Spring Catch-Up Part 2!

So apart from spraying bathroom tiles, the beginning of April also bought my attempt to cook sweet potato fries for the first time! It was quite a time consuming process as you have to chop them and then leave them to soak in water, before cooking them for a good hour so I won't be doing it every day! A few could have done with being a bit crispier here and there but they didn't turn out bad considering it was my first attempt were still very yummy as you can see below!

I also began to learn how to Hula-Hoop in April thanks to a friend who is currently undertaking a Hula Hooping course and learning how to do tricks etc. I however have decided to do it more from a fitness point of view in order to help strengthen my back and core muscles, as I have had a problem with a couple of my discs for years now which I have to have adjusted and kept in place on a monthly basis by a Chiropractor. I have to say that I was beyond useless when I started and couldn't keep that hoop up at all, but now with a bit of practice I have managed to do over 600 spins! I have been doing it on a daily basis and am trying to do at least 200 each way, with some days taking more practice than others! Below you can see my sparkly hoop!

It was also around this time that I found a curious critter on the kitchen wall that I thought I would share with you, as you can see below it is a Lady bird with no spots!

I can't say that I have ever seen one before, but after a bit of Googling I found out that they are apparently pretty common. I wonder if you have ever seen one?

By this point mid April had come around and with it bought a friend's 18th birthday and a Baby Shower which we had a fab time at! We played games including; "Where's My Dummy" which was similar to "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" accept you had to try and aim to get the dummy in the baby's mouth, "Guess How Many Dummy's Are In the Bottle", "How Big Is the Bump", and we also had a quiz to do on nursery rhymes as well as making predictions as to when the baby would be born and how much it would weigh etc. We also watched her open her many presents, and there were so many! I am pretty sure that this baby now has more clothes than it could ever wear, including the gorgeous Joules baby grow and star musie that we got him as you can see below.

After this weekend came my birthday week, which I decided to take off from work in order to relax and get some jobs done. It did however not turn out this way and was instead extremely stressful, so I found myself needing a holiday from my holiday by the end of it! This was due to the fact that being that I had some time off  I thought that it would give me a good opportunity to move onto tiling the bathroom. Two words never again!

Having never tiled before I started on the Monday thinking that it may take me until maybe the Wends to complete, and being in the zone that I was on the first day I ended up working through from 10am in the morning until 4:30am on Tuesday morning. Yes I am mad and there was a lot of Red Bull  involved, but I figured that the more that I did the quicker I would get it done so that I could do the other jobs that I needed to catch-up with on my week off. However it did not end up this way I did it all day every day, day after day. On Weds I came to grouting the tiles and even though I had used the right grout I found that even though the glass tiles were fine, it reacted with some of the untreated stone tiles for some reason making them bleed into the grouting and making it look a rusty colour around them. The tiles weren't meant to be treated before they were grouted so I have no idea why it did it, but the only solution was to stop wiping the grout from the tiles whilst wet as this was making it worse and to wait to get it off when dry by sanding which made it an even bigger job. By the end of Thursday and after a day and a half of sanding I finally cracked and my hubby came home to find me in a sobbing mess!

At this point I was knackered, aching, had lost skin off of my fingers where I had been sanding so much, had no nails left and was generally frustrated that there was still no end in sight and that I hadn't got the chance to do anything else with my week off, or enjoy the lovely weather that we had had that week. So in a bid to console me my hubby presented me with an early birthday present which consisted of the gorgeous bunny necklace that you can see below. I loved it so much and was even more impressed that the hubby had gone to the effort to choose and get it for me, as he doesn't tend to do things like that very often.

My mood was also eased a little more by my early birthday present to myself turning up, which consisted of some lovely Joules wellies that you can see below. I fell in love with them as soon as I saw them about a year ago but didn't really need them at the time so I left it, but when I came to buy them they typically didn't do the style anymore despite having done them or something similar for years! Que plenty of internet searching and the only place I could find them was in America! But luckily being that they had been reduced over there I managed to get them sent over and even with the fees and import tax paid no more that I would have done for then here. It only took a couple of week for them to arrive and I am over the moon with them! They are so very me and will be replacing my last Joules ones ready for Download Festival next month, as after four years my last ones have had it!

