Snippets Of Christmas 2015 - Week Four

Hello! And Happy Almost New Year.

Christmas has been and gone, and I am happy to report my jeans aren't feeling tooo tight (there's no hair bobble trick in sight!) I'm pretty sure that will change though, the pile of snacks in the kitchen aren't going to eat themselves after all ;) I'm currently nibbling bingeing on a bag of Roses golden barrels that were put out as visitor goodies - yuuuumm. 

This past week has been really, really lovely! The presents were all bought, wrapped and delivered so there was nothing more to do other than be merry with our friends and family. I even managed to sneak in some Christmas crafting. Myself and Simon made and painted some adorable salt dough paw prints as part of a handmade gift for my parents. And of course Miss Pookie, our little shadow had to be in on the action.

Nothing says Christmas like the smell of new Pyjamas! These are from Primark, aren't they gorgeous? The bottoms are a brushed cotton material and they are oh so cosy.

Christmas Eve

Since myself and Simon begun dating many many moons ago, we always had our own little Christmas on Christmas eve! So in the spirit of tradition, we got up bright but not so early to open our stockings in bed before heading downstairs to open presents around the tree.

The rest of Christmas eve was equally as lovely! We headed to our local pub for lunch with the in-laws where we stayed for hours, as we always do on Christmas eve, before Me and Simon headed out for some scrummy Italian food.   

That evening we (apparently like the whole of Instagram :P) put together and decorated a gingerbread house! I think we are going to make this a yearly tradition as it was so much fun and I for one love anything creative, and if it involves tasty treats, then all the better!

Christmas Day!

Christmas day begun with both of us at our parents houses eating bacon barms and opening presents before Simon joined me at my parents where we stayed for the rest of the day, eating good food and laughing. 

The table all set at my Parents for Christmas dinner!

And Boxing day was spent at the in-laws, building farms and houses out of wooden bricks with my nieces, and Lacey (our youngest niece) took her first steps, an utterly magical way to end Christmas!

So, that's it for my Snippets Of Christmas series for another year, I cant quite believe it's over. 

I hope you had the most wonderful of Christmases, and I wish the Happiest of New Years to you :)

Snippets Of Christmas 2015 - Week Three

Our advent candle is looking rather stubby and our calendar doors are mostly open... which means that Christmas is oh so very close (3 sleeps away to be precise)!

Since it's week three and I STILL haven't shared our lounge decor, I thought that is where I'd start this week! I LOVE how our living room looks at Christmas time, it feels super, super cosy especially on an evening when we have all of the candles lit. 

Can you believe sales have already begun? We picked up this beautiful bell jar from Tesco for a irresistible £1.75, we love it so much we went back to grab another! We plan to use them on the Christmas day dinner table, but for now one looks adorable on my bedside table.

In recent weeks I haven't quite felt so Christmassy, but this week the festive spirit came much easier, probably down to looking forward to Simon finishing for Christmas! I brought out the glittery nail polish to celebrate, if you can't wear glitter at Christmas... when can you?!

Like many others, I really feel Christmassy when the shopping comes to an end and I am spending quality time with family and friends! This week we have had much more time for things like dining out with our family, getting together with those we haven't seen in a while, baking and other relaxing things. It hasn't been a plain sailing week, but we have been better able to cope with things thrown at us!

By Snippets of Christmas Week Four, the big man will have been and my jeans wont be buttoning the same! 

So, Merry Christmas :) 

Snippets Of Christmas 2015 - Week Two

Hello, and Happy Tuesday!

Here I am once again with a chocolate chip muffin to hand and 24 hours in A&E playing in the background (my current favourite) whilst I sift through photo snippets of our week.

Personally honesty is key here on my little blog and as much as I'd love to say this week has been rainbows and butterflies... it hasn't quite been that way. Our week didn't start off too great, we were both feeling rather crap and rather Grinchy.  But once we got our tree put up we were in much better spirits, there's just something about fairy lights that makes my heart fuzzy and warm. 

Home Alone Quote Banner purchased from Darwin And Gray on Etsy

Our mood was only made better by my parents popping by to visit, bearing gifts!

Whilst kind of, sort of-ish on the topic of home decor, we had to buy some replacement Christmas bedding as ours was turning everything it touched pink! Socks, throws... you name it, they turned PINK. We replaced it with this super fun and colourful one from George. We are obsessed with it!

Whilst Simon has been working away like the little worker bee he is, I have been knee deep in wrapping paper, ribbons and bows! AKA in my element wrapping lots and lots of prezzies. Things are feeling much more organised in the Gardner/Berry residence!

My favourite moment this week has to be having my adorable nephew come and stay with us. He may be thirteen years old, but my oh my he still melts my heart! We went to see 'The Good Dinosaur' at the Odeon, and oh my - it's a good 'un. We all loved it!

