CHRISTMAS DAY IS ALMOST OVER

Christmas day in Sydney NSW. The day proved to be a lovely cool, overcast 27 degrees before a few brief showers about mid-afternoon.

The big Christmas Day cricket match! (all for fun of course)

Daughter in law talks to family in Texas USA



Daughter Kate with yummy turkey cooked in the bbq with a special cranberry marinade

SIL with the wonderful ham he cooked

Grandson E6 - Lego - just what I wanted!

Grandson L4 got a scooter and play costume

Grandsons - good mates!



Visitors for Christmas Day - pink and grey Galahs

Lovely memories of Christmas day 2009 together with family.

Blessings All!

CHRISTMAS IS HERE

The presents are wrapped, the beef is roasted and all that remains to do early tomorrow morning is prepare the vegetables for roasting. Then - the traditional family dinner that we've been waiting a whole year for will be enjoyed by us 10 at daughter and SIL's home. Here in Sydney our family take it turn about to host the Christmas day dinner. This spreads the load nicely and everyone brings a contribution toward the yummy dinner.

This time it will be ham, turkey (freshly bbq'd) beef, roast potatoes, pumpkin, sweet potatoes (kumera) carrots and peas with Christmas pudding, custard and cream (or ice cream) to follow.

Then the gifts under the tree will be opened by the two smallest members of the family who will no doubt have already received 'Santa's' contribution early in the morning.

Tonight I am planning to attend the local Anglican church for their Christmas Eve service. What a lovely way to get into the Christmas spirit - to worship the babe who was born to be King!

Have included a photo this time but not of Christmas origin! The finished 'Pioneer Quilt' all except the back where I plan to stitch and include the story of the family pioneers who emigrated from England in the 1850's. This quilt is to be a special gift for a precious granddaughter who has her 18th birthday next year. The appliqued blocks represent activities the great grandparents undertook on their arrival in New Zealand.

We are planning a few days in Auckland New Zealand soon after Christmas so I won't be posting until we're back home.

To those of my blogging friends who visit from time to time, I wish you a very safe, restful, blessed and holy Christmas, and all the blessings of the New Year.

Merry Christmas all!

WHERE ARE THEY?

I see such beautiful Christmas pictures and photos on many blogs at this time of the year but I wonder where they come from. I've looked around 'the web' and find either stuff that's not suitable or they have royalty or copyright attached. Can someone tell me please 'where are they'?

Meanwhile thought I'd give a gllimpse at the church banners I've been busy finishing during the past week. The first one has been 'hoisted' up and is now hanging in our church with the other two to get hung over the next two Sundays. Unfortunately the quality of the photos is not good - I had them pinned to a curtain to take the shots so the colour has been affected - but it will give a bit of an idea of what they look like.

I've been making 'patches' towards making a 'pioneer' quilt for about 3 years. It has been a slow process as I've really only been using bits and pieces from my fabric stash as well as using applique to make 'pictures' of aspects of our ancestors arrival from England in the mid 1850's to New Zealand. After finally being motivated to get it finished, I've now stitched it together with borders and yesterday spent almost the whole day machine quilting the various blocks. I've a few to go yet but am on the way to being able to finish it. When that's done I'll post a photo.

Today is Wednesday - my day for looking after E6 (before and after school) and L4 (all day) however as it's almost the end of our school year, E6's school has made arrangements for them to be transported to a local high school for a large EOY assembly. To have little 5 and 6 year olds sitting in a massive school hall for the morning seems a bit unreasonable to us so he will not be going. Therefore I will look after the two nippers at their house today instead of mine - so I'd better move myself and get over there so their mum can get herself off to work.

Must run - have a good day!

Blessings all!

PHOTOS FROM LAST FEW WEEKS

Been really busy making Church banners for Christmas so not much time to be blogging but will post a few photos that I've taken over the past few weeks.

My lovely Gardenia has been loaded with blooms this year

The butcher bird that kept swooping down on me a few weeks ago

When friends from the UK visited we took them to Manly on the harbour

Eight of the family went to see the musical "Wicked"

Grandson L4 surprised me when he came in dressed in a Batman costume

That's about all for this time. Have a good weekend.

Blessings!

CHIT CHAT

My weigh in showed I'd lost 3kg (about 6.6lb) in one week but I know that a lot of that loss was not so much body fat, but retained fluid. Last Monday's weigh in showed a gain of 600gram. Disappointing for me as I'd stuck closely to the diet however the wiring thingy test result showed I'd actually lost 1kg of body fat but was retaining more body fluid. I'm definitely seeing a difference in my clothing - particularly trousers and skirts are looser around the waist so I shouldn't be despondent I guess. One of the aims of this eating regime is to lose inches from the waist - the most dangerous place for women to store body fat. So I've kept strictly to what is allowed and hope that this week there'll be a loss showing on the scales.

