Half way through 2012

I can't quite believe we are in June already and half way through the year yet again.
I am way behind on my 2012 album -boo :( No crop means I haven't had the incentive to get on with it! My camera seems to be spending most of its life in its bag too :(
This weekend is the Jubilee weekend but as we won't be here I'm not really 'feeling' it :( I have (much to Geoff's horror) put the union jack bunting up outside that I bought for the Royal Wedding last year :) And I'm thinking that I might do an afternoon tea for the girls at the end of the week once we are back home. Good excuse to make some cupcakes :D Holly's school have been their typical selves...whilst most have celebrated this week in the run up to the weekend,hers have decided to have a Jubilee afternoon the second day that they go back...which means that we will no doubt spend half term designing a hat ,doing a piece of Jubilee artwork and perfecting our cake recipes for the the Bake Off! And I won't even get to take any photos...hmmm,can you tell I have pretty much had enough of junior school?!
Anyway,I need to re-cap May before I forget what we did!Holly had her first trip into town with her friend on their own,shopping in Claire's for friendship bracelets and lunch at McDonalds :) She

She planned her outfit and even wanted her hair straightened! I feel sad that she is growing up so quickly but am also so proud at how well she is dealing with all the stuff that goes on at her age (namely bitchiness and nastiness!) She keeps well out of all the arguments that go on and knows who her true friends are.
We have also had all her paperwork come through for when she starts senior school in September -yikes!
Last week she also took and passed her Cycling test (it was called cycling proficiency when I was at school but has a new name now!)
Holly also took part in the maypole dancing display at the school fete :)
Oh and she made a cake for my Dad's birthday at the beginning of May ,will share photos next time!
Em has started her GCSE's and is working hard on her revision.She tends to groan every time my camera comes out or refuses to let me take any of photos of her :( I'm hoping that may change this week though and she has had a long overdue haircut which she is really pleased with!
Hmm, this has turned into an essay so I will sign off for now!

Here's hoping....

....that I have done what I was supposed to do to make sure my blog doesn't disappear into a black hole in cyber space and is still here tomorrow! Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I have been meaning to post for a while but after weeks of miserable weather that made me feel grumpy and we've had a bit of a heatwave and I've forgotten to blog!
Hopefully I will be back soon !

Um...did I break it?!

So after the very weird layout of my last post, I was put off posting again, but really I need to check what I have done!So this will be like a test post before I get my blog technical advisor (ie Anna!) to check what I have done wrong! The problem with my blog is that I didn't set it up myself all those years ago,and I didn't do any of the template updates either (yep, that was Anna!) so I don't have much of a clue what to do if it goes wrong! So I am going to post this and add a photo and see what happens this time.....

Random photo of Holly when we went back to the bluebell a couple of weeks ago :) They have been no where near as lovely ones last year ,due to such rubbish weather for the last month!
Anyway, I may be back soon depending if I can get the layout problems sorted!

How to wear out an 11 year old...

Last Friday Holly had a very busy day:) At school she took part in a sponsored welly walk to raise funds for the PTA.Then in the evening she took part in swimming a smile for Sport Relief with Guides.We very rarely go swimming,so although Holly loves to swim underwater when we have the pool up in the summer,she is not used to swimming up and down lengths of a large public pool.So you can imagine how proud I was of her on Friday when she managed to swim 54 lengths!! She didn't quite make it to a mile but she didn't want to give up and they had to almost pull her out of the pool!She won a prize her for her perseverance and persistent! And promptly slept for 12 hours once we were home!

The weather was pants almost all weekend,wet and windy :( Yesterday it managed to stay dry til late evening,it made such a change! And then today having been boiling hot walking back from town at about 3pm ,I got totally drenched picking up Holly from her after school club! I actually gota layout done a couple of days ago using some of my photos from when Em and I went to Covent Garden a couple of the weeks back.I used some of the new Amy Tangerine papers,which I love with the colours of the photos:) The star border along the top of the photos is some self adhesive KI Memories ribbon which I got in Florida,I'm glad I've finally used some! The tag looks a bit wonky as I realised after taking the photo that I hadn't stuck it on and it had slipped - whoops!

Sad day....

