American Adventure

In a couple of days we will be setting off on our American Adventure to Los Angeles and Las Vegas and we are all starting to get really excited about it now. The kids are practically bouncing off the walls in anticipation!

This will be our first ever visit to the USA and we are going as a pre BIG birthday treat with my Dad and his wife who have been many times before ~ this will be their twelfth time in Las Vegas! My Dad has very kindly taken some time to plan out our days to make sure that we get as much from the experience as we possibly can. It is definitely not going to be an holiday for relaxing! But there will hopefully be lots of fun to be had by all!

Our Itinerary for the days ahead looks like this ~

Day 1 ~ Travel to Manchester by train ~ staying overnight in order to catch our flights the next day.
Day 2 ~ Flights from Manchester to Philadelphia, then Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Now, I have to be honest here and say that I am not particularly looking forward to the long flights which are 16 hours in total each way. We have only ever previously done short trips over to Europe, but everyone reassures me that the flights will seem to go by fairly quickly as there is so much going on to keep you occupied. I really do hope so!

Day 3 ~ Los Angeles ~ Heading off to Malibu Beach, Santa Monica and then onto downtown Los Angeles to see the Walk of the Stars in Hollywood Boulevard and other Hollywood sights.
Day 4 ~ Los Angeles ~ Universal Studios ~ this is the day that the kids are looking forward to the most!
Day 5 ~ Driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas ~ stopping halfway at the old Wild West town of Calico.
Day 6 ~ Las Vegas ~ Visit to the Hoover Dam.
Day 7 ~ Las Vegas ~ Visit to Red Rock Canyon.
Day 8 ~ Las Vegas ~ Spending the day sightseeing around Las Vegas.
Day 9 ~ Flights from Las Vegas to New York (JFK), then New York to Manchester.
Day 10 ~ Train from Manchester to Edinburgh, then another train home, then I imagine it will be straight to BED to sleep off the jet lag!

Over the last couple of days I have been working like an absolute mad woman washing clothes, sorting clothes and stacking clothes in readiness for packing the all the suitcases tonight and I've also managed to find the time to make myself a Stars and Stripes Bag Tag so I can hopefully recognise the aforementioned suitcase at the airport!

See you all when we get back in a couple of weeks :O)xx

Time On My Hands

Just recently I have found myself with a lot more time on my hands as my hours of working have been reduced considerably due to Council cut backs. For some reason or another I am finding it quite difficult to spend the extra time that I have at home wisely. In theory my house should be the cleanest and tidiest it has ever been, but in reality the exact opposite is true! I am finding myself wandering aimlessly from one task to the next with no real focus on anything at all. And because of this I am getting absolutely nothing done and the precious hours that I have been given at home are being well and truly wasted!

I know that as a grown woman I should be able to use my time a bit more constructively but where to begin?

I am not sure that for me that making lists are the answer ~ but maybe breaking my day down into hour long time slots could be the way forward. I really don't want my days to be so structured that I am unable to deviate from it if needs be ~ but until I am able to get my act together and get myself into some kind of daily routine I think that this may be the only way that I will ever get anything done.

Hour One ~ Breakfast and computer time.

I don't know about anyone else, but at the moment this is where I seem to lose an awful lot of my time every day so my time spent on the computer definitely needs to be given a very strict time limit!

Hour Two ~ Laundry, hoovering, tidy upstairs rooms.

Hour Three ~ Exercise.

My poor old body is definitely in need of a bit more exercise. I am about to have a BIG birthday sometime very soon and really do need to motivate myself to get out of the house and move my body a bit more. The fresh air will also do me the world of good too!  I am totally spoilt with my surroundings so there is absolutely no shortage of beautiful places to walk. Obviously this will very much depend on what the weather is doing.

Hour Four ~ Clean kitchen and bathroom.

Hour Five ~ Lunch and some Hooky Time.

Now, I know that you may find this hard to believe ~ but I am even struggling to focus on any of my woolly activities just now. I am hoping that a little bit of allocated time may make it easier for me to focus a bit more and actually get something made.

