Our Christmas traditions

I can't believe it's December!! We had quite a fun filled weekend to start of the festive season. Saturday was the schools Christmas fair and the kids visited Santa's grotto...the first of many no doubt.  

  Sunday we went to a garden centre to pick up some bits and bobs and we were planning to put our tree up in the afternoon, but instead we found ourselves rearranging all the furniture in the living room, which took about two hours longer than I had hoped, so the tree will be put up today after school, the kiddies are quite excited. In the meantime let me tell you about some of our Christmas traditions .   1. Every year we buy the kids a new ornament to hang in the tree, they love this. It also means that when they are older they will have a whole load of ornaments to take to their own house and hopefully have some good memories.   2. We always put our tree up together. Even though I'm quite the perfectionist about this I do find it fun to watch how excited the kids get.    3. The day we put up the tree is the first day we watch a Christmas movie together...preferably with homemade cookies and hot chocolate.   4. Advent calendars! So much fun.   5. The kids get a special present on Christmas eve...new Christmas pyjamas and a Christmas book. This makes for an exciting bedtime, filled with snuggles and lovely stories.   6. On Christmas eve the kids leave some sparkly reindeer food out, this makes it so much easier for them to find our house...we don't want them to fly past after all!   7. Homemade mince pies and homemade truffles are a must!!   8. Each year the kids write a lovely letter to Santa, they always enjoy this and a few days later they always get a video message from Santa himself thanks to the Portable North pole. This is possibly their highlight of the run up to Christmas. If you have little ones I would definitely recommend this!   9. We always Elf ourselves on JibJab, soooo much fun! I will post it here once we make one!   10. We spend Christmas with family and loved ones and have an amazing time, make wonderful memories and be merry.   What are your Christmas traditions?

A fave a day

It's that time of year again where I can be found looking for exciting goodies on the Internet, more than any other time of year. I seem to constantly be browsing, pinning and exploring different websites and often find amazing things to add to my wish list, feel inspired or maybe perfect gifts for friends or family....or something that is just so cool it has to be blogged about. This all gave me the idea that I could share some of these great finds with you right here on my blog. We all like to be inspired right! I will show you one of my amazing finds a day and have been thinking about what could be the best way to go about this and I have come to the conclusion that categorising might be the easiest. So, Monday will be "accessories" Tuesday will be "outfits" Wednesday will be "beauty" Thursday will be " home decoration" Friday will be " enrichment" Saturday will be "food" Sunday will be "entertainment"   I will keep this going for the whole of December....or at least try ( we all know how epically I failed to keep my get ready for Christmas series going, whoopsie)

Original image here   Please do join in...my curious mind would love to know all your current favourites. See you all tomorrow for the first instalment, I'm so excited!

Pretty winter evening skies

I have been really amazed by some of the beautiful evening skies we've been having lately! Just can't get enough of them!

None of these photo's have been altered in any way, although i have to say that in that last one the clouds weren't quite so orange, they were pink...just the way my phone instagramed these. 
Nature is just so beautiful!

The good, the bad and the ugly

There are quite a few things around that I am absolutely loving at the moment, and equally quite a few that I am not. Let me just share these with you.   THE GOOD  

  This amazing advent calendar!! I would love to receive one of these. I have shown this to my husband who thought it was a bit pricey at £42...but where else can you buy 24 nice nail polishes for that price, BARGAIN! You can buy these from Selfridges and it includes seventeen of Ciate's bestselling mini Paint Pots, four mini Caviar blends, and three extremely special exclusive Paint Pot glitter shades you'll not find anywhere else, ever.   I also adore this beautiful John Lewis commercial     Awwwwww. I must admit, I nearly cried when I watched this the first time, that bears face is just priceless. Christmas commercials are the best!   THE BAD   There is just ONE thing I absolutely hate at the moment...the fox song! ARGHHHH! I mean...what were they thinking, seriously...and don't even get me started on the ridiculous little dance. I am not putting this video on my blog, I am sure most of you will be familiar with the song, but if you are not You Tube will be the place to find it. (What does the fox say) Please note: Brain cells will be lost and you'll never get them back EVER!   THE UGLY   The fox song! ( bad and ugly, what can I say)   I was browsing Etsy and came across this creepy finger soap.  

found here Hmmm, imagine having these lying around your bathroom, creepy!    

What's in my little Primark bag?

  Yesterday afternoon I took a little trip to town and just happen to wander into  Primark.  I love Primark this time of year because they have so many amazing goodies, I mean Helloooo warm comfy fleecy winter pyjamas! If you haven't already got one of these I would  strongly suggest you head down there and get yourself some...the chilly winter evenings will feel a lot warmer and cosier for it. So what could be in my little bag??  

  No, not pyjama's, I already picked those up a few weeks back. This time my eyes happen to fall upon their sock section and I just couldn't resist picking a few up. I love socks, socks with cute designs that is...don't come to me with plain socks! Hmmm, don't even think I own a pair of those. It took me a while to make my decision (that was my husbands opinion anyway), there were just way too many, but in the end this is what I went for.  

  They are soft, thick and thermal (and cheap!) and my feet will thank me for it when the snow comes. Do you love Primark, if so I would love to hear what you last bought.  

What's in my make up bag?

As you can probably guess from the title, I'm going to let you have a glimpse at what's in my make up bag at the moment. I say at the moment because I'm constantly changing make up colours or brands. I've got about three or four make up bags lying around with products I'm not using anymore, and one main bag with all my current favourites, please tell me I'm not the only one who does that! Now I'm not quite sure why I'm sharing this with you as the contents aren't very exciting at all, but hey...here we go!  

