Christmas Eve with my family - it makes me so happy :)

Finally I have my family together for a nice length of time over the festive season, Jemma worked up until the 18th and Craig and I drove in to collect her on Sunday morning.   
With Christmas orders for my Etsy shop winding down I have not been as busy sewing for past few days.  I do enjoy running my shop, especially creating new things and seeing them off to new homes all over the world. The micro pets and the bookmarks and even one of the cake bunting toppers sold.  Trying to come up with new things to list can be quite hit and miss, but I decided that as quite of few of my animals end up on the top of birthday cakes I should do something a little more special with a combination of the flags and an animal of choice.  

As you can see above, the cake wasn't exactly the best style for display purposes, but it was the cake Amber chose for her Birthday -  just a simple Angel food cake from the bakery. I am going to source some fabric for a special request order for some wedding cake bunting this week in bright fruity colours, that will be fun to work on.
A new animal in my shop is this tiny wool felt lion.

Amber turned 17 on Dec 1st and celebrated a few days later with four of her best friends staying for a sleepover.  Her gift from us was a 50mm camera lens for her Canon T1I 500D, which is exactly what she wanted, although it didn't look much to us, she was thrilled.  She took a vast amount of fun pics of her friends and they all had a great time.
A fierce hurricane blew in a couple of weeks ago and left us, along with many others without power, telephone or internet for a almost two days.  Some families were out for 4 days!  The loud destructive winds blew down hundreds of trees in the valley and caused extensive damage to buildings in the area.  Our neighbours barn is now a heap of rubble. Craig and I had to 'babysit' the sump pump in the basement to prevent flooding, keeping the generator going every hour. It reminded me of the many sleepless nights when Jemma was a baby!!  

This tree fell right across our own road just a few yards away!  
Well I shall bid you all a goodnight now as it gets dark and I have just turned on the Christmas tree lights.  Wishing you all a wonderfully happy and healthy Christmas.

Christmas Preparations

Christmas is getting so close and this week I have started to feel that warm fuzzy pre-Christmas feeling.  Jem came home for the weekend having finished all her exams.  We had decided to hold off any decorating or tree finding until she was home, because it just wouldn't be right without her!   

Amber had heard from a friend of a nice family who own a special Christmas tree farm not too far from us, so we bundled up and headed up the mountain on Saturday morning. 

The snow was falling and there was quite a chilly wind blowing as we drove through the trees.  The girls jumped out of the car and after some rough measuring, chose 'the perfect tree'  Out came the man with the chain saw and chopped 'Towering Tim' down, leaving behind 'Stumpy Stan' in his place :( 
"Not to worry" said the man with the chain saw.  "The trees re-seed quite quickly and a new one will start to grow in its place".  
He then took us down to the barn where we stood and chatted with other tree purchasers while his wife made hot chocolate and we ate home made cookies specially baked with the help of their 3 young daughters.  
After a little manoeuvring in the back seat of Craig's car with J & A cramped up very close we took our tree home and spent the afternoon going through all our decorations collected over the years and hung them up, remembering when and where they were either made or bought.  Quite a challenge in itself now the girls are 17 and 19!!
We tried egg nog for the first time ever, played festive music and took a few photos of course.

Happy pre-Christmas Greetings to you all!!