Say Hello ......... Wave Goodbye

So, its's 1.15pm on New Years Eve 2009, Gabe is upstairs having a nap , Milo is playing on the Wii, Hub is at work until 8pm and is then going straight to a party, and I'm sitting here chatting to you guys and watching the snowflakes fall gently past the window and wondering just where the hell did last year go???? I don't think I'm wrong in assuming that I won't the only one thinking the same thing.



Anyway, ..... what will happen next year is anyones guess ....... there are going to be some changes in the Periwinkle household though I can tell you, some I look forward to with excitement and others with trepidation but that's all part of life I suppose, but these will slowly unfold over the next 12 months.



So , here's wishing all my good friends a very happy New Year and may all your dreams come true in 2010

The White Stuff........

Wow, what a lovely weekend we have just had all wintery wonderland and just perfect so near to Christmas







Sledging for the first time



how proud does Gabe look?







Hub chose a slightly bigger hill to go down .





Well, I hope you liked the pics of our snowy weekend ... there were a few more flakes this morning but it's a lot brighter today and it looks as though it's starting to melt. Fingers crossed it hangs around for a few more days ...



and on that note I'd like to wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas , and I hope Santa is good to you. Happy Holidays :-)

I Don't Believe It !!!

Just in case you didn't know , we in the Periwinkle household live in the North East of England , right on the coast. This morning we had a few flakes of snow and although it is quite bright at the moment the weatherman has told us to expect snow at the weekend as there is a cold front coming in from Russia and Scandanavia and our thermometer says it;s 1 c.... pretty cold .
So , I here you asking yourselves , why is she prattling on about the weather and how cold it is ? This is why ..............



our strawberry plants are in flower and ......



we have 2 baby strawberries - go figure !!!!

edited to add this pic at 1pm...... SNOW

Our Weekend...

Hi, did you have a nice weekend or were you out and about amongst crowds of people doing Christmas shopping? I hate shopping at the best of times , but this time of year is just horrendous. I think Kirstie has the right idea and just make what you can at home , did you see her programmes and how envious are you of her kitchen ..... me too!!

It's been quite frosty here the past few days , cold but very pretty, even if it doesn't snow at Christmas , which it probably won't , I can do frost instead.



Just the right type of weather for homemade tomato soup . Now I have to admit if it wasn't for Nina I don't think I would ever have made this , in fact I know I wouldn't - but I'm so glad I did.
The original recipe is from Country Living and it is so easy I thought I would share it with you.

Chop up some tomatoes ,( vine or plum have more flavour but any will do ) I also add some red pepper and red onion and then stick them in a roasting tin with a drizzle of olive oil.



When cooked put everything into a blender with some black pepper, a tiny bit caster sugar and a bit sea salt and give it all a good blitz, I like to squish it through a sieve before serving just to get any bits out and that's it ..... how easy ?



Goes down a treat !!

On Sunday I took Milo to see Where The Wild Things Are ..... it was okay , not really a film for a 5 year old.... I think we enjoyed the book better



And we baked cookies too..... for long time readers of this blog .... does this picture remind you of anything?



December 2009



May 2008 :-)

November Catch Up

Hi, I'm back - did you miss me ? It's been a while hasn't it , but it was a break I think I really needed.
I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my last post , you were all so right -- blogging is a personal diary, something to look back upon in the years to come and I think if I had stopped then I would have regretted it. So if you would like to wrap your arms around yourself and squeeze tightly, that's a hug from me.....

I'll give up a quick catch up on what have we been up to in the past month.... well, there was some park visiting,





which involved getting extremely muddy,



a bit of tree hugging a la Autumnwatch...



and a bit of sleeping, although the pillow didn't look that comfy to me !!

We visited some ice sculptors in town, where Milo was lucky enough to have a go and he got really stuck in thumping that chisel for all he was worth. They were doing the characters from Peter Pan as this is our cities pantomime this year, this one ended up as Peter Pan.



This is Tinkerbell , which they created earlier. I couldn't believe the amount of tools they had , even massive chainsaws....



The boys have been doing lots of fighting and winding each other up which has been driving me mad I can tell you and apparantly it doesn't get any better - or so I've been told?



The punching photo..............



The getting told off photo...............



and the " we didn't mean it mammmy" photo.........

I've been taking lots of photo's of the sky too, I'm really into taking shots af bare trees against the skyline at the minute . All the colours lately have just been amazing and it seems as though I don't go anywhere without taking at least one picture. These are just a few of my faves which I took a couple of days ago whilst going to pick Milo up from school at about 4.15pm.







and I couldn't do a monthly catch up without a bunny pic could I and believe me I had a few to choose from . I managed to get all my orders finished by November 30th and am now knitting furiously to get some things done for the boys and a few scarves for my mam, sis and the MIL... fingers crossed ,



So, that was a very brief update on November , I can't believe it's only a few weeks until Christmas Day can you -- scary..

Having A Think ...

Do you ever think about your Blog in a perspective as to how other people see it , I know I do and it's something I've been thinking of more and more lately.
When I first started blogging it was all so new and there were so many things to show all my new found friends , places we went, things we did as a family , all the crafty things -- but now I'm thinking that maybe I've showed you everything! My visitor numbers have been getting less and less over the past few months and I'm thinking that maybe it's because my blog has gotten a bit stale and a bit boring .
There are only so many times I can show you the walks we go on



and only so many knitted things



without it all becoming just a bit repetitive.
I don't know ?

I Missed Wednesday So It's Wordless Thursday ...

Coveting ....

I came across a new Blog recently called Sally Jane Vintage and I think this girl has got a great sense of style , I just love her kookiness .... it helps to be tall , skinny and not have a rather ample bust but I can dream can't I? So what am I coveting ........



This vintage duffle coat , i just so love the toggles - I'm not fussy what colour it is either although if I were to find it in pillar box red it would make me soooo happy, and the way the weather is behaving lately I think it would be worn quite a lot . Can you believe we had hailstones this morning, what's all that about then??

Candy Goodies ...

The other week I was having a chat with Anna about , of all things, Candy Corn. Now Candy Corn is something I keep seeing around Blogland at this time of year and have always wondered what it actually tastes like as we don't get it here in the UK.



Now I don't have to wonder anymore as Anna very kindly sent us a little Halloween Goody Bag, isn't she a star ?



I have to say Hub was just as excited to see them as we were .



And they taste just as yummy as I imagined -- thank you Anna .

A Labour Of Love..

I actually finished Milo's blanket a couple of weeks ago but I'm going to give it a post of it's own instead of including it in the monthly round up just because I love it..



I think in the end I bought three balls of yarn but all the rest was from my stash.



There are 62 stripes in total and as I said previously each stripe took about an hour to do, sometimes I felt like it was never going to be finished, especially when my wrist started to ache,



and sometimes I thought Milos choice of colours were a bit eurgh.



but it was all worth it to be told " I don't just like it mammy - I LOVE IT " ........



A big thank you has to go to Lucy for providing such a lovely and easy pattern.