Hour Six ~ More laundry, ironing and tidying downstairs rooms.

This should take me nicely up to the time when the children get home from school and then it's all hands on deck preparing snacks and dealing with homework related things. Once school is out there is absolutely no time to think about anything else ~ I just have to go with the flow and get on with what needs to be done!

You'll see that I've not actually put any times alongside the hours ~ that way I can mix and match and switch
things around a bit if I want to.

I am really hoping that something like this will work for me and that I will find myself back on track sometime very soon! :O)x

Looking Forward ~ 2015

The year ahead looks like it is going to be a bit of a BIG year for us here in the Button Tree household ~ Firstly, three out of the four of us have fairly significant birthdays happening throughout the year ::

Next month I will be having a very BIG birthday which ends in a Zero!
In May my "small" boy will become a Teenager and turn Thirteen ::
In September my "little" girl will turn Sweet Sixteen::

Also in February we will be taking our first ever trip to the United States of America. My Dad has very kindly offered to take the four of us on a wonderful American Adventure to celebrate my BIG birthday. We will be going to Los Angeles for the first few days and then we will be taking a drive up to Las Vegas for the rest of the holiday. We only have five weeks to wait until we head off on our trip and to say that we are all very excited about it is a bit of an understatement!

I haven't really made any other plans for the rest of the year yet ~ other than all the usual plans that tend to be made at the beginning of each New Year. (And then never happen!). A couple of other bloggers posted this list of Things To Do in 2015 and it all does seem like pretty good advice to me ::

2015 To Do List

Eat Less,

Move More,

Buy Less,

Make more,

Stress Less, 

Laugh More, 

Feel Blessed,

Love More, 

Find a quiet spot every day

and breathe :O)x

The one thing that I definitely want to get around to doing this year is to be making more. I haven't really been spending a great deal of time on very many woolly activities for a while now ~ but this year I should hopefully have a bit more time on my hands to surround myself in huge piles of squishy yarn again. I have lots of crochet plans and yarny projects swirling around in my head and it's now up to me to make them happen!

I am absolutely bursting full of excitement and anticipation for the year ahead and am looking forward to seeing what 2015 holds for me and my little family :O)xx

2014 ~ Looking Back

It's that wonderful time of the blogging year that allows you to go through your archives and have a look back at all the lovely everyday things that might be otherwise might be forgotten if they hadn't been blogged about. Here is my yearly roundup for 2014.

January 2014 ~ I started the year by trying to get out and about a bit more in the fresh air and took some very nice, but bracing walks along one of our beautiful beaches.

January 2014 ~ Taking inspiration from my walks along our beautiful local coastline, I had a play about with some neutral, blue and green yarn and made some seaside coloured Granny Squares. These squares are destined to eventually become a seasidey blanket.

February 2014 ~ My birthday month :: My daughter made me a wonderful birthday cake ~ a lemon Victoria sponge with a lemony mousse filling and decorated with my favourite green and yellow jelly sweeties.

March 2014 ~ I enjoyed some more lovely springtime walks along the beach. Our town has two beaches and this one is the West Bay looking towards the harbour. 

April 2014 ~ we spent a week in Disneyland in Paris to celebrate my small boys birthday and had an absolutely fantastic time doing all the wonderful Disney rides and attractions.

May 2014 ~ whilst we were so close to the centre of Paris we spent one of the days seeing all the sights. We tried to cram in as many as we could and saw the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the beautiful Louvre Pyramid, Notre Dame Cathedral and The Sacre Coeur to name but a few!  I absolutely love Paris ~ it's one of my very favourite cities ~ there is so much to see and definitely not enough time to see it all.

June 2014 ~ I added some more stripes to my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe Blanket :: I am happy to report that I am now working on the edge of this blanket and will be doing a "Ta Dah" post later in the month. It's taken me a while but I'm nearly there!

July 2014 ~ We spent a very lovely week in the summer in the Weardale countryside visiting relatives who live in this beautiful old cottage which is right on the banks of the river Wear.