 

By the Friday of my week off I decided that I needed a day off from the tiling as it wasn't going to get finished that week anyway and was going to be busy over the weekend with my birthday, so I just spent the day chilling and trying to get my sanity back!

St. Georges Day was on the Sat and with it came my 28th birthday! I had a well needed chilled out one on the day with a lovely family lunch before heading out with the girls in the evening to let my hair down watching a rock band, having a few drinks and then dancing the night away! It was a lovely day and I was thoroughly spoilt! Below can see some of the lovely gifts and cards that I received many of which were naturally bunnified!

After having a chilled out one on Sunday where I was recovering from the night before came Monday and I was back to work again. I spent my days off that week resuming and finally finishing the tile sanding, then all that was left to be done at this point was for me to add the corner tiles. It was a bit of a slog getting back into it again but it was also good to know that I was so close to finishing.

On the Sat of that week both the hubby and I were bought down to earth with a bump after receiving the devastating news that a friend from my hubby's friendship group had sadly passed away after tragically being hit by a car on the afternoon before at the age of only 30. It didn't help that I found out at work on my lunch break so it was quite a shock, and a shock that we are still feeling now. Unfortunately as of yet there don't seem to be any answers as to how it happened but I hope that for his family's sake that we get some answers soon. He was such a lovely outgoing bubbly guy that had been through a lot in the last year but still had a wicked sense of humour regardless. I still can't quite get my head around the fact that we are never going to see him again, and will always remember his infectious laugh and smile. On that sat night we and others from his friendship group went out for drinks to reflect on the events and remember him, as we knew that that is how he would want us to do. Once again makes you realise how precious life, friends, and family are.

After the events of the day before it was then lovely to treasure a day around family on the following day as my Godmother and her family were over from Australia for the first time in three years, and some family friends also travelled down from Norfolk to see them. We all went out and had a lovely meal and catch-up and got to see just how much their boys had grown up. Luckily it was a lovely sunny day even though it was pretty chilly, but it was better than the weather that they arrived to a couple of weeks prior which consisted of more winter like temperatures mixed with April showers, hail and a brief snow shower at the end of April! It was sad to see them go again but hopefully it won't be as long until we see them again.

This almost brings you up to date with all the goings on around here now, with the exception of last weekend which was another very busy one! On the Sat I had a rare day off of work to go bridesmaid shopping for my best friends up and coming October wedding. It was a gorgeous day that finally felt more like the spring and even summer like temperatures that we should be having! We spent the day traipsing streets and shops of Guildford looking for suitable dresses in the style, four shades, and budget that we were after. However this proved to be much more difficult that we had thought, especially since she wanted one of the dresses to be burgundy as it is not really the time of year for finding that colour. Unfortunately despite out extensive search we didn't come away with anything on the day but we did have a lovely girly day out together. We have however sorted the dresses out since, as she has decided to go for a style of dress that we all loved on the day but that only came in a nude pink/mink colour. So we are all now going to be wearing the same style and colour.

After spending the day shopping I then had to rush to get back in time to go straight out to a family meal for my sisters birthday, which was then followed by some yummy summery cocktails in a local bar.

Sunday then saw my hubby and myself being up bright and early to go to Croydon for a meet up with his family that I haven't seen since before Christmas last year, and I also finally got to meet our now seven week old Niece for the first time! She is just gorgeous and is thriving despite her relatively low birth weight from being a few weeks early. She is in fact now turning into a lovely chubby little baby and has nearly doubled her birth weight already! It was such a gorgeous day that we spent most of the day out in the garden having a BBQ, on what turned out to be now the hottest day of the year so far! I also got to meet the other new additions to the family that day being a couple of puppies named Ralph and Rusty, one of which belonged to my hubby's brother and the other to his sister. They were just gorgeous and loved playing in the garden with each other and the kids. Needless to say that as lovely as it was both the hubby and I were knackered by the time that we got home after our action packed weekend.

