Packing, packing, and more packing!

As the title says we have been packing! We only ever half unpacked when we moved into this house as we were only supposed to be here for 6 -12 months. But after two and a half years in the 'temporary home' we are finally moving into a permanent home and we will be unpacking EVERYTHING!

But even if we had only unpacked half it seems that our stuff also grew and the garage was piled with half filled boxes and opened boxes that had a few bits from the top removed and all sorts of junk! But we seem to be on top of it now and have mostly finished packing except for the kitchen and our clothes. We move out of here and into our new home in about a week and a half but we get the keys on Wednesday!

Well, I had best be off as we have painting and cleaning to plan!!!! I'll leave you with pictures of our boxes (or some of them!) along with The Beagle. He was most put out at having to spend the day outside while we packed as he kept trying to get into everything. When he wasn't napping, he was laying at the screen door watching with sad eyes.

Chipper

P.S. thanks for the Christmas pudding recipes.

Help! Christmas Pudding ...

I am sure you are all aware by now that I am not English. But The LOML is and the children have followed his lead when it comes to Christmas pudding. (YUK!!! is what I say!)

This year The Thinker would like to try his hand at making our own. When we lived in Ireland they always liked Tesco's Finest Christmas Pudding as it wasn't overly nutty.

I don't have any family recipes for this and so I am asking for your help. Does anyone have a delicious recipe we could try or do you know of a published recipe that is yummy. I have read a few but have NO IDEA what I should be looking for in a recipe.

Have we left it too late? Are there any useful tips I should know? Please help, I am completely lost!

Thanks,
Chipper

Storytelling Sunday - November

Sadly, I missed Storytelling Sunday for October but I really want to participate for November.  I have been racking my brain for a good story and have drawn a blank, until this morning.  So here is a brand new story hot off the press this morning ...

This is about The Princess, the one who never likes to draw attention to herself, the one who didn't speak at school for FOUR years!  You would never have guessed that she was that way if you ever saw her at home, as she is the loudest of our three children.  However, the minute a non-family member is present she is silent.  At her school they have a 'Crazy Hair Day' fundraiser each year for an orphanage in Bali and a local charity (chosen each year by the senior class).

Now if you have ever perused Pinterest I am sure you will have seen lots of photos of crazy hair.  I used one such photo as inspiration for my Halloween costume this year (more on that later LOL) but each year I have tried to get The Princess to be just a little adventurous and it was a disaster.  I have offered to use coloured hair spray - NO!  I once braided wire into her long plaits so that she could then have them hold any shape she wanted.  She took one look at it in the mirror and  - NO!  So each year I have helped her put her hair in a high pony tail and tried bright ribbons around it.

Last night The Princess mentioned that it was Crazy Hair Day today, had I not received the note?  She is sure she left it out for me ... hmmmmm NO!  Being cheeky I offered to do her hair like mine was for Halloween - NO!  I asked her if there was anything special she wanted me to do?  I received a shrug and a blank look so I suggested that she google 'crazy hair'.  For the next half hour all I heard were giggles and then "Mom, do you think you could do this one?"!  I was amazed, The Princess is growing in confidence (YEAH!).  I knew that she was getting braver as she presented a talk to her whole class this year, in the past she would have just stood up there silently waiting for the teacher to give in and ask her to sit back down, or she would have whispered it so that no one could hear.

So meet my 'Crazy Hair Stegosaur' ...

With coloured bobby pins for that added pop of fun!  She was very excited this morning and I hope that this is the start of The Princess starting to blossom :-)

If you like a good story then head on over to the host of this series, Sian.  There is always a collection of good stories to read each month.  They will make you laugh, cry, think and everything in-between.

Happy Reading,

Chipper

Hello!

Hi everyone, its been a long time.  Days turn into weeks and before you know it weeks have become months.  I haven't even had a chance to read any blogs during my absence.  I had over 2,000 posts in my reader LOL  It is a good thing that I have them sorted into groups :-)  "Mark all as read" has become my friend and tonight I whittled that down to 43 must read posts from those blogs that interest me the most.

So what has kept me away?  To begin with it was a bit of the blues, but then other things started taking up my time.  We move house in a few weeks and I NEED to start packing.  This will hopefully be the last move for awhile and I am looking forward to unpacking all of the still packed boxes in the garage and calling a house "our home".  I have three job interviews this week which will make things on this end heaps busier but also better.

I have found a few snippets of spare time and have created some stuff which I will start to share on here in the coming weeks.  I will be packing up my craft room on Wednesday in preparation for moving.  I need to use the room as a 'full box' storage room so it will be the first stuff to be packed.  Yesterday we drew out scale drawings of the kids rooms and our bedroom (that will also be part craft room) so that we could see what furniture will fit where.  We have promised the kids that we will paint their rooms before we move in.  The Thinker wanted BLACK!  He has settled for one wall of large black and white stripes for Newcastle United.  I couldn't imagine living in a completely black room!  In the new year he wants me to paint the crest on his wall if he still has space after hanging up his pictures.  The Extrovert is planning on red accents of some sort for Liverpool.  We are still working on his walls.  I suggested  something graphic, but we will see what happens.  He doesn't want white so we are thinking  light grey walls and then red somehow.  The Princess wants pink (surprise, surprise!) and then she wants to paint flowers on the spare wall space herself.

I missed October's Storytelling Sunday but I hope to have something this week for November.  I will do my best but make no promises.  I am heading off to try and read some of your blog posts and will be back.  I have missed being here but I also enjoyed the break.

Chipper