Christmas Is Coming!

Another month has passed since I last blogged, and another busy month it has been!

Starting back at the end of November the hubby and I had a rare week off together, as we usually do at this time of year in order to celebrate our 4th Wedding Anniversary. During this time apart from spending the week together we don't usually do anything in order to celebrate but this year was different!

We have been saying ever since we got married that we need to go back to stay at our reception venue one day, but after spending the first three of our married years together saving for a deposit for our first home we haven't really been able to do so. But now that we have our home we decided that it was the time to go, and a lovely time we had too!

We arrived to chocolate coated strawberries, and a bottle of champagne that was kindly ordered to surprise us by my hubby's dad. I made use of the pool before we went down for a gorgeous three course dinner, which was followed by us getting to stay in the Honeymoon suite and having breakfast the next morning. It was a lovely treat for both of us especially since we don't usually do anything like that, having never been on honeymoon or on holiday together. It also bought back many happy memories of our day and just renewed my love of the venue that we fell for as soon as we saw it. Below you can see some images of our time there.
 

Following our anniversary the weather very suddenly began to get rather much chillier than it had been, bringing us some lovely cold and crisp days as well as our first frost! The morning that it arrived I was out early to visit my girly friends and it really was bitter compared to the weather as of late. But I have to say that it was a lovely morning to be out in the cold, as well as being my kind of weather! It also meant that I got to try out my gingerbread man bobble hat for the first time, that mum had bought me a few weeks before when we were out shopping with my Nan. Now I'm not really a hat person and don't generally suite hats! Originally I tried it on as a joke, but then as I started getting some nice comments from shoppers passing by about it I decided that I actually rather liked it! It's a little ridiculous as you can see below but hey who cares it's Christmas!

The first frost of the year on the fallen leaves and grass

 

As ridiculous is my Christmas hat may look it is however  not half as ridiculous as the Christmas jumper that I found whilst doing my annual Christmas garden center wreckie with my mum, sister, and hubby. Again it was tried on as a joke but they all decided that I needed to have it so my mum bought it for me, whilst my sister found an equally ridiculous one! Below see my elf jumper and hat.

 

Unfortunately the colder weather didn't last for more than a couple of days, and it has now been wet and windy here for the last couple of weeks. Thankfully though we have not experienced the awful flooding that has hit parts of northern England in the past week. If you are up there I do hope that neither you nor your families have been affected by it.

On another note the 26th November marked one year since we moved into our own home! I really can't quite believe how quickly that year has passed, or the fact that we are still decorating and un-packing boxes! It really is crazy how time flies! It seems like only yesterday that the dream that we had held for so long of owning our own home finally came true as we walked through our own front door for the first time. I don't think that I will ever forget that feeling or the stress, hassle, and endless issues that we had waiting for our mortgage and with solicitors and the HMRC. But despite it all I don't have one regret and it was all worth it in the end! The many troubles that we had to put up with at our old rented flat whilst we were saving are now far away, but I still often look around our new place and have to pinch myself sometimes to believe that we are here and how lucky we were to find it.

Talking of our new place we are very slowly getting there with doing it up and making it our own, and there have been a few changes this month that can be finally ticked off of our to-do list!

Firstly the replacement of our front room light, which has been hanging precariously from the ceiling since we moved in! It was however not replaced quite as we would of liked and sort of got taken out of our hands as to when we were going to do it, after the hubby walked into the front room one morning to see me doing my workout DVD and decided to take the mick by doing some star jumps and accidently knocked the light down from the ceiling in the process! Cue a little bit of panic from me as to what we were going to do as my hubby by stood there holding the light with the wires hanging from the ceiling!

I proceeded to turn off the electricity and the hubby then managed to unwire it and make it safe before calm was once again restored! Luckily we still had some up-lighters that we could use around the sides of the room until my dad was able to come around and fit a new light for us later in the week, otherwise we really would have been in trouble especially with the nights now drawing in so early now!

Our old light fitting and the new one, along with it's lovely lampshade that I have had squirreled away since well before we moved!

