Farmer Parrs

Farmer Parrs is a local farm, not a working farm really anymore, but a day out type place, with lots going on through out the year and Christmas is my favorite time to go as they decorate the main barn like a winter wonderland, i have been going for about 10 years now, maybe longer as we used to go when my nieces and nephews when they were young as well. Each year the add more and it just gets better and better and the Father Christmas is amazing and he sits in a log cabin with Reindeer poking there heads through the windows and whats really nice is that he takes his time talking to the kids, which is why we usually have to queue for 2 hours, but its worth it.

On Monday night Molly went with her Rainbow group and as it was only for an hour me, Alex and Ewan hung out and had a walk round. She saw Santa and got a pressie so was a very happy little girl!

This is Santas house

Today we went back again with Fred and Alex , my mum and Paul took a day off as it was the Childrens Centre Christmas Party at Farmer Parrs. Its was a great day, i went last year as well.

They have all the same things plus a disco and hot pot and they have various craft all around the farm and they only charge £1 per person!

The joy on Freds face for the whole day was un  describable, he really has the Christmas bug this year

Today they had a different Santa, slight shame as we had been talking about it being the real Santa with a real beard, but as the party was only for a couple of hours he had to be much quicker as they had 500 people to see.

Fred took a carrot with him that he had been clutching all day, and he gave it to Santa who fed it to the Reindeer, it was so special for Fred and made him really happy, i remember last year he was slightly scared of "red nose" and after we threw some carrots outside the front door he was constantly worried every time we went out he would be there!

 Ali, was dancing, well marching and swinging his head, but fell over and bashed his poor little head on the floor!

He loved the day though, and it was so nice for Paul and My mum as well

Fred loved seeing the animals

All in all it was a great day and such a wonderful event that the children's center had organized.

That morning i had asked the kids what they would like for tea as we were doing the food shopping after the farm and very randomly Ewan and Molly asked for an all you can eat buffet!

So i thought i would give them what they wanted and popped into Iceland for some Party food, usually i make everything myself, but this was a much easier option for just us.

They also asked for Party games so, i fond a few bits in my Prize bag, where i keep bits i have picked up during the year for party bags and things like that and wrapped them up and we had a few games of pass the parcel, that Fred has been getting into after going the the Playgroup Christmas party on Wednesday!

A great end to a great week!

Bye xxx

Gala Ball

Well thats what i have been calling it, it was the Gala Black Tie Dinner on Saturday night.

A gala event i have been sooo looking forward to. I love a Christmas Doo!

And this was the day!

The gala have been selling tickets and we sold out quite quickly with groups from the rotary club to local works groups  and charity groups using it as there Christmas night out.

On the afternoon i met with Alison from the committee to dress the room, as you can see.

I did the balloons and Christmas tree decorations

The big black balloon decorations came from Paul who got them from work as they were from this works black friday sale , but a week later they were still looking good so he managed to bring eight of them for our night and one for home, that the kids love.

After decorating the room , Paul and i had a couple of hours on our own as the kids were staying overnight at my mum and dads, 

Yay, its doesn't happen that often that we have a night out  and  we made the most of it, but its strange, so when we get home Paul puts on the Tv to get the football results and i listen to music on the pc with my headphones till i realize that i can listen to music as loud as i like as its not like the kids are in bed upstairs and we had a few Bacardis!

We got ready and i had bought a new Collectif dress specially for the occasion and wore my nannas Mink coat which only ever seems to get an outning on an evening like this but went great with my dress!

No my hair isn't blue, but i did darken it to violet!

The singing group we hired were great and played my type of music, swing classics, then for there second set all the popular classics including queen which made Paul very happy

We are definitely planning more as we made lots of money for the Gala with the chorley raffle and bottle rolling.

Can't wait for the next one

better start planning it!

xxx

Getting ready to go out

After a manic week i am attempting to relax and chill for a few hours as tonight is the night i have been waiting for, The Gala Black Tie Dinner. Its a new event we have planned for the gala this year and will hopefully be the first of many. One of the things i miss about not working for a company is Christmas nights out, its not the same going to Pauls as i don't know anybody, but this one we are both involved with, plus its black tie, I love Paul in a Tux! I have bought a new collectif dress, an actual new one from there website, i would say i had splashed out but it was in the sale from £68 to £15 and its black and perfect for tonight. I had been supposed to go to the hair dressers this morning to get my hair put up, but i had forgotten that Paul was working for  a few hours today so had to cancel, at least i got my color and cut the other week, although i have put a slightly darker dye on my hair this morning, just because i felt like a bit more of a change. 

 Last night i sat and made all the table decorations and i have balloons and a helium tank ready to go, i will show you pictures tomorrow.