Oops, my blogging roll seems to have hit a quiet spot!
Last Sunday was a bit of a sad day :( After about 7 years and  three different premises  I finally held our last crop in Southoe. I have been running the crop since Anna has been concentrating on her photography business but sadly it's not really practical to run a crop 40 miles from where you live when you can't drive! This was proved on Sunday when my train journey took an hour compared to the normal half hour and my train home was cancelled completely! Huge thanks to Kerry who drove me to Stevenage where Geoff came to get me.
Anyway, we had a lovely day, scrapping and reminiscing about people who had come and gone over the years.It seems very weird that I will probably never see most of them again! And then there are the wonderful friends I have made along the way :) Boo hoo.....  Anyway,I did my 2012 pages for March (and no I haven't done February's yet....!) and that was pretty much it .I did an extra 6 x 12 insert this month though as I seemed to have lots that I wanted to remember.
All in all it's been pretty quiet recently.The weather has been hideous with rain every day for the last two weeks.I will be glad when it's May and there will be no more April showers (read down pours...) I think that Holly and I have probably missed the bluebells by now :(
This week Geoff has had his wedding ring cut off in preparation for his MRI scan in a couple of weeks,as there is no way he could take it off .Holly was a bit concerned and suggested that we write 'I am married' in the dent around the finger left by the ring in case people didn't realise...bless!
During the Easter holidays the girls and I went over to Anna's on the train for a quick visit. We had a very nice afternoon tea with cupcakes courtesy of Holly (Hummingbird black bottomed cupcakes - yum!) ,cucumber sandwiches and scones,jam and cream :)Slightly concerned at how grown up these two are starting to look though...!

I have no idea what is going on with my blog layout as it's looking all over the place when I preview it so apologies in advance if things are where they shouldn't be!

Red Carpet

Sorry, a few more photos from Sunday! We went for a walk round to the Royal Opera House to see the red carpet after the pre show had finished.As we got there they were starting to move back all the barriers and take down all the signage etc. They didn't waste much time!




Since then I have felt in 'musical' mode and really want to go back and see Wicked (yet) again !

Today both girls went back to school :( I don't feel like I saw that much of them during the holidays ,what with the 'mad week' and working :( How long til the next break?!

Late yesterday after I had finished work Holly and I went with my Dad to Money Hole, where all the bluebells were last year,as Holly wanted to go and climb the trees (!!) Sadly the bluebells are only just starting to come out so I was a bit disappointed,but she had a good time climbing!

Back to London....again!

This afternoon Em and I had an amazing afternoon, back in Covent Garden...yep,again! Thanks to the wonder of Facebook we knew that there was a pre-show to the Olivier Theatre Awards being held there before the awards ceremony. We got there just before 3.30 when the sound check rehearsals were taking place and to our excitement managed to get right near the front :) Em was so excited as it was being hosted by Louise Dearman,who played Glinda in Wicked when we went for her birthday last October ,along with Neil Fox. We saw performances from Les Miserables, Stomp ,Billy Elliott,Chicago ,Louise Dearman and our favourite Wicked :) We were so close it was brilliant,despite the rain,hail and freezing cold wind!And even better was that it was free, a real treat for the price of our train fare :)
Stomp
Louise Dearman

Matt Willis and Rachel Tucker from Wicked

Rachel Tucker from Wicked

The award ceremony was being shown on two big screens but as there wasn't any sound we went for a wander to see the red carpet before coming home,happy but frozen :) I will share some more photos in another post soon :)

London part 2...

Last week seems like an age ago already,so I need to write this somewhere before I forget everything!
Om Wednesday Em didn't have to be at the theatre til the afternoon,so I went to work in the normal and then went to London with Em.On this day she was working backstage so didn't finish til late again.I didn't really fancy travelling into London late to meet her,so by going up with her in the afternoon I had a lot of time to fill! I had managed to book to see Legally Blonde without it costing a fortune (it was it's final week in the west end)I'd wanted to see it for ages .I have to admit that it was a bit like watching a movie about Sharpay (if you have kids that loved High School Musical you'll know what I mean!)Although I enjoyed it, I didn't come out thinking 'I want to go again!' the way I do when I've seen Wicked.
I spent the afternoon generally wandering :) I spent lots of time taking photos of the eggs,went for a bit of retail therapy in Primark in Oxford Street,went to see Cleopatra's needle,treated myself to a McDonalds and walked miles!

One of my favourite eggs... Hanging eggs!
I was glad of the chance to sit and rest my feet for a couple of hours in the theatre :) The Savoy Theatre wasn't far from where Em was so I walked as quick as I could once Legally Blonde finished and got there just as she was coming out :) She had a great evening, though she didn't get any photos or her programme signed because she was too busy 'hanging out' with everyone ! I have obviously taught her nothing...!!

Thursday was another mad day! I had booked tickets to take Holly and Em to see The Muppets for what I thought was this Thursday,only to realise on the Tuesday that I'd booked them for last Thursday -doh! So Em went into London on her own as I had to work,I then finished and went straight to the cinema with Holly and her friend,passed them both on to Geoff after the film and got a train straight into London to meet Em .And then webt to work again for a couple of hours. To say I was bit tired Thursday night was an under statement...!

