Happy Birthday Fraser

Happy Birthday to my big boy! wow! 11 already ?? Where did the time go??

Being very kind and letting his siter share a turn on his new razor sparks scooter!

yes it had a light dusting of snow and yes they were in the pyjamas LOL (and the mother of the year award goes to ..............)

Fraser wanted and R2D2 cake for his Birthday. He also specified the kind of icing which made it pretty tough! It would have been easier to use fondent icing or even buttercream. But what the Birthday boy wants, the Birthday Boy gets!

Finishing the day tired but happy x

yummy

While strolling round the shops on Saturday with my Mother in Law and Sister in Law we came across this beauty

Sorry the pic is so awful but this was a 7 foot tall Christmas cake! My phone is usually really good at taking pics but maybe I was so excited by the though of so much cake! It was huge!! The woman who had made it was cutting a bit as we passed and the smell was gorgeous! mmmm yummy.

The great American Bake swap!

Ok so there is nothing American about it, apart from the original idea. I decided I wanted to host a sort of cookie swap. It sort of morphed into just a general all kinds of baking swap. The name came courtesy of Beebs.
I was the hostess and 5 of us took part. It was so much fun! The baking part turned out to be slightly more stressful/rushed than we all would have liked but we pulled it off and produced a staggering amount of food!

Here was my table all ready. My offerings of Shortbread and Brownies were just waiting to be united with the hoards of food about to come through my door!

We had Brownies, Shortbread, Cherry muffins, cherry and white chocolate fudgy traybake thingy, oatmeal and raisin cookies, spicy snowflakes, chocolate peanut butter hearts, banana loaf, a mahooooooosive chocolate fudge cake and a raspberry mascarpone cheesecake. All in ridiculously large quantities!

Thank goodness there was a boy or two around to help munch some of the goodies!

Here is one of the girlies , I love Lor Lor still pouring the wine while posing for the pic LOL

Sorry I have none with all of us in it, I should have made Murray work for his supper by being photographer for the night! ;) Alas, we were far too busy gossiping , laughing and having fun, I remembered far too late!

 My sister had already headed home (taking unborn baby hughes home to bed) and we were all a little green around the gills because we had eaten too much!  We were all fighting at the end about who had to take the most LOL no one could face filling their tins!

We have most definitely decided it has to be annual affair. Although there was murmurings of it becoming a weekly/monthly/any excuse we can think of affair!

Thanks girls xx

Our Christmas tree

The time has finally arrived and we have chosen our tree! It took a bit of consideration. This year we have a slightly bigger house which in my mind means we can get a much bigger tree! :)

Kirsten was a little worried, she said she wanted a "hooge" tree but not "too hooge". The poor guy selling the trees had to drag out around a dozen trees so we could compare them to the one I eventually bought.
There was one I really wanted, it was too far too big though. It was all twisted at the top and I was sure everyone else would dismiss it because of it's less than perfect appearance and so I felt I should bring it home with us.

But Murray put his foot down, he didn't think that any tree was worth cutting a hole in the ceiling for.
So we brought home the original choice instead. I love it! It is so perfect to me, a really lovely shape.

On the way to the car Fraser apologised to the man! As K and I were skipping ahead (yes I really did this! no wonder Fraser felt the need to apologise for me ;) ) I heard Fraser mumble to the man " I am SO sorry you had to cope with my Mum. She just loves Christmas and the tree is important to her" LOL I didn't think I was that bad .................


So I unveil to you

THE PEAT FAMILY CHRISTMAS TREE!

Sorry I know you wanted to see the nice twinkly sparkly lights, my camera wont do that. Sigh.

We had such fun decorating the tree together. Remembering the memories behind our favourite ornaments.

We are all super excited for something else new to us this year! Can you guess what it is? It is something that is a definite requirement for a certain gentleman who comes around but once a year.........

YES! We have a fireplace with a real live chimney attached! wooo hooo!

(sorry for the big pink balloon, I am in a hurry and didn't edit the pics)

So we are all ready here, good job Santa is in charge of the gifts this year because I am not organised at all! I haven't even written my cards!!

Gotta run, plenty of baking is on the to do list today. I am hosting a Great American Bake swap tomorrow night! So I better get my tush in the kitchen and get started!

