Challenges..

...can be fun. I'm enjoying the ones on Designer Digitals. The LO above was done for this week's everyday inspiration challenge. We were given a template to work with, so I decided to add in all the pretty things in my garden.

You may note the later time of this post, this would be Lego Batman's fault. I've got caught up in it, though if Mothman falls off the ledge one more time I may throw the Wii controller through the telly lol.

Today's photo of the day is the fairly mundane but important Christmas Radio Times, when I make up these photos into an album I'll want a note of how I chose my festive telly viewing.

We spent the day at Mugdock Country park, there were lots of robins flitting around, and Amy had a great time throwing sticks for dogs, whether they wanted them or not!

My photo for yesterday shows one of Amy's favourite Christmas presents, her new toy vacuum cleaner. It matches my Henry (and in fact matches her granny's Hetty perfectly). She loves following me around while I'm hoovering.

Is Christmas over already?

I've had a fabby few days, finally got the presents all wrapped on Christmas Eve. Love them when they're all sitting in piles just waiting for morning.

On Christmas day we opened our pressies, Amy loved them all of course, then we went for a walk via the playpark. We went up to the grandparents for Christmas lunch, was great to see everyone. Amy had a ball,

The caption for the next photo is 'That one too, please?'

I loved the glee with which Amy ate her soup at Christmas lunch, messy but fun!

Today we went shopping in Glasgow, we got there about 10, though I now realise we should have got there about 7am if we wanted it to be even slightly quiet. We always park on the South Side and walk over the suspension bridge as it's much easier to park over there.
We had a successful trip, spent some of my Christmas money on crafty stuff in WHSmith, which turned out to be half price when I got to the counter!

Amy spent the afternoon playing with all her new toys, one of her favourites is Cinderella Aquadraw.

Now I'm happily curled up on the sofa with my Christmas chocolate and watching Hellboy 2.

Hope everyone had a fabby Christmas!

Most boring day of the year?

Don't know why, but I felt totally at a loose end today. Think it was probably because Peter was still at work, but toddlers has stopped for Christmas, and there didn't seem any point driving anywhere as everywhere would be so busy.

Luckily mum phoned in the afternoon, so we went up for a visit. Amy had great fun helping to decorate their tree.

Don't think Claude was too interested in helping!

Today's photo of the day is of my Christmas cactus which is behaving and flowering just now. This plant is a cutting I took about 5 years ago from the original which is getting on in years, and doesn't have any buds this year. It's about 20 years old, we got it at our school's jumble sale, where it cost about 10p, and was a sorry looking specimen. 

While Amy had her nap today, I played with Photoshop again. On Designer Digitals there was a template to download (the digital equivalent of a sketch). This was to create your own ATC and put it in your gallery so people could see what you look like, which is a great idea as I have no idea what most of my online friends look like:D. Here's my ATC.

More digi goodness and sweeties!

I've found another site for Digital Scrapping - Designer Digitals. There's 3 challenges each week, each with freebies, yay! I tried the colour challenge this week, where you got 3 papers to download. Here's my LO. 

I used a photo I actually used in my very first paper LO ever! The supplies were Rob and Bob Studio spirograph snowflakes brushes, lace from a freebie kit on Creating Keepsakes by Lynn Grieveson, the photo frame is from the Strawberry Lemonade kit by Jessica Sprague and brads from the Shabby Princess Happy Holidays kit.

Today I also made my annual pilgrimage to the sweetie shop to buy boxes of sweets for all the family (sorry to give away what one of your pressies is, mum, lol!). The jar is for Peter, and the one with the reindeer is for Amy. The ladies at the shop know what I want for when Peter gets time to get in for mine.

My hair's all shiny and red again, yay!

Been to the hairdressers today and got my hair all lovely and red. Now if only it would stay as vibrant as it is when you've just stepped out of the salon, lol.

So today's photo of the day is the one above, thought I'd be brave and include a self-portrait as one of the photos in the month.