August 2014 ~ Every Wednesday in the Summertime my boy plays his bagpipes with the local pipe band for all the tourists visiting our seaside town. I never ever get tired of listening to the sound of the pipes and feel so proud of him when I watch him play.

September 2014 ~ September is a month of celebration in the Button Tree household as we got married on my daughter's first birthday ~ so her birthday is our anniversary too! I always get a beautiful bunch of pink lillies from my hubby to celebrate the special day. The smell of them always takes me straight back to the maternity ward. 

October 2014 ~ We made some very simple Halloween decorations from black card ~ this little mouse was one of my favourites.

November 2015 ~ More walking around our beautiful town ~ this time through the park on a very dreich wintery day.

December 2014 ~ my very first attempt at writing a crochet pattern. I made these pretty Flowery Coasters for my hyacinths to make their life on the window sill a little bit more comfortable. The pattern can be found on my blog and on Ravelry.

I hope that you enjoyed this little look back over my year ~ I will be back later on in the week with a little look forward.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Healthy 2015 ~ hope it's a good year for you all :O)x

Christmas Popcorn Box

My two smallish people love nothing better than a trip to the cinema ~ however, they don't get the chance to go and see a film that often these days, as a family trip to the cinema very nearly requires us to take out a bank loan.

A little while back when I was thinking about what to buy them for Christmas, I thought that it would be a lovely idea to get each of them a cinema voucher as part of their Christmas present. My daughter is just old enough to be allowed to go into Edinburgh by herself on the train and can use her voucher to go and see a couple of films with her friends. My son is not quite old enough to go by himself  yet..........  so he will have to go with his Mum and Dad ~ which means that everyone is a winner!

Instead of just handing them over a boring old white envelope with the cinema voucher inside, I thought it would be a nice idea to get a little bit more inventive with the wrapping. I googled some printable popcorn box templates and managed to print them out onto some white card. A little bit of snipping and sticking and ten minutes later I had something that resembled a popcorn box. So far so good!

Next I gathered a selection of yummy goodies that could go into the box ~ mini bags of popcorn (obviously!) and some portable bags of sweeties that could easily be taken to the cinema. Although there is a pretty good chance that the goodies will probably be eaten well before the trip to the cinema actually happens.

Here's hoping that they like their Christmas Popcorn Box ~ I think I'd maybe quite like one for myself too! :O)xx

Easy does it!

We have had some unwanted visitors here this week in the form of coughs and colds and sneezes and it has been necessary to slow the pace right down and take things a little bit easier. I've had a small boy home from school for the last couple of days. He has been fighting a temperature and has been wrapped up in a cosy blankety nest on the settee ~ and although my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe is not quite finished yet it has already been put to good use as part of that blankety nest. There has been some cuddly doggies making use of it too!  I know that he must really be feeling under the weather as he has been happy to sit still and has been a bit too quiet ~ which is really not like him at all!

There has not been much opportunity to get out and about either as the weather here has been rather a mixed bag. There has been rain, sleet, snow, lots of wind and the odd glimpse of some sunshine. And it's been bitterly COLD too ~ It really can't seem to make up it's mind!

I took the opportunity on one of the nicer weather moments to have a walk along the sea front ~ and on the way home I passed this wonderful statue. He's called The Watcher ~ he is dressed in outdoor gear, with his camera slung over his shoulder and he gazes out towards the sea looking through his binoculars in the direction of the Bass Rock. He stands there in all weathers and I think he is just crying out for a bit of a woolly makeover ~ maybe a hat and a scarf would keep him a bit cosier!

I've been trying to get myself into the Christmas spirit too ~ I managed to rescue this little Poinsettia plant from the reduced shelf in the supermarket for a bargain price of just less than two pounds. It was all dried up and in need of a little bit of TLC ~ all it really needed was a long drink of water and a nice spot at the window and it soon perked up. It's looking very healthy now and I am enjoying seeing it's beautiful red and green foliage every time I come into the room. These lovely plants are just so Christmassy!

