Wooden Advent Calendar

This year i bought a lovely wooden advent calendar from Next, with little drawers for each day of advent. Today (yes, im a day late) i filled each drawer with a slip of paper which has our activity for that day written on it. Ive planned our activities around things we have on already and busy days (like the days Caleb's in nursery) have less time consuming activities.
1. Hang up 'Cars' Advent Calendar

2. See the lights switch on in the village and Wooden Advent Calendar

3. Get the Christmas trees up and start decorating

4. Continue decorating the trees and the house

5. Write and post a letter to Santa

6. Message from Santa video

7. Make Christmas cards

8. Make paper chains to decorate bedrooms

9. Elf ourselves

10. Christmas meal at a restaurant

11. Go to a party and watch Elf with mummy and daddy

12. Make Christmas decorations

13. Watch Santa dvd

14. Make paper snowflakes for windows

15. Have a Christmas picnic

16. Christmas party and Santa visit at nursery

17.Make salt dough ornaments

18. Go to Christmas service at Church

19. Paint the salt dough ornaments

20. Ribbon and hang the salt dough ornaments

21. Make star shortbread

22. Go on wintery walk for pine cones and holly

23. Read a Christmas book

24. Make Gingerbread men and read the Christmas story from the bible

DeBloAdMo

You may have heard of NoBloPoMo? Well, last year, my friend Lori invented DeBloAdMo which stands for December Blog Advent Month. It's basically a Blog Advent Calendar. Copied from last years post..... "Post every day in the month of December until Christmas one special idea you can do as a family, a couple or a group of friends. Or if you're really clever, post a wee thought each day about Christmas or something."

I can pretty much guarantee i wont blog everyday in December. Ive only just managed to blog this now. However, we will do a special Christmassy activity each day. I have my list of activities ready and will post them tomorrow (maybe).

Today's activity was an easy one....hang up the chocolate advent calendar, explain the advent calendar i.e. *we only open one door a day* and start the Christmas countdown yay!

I actually want to stitch something

Well lo and behold im actually having an urge to stitch again! Its been a looong time, maybe 7 months or so. I need to find something to stitch for Aaron. Any suggestions? This is what i stitched for Caleb here. I stitched it again for my nephew but i haven't finished it yet, hopefully by his first birthday in January! So im looking for a birth sampler for Aaron...just cross stitch, no fancy stitching. Suggestions welcome! I want it to incorporate his name, birth weight and date of birth.

My boy is doing great. Breastfeeding well and sleeping well. Im a happy mummy! Im laughing reading back on some of my old posts when Caleb was born in 2009. We found it so hard and were so exhausted. How did 2 adults not cope with one baby? LOL. We were so unsure of everything with Caleb, kept trying to put him in his crib when he looked asleep (then he always woke up), sat up all night trying to feed him, made sure his nappy was changed before every feed, spent hours researching the pros and cons of dummy use, agonised over giving him one bottle at night. Of course Caleb got some viruses early on which made things more stressful but generally im so much more chilled with Aaron. Lets hope it continues! (My hubby goes back to work on Wednesday, im anticipating my meltdown at some point after that LOL)

Proud Mum

I couldn't be prouder of my oldest boy. He has been amazing since Aaron's birth. You hear all these stories about jealous siblings, hating the baby or hating mum/dad but so far (!) Caleb has been the best big brother. He loves to show him toys, read him books and keeps asking if he can look after Aaron and mummy and daddy go away! Ha! Im very proud of him. Caleb wasnt the easiest baby, Aaron is a dream in comparison, but boy, he's been a great toddler. I just wanted to write a wee post to say how proud i am of him!! Love my boys very much x x x

Baby boy!

It's a boy! My beautiful baby Aaron Matthew was born at 12.46pm on Wednesday 12th October weighing 7lb10oz. He's just gorgeous and we are smitten by him.

So he's officially one week old today. So far he has been a great baby. He's feeding great and sleeping great. What a difference compared to last time!

p.s. im on twitter now if anyone wants to follow @cmcathomas

Long overdue blog post

Gosh, i didnt realise i last updated in July. How my blog has been neglected! Life has just been too too busy.

Firstly, for all my blog friends that i have neglected over the past few months, i apologise! Let me know if you're on facebook though (and how to find you)! Thats the best way to keep in touch with me these days. I have it on my phone so its a lot more accessible.

So here's a bullet point list of all thats been going

- I was working fulltime, which i hated

- I stopped for maternity leave last week. Hurray, a whole year off and i will not be going back fulltime.

- We have a beautiful new home which we moved into at the beginning of September. A sparkly 4 bedroom new-build. I love it. We had a lot of work to pack up the flat, clean and tidy it and get it rented out.

- I am having a baby on Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday! My due date was the 25th but the baby has been breech and hasnt turned so im having a csection on the 12th. Scary Mary. Caleb was an emergency section so i know what to expect but this will be quite a different experience. I had a labour etc last time and the section was the last resort. It'll be weird going in cold to have a baby.I am looking forward to it though, im done in. I know a baby and a toddler will be hard work but pregnancy has been hard going and im looking forward to getting my body back to "normal."

- I got Labyrinthitis (an inner ear thing) on the first day of my maternity leave. Talk about bad luck! After 7 whole days i still have a high pitched ringing in my right ear which is torture. Mental torture.

So today is my last day on my own for a long time! Caleb is in nursery on a Friday. He's doing great, such good fun and making us laugh constantly with the things he says.

Im off to get organised for this baby.... I will leave with a picture of my beautiful new home

p.s. its probably been about 6months since i stitched!!!

Free to a good home....

Im still here! Its been a crazy few months. Nothing wrong, just working full-time, having an exhausting pregnancy, just generally trying to keep on top of life. Oh and on top of all that, buying a house, trying to rent out our flat and an upcoming move within the next month. Did i mention im also due a baby in 12 weeks?? You can see why blogging has sadly been pushed aside!

It was funny when i logged into my google reader there. I assumed i'd have 1000s of unread posts but there's not been so many in my absence. Looks like quite a few of my blogging friends have been taking a break from blogging recently.

With the upcoming move ive been having a clearout; ebaying like crazy and lots of bags of "stuff" to charity. Im just wondering if anyone (in the UK) would like this kit? Everything included...threads, aida, chart etc It has been started and i don't know what the stitching looks like because it was back in my early stitching days (and i cant be bothered to open up the kit to have a look), but i know i will never stitch it. Its a shame for it to go to waste. Its going free to a good home anyway! Just leave me a message if you're interested.