty as others but it will get done and considering how slow I have been at scrapping and how little time I have that is a BIG bonus.

Rachel and Jen along with my parents are all away in the UK visiting my Nana , I wish I was there to be honest I really would love to see her and my Auntie Win they are such fun but it was not to be this time.
Before Rachel left we had to come up with a costume for the nativity play and Rachel is a sheep of all things !! She wanted a mask so we attempted one but truthfully it looks a bit too Donny Darco for my liking and I think she would be better off with just droppy ears and a bit of face paint. I will have to make one when she gets home.

With Rachel gone I was able to get on with the card making and made a couple more today - they are not going to blow away the cardmakers with their originality but I like them and they have to be quickly made - again time is a factor.

Before the end of next week I have Becca away in the wilds of Derry again and I have to make "reindeer poop" for Caitlin's class - they loved them so much last year and of course I have a few more cards to get done.

As I told you last week I would share my new custard jug and pudding bowl aren't they cute - I am a sucker for cute things.
Isn't it crazy how the days are flying by ? They always seem to fly around this time of year and my little Christmas planner has been pulled out to try and organise me ( wishful thinking but I will try )

I find the easiest way to get though the Christmas craziness is to write lists - lots of lists - turns out I quite sensibly filled in the address and Christmas card list last year, that will save a heap of time this year although I am still making the cards though so that will negate all the time I will save I suppose !! Maybe I should have written a reminded to start this card making business earlier or alternatively instructions to buy cards from a shop.

I did make some decorations with the girls for their teacher's presents . We are making hot chocolate mugs and these will be attached - Santa is just too cute ( told you I like cute )

We got carried away and made loads - the girls don't have that many teachers but it was so much fun to play with chocolate and sprinkles and icing.


We brought an Amaryllis to try and grow for Christmas, I decorated the pot with Christmas papers and only time will tell if I can grow it - green fingered I am not !


I did buy some incredibly funky wellies, you know to do all that gardening I love to do with my non-green fingers !!
Truth is they were just too cute refer to my love of cute above to pass by in the shop and they only had one pair left in my size so I had to get them there and then and with all the rain I will use them.


I did get around to at least starting the cards, more would have been made but we are battling the dreaded lurgy in the house- Rachel is recovering and Becca now has it !
This was my first attempt and it was right back to the Basic Grey and merry Christmas paper I went :)


Then I threw some Santa hats at the girls and persuaded them to pose for five seconds for the Christmas card shots - Caitlin was easy enough, the girl is a pro in front of a camera at this stage she even got her own props !


Rachel was easy enough to win around with the offer of a story - although they did get a bit carried away with the storytelling and not looking at the actual camera. Needless to say these are the out-takes and the final offerings will be winging there way out in Christmas cards to ye all.


Finally I leave you with one last card, who knows I might actually get another one finished this millennium !!

I will be pulling out the advent calendars tomorrow and the countdown will be on !!

Well the week started off quiet enough Rachel and I decided to get some card making in and she decided she wanted to make Santa cards - I am not sure why we had to wear daft hats but apparently one must while making Santa cards !!
These are her finished Santa's all done by her, I just pre-cut the shapes, she glued like a thing possessed. "She is very good with glue" as she told her Grandpop the other day.


Carry on with the Christmas preparation - Caitlin and I made these little beauties we will be making more closer to the day as these were a practise - they are tiny little mini muffins ( these are chocolate flavour ones ) but I would love to try a mini Christmas cake type one.


Caitlin brought them into school to the class for taste testing and they got the thumbs up :)

Caitlin also wrote her Santa letter, which will go in the post tomorrow - her list has an mp3 player, a blow up chair and books and trust me when I say she thought long and hard about it this letter. She has also asked her dad and I for a bunny rabbit as Santa doesn't bring pets in our house.


I had lots of plans to get back to scrapbooking but plans changed because little one became sick - poor wee Rachel got a nasty virus and needed lots of hugs and love.Luckily today she is feeling much better thank goodness.

And finally all is peaceful on the cat front an understanding seems to have been reached and they are sharing a bed it is quite sweet. Meg still throws me a look when he is being hyper like a harassed older sister which is funny because it so reminds me of when she turned up.

They definitely stuck together this weekend as Ruby came up with Mum and Dad and they hid out together upstairs.
Mum and Dad came up as I said bearing gifts - the girls are sorted for jackets and Jennie and I got Christmas goodies from Mam.
Jennie loves her new Christmas Gravy boat and I have the cutest pudding bowl and custard jug which I will take a picture of this week.

But as I told Mam she doesn't need to spoil us when she comes up we are always happy to have them.
Caitlin was so happy to have them here, she played cards with her Granny and took Ruby for a walk with her Grandpop.

We are lucky to have them around :)

It has been a busy couple of weeks in which I have learnt the following -

• Wedding Photographers are SO worth the money



• That wedding photography is very hard



• Shooting a wedding is like running a marathon when all you've ever done is walk to your garden gate and back.
  