Hope that you all have a very lovely and cosy weekend :O)xx

Random Things

This week I have been enjoying a nice cup of tea and a very sticky slice of syrupy flapjack bought especially for me by my boy. It was absolutely delicious despite the fact in had been wrapped up in a napkin and carted around inside his school bag for a whole afternoon.

I treated myself to a really cheap pot of hyacinths from the local supermarket for just a few pounds, They came inside a rather dull and dreary brown plastic pot so I decided to re-pot them into my favourite seasidey mugs. I'm really looking forward to seeing them bloom on my kitchen window sill and can't wait for them to begin to flower ~ I decided to go for the blue flowers as I love them the best. They have already grown quite a little bit in height since I brought them home.

I decided that the afore mentioned re-potted hyacinths were just crying out for couple of crocheted coasters to make their life on the window sill a bit more comfortable. I had a bit of a rake through my stash of Stylecraft and found some suitable hyacinthy colours and managed to whip up some pretty little Flowery coasters for them to sit on.

I also enjoyed a nice chilled glass of white wine on Sunday evening whilst adding the last few stripes to my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe blanket. I am happy to report that I am now on the final push with this blanket (it's only taken me nearly three years!) and I am just about teetering on the edge!

Just recently the skies around my little part of the world have been pretty spectacular ~ this was the sunrise a couple of mornings ago. The colours have been particularly beautiful this month and I do love to see the dark silhouette of the Law against the sky.

Hoping your week has been full of lovely random things too :O)xx

Easy Lamb Keema

After you have done a hard days work there is nothing better than sitting down to a delicious home cooked meal. Something that is both tasty and nutritious, easy to make, and more importantly, something that the whole family will sit down and eat. There really is nothing worse than faffing around making different meals for each person in the family. I must admit that I have been guilty of this in the past and it really is soul destroying, not to mention really expensive too! This Easy Lamb Keema is one of my favourite mid week go to recipes ~ and the best part about it is that it can be ready on the table in about half an hour.

You will need the following ingredients ::

500g lean lamb mince
1 crushed clove of garlic
1 large potato (diced)
1 teaspoon each of ground coriander, cumin, chilli powder and turmeric
1 tablespoon of garam marsala
100 mls lamb stock
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
150g frozen peas

Firstly dry fry the lamb mince until browned and skim off any of the excess fat ::

Next add the crushed clove of garlic and the spices, stir and then cook for around one minute ::

Add the diced potato ::

Next add in 100mls of lamb stock ~ I just use a lamb stock cube and also add the 400g tin of chopped tomatoes ::

Season with salt and pepper to taste and then cover and simmer for around 15 minutes until the potato is tender ::

Next up add 150g of frozen peas and cook for a further 3 minutes::

Serve with chopped coriander, a large green salad and some warm naan bread ~ and maybe a large glass of wine for the adults ~ delicious!

Most of the time I make this recipe with lamb mince, but I have also used lean steak mince which I find works just as well. You can also add a chopped onion in the early stages of cooking ~ but my daughter refuses to eat anything that contains the slightest trace of onion, so I find it much easier just to leave it out. Anything for a quiet life! Hope you all enjoy :O)xx

The Polar Express ~ All Aboard!

Last weekend we headed off to Weardale as we had booked ourselves tickets on The Polar Express!

We all love the film of The Polar Express ~ we watch it faithfully every Christmas Eve ~ so the chance to have an actual trip on it was too much for us to resist.

We boarded the train at Stanhope station and set off on our journey through the dales towards the North Pole. The small people were dressed in their pyjamas and dressing gowns which made it seem even more magical for them.

Each carriage was decorated with Christmassy wreaths and baubles and had it's own conductor and fleet of singing and dancing chefs who served everyone with cups of hot chocolate and delicious chocolate chip cookies. During the trip the story of The Polar Express was read over a sound system whilst the chefs carried a beautifully illustrated book up and down the aisle for all the children to see.

For those of you that are not familiar with the story ~ it is a lovely story about a little boy who is just starting to doubt the reality of Father Christmas. He embarks on a magical train trip to the North Pole ~ along the way there is a ghostly hobo who preys on the boys doubts, but he is looked after by the kind conductor and all the other children who are on the train dressed in their pyjamas and dressing gowns. At the end of the journey he has his beliefs reaffirmed when he meets Father Christmas at the North Pole.