Just time to say

A very Merry Meatball to all xxxxx

Picture perfect

Got some new pics taken of the kids yesterday, my disc wont arrive for at least a week but I took a pic of the one photo I bought.

This one is my favourite

It makes me so happy and proud. I can't help but smile whenever I look at it

This Happy Chappy says it is

There is magic in the air

Our tradition of how to send letters to Santa has evolved over the past 11 years. The first time Fraser was old enough to understand the concept, we didn't have a fireplace or Chimney in our house. Fraser's solution was to send his letter up the chimney at Granny Mary's house.
He couldn't bear the thought of the letter being burned so he layed it in the fireplace and then we waited for the magic. This has now continued on year after year and this will be the first year that Kirsten will really understand what is going on.
Last night the magic happened, we were upstairs in Granny's house, Grandad Jimmy was helping us print out pictures of Santa from his computer.
Fraser went back down stairs and started shouting for us to go down!
Sure enough the letters had disappeared! The only evidence was a healthy sprinkling of magic dust! Or as Fraser calls it "sparkle moss" he has called it that since the first time he watched Santa Claus the movie. He has called the magic sparkly food that the reindeer eat, Sparkle moss.
K's little face was a picture! So full of wonder! Although she was quite worried about where the letter had gone. So when we got back home we showed her the bit on Santa Claus the movie where you see the letter zoom up the chimney in a flurry of sparkles and magic. This seemed to ease her mind a little.
This afternoon we are going to watch the whole movie, in our festively decorated house.
Ah my most favourite time of the year x

Here is my favourite bit of the movie, the first take off of the first Christmas that Santa ever was Santa Clus the movie I remember going to see this in the cinema when I was only 3 or 4. I wish they would show it in the cinema again, it would be magical to be able to take my kids to see it

Iced ginger cookies

These cookies are yummy , not very crunchy but a bit softer in the middle.

makes 16

1/2 cup soft brown sugar
1/2 cup soft margarine
pinch salt
a few drops of vanilla essence
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp ground ginger

1- Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas 5.
Lightly grease 2 large baking sheets or I use baking paper.

2- Cream together the sugar margaruine, salt and vanilla essence until very soft and a bit fluffy.

3- sieve in flour, cocoa powder and ginger , combne it together using a wee bit of water if needed to bind the mixture

4- Knead lightly on a floured surface until smooth

5- Roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out shapes using cookie cutters

6- Bake the cookies for about 10-15 mins until lightly firm when lightly touched. Leave to cool on the trays until totally firm and then cool completely on wire rack and then ice.

Paying it forward

I have just come across this idea on Sami's fab blog  

Basically the first 3 people who are interested will receive a hand made gift handmade by me! I  have up to 365 days to make it and send it to you, you will not know what it is or when I am sending it until you receive it! In return you have to pay it forward and add this idea to your own blog and you will send a handmade craft/gift to the first 3 people and so on.

Sound good?  If so leave me a comment and a link to your own blog where I can go and find your post about paying it forward! Also if I don't actually know you if you could send me an email with your address that would be awesome!

This sounds fun and challenging! woo hoo!

Let's get started!

xx

Every Picture tells a story

Inspired by week 7 of  12 weeks of Christmas I decided to turn one of my favourite photos into a Christmas accessory for my home.

This picture of my babies was taken last year, we had a lovely day strolling through the woods collecting pine cones and enjoying each others company. Originally this pic was to be our Christmas card last year but I just couldn't let go of my favourite pic from the year before! LOL

However the best laid plans and all that. I sweated blood and tears over editing this pic! I bought a lovely silver frame flecked with black. I bought some  black satin ribbon that would be used to hang the frame and maybe create a little bow for the top edge of the frame.

Just as I was getting ready to go print out my masterpiece my baby girl came to me asking for me to help put on her knickers (such is the glamour of my life ;) )  I laid the frame on my knee and leaned over to help her out. CRACK! I must have leaned on the glass with my ahem .... assets ;) and smashed the glass to smithereens.

I haven't had time to replace the frame yet but I will share the pic anyway.

Stay tuned for the finished article very soon!

*ps- you may need to click on the pic to make it a bit bigger*