How Lovely Are Your Branches

Our tree (as you may have seen from previous snapshots) isn't exactly a colour theme, or an anything theme for that matter. It's filled with fun, quirky or plain pretty decorations. Many of them have come from David's childhood, and I know he looks for these once I've set up the tree and the little boy in him is always over the moon when he spots four particular red teddy bears hanging off the branches.

Here are a few of my favourites - and his - and why they're there.


I bought two of these from the Christmas shop at Bluewater this year. I fell in love with how delicate they look and the fact that they are full of stars. I love stars. I also wanted to add some white to the tree and these two are it (for now).



There had to be something related to Emily so when Sarah of Hollyberry Boutique said that she was making personalised tree decorations (amongst other things), I pounced. It's lovely to have a handmade touch on the tree.



This is one of a set of snowmen and other Christmas-related figurines that David's mum passed on to us. I love the snowmen in particular. They have that extra bit of detail, like the bells on this one, and another one has a little knitted cardigan. I just think they're so adorable.



This silver heart came all the way from Denmark via @annfenech - three of these hearts and two little figurines dressed in Danish Christmas clothing were sent to me as part of the Ornament Exchange I featured last month.



I love this wooden stocking. It makes me smile every time I look at it :)



These are also new. They are part of a set of clay ornaments that I bought from Lakeland - yes, they are breakable and yes, they will break at some point or other. But until then, their cuteness is irresistible!



Remember those red bears I mentioned earlier? This is one of them. He is by far the most battered of all four but, while David loves them all equally, I have a soft spot for this fragile one. I can only imagine how many hours this bear spent in David's hands as a boy to have reached a point where he is now on the verge of losing an ear. And even then, I suspect he'll still make it onto our tree.



Did You Know?
Legend has it that Martin Luther began the tradition of decorating trees to celebrate Christmas. One crisp Christmas Eve, about the year 1500, he was walking through snow-covered woods and was struck by the beauty of a group of small evergreens. Their branches, dusted with snow, shimmered in the moonlight. When he got home, he set up a little fir tree indoors so he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which he lit in honour of Christ's birth.
(source)




I'll be taking a little bloggy break over Christmas and the New Year. This will be a special one for us - Emily's first - and I don't want to feel like I need to be keeping up with my blog, as much as I love it any other day of the year. Rest assured though that you'll hear all about our Christmas upon my return in 2012! Until then, the very best to you all. May your Christmas be everything you want it to be, and 2012 start with a smile, and lots of love.

Charge!

Last Saturday, I brought the gifts out of their hiding place (it wasn't much of a hiding place to begin with, they were just out of Emily's sight) and put them under the tree. Emily hadn't shown much interest in the tree so I thought it would be safe.

And I can't say I was wrong... as long as Missy E is kept an eye on. She did however try and get her dangerous little fingers on the gifts. Everyone's gifts. Here is how it happened.


Attempt Number 1 (as caught on camera)
"I've figured it out... Wait till Mummy's not looking, then ransack the pressies!"



*note the guilty facial expression*


Attempt Number 2
The next day she really lost her cool and began making mad dashes for the tree in plain sight. Sorry baby, no matter how fast you are, I'm faster.


Attempt Number 3
"If I just hang out in the vicinity of the tree, looking innocent, Mummy won't be suspicious..."




Attempt Number 4
"Maybe if I take some toys with me it will look less conspicuous?"




Attempt Number 5
"A-ha! I'll pretend it's just the ribbon I'm after..."






... later ...



Maybe it was just the ribbon she wanted (not surprising, seeing as how she has no idea what's under the wrapping!) That, or she's just given up and is making do with her spoils of war. Sunday is going to be FUN! :)


PS. My sight is back baby! :D

PSS. Emily now has a blog! Check it out!

Pretty

Yesterday morning, with a packed day ahead, I popped Emily into the pushchair, ready to go out. Before I'd even strapped her in, I was howling in pain. Her ever-pointing finger and my eye collided. After some panic (wouldn't you if you suddenly couldn't see out of one eye at all for a few minutes?!), I splashed some water on it and headed out to run my errands, well hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.

I told myself it was nothing and it'd pass but I cancelled my afternoon plans as they involved driving and my sight was way too blurred to be able to do that! So Emily and I played on. She was determined to get her hands on the Christmas tree, so I thought I'd beat her to it and introduce her to the pretty baubles directly.

Here is a short clip of her investigating, and if you listen carefully, you will hear her say "pretty" when she catches sight of herself being filmed towards the end! (She's a modest baby...!)



It was moments after I stopped filming that the pain in my eye suddenly became unbearable and I gave in and called NHS Direct, who strongly advised that I get it looked at in A&E.

