HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL OUR US BUDDIES!!

The Whittaker's would like to say Happy Thanksgiving to all our blogging friends in the US. Have a wonderful time!

Here, it is countdown to the 1st Day in December when the Advent calenders come out, the tree goes up, and the Christmas Movies can all start being played!!

Here is one of my favourites, so silly, so Christmassy, we love it!! Watch this to get you in the Christmassy mood!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzMUxMp1ndk&NR=1

Next on the list come all the soppy romantic ones

'Serendipity'

'You've got Mail'

'Sleepless in Seattle'

But for the time being Lacey is playing Mickey Mouse Christmas Dvd's from morning to night!!!

Have a great Thanksgiving .....nearly time for Christmas swaps! Mine is here! Christel worked on it so quickly and its calling me to open it, but dont worry Rossana I wont just yet, being a good girl!!

Thanks to all for all your get well wishes to John, hes alot better, and we hope to be all healthy for Christmas!!!

Online shopping Therapy!!!

Hi all, sorry to be away so long. been a funny old year this one, lots of illness, and as John was recently taken suddenly into hostpital we have not been around to comment on all your blogs so our apologies and we hope to be back on track soon! John is doing much better now, it was all very sudden and now he is home and recovering so thats a relief.

Not much time for minis but this weekend gone, as I couldnt just waltz off and leave him to go to the Kensington show as i was supposed to , I decided to get down to making my Christmas mini swap for Jill and am really pleased with it all! Cant show it here as its all a surprise but Rosanna will be posting pics later this year of everyones swaps. But it is now on its way to the US, and it gave me alot of satisfaction to complete something miniature for a change and hoping Jill will love it too!

So being stuck at home, what have I done other than tidy the house from head to foot in preperation for Christmas? Well when down in the dumps a woman can do no better than a little online retail therapy. If I havnt had time or inclination to work on our projects then I thought buying a few new minis would give me the motivation to get some work done on some!

The Snow White house has been calling to me and I have recently done the floorboards so until I have time to start on the fireplace I have been fiddling around with the goodies I have been buying for it.

Firstly here is a fantastic cupboard made by Mike which will go in the kitchen. Recommended by Vicky Guile i visited Mike's Etsy store http://www.etsy.com/shop/mesp2k and snapped this one up quickly to fill with woodland bowls of veg etc. It is beautifully made and Im hoping once Mike gets settled after his move I can ask him to make a matching kitchen table and maybe sink as I love the rustic country feel of his furniture.

Over a year ago I bought some wonderful fairy bowls of mushrooms and fruit and veg by the talented Loryhttp://myworld.ebay.co.uk/64tnt/ and these will go on the cupboard. Check out what i found recentyl from, this precious fairy table adorned with mushrooms and flowers with tiny flower teaset and fairy cakes .

This will go either go in the other side of the kitchen or maybe just outside in the garden area. I adore Lory's work, it is made from cold porcelain and fimo and has amazing detailing.

Cant wait to start filling the house with everything, and will post pics when I do so!

Better late than never!!! Our Blog Award and 7 things you didnt know about Us!!

Apologies to those of you who awarded us a couple of wonderful Blog Awards some time ago now!

Due to all apparntly having the Swine flu which I can assure it is not just a heavy cold, its a horrid horrid flu, ours was with continuous sickness too, and you cant shift the sypmtoms or the general feeling of being unwell for several weeks .

We are trying to dose ourselves up with lots of vitamins to boost our systems and have some energy, as missing our hobbies and also miss feeling human!

The wonderful blogs we were awarded were the 'Dream Blog Award 'sent to us by Karin from http://kc-design-kc.blogspot.com/

Thankyou Karin, its an honour from such a creative blog as yours is!

Also we were awarded the Kerative Blog from Dear Marsha of :-http://sassyminidolls.blogspot.com/

Who has the most wonderful of blogs and is a special friend!

With this blog its fun as you have to list 7 things people may not know about yourselves so here goes!!

1. On leaving school......many years ago!! I went to the London College Of Fashion in Oxford Street for 3 years to study and recieved a plaque for student of the year 1987, yep I was abit of a swat! Now my daughter Emily is following in my footsteps by studying in Fashion too!