This week has mainly been filled by work plus I finally managed to cut and file the corner tiles into their required shape before fitting them onto the wall, meaning that I have now finally officially finished the tiling! Yay! It was never going to be a professional job, and there are a few wonky bits here and there but it certainly looks much better than it did! But one thing is for certain I will not be tiling anything again probably ever! It was by far the most time consuming, draining and messiest DIY project I have ever undertaken. At more than one point my bathroom resembled that of an icing sugar explosion having taken place, and the dust from the sanding went everywhere! I have hoovered and hoovered and I am still finding it about! The amount of blood, sweat, tears that went into it was also ridiculous. I found numerous muscles that I never knew that I had, wore the skin off of my fingers, ended up with many bruises on my hands and broken nails

after all of the sanding, plus I managed to trip over a mechanical pencil and had its lead impale the base of my big toe! So all in all it was the DIY project that nearly broke me! I do still have the painting and glossing to do, but that can wait for now as I am on decorating strike and am just glad that the majority of this last big decorating project is over! Below you can see the results and injuries that I acquired!

Also this week the friend who's baby shower I mentioned at the beginning of this post gave birth to a beautiful 7Ib 12oz baby boy named Tobias on Friday, after a long 32 hour labour! Mum and baby are thankfully doing well even though they are still in hospital at the moment. He looks just like his Daddy and I can't wait to meet him! 

Thanks for bearing with me and my ramblings in another long post! I hope that you have all had a lovely week and weekend! The weather had been gorgeous here again today despite a cooler blip in the week, but the hubby and I have been taking it easy today as this is the first Sunday that we have had free in a long time! x

Spring Catch Up Part 1!

Hello everyone! So much has happened in the last month that I barely know where to start! So much in fact that I think that I am going to have to put it across two blog posts, otherwise you may get bored to death with how long one would be! Especially since my last blog post was at the end of March, so I have a fair bit of catching up to do with you all!

Back to the end of March came an early Easter and the Bank Holiday weekend, for which I managed to get two of the four days off of work. The first of which was Good Friday and what a glorious day that was!

Every year over the Easter weekend we have an annual Italian Festival within our town which consists of an Italian Market, a Mini rally, a Ferrari parade and display of Superbikes. It's always quite a spectacle and seems to draw more and more people in from the local area as each year passes. Unfortunately I don't usually get to see much of it as I am generally working, and I never get to see the Ferrari parade unless I get the chance to stick my head out of the back door at work to have a quick look, as it generally falls on a Saturday! This year however it fell on the Friday that I had off, so my hubby and I made our way into town on what turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far at that point. We had a few ciders, got to watch all of the parade, and had a good look around the market. It really was the most perfect of days and you can see just some of the amazing cars and bikes that we saw below.

             The blue Ferrari above was apparently the one used in the latest Bond movie

One of the older Ferraris and one of the street performers

The Ferrari above was the only one that was sectioned off and for good reason as it's worth 7 million pounds!

 

Good Friday was then followed by my next day off which was Easter Sunday! This was a lovely family day that was spent with my parents consisting of my mum cooking us a yummy roast before we then spent the afternoon playing Jenga, Ping-Pong, and a game of the Cornish edition of Monopoly! Which after over three hours of playing we all lost the will to live and never finished! Once again it was a lovely rare family day despite the fact that the weather was pretty awful.

I also got plenty of Easter treats too!

I was then working on Bank holiday Monday but this didn't exactly go to plan, as both I and my fellow colleagues ended up spending half of the day in Costa. This was due to the fact that we had quite a storm and very high winds on the night of Easter Sunday that caused the scaffolding of the shop next to us to become unstable, which meant that we couldn't open for a fare amount of the day as half of the high street was shut off. It was a bit unfortunate as the Italian Festival that had had so much planning go into it was still taking place on the day so it did put a bit of a dampener on it, but hey we got to have the morning off so it wasn't all bad!

