A new era.

I am excited. Scratch that. I am so over the top, wiggly, jumping, feels like Christmas all over again, I can't believe this day has finally come, excited.

I am happy.

There are very few material posessions that I have coveted.

Designer handbags and shoes? No thanks

Designer clothes with huge price tags? No thanks
Expensive perfumes? Not for me.

One of these was an item I dreamed of owning since I was a very little girl.  Seriously this was my dream for as long as I can remember. I was super lucky that my Mum and Dad gave me this very special gift when K was born.

It was, of course, my silver cross pram. I was so happy and so proud pushing my precious little angel in my precious pram.

Aww look how tiny she was??

I lived my dream of pushing my very own baby in my very own silver cross pram. I was contented.

Another of my material must haves , has been a dream for quite a few years now. I never did think that I would ever actually own one!

At the tail end of last year something very sad happened. My poor hand mixer passed away.
One day it just stopped.
I was sad because this mixer belonged to my Gran. She was a keen baker and prolific scone and Apple pie maker! When she died , I inherited her baking bowl, her mixer and rolling pin. (I also inherited a tupperware tub. I keep my pegs in it. I have fond memories of playing in my Granny's kitchen with all of my cousins and of course my sister. We would play with the pegs, tubs of cards and tubs of dominoes.For hours.)

Anyway, when my mixer died, I was heartbroken! It was like losing a part of my Gran all over again.
I cried. I called my Mum to tell her and we both cried.  My Mum knows how much we love to bake and a mixer is a fairly integral part of this. So she told me that it was time to say goodbye to the old and order myself a new mixer.

I am turning thirty this year! (woo hoo!) and my mum had 9very kindly) plannned to give me something extra special to mark this special occasion. Something I have always wanted and something I will get a lot of enjoyment from.

She told me to order it up and I could have it early.

And I did.

And she came.

And she is very beautiful.

And she is very red!!!!!!

K and I are truly in love with her and can;t wait for all of the new memories that she will hold.  For us, and if I look after her, maybe even my own Grandchildren!!

Thank you Mum and Dad.

I can't believe all of my material dreams have offically come true!

x x x x

Here we are! Back at the start.

 With a fresh year already laid out in front of us, just waiting for us to live it.

2010 was a good year for us, I am sure every year will come with it's trials , 2010 certainly had them. But I can count many more blessings in there!

This year I hope to enjoy more fun with my special family. I will try to be the very best person that I can be.

I have just a few resolutions!

To lose weight (again, I know LOL but I am trying to go with last years resolution and not beat myself up over the fact that I have gained everything I lost last year!! )

To be more organised, I have come a long way in some areas but there are great big mountains still to climb!

To be more present with my family, to switch off the TV and get other kinds of busy with them.

To keep in touch with my real life friends more.


I want to thank everyone who reads all of the random crap   ramblings that I offer on here.  I have met some very sweet people and made some good friends through my little blog and your comments mean the world to me. I look forward to a new year of sharing with you.

I am raising my polka dot mug to you all and wishing you a very happy new year.
May 2011 be filled with health, love and happiness for you all.

And there's a hand, my trusty fiere!

And gie's a hand o' thine!

And we'll tak a right guid willy waught,

For auld lang syne.

Hmmm.....

We found this carnage just after Christmas day. Poor poor chocolate reindeer.

I'm curious to know why they chose to start eating at opposite ends! LOL

Handmade gift exchange

I took part in another of craftaholi\c's anonymous' handmade Gift exchange. This one was for Christmas. I exchanged gifts with Tess from New York.

Unfortunately my gift hasn't quite made it's way there yet, but I'm not surprised! The state of Royal mail at the time I posted it was pretty poor! The snow wreaked havoc for weeks!

I excitedly opened up my gift, I received two handmade Christmas pins and a very sweet scented pillow.

My only mistake was to allow K to help me open the package! The beautiful pillow is now hanging nicely in her wardrobe!

Thank you so much to Tess. We got there in the end!! xx

December catch up - Christmas day edition.

Tired, happy and very very full.

Our house still looks like it does in the picture above but we are all enjoying our week long holiday and are making the most of being extra lazy, getting even more full, watching films on tv and playing with all our new toys.

We are  looking forward to this weekend and the start of  the new year ahead.

But we are ever so glad that in 361 sleeps, we get to do it all again.

December catch up - Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve. That special special night. The magic just captures the child in my heart and makes me jump and wriggle and giggle with excitement.

This Chrstmas Eve was spent, as always, enveloped in the warmth of my family.

We spent the morning preparing our veg for our Christmas dinner, cooking for the evening and doing last minute chores like some cleaning and clearing the snow (yes snow!! woo hoo a white Christmas!) from our path.

K and I baked some gingerbread cookies for Santa. These also added into our collection of baked goodies to give as gifts and for us to enjoy.

The whole family had booked tickets to see Fraser in his Panto! Grannies , Grandads and Aunties! It was so much fun! I could only take one pic of the stage before it began as no photography is allowed during the show. Not even for family blog purposes. What's up with that?? lol

One of my favourite parts was when Beauty was kissed by Prince Charming and didn't wake up. Then her best friend Jester thought she was dead. So he leaned down and kissed her goodbye. Then sadly made his way through the audience. Beauty began to slowly stir and wake up with the kiss form her best friend, her true love!! Our little Princess was just on the edge of her seat!! She jumped up and, in her little anguished voice, shouted across the theatre!

" Jester!! Jester!! Jester! Sleeping beauty has waked up!!"

My heart was in my mouth for her and her little proud face when he turned back around and embraced his love just melted me into a puddle.

Well done Kirsten, you saved the day. Aha! (complete with panto land thigh slap!)

It has become a Christmas Eve tradition for everyone to come to our house for some form of dinner. This "dinner" has taken on many forms over the years, sometimes it depends on how much wine it took to help the meal cook! This year it had to be a re heatable, easy dish. So I made some traditional scottish stovies with Roast beef. We used plastic plates and so the clear up was simple. Perfect.

Another Christmas eve tradition is the gift of new pyjamas, given to all four of us , from me. I love this tradition and my kids are real jammie kids, so they are always really excited to open these gifts.

It was all just a little too exciting to look at all of the gifts under our tree!

Santa hadn't even been yet and there were gifts for everyone under there!

So just to take the edge off of my  their excitement a little, we let them open another gift each, the one from Murray and I.

They were more happy and excited by these gifts than I could have ever imagined!!

We gave K her very own, real actual working, mini sewing machine!

Fraser is our budding chef. I made an apron for him and wrapped it up with a cookbook, written by a teenager for teenagers. And a giftcard for tesco so he can by some ingredients.

They loved them. So we were very happy.

We prepared Santa's snack

2 Gingerbread cookies, beer from Fraser and hot cocoa from K. We hope it stayed warm for Santa in the flask. And of course a carrot for the reindeer to share.

All too soon it was time for our Christmas eve bedtime story

Which is , of course, the night before Christmas.

Once everyone went home to begin their own Christmas preparations, I prepped our Bird , ready to go into the oven in the morning. 

I pulled on my very own brand new Christmas PJs! And settled down to watch The Holiday .

 It was perfect.

Then we tucked ourselves in for a warm winter's nap, to allow the big man in red  to get on with some very important business.

Merry Christmas to all and to all, A good night.

x x x