Oh, and I couldn't not include our new buddy Oscar! This cutie patootie is a regular visitor to our local pub, we often find him sat underneath the seats of our usual table. Infact we are due to see him again tomorrow, when we pop out for lunch with my father in law! 

Well, thats Christmas week two over and done with! When we wake tommorow, Christmas will be single digits away.

Sweet Dreams :)

Snippets of Christmas 2015 - Week One

HAPPY DECEMBER!

That feels super strange to type, and super strange to say aloud! But it is true, December is upon us and Christmas day is merely weeks away. Last year I created and begun a Christmas series called 'Snippets Of Christmas' and I really enjoyed it! I found myself digging out my camera much more and preserving the smaller, finer details of Christmas often forgotten. 

Our house is gradually, and I mean reeeaaaaal gradually becoming festive. We have lots of candles, plaques and accessories dotted around but we are yet to put up the tree (or green scratch post in our ever so cheeky fur-babies eyes). After we finished the decorating we treated ourselves to a scrumdiddlyumtious hot chocolate, and chocolate muffin from McDonalds! 

One of the candles we are burning is the scent 'Candy Cane Lane' by Yankee Candle, it is a subtle fragrance, so it takes a while to kick in, but oh my - after a while you feel as though you are in a, well... Candy Cane Lane. 

Although i'm giving it a good old shot, admittedly I am not really feeling Christmas this year, not quite yet anyway! This past week I have been unwell pretty much everyday, I have had stomache pains that have had me doubled over, a outbreak out of no-where in hives - all over my hands and arms (still there *shudder*) a cold, and I even managed to dye myself and the bath smurf blue with a craft fair bath bomb. Its safe to say im not having the best of luck this month! 

Ailments aside, we've got lots done this week! Theres been plenty of Christmas shopping done, a smidge of wrapping and a whole lot of card writing. All in-between putting up decorations with my Nanna at the care home and helping my father-in-law set up his Christmas villages.

Here's to week two of Christmas! 

And perhaps to not turning myself smurf blue again.

Snowflakes 1st birthday

I think it goes without saying, this year has gone extremely quickly, and I'm yet to meet someone who thinks otherwise. It is somehow already September, Autumn is most certainly in the air and I've begun getting more than excited for the chilly weather festivities to come. But before we can dig out our winter coats, wellies and throws, a certain day arrives on our calendar. And that date is the 5th of September, the day our darling Snowflake was due to enter the world, meaning that this year he or she would have been turning one years old.

It's completely and utterly surreal for myself and Simon to imagine ourselves with a one year old now, it feels like we have been mourning the loss of Snowflake for an eternity. We would do anything to have Snowflake here with us, but there is something special and a certain depth that comes with loss, it gives life so much more meaning and you no longer have the energy for any sort of negative relationships.

The 5th fell on a Saturday and we had a really slow morning at home, we was in no rush to get out of the door! We headed out for the first time around lunch time to a restaurant for some scrummy food, before going for a long, long, sunny walk in the park. We spotted out dragon flies, even saw a white feather, it was a beautiful afternoon. The whole day we both felt really content, and since we were expecting the worst, it came as a pleasant surprise. 

This year we wanted to let off sky lanterns (last year we let off balloons, you can read all about that here) but unfortunately I couldn't get any in time, but very luckily for us a girl I went to high school with had some, and very kindly gave us them.

 We headed to the same spot as last year, but unfortunately it was just too windy and the lanterns fell apart at every attempt we made. Already quite sensitive with the day in mind, we found this utterly heart breaking. I felt like I once again had failed as a mother, our baby had no gift to say we was thinking of her.

Not ones to give up, and big believers in 'better late than never' we purchased some balloons a few days later and headed back to our favourite spot, where we had the perfect evening we wished for. 

The beggining of my weight loss journey

It's been a long, long while since I posted here on my blog. Although perhaps hard to believe (with my absence and all that jazz) I do really enjoy writing, and in particular... writing here! I haven't quite found my niche yet, or particularly found myself in the routine of regularly blogging but it is something I would like to do more of. So excuses aside, I thought I would share something that Is consuming a lot of my thoughts and making frequent appearances in my daily life these days, and that is my new venture into losing weight! (Yep I'm making a come back with one of them posts)

Since I last did a personal, life update sort of post, a hell of a lot has happened! Instead of going deep into details I'll tell you this, it's been a whole 18 months since the miscarriage of our sweetheart Snowflake, and we still aren't pregnant! A few months ago I was diagnosed with something called polycystic ovarian syndrome, also referred to as PCOS, in basic terms it means 'many cysts' which are on my ovaries and I no longer release an egg on a monthly basis. PCOS is one of the most common causes of female infertility and this diagnosis didn't come as a shock to me, but more about that another time.