The kids are sat making monsters out of craft kids they got in there advent calendars, and are continually asking me to thread the needles so i will go now and update tomorrow xx

Toys R Us

Yesterday we decided to take a trip to Deepdale retail park, mainly it was me wanting to go to Hobbycraft! But i do love going to Toys R us before xmas just to see what the kids want, even though i have bough what they had on there lists already.
Straight away when we walked in was all the Star wars stuff and that was Paul! very very happy, where Star Wars is concerned he is a big kid, but i suppose that reminds him of being a kid, as it seems by the piles of Star wars toys he still has, that its what he asked for and got, every Christmas. He was lucky that his Dad worked for a supermarket and he even has a figure that apparently there are only 17 of in the world! as it was taken off the shelves before many were sold, but his dad got him one, can't remember what its called, but we keep it in a tin and the kids are allowed nowhere near it, the other night he looked and another one is going for £1000! sell it is what i said, but no we are keeping it apparently!
Still Paul was like a kid in a sweet shop!

In car selfie and trying to get little Ali into Star Wars! he will have a job as Ali is only into wheels!

He was telling me , he always remembered going to toys r us when he was a kid on his way home from visiting his grandparents, i don't remember ever going there till recent years, my grandparents lived in Cheadle, so a different route and not past the shop like him, lucky him, made us laugh.

I was really surprised to see all the people with trolleys piled high with toys, they are so expensive in Toys R us compared with other shops.
The last few years i have bought the popular toys online, mainly with Amazon, but this year i have googled each toys and bought at different places and saved a fortune, would love to work it out exactly, but something i saw yesterday for a reduced price of £30 i paid £9.99 online!, in fact most things i had saved at least £10 and when you add that up its a lot. Lucky for me the things the kids had on the list, is what they still wanted, apart from Ewan who wants to have a Wii U instead, sorry not going to happen! We are not into kids having computers and he is lucky he has an Xbox 360, and that's only because my nephew was selling his with 30 games, that he got it for xmas last year. He did say afterwards can he still have the skateboard and scooter and games he has asked for, so he won't be disappointed.
Afterwards we managed a quick visit to hobbycraft and i bought a latch hook cushion kit that was reduced and loads of felt as i have lots of projects for the kids to do with it..
Then we went to Pizza hut, and Fred discovered the sweets next to the ice cream factory, need i say more!!!!

In other news!!!

 Elfy Guy has returned for Christmas!

Yay!!!

He made a real mess in our cupboard!!!

And we filmed him arrive, we wondered what the noises were!

Elfy Guy arrives    hopefully this is the link to the video, the kids were amazed, and loved it, but we now know the sound on our laptop camera is not good!

Its was such a fun thing to do for the kids, and we had such a laugh making it!

This morning Elfy Guy had some fruity friends!!

Bye for now!

xxx

Its nearly December!!!!

Christmas is just round the corner and as usual that makes it such a busy busy time, but also a fun time! There is so much excitement in the Ellison house right now, Fred in particular is soo excited, i can't even describe it, you would have to see it, his little face is so expressive, his eyes go wide and he shakes when he is talking about Christmas, and he sings all day, the songs they are learning in nursery, ready for the Christmas show. He only does two morning a week there and never wants to go since he went to the open evening at school as he thinks he should be going to school now and has volunteered Alex for nursery! but he really enjoys it when he is there. I have been ordering presents online and some of the company's have sent toy catologues which all the kids have been studying for hours at a time ( shame they don't do that with homework!) most of the toys in the books have been circles and discussed, listed and relisted! the pages are torn and well thumbed! Its lovely to see them so excited and i really am glad that they treasure the things that have become tradition to our family over the last few years and i have to say i am just as bad, not for the present list, i am not bothered about those, i just love Christmas, and feed of the kids excitement and joy. I am probably very guilty of going over the top and spoiling them at Christmas, but i pay the price afterwards when i have piles more toys to tidy away and find homes for. Our house is already bursting at the seems with toys as it is! So one of my goals this year is to just to stick to the toys on the list and a few other bits, as i usually go out and buy piles of bits and bobs (so called stocking fillers) that never get played with, but just give them piles of pressies to open on the day, which is great, but ultimately is an expensive waste of money. I know this year i said that the trips away are part of the older ones presents and Molly had loads when we went away and Ewan will to on our trip after Christmas, but i have already spent more than i said i was going to, so instead of all the "crap" basically, i am booking us all tickets to the panto, which we will all enjoy.

