In the mood for Christmas :)

This mornming I am feeling very christmassy! We have a light sprinkling of snow outside and I am all signed up for this :)
Over the last few years I have admired lots of beautiful journals on peoples blogs so this year I have taken the plunge :) I am still waiting for some supplies to arrive before I can get started :) Let's hope I stick with it :)

One of those moments

Last week I had one of those moments...one of those when I thought 'We live so close to London, but hardly ever go there'So on Thursday Em and I went to Leicester Square to experience the atmosphere of the Harry Potter premiere :) We knew that by the time we got there, there would no real hope of getting near enough to see anyone actually in the flesh but at least we were there :)As it turns out,the first place where we were standing was pretty close to the 'main' red carpet (totally confusing as they were showing it at three cinemas!)But we were moved back from there by the police and then watched all the arrivals and interviews on the big screen.Despite getting absolutely drenched at one point Em had a great time :)
I'm almost ashamed to admit that I have never really watched or read any Harry Potter (Geoff normally goes with Em to see them) but almost feel like I should now!
This morning Holly took part in the Remembrance Parade with Brownies.Luckily the rain held off til about 10 minutes after they had finished.After going back to my old Junior school last week, it was a bit strange that my old headmaster from there led the service today!

I'm still here!

And trying to remember what I've done for the last two weeks!
At the end of half term we went up to Widnes to spend a few days with Geoff's family.On Friday we went into Liverpool city centre,including visits to the huge Primark and Build a Bear! We caught a glimpse of Michael McKintyre in Waterstones,but weren't allowed anywhere near him due to the huge security guards everywhere!On the Saturday we went out to a PYO farm on the off chance that they may have a couple of pumpkins still left in the field...there were a couple !
We returned home on Sunday and once the unpacking had been done the girls set about carving their pumpkins :)
Sadly I never got round to doing mine and it's now outside rotting :( Although the weather wasn't the best, the girls still got dressed up and went out Trick or Treating.

Last week we got back in to the school routine :( Holly had a friend round one day after school, and they spent ages outside preparing experiments,planting pumpkin seeds whilst adding lots of salt & pepper to the soil to see what effect it will have! Ready flavoured pumpkin anyone?! Parts for the Christmas play have been given out and we seem to be on a fast track to Christmas now! Holly's year are doing Cirque Du Soleil so I am looking forward to making her a funky, bright costume! She has already dug out one of Em's old dance show leotards in preparation!

I got round to finishing a Lo a couple of nights ago.I was swayed into buying the Sassafrass papers having seen the gorgeous layouts on SJ and Laura's blogs.

My first attempt at the journalling was a a disaster though so I had to cover it up with the heart shaped banner stickers and pearls! I still need to stamp the date on it but as the stamps I needed have gone AWOL, it will have to wait!

Last night we went to a fab fireworks display :) it was a bit of a blast from the past though as it was at my old junior school. Everything seemed much smaller than I remember it! There was a huge bonfire to keep us warm, and the fireworks themselves were well worth the wait.This evening we had some sparklers ,which to be honest were pretty rubbish!

I will try and come back sooner next time!

One for the Disney album :)

Yesterday was crop day :) I think I enjoy these more these days as it's about the only time I sit and scrap !I did a bit work on Christmas gifts and finished two LO's .
This is one of them :)
I think I have decided that I like my Disney LO's without much actual Disney stuff on them! We met Woody & Jessie on our last visit to the Magic Kingdom,although we'd already seen Buzz & Woody at Hollywood Studios. I used My Little Shoebox shaped paper and strips of Jillibean Soup,Cosmo & more MLS.
This week is half term and the weather today is gorgeous ! Sadly it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow :( We are expectinmg the Bowkis clan though so I'm sure we'll be entertained by a show at some point!

More celebrations :)

Last week Em celebrated her 14th birthday...yikes, that makes me feel old ! She had her main present from us a few weeks back in time for the start of her GCSE coursework, so she just got a few small things from us on the day.Last night she had seven friends round for food, X Factor dancing and a bit of Wii Just Dance .I must admit to trying not to laugh when they all sat down and 'rocked the boat' to Ooops Upside Your Head...pretty much what I did when I was a couple of year older than she is now! Anyway, I think they all enjoyed themselves and we all survived!" Holly opted for a sleepover at my mum & dad's after her orignal sleepover plans at a friends house had to be cancelled due to sickness.

Yesterday morning we went over to Thurrock as Em had a birthday money burning a hole in her pocket and Holly had finally saved up enough money to buy her long awaited bunny from Build A Bear ,along with a pumpkin outfit! Photos to follow!We also found a few things we liked in Primark, something for everyone :) I think Saturday shopping is the way to go though as in the past we have generally gone there on a Sunday and it's been manic.Yesterday was a bit of a revelation, no queues in either Build A Bear or Primark!

