Birthday celebrations

After a period of inactivity for my blog due to our internet going down, I am back this week.  We have had a week of contrasts this week, with Andy & I celebrating our birthdays and my Gran passing away.

We went out for dinner with friends last weekened and with family this weekend, the advantage of having birthdays so close together is that we can spread out the celebrations and I can claim them all as my birthday!!

Andy has been poorly again this week, this time with man flu, so once he was better I made his favourite dessert, a chocolate orange torte.  I base it on a pampered chef receipe for a mint torte but change the chocolate and essence and here is the result:

Chocolate Orange Torte

This week we returned to school and work after half term (Andy didn't have any time off for this holiday!) and we spent some of half term completing our normal holiday jobs - tidying up the house.  I have always told visitors that you can tell how long it is until a school holiday by how tidy our house is, as the closer we get the more likely I am to leave things as I will sort them out in the school holiday!

This time though we tidied up with a different style as we are preparing the lounge for its make over.  So although the lounge is tidier than it has been it is barer in places and the rest of the house is hosting displaced lounge items!!

With the rest of half term we went on an outing to Beaulieu to see the James Bond vehicle collection.  We went with friends and had a lovely, if a little chilly, day out.  Josh enjoyed it the most as this combined his favourite pasttimes - James Bond and cars (with Top Gear thrown in as well!).

Martini anyone?

While preparations have been under way in the lounge I have found time to make all the birthday cards I will need for March (I think).  We also made some whoopie pies and then made individual cake stands for some of them to show them off.  As you can see below though there were only three left to show off and they didn't really last that long either - but Jacob and I enjoyed making them.

Whoopie pies and cake stands

I am still working on the craft to incorporate the bible verse from last blog (Easter cards) but the bible verse to inspire us this week is:

Bless those who persecute you;

bless and do not curse.

Romans 12:14

Our prayer this week is with our family as we come to terms with our loss and for my Mum and her brothers as they make the necessary arrangements.

With God's blessings from my family to yours x

interuption to internet service, will blog when returns x

Not the love bug!!

Having looked around a lot of other blogs this week everyone seems to be getting ready for Valentine's day, but while they all seem to have been bitten by the love bug, we have had a different sort of bug in our house.

Jacob was sent home from school on Tuesday feeling unwell and only went back on Friday.  Then over the weekend we have all had the same bug (upset tummies to be polite!!).  It did mean that I had some unexpected holiday time off work and got some crafting done.  I made these gorgeous fimo heart buttons to add to my advent bunting and the larger heart for a card.  I had been reading about adding texture to fimo shapes and remembered I had some heart stamps I had never used and thought I would try them out on this craft.  I am not sure that the detail comes out but all the hearts have the word "Love" printed all over them.

Heart buttons ready for sewing

We had planned to do some "window" shopping ready for the home improvements this weekend (before the bug hit!) and to help I made some planner pages to add to the spreadsheet lists.  Having had lots of information to hand over Christmas in my Christmas planner I know how good it is to have everything in one place that also has room for adding notes.  I don't have any images on the pages yet as I may well use them as moodboards as I gather ideas (also I am not that arty!) or I may just stamp some images on them.

measurement planners

So while we all felt sorry for ourselves Andy tried to stay out of the way of the bug (except it found him as well on Sunday) and spent most of Saturday in the garden finishing off "Pruning" the apple tree.  There are often reports about how neighbours don't talk to one another these days, but not round here.  While Andy was attacking the final branch with his new bow saw, our neighbour saw his struggle and lent him a trusted log saw.  This help and encouragement to get the job done really helped and the final branch was removed.  Our neighbour is also arranging for a friend to come round with a chain saw and cut the branch up into logs for us.

The finished job

So with not feeling too well, I didn't get a craft done based on last week's Bible passage but I did get to spend time with Jacob. 

The bible verse we are studying this week is Isaiah 53:5, which really seems to lend itself towards some Easter cards:

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
   he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
   and by his wounds we are healed.

I read an interesting article on the Creative Girl blog this week, which was inspired by Hands Free Mama, about ensuring we are switched off from technology when the children are around rather than being switched off from them!  This has formed our prayer for this week, that as we all feel better we will be able to spend some good time together, rather than just cuddled up under a duvet.  

With God's blessings from my family to yours.