Yesterday's one was also hair-related as we were going to a party. Amy went to stay with the grandparents, lovely kind people that they are, so I had time to properly straighten my hair. Doesn't happen often.
I love my pink, sparkly straighteners, in fact I did a LO about them about 18 months ago.

Looking forward to Christmas now, not long to go!

Hello, didn't write a post for yesterday as I was out at our crop's Christmas night out. The local coffee shop was open for us specially, and we had a lovely buffet. We could bring our own wine too.

I did this LO for this week's challenge on JessicaSprague.com. The challenge was to think of the first image that came to mind when you thought of Christmas, and to use it on a LO with journalling saying what it meant to you. The swirls are part of the Up and Running class materials, the trees, brads and papers are from the Shabby Princess Happy Holidays kit, and the 'spirit' brush is by Katie Pertiet.

This was my photo of the day yesterday. Amy was playing in her play tent. She'd crawl in, stand up suddenly and knock the penguin over. Then she'd rush out, shout 'My fault!', I'd stand the penguin up and the game would start again.

Today's photo is of Willow, also tried taking some photos of Tawny, but she's much harder to photograph.

Want some?

This was my photo of the day today. Amy had a nap in her buggy this afternoon, and the housework was pretty much done so I made myself a decadent hot chocolate. Well we all deserve one on such a dreich day!

Playing with my camera

I've been trying out some settings on my camera. It's a Canon Ixus 950IS, so a point and shoot but I think it can do a few things. I read a post on the Jessica Sprague forum on how to take good photos of the lights on your Christmas tree. This included increasing the length of time the shutter was open for. I think it would be difficult to take a clear photo of the tree without a tripod, so I shoogled the camera instead to get this effect. This was with a shutter length of 4 seconds. I think it's rather fun!

I also like the lights we have in our window. We got them about 3 years ago in IKEA, but hadn't used them till a couple of months ago. I tried to take a photo of them using the above method, but it is blurry so this one used the flash.

Apart from that today was the toddlers Christmas party. It went really well, there were roughly 50 kids. Amy was scared to go up to Santa, but pleased with the pressie she got. After toddlers we had lunch with one of our friends. My friend asked her 2 year old what she'd said to Santa at the party. The reply: 'That wasn't Santa, that was a man in a suit!'. We agreed it must have been one of his helpers lol.

It's hard to think of titles for this:)

I didn't post yesterday as I was out in the evening, shock horror, I do have a mini social life at Christmas. A few of us toddler group mums went to a party night at the Park Hotel in Kilmarnock. It's a nice hotel attached to Rugby Park Stadium. 

As I forgot to take my camera I only took one photo, the one above. One of my friends had a good camera on her phone though, so she's taken a few nice photos of us all. 

The night was fun, there was a lovely meal, then a disco with a DJ. We refrained from joining in the silly games and instead enjoyed watching the representatives of Argos Irvine and B&Q Kilmarnock make fools of themselves. We did do a lot of dancing, and my throat's still a bit sore from shouting over the music.

For yesterday's photo of the day I chose this one of my wall decoration. I made it last year, and this year I've put it in the hall.

Today we've been to toddlers where I continued to show amazing tact by offending a mum, then granny came down for a quick visit this afternoon which Amy loved!

To finish on a smile, here's the balloon Amy got while we were at the street festival the other day.

Relaxing Saturday

Today we had a quiet day, just went for a walk in the morning. I took some pictures from the top of a hill over the town. I love the view of the viaduct.

That's about it, just generally drifted. Amy was funny though, she loves Harry Hill, but by the end of TV Burp she was asleep, just zonked on the sofa.

Edinburgh

We had nothing planned today, so since Peter was going to Edinburgh, we decided to go too. The Winter festival there is great, Amy loved going on the carousel, it's the first (and second) time she'd tried it.She did want to try the big wheel, but I told her it would be too high.