  I told you it wasn't very exciting! If anyone would love to send me some MAC please feel free...only joking (not).   I usually start my make up routine by applying some foundation. At the moment I'm using the DREAM MATTE MOUSSE by Maybelline and the colour I've got is Ivory. I'm finding it a little bit too light for me so next time I'm in town I just might pick up the next colour on their palette. One of the products not shown in the photo is my BARE MINERALS FOUNDATION which I loooooove! Reason it's not in there is because I used it all up (booo) but I will get a new one very soon! I cannot rave about this enough, It's amazing.  I use the REAL TECHNIQUES powder brush to apply it. I've also got the REAL TECHNIQUES foundation brush but haven't used it that much yet.   I've got a really old concealer by AVON. I use it to hide my dark circles. I'm on the lookout for a new one so please recommend me one if you can!   The bronzer I use is from BOURJOIS and it's actually quite an old one, I should really replace it.   On to eye shadow and I've got quite a few AVON colours in my bag. My three most used ones at the moment are TRUE COLOUR SMOKEY EYES, TRUE COLOUR MOCHA LATTE and TRUE COLOUR PINK SANDS. I don't necessarily stick to one palette, I like to mix it up a bit. Rebellious I know.   My favourite eye pencil at the moment is EXAGGERATE by RIMMEL, I've got it in Noir and it's really good, doesn't smudge and it's waterproof! Perfect for all the rainy weather we are having at the moment. I also use the MAYBELLINE MASTER SMOKEY SHADOW PENCIL in smoky grey quite often and I've also got the smoky chocolate but that one is currently living in another bag. I love that they have a smudger at the end, very handy.   I use the REAL TECHNIQUES SHADING BRUSH to apply eye shadow, such a great brush, if you are looking for a good brush I would definitely recommend this one.   My absolute favourite mascara is the AVON SUPER SHOCK MASCARA. I love love love it and buy this mascara over and over again. I recently bought the BENEFIT THEY'RE REAL MASCARA and I'm quite impressed with that one too, although I would probably wear that one on weekends or nights out as it makes my eyelashes really big and full. Hence they name I guess.   I don't wear blusher that often, apart from the winter months when I look really pale, and the one I'm using at the moment is by COLLECTION (which I think is from Superdrug?) and it's called SHIMMER SHADES, colour is blushalicious.   Last but not least...lipsticks!!! I love lipsticks but have only got two colours in my bag. I've got a lip gloss by AVON and the colour is Coral explosion and I love this colour. I wear it every day for work. On weekends I go a bit brighter and use the MAYBELLINE SUPER STAY in Ultimate blush. It's very bright and pink, probably more a summer colour but I love it. I have a few colours on my wish list, so once I buy I will show!   And there we go, that's my make up bag. Please share your make up secrets with me, any good colours or products you can recommend me...I'd love to know.  

It's been a busy few weeks

Hellooooo I'm back....it feels like ages since I've been on here and well, it doesn't only feel like ages it HAS been ages! I've just been so busy lately and I literally haven't had the time. So what has been going on? Let me show you the best way I can...with photo's!  

 My two very best friends came to visit me for a weekend and it was so nice to see them again! We all live in different towns, quite far away from each other and we meet up every few months which is always a lot of fun! This time was quite a surprise for me because although I knew Paloma was coming...I had no idea Sue was coming as well and when she jumped out in front of me I was so surprised I burst out crying!

Emily had to build a Tudor house for one of her homework projects and even though she is quite the little artist she still needed a bit of help. I'm so proud of her hard work, I think her little house looks amazing!

All that homework makes for a tired girl who sleeps with a bowl on her head! Just a funny photo I HAD to share.

I've been doing a lot of cleaning and sorting out, luckily I had Luigi and Kitty to help me out with all the housework!

Halloween outfits....the kids went to a disco at school which they absolutely loved and sadly that's about all we did this year for Halloween. The kids were a bit disappointed we didn't go trick or treating BUT we did go to a birthday party instead.

 

Two kittens. Oh, we got a new kitten by the way! His name is Milo and he's so sweet. Emily has taken it upon herself to mother him ALL THE TIME...we sometimes have to remind her he is indeed an animal.

 More homework. Dylan was learning about ancient Greece and one of his projects was to make a Greek temple. Thank God for Pinterest and easy temple making ideas! This was actually not hard to make, it just included a lot of wrapping up cereal boxes in white paper which turned out to be my contribution to the temple.

Annnd more homework, this time Dylan had to make a Greek newspaper. He really loved this task and I think he did amazing!

 

Bad quality photo I know, but a very exciting one. Emily doing her Brownies promise.

She loves going to Brownies!

My two boys relaxing! I really like this photo.

Ah...now as you can see I went shopping....and it was raining....and I caught the wrong bus so I had to walk quite far....and then the bag ripped as I was crossing a busy road!!! Paper bags and rain is a big NO NO! On the bright side, I did get some great pyjama's!

 I took the kids to the park, got to be done while the weather is still ok!

 

We went on the lift down the cliff....Emily loved it, Dylan wasn't too sure!

Onesies seem to rule our house these days!  

I had a haircut. The long hair was getting a bit to impractical for work so I had quite a bit taken off. Pleased with the result so far as it's so much easier to style in the morning.
And that is it...that's what's been keeping me so busy these past few weeks.