This is Halloween!!!!

Here we are again, Halloween. I really enjoy this celebration and love going out with Beth and the other kids in the street watching while they do their trick and treating. Last week we had a little party and our neighbour helped all of the little children that she child minds to scoop out a pumpkin and make a 'Jack O Lantern'.

One of the little ones told his Dad that he had great fun scooping out all the 'stink' in the pumpkin!! What a great term for all that slimy stuff inside!!!!

Beth and I Spent some time carving pumpkins and an old melon over the weekend, we looked on the Internet and found loads of templates, I think next year we might invest in some specialist tools so that we can produce some artistic pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!!!!!

Cake Time!!

For the past few weeks at work we have been lucky, lucky because Barb makes cakes and Lauren has decided to join in as well. 

Barb had to make a coffee cake, but she doesn't like coffee so she tested it on us, being a bunch of honest people we kept telling her it wasn't quite right so off she went and and made another and another. We eventually had to own up and tell her they were all perfectly acceptable!!

This week its my turn and Beth has kindly made us a rainbow cake.

So here we have the cakes.

Next the icing,

and finally....

The finished cake, all I have to do is work out how I am going to get it to work now!

Its been a great week, Beth had a little Halloween disco party for the neighbours children, it certainly bought back memories of the house full of screaming excited children !

They all dressed up and played Halloween games, judging by the noise they made they had a great time. Next week we are all going trick or treating on Monday. I can't believe it was this time last year that we were all in Florida at Mickeys not so scary Halloween party. 

This was Beth on Halloween at a party for all the kids at the Port Orleans Resort .

Can't wait until Monday and Trick and treating!!

Very Bright Lights!!!

When we were in Holland I decided to buy a chandelier for our bedroom. I had seen it years before and wished I had bought it then, so after thinking about it for years I finally made my purchase. 

I thought that I had posted all about it before, but it seems I haven't, so here it is in its full glory!! As you can see its very bright and fits right in with the rest of the room!!!

Happy Birthday Laura!

I am entering my busy birthday season, two down now and one to go!! On the 19th Laura turned 26. TWENTY SIX !! OMG where has all that time gone?? It really doesn't seem very long ago that she was a little girl who chatted non stop, who ran around organising everyone and everything. Now, in her own words, she is the wrong side of twenty five!!

So we asked her around for her birthday tea complete with caterpillar birthday cake. (that's what happens when you leave cake buying to the very last minute!)

We had a nice evening and looked back on how things had changed over the past year. Laura is now settled in her flat and has a job that she loves working with people as nutty as she is.

This year is really whizzing by I am starting to think of Christmas presents, I am going to try and get everything online or in one big hit on our regular shopping day in Watford. Last year it was quite slick, I knew what I wanted , knew where to get it and we did it all on the one day. I hope this year goes as well. 

I have lots to look forward to I have weekend away in November on a glass making course and then a weekend away with the 'girls' This year we are hitting Amsterdam apart from the expectation of rain once we arrive I am really looking forward to going there again.

Conference time.

One of the best things about my job is that I get to attend conferences all over the country, This time it was a conference at Chester. I drove up on Wednesday and arrived late afternoon. This hotel would have been perfect for Tom as it was right next to Chester Race course. 

Unfortunately on the down side it was also situated on a train line. The first night I had left the window open and was just nodding off to sleep when a train whizzed by, I was in shock!!! I had to keep the window closed after that. The Hotel (Holiday Inn) was fine apart from that!

We found a few places to eat in the evening and were lucky enough to find a nice little place that did two course meals for £11.95. One night was ladies night so we also had a free cocktail with that with the added bonus of buy one get one free, it would have been rude not to !! So Barb and I took full advantage of this fantastic offer. Luckily the bar was half way home even so, a chap we bumped into on the way back was concerned enough to ask if he could call us a taxi!!!

The conference was very good and we had some good debates and better than that there was even a card vote and as I was a teller I got to do my first ever count!! What amazed me was that the vote was very simple, you have a set number of votes to cast for or against, you have to fill in vote paper number one, you can not vote with more votes than have been allocated to you (so if you have ten votes you can't cast 12 votes!!)  When it came to the count there were 4 spoilt papers !! not signed, not used the right paper and not the right number of votes amazing really. 

We wrapped up Saturday morning 

Having made some new friends, found out what is going on in other parts of the country and feeling invigorated to go forward and to try and change things. Happy Days!!!

Happy Birthday Carl, 21 years old!!!