• I am a BIG rugby fan ( more on that later )

On the 5th November we all went down to Trim Castle to attend the wedding of my lovely Cousin Claire and her groom Paul and yes I had agreed to take the pictures ( silly girl should have learnt my lesson the first time )



The venue was lovely but the weather was not on our side and the lighting, well the less said about that the better.
Caitlin was all dressed up and ready to go and had shoe with heels no less - unfortunately she would end up standing on her own toe with one of them later in the day and hurt her toe but hindsight is twenty twenty !!



I managed to snap my Mum at lunch time she looked amazing and also had some pretty fab shoes herself. And helped by sorting out Caitlin after the "shoe" incident which happened just as I was heading to the roof for bridal party shots.

Also caught my Dad at lunch - I say lunch I managed to wolf down a sarnie before I realised the bride and groom had no shots together and gathered them up for a few. Dad was brilliant he helped cart around my bags and kept me grounded in the chaos - thanks Dad :)



I grabbed a shot of Jen and Rachel - actually I really didn't stop all day to be honest.


And this is a slide show of some of the 500 + shots I took - hope you like it guys :)

Anyway onto the Rugby, I finally got to go to my first international Rugby match on Saturday and to say I was excited was an understatement !!
I am a BIG Irish rugby fan and to see the guys playing in the flesh was just amazing - and to make it even better we had great seats too and it was against Australia the land of my birth.


CJ was excited too - maybe just a tad more than me - he is the one in pain today as he pulled something jumping up for the Brian O'Driscoll try in the dying minutes ( what a try that was !! )
He was also hoarse from all the shouting.


As for me I may have to give up my Australian Citizenship as I was only shouting for one team and they were the ones in the green - I did appreciate the Aussie's play but I am glad we drew - seemed fair to me.

Not the greatest picture of me but that is Croke Park in the background so I will forgive the camera skills of my hubby - truth is we took our old little Canon as I didn't want to risk the expensive camera so I only have myself to blame.
Now don't faint but in this crazy week I also finally did some scrapping, my printer finally is working and I decided to finish the layout I started so long ago.


So here it is and it is already in an album and I have even started another, there maybe no stopping me. I still have to do all the Christmas cards yet and this time last year I had already well started - now all I have to do is find the time.



Oh and I spruced up the blog a bit - thanks to lots of advice at various sites ( some of which are in the links at the side )

When we lived in Dublin ( many moons ago ) I used to hate Halloween - I had a new baby that hated the interruptions and the little brats that lived near us thought nothing of putting fireworks through the letter box if they didn't get goodies they were after. But now we have family traditions built up I have warmed to it . Rachel had a Halloween party at playschool on Friday so I took the chance to take a couple of snaps before we headed down .

I am having a hard time getting her to look at the camera these days but she is the cutest pumpkin :)


The girls decided to carve their own pumpkins this year - Becca's is called Gloomy bear.



Caitlin went for the more traditional Jack O' Lantern


They looked so cool that Cj decided he wanted to have a go and in the end I made one too.


On Friday the decoration of the house started in earnest this was the front door sign and the spider chandelier and the witches hat I wore to scare the little kids on the night.


This was the scene beside the door with all the pumpkins lit and everything outside - I am not into gruesome to be honest so I go for more homemade stuff.


I particularly like the mummy jars - or the mummy and daddy jars as Rachel calls them :)



This was my pumpkin - I went for difficult as usual and just about pulled it off :)


All the goodies were packed into the bags we stamped last week and placed into the biggest bowl we have - this year I did loads as I have had the nightmare of running out and I didn't want it to happen again. I also dress up in witchy attire to give out the sweets, and we had spooky blue lights in the hall to finish the effect.


Caitlin went to a Halloween party at one of the neighbours house and went trick and treating with her friends so I had to grab a picture on the way around. We had buckets of kids call to the door and about 6 ish Jennie and I took the wee one around.


Now we only call to houses that have decorated as we know they are taking part - I am not overly keen on knocking on people's door that obviously want to be left in peace. The kids have a trick each to do if asked usually a corny halloween joke or in Rachel's case a stirring rendtion of Baa Baa black sheep. We also don't stay out too long and just do our neighbourhood so we know the people we are calling too - it make for a much more pleasant evening for all.
Rachel loved calling to the doors and she even got her own pumpkin from one lovely lady.


The weather held out and it was even quite mild, the evening went great and the kids came home with bags full of goodies and as I said we didn't run out, the last callers came at around 8.30 and there were only a few organised fireworks being let off so no bangers late into the night.

It has been a busy week followed by the craziest weekend in our town's calender and I can see it being a bit mad for the rest of the week :)
First we found out that "Pixie" is not a girl HE is now a Pixel but is growing stronger and more boisterous by the day - this is him taking over Meg's bed.

Becca had her fancy dress day at school on Wednesday and looked amazing - so cool and I adore her stripy tights.

Caitlin's fancy dress party was on Friday which was the last day before half term for the girls- she was bat girl.