Happy Easter!

I think I have forgotten about Easter to a certain extent,as we haven't really done much about it the last couple of years.Last year the kitchen was being done and the house was in chaos and the year before that we were in Florida so we didn't do anything Easter-y . The weather here is miserable too which isn't helping! Yesterday we had our usual egg hunt at Mum & Dad's,it was freezing compared to last year when it was warm and sunny and we had a barbecue .Holly and I made some Easter nest cupcakes to take with us which were very nice :)

We decided earlier it would be nice to have a roast later,so I am very thankful for our local corner shop where I managed to bag the last chicken :)
We don't have much planned for this week after all the running around last week.The one thing I did have booked I had booked for last week by accident (luckily I realised in time and we still managed to go!).I will be back soon with the rest of our London exploits :)

Mad four days.....

As I mentioned a few posts back,Em was booked on a four day work experience course this week with the Ambassador Theatre group.The course consisted of two days of talks and workshops ,one day was held at the Lyceum Theatre and the other day at the Trafalgar Studios,The other two days were spent working in a theatre,one day/evening front of house and the other backstage during the performance.Em got to go to The Playhouse Theatre where Dreamboats and Petticoats is performed :) Although the two girls that got to work at Wicked were the envy of everyone else, because it is a much bigger show from what Em said I don't think they got to see as much. Em got to meet and the cast and chat with them...though she didn't get photos with them or get her programme signed as she was too busy chatting to them!



Anyway, on the Monday we all went in London.Once Em had checked in I went and met Geoff and Holly in Covent Garden (they travelled after 9.30 - off peak!) While I was waiting for them I had a look round at the eggs that were on display as part of the Big Egg Hunt. When they arrived,we the spent a bit of time wandering round the markets and watching the street performers. We then went on to Selfridges as Holly wanted to go for a cupcake at Lola's :)

After a wander round Carnaby Street and a visit to Primark (at Geoff's request!) we has lunch sat outside near Marble Arch.The weather was gorgeous so we we sat in Hyde for a while resting our feet before meeting Em and going for tea in Pizza Hut :)
On Tuesday I took Em into London for her first day at the Playhouse.I then came home and went to work for a few hours before going back to see Dreamboats and Petticoats in the evening and collecting Em after the show.
It was quite funny waiting for her by the stage door as there was a group of very excited screamy girls waiting for one of the actors to come out who used to be in a boyband (but I have forgotten his name!)
By the time we got home Em was shattered! I will be back with part 2 tomorrow!

Daffodils and blossom trees:)

So the gorgeous weather is still with us,yipee! I dragged the lawn mower out of the shed on Sunday and cut the grass - in March! It's slightly mad but we'll make the most of it! I'm hoping it lasts til the Easter holidays anyway!
On Saturday afternoon Holly and I went out with the camera :) To be honest, she was still pretty much full of cold,so as you can imagine a lot of her smiles were more like grimaces! And as expected I couldn't prise Em away from her homework!
I seem to be doing even more walking than normal at the moment and am admiring all the different types of blossom trees round here. This one is my favourite so far I think :)

Today I went to see Holly singing in a an Easter concert at one of the local churches,with some others from her school :) Not quite sure why they went to the church as it seemed to be just parents and not church goers watching them...!
Yesterday I bought us a new dinner service:) Now that may not sound very exciting but...the one we have now is the one we got as wedding presents nearly 19 (!!) years ago.To be honest there's not a lot wrong with it and in all that time we've only managed to break two dinner plates! But it was getting a bit boring! So we are now the proud owners of a lovely pink ,hand painted Sainsburys set which was on offer at half price - bargain! Actually I really need to stop going in Sainsburys as there are so many lovely things in their home section!Next on my wish list is the pink clothes airer which is currently on offer too....