On the way home from work that evening I also came across a rather large tree that had fallen in the storm just around the corner from us. You can see below just how big it was and how lucky it was that it fell away from the flats just by it! We haven't had a storm or winds like that for a long time and hopefully won't have any again anytime soon!

In the week that followed I started to move onto faze two of our bathroom makeover, which consisted of me conducting an experiment as to how to cover the delightful flowery tiles that we had dotted about in the bathroom.

At this point we had already decided to tile over the delightful avocado tiles below them, but I didn't really want to have to re-tile the whole bathroom as the nude tiles that surrounded the flowery ones were quite unoffensive and in pretty good nick. However I also wasn't keen on the idea of tile paint as I didn't want it to end up looking tacky or streaky, so I set about looking for an alternative and that alternative turned out to be spray paint! I did some research and thought about the look that we wanted to go for and found a product that sprays with a stone effect. It had mixed reviews and I had no idea if it would actually work for the purpose that I wanted to use it for, but I figured that I couldn't make the bathroom look much worse! I set about doing a few test tiles first and was pleasantly surprised with the result as you can see below!

            The left pic shows the practice tile before I sprayed it and right after                            

So the process that I used was to spray the tile with one coat of the spray, leave it to dry for about 6 hours and then paint it with three coats of clear outdoor waterproof varnish with about two hours or so drying time between each coat and voila!

So after the success of the test tile I set about masking off the tiles that I wanted to spray and got to work! I have to say that it was very time consuming process and took quite a few of my days off and evenings to complete, but I got there in the end and after sorting out the grouting to I am pretty pleased with the result as you can see below! Only time will tell how well it will wear but it seems to be pretty good so far!

                                    Before                                              After A Lot of Masking

                          After Spraying                                      After the Masking Came Off

At this point all that remained of project bathroom was to attempt the tiling, plus to paint and gloss the place. This however turned out to be a much bigger nightmare that I ever thought that it would be, which I will cover this in my next post! But for now I will leave you with a new framed Bobby Bunny commission for a 1st Birthday that I got a few weeks back!

I hope that I catch you all well and that you have a fab weekend! Also thank you for bearing with me and my rather long posts, as always it really does mean the world to me to have your support. x

A Catch-up, A Baby, and Spring is On It's Way!

I can't quite believe that it has been over a month since I last blogged, or that we are now coming towards the end of March! I have said it before but it really is crazy how time flies, so I have a bit of catching up to do with you all!

Firstly the end of Feb saw the start of me having a week and a half off of work, which was both relaxing and jam packed in parts. It started with me getting stuck into a number of overdue jobs that needed doing around the flat, the first being that of repairing the faulty valve in our toilet.

However after spending some time trying to locate the stock cock by checking under the sink, pulling out the washing machine, taking off the side of the bath and looking in every cupboard and space that we could think it might be, we typically ended up finding that it was in the cupboard where we originally thought it was, just it didn't look like a stop cock!

The next problem that we had was that the stop cock was seized, so I ended up taking a impromptu trip to Homebase to get some WD-40 to try and solve the problem. Unfortunately and annoyingly it didn't, however whilst over at Homebase I ended browsing about like you do and found a absolute bargain on some bathroom flooring which was reduced from £39.99 per pack down to £7:00 all because the packaging was damaged so it was definitely too good to miss, especially since our bathroom flooring along with the rest of the bathroom was another thing on our to-do list to rip out and re-do!

So this then led me to me going straight home and laying a new floor having never done anything of the sort before. After seven and a half hours, a lot of cutting and slotting together, and a very knackered me, we finally had our new flooring which actually turned out pretty well, but to be fair it couldn't have looked much worse that it did originally! It wasn't exactly what I was expecting to do that day, but hey it was another thing ticked off the list! I won't be doing it again anytime soon though as I found a million muscles that I never knew I had and ached for day after, so it was probably a good thing that I was off for the rest of that week! Below you can see pic of it before, during, and after!