Secondly after the light drama I built and put up my first ever shelves in my slowly forming studio room!

I have to say that having never done it before I was quite impressed that they 1. Stayed on the wall and 2. That they were actually straight (even though they don't look in in the angle of the photo!) They are now housing my collection of cuddly bunnies that I have acquired over the years! Including the rather threadbare looking bunny un-orininally named "bunny" that you can see below in the middle of the bottom shelf, which was one of my first and favourite childhood cuddly toys. Maybe that is where my love for bunnies steams from!

 

Thirdly we had our new corner sofa arrive on my day off the other week which we were both very excited about. To be honest I didn't really want to get rid of our old sofa as we had only had it for four years, plus we had bought it with some wedding money. But unfortunately it hadn't worn very well and was a little small for us and our home now.

So after I struggled a little to get the old sofa out of our front room myself and into our spare room I eagerly awaited our new one, until it arrived! It went through the front door fine, but the delivery drivers couldn't get either half through the front room door! So I was left with a hallway that I couldn't get through, and a front door that I couldn't open!

Cue a slightly panicked phone call to my hubby as to what we were going to do if we couldn't get it into the front room! (I stupidly assumed that most doors were standard widths! So note to self measure the doors as well as the space the sofa is going into next time!)

But after two hours of struggling I finally managed to get the sofa in literally by the millimetre by taking off the cushions, legs, wheels, and the front room door! I'm still not exactly sure how I got it in, but one thing is for sure we or it are not moving anytime soon! It does however look and feel lovely as you can see below.

 

So after all of that I seem to be slowly becoming a bit of a DIY wiz these days! Having decorated the new place myself, plumbed in the washing machine, built numerous flat packed furniture, put up picture frames, re-sealed the bath, fitted shelves, and pretty much taken apart and put back together a sofa and a door!

To be honest it is probably a good thing as my hubby is more of a tech rather than a DIY wiz, and has no patience for it what so ever! I have always liked fixing things though and knowing how things work, which I think that I get from my dad as he is a mechanic and a bit of a perfectionist like myself! I also took Design Technology at GCSE, and attended a girl's construction day at school which I think also fuelled my interest.

So that brings us into December and my favourite time of the year with the run up to Christmas!

As usual mum bought me a lovey advent calendar, which once gain features my name and The Snowman and the Snowdog! (Because you can never be to old to have an advent calendar, or one with your name on it!) It also happens to have white chocolate in it (my absolute favourite chocolate) which is a first, so I am very much enjoying opening it each morning as you can see below!

  

We are also getting festive in the sense that our tree and decorations went up last week!  Which is one of my favorite things to do at Christmas, as going and choosing it is something that I always did with my dad when I was little.

The tree that I ended up getting this year is rather bigger than I was intending but I really loved the proportions of it, so risked it not fitting into the front room. It was however a risk that paid off as I only had to cut a little off of the top to make it fit, and I am so pleased with it! I spent hours decorating it whilst the hubby watched on telling me that he thought it was a spectators sport for him, to which I replied that most things within the home are a spectators sport to him!

I did have a minute where the lights decided not to work, and then were flashing even though they weren't meant to! So I decided to put on one set of white lights and one set of coloured lights in case one set died on me! So far so good though and they all seem to be working! You can see the result below in a little Gif type video that I was experimenting with.

Christmas Tree - Kizoa Online Movie Maker

I am also a little bit in love with my Christmas jumper garlands that you can see in the background of the video. They are a new addition for this year, and are made up of lots of little knitted jumpers!

  I do like a knitted jumper and am starting to get into Christmas jumper mode with some of my semi-festive bunny jumpers as you can see below.

I hope that you are all well and getting in the festive mood too! I can't believe that there are only eleven days to go until Christmas Day, as it seems to have crept up on us all of a sudden! I am feeling ready for it though! The shopping is done although not wrapped, we have had our work Christmas do, started watching Christmas movies, and had our annual family Christmas meal yesterday for which I wore my Christmas elf jumper! Hopefully I will get a chance to pop by again before the big day, but if not I wish you all a very Happy Christmas!  x