I made "mummy" buns for the school's bake sale ( trays and trays of them )


All of this led us to the weekend and the Annual Pumpkin Festival. It is turning into an amazing event. Friday we headed down to watch the opening parade, we even brought our own pumpkin in the shape of Rachel :)


The parade is always fantastic but this year was even more special because Caitlin was taking part. An amazing group of street performers from Donegal came down and trained the kids and provided them with costumes, make up and props over 90 kids from the primary school were involved.

Caitlin had a ball and claimed it was much better to be in the parade than watching it but it was pretty good watching it from where we were.


The group have fire eaters and drummers and an amazing girl doing acrobatics on a sash.


The parade was followed by an opening ceremony and the switching on of this amazing sculpture -it is rotating balls hand painted and lit I wish I could of captured it better - it is gorgeous.


We took the girls down to the fun fair for an hour or so - I took Caitlin on the rollercoaster and Caitlin took Rachel on the teacups.


Saturday the rain unfortunately bucketed down but most of the events were indoors that day
with fancy dress parties for the kids and a concert by Bell X 1.
Sunday the rain let up which was great as the closing parade is even bigger than the opening one.
There was even more spectacles to see and acrobats and this time the secondary school was involved too.Becca was down practising for most of Sunday and Caitlin went down in the afternoon to join in.


Caitlin was thrilled as she was put in the lead of the bird this time - she looked fantastic in her costume.


There were samba dancers which the boys loved of course and fire eaters - so much to see.


Finally Becca's group came along and we saw why they were practising they did an fantastic dance routine all the way down the street and the costumes were amazing.


There were great big "giant" puppets as well - the town did it self proud honestly every year the parade gets better and better. And I love that the kids were able to be involved in it - it made the parade for them.


After all of this we collected the girls and headed down to the lakeshore to watch the Fireworks display.

We had a good view and the display beautiful as always - over the lake is the perfect setting and the moon was peeking out through the clouds.

There was a giant pumpkin floating on the lake.

After the fireworks we went back up to the fair and went on as many rides as we could, Becca even went on the slingshot which is basically a ball contraption that flings people way up in the air- she is braver than me.
We finished the evening with a healthy dinner of chips and candyfloss before leaving the revellers for the adults fancy dress to it - and the were some costumes on display I can tell you !!

Great weekend was had by all .

I am sat here typing with a singing toddler beside me, the newest addition to the house sleeping in my hair and my eldest off exploring the wilds of Northern Ireland.


Becca has had a mad couple of weeks, she was chosen by the school with 11 other kids to represent the school in a cross- border camp where schools from the North and the South of Ireland get together to learn and have fun. She was so thrilled to get a chance to go and we are so proud of her that the school thought she would be a good ambassador for them. So we packed her all up and dropped her to the bus on Monday apparently she will be abseiling and trekking and doing team building exercises and the like, we expect her back later in the week totally exhausted.
She did find it a bit of a wrench to leave because she had to leave the newest member if the family - her name is Pixie she is approximately 4 weeks old and she was abandoned by the side of the road.


A neighbour found her and thought she might be Meg's kitten, being black and all, but Meg was neutered a long time a go so she is not responsible and the mother was no where to be found, she was cold hungry and barely moving when we found her.
We got her some kitten milk and started feeding her with a dropper and after a couple of days she was a lot perkier and started venturing out of her bed. She is now back to her playful self.


She is here over a week now and is growing stronger by the second, she now has a proper bed actually it is a cat house from Jennie's work and she has even started using the litter box which I am incredibly happy about.


And poor old Meg is starting to feel less displaced by this usurper to her kitty throne - last night they ate side by side and slept either side of me on the sofa so an understanding seems to be reached after the initial shock she had when Pixie arrived in the house. You think she would be understanding she arrived pretty much the same way herself.


And Caitlin is thrilled Pixie too although she has to be constantly told to take it easy with her as she gets over enthusiastic in her care of the kitten.
Rachel is constantly telling me to feed the kitten and following her everywhere - poor Rachel has had a rough week she had a double dose of tonsillitis and laryngitis, it was a nasty old dose and she had no voice for a couple of days - today though she is making up for it by talking nine to the dozen and singing.

So we had lots of medicine and hugs last week and she found a new obsession - she loves doing jigsaws, her favourite is the 100 piece one we have of the rainforest which we have to make at least 3 times a day.
I am feeling bad too, the only creative things I have been up to have been in the kitchen, with lots of baking and home cooking going on - it seems to be this time of year as the days grow shorter and the air gets cooler, that make me want to get all homely and cosy in the kitchen. And I have been spending a tonne of time on the Bakerella site - I love her cake pops and so want to try them.

So lots of peanut and chocolate chip cookies have been made and I had a glut of free range eggs so lots of quiches were made too which came in handy for lunches.

and I had to make 36 caramel slices last week with Caitlin as she was "chef of the week" in class I just wish I could get back to scrapbooking again - I miss it if I am honest.