Christmas

I hope everyone enjoyed a lovely Christmas Day.  As usual we all ate too much, watched tv, played games and had a great day.

I opened my secret santa soiree presents and I love them all and just want to say thanks to whoever my secret santa was.

I also received a great quilting book and a mug rug book in my presents which I am going to enjoy reading today and I'm taking Friday as my sewing day.  I have a nice break from work as I'm not back until New Years Eve.

Santa's Secret Soiree

I took part in Colorado Lady's SSS (Santa's Secret Soiree).

I sent my goodies away (I was a bit late due to everyone in the house being sick, it was the worst flu we've ever had).

A wonderful parcel arrived with some fab goodies (I know I'm not supposed to open them yet but I had a little sneak peak).  I don't know who my Santa is (they haven't put their name in) but I want to say thank you to them.

Above is a photo of the wonderful package.  I am going to open the goodies on Christmas Day and will put a photo up of what wonderful things I received.

We've have some terrible storms here over the last few days and our electricity has been off for a couple of days so I haven't been able to get onto the computer until now.  They're predicting more bad weather for the rest of the weekend and next week so Santa might get blown away with the strong winds.

Hoping you all have a wonderful weekend before the big day.

What have I been doing all this time?????

Time has slipped by so quickly.  I had great intentions of writing a post at least once a month and here I am 4 months later and nothing done.  Oh well, start off now.

Firstly we were on holidays on a wonderful cruise for two weeks.  Coming from Ireland we are not used to really warm weather but this year we had a really hot summer but it was nothing compared to the temperatures we had in Spain.  We ate plenty, drank some, were entertained nightly and visited some wonderful places.

 In Vigo

 Barcelona Football Club

 In Cadiz, you can see the ship in the background

In Valencia

It was a great holiday despite putting weight on but I suppose that's what a holiday is all about.

The reason we had such a big holiday is because my eldest daughter did her leaving cert this year so we all needed a good break after that.

Then we had to anxiously wait for the results which she didn't think were good enough for the science course she wanted but they were more than good and she was offered her science course in Dublin City University.  

We then had two debs dances, her own and then her friends. Here is a photo of her at her friends debs with two of her other friends.  I'll post a photo of her own one soon.

Then we had youngest daughter starting secondary school.  Here she is in her uniform on her first day.

Time has slipped by and I don't have much to show in the way of makes.  Our quilting group have been busy making a quilt for the RNLI to raffle.  It's a crazy patch quilt in all different blues.  

I've also joined four swaps for Christmas (I must be mad).  I've finished one and it is happily winging its way to ????? and here is a photo.  

We had to make a fabric basket except I made a big mistake on my first attempt and sewed it up the wrong way so it turned out as a flat box shape.

The other swaps are for a table runner and xmas decoration, a secret soiree swap and a handmade swap.  I better get my sewing machine into top gear to get them all finished on time.

I'll leave you with a photo of hubby and myself at Halloween.  We always dress up for the kids calling to the house, we enjoy it as much as they do.

I promise I will do another post shortly.

Best wishes