Where does the time go???Can it really be twenty one years ago that Carl was born??? I can still clearly remember the morning that it all started off and the speed it happened. Labour started around 8am I was already in hospital as my blood pressure was up. They decided that he was showing signs of distress so cranked things up, Carl was born at 11.43am. I was shocked it was a boy I had expected another girl and had planned to call her Chloe!!! It took a while to get used to having a boy and it was hard to call him Carl after I had been used to having Laura!!

So here is the little cutie aged three months, slobbering all over the photographers nice satin sheet!!

And here he is fully grown opening his birthday cards!! He has had a real year of adventure, travelling to Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya to climb Kilimanjaro and Holland . He is in his final year at Middlesex University and will qualify next year as a Primary school teacher.

The cake was fantastic, a really rich chocolate made by our lovely neighbour Karen. Its delish!!!

To complete the day one of our other neighbours gave birth to her second little boy, Kavian, in a pre planned C section, its so nice to have a new baby in the close again.

Last of the Summer Sun

This week has gone by in a bit of a blur, last weekend we were soaking up the last of the sunshine in the back garden and this weekend I couldn't get my washing dry!!

Again its been a bit of a roller coaster ride, Dad was taken ill during the week, I was just getting ready for bed when we had the call. We ended up down the hospital where they treated him for an obstructed bowel and transferred him immediately to The Lister because there is no night duty surgeon on at the QE2. The problem was that someone then had to stay with Mum as she can't be left through the night by herself. I won that job which was a shame as Beth was poorly as well and she wanted me at home with her. In the end I ended up staying a few nights and Dad was discharged without an operation, they sorted the problem with medicine and have put him on a waiting list. It has made me realise just how difficult this is going to be if he does end up in hospital. Mum really needs to work at getting herself sorted at night time. She doesn't seem to be able to get her legs back into bed so someone has to do it for her, until she has sorted that out there is always going to be a problem.

So today was my first day off and we went into town to pick up a few bits, I made a lasagna for dinner and then spent the afternoon scrap booking . I am hoping tomorrow I will finally get some new beads made, I want to be able to make some jewellery for Christmas. I have a few breaks to look forward to, a weekend in Malvern to learn bead making at the next level!! Then I have a weekend away with the girls in Amsterdam in December. I am looking forward to them.

If I actually make any beads then I might have something to show you during the week!!

Been a long time since I posted!

Its been a while, I have no idea how life seems to take over and we end up with loads to do and not enough time to do it in. The main problem has been that Beth has wanted her room re done in a more adult style so that has involved getting rid of the high bed, which we have managed to do. That happened in a rush, I advertised it and then it was gone the same day. Tom steadily painted the room over the past week, but its not easy when you have to move stuff to do so. Beth and her friend Chelsea also had a hand in it. 

We ordered new furniture from Ikea which arrived Friday so I took the day off to help Tom construct it. It went together like a dream, none of the old MFI have as much left over when you you have finished style. This stuff was spot on and sturdy the bed went together in around 30 minutes with the added complication that we had to swing it around into a gap that's a tight fit!! we managed it though, so now she has a nice day bed. She needs a new mattress but that will have to wait until the sales. 

We also built three 'expedit' units, again very simple if you followed the instructions to the letter. On Saturday morning I paid for it, my hip was aching from all the extra bending and I spent most of the day trying to get over the Friday!  Now the room is nearly complete, we went to Dunelm Mills to buy some under bed boxes and some boxes for the shelves, Beth also bought some pretty cushions and some other bits to complete the look including a very nice (and half price) duvet cover set , mainly white but with a bit of silvery grey bling. 

The rest of the house is still suffering, bags of rubbish are piling up, our main bin is full and we have nearly a week before collection.Taking mixed bags to the dump is a no no they have you empty them and you find yourself  going round and round in circles with two or three pieces of the same thing, drives me nuts! Tom has a plan, we have already asked if we could take up spare spaces in neighbours bins, which they have agreed to so on Thursday evening he will do a run around the street and distribute under the cover of darkness as many of our extra bags as possible!!!

I am really looking forward to getting the house straight again. The weather has been fantastic for this time of year, October always reminds me of babies as Laura and Carl are October babies, I can't believe where the years go, Carl will be 21 on the 11th and Laura 26 on the 19th. The last time it was this warm in October I was expecting Carl and struggling in the last few weeks of pregnancy. Long may this fantastic weather last

I will try and get back into the blogging routine, I do miss doing it. 

Hope you all have a good week and enjoy the last of the summer sun