Christmas mania..!

Finally, and yes I mean finally, Christmas is over. Now I can go back to living a normal existence. I (as I'm sure you all do) spend so much time and effort coming up with the perfect gifts, queue for ages to pay for the smallest things, and most importantly.. try to figure out what the 'in' toy will be so that I can get it early because I KNOW this is what the kids will want.

This year it was the Nintendo DS. Unexpected, but it was the IN toy/gadget. It was pandamonium the week before Christmas. People were trampling all over each other to get one. I, on the other hand, had bought my boys ones in the first week of November. Not because I had a premonition of what was about to happen, but because I had a very unexpected cheque come to me and for a change I put it to good use. Anyone who had the foresight to stock up on them made a killing on ebay. They were selling for well over 1/3 more on ebay than in the stores.... some even made double the price. Another lost opportunity to make my million *sigh*

When you've got a 4yr old Christmas can be tricky. They are just old enough to get the concept of Santa, but still young enough to change their minds on Christmas eve as to what they would like from the big, beardy guy! So to cover all angles we had our 3.9yr old write a letter to Santa both at home and in playschool.. asking for the toy we had already got. Typically, a few days later, it had all changed and it took us another week of ooohing and aaaahing over the original toy to get him to change his mind again .. PHEW! All's well that ends well.

Christmas Day this year was so different to the norm. Every year since we were married we've been to MIL's for Christmas dinner, and before that it was my mom's, SIL's.... but not this year. So this was my first year to have to cook dinner on Christmas Day and I really wanted it to go well. I am happy to report that it DID go very well and I was so happy to spend our first xmas in 18yrs without relatives present. Although I had a full roast turkey and ham dinner to prepare it was a stress free day, and all in all it was a stress free Christmas. (granted, if I see a turkey again in the next 6mths I'll be voilently ill!)

I have done NO crafting since the 10th December! I am having severe withdrawals from my Scrappy Glue and Craft Knife! Once we get New Years out of the way it's back to paper and scissors... just try and stop me!!!!!!

Secret Santa!

I participated in a Secret Santa with some of the wonderful ladies from the Craft Supplies forum and today my package arrived. Oh wow; such wonderful papers, including Basic Grey's Blush, an accordian book kit which I plan to get started tonight, notebook&pencil, alphas and a 7 Gypsies notebook to alter!! !! Here it is...

I have no clue yet as to who my Secret Santa is but if you read this I want to say a huge thank you and I love everything.

School Days Tag Book

This is the tag book I am working on at the moment. I didn't realise when I started it just how many pages (tags) there were so I ran short of embellies. Here is what I've done so far...

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Mandy

Here are the simple rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

Here are the facts:
1-I am terrified of dogs, heights and anything that flies
2-I love games.. I have the ps1, ps2, psp, gameboy and DS
3-I never eat breakfast
4-I am an aquarius
5- I believe in ghosts, my grandmother used to visit us when we lived in her old house.
6-I have only 1 pair of shoes!!!
7-My favourite (ummm.. brunch I suppose you'd call it..) is white pudding on brown soda bread.

Exploding Pyramid

This is the exploding pyramid I did some months back. I can't remember where I got the instructions for it though :S . I loved doing this, it was interesting to make and so much easier than you'd imagine.

And opened up....