Creative Friday - Home improvements

I'm (we are - as it's Rémi and Tino who did the work this week) linking up again this week to Linda's Creative Friday.
You know how it is with kids - you buy them THE latest toy and they play with the box!  Well my S.I.L had this good idea; she bought the box! Hours of activity guaranteed.

 Rémi has always 'bugged' his teachers in school with his 'inability' to paint or colour with-in the lines...
Apparently it's very important, shows they have 'motor skills'! I have pointed out that he can knit, crochet, draw, crack eggs into a bowl etc, signs that there is nothing wrong with his 'motor' skills, but, well colouring within the lines is close to their hearts!

so he CAN do it after all, now there's a surprise!

Rudolph the 'rainbow' reindeer

Oban thinks it's the 'dog house'

Kept them busy from 10am - 5pm (2 hour cross-country ski break in the middle). Kept us busy until 9pm cleaning all the paint from the floor!

Yarn along - me,me, me!

I'm linking up with Ginny this week for a rather self-indulgent yarn along.
Durning a recent holiday to Italy I started my Shalom cardigan but put it aside on returning home to finish more 'pressing' projects.  Having finished all my stuff for others (except Katie's ski hat) I decided to make a little headway on something for me.

There is a bit of story behind this yarn!  Years ago my grannie Maud made me a beautiful aran sweater, unfortunatly it was too short and too wide, and so kept 'riding' up everytime I wore it.  So it sat in the closet for 9 or so years as I couldn't bring myself to give it away or unwind it.  That is until I saw this Shalom Knit Along on Natural Suburbia.  Granted everyone had probably finished their's by the time I signed up, but, whatever.
I'm really enjoying it, it's very easy to do and is knit in one piece - yeh no sewing up at the end!! like that alot.

On the reading front, I'm currently enjoying the second book from the Little House series, that I bought myself for christmas (I said it was a self indulgent post!).  After meeting the Ingalls family in the first book we are introduced to Almanzo and his family in Farmer Boy, as of yet no relation to Laura Ingalls!

Now on to something completely different, I just wanted to post a picture of my hair clip that I wore on christmas eve.  Does anyone else, apart from my sister-in-law and niece, think it resembles a raspberry?  seriously, green leaves, red berries on christmas eve, I thought it was kinda obvious, no?

And not forgetting,  today would have been my mothers birthday, if she hadn't been snatched away from us by cancer 10 years ago.  Happy Birthday Mam!
Do you ever find that sometimes things just come up even when your not looking for them? or at least you don't conciously think your looking for them.  Yesturday I came across an article entitled "Why do bad things happen to good people"( Mel Lawrence) in which, Mel, had written the following:

If there is a God, why is there so much evil?

If there is no God, why is there so much good?

This has set my mind whizzing!!!

White Christmas

Well it pretty much is always a white christmas when you live in the alps! but it's sooo lovely every year! especially when the sky is blue, kid's don't have ski school and hubby isn't working.....

GREAT only another 650 pieces to pick up every night!

GOAL!

Santa's grotto

Look's like buisness is booming for Santa! just check out his Chamonix pad...

No 'grotto' here, instead the Hotel Montenvert, situated at 1913m, on the edge of the Mer de Glace glacier (Sea of Ice)...

...thankfully he laid on a train to take us up there!

we 'all' sang a few songs before going down stairs to write our letters and decorate some snowballs, via a cunning little passage that took us through the gift shop!!

Rémi was VERY honest,"dear Santa I'm sometimes good and I listen to my parent now and again!!"

homeward bound, tired but happy! 

Having SNOW much fun

Cross country skiing with the boys on Monday.

Creative Friday

This week I'm linking up with Linda at Natural Suburbia for her Creative Friday.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, this bird house is a joint project between my father in law and myself.
Bob did the carpentry and I did the crochet, if we had reversed the roles it might not have turned out like this and I'd probably be missing some digits!

We've put it outside the lounge window so the kids can watch the birds without disturbing them but I doubt we'll get any 'lodgers' before the spring.  We put out food everyday and judging from the prints in the snow I'd  say that it's Bambi and company who are enjoying the feast.

I've also included some animals I made using Linda's patterns.  I bought eight but haven't even downloaded them all yet or otherwise I'd never get any other projects done - they are very addictive!

I hope that everyone's Christmas knitting/crochet is finished and I wish you all a Joyeux Noël.

Orangettes...

These have become some what of a christmas tradition with me, firstly because they are so yummy and secondly because I love giving homemade gifts and these are ideal.
You will need to allow yourself 3 days to make them, with each step only taking about 30 mins per day.
I use the 'peel' recipe from 'Family's Festivals and Food' as it's nice and simple:

Peel of 4 (organic) oranges
1/2 oz bicarb. of soda
water
granulated  sugar

Wash the fruit. Remove peel in quarters, remove as much loose pith as possible. Soak the peel in bicarb. and 2 pints of water for 30 mins, then strain away water, cover peel with fresh water and simmer until tender for 30 mins.  Slice the skins into strips, roughly the same size.

things start to smell fantastic right about now!

Now make sugar syrup: 8oz sugar and 1/2 pint water in which peel was boiled, add the drained peel and simmer for 30 mins until transparent and syrup thickens.  Remove peel onto a wire rack to drain over night.
Boil up the syrup again and drop peel into it.  Leave to dry on rack.

The next day melt 8 oz of dark organic chocolate 70%, and using a needle dip each piece of orange into the liquid. Leave again overnight to dry and store in an air tight container.

I like to offer mine in fancy christmas bags or tins.

With a plate of freshly baked mince pie's out of the oven things are really starting to smell christmassy around here.

O' Christmas tree..

Christmas, like Richard cooking dinner, is a once yearly event! and I rather like the both.
So this year, whilst we decorated the tree...

and put up the crib...

yes I know we have two baby Jesus, you'll have to ask Rémi about that one?

Richi made dinner!

yummy! well worth the wait!

The boy's even got all dolled up for the occasion in their new viking hats!

Let the festivities begin!