Our journey towards the North Pole was really enjoyable ~ the chefs went up and down the aisles singing and dancing and the ghostly hobo made the occasional appearance trying to steal the children's golden train tickets. As the train got nearer to the North Pole all the children on the train got very excited ~ pressing their little faces to the windows trying to get the first glimpse of Father Christmas. Once we reached the North Pole, Father Christmas and his elves boarded The Polar Express and all the children got a chance to tell him what they would like for Christmas and he gave out silver bells from his sleigh to all those who believe!

It really was a most enjoyable trip and I am now starting to really get into the Christmas spirit ~ not many sleeps to go now!! :0)xx

A Thank You and A Giveaway!

Firstly, I would like to say a huge Thank You to everyone for all the good wishes and bloggy hugs that were sent our way when my daughter went in to hospital for her operation.

I am pleased to report that the operation went very well, and although there were some hysterics before the pre-med, she managed to cope very well with the procedure. They decided to use "sleepy" gas to put her to sleep and then did what they had to do with needles whilst she was out for the count! Everything is healing up very nicely and she returned to school yesterday complete with a set of crutches. It will still be a few weeks until she is running about again but I am just so glad that everything is done now and we will just have to keep our fingers crossed that the legs grow at the desired pace and sort out their differences!

Last week ~ on 21st of November to be precise ~ I noticed that I been blogging for four years. I can't quite believe that it has been that long ~ but it has! I love being part of this lovely bloggy world ~ it truly is a wonderful place to be ~ packed full of inspiration and ideas and lovely like minded crafty souls like you!

To say a big Thank You to all of you that take time out of your day to read my ramblings, I am having a little Christmassy giveaway. Up for grabs is a copy of the new Mollie Makes Christmas book and I will also add a few other Christmassy bits and pieces to the parcel ~ although I haven't quite decided what they will be yet!  All you have to do to enter this giveaway is to leave me a comment on this post ~ it would also be lovely if you were a follower of my blog too.

I will leave the giveaway open for a week ~ until Thursday 6th December ~ so that the lucky winner can enjoy the book and hopefully have enough time to make a few things from it before Christmas arrives.

Good Luck and I look forward to reading your comments :O)xxxx

Tomorrow

About three years ago my daughter's dance teacher took us aside and told us that she thought that there was a slight difference in the length of my daughter's legs. She had noticed this because she was paying particular attention to the posture of the girls in the ballet class. Up until then we hadn't noticed that anything was wrong ~ but when we looked more closely we did see that she definitely had problems when she was trying to stand up straight. We promptly made an appointment with the doctor and the doctor did indeed confirm that there was definitely a difference in the length of her legs by about 1.5 centimetres. The correct term for this condition is Leg Length Discrepancy.

We were then referred to a Paediatric Orthopedic Consultant so that her legs could be monitored by X rays and MRI scans to see if the discrepancy became worse. Unfortunately, over the last couple of years it has now gotten to the stage where the difference is 3.4 centimetres ~ which is now fairly significant.

Whilst this is not really bothering her at the moment ~  it could have major implications later in her life if it starts to affect her back and spine.

Tomorrow she is being admitted in to hospital to have an operation to take growth cells from the knee joint of her longer leg so that hopefully her shorter leg will catch up when she takes her biggest growth spurt as she approaches puberty. She is absolutely terrified! She has a huge fear of all things medical ~ mostly needles ~ and although we have managed to successfully avoid these things in the past she will obviously need to have an anaesthetic which will obviously involve a needle.

I know that she is going to find this whole experience incredibly difficult and there is no doubt that she is going to be in some amount of pain afterwards. I really wish that I could change places with her and that it was me instead of her that was going to have to go through the operation tomorrow.

