Showering baby

So this blog is super late as I organised a baby shower for my friend back at the end of October but oh well better late then never!

My friends were very kind to us when we had Nemo so when C got pregnant I started the pinteresting almost immediately! I love all the ideas you can get on Pinterest, however it's a bit addictive and I find myself getting big to do lists when I go on! 

So here is a flavour of the baby shower :) 

We had the shower at our friends' house so we did lots of decoration! 

We got the paper decoration ball things (!) from ikea 

Butterflies :) 

I also made two buntings for the occasion. 

of course there was lots of food :) 

Rainbow fruit skewers 

Of course lots of the food was pink themed as it's a little girl on her way. I think the mushrooms made of strawberries and marshmallows with decorated with white chocolate were a favourite. 

We had mocktails (with umbrellas and curly straws of course!)

And here's the cake, it took me ages to separate the colours of hundreds of smarties! 

As for entertainment we had spa couple of silly games

We had a blind folded nappy change. It was good to know that the last 2 years of changing to small people's nappies has come in handy as I won the blind folded nappy challenge! 

We also had guess the date, name suggestions, advice for the parents and guess the weight! 

And now for my favourite game:

Oh yes! Pin the sperm on the egg! It was quite funny although a bit awkward encouraging the grandparent generation present to play! 

To end there was present opening - yay! Like all good baby showers there were lots of lovely gifts, me and hubby put together a hamper thing together which I was quite proud of. I stupidly forgot to take a picture but yo can kind of see it here!

Our Christmas home :)

I am so excited about Christmas, I think more then I have been for years and years (probably since I was a young child). 

This is our first year as a family with 2 children and Pebble's first Christmas so it just feels really special. Nemo was only 4 months for his first Christmas so he didn't really appreciate it and last year I was very very pregnant and I was working up to Christmas so I didn't have much energy and time to put into Christmas. I thinks when you get married you both come with different experiences of Christmas but being our 6th married Christmas it feels like we're getting our own little customs and way of doing things. My husband's family's would have gammon for breakfast which was amazing but I don't think I could manage cooking and eating that on top of cooking and eating Christmas dinner! We do however have several beautiful Christmas decorations from Hubby's childhood, here are these little children's Christmas books that hang on a tree. 

His family loved in several different countries during his childhood including Germany and Norway so they had lots of beautiful Christmas decorations. 

Nemo certainly enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree. He took an unusual approach to the process

Very modern of him... :) Nemo also added his own preferred decorations...

But after a little help from Daddy here is the final result 

However weirdly the tree seems to have become a bit disheveled since then, I have no idea why? 

 We moved the books from the fake fireplace with an air heater in to make room for Santa to arrive! 

We had home made stockings with our name on as a child and I wanted to make some for the children however my list of crafts was too long so I will have to do this next year! 

Albeit a few days late I did manage to finish making Hubby's advent calandar 

It has chocolate or a sweet in every stocking and 24 reasons I love him, he is pretty amazing! (Top romantic marks?) 

Nemo has his own calandar

It's a cute felt hanging which his Nanny got him as a Christmas present last year so this is it's first use. It's really sweet. In Nemo's it has a chocolate or sweet and a part of the story of Jesus' birth in every section. 

The children both have little Christmas trees in their rooms

So here are some the Christmas happenings in the rest of the house

My crochet stars on their twig home! 

Nemo's Christmas pictures, some from last year some from this year. 

My crochet wreath. 

I love this moose!!! We got it from bath Christmas market the first year we were married! 

I made this bunting several years ago

I love this handmade bunting we got from a craft center a month ago or so

Part of this years crocheted Christmas bunting 

We bought this bunting very cheaply last year from Home Bargains I think....

I have to admit I'm not a massive fan of those red, blue green multicolour Christmas lights however my husband is more keen. We take it in turns having them on the tree for compromise and this year put them on the stairs for for festive cheer that's not too intrusive!! I have to admit I quite like them like this, it makes going upstairs in the dark feel a bit epic to be honest :-p

Hubby's away at the moment but I was very nicely invited for dinner with the children from a family at church. I decided to spend yesterday afternoon making biscuits with Nemo whilst Pebble was asleep and Nemo decorated them (can you tell?) we had Christmas trees, stars and snowflakes. The problem was that kitchen was a distasteful by the time we finished and when I put the children to bed it took me till almost 10pm to clean up the kitchen and do the usual chores. This meant I didn't get to bed until past 11. Now typically the children wake around 7am- very respectful but of course today of all days Pebble decided to wake at 5.45am :-/ 

In their defence they have been very well behaved this morning and have been playing very nicely together whilst I've written this!

Nemo took himself into the kitchen at one point I went to see what he was up to to find him in the washing basket doing his flash cards! 

They are both getting so big now and are both so gorgeous 

Here's Pebble doing some reading :) 

And here is my hansome little man! It's hard to get a picture of him at the moment as he's always on the move! 

Manic Christmas crafting!

So with my harmony blanket finished:

It was time to start my other projects. 

So I loved attic24's Christmas wreath so decided to give it a go. In very proud that this I lay cost me £3  as I only bought the polystyrene ring, everything else was made from things I had around the house.  Here's the link for it http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2012/12/christmas-wreath-ta-dah.html

Some of my bits for the wreath 

My ring with the cover on and my bird.

And everything finished! 

It looks so colourful and pretty :) 

I've also crocheted two of these hats. My friend gave me the pattern and wool for this hat as a gift for organising her baby shower. Here it is:

Unfortunately within days of making it I lost it on out zoo trip by putting it in the hood of the pram. Of course the wool for this hat only comes from a craft village in Lyndey, Wales so one Rainy Saturday I dragged hubby and the kids out to buy another ball of wool! So here is my second:

Here it is on :)

So another attic24 project (I know I'm going through a bit of a phase at the moment, I seem to be making my way through her blog!) 

I thought this Christmas bunting she does is awesome

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2012/01/jolly-festive-bunting-ta-dah.html

So I gave it a go

Again I just used left over wool I had from my blanket projects. I upscaled mine to make the bunting flags bigger and I also decided to go with peace and joy. The photos aren't great but it looks very festive with it's bells and holly! 

I have also been making some stars to go on some branches I got from Lidl free patterns here

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/little-lacy-stars.html

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/teeny-tiny-stars.html

As you can see I've only just started so have lots more to do! 

Crochet snowflakes have also been on my to do list:

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/crochet-snowflake.html

I had a go at one of these tree decorations but have no more stuffing left so will have to get some more! 

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/bauble-decoration.html

And I think that just about concludes my crafting for now. I decided that unfortunately having bought my lovely autumny material for Pebble's dress in mid October that I have missed a lot of the season so have decided to keep it back for next year, I should have enough to make a toddler dress. 

So Grandma and Pebble will just have to match next year instead! 

On the subject of Christmas crafting here's a picture I did with Nemo :) 

Sorry for the double blog day! My friend kindly had Nemo and Pebble for a few hours this afternoon (the first time I've every left Pebble with anyone expect hubby!) my kids love her and it gave me a chance to catch up! Here she is with Pebble the other day she definately has the baby touch :)