One of the traditions i have done for the kids for the last few years is an advent calendar..well its more like a santa sack each with a present for each day of December. I spend all year looking for bits and bobs in sales, so last week i got the big bag out and sorted them out into four piles, as little Ali is old enough for one this year, so i needed 96 presents, i had all sorts from little wooden instruments that Oxfam were selling at 59p each and squidgy animals that i got last January in the sales at Wilko for 50p each, various books from the works 50p each, model aircraft kits 50p each, make up and nail kits 20p each, notebooks, pencil kits and so many other things, plus some mini chocolate bars to complete the sacks. It took i couple of hours for us to wrap them all up. I had bought some new hessian sacks from Aldi at £3.99 each only to see them in poundland for £1 each!!!! never mind!!

At school each year the kids have to decorate a hanger and a jar. The hangars are hung up in the hall and the jars need to be filled with sweets and are made into a sweet jar tombola at the school Christmas fair. The hangers are still under construction as we are doing papier mache snowmen and a globe. The jars were done, Molly a reindeer and Ewan a Santa also Fred made a Christmas tree jar, but he didn't want to give it to the school and i caught him later that day eating the sweets out of the jar.

We made our first batch of mince pies

I also put our xmas bedding on!

Then on the 25th November my dad called me that he had seen real Christmas trees ( we always have a real tree) at Homebargains for £12 each!! bargain as we normally pay about £40, so he treated us to one and Paul picked it up from my parents on his way home, a bit early but we couldn't wait to decorate it!!!!

Once Paul had set it up and i had sorted all the lights, we just sat back and watched them decorate it even though it was 9.30pm by the time they were finished! It was so worth it, they loved it and it was nice to see them so happy, we videoed a lot of it, Fred seemed to be the one organizing it! 

Next morning i came down and put the lights on ready for Paul bringing Alex down, who was mesmerized, as he was in bed when it was put up.

Later on that morning Alex seemed to think it was a conker tree, picking a big bauble and bashing it into all the others, was funny!

Thursday was the School Fair and i helped out doing the face painting

Now i am sat planning several events over the next few weeks, in fact i have just pointed out to Paul we only have two free days in December!!

Its all fun bring it on!!!!

xxx

Star Wars Jumper

Finally earlier this week i finished the long awaited Star wars Jumper for Paul, who absolutely loved it!!!!!
 I have been working on it on and off since August, with a bit of  unpick and redo with a different pattern in the middle.

This has been a jumper of firsts, i have never knitted an adult jumper as i always felt they would take to long based on the time it takes me to knit a baby jumper! Knitting takes sooo much longer than Crochet but i really felt like i wanted to do something to challenge me, which happens every so often and lets face it that's how we learn something new. I have been knitting properly for about 10 years now. I did start knitting initially when i was about 15 and my mum was knitting some cardigans for my soon to be born niece and i asked if i could try, so she let me have a go at the sleeve, which did not go well, the stitches on each row varied so much that it had to be scrapped. It wasn't till a couple of years before by son was born that i had another go when knitting first became popular again with funky fur! and people were knitting scarfs made of it, I was on a visit home from Northern Ireland where i was living at the time, and i asked my mum to show me again. I remember sitting in the ferry from Larne to Fleetwood patiently knitting a black funky fur scarf, every row being a knit row, thinking about it i wonder what ever happened to that scarf as i don't usually like throwing out things i have made and i remember being so proud of it!. Anyway after that i made another few things out of funky fur, including a little bag that Molly uses to this day, but that was it till i fell Pregnant with Ewan and then i made a jumper, hat and booties that were just knit stitch again and he never wore as it was so hot when he was born and in fact that whole summer following was really warm, so now those items are used by Molly for her dolls. After that i wanted to further my skills and knitted a lace pattern wrap and  lace pattern top for me that i never worn as it was to small, then a cable knit jumper for Ewan, then a toddler, but i ran out of wool with half a sleeve left and couldn't get any more!!!! So it wasn't till i was pregnant with molly that i got started again by making a blanket and little cardigans and matinee jacket, that i finally felt i had a success, since then i have knitted lots of little baby bits and bobs and seen my skills increase.

So anyway i digressed a bit there... but i have never knit on circular needles before as i thought it would be difficult, but no, its so much easier and looks so much neater, than having to sew up the sides. The color work i have tried before, when making the star wars hats last Christmas. But i googled and learn't from the mistakes i had made and discovered how to make it better and neater.

The basic jumper pattern i used was http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/0-812-mens-jumper-with-pattern-and-shawl-collar which i found on ravelry, then i looked up some star wars patterns which i found in few different places, but unfortunately copied, pasted and can't find now to give credit to, but it was a mix for different patterns i found after googling.

This was the original pattern i was following, but i soon realize that it included to many colors for me to work with and it didn't look great so as i wasn't 100 % happy with it i re worked the pattern

And this was what i ended up with, the finished product!!! 

 My Star Wars Ta-dah!!!!!!

I love it , Paul loves it, and i am so proud of myself for sticking with it

I have already started another

 xxx