Blurrrlurgy

Ive not been well.  Ben was off school with it Thursday and Friday bless him and it really wiped him out.

See?  Note Bubble the cat watching over him.  Its my own fault I was ill.  Im rarely ill and I got all cocky last weekend saying I was the only one out of the Beechers now that hadnt been struck down.

Cue fluey bug arriving Sunday night and smacking me right in the face. I tried to ignore it and attempted to go into work on Monday for no other reason than I didnt want to ruin my attendence record, but by the time I got to Sale on the motorway I knew I had to turn around and go back to bed. Oh my I felt rough. Its those damn 'oh my god Im on fire, but Im absolutely frozen and really do need that fifth pair of pyjamas  and fur trapper hat' feeling I dont like.  And I actually did wear Ben's fur trappers hat for a while to keep warm. Then two minutes later you are sweating so much, you'd swear that after the 6 hours it takes to remove all the clothes youve just put on, you'd be a shadow of yourself having just sweated out half your body weight.

Bubble is obviously a very caring cat though. Not only did he watch over Ben but he didnt leave my side all the time I was ill. Im sure youre all thinking its probably more to do with the big furry blanket and the warmth I was emitting rather than him looking after me but thats not true. Anyway, he's got a new gig these days. Vampire cat.

Photo is pants, its from my iphone. I think Im probably the only person in the world that doesnt rave about Iphone photos. Yes they might look really good photos on the phone, but then you download them and realise that in fact they are really quite bobbins. He looks sweet there though. It was seconds before he started what can only be a torrent of chatting. Nurse? I think he'd be more suited to being a hairdresser. He constantly blathered away, meow meow meow, are you going on holiday this year, meow meow meow, what are you doing for Easter, meow meow meow for the entire time I was off. Good god, no wonder Squeaky steers clear of him, he never shuts up!.

What else. Oh yes, we had this at weekend also.



Ive had to lighten it quite a lot as it was very dark on Sunday night when I took it and sent it to Beech with the message 'I did warn you!'.  Yes its an ironing board in the front garden. This is what happens when you dont put the flaming thing away after being asked over and over and over not to leave it stood up in the bedroom. Why? Because apart from the fact it completely spoils the prettiness that is my bedroom but when its left up it then becomes akin to the exercise bike. Not that Ive got one, but if I did have an exercise bike Im sure that too would just become a tool for draping clothes over and hanging all manner of other things from it. Like this bloody ironing board.  Its Beech's job to iron. Which sounds very 'new man' of him and all that, but for the majority of the time its an excuse to go upstairs, lie on the bed and watch telly. Then jumps up when he hears feet approaching and pretends to iron. Our ironing pile is a testament to that fact. He gets off lightly, Ive offered to switch and I'll iron and he does absolutely everything else in the house but oddly enough he just wont go for that. Anyway, he continually leaves the ironing board stood up, gathering crap instead of put it behind the bedroom door, what, 10 feet away? So I put it up in the garden Sunday night and left it there.

He tried to shout at me by text but it just doesnt have the same threat to it does it?

Me:  I warned you!

Beech: What is that?

Me: Its the ironing board in the front garden

Beech: Take it in

Me: No.

Beech: Take it in now.

Me: No, and if it rains, you'll have to buy a new one

Beech: Take it in!

Me: No

See? HA. Oh and it didnt rain but guess what? I can feel another ironing board outting coming on. He fetched it in from the garden and now five days later, its STILL by the front door. I might put it on the corner of the street next.

Still with last weekend,  and another few crappy iphone photos, Poppy was also made a point of ridicule by her choice of attire during a rainy Saturday walk.

She loves it really. And the dog dri bag she had to sit in on the way home.

Im nothing if not consistent, its not just my dog that ends up looking ridiculous on my blog.

That was chocolate mudmask the week before. You may wonder why Im wearing such an unfashionable blouse there. Its not a blouse, its an old biddy nightie, my guilty pleasure.

Last weekend we also celebrated Billybobs birthday. A little prematurely on the Sunday as her birthday was actually the 5th.

She was 2.

Sorry, 42. I did take lots of photos of her but you know, its when you get to that age,  you have to be careful what faces you pull, most of them are not becoming of her. And I would never put those on my blog.

(Chortle)

S'ma big sis.

Happy birthday Emmsey.

Bit more scrapping done too, some stuff for me and some pages for Kate to show off her amazing doodles. Credits for all can be found in my UKS Gallery.

To go with the page I did on Bethany's bedroom, I managed to find a kit I liked to go with Bens Bedroom.

Using Kate's new kit 'Happily Ever After' I found time to take the mickey out of Ben's early crossing dressing phrase. Ive linked to each of Kate's kits if you would like to have a nosey in her store.

With Kate's Doggie Days kit, I scrapped Benj and Poppy Lop at Cringle Park...

and going back to Big Hair of the 80's, Kate's aptly named Child of the 80's kit was just about perfect.

