27th December

Shhh! Don't tell anyone that I have put this photo up! It is Nicholas's birthday today, and he is 19! It is a tradition that we open presents in our bed, and that's Nicholas playing with his new PDA mobile phone! that's Maurice with a cup of tea (sitting on my side of the bed!), and Lucy asleep! She woke up to come and see Nicholas open his presents and then promptly fell asleep, and stayed in our bed most of the morning!

A quiet day really - nice after all the visitors we have had. Nicholas came with me to get Mum and take her into hospital so that Mum and Dad could see Nicholas on his birthday. It was amazing how much better Dad was! He took a real interest in Nicholas's phone, and had seen some photos from Christmas Day. Nicholas invited James and Fliss round and they watched 'Hot Fuzz' in the evening.

Boxing day

We had Maurice's brother and sons and girlfriends for lunch on Boxing day. I had bought some fabulous crakcers from lakelland which had whistles in them. Each one played a different note, and here's Mark (DN) conducting us all playing 'Jingle Bells'! His girlfriend Angela is next to him.

We had a great time catching up with all the news, lunch was a little bit hit and miss, because I had to take Mum into hospitla to see Dad just as they all arrived, and left DH in charge!!! He forgot to do the potatoes!! So it was a very meaty lunch! The cherry glazed gammon was really good though.

Maurice was especially interested in Simon's BMW motorbike. Watching him and his girlfriend putting on their gear really reminded us of when we were younger and used to go everywhere at any time of year on the motorbike!

Dad still really poorly today. His temperature is still high.

Christmas

Our Christmas was tinged with sadness and a lot of stress because Dad was taken into hospital on Christmas eve with a very nasty chest infection. His immune system is really low because of the chemotherapy and it really hit him hard. Writing this now on 30th Dec, he is still poorly, but the antibiotics are doing their job, albeit with horrible side effects (sickness). Poor Dad! We missed him terribly at our Christmas dinner, but have been going in every day, taking it in turns with my brother Andrew to drive Mum in and out of the hospital. Poor Mum! She is beside herself with worry.

Anyway, we still managed to have a good time, and here are a few pics. Here's Nicholas opening a pressie!



Here's Lucy in her shower cap! I made up a little box of girly things for Lucy, and silly things for Nicholas. They loved all their presents.















I have included this one - not the greatest photo, but it shows how our lounge looks right now! Merlin had a fab time shredding all the paper!











I have cropped this one a bit, but this is Christmas Dinner. My brother and his wife are to the left of Maurice, then Izzy, my Mum is to the right of Maurice and then it's Michelle. We had lunch a bit earlier so that we could take Mum in to see Dad. He was really poorly today. We left Mum with him for a bit, then went back to get her, and bought her back here for a present opening fest! Michelle did all the driving so that A & L could have a little drink! Bless her, she has been absolutely wonderful, supporting Andrew, and has been to the hospital with him every time he has visited, because Lynda has a cold and can't go to see dad.

And here are some of the presents I received!


Now I must put my new CDs (Hoosiers and Bruce Springeteen) on my MP3 player!

I also had the book for the TV series 'Tribe'.

More Christmas journal

I am so loving this journal! And managing to keep up. It is amazing what you can do when you put it as a priority!

Things I am grateful for this Christmas. I have kept this page as Christmas things, but I am grateful to have my Dad still here. He is not too well at the moment - and having known 2 people die recently..... (My friend Janp on UKS died from cancer, aged 60 - what an inspirational woman she was!) (Sandra at weightwatchers died on the same day, but suddenly from a brain haemorrhage aged 49, how unfair!)






I did have a 'I saw this and thought of you' moment this year! It was a fireside basket full of scented pinecones, and firelighters, and things that burn bright colours! I immediately thought of Mum and Dad, they love their fire! The present is a falp, I'll put a photo of them opening it under neath.













And here is our Christmas Dinner menu. We have 10 for Christmas this year, MUm and Dad, Andrew and Lynda and their girls, and us 4. DD has a nasty cold at the moment, so I am prayng like mad that noone else gets it, becasue Dad cannot afford to be near anyone with a cold as his white blood cell count is very low. I will be really upset if our dinner can't happen.

I have been keeping up with the journal, I promise! I just haven't had time to upload them. So here are days 7 - 15, all in one go! Oops, I have missed off day 10! Off to have alook for it!

Christmas Tree Festival

One of our local churches, St Marys in Goring, has a Christmas Tree Festival. Not sure whether this is the first year, but it is the first time I have been. It was absolutely magical! The church was filled with 60 Christmas trees, all decorated by local businesses and groups. They were collecting money for the local children's hospice, I bet they made loads of money! What a wonderful idea!

day 6 already!

day 6 already, and I am still keeping up! Not so sure about how I will do next week, as I am back at work. Have to remember next year though to get all Christmas cards stuff done before December! You really need to clear the decks to do this project properly. I love the forum that shimelle has set up - all the pages are on one thread, so it is really easy to immerse yourself in the journal and keep with everyone else! I love it!

I am trying to do different aspects this year so that this journal is different from the one I did in 2005. Hence 2 different memories this time.

Blogger won't let me upload the picture just yet, so will have another go later

Christmas journal

Days 4 and 5. I'm keeping up so far!

Day 4 is scraplifted from Shimelle's page. They are pics from a magazine depicting aspects of my perfect Christmas!

Day 5 is the countdown to Christmas, or advent calendars. Paper is 4bugsinarug. Letters from Lakeland! (They don't show up very well in this photo)

Christmas Journal Day 3

Here's my December 3rd page, all about Christmas cards! I have taken photos of my cards that I made with the Anna Griffin kit from QVC, and used papers and embellies left over from the kit. There are 2 tags with more pics and journalling, one for giving, one for receiving.

I love getting Christmas cards!







Got DD off school sick today. Bit worried about her avernight cos hse had a really bad headache and was sick. Kept checking her for a rash after my friends DS had meningitis recently! She seems a bit better this morning and is sleeping at the moment. Maybe we will get to watch a film together this afternoon.

Hoping to catch up on crafting big time this week, but I keep spending too long on here! Not sure how much I can keep up with my photoblog and Shimelle's CJ forum for the rest of December!

Christmas Journal

OK I am having another go at Shimelle's Christmas Journal. (www.shimelle.com) I actually completed it in 2005, and absolutley loved the process! I got it out recently, and love some pages, hate others! Last year I started but didn't get past page 2 LOL! Here are the cover, page 1 and page 2. I intend to keep it fairly coordinated this year, so BG Blitzen, (forgotten the name of last year's papersLOL) and BG figgy pudding! (I have only bought a 6 x 6 in figgy becasue I am on a stash diet LOLOLOLOLOL