The pic on the above left shows the flooring before. This picture doesn't really do justice as to how awful it really was, but there was badly laid lino that didn't fit the edges of the room, didn't stick properly, and was generally horrible and dirty. The pic on the above right shows the ancient lino tiles that I found after pulling up the top layer of lino, plus another layer that it had been stuck onto. 

Above left shows the flooring after the lino tiles had been pulled up, and the above right shows the final finished floor! I just have the rest of the bathroom to do now but it's a start! (Oh and the leaky toilet valve was sorted by my hubby's dad once he had un-seized the stop cock for us!)

So once I had finished and recovered from fitting the flooring I spend most of the rest of my week off getting stuck into sorting out more of my years of hoarding from the boxes in our spare room, which I am happy to say is looking more and more like a room now!

I did however manage to take some down time though, especially since the weather happened to be lovely and crisp but bright throughout most of the week. So on one of the days when I had to drop my hubby off on work duties and was at a bit of a loose end as I had to wait around for him to finish, I seized the opportunity to go down the road and visit a lovely little millpond that I had remembered visiting years ago when we were in the area with his and my parents planning our wedding. It was a good decision to make as it really was the most glorious day to be down there. There is also a lovely pub/restaurant that has a lovely patio area that faces the millpond, so I took the opportunity to sit outside with some sweet potato fries and take in the scenery. It was soo gorgeous there and being a cold weekday it was also lovely and quiet, so it definitely swept away a few cobwebs! Below you can see some of the pics that I took.

 The stunning views over the millpond from the pub/restaurant patio

 Another late afternoon view and my yummy sweet potato fries!

 The Canada Geese and rushes around the edges of the millpond

 The crisp skies contrasting against the winter trees an more of the pond and rushes

 A lone little flower among the hedgerows and some winter berries

 The late afternoon sun peeping through the trees and a Cormorant spreading its wings in the distance on the millpond.

 More of the Cormorant spreading it's wings whilst sitting on a buoy

      The evening sun approaching over the millpond

So all in all I had a pretty productive and relaxing week off that was finished with a trip to visit my Nan in Chichester with my mum and sister, where we had a girly day of retail therapy complete with a fry-up to keep us going!

The weekend after my week off fell on the Mother's Day weekend, so on Mothering Sunday my hubby went up to Croydon to visit his mum whilst I went home to visit mine. Both my sister and I treated my mum to a DVD, book, flowers, sweets and cooked her a chicken roast, which turned out pretty well considering that I have never cooked a proper roast and my sister hadn't for years. It was enjoyed by all and was a lovely rare family day. Below you can see our efforts!

So that pretty much brings you up to date with all of the goings on around here really as the past few weeks have just been filled with work and me sorting out, and reminiscing, over the many wallets worth of photos from over the years that needed sorting and putting in albums!

Most excitingly though my hubby and I became Auntie and Uncle to a beautiful little Niece last Thursday night! It was his middle brothers first baby and our first Niece which makes it all even more special! She was a week and a half early and weighed 6lb 9oz, but it was a smooth and relatively quick delivery so she came home on Sat morning and all is going well. The hubby went up to meet her on Sunday but unfortunately I couldn't make it, as I was at a meet up with my girly friends to discuss my best friends wedding arrangements. She looks gorgeous though and I can't wait to meet her! She looks so tiny and precious, and she has lots of dark hair!  

I hope that I find you all well and all geared up for the Easter Bank Holiday weekend ahead. Hopefully the weather will hold out for it as we have our annual Italian Festival taking place it town this weekend, and spring has definitely felt like it has been on its was over the last week or so, and especially today! It just needs to get a little warmer now and we will be there! But it is already getting me in the mood for summer festivals! x 

Valentine's Day and a Website Re-vamp!