We've just come through a 3 day heatwave - it was awful. Air conditioning in houses here has become more popular in recent years, especially being built in to new homes. Many however have none and I really feel so sorry for those who live in them in conditions such as we've just had. We do get it hot here in Sydney on occasions but not as hot, nor as early as November but this heatwave was a 'doosy'! The thermometer topped 40, 42 and 41 on the three days last weekend finally giving relief through Sunday night and dropping to a cool 20. Today was only 18C! Rather a contrast and no wonder so many people pick up colds and bugs in these conditions. DH did just that and spent an almost unheard of (for him) day at home from work today. A visit to the doctor confirmed a bacterial infection but medication should certainly bring that under control in a couple of days.

Spent today in a large room with 21 others 'learning' about customer service. I attended a seminar which was a compulsory activity for accreditation as a volunteer in our local Visitor Information Centre. In our council area we are very fortunate to have a number of historic houses and properties which have been preserved and some restored. VIC's are built on the same properties and as well as giving information about the area, tours of the houses can be conducted for groups as well as individuals. I love the history of these places and it seems to me a good idea to be able to combine these activities, with the centres manned by volunteers. The room in which the seminar was held was modern, huge and cold! We tried several times to have the manager raise the temperature somewhat as the majority of people were complaining of feeling uncomfortable however although I believe this was done, it didn't seem to make too much difference - I wonder how many of us will come down with colds as a result. At least the seminar is now 'out of the way'!

It's 3am as I write this - wasn't sleeping, so a hot herbal tea and a bit of chit chat might just be the thing to put me back to sleep again. Here's hoping !

Bless you!

SCRAPBOOK PAGES FINISHED

It's finished. The bling was easy peasy to put on. I had been warned that it was difficult and the best method to fix it in place was to pick it up off the backing with masking tape first then place it on the page. Nothing like that needed. It peeled off its backing sweet! I'm sorry the photo hasn't done it justice but at least it will give an idea of what it looks like. I'm pleased with it.

Last night went to a Thanksgiving Dinner at a friends home. We all contributed to the food - I had to make the pumpkin pies. Never attempted that before so followed the recipe to the T. All went well apart from the baking time. Recipe said 1 hour at 375 - eventually I pulled them out at 2 1/2 hours and they appeared set. (I was just hoping for the best, not knowing exactly what they should look like). Anyway they went down well with honey sweetened whipped cream, although I didn't get to eat any of the prepared dinner - I took my own salad greens and chicken meal.

I think I have worked out why the pies took so long to bake. The recipe called for cans of pumpkin (USA) However we can't buy that here but have heaps of fresh pumpkin in the shops to buy so prepared and cooked my own. I think the fresh pumpkin is much moister than the canned - therefore the mixture is much wetter as well - thus the longer time in baking. That's my theory anyway.

DH enjoyed it and other guests complimented me on the taste - said it had a kind of caramel flavour - so it must have been OK.

Appointment with the Naturopath tomorrow so will see how much weight I've lost in the week.

Blessings all!

CHIT CHAT

The bling has arrived for my scrapbook layout pages so when they are finished I'll post a photo to show you how it turned out.

Did I mention last time I'm consulting a Naturopath for weight reduction and digestive problems? I only started the new food intake regime on Monday and by Thursday I was almost ready to give it up but today I feel as though I might be able to keep it up. The first week apparently is the worst - but hopefully I'm climbing over the top of the 'carb barrier' (my words) and I can be happy I've lost 3kg. I'm sure that 3kg is mostly fluid however so it will take a little while I think to start actually losing body fat. There is a machine that measures the fat/muscle ratio of the body and I'm sure that will begin to show when it's happening!

Meantime the beans I planted a few weeks ago are going crazy. Far exceeding the 6ft height I expected and have now begun to wind their way into the olive tree nearby. It's giving me lots of beautiful beans though and I sliced and blanched another 600g this morning to freeze. Tomatoes are coming on with a couple almost ripe enough to pick. Have also been getting a few blueberries but interestingly, they don't seem to all ripen together. There are lots on the bush that are still green and each day there are perhaps half a dozen that are black enough to pick. I'm really on a learning curve with blueberries!

Enough for now.

Blessings all!