I am trying desperately to remain calm but inside I am terrified too! xx

Half term and Halloween

Life has been pretty hectic around here recently, what with half term and lots of extra time spent working in the library. There has definitely not been an awful lot of time left over to indulge in much crafty stuff ~ although I have managed to snatch a little time to knit up a bit more of my lacy scarf and am now on to my third and final ball of yarn.

I am desperately trying to have a bloggy catch up before some of the moments get lost in the camera ~ never to see the light of the day!

We had our half term a couple of weeks ago here in Scotland and we headed off to the beautiful little village of Alton in Staffordshire to visit family. And of course, a trip to Alton would not be complete without spending a day up at Alton Towers. We scared ourselves completely silly on some of the bigger rides ~ in fact after going on some of them it was almost impossible to walk!  

We were really lucky with the weather the day we visited as it was a beautiful Autumn day ~ very cold but thankfully no rain! The leaves on the side of the Towers were a spectacular colour.

There were lots of Halloween decorations dotted about the place as it was the start of the annual Alton Towers Halloween festival ~ Scarefest.

We hid in giant pumpkins!

And came across some very strange residents!

Who were driving some very spooky vehicles!

The following day we had an enormous amount of fun at Splash Landings ~ which is a water park inside one of the hotels at Alton Towers. There were lazy rivers, crazy cannons and a VeRy fast and VeRy scary Master Blaster water coaster. This is an extreme water ride and definitely not for the faint hearted and most definitely NOT for me! Once was more than enough and I will never venture on it again! Needless to say the kids loved it!!

Tonight, following in our own Halloween traditions, the small people will be dressing up in some scary Halloween outfits and we will play hide and seek in the dark with torches. We will get absolutely soaked dooking/bobbing for apples and then we will get cosy and snuggle up on the sofa to watch some spooky Halloween movies with maybe a little bit of Scooby Doo thrown in for good measure.

I hope you all enjoy your Halloween happenings as much as we will!! :O)xx

Thirteen

I am now the very proud owner of a Teenager!

My beautiful little girl was thirteen yesterday. Thirteen!! I am not sure how that happened quite so quickly ~  I really don't feel old enough to be a Mother of a teenager, but that's what I am.  It doesn't seem like all that long ago since she was born and whisked away to Intensive Care in the Special Care Baby Unit where I sat holding her tiny little hand through a little door in the incubator and didn't even dare to dream about birthdays. However! Here we are celebrating her thirteenth birthday and what a lovely day we all had too.

The present of choice this year was an ipod touch.

Yesterday was an extra special day for our family as it was also our wedding anniversary. I have been married to my wonderful husband for twelve years!  All those years ago we thought that it would be a lovely idea to get married and have our daughter christened on her first birthday. A little unconventional perhaps ~ but something that is very special to us as a family.

We tend not to do very much to celebrate our anniversary as birthday celebrations are obviously much more important in the minds of children. Our anniversary night out was a trip to The Handmade Burger Co. accompanied by the birthday girl, her little brother and her best friend. All very romantic I must say, but very enjoyable none the less :O)xx

Ten

My beautiful baby boy is TEN today! Into double figures already!  I'm not quite sure how that happened as quickly ~ it really doesn't seem like ten years since he was born. Is it just me or does time really seem to speed up once you have children?

I can remember that moment when the midwife handed my newborn baby to me and said "it's a boy"! I wasn't really ready for that ~ I was expecting to have another girl. A BOY!! What on earth do I do with one of those! The answer is that I love him with all my heart and soul and I really wouldn't have it any other way ~ it is such a joy to have a boy.

He is a very typical boy! An absolute whirlwind of boy energy ~ is never still and never quiet, he literally talks from the minute he opens his eyes in the morning until he goes to sleep at night and sometimes even talks when he is asleep! He likes nothing better than running about outdoors up to his eyes in mud and all things mucky! He loves his guitar and can't wait for the day when we say YES you can get an electric one!

He really is a lovely boy and has a very compassionate nature and is very kind and loving too. He loves snuggling up with his mum for kisses and cuddles at home. And I LoVe that too!

Happy 10th Birthday to my gorgeous boy ~ I hope that you have a wonderful day :O)xxxxxxxxxx