I hope that you all had a fab Valentine's Day last weekend! Unfortunately I had to work all weekend which was a bit rubbish! But after returning from a meal to celebrate one of the hubby's friends birthdays on sat night, he surprised me with an early Valentines present of a dozen red roses! Cue a few tears from me partly because I am soppy but mainly due to the fact that it was totally unexpected, plus romantic gestures do not happen particularly often even on such days! I found it even more touching that not only had he made the effort, but that he said that he had to search high and low to find some that were not frost damaged after our recent cold snap!

Valentines was then properly celebrated by us after I returned from work on Sunday when we had our usual M&S meal deal, which seems to be becoming a bit of a tradition these days! This consisted of a starter of tai fishcakes cooked by myself with a lovely sauce, a main of rump steak coated in peppercorns and peppercorn sauce cooked by my hubby and served with rosemary potato's and mixed veg, then a dessert which consisted of a heart mousse which was half milk chocolate filled with salted caramel and dusted with glitter, and half white chocolate with a passion fruit and sponge filling. We also had a selection of heart chocolates on the side, and then finished it all off with a lovely bottle of white wine. Then my hubby also presented me with a lovely card and chocolate bunny, so all in all it was a fab evening and I was spoilt rotten!

Apart from celebrating Valentine's Day the last few weeks have mainly been quiet and just filled with work at my retail job, especially with this week being half-term. I did however get the chance to pop out on my lunch break to visit a new baby shop that has just opened within the town. It was full of so many gorgeous little outfits and items that I just had to buy a little something for our Niece that is due at the end of the month! I don't normally buy pressies before the baby's arrival, but on this occasion I just couldn't help myself! I bought a gorgeous little floral baby grow and some peter rabbit milestone cards, which were beautifully gift wrapped for me in a little box. To top it all off I also won a 20% discount on one of their scratch cards to celebrate the opening of the store, plus I just had to take one of the gorgeous bunny balloons that they were giving out despite fact that I am not a child! You can see the balloon and bag below sitting in our work staff room, along with the beautiful gift box.

In other news if you follow my Bobby Bunny & Friends Facebook page you may have seen that I have recently updated my website which had been a little neglected and needed a bit of tlc! The actual content and style hasn't changed if you are looking at it on a laptop, but I have now made it phone and tablet compatible which looks much slicker and is easier to navigate. It took me most of my day off to do last week, but I am pretty happy with the results.

I hope that I find you all well and that none of you were badly affected by storm Imogen that passed by particularly the south of the UK last weekend. We had some pretty high winds and torrential rain when it hit us, but luckily the worst of it hit at night and there wasn't anymore damage in the area other than the odd fallen tree and a slight bit of flooding on some of the local roads. Luckily the weather has generally cheered up on the whole this week, with some much colder and frosty but sunny days. The nights are also starting to noticeably draw out a little now and it's almost not dark when I leave work now!

I also hope that you have all had a fab week, and that you enjoy the coming weekend! I am very much looking forward to this weekend and next week, as I am off of work from now until a week Tuesday! So I am hoping to get loads of jobs done around the home and with my illustrating! Thanks as always for visiting. x    

New Bobby Bunny & Friends Product Launch Coming Soon!

Hello everyone! I just thought that I would pop by quickly let you know about an exciting new Bobby Bunny and Friends product that I am hoping to launch in my Etsy shop very soon! The new product is something that I have been planning on having in my shop for a while, but that I haven't got around to fully developing until now. The product in question is going to be a framed print which can be used as "nursery art" with the baby's name and meaning on it. I finally got around to putting it together after my sister asked me if I could make something for a friends little girls first birthday, and below you can see the result:

I had to play around with the composition a little and decide on fonts, image placement, and where I was going to add the buttons in order to keep the design consistent with my cards but I got there in the end. Originally I wasn't intending on having glitter, or the name meaning on the print, but when I found out that the little girl's name Esme meant "loved," "to love," or "beloved," I just had to add it. It seemed so apt as this little girl is particularly special having been born at only 26 and a half weeks after her mum developed pre-eclampsia. Things were touch and go to begin with especially with mum, but after nearly three months in hospital Esme came home a couple of weeks before her original due date and has thrived ever since. She is now a gorgeous bubbly little girl who is already up, cruising, and hitting all of her developmental goals, so she needed an extra special first birthday present to help celebrate!