Finally, and probably my favourite digi page of recent, a page of my grandma and grandads wedding from 1942. The receipt at the side of the page is a scan of the actual receipt from their honeymoon.

Aww bless.

Scrappin', Scrappin' and more Scrappin'

Today is a big birthday for my dad, so firstly Id like to say a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILVERPOP! See you later, tata!

So Ive been doing a lot more scrapping recently. More so with old photos as Ive got over the whole 'if its not a perfectly sharp, in focus photo, I cant scrap it thing'.  Ive finally come around to the thinking that even if they are smaller in size, blurred, a bit grimey and not great either composition wise or technically speaking, these photographs still deserve to be remembered for the stories they tell and the times we enjoyed.

I wanted to remember this particular time, a time when the kids were still pleasant more than 25% of the time, when they didnt whinge and moan about all the stuff they didnt have, but rather enjoyed the stuff they did have. I wanted to remember, and remind Bethany that once upon a time, make up, clothes and texing were not important to her, but her Fairy Cottage Garden bedroom was.

I still have Ben's castle bedroom to scrap but until I find that perfect kit, it'll have to wait.

Talking of scrapping, I was very honoured to be picked as part of Kate Hadfields Creative Team last week. I love Kate's hand drawn doodles, they are always so cheery and bright. Im looking foward to scrapping with them and decided to dip my toes in the water and scrap our London trip photos from 2006 with Kate's Cool Britannia Kit and Great British Alpha both found at The Lilypad

I also found the perfect kit in Kate's store to scrap these photos of Ben enjoying one of his hobbies, cooking. The kit is aptly named Chef's Kitchen and I got to use one of my favourite baby photos of Ben from when he was about 6 months old. Bless, fat babba chef.

Kids and I played mudmasks on Saturday. Chocolate mudmasks to be precise. Oh dear.  Firstly, it was really really hard not to just squeeze the stuff straight down my throat as it smelt exactly like chocolate and looked like Gu Pud. Gu Puds are amazing. Who couldnt love a teeny tiny pot of almost but not quite runny chocolate.   Secondly, its torture having it plastered all over your face for 15 minutes in very close proximity to your nose making it really tempting to just stretch your tongue as far across your face as you can to lick it off.

Thirdly, the next day, despite us all washing, I could still smell it on the kids as if it was being sweated out through their faces. Several times I had to grab Ben and inhale his cheeks. Its addictive....

This weekend I wont fall for that again. This time its passion fruit peel off ones, not keen on passion fruit so wont be tempted to eat it instead.

Anglesey, where?

Last weekend we went to Anglesey. Which, according to Bethany, is an Island just off the coast of Scotland at the bottom of the country.  Erm ok.  In honour of Silverpop’s impending 65th birthday, I booked the cottage that we stayed in, back in 2006 here, not only because the cottage was large enough for us all, but also because of the ennnnormous garden that Id imagined would be fantastic for both Maccs and Poppy to spend hours exploring. Loaded up two cars with people and mostly bags of food on Friday and trundled off, arriving at the cottage just before lunch time.

Nothing much had changed with the cottage, save for a new kitchen and bathrooms, otherwise exactly as I remembered. The downside was, despite the garden being a dogs dream, there were big holes in the fence, leading out on to a country road, reknown for speeding cars, that over the years had killed the resident peacocks. Maccs, a good boy, wouldn’t have been a problem, but Poppy is a totally different matter. As we let her out of the car, she immediately high tailed it towards the gate. Bad doggie. This was followed shortly after by her finding the muddy stream that runs through the middle of the garden and jumping straight into it. Double bad doggie. The Dog dri bag Id bought for her didn’t work out quite as planned either as one zipped up in it, the idea is the movement of the dog cleans them as its toweling, and the heat from being in the bag dries them. Poppy of course cant do anything she is supposed to and managed to get one leg out of the neck hole and spent the next 5 minutes doing a one legged bounce before we took pity on her and let her out.

After allocating bedrooms and getting sorted with people finding their way around, we had lunch and then decided that, despite the rain which had started to fall, we’d take the dogs for a run on the beach. Closest beach was about 10 minutes away at Red Wharf Bay so not far at all. Didn’t take my camera because by this point it was really chucking it down but needless to say by the time we were done we were all soaked to the skin, dogs and people alike.

Friday evening, we spent doing the 49,000 quizes Billybob had done for us, quite the quizmaster isnt she. Looks quite intelligent with her specs on.

Saturday morning we awoke to bright sunshine, a marked improvement on the day before. Taking advantage of the sun, we tootled off to the beach again, this time for a longer walk as the sun got warmer and warmer. Id put Poppy in her raincoat as it takes ages to dry her curls and massive paws once she’s wet, but turned out she didn’t need it. Dogs had a great time, Maccs found a ball on a rope and claimed it as his own.

They even played with it in the sea...