Cue a flurry of plans and my sister and her hubby saving the day by taking me to hospital and keeping Emily. David left work and met me in the A&E waiting room, where I apparently looked like someone had punched me in the eye. (Well yes, a baby.)

A&E was impressively efficient, seeing me in under an hour (I suspect I wasn't down as a minor case). The lovely doctor anaesthetised my eye (oh to have had that last longer than 30 minutes!) and checked it out, and sure enough there was a scratch over the cornea, narrowly missing my pupil. I was given some antibiotic drops to prevent infection and told it should be better in about 3 days.

Meanwhile, I sit here grateful for my touch-typing skills because when I look at the screen all I can see really are little letter-sized shapes, which as you can imagine is extremely frustrating. The unfortunate thing is that my injured eye is my good eye. My other eye is a lazy eye (just not the wandering off sort) in that it doesn't focus. I rely almost entirely on my right eye to read and see clearly, and you guessed it - Emily scratched my right eye. I thought I had bad eyesight before...

At the moment, if you had to ask me what I want for Christmas, I'll be happy with being able to read a sentence without guessing at the letters and words again! x

Just Us

I haven't openly admitted this but until last week, David and I hadn't yet been out together - ie JUST US - since Emily was born. There were a couple of times when we said we might but we never quite "got round" to it. But last weekend, when my brother was over, we took the opportunity to really try and get out once Emily was asleep.

Typically, that week, she'd started being really unsettled after bedtime - sometimes waking up screaming and needing to be comforted to go back to sleep. But my brother was confident he could handle it, and we decided to go ahead with our plans.

It was just up to us to decide what we wanted to do. The one thing we miss most from our pre-Emily life is the cinema. We really, really miss it. So we both wanted to go to the cinema, but then couldn't decide on a movie (we only had one shot at this - it HAD to be a great movie!!). So the cinema became just a drink. Then we almost cancelled the night out. Then it became a walk. Then, again, maybe we just won't bother. And in the end, we called up our favourite restaurant at 20:10 and made a reservation for 20:30, I quickly painted my face and were there just 5 mins late.

We had a fabulous three course meal with a bottle of what tasted like the best wine we've drunk in years. We chatted and planned holidays and generally enjoyed each other's company and when it was over, we walked (I stumbled, noisily) home, satisfied and talking about doing it again soon.


Emily, on the other hand, was not too impressed with our behaviour. After sleeping through the night again recently, she chose that night to wake up at midnight and refused to go back to sleep until 02:30. Trying to rock a fretful baby to sleep when tipsy isn't something I'd like to repeat any time soon... so maybe a bit less wine next time!

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Pork & Apple Braise

I am always in search of warming winter meals and the other day I came across a delicious one. And - you know the drill - it was easy and quick and therefore it's now here on the blog for you all to enjoy (and for me to find quickly when I want to make it again).

You will need:
500g pork tenderloin
1 tbsp plain flour, seasoned
2 tbsp olive oil
1 apple, cored & cut into thin wedges, skin on
300ml chicken or veg stock
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
some chopped parsley

1. Cut the pork into 2cm slices and coat in the seasoned flour. Heat 1 tbsl of the oil in a large frying pan and fry the pork, then remove and set aside.
2. Fry the apple, then slowly stir in the stock, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pan.
3. Return the pork to the pan and add the bay leaves and mustard. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15-20 mins, adding a little water or more stock if necessary. Stir in the parsley before serving.

I served this with rice. The original recipe (click image) says it's for 4 people but maybe we eat loads and it was enough for just David and myself! I've made it twice so far and it's never disappointed. Let me know what you think if you decide to try it! :)

From 101 One-Pot Dishes (BBC Books)

Weekend with the Girls

Spent a few precious days with two of my bestest friends last weekend. They popped over from Malta for a flying visit (made shorter by a misunderstanding on the part of the taxi company who caused them to get to my house three hours later than planned), but it was an excellent weekend. Some highlights:

1. Emily pointing at things and saying "pretty." Everything she likes is now pretty. Daddy is pretty, the walrus in her bath book is pretty, her milk is pretty. You get the picture.

2. A much anticipated girlie dinner.

3. A (quite hilarious) Fruit Ninja marathon.

Lesson Learnt

Emily was born with lots of black hair. Whenever anyone met her, their first comment was always "Oh wow, so much hair!" Then it thinned out, as newborn hair does, and she had a semi-bald phase, which was later replaced by beautiful brown hair. Lately her hair has thickened and grown. It's almost like she has suddenly developed an explosion of hair.

Because there's always been so much of it (relatively speaking, even during the semi-bald stage!), sometime during the summer I purchased some really lovely hairclips from an online boutique called Daisy Dots.