To start with I will just offer this image on my Etsy shop with personalisation, which is already available on there in card form. But in time I hope to be able to add more images and new ones to the range, as well as offering different size options etc for the prints and different personalisation i.e. birth date etc. I may also possibly tweak the frame before I put it on my shop and still need to work out pricing etc, but I am hoping that it won't be too long until it is available.

   

In other news I had a rare Saturday off last weekend and got to go wedding dress shopping with my best friend, and the second of her two Maids' Of Honour (me being the other.) We went to a lovely little wedding dress shop in Arundel that she had already visited with her mum, in order to help her decided on one of three dresses that she had seen. We ruled out one quite quickly, but really struggled between the other two! They both looked gorgeous, but she so slim and dainty that she would look amazing in anything so it was so hard to decided! We also all had a few tears when we saw her in one of the dresses which I wasn't expecting! But we got there in the end and left with one wedding dress ordered, before going and having a hot drink and cake! It was such a lovely day not just because of the dresses, but also because we don't all get to catch up much or have lunch together that often. Plus my fellow Maid of Honour doesn't get much baby free time these days with having a gorgeous ten month old little boy.

Moving forward to toady, well it has been a pretty lazy one! It is very rare that I do nothing on a day off, but after a long week at work today was one of those days! It started off quite productive with me doing my workout DVD, but with the mounting housework from the week not being particularly enticing I decided to hibernate and catch-up on TV instead. Especially since the weather was so rubbish, having returned to being wet and windy after our brief snap of cold days sunny day's, plus the smallest amount of snow. Below you can see me snuggled up with some warning soup! 

 

I did however eventually come to life doing my chores and making dinner at a about 5:30ish! So I wasn't totally lazy in the end!

 

I hope that you are all well and that you have settled into the New Year. I can't believe that we are at the end of Jan already! Have a good weekend! x

My Mill & Moll! x

Today marks four years since I lost the second of my two bunnies Milly at the grand old age of eleven and a half, having lost her sister my Molly just three months previous. Even after all this time I sill miss them so much, and not a day goes by where I don't think about them. But rather than dwell on the bad I have instead finally got around to putting together some of my favourite clips and pics of them, and have made them into a little video which I hope reflects the personalities of my cheeky little monkeys! I hope that you enjoy! x

(Ps. Before you watch it you may need to hover over the video image once it has loaded and press the un-mute button, as it seems to mute the music automatically for some reason.)

Christmas Catch-up, a New Year, and New Horizons!

Hello everyone! Here we are for my first post of 2016 how crazy is that! I hope that you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and I wish you all health and happiness for the year to come! I can't quite believe that it has all gone by quite so quickly, but I did have a lovely time!

The run up to Christmas was rather busy for us as always with work and social events. Christmas Eve Eve saw us going to the hubby's sisters for our annual Secret Santa giving, and meal which we do between us and his siblings. I made sure that I was suitably in the festive mood for this by wearing my Mrs Santa outfit which I had worn to work that day, to accompany the many festive jumpers and reindeer antlers that I had been wearing over the past weeks.

Christmas Eve I actually managed to get off work for only the 2nd time in the last eleven years so I was determined to make the most of it, especially since the last one I had off a few years back was predominately spent in traffic trying to get the hubby to work and back due to flooding. So this year I had a lazy morning as my hubby was at work, and then spent a fair proportion of the day wrapping presents whilst listening to Christmas music. I then went off to the annual Christingle Service our local church with my mum and nan, which we have attend nearly every year since I was a child. There is nothing quite like a Christingle service and a bit of carol singing to get you into the Christmas spirit, and it was an especially good service this year too.

