Busy busy weekend

Ollie had Friday off and had the grand job of taking the cats to the vet for their booster jabs. This is not an easy operation as they are now too big (fat) to fit both in the carrier at once so one has to be bribed and into coming out of hiding into the carrier and taken off to the vet, and then when that one comes home it's the other one's turn! Ollie said that they were so noisy in the car and the vets!

We went to Ikea after work. Ollie had already been round lakeside by the time I got there and he had bought me a Jamie Oliver mug that says Foxy Lady on it! So we are now sad and have his and hers mugs now!

We got a new light for the stairs and the dining room as well as picture frames for the prints that I have ordered. Plus we got mirrors for the stairs to brighten them up a bit.

Having looked at the footstall that matches the sofa we decided it was too big. But we then came home and decided that we could put all the DVDs in the cd cases we have and store those with the game controllers in the storage in the footstall and put it where the DVD bookcase is.

So we will be off back to Ikea sometime in the near future I expect!

We insulated the attic on Saturday. We have already noticed the difference, not having needed the heating on all the time now it is mild. My legs really ached though with all the crouching and kneeling on the rafters.

Sunday we got the dining room ready for Ollie to paint it this week. I also cleaned and tidied the whole house. I also went to my local weight watchers meeting! I'm 10 pounds over my goal weight now so thought I'd better do something about it before it got out of hand. Ollie is also on it too to help me out and to loose some of the weight he has put on as well.

So it's going ok so far. I'm trying out the core plan. (No count to me!) Seems to be alright. I'm missing my bread though.

Finally some scrapping!

I've completed the second page of my wedding album!

I thought that while I was off sick but feeling a bit less sorry for myself I would do some scrapping. I'm a bit rusty so this is just a lift from a DC class, but it's good to get back into the swing of things.

The paper is Dream Sweet - Romantique Whimsical by Amy Teets.

I hand cut the title - it's Angelina.

Norovirus

Yes it's struck! I was sent home on Wednesday as I was being sick and I'm still off today.

It's the worse possible week for me to be off work. We are so busy I feel really guilty. And I was supposed to be working tomorrow as well so we could get our reports to the US in time. Still I think my boss has been taken over by a pod person as he is being really sympathetic. Most unusual!

I'm feeling much better today, I just feel hugely drained. Like I've been involved in a 24 hour endurance marathon of Wii boxing! Everything aches.

Of course we didn't get a new sofa until yesterday so I did have to spend a day and a half laying under a duvet on the rug in the front room. Ollie put the sofa together last night when he got home. I've never seen a flat pack sofa before but it's certainly a better way of doing things. You basically get a wooden frame covered in squishy stuff but you have to screw the back to the bottom, then put the arms and the legs on.

It needs breaking in a bit to make it more squishy but it's lovely and soft. We're also getting red velvet cushions which will match the curtains when Sainsbury's decide to get some in stock!

Brian seems to like it anyway!

Nothing to sit on!

I thought the Golden Compass was ok. (I haven't read the book yet) Ollie thought it was rubbish (he has read the book). This seems to be a common theme.

Our new sofa is being delivered on Thursday so we put the old one on ebay in the hope that we would make a few pounds and get rid of it in the process. Well we got £125 for it which was more than I thought. And they came to collect it last night! So we are sofa-less for 3 days!

Oh well it will be worth it when the new one arrives.

Not much else has been happening really. It's Nanna's birthday today so if I get out of this mad house that I call work then we may go down for a visit.

The End of Christmas

The Christmas decorations came down today.

I watched Ethan this morning while Ollie was out with Alan and we put all the Christmas decorations back in the box. He's such a good little boy bless him. I've never seen anyone have so much fun with a string of gold beads!

I didn't have any trouble from him all morning, he put things in the boxes and didn't take too many things out! Plus he helped me hoover up afterwards. We did watch 2 hours of Spongebob while we were doing it which I'm sure is enough to drive anyone mad but it was the only half decent thing I could find on any of the children's TV channels on a Saturday morning. Even winnie the pooh has gone 3d and Christopher Robin is now a girl!!!!!

This afternoon we put the first coat of coloured paint on the stairs with the aim of doing the second coat tomorrow.

We are off to the cinema later to see the Golden Compass so we'll see if it's any good.

Happy New Years!

New Years was spent at Helen’s. Ethan got a drum kit for Christmas, he is so cute. He was much better than he has been (he had really bad ‘flu) but had decided New Years Eve that he wasn’t going to eat again all day. We played a game of Cranium and the girls only narrowly avoided victory because we couldn’t answer the factual questions! Then it was bowling on the Wii and Singstar on the PS2. We left just after midnight as I had yet another headache.

Other than that we have spent the New Year break looking for a new sofa and we finally decided and ordered one from Ikea which is being delivered next Thursday. So we spent the rest of the weekend trying to find some cushions to match without real success. But we did find a new toaster that will match our kettle from Sainsbury’s although it then took 35 minutes to get out of the car park.

We did also manage to get the towel rack up in the bathroom for my towels so they don't have to live in the dining room and the white base coat done up the stairs ready for me to paint it this weekend.

Boxing day

Boxing day we had a bit of a lay in (8 o’clock!) and played Xbox for a bit before heading over to Nan’s, again via Gemma’s to collect our un-drunk wine and Ollie’s Grandma and Grandpa’s to give them a framed wedding photo that we had forgotten the day before. After another huge Christmas dinner we played a stupidly hard game of Trivial Pursuit but Ollie was feeling very sick so I had to take him home abut 4. He didn’t really feel better until he woke up to go to work the next day!

It's Christmas!!!!!

A distinct lack of blog updating has been happening over Christmas – oops!

Christmas was super busy. Ollie worked from the Wednesday through to Christmas Eve so I was stuck at home on my own for 3 days. I did manage to get the cheesecake made for Christmas day after a panic as the batteries in the scales had run out!

Christmas day was an early start at 5 to 6. Ollie and I opened our presents before getting ready and heading over to Laura and Wayne’s. We did have a detour via Gemma’s to drop off the cheesecakes which had almost ended up in my lap on numerous occasions during the journey! We called in to make sure mum and dad were ready but made the mistake of not geeing up Nan and Grandad who arrived at Laura’s almost an hour after we did!

We opened all our presents, I got loads of stuff that I wanted. Then it was off to Ollie’s Grandma and Grandpa’s for another cuppa and to say Merry Christmas before heading back to Gemma’s. More present opening, and peeling about 3 million sprouts.

Dinner was lovely and we all ate far too much. Ollie was feeling tired so I was allowed to drink and he was designated driver. Then at 5 o’clock we headed off to feed mum’s cat and then on to Carole’s (Gemma’s mum-in-law).

There the kids opened about 50 million presents each and Jenny and I spent ages playing with the Fifi garden and putting all the stickers on. It was loads of fun! Then I spent ages with Zoe playing with the fuzzy felt.

We left at about half 8 as I had a headache and Ollie was still very tired. So it was back home to play on the Xbox 360 for a bit and then bed time.