One of the ways you can control, and help ease the symptoms of this disorder is to lose some body weight. This is something I knew would have to do to achieve pregnancy, as with my current high BMI I am unable to undergo any fertility treatments.  Although not guaranteed, it is still possible to become pregnant naturally by losing weight alone, so as you can imagine I got started right away! I browsed the internet, namely Pinterest to find anything that may be of help to my journey, I came across a number of brilliant ideas, and I thought I would a couple of them with you in this post.

1) Make a list of why you want to lose weight

2) Drink ice cold water, you body burns extra calories warming it up

3)Leave yourself motivational fitness quotes for yourself around the house

4) Make social activities active, head to the park for a walk instead of the pub for a pint

5) Drink water infused with fruits 

and of course, the main thing is to eat a balanced diet and exercise frequently. 

Aside from the tips above, there was a particular tip I came across which I instantly knew would work perfectly for me, even satisfying the DIY and craft lover inside of me. And that idea was to create motivational weight loss jars! These jars are a visual aid in showing you just how much weight you need to lose and how much you have lost. 

Here are my weight loss jars...

This method of weight loss is perfect for those who have a set amount of weight they wish  to or need to lose, like myself. I personally have to lose 21Ibs (1stone and a half) to be within the weight guidelines for fertility treatment. The general idea for these weight loss jars is that each bead represents 1Ib of weight, so in the 'pounds to lose' jar I have put in 20 beads and one into the 'pound lost' jar as i've lost 1Ib thus far.

Do you have a set amount of weight to lose? How is it going? :) 

Easter Goodies

Im not sure about you but I think that in the age of Pinterest people are making much more of an effort and getting excited about the perhaps smaller, less anticipated events in the yearly calender - such as Easter. Thinking back to my childhood I really did enjoy Easter, but it certainly wasn't the hootenanny it is today!

So with that said and a little under a week to go until Easter Sunday, I thought I would share with you the things we have been buying and making for our growing brood of Neices and Nephews.

Jumping straight in with the boys, we purchased these Minion ceramic mugs with a milk chocolate easter egg inside. One for our 12 year old Nephew Bradley and the other for his younger brother Oakley. We bought these quite in advance and paid around £1.99 each from Asda, i'm pretty sure I have seen them in there since if you would like to snap one up before Easter!

For our 3 year old niece Mia we wanted to do something a little different as she will get lots of big Easter Eggs from the rest of the family and she is at the age where she is really beginning to get a greater understanding of things. We decided to create her an Easter Egg box filled with goodies which was so easy to make, good fun and as an added bonus it only costed a few pounds to put together! I love how it came together as a little scene, im sure she will love it too (especially the animals).

And last but certainly not least we couldn't resist putting something together our 5 month old Niece Lacey! She is far too young to understand what is going on, but we couldn't just give her elder sister Mia something and not her. So we bought her this super cute, super soft little lamb which i'm sure she will enjoy dribbling all over! This was also fun to put together and I simply couldnt resist putting it in an adorable Easter box. Both the box and the lamb are from Poundland, costing you guessed it, a pound each - an absolute bargain.

So thats everything we've been buying for our Nieces and Nephews. I really enjoy reading these sorts of posts on other peoples blogs, so I hope you enjoyed reading mine too!

A New Years Surprise!

Happy New Year Guys!

I generally like to blog as and when things come to mind, as opposed to coming up with something for the sole purpose of blogging it. So I certainly did not think i'd be blogging so soon into 2015, start as you mean to go on though right?!

So, anyways.. If you have been following my blog for a while now, or follow me on social media platforms you will know Myself and Simon have had what can only be explained as a naff old year! Of course with the miscarriage, but also with what felt like family drama after family drama (families eh?). We have been super super excited for a new year to begin and knew we wanted to have a special New Years Eve. When Simon returned to work after Christmas I got crafty and put together some decorations (including tinsel which I hate, but Simon loves), made him a card, and did lots of organising.

Inside the package.

With Simons birthday following closely after Christmas I thought New Years would be the perfect opportunity to start the year with a big old positive and spring the surprise. So his gift is a combination of an early birthday gift and a New Years gift! I ummed and arrred for months deciding what I could do to make his next birthday one to remember. I decided on a trip to Keswick in The Lake District for a couple of nights on the anniversary weekend of losing Snowflake.  In the package was a tiny wooden ticket which says 'this ticket entitles you to a weekend away' and after opening the package at 00:05am on New Years Day I gave him a card with all the information for the trip. 

The surprise went down incredibly well, and started the New Year of incredibly!