We then came home my sister and I helped mum to lay the table ready for Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve night I stayed at my parents whilst my hubby stayed up at his mum's in Croydon. We do love spending Christmas together but often alternate it between him coming to my parents and him going to his mum's, as I have never had a Christmas away from home and have quite a small family in comparison to him. One day I will go with him to his mums but it works for us for now and everyone understands why we do it, so it will remain that way until then.

Before he left for work that morning he surprised me with this lovely white chocolate Snowman and Snowdog, as he knows that I love the animation and white chocolate! We don't normaly give each other presents unless there is something that we really want so it was a lovely thought, and in return I got him a calendar of his favourite football team.
 

Christmas Day came and was a lovely chilled family day! First thing my sister and I opened all of the lovely prezzies in our stockings, (yes we may be grown up but mum still makes us stockings and we love it!) before my friend and parents neighbour popped around with her gorgeous five year twin boys so that I could give them their presents. We then opened more presents from the family, the best part of which was seeing mum open her special present from our dad. He hadn't told anyone including her what it was but it turned out that he had gone and got their wedding video converted to DVD in secret so that they would be able to watch it once again, being that they have been married for 30 years this year! He wasn't sure whether she would like it or not but it is safe to say that he did well, and there were lots of happy tears!

I also received lots of lovely presents and was thoroughly spoilt! Many of which were bunny related of course as you can see below!

After opening all of our presents we then sat down to a traditional turkey Christmas dinner with all of the trimmings, which was cooked by my mum and was as delicious as always! Fun and games where then had around the dinner table before we settled down for the evening shutting out the wet weather and watching "Call The Midwife," as well as the last ever "Downton Abbey."

On Boxing Day the family and I briefly caught up with my Aunty, Uncle, and cousins at my parents local, before I then went off to be reunited with my hubby at his dads which is only a short drive away from my parents. We had another family day there with the hubby's siblings, our nephews, niece, and extended family. There were 21 of us there altogether so it was pretty hectic, but we all had a fab time and the kids loved playing the "Pie Face" game. Which is basically a game with a dice and turner that has a a hand, that may or may not hit you in the face with whipped cream depending on how many times you have to turn the dial on your go! Cue lots of laughter from everyone each time someone got "pie faced!"

Luckily the day after Boxing Day I had the day off, so was able to chill briefly at home with the hubby after all of the excitement! I think that this year has to be the longest Christmas break I have ever had from my retail job, a whole four days! I always wish that I had a desk job of some sort at this time of year as the hubby and most others get a good two week break which I would so love to have, but I was grateful for my four days nevertheless!

New Year's Eve was then welcomed in by the hubby and I first attending our Sister in Laws 80's themed 30th birthday, for which I was dressed in a full on Madonna fide outfit! Complete with lace leggings, black tutu, a black top, sparkly jacket with leopard print trim, and crimped hair with a black velvet hair bow! Needless to say I looked the part along with many others in their outfits, including the birthday girl who was dressed up as She Ra, her hubby as Tom Cruise in Top Gun, a Baywatch babe, two Smurfs, Freddie Mercury and Super girl to name but a few! I then spent the second half of the evening at another house party hosted by my best friend. A fab time was had a both but I was definitely feeling a little fragile to say the least on New Year's Day along with many others I am sure!

So that's that! All of the festivities over just like that for another year!

Whilst I am here I just want to say a massive thank you to you all for continuing to follow my little blog for another year, especially when Bobby Bunny hasn't made much of an appearance for a while! I am hoping that this will change very soon though, with a lot more Bobby Bunny work and products appearing in the coming year! Your support really does mean the world to me so thank you again!

Right I am now I am off to write some Christmas thank you letters in these lovely bunny cards that I found!

Plus to very reluctantly take down the Christmas decorations! Here's to good things in 2016 though! x

It's Christmas!

I just wanted to pop by quickly to wish you all a very Happy Christmas! I hope that wherever you all are and whoever you are celebrating with that it is everything that you want it to be. x