This week is a bit of a mad one with teacher consultations for both girls, year cake sale and year assembly for Holly and a Brownie do for Holly celebrating the end of the centenary year of guiding.Phew - roll on half term!

Birthday celebrations at Pencil Lines!

It's that time of year again, and this week Pencil Lines celebrates it's 4th birthday! There are sketches going live on the hour every hour today along with a RAK for each layout.Make sure you hop on over and join in the fun!

My layout has just gone live :) I used sketch number 146.I had trouble trying to choose one as there were so many I wanted to do again!


I used a real mish mash of October Afternoon, Jillibean Soup and Cosmo Cricket papers,along with Jillibean Soup twine, October Afternoon stickers,thickers and an Echo Park sticker :) It doesn't matter how many times we go out looking for conkers, Holly will always bring home a load more, even resorting to shoving them in her boots if her bucket is full! I love how this layout turned out ,though I will admit to leaving one layer out that was in the sketch as I was starting to get confused (it doesn't take much!)
I hope you enjoy the day of sketches and I will be back later with a post about Em's birthday :)

Copy cat toadstools photos:)

One of the wonders of the internet is that you get to find out about local finds from friends :) Lyzzy told me about the pumpkin shop a couple of years back and this Autumn she has come up with another discovery :)
If you carry on down the lane where we go looking for conkers every year,you come to the entrance to Brocket Hall.On the verge are these amazing toadstools :) I have never seen them in real life before, although my Dad has informed me that they are 'quite common' in woodland! I have seen lots of boring brown ones, but not these! I'm sure the van driver that went past us probably thought I was a complete nutter, kneeling on a tea towel (I knew the grass would be wet so I went prepared!)with my head and camera on one side to take this photo

I do love Autumn :)

And here's another pumpkin /squash photo, just because I love the colours :)

Autumn has arrived :)

Finally the damp and drizzle have disappeared and today we have had gorgeous sunshine :)

Yesterday we went to the farm shop to go to the pumpkin field.Sadly, it wasn't as good as last year :( Although I did phone and check they still had pumpkins in the field ,when we got there, they'd already picked and packed most of them :( (Much much earlier than last year!)I managed to find a few good ones to roll together for Holly to sit on though ! I'm glad we didn't leave going there til half term though,it would have been really disappointing!

This afternoon we went conker collecting again, this time with mum & dad. We also did a bit of leaf throwing :)

I will admit to still fighting with my new camera ,hopefully I'll start improving soon!

To help, I have invested in this book, the sooner it arrives the better! I also manged to lose my lense cap today so I've had to order a new one -doh!Thankfully the replacement one comes with a cord to attach it.

Last weeks scrapping :)

I meant to put these on here sooner ,but what with the rubbish weather we've had for most of the week it wasn't that easy to get decent photos.They're not great pics but I'm still learning with the new camera so bear with me!
For this one I used the new Jillibean soup papers, as well as the bakers twine and corrugted flower.The big brown flower shape is part of the packaging from the corrugated shapes.Love these photos that Anna took :)

For this one I used Echo Park Walk in the Park papers, and more bakers twine :) The colours of the photo aren't quite true as I printed it out on the wrong sort of photo paper -oops!.I will bet round to pe-printing it when I have more ink!

I have a couple more to share,but I'll pace myself as I don't seem to scrap that often these days !
As mentioned earlier ,the weather has been pretty dire this past week.I usually love Autumn ,but I love the bright ,crunchy days, not the damp and drizzly ones which is mainly what we've had!
This week is a busy one, Holly has her Harvest Festival assembly, where she actually has a speaking part (it's a whole school assembly and there aren't places parts up for grabs!) and another Victorian themed day on Thursday.Em has started dancing classes again as well as swimming with friends :)
Yesterday morning I had the house to myself ,which is rare for a Saturday so I had a giggle watching the out takes on the Friends DVDs :)
And for Lucy, this is the farm shop where I took my pumpkin photos last year :) http://www.pearcesfarmshop.com/ Hopefully we'll go again this year :)

Getting there...

I am slowly learning about my camera :) Since deciding which one I was getting I have been reading this great guide on the Canon website. To be honest, I find manuals a bit heavy going.This is much more useful as it has lots of photos showing the effect changing the settings has, perfect for a slow learner like me! This weekend I had a go at depth of field,and I finally got the sort of photo I have wanted to take for ages :)

Please excuse the dust on my Momiji, it will be removed by tomorrow afternoon! I dread dusting them as they tend to have a domino effect,I knock one and the whole lot are likely to follow suit!

Today was crop day:) It was lovely to catch up with people and actually do some scrapping :) I did three Lo's, though two still need titles - watch this space :) Plus it was a good excuse to stay indoors on such a miserable day!