Princes Street looked lovely by the time it got dark, with all the lights. 

The castle looked great too, it's all floodlit.

Yuletide festival

I took a few photos of our cats today, but only Willow obliged me by looking at the camera. Here we have the classic cat look of 'Yes? You bothered me for what?'.

This evening our little village had its Yuletide festival. This basically means all the shops stay open later, and there was a Santa's grotto in  the Somerfield car park:D.

There's a lovely atmosphere for it, though it was a pity that this year they didn't close the Main Street for it, so the crowds were dodging the traffic. Amy enjoyed it, she loved seeing the police horses coming past. There was also a donkey out the back of the local coffee shop, but she was a bit scared of that. We did get a Minnie Mouse balloon on our way back to the house, so she's gone to bed happy.

Poor Peter missed it all as he's in Milton Keynes for the day, as you do. 

There weren't really any piccies to take of the festival, but earlier I took a photo of my front door now I've put my wreath on it.

Troon!

Today's been a glorious day. Cold, but gorgeous blue skies. We were in Troon for the Sing and Sign Christmas party. It's been 6 months since Amy stopped going to the classes, and it was great to see everyone again. Afterwards we went down to the beach, and played in the playpark. I thought I'd take some photos, it didn't really feel like December, Amy was just disappointed the ice cream van wasn't there!

Troon is very close to Prestwick airport, and so you can see the planes just after they've taken off. This is definitely one of those cases where the picture doesn't do justice to the sound and sense of closeness as the plane goes overhead.

There's just something I like about this memorial, especially in the December sunshine.

What did I do today?

I guess today was just a normal kinda day. We had toddlers in the morning, then went to Candy Chace for lunch. Amy loves having lunch with her friend, and they were pretty well behaved.

I finally got around to taking photos of our tree, prompted by a thread on UKS.

As you can see, it's got a mix of decorations on it, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The clusters of similar baubles you can see are down to Amy, she wanted all the blue ones together, and all the red. Further up are all the boot/stocking decorations, lol. We've only got one set of lights on it at the moment, as the 2nd pair aren't working. We're just waiting for the time to go buy another set.

I'm pleased, Peter suggested I could make an album for 2 of his relatives who are elderly, and who we don't see very often. I thought this would be a lovely idea, I've filled the album with photos of Amy, and some stories. I'm glad I've got them finished so they should arrive in time for Christmas.

Yum, mini muffins!

Since making marshmallow top hats last week, Amy has been desperate to make more cakes. So this afternoon I bought a Fifi and the Flowertots cake mix. She loved stirring the mixture, and was even patient enough to wait before we iced them and add sugar sprinkles. They taste pretty good too.I did spend a bit of money this morning. I had downloaded a trial version of photoshop elements to see if I'd enjoy digi-scrapping. Well, I've decided I do, so I went ahead and bought it. Then I was on a roll, so I've bought the classes deal on Jessica Sprague.com. This gives me the 3 Photoshop classes and the type+writer class for free. I'm going to give Up and Running to mum as I'd already bought it for myself.

Last night I finally got lesson 3 finished of the class, so here's my layout.

Also, here's my layout for the bonus assignment of lesson 2. It's my first digi layout from scratch.

More christmas shopping, will it never end?

Decided to take a trip into town again today to pick up more pressies. I feel like I'm pretty much done now, but we all know that feeling can last till the 22nd when you suddenly realise 'pretty much done' means there's several things left to buy! 

At least there was still time for a coffee at Costa, always the first stop on our shopping trips.

Anyway, I took a few piccies of George Square as it's all decorated as part of Winterfest.

I always like these lions, not particularly festive, but it was nice that there were still all the poppy wreaths beside them.I like this tree and the reindeer pulling the sleigh. In the background you can see a tall column. It's pretty cool, this year they've got the ice rink going round the column.

Again, not very festive yet, but I do admire the city chambers. It's a good solid-looking building.