One of those weeks

..when I don't feel like I've got much done...! Holly has been off school sick for a couple of days (nothing serious,sore throat and a snotty nose!),she seems ok now though :)
On Wednesday evening I went to watch Em take part in her school House Music evening.She didn't really want any of us to go and watch her as she wasn't happy that it was really under rehearsed and unorganised (she was singing as part of a group).However she relented and let me go! Honestly,I was so proud of her I nearly cried.She is the first to admit that her voice isn't 'perfect', but she put so much into it and was really really good.There is no way I would ever have got up on a stage and sung to an audience that size at her age (or even now!)Her house didn't win,but I am still in awe of her :)
Last weekend I got a layout done :) I had seen the green and yellow October Afternoon papers on a LO earlier in the week and liked the look of them.Then when I was looking through my OA Christmas papers,I found I had ordered them back in January!Very handy :) They were perfect for these photos of Holly in her new dungarees :)
I also used some of the new Dear Lizzy paper,a very old Love Elsie chipboard frame and lots of other odd bits and pieces from my stash :)

Last Sunday was Mother's DAy :) I usually try and get some photos of me with the girls,some years they are better than others! I don't think I've ever scrapped them though! The girls had gone into town the week before with Geoff to choose my presents :) Holly gave me the Making Cupcakes With Lola book ,as well as a candle and a photo frame she had made me at Guides,and gave me a black glittery Jessica nail varnish :)In the afternoon we had Mum & Dad round for tea.The weather was pretty rubbish for most of the day so I didn't get any nice outdoor photos of me and Mum :(
I am off to bed, the weather is supposed to be lovely again tomorrow and Holly has agreed to come out with me and have her photo taken amongst the daffodils again like last year :) (Some how though I don't think Em will oblige!)

Dozy me...

I really should be showing you a photo of what I made at the Ambi Pur craft workshop but....I was very dozy and left it behind at the shop, along with my glasses!
The workshop was held at the gorgeous Homemade London premises,not far from Marble Arch.Despite leaving the house in thick fog first thing,an hour later in London,the sun was out and the sky was blue :)

The lovely Jo was our was tutor for the morning project ,which was embroidering a tea towel.I used to do lots of cross stitch but it's a long time since I have done any sewing.It was really lovely to just sit and stitch again for a while,and I even remembered how to do french knots and gave Danielle a lesson in how to do them :) I'm tempted to dig out all my my unfinished and untouched sewing kits again...! (Maybe when I've got my glases back though!!)

After a lovely lunch in the sewing cafe area of the shop Anna and I headed home (no time for a cup cake in Selfridges :( ),armed with our our lovely gift of a picnic hamper full of craft items (Cath Kidston sewing kit, mosaic kit, clock making kit...which Geoff has claimed!!)and Ambi Pur 3volution's new scent Seaside Breezes' (which is currently making my living room smell very nice!)

:)

Day out :)

Tomorrow I am off to London with Anna :) We are going to a home decor workshop with Danielle Proud and if we have time, a cup cake in Selfridges afterwards :)

I must remember to pack my glasses as we are doing embroidery and I won't be able to see anything with out them!

That's better :)

Yesterday I got round to doing some scrapping,the first in a while! I have actually seen lots of new scrapping stuff that I like this season and have done a little bit of shopping :) There is still a heap of stuff on my wish list though!

I did this layout using a photo taken of Holly yesterday afternoon :) I ended up using a mix of papers ,October Afternoon, Crate Paper and Jillibean Soup :) There's also some Studio Calico,Kaisercraft,American Crafts and Jenni Bowlin on there too :) And I used my much sought after Martha Stewart starburst punch :)

The photo isn't that dark in real life though.I feel better now have done something ! Problem is though my printer is about to run out of three different colour inks and I think I have one sheet of photo paper left !I may be taking a trip down to Boots to use the photo kiosk until payday!

This morning I have rememberd to accept Holly's secondary school place! She got the school we wanted :) Looking forward to buying a whole new school uniform and having both girls wearing the same for just one year before Em goes in to sixth form (yikes!)
Em has something very exciting booked for the Easter holidays :) She has got a place on a four day theatre workshop in London :) She will be working behind the scenes and getting lots of expereince which will be great as this is the area she is hoping to go into in the future :)And it means that I might just have to go and see the show at the theatre where she is based so she's not coming home on her own - shame!

Erm...March?!

Whoops,blogging has fallen by the wayside again :( Possibly because I've not been up to any thing interesting?! Last months crop was cancelled so I haven't even got any scrapping to share :(
Today was World Book Day ,Holly's last at junior school :( Last year she missed it due to her school trip so she wsa really looking forward to today:) She decided a while ago that she wsa going to go as Hermione from Harry Potter :) Em dressed uo as her many moons ago so we pretty much had an outfit already :) We plaited Holly's hair last night whilst it wsa damp to make it even wavier than normal and I printed her off a Gryffindor badge late last night :)
Today was also Secondary School Allocations day....yikes!We weren't supposed to get emails until after 6pm,we were one of the lucky ones though who got ours much earlier! Some of Holly's friends were still waiting two hours later! As expected Holly got her first choice, but it still feels a bit scary now that it is getting nearer :(
Tomorrow we are helping Holly's friend in support of Big Yellow Friday,raising money and awareness of Children's Liver Disease.So far I have madeRocky Road (and resisted eating it all!) and tomorrow I will be making cookies and muffins for the cake sale :)

January pages :)

I have finally got rounfd to finishing off my January pages :) I decided to go with a main layout as I really wanted to do a page about our Wicked trip :) I've also done a calender page but I'm not sure I'll share those as everything is on them, from parties (the girls, not me!) to dentist appoinments!