Victorian Day

Today was Victorian Day for Holly's year at school :) They had to dress accordingly and went to vist a schools museum in Hitchin, taking with them a Victorian style lunch.Holly took a chunk of bread (!!), carrot,an apple and I made some scones last night, so one of those too :)She looked so sweet, like one of the Railway Children! The lovely pinafore & skirt were borrowed from my neighbour who had raided the costume department of her Amateur Dramatics group! The mop cap is a very old one I made for Em when she was in Year 5.

Oh dear!

I seem to be failing miserably on the blogging front :( Trouble is, I know if I don't carry on I will miss being being able to look back and use it as a reference as to when stuff happens!
So, trying to remember back three weeks...
The girls are back in the swing of school now.I did take some first day photos but they weren't great and I somehow managed to not take any of Holly on her own- whoops!
Em has now started her GCSE courses.a year earlier than many schools.She is enjoying her choices though and a day when she has Drama is always a good day! Holly has started having clarinet lesons this term, at last someone is making use of the family clarinet! Her learning topic this term is the Victorians,including a trip to a schools museum this week, in Victorian dress.
Last week saw my birthday, I was very spoiled and got my long awaited new camera :) This is a present carried over over from my big 4 0 ) last year, I think it was worth the wait! I am slowly learning what all the buttons do, and hopefully will soon start being a bit braver and leaving that auto function unused!I have found a really useful guide to using a DSLR on the Canon site with I have been reading gradually over the past week or so :) So please Mrs B, stop nagging me!!
I also got a couple of Momiji's ,a DVD and some spending money :)The day was rounded off nicely with a trip to the pub with friends :)My birthday was also the same day as my mum & dad's 50th wedding anniversary.So on Saturday (which happened to be our 17th anniversary !) we all headed to my sisters for a 'family do' to celebrate :) Despite really bad traffic, we managed to get there before Mum & Dad and get everything set up in time (we had most of the food with us!) :) As well as having a proper cake, I made some cupcakes .They weren't my best attempt (the first batch went in the bin!) but they did look pretty :)
On Sunday we went to see if there were any conkers to collect ,as we went this time last year, but there weren't many down,so we'll be going back :) And luckily, Mum has had been given lots of flowers for me to practice taking photos of :)

Whoosh...

that how it feels the last six weeks have gone :(Tomorrow we are back in the land of packed lunches and homework :(
We were busy last week though :) Em had her kneee looked at and redressed on Tuesday.Although it was still open a bit (yugh!) ,it is healing ok (so the nurse says!) She will have one big scar there though once it's all dreid up!
In the afternoon we went to the Butterfly Farm.My photos of butterflies weren't great, as they flew around too much!

There are lots of designer gardens to walk round, including these walls which were filled with...well, just about anything really!

As is always the way, the weather turned gorgeous last week,just as many schools went back ! Typical!Luckily for us though it meant we had perfect weather on Thursday & Friday when we went to Legoland for two days :) There were times when it did feel like we were back in Florida...in a theme park, all wearing our summer clothes and spending ages in queues!
Here's a couple of photos, I'll write more in my next post :)

Catch up part 2!

So to carry on where I left off on Friday (I know my last post says Weds ,but that's when I first started writing it and saved it as a draft!)
On Friday,we finally managed to catch up Ann & the girls - better late than never! Check out the photos on Anna's blog,I love them :)I kept out of the way while Anna was taking them as sometimes when we are boith taking photos ,neither of us end up with any of them looking in the sme direction! I was also having a play with Anna's camera as I am hoping for a new one for my birthday...I need more practice though! We had taken a trip to the Dr's about Em's knee in the morning, and it didn't look too good so she wasn't feeling full of beans :( So although we were treated to a show by the others, it was definitely missing something!

On Saturday we finally got to see Toy Story 3 in 3D.If I'm honest, I didn't like it as much as the first two,I still managed to cry though !Loved the trailers we saw too and am really looking forward to the new Disney film 'Tangled' :)
Saturday evening saw Holly have a friend over for a sleepover and Em go to my Mum & Dad's for a sleepover.She was going to stay in Holly's room (Holly has to 'borrow' hers for sleepovers as hers is too small!)but climbimg up the ladder to the bed was a no no ,with her knee! Anyway, Holly & her friend eventually fell asleep about 12.30am, after Holly lost her third tooth this week!
And after saying I wasn't in the mood to do any scrapping, I now have a pile of five (yes,5!) waiting to go in my album :) Three are 'brand new' whilst two are ones that I had done at crops but were waiting for dates or that 'special' something ,to make them complete.Two of then I won't share though as they have Holly's friends in.
The pumpkin one is one that was waiting to be finished, thought I'd better get a move on as we're rapidly approaching pumpkin season again! And the bottom Lo is a new one, though I made a mistake on it and put the date as April when it should be August...doh!

