Tis the season...

Well, in this Christmas season there has been a lot going on! I have loved every minute of getting ready for our first Family Christmas, held in our home. Usually we travel to Wales to stay with My Dad, his wife Caroline and their son, my brother Tom. Tom is 5 years old, a year younger than my eldest daughter, so it works well. The children usually entertain themselves. Living on a large farm, with lots of space to run around is always an adventure for any child!
   However this year, we decided that as we have moved to a larger house ( which is fit to accomodate more than half a family!) we would celebrate in our own home.
 We have our good friends and their son sharing the day with us also. So I am looking forward to it.
 I have been decorating out home and crafting to make it homely and 'christmasy' for the kids to enjoy. We spent an evening, as a family getting the tree (James and Jessies job) putting it together ( Myself and Jessie) and finally decorating the tree (Jessie and Ellie)
 We have held a tradition, that Jessie is the one who places the star on top of the tree at the end of decorating it. However, Ellie is now also old enough to get involved, so we did a 'take 2' for Ellie also to have a turn. ;0)

I also got stuck into some crafting. I saved all my glass jars with lids, washed them and de-labeled them.

Some lovely fabric squares made jar covers, held on with elastic bands. I wanted to fill these jars with goodies, for friends and family.

                                          

                                      

I created some labels for the jars using christmas themed stamps.

                                          

Here are the empty jars, ready to be filled with sweets or beans etc.

                                          

Other jars were used to make candle lanters. Simple idea, creating a handle with string and decorating with decorative ribbon.

                                       

This is a finished lantern, complete with a christmas star!

We also baked some lovely mince pies, well shall I say Ellie-Faith baked!

Here she is mixing all the pastry.

Cutting out the star lids and circles for the base.

baking....

Mmmmm the finished pies!

The only problem was the time it took for the pies to cool!

I saw this wooden house advent calendar in tescos magazine and for £5 I thought it was an absolute bargain. However they did not stock them in my local store, so I asked a good friend to see if they had any in the larger tescos near her home. They did! I am really pleased, as I can re use this each year and the girls love it!

I have a few other blog posts I am thinking about writing, but just for now, I pray that you are enjoying the Christmas season. God bless!