Course we had to have some group photos, especially cheesy this one..

and then of course the big group one that makes everyone look just that little bit simple. Silverpop named this photo 'Thick Family Robinson'

You can see why.

Saturday evening was birthday party time, a little early as Silverpops birthday is actually the 28th but if the queen can have two, why cant everyone. Course you gotta have birthday cake.

and presents, here's Silverpop modelling one of the (very) large t-shirts Billybob bought him. You could always wear it with a belt dad...



Although we had the cottage booked until Monday, with the kids being back at school then, we had to cut short our weekend and Sunday was a lazy morning with packing and cleaning up after lunch. Poppy had to be confined to the kitchen whilst the cars were loaded, but watched longingly over the back stable door. Bless.

And that was our Anglesey weekend. Lovely.

Lastly a bit of scrapping I did last week, still going through old photos, was surprised to see how many of Ben squashing himself into small spaces there a new page was born.

Silly boy.  Still is.

Dunsomescrappin'

Bit of scrapping recently, decided to go through older photos and use those seeing as Ive barely taken any recently. I paper scrapped this photo back in the day when I didnt mind the mess paper scrapping made so have brought it up to date with a bit of digi. Full credits for all my pages can be found on my UKS gallery.

Another couple of photos I paper scrapped years ago, thought Id breathe some life into those too...

And poor Benj, the story of how he broke two baby teeth in the gum just before his 5th birthday. I mean literally just before his birthday as in 2 days. Tripped over a tree root and smashed his face into the edge of a concrete flag. Big trauma. For me, not him, he wasnt phased at all, during the trip to the hospital, during the x rays, or during the emergency trip to the dentist where they stabbed his gums several times and pulled out those suckers with pliers. Not a sniffle, not a whinge, nothing, big brave soldier.

So there, dunsomescrappin ant a.

For ease, Ive decided to catch up with Christmas in bullet point form so in no particular order, here we go.

1. Despite being 13, Betsy specifically requested a panda hat (and a monkey umbrella). Unsurprisingly, she suits both....

2. Ben was delighted with his real (pretend) leather jacket and his hooded bodywarmer. And wanted to wear both...

3. Poppy's favourite present was a bath sponge. She opened it all by herself. You may think this is an odd present for a dog? Its because each and every time we visit mum's house, she always trots upstairs, towel surfs into the bath, steals the sponge and brings it down. So now she has her own... 

4. Im pretty sure Squeaky turned out to be the trouble maker that tipped the tree over. I know this because on a couple of occasions I caught him on the window sill chewing the back of the tree. On this particular occasion, after chewing the tree he jumped down to the base and decided to have a nap. Funnily enough he rested his chin right on top of a box Id used to try and make the base a little prettier. How sweet. Sweet is not a word we use in relation to Squeaky very much.

Ok so I know that four photos isnt a lot to cover Christmas but the fact is, the rest were very grainy or blurry from movement and just not worth doing much with. Besides, who wants to talk about Christmas now, we're in February for goodness sake.

Which means of course, the February issue of Scrap 365 magazine is out and I must say, a cracking issue. If you've read it, and I hope you have, you'll have seen my article featuring none other than the fluffkin herself, Poppy doggie. The layout that goes with the article can be seen on the Scrap 365 website here and lists the credits for the page, which is also below.

Poppy likes being in a magazine, she's been practising giving out her autograph. Its everywhere, all over the settees, the cushions, the kitchen floor and my bedding... How can you tell her off with a face like that though?

Also managed to scrap Ben's 11 page, his yearly page about his likes, dislikes, what he's up to, who he's friends with and how he doesnt seem to have changed or grown any over the last year. Perhaps he's destined to be pocket sized.

Even though Ive not really finished this blog post, the fact that its taken me 2 weeks to do this much, plus Ive mucked about with the template and now things need tinkering with means if I dont publish now, it will forever sit in my drafts and never see the light of day. So, thats that for now, pathetic I know but Im hoping my blogging will improve at least on last year which was particularly poor. Anyhoo...

A Christmas Journey

So Christmas 2011 has come and gone in a flash, its back to work and back to a normal routine. Im sure I'll get around to a proper catch up (or maybe I wont) but my Christmas has been documented in a better way then just a blog post. I actually got around to taking part in JYC, Journal Your Christmas, a Shimelle class that I signed up for originally in 2006 and did it that year. The last time I took part was 2007 and I made a failed attempt in 2010, but this year Ive managed it. Most pages are here, Ive just left out a couple that I think I might re-do as Im not 100% happy with them. Its a really nice thing to look back on in a couple of years time to remember that few weeks of the year.

Ive done it digitally, the only way I could keep up with the prompts with everything else going on, but I have printed it out and layered some of the pages so its turned into a nice fat book. Just needs the front cover printing and binding together and its done.  So there you go. This year I might try and do a journal for the year, perhaps a double page per month. Just a short and sweet one today!