Right, that si me all caught up for now.Tomorrow we are back at the Dr's with Em, depending on how we get on there kind of decides what we're doing the rest of the week....

Oh dear...

I don't think I'll be winning any awards for regular blogger of the year somehow ! I've had a bit of a 'switch off' recently...I haven't felt like blogging and seem pretty incapable of scrapping :( I've spent a couple of evenings pushing bits of paper & photos round a page, but nothing and has worked and I've given up in the end.Shame as I have tons of Disney stuff I want to start using.Maybe once the holidays are over I'll be back in more of a routine...

So a quick round up of what we've been doing the last couple of weeks....

The guinea pigs ended up staying a bit longer than originally planned for various reasons.It's lucky I didn't lose them all though ,as when I went to clean their hutch out one morning ,I discovered the bottom of the hutch was hanging off by about 2 inches!

Last week we did the dreaded school shoe shop,which should have been followed by a trip to see Toy Story 3.Except the cinema was closed due to an electrical problem :( But we got passes to another showing, upgraded to 3D.We just need to find time to go back!I actually went for a night out last week,for a lovely meal with some mum's from school :) And the folllowing day we took all the kids out to Fairlands Valley park in Stevenage.It was a lovely relaxed day and everyone had a good catch up :)

Last Sunday the girls and I went over to see Pitstone Windmill with my Dad.It's somewhere we used to go as kids so took me back a bit :) Realising that it was 20 yrs since I'd last been there made me feel a bit old though!

On Tuesday we went for our annual trip to Whipsnade Zoo.The day didn't go quite according to plan though :( Em fell over and ripped her knee open, requiring a trip to A&E and stitches :( We did see the little baby cheetahs before we came though :) (They are 4 weeks old!)

Anyway, as this has turned into a huge post, I'll carry on tomorrow :)

It will be...

...big! My Florida album,that is :) I went into John Lewis the other day and found the perfect book to use for the 'diary style' album I want to do of what we did each day :) With 80 pages, it's big enough to do a double page of each day,and as it's 12" by 16 1/2 ", large enough to get a few photos on each page :)I'm not going to make it lumpy & bumpy, it will just have maps,photos and journalling in it :) The front cover is as far as I've got ,but I still need to add something else to it, I'm not sure what though.

The guinea pigs seem happy so far and are getting lots of cuddles (weather permitting!)

Pencil Lines :)

This week I joined in at Pencil Lines :) I loved this sketch as soon as I opened the email from Anna :) (I still get the sketches sent to me for each week :) ) The photo I was used was my original choice,but then I tried to do a Florida layout.After faffing for a while I gave up and went back to my original choice of photo!



I used mix from October Afternoon papers from the Cherry Hill, Thrift Shop and Fly a Kite ranges, love how they all match so well :)I also used ribbon roses from Sarahs Cards,Doodlebug Loopy Lou stickers and AC glitter Thickers. I always find Kraft Bazzill difficult to photofraph, it tands to come out looking 'dirty'! The layout does look better if you click on the photo to enlarge it :)


On Friday Geoff was home so we went to Dunstable Downs for a bit of kite flying.Typically, the kids cheapy £3 kites performed far better than the huge stunt kite that Geoff had!

Holly doing a bit of lazy kite-ing! Yesterday morning the girls went to see Shrek 4 at the cheapy cinema in town ,whilst I went for a wander round the shops. I went into the British Herat Foudation shop and bought myself a bargain book to read whilst waiting for the girls :) I've done this a lot recently and have a huge pile of books under the bed at the moment,waiting for me to read them!

And Friday night we had some visitors arrive who will be staying with us for the next 10 days :) But I'll share photos of then tomorrow otherwise this post will be over loaded!

This weekend was a good one :)
Saturday was spent food shopping and mooching about the house (well us girls spent the afternoon bathing,nail painting & hair washing!) before heading over to Anna's for their annual barbecue :) The girls met Suki and loved her ,no photos though as she moves too fast! My camera had a very lucky escape,when I managed to embarrass myself by tripping and falling flat on my face,dropping it very hard.Luckily it survived and I love this photo of Holly's new hair band :)

The yesterday afternoon, we went to Hitchin Lavender,lavender fields and sunflowers together :) Although I kept hoping the sun would come out, I think my photos were probably better with it being fairly dull (note, my camera is qite old and I haven't photoshopped or 'popped' any of these!) I took loads of photos so I won't bore you with too many :)

The whole place smells gorgeous and you can hear the humming of the bees in the lavender :) We came home with three big bags full and five huge sunflowers :)