12 days of Christmas Chicken Soup

On the first day........ A pretty white and red advent inspired image.

As there is one a day for the next 12 days, I don't count this as cheating ;)

I wrapped Hubby's advent calendar (a bit late like everything this week ) in pretty white paper and wrapped it in a red bow, ready for him tonight when he battles his way home through the travel chaos. Cheers!

On the second day of Christmas a Christmas card inspiration.
A T!m snowman stamp, a Christmas sheet music stamp, a spot of therapy while tearing and rolling and a very amatuerish attempt at blending inks with cut 'n dry-perhaps I'll have the knack by the end of the season!

On the third day of Chicken Soup Christmas..... a tree inspired card- I'm seeing a theme here (hehehe)
A very simple card with an embossed tree paper from DCWV, topped with a Tree and more stickles, got to love those stickles!

On the fourth day of Christmas a holly inspired Christmas card. Simply T!m's holly stamp, stamped in a border, cut out and mounted on the card, some pretty baubles on foam pop up squares, finished with some ribbons-oh and some stickles for sparkle :)

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

It's absolutely freezing! -6C an hour ago and more snow forecast for tomorrow.
The hens are hating it, yesterday only Mathilda ventured out of the coop. It's great fun (not) running in and out every hour to refresh the solidly frozen drinking water. Poor birdies!

2 snow days so far, nobody showed up for school, I wonder what today will bring?

The last little frigid apples on the tree

Chicken Soup Recipe #22

Again, better late than never! ;)
A larder full of fresh produce all lined up like this reminded me of the photo of all the delicious sweeties Chicken soup used as this weeks inspiration. I used a bit of fabric on the layout that I used to make hats for the jam and chutney. Thanks for looking!

Very late... Recipe #19!

Errmmmm, it's been busy and the photo is a bit rubbish but here it is :)
I've blocked the kids faces to protect their identity!

Thanks Chicken soup! :)

Chicken Soup Recipe #18

Oooh! What a rotten, wet week it's been. Loads of time for cooking and cleaning, oh...and a spot of crafting. I finally got around to doing recipe 18 for the Chicken Soup blog and here it is :) Thanks for looking :)

Just goes to show how dark it is too, the poor ass has a flash on his ass ;)

Now to get onto No 19!

Re Dara O'Briain

Cream soda cleaning out the sinuses is a special thing.
 on Gillian McKeith.....'you might as well eat broccoli because the imps will come and mine the fat off your arse in the night'


On the three states of Irish legality.... Do something a bit naughty, 'That's grand'
                                                        Something a bit worse, 'Ah now don't push it'
                                                        Something quite bad, 'Right you're taking the piss'

I know I'm a very bad Blogger!

Due to the fact that I abandoned all attempts yesterday due to a timely phonecall :)
I feel quite happy wittering away to myself anyway- so here comes Octobers bits.

Firstly, Brian phoned me from work on a Thursday evening (after 6pm and this is important) to let me know we were going to the 'Stand up to Cancer' Ball the following night. OMG! Hair, nails, dress? Later it transpired it was on the Saturday, so that gave me a full 30 hours, very generous I'm sure you'd agree ;)
Loads of flapping about but got there in the end.

The dress needs to be taken up an inch now where I kept tripping over it and put a few little holes in the bottom Doh! We had a brilliant night and it was worth all the effort to get things organised in time.

By the way, can anyone tell me how to put the photos beside eachother instead of underneath in a row? Ta :)

From the 16th to the 19th of October, My gorgeous, crazy husband took part in a charity cycle from Belfast to Cork in aid of the Marie Keating Foundation. You can see more Here !

I only have a couple of photos as I forgot to bring my camera and the I-phone pics weren't the best.

Well done to my sweetie and to all the other guys and gals who started and finished this great endeavour. 

Back to the garden!
The garden yielded four beautiful pumpkins, which the children monitored carefully since coming back to school in September. Last week, we harvested two of them using one to make Pumpkin Soup and carve, the other is on the nature table for inspection. I have a couple of piccies buy have given the kids special adobe treatment to respect their privacy

( Two proud kiddies with their produce)

 Hmmm, what to do with a green pumpkin?

 Ok, so the carving is totally rubbish, sorry Liz ;) but the kids loved it to bits and that's the main thing!


Otherwise, Things have been mental harvesting the apples and trying to eat and preserve as many as possible. I feel a mega freezing session coming on as I'm running out of jars.

Some have pretty labels and covers, some still have to be done, I'm getting there! I hope the chutney tastes good though, you never know until you let it sit for a couple of months. Fingers crossed!

Sigh! Time to go and relax now...See you later :)