Happy New Year :)

Well Christmas and New Years is done and dusted! It was a bit different in our family this year because we didn't all get together for Christmas. One sister got together with her in-laws and the other had Mum over for lunch... and the Honig's decided that we really NEEDED to chill out together! I'm so pleased we did because it was a great day... and we actually had a lot of fun :)

Krystal spent most of December working at Spotlight (and she's got a lovely bank balance to show for it!)... in fact, she only had about 5 days off in 5 weeks so it was really lovely to spend some time with her!! Between Krystal working and me trying to get a million things done we didn't get around to putting up a tree but Mikayla did get into the whole spirit of things and decorated a chair! How many families do you know that have a Christmas Chair??? lol

Of course Tequila thought it was especially for him and decidd to keep the chair warm for Santa!For Christmas food we decided to have a big break from tradition and have some special treats that we don't have all that often... so our 'lunch' consisted of cheese, crackers, pesto, hummus, chips and dip :) Very tasty!!We did however have sparkly grape juice which we LOVE and hardly ever have :)While we nibbled away we opened up our presents... and I had a very special treat from the girls on the Scrapbook Dreams forum.... THANK YOU again!! They really spoiled me and made me feel like a million dollars :)

The Christmas entertainment came in the form of Singstar... and it was actually really fun! I even managed to beat the girls once or twice lol Then it was time for dessert:

Strawberries, blueberries, ice cream, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, wafers, chopped nuts, chocolate and yes that HUGE bowl is whipped cream!!! We definitely don't eat this very often!! Since it was just us we decided to splash out on some 'proper' sundae dishes and here's our creations:We spent quite a bit of time working out the best 'recipies' for creating sundaes lol By the time we got through all that we chilled out on the sofas and watched some movies so by the time we went to bed it really had been a lovely, relaxed day :)

Scrapfest: In amongst the million things I've been doing lately is working on my classes for Scrapfest and I'm so thrilled with the results! These first pics are from my 'According to Me' class:

We're making a cute file folder that's the perfect size for keeping photos to crop, letters and even the Cuttlebug embossing folders!Don't you just love that beaded tassle??? Mikayla and I spent a couple of hours threading all the beads and stitching them onto the ribbon... yep they're all made by hand!

These pics are from the 'Layers of Love' layout class:

I had so much fun creating this one... there's bling, flowers, inking, layering and embellishing!There's only 3 spaces left in this class too so I'm super thrilled that it's been so popular!

Instead of doing a card making class I decided to do an Artist Trading Cards class...the ABC's of ATC's. I made quite a few ATC's while I was 'playing' but these ones were definitely my favourites:

And somehow my last class has just grown and grown... I've been playing for days with different techniques and totally LOVING it!!! Here's the sneak peek of 'Don't Stress... Distress' using Distess Inks of course lolSo that's my classes... can you see why I've been super busy??? lol Debbie and Pam (from the Scrapfest team) have got 4 classes each as well and we're having a crop night on the Saturday night so if you're able to be in Rotorua the weekend of January 17th & 18th it's going to be well worth this visit. Check out our Scrapfest blog for all the details and information!

Creating My Life: 2008 proved to be a very 'challenging' year. I really wondered how I was going to make it through and then I picked up a REALLY good book in a little second-hand bookstore here in Rotorua. I think this book actually chose me rather than the other way around because it's certainly not one that I would usually read. It's written by Teri Hatcher of Desperate Housewives fame and it's seriously good! Kind of like having a late night gossip with a close girlfriend!

Anyway, it got me thinking about my life and how it was all going. I mean REALLY thinking!!! So, I decided to create an album for myself... kind of like a Dear Diary of things... and as I was talking to other people about it a new plan formed. I'm going to post prompts every Sunday for 2009 and if you want to take part you are totally welcome :) Here's the cover I made for my album: If you want to take a look at the prompts so far... there will be a new one up later on today... then check out the Creating My Life blog :)

More Christmas: Since we didn't all get together for Christmas 2008 Mum decided to come over yesterday for a 'Posh Picnic' :) It was going to be a 'Posh Picnic with Wildlife Entertainment'... said in Mum's very Hyacinth Bouquet 'Bucket' voice! BUT the rain didn't want to let us so we had a 'Posh Picnic with Water Views' at my house instead lol

All Mum required was... a cleared kitchen bench, cleared dining room table and a cleared coffee table... and a chopping board.... not asking for much was she???

My oh My but she does do 'Posh' well!!! I've never had a 3 course picnic before but I wouldn't mind doing it again!! (Yes that's a 'hint' Mum!!!)

For 'starters' we had: foccacia bread, pate, camembert, mini sausages (with sauce) chips, dip, basil pesto and sundried tomato pesto!!! Blinkin' lovely :)

For 'mains' there was: cold chicken legs, champagne ham, smoked salmon, croissants, lettuce, cherry tomatoes (if you could steal one off Kody!) chutney, marscapone, cucumber and sliced crusty bread!! Absolutely divine :) I loved this photo of Kody taken during lunch... the caption should be: I didn't touch ANYTHING Grandma!!

And then Mum brought out the desserts!!! Cheesecake, mudcake, whipped cream, strawberries, ice cream, chocolate eclairs, cream puffs, strawberry and marscapone tarts, custard slice and chocolates!!!

YES there was a LOT of food!!! There were 7 of us here and Miss Kody isn't even two yet so she didn't eat much! Mum even bought over all the table cloths, serviettes, bowls, plates cutlery etc... oh and some sparkly grape juice!

It was ABSOLUTELY FAB!!! I can't get over how much time, effort and thought Mum put into everything! She had all our favourites... chocolate eclairs and smoked salmon (me), custard slice and cheesecake (Krystal) and croissants and chocolate (Mikayla)... cherry tomatoes (Kody)!

We even had some indoor entertainment.... Singstar! The photo of the day HAS to go to Miss Kody... she didn't actually sing.... but you'd never know it from the photo (maybe she's going to be like Milli Vanilli???)

I'm sorry about the long post... there's was just so much I wanted to share... maybe I'll write a book one day lol

I hope you're all having a fabulous start to the new year!

Love Shell xx