They looked so pretty holding her hair off her face and I loved the fact that she didn't ever realise they were there, meaning it felt a little bit safer to put them on for her. Despite this, I'd never leave her alone wearing one. If we were going somewhere, for example in the car, I'd remove it as I knew that if she were to find it and begin experimenting, I'd never be able to get to her in time to stop her from swallowing it. What would happen though was that I'd never remember to put the hairclip back on once we got to our destination so technically, we never really used them and I stopped bothering.

When she was unwell last week, with mucus almost constantly streaming down her face (and she was also teething so there was a huge amount of saliva too - yes, it was a lovely picture, poor child), her long hair would inevitably end up caked to her face. So one day, I brought out the hairclips again and problem solved.

What didn't occur to me was that in the few weeks since I'd last used the hairclips, she has become so much more aware of things, she now knew that there was *something* on her head and she chose exactly the point when I turned my back to wash some dishes, entirely oblivious to the fact that there may be danger lurking, to investigate.

Of course, I had my eye on her and as usual, she was chewing on her fingers with huge amounts of dribble pouring out of her mouth. And then I realised that the clip was no longer on her head and nowhere to be seen. No, it was entirely inside her mouth.

I fished it out (appalled look from her!) and all was well. Now, I'm not a very overprotective parent. She's crawling but I haven't baby-proofed the house to an extent that many might. I believe that different babies will gravitate towards different dangers so I am working on a "play it by ear" basis. And I am in no way shaming Daisy Dots Boutique (they include a safety statement too), but let's just say that at this point, if it were a choice between hairclips - as absolutely adorable they may be - and Emily's hair being all over the place (I don't really like headbands and they wouldn't last a minute anyway!), I'm going for the latter!

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'Tis the Season...

...to be germy, fa la la la laaa la la la laaa

December arrives and with it, as it does every year, comes the dreaded lurgy. Emily and I have had horrible colds and coughs for a week now, and there seems to be little hope of respite. Every day we seem to wake up feeling worse. But I am trying not to be a grumpy old sod about it (although I'll admit it's sometimes felt like a bit too much to handle & I shall be having a word with Mother Nature about it one of these days...)

Which explains my silence these last few days. And if being ill wasn't enough, Emily has now also learnt how to crawl (backwards and sideways mostly, but we call it crawling). It took her precisely 10 months to get to this point, and one day past 10 months, she began. And within 20 minutes of her unleashing movement upon me, I began going slightly insane. Nothing is now safe (although strangely, she hasn't made any attempt at the Christmas tree yet), and yes I know I wanted this to happen and I know you all told me I'd kick myself for wishing it and you were right but it is cute.

But other than chasing after Emily and then stopping to catch my breath for half an hour, blowing my dose every 3 minutes (no that wasn't a typo) and begging Emily to let me at least wipe hers (cue screams - lots of them), there isn't too much happening. My sister and her family moved to the area last week and we've barely been able to spend more than an hour together. Visitors from Malta arrive tomorrow and I know for a fact they will be returning with coughs and colds too. My special Christmas gift to them.

*mutter*

Bah humbug, who wants to be healthy anyway?!

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2000

Oh Deborah, do you recall?
Your house was very small,
with wood chip on the wall.
When I came around to call,
you didn't notice me at all.

I said let's all meet up in the year 2000.
Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown.
Be there at 2 o'clock by the fountain down the road.
I never knew that you'd get married.
I would be living down here on my own on
that damp and lonely Thursday years ago.


They played Pulp's Disco 2000 on the radio this morning. Release date 1995.

Back in 1995, I was 12 going on 13. It was the year both my grandfathers passed away, followed by a summer I'll never forget. It was the year I became a "young lady" (which prompted my mother to call EVERY member of the family to let them know - thanks ma). It was the year of the Aussie cousins, and what will forever be remembered as my "hormone attack" (no, I will not be telling that story). It was the year I first went away to Girl Guide Camp. It was the year we bought a new house and my sister got sick. In many ways, 1995 was the year that started turning me into the adult I am today.

I remember thinking that 2000 was so far away, it would probably never happen. And yet here we are, soon to be raising our glasses and waving farewell to 2011. How, pray tell, did that happen?!

Cars do not hover, air is not pure, robots have not replaced half of humankind, and Space is still not a holiday destination. Hah. Fancy that.

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December Spotlight: Winter Wonderland

This month, with the winter chill so decidedly upon us, I couldn't think of one reason not focus on winter itself!



Pictured Above
A Winters Day Snowflake Necklace
'Thick Blows…' Reclaimed Wood Print (Coulson Macleod)
Petal Fairy Lights
Peaches and Cream Hot Water Bottle Sweater

Other Ideas
Lily-Flame Snowfall Candle in a Tin
Sequin Cable Scarf
Snowflake Earrings
Francesca & Florence Snowflake Candles

Pictured Below
Ice Queen Choker Necklace
Mug Cosy in Snow White