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http://elliestreasures.blogspot.com/

On my 312th blog entry, I wish you all ...

From tonight, I'll be starting a fresh new blog under the name of Ellie's Treasures. I hope you'll be able to join me over there to continue to read about our family life, home education and my hopeful new craft business of the same name.

Have a very happy and healthy 2009.

http://elliestreasures.blogspot.com

My new blog is coming together ...

and I'm hoping to get it up and running from New Year's Eve! It's called Ellie's Treasures and you may reach it through this link for a preview peak!

More Poppy and Meg piccies

Meg is the lighter colour one, with Poppy behind.


The pair have quite different personalities. Meg is very inquisitive and roams around checking everything out. She's also very clean - stopping for a wash on a regular basis. This pic is of Poppy who always hides inside Katie's clothes, around her neck or in her hair! She's has a slightly smaller frame than Meg and is equally as cute.


Meg, nose to nose with Pepper who would just love to get his paws (and jaws) on her and Poppy! Allie didn't even want to say hello to them - he just didn't care at all!

A merry Christmas day

Had a good time. We managed to put off the big "pressie opening" first thing until after our cooked breakfast. Pressie opening started around 9.30 a.m. - I don't think Ben could wait any longer (he was climbing the walls)!

From the lovely happy smiles and surprised expressions, I think Katie and Ben (and hubby too)were very pleased with their goodies. Katie made an adorable felt snowman for Ben and Ben made a variety of paintbrushes using twigs and things from the garden (feathers, straw, etc., etc.) for Katie. I got a fabulously cosy fleece/hand knitted coat/cardi - very hippyish and very me so I'm very pleased (OK so I chose it, but I did put it away for P to wrap for me so it was still a Christmas day surprise).

This squidgy "stress" ball is hard to put down - changes colour as you squeeze it through all the holes.

Katie's main present from us was a couple of rats which she'd been after since the summer. We'd found the cage on Freecycle and then sanded it all down and carefully re-sprayed it ready for Christmas. With a bundle of toys/houses and other such things all placed inside the cage Christmas Eve morning, we headed out to choose a couple of rats. Pets at Home only had one male, one female and three very young Dumbo rats available which was a bit disappointing. She didn't want to split the Dumbo rats and couldn't buy just one of the others (they only house them in pairs so what happens to the odd ones left over?). Luckily there were a couple of female year old rats up for adoption the exact colourings that Katie had hoped for, so we bought them. She (well us all) are over-the-moon - they are so adorable. They had been named Poppy and Meg by the lady in the shop and I think Katie will keep those names, they seem to suit them. Poppy is very forthcoming and was happy to be picked up after her 24 hour settling in time. Meg was much quieter (and abit nippy too), but this afternoon she let Katie, Ben and my sister (who was visiting) have a hold and a play, so hopefully her shyness has gone for good.

Poppy

Yesterday lunchtime we went for a super Christmas meal at my s-i-l and b-i-l with b-i-l doing a professional job of the cooking. We had the full works. Huge slices of turkey, mash and roast potatoes, veggies, roasted carrots and parsnips, pureed parsnips (which were delicious), brussels, leeks in cream, stuffing, gravy and cranberry and port sauce on the side. A very moorish Christmas pud for dessert (not usually a lover but this was by far the best I'd every had) with rum sauce. Champagne and wine (although in tiny quantities for me as I'd picked the short straw (for once) when it came to driving home). Big pat on the back for J - THE Christmas Day cook who used parsnips and leeks from his own garden - you can do it again next year!!

P enjoyed his freedom to drink, but didn't enjoy me having a giggle at him. He is so different when he's had a few. He'll join in a conversation and then complete forget what he, and other, had said just a few moments before, or he'll misunderstand something and go off at a tangent. Katie and I stuffed his boots with Christmas cracker hats and he didn't even notice how uncomfortable they were! Needless to say he slept well - and snored for England!

We all had a lovely time. I got these very pretty mini fairies from P's parents. I'd first seen them on this website about 2 or 3 years ago but each Christmas I'd leave it too late for buy one. Now I've decided I'll add to my small collection every year. The photos are dark and so don't show up the lovely colours (but you can see their beauty on the website, although I think Orla is no more!), but they are truly lovely collectors pieces.

"Baird" - Autumn Fairy


"Mistle" - Winter Berry Fairy


"Orla" - Jewel Fairy

My sister and her family visited today for a large buffet lunch (so large we couldn't even finish off the food at supper time). Lovely to see them all. Katie enjoyed showing off her rats, and Ben loved have a long play with his two young cousins.

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day.

From us all to you all ..

A VERY MERRY

FESTIVE SEASON

A wonder through Winter Wonderland

on Christmas Eve Eve (as my sis and I used to call it).

The photos don't do it justice. The trees, flower beds, statues and pathways were amass with white lights and the fountains were multicoloured. They were so white and bright we all felt very chilly by the time we came out! It was quite magical, and a lovely start to the Christmas festivities.

Sandringham

Spent some time at Sandringham park today. Tried to get a peak at the house to see if the flag was flying, but the walls and trees were in the way. We were told that the Queen and Prince P. were in deed at home and had greeted the public that very morning (probably on their way to church). Felt kind of strange being just a stone's throw from them!

Katie and I had a horse and carriage ride with Katie sitting next to the driver for a chat about horses and horse driving etc. He wouldn't let her have a go at driving but at least she could sit with him and get an idea of how it all happens.

Picked up some lovely meats, cheeses and olives from the farmers' market there, then had a nice stroll in the woods with Ben and Katie having a scramble over various log piles etc. A lovely day out in all.

Acts of kindness

I was reading a post about an act of kindess on Harmony Art's blog recently and thought how lovely some people can be to do a random kind thing like hand over a free cup of coffee from one of these rather posh outlets. Anyway, yesterday we experienced a random act of kindess too. It seems at the moment one thing is getting broken after another. The flush mechanism on our toilet decided to bust a couple of evenings ago. P and I poked around, proded and scratched out heads, we couldn't work out what bit had disappeared (and where to) to stop the thing from actually flushing.

We headed off to a DIY store yesterday in order to try and find a similar flushing do-dah which P wasn't too confident about fitting. By chance we spotted a similar flush system on one of their toilet set ups and we had a bit of a peak inside the cistern! We quickly saw that the piece missing is a 1cm grey square that must have pinged off and fallen down the flush tube into the toilet. Typical! We were going to have to fork out £15 for a whole new do-dah just to replace this 1cm bit. I decided to mention our predicatment to the sales guy who promptly said he'd see if there were any spare 1cm grey bits that we could have (a kind act in itself). After much searching he couldn't find one, but did find a whole replacement cistern (which he said was £18), and told us he'd open it up and take the part out for us, letting us walk away with our much needed 1cm do-dah free of charge. There are lots of thoughtful people out there - he was one of them.

Enjoy! A bit rude, but very funny!