I've got lots of smaller page protecters if I want to add extra photos and want to vary it from month to month.Saying that though,I don't seem to have many Feb photos yet....other than lots of the snow!!

Last week we wnet to see Em's school show .which was great,she really enjoyed herself :) She was sad that it was over though after six months of preparing for it! When we left the house it was snowing lightly, by the time we came home three hours later we had two or three inches! Luckily it wasn't bad enough to close the schools on Friday though, as Holly had her last year assembly.

I have some gorgeous snow photos to put up here that I took late afternoon at the weekend when the sun was starting to set,so i will be back soon hopefully :)

A layout

I finished this layout the other night, having started it at the crop. I pinched the idea of the black border with the pink paper from Claire's Lo here :) I'm aware that mine is very wonky - those scalloped scissors are not easy to cut straight with!I am also trying to put a bit more 'info' on my layouts ie dates, story etc.I need to go back through all my old albums at some point and at least date the photos on layouts where I haven't ,or they will mean nothing to the girls in the future (if they decide to keep them!)

It is still freezing cold here :( Yesterday we had blue skies and sunshine, melting a lot of the snow but it is back to being an ice rink out there now having frozen again last night.

Yesterday I went on a little shopping trip to Hemel Hempstead with a friend.It is years since I last went and it has changed totally from the fond memories I have of going there with my Mum ,Dad and sister when I was small! I found the coolest t-shirt in Primark :) I'm not sure about the colour but the words and photo?? I love them :) Sadly it has a hole in the seam ,but if I can't change it at another branch I will just mend it as I want it so much!

I am off to go and attempt to warm my cold hands up by doing a huge pile of ironing!

Our patience was rewarded :)

As forecast, it snowed!It started about 6pm -ish and I'm not sure when it stopped! Em had a dress rehearsal all day for her school musical later this week,so she didn't come out sledging with us :(
This year was the longest we have stayed out I think, thanks to the new gloves and waterproof trousers! Holly didn't complain about being cold once,wish we'd bought them before now! As per usual most of Holly's school were also out sledging and we had a really lovely morning (although my feet were frozen!)

Although she was not really in the mood,I persuaded Em to come out in to the garden once she was home,just for a little while!

Holly spent spent ages out in the garden making a very cute igloo (probably just about big enough for a cat!) but the photos aren't great as it was a bit dark by the time she finished it :( There was also a bit of angry snow throwing when part of it collapsed!

Although there we are not forecast any more ,there is still lots of snow every where.Hopefully both schools will be open tomorrow !

Waiting ...impatiently...

...for the snow! We are supposedly forecast it from 6pm this evening and through the night,so we could wake up tomorrow to a winter wonderland : D.AS we have had heavy snow the last couple of years, we have gradually got more 'prepared'! We all (except Geoff !)have wellies,we have two sledges and today I have bought us waterproof ski gloves :) That way we can make snowmen and throw snowballs without cold wet hands and a million pairs of mittens drying on the radiators! Bring it on....!

Last week we had a our family trip to see Wicked,courtesy of some Christmas money and cheap tickets from Get In To London Theatre :)We had tea in Pizza Hut first -yum! And yes, it was the third time I've seen it, but I would still go again! Holly absolutely loved it and laughed,danced and sang throughout it :) And Em was just pleased it was the same actress playing Elphaba as when we went before as she really likes her (and she was supposed to be on holiday!)

Last week was crop week :) I spent most of the time doing my January pages .They are nearly done,I just needed a photo of Holly in her Guide uniform to complete them. I have seen lots of lovely Project Life pages on other peoples blogs but I really don't think our life is interesting enough to fill a page each week (and everyone else would be sick of my camera in their faces !) so I'll stick with the current plan of monthly pages!

This afternoon Holly wanted to go for a walk at the lakes.It was freezing so we didn't stay out too long!

This is the new 'epic' hat (as one of Holly's friends called it!)that Holly and Em share! They spotted it in Claires at a ridiculous price that I refused to pay,and then a few weeks later we found one on the sale rack for £3 - bargain!They only had one left though, hence the sharing!