2. I owned a Beauty Salon and taught Beauty Therapy to college students until Emily was born

3. I cannot travel over bridges! We had to drive 2 hours out of our way to go around the Dartford Tunnel as i just couldnt drive over it, as a passenger or driver!!

4. I have a Bicornuate Uterus!! A heart shaped uterus having 2 ' lobes' making all 5 children be in Breech position . I also have only 1 working fallopian tube on the right as I lost the other to an ectopic pregnancy, and the doctors were amazed as to how Lola was found to be in the left lobe of my uterus having come down the right fallopian tube......they dont know how she got there when its all seperated!!! A bit of a miracle baby they said.

5. We own 9 cars, 4 scooters, and 3 motorbikes!! We are like a sanctuary for poor classic cars. people stop and say 'are you the the people with the old cars ' and then next thing they ask if we want another one!! John likes to dabble to pass his time!!

6. We NEARLY had Chris Evans and his then Wife Billie Piper as our Wedding witnesses!! We got married in the Isle of Wight, ( told everyone we were off to an exotic Island , they thought it was Bora Bora!!!lol ) We had no one with us and on the day John went to pick up my flowers from the Florist only to bump into the couple buying flowers for the lady who's house they were staying in, at Cowes week. John boldly introdued himself and asked if they wernt doing anything would they be our witenesses as we had no one ! Billie and Chris were lovely and said if they wernt on a friends boat and didnt have to catch the tide they would have jumped at the chance, they were so nice and offered to pay for my flowers!!! So it was a story to tell the Registry office, but also a bit of a dissapointment as we ended up with the receptionist and local librarian............abit of a comedown from celebrities!!!

and lastly no 7!! Between us we have 10 children ( I have 5 and have 5 step children ) and 4 grandchildren , all at the age of 41!! so all in all a busy and expensive house come Christmas time!!!!

Hope that wasnt too boring.

I would like to pass the awards onto all our wonderful and loyal blog followers as Im sure we are so behind with this set of awards that all of you have been passed one or both by now!!! You all have such dream like creative blogs that we love to follow and they have kept us cheery through a month or so of feeling rubbish so thankyou all!!

Pre Christmas Treats To Ourselves!!

Hope you all had a fabulous halloween.

Well next is the much loved but in some ways dreaded Christmas. Mixed feelings as I of course love the whole atmosphere and thrills and excitment that the children give off, but at the same time dread the cost of buying for so many, the debts and worry that come with it......bahh humbug!! Must find a blog on doing Christmas on a budget, but tricky when you have lists given to you as long as an arm!!!

Anyway before the Christmas period really begins, November is special to us both. John and I got together in November and always share a '2nd anniversary' different to our actual wedding one, and so this year we have chosen gifts and both have got something useful for a change!

I chose this fabulous Craft work centre from Hobby craft.

It is like a moulded tray that fits on your lap, with a cutting board, lots of useful cut out parts to fit glue bottles etc, and a little bright LED light so I can see what im doing! I chose it as sometimes I love to disappear into the kitchen or workshop , lets say while the footy is on the tv, to get some minis made, but other times i feel bad to leave John sat on his own, when all the children are in bed. So this way I can sit with hubby and we can watch the tv together but still work at the same time!

I used to have one of those beany frood trays and use that but this is good as it has all the extra bits to help with the hobby. a good find I think and reduced from £50 to £24.99!!

Johns gift. well we laugh as he has a whole array of tools in the garage but once again its nice to have something small and compact to work with and when we saw this Boys toy, i thought it would make a big boys toy for John!!

Its the Power Workshop in Argos at £34.99. It has a jigsaw, lathe, power saw, drill, sander and much more and comes with a few different parts to make a few projects such as a boat , plane etc. So once John has done those with Reilly, he can then use it to cut my balsa and other woods to make things like the much needed bookcases and such like in the Potter house.

Dont know until we open it how good it is but it looks so simple and ideal for light wood so we thought wed give it a go! And if its too amateur Reilly can play with it, supervised of course, or he'll have no fingers to open his Christmas pressies with!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good items both of them dont you think??

Add them to your own Christmas lists!!