1st day of Christmas...

Wow, my last blog is from 1.5 months ago! A lot has happened since then.

R and I moved into a new flat...about 2.7 seconds away from our old place! What can I say, we like the area!  It's purpose-built, and therefore built with purpose in mind!  Very comfortable and warm and cozy.

I started a new job in London!  It's with the same large company, but in a completely new department/brand.  It's very exciting, but still very new.  The commute's a bit of a pain, but I've done a ton of crochet and reading so it's not too bad.

And I haven't done a lick of running in a very long time.  With my new commute, I don't get into Brighton/Hove until almost 7 so I haven't been feeling like gyming it lately.  I'm hoping to get in a session tomorrow and definitely a run in on Saturday morning.

3/5 of our friends due in November/December have had their babies!  We now have James, Freddie and Seren in our circle of friends, and they're super duper cute.  We're still waiting for Hannah, as her due date was 30th Nov, and Kate, who's due the 20th Dec.

We decided not to go to Ireland this Christmas, as R is doing seasonal work, so instead...we will be hosting Christmas dinner!  Yes, R's parents are flying down the South East England, visiting the McFannys, then coming to stay with us. It'll just be the four of us on Christmas, but it looks like we're all meeting up at ours on Boxing Day!  That'll be me, R, J&J, Sister E, Brother O, SIL M and little A!  Eep!  I've done a Thanksgiving dinner for that many people, but it's normally for friends.  Christmas dinner is a big deal! I'm a little nervous, but very excited to have everyone around.  Now that it's 1st December, I'm officially allowed to start decorating the place.  I need to put up my santa sign, and get some mistletoe.  We might try and get a tree this weekend, as well, as we get the potted ones which don't dry out too bad.

I've also booked a weekend trip up to Edinburgh for next weekend!  Although at this rate, there's a very good chance I won't make it up with all the snow.  I really hope I get a chance to see Claire and James and Zonko!  And of course, the Christmas Market :)


So all in all, I'm really looking forward to December, and seeing through 2010, which has been a pretty great year!  I just hope I'm able to get a few runs in before I turn into Jabba the Hut!

ho ho ho (from Neonbubble!)

post christmas recap

It's been a wonderful Christmas season! Warning: Long post ahead (with lots of photies)!

We had our office Christmas do on Thursday 17th December, which was tons of fun. Lunch at Harry's then off to the pub for the whole evening. Unfortunately, I drank far more than was necessary and lost my camera. Gutted!!! Not only am I bummed to lose the camera (which my dad gave me) but I've lost all my December photos. But in the evening it started snowing and by the time we were heading home it was a proper blizzard! Those that weren't hungover the next morning were greeted to this:


Glorious!

Unfortunately, it only snowed on the Thursday so the snow quickly turned to ice, dangerous icy roads of death! It was insane, Friday, Saturday and Sunday the sidewalks were actual ice rinks. My wellies did nothing to grip the ice! We ventured into town slowly and carefully, for sure. I saw Leashie on Saturday 19th, and we exchanged Christmas pressies! She made me the most amazing pair of mittens and a lovely lovely hat, plus a book on crochet motifs! Spoiled, I am :)

Then R and I headed off to his parents back in Northern Ireland in the wee hours of the morn on Monday. We booked a nice sensible 8.30am flight and gave ourselves 2 hours. Omg, the line for Easy Jet (which probably had at least 20 flights leaving before ours!) actually snaked past all the other check-ins for all the other airlines. Luckily it was moving quickly, but boy oh boy, I will never not check-in online again! We had a lovely week back with his folks, and his brother and his preggo wife (yay for soon to be neice/nephew!). On Wednesday the 23rd, we all took the train down to Dublin and visited the Guinness Brewery:


Christmas Day was great, too. It's always strange spending the holidays away from your own family because somehow, it never feels right doing new traditions. But I love my in-laws, and they always make me feel right at home. We were back in LA for Christmas last year, so it was great for R to see his folks this year. And next year, there will be a new MCK in the family, so I can't wait for baby's first Christmas! But this year J&J absolutely spoiled us for food. Most delicious Christmas meal ever:


MCK Family Christmas tree:


Compared to our cute little tree back in Brighton (I swear it's not really that crooked...I think):


My favourite pressie by far is the one R got me. It's the Pegasus Necklace (with matching earrings!) from Tatty Devine:



I also treated myself to a new camera, the new Nikon S220 (nothing too flash, but it's shiny and blue!):


Coming home wasn't too painful, only an hour delayed (considering the travel chaos on the British Isles with the snow, we were very lucky indeed!). It's been great being home and relaxing just the two of us. We've been sleeping in every morning until about 10, and just lounging about the house. Bliss! My new project (after scouring over all of R's dad's albums) is to start organizing and printing off all of our pictures. We're going to start with 2009 and work backwards from there. I can't wait! I love looking at the whole MCK family from the last 30-40 years, and I want to make sure we have that for our family :)

Lastly, I finally had a chance to see the movie Cinema Paradiso last night at the Duke of York's. It was okay, but looooong. I don't know if I'd watch it again. A bit too schmaltzy for me. But oh my god, the actor who played Alfredo was an absolute spitting image of my Dad (he may disagree, ha!)

tee hee!

Now I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve tomorrow - we're heading out to Southend on Sea for a little mini gathering. Should be great fun! x

KHMXmas

Just about my fave show on TV is Location Location Location. Maybe it's envy, maybe it's middle class porn, whatever. I love it! And I love Phil and Kirstie.


I love Kirstie's style. She is just lovely and so personable. Look at that grace!


Do you know what else I love?


Christmas!

So what could possibly be better than Kirstie AND Christmas???

Kirstie's Handmade Christmas!

I've enjoyed it the past two nights, but unfortunately will miss tonight's as I'm about to head out for my book group meeting. Last night was so cozy, watching lovely gifts being made with care, whilst I was crocheting and working on my own little handmade gifts.

There have been so many Christmas programmes on TV so far this month, and I just love it. Luckily, R indulges me, and puts up with the endless carols and mince pies (so hard, I know!)

Only two more weeks left to get those pressies finished!

Tree Decorations

I love love love Christmas tree decorations. A couple years ago, we ended up buying a 'starter pack' at WHSmith, and it was shite. Absolutely shite. So we're starting fresh this year (well, keeping the super cute red berry lights). Here are a few of my faves!

Embossed Metal Heart Decorations - Velvet

Glitter Wobble Leg Santas - John Lewis

I hate sprouts glass bauble - Homebase

Little London Telephone Box - Liberty

Reindeer Mini Decorations - Paperchase

I've also found a lovely tutorial from Attic 24 for these badboys (which I will be making, en masse, all night, thank you very much):

click here for tutorial

I think we're going to have a pretty snazzy looking tree, if I don't say so myself...

sleigh bells ring

I had such a lovely Thanksgiving this year!

Lovely lovely Alicia moved down to London, and joined us for the day. I brought out my little 1.5k (3lb - hey, he was cute) turkey, and I made cranberry sauce (from scratch and AMAZING, thanks Martha), garlic mashed potatoes, buttermilk biscuits, roasted carrots and parsnips, lemon butter green beans, stuffing and gravy to go with Mr Gobble Gobble. A few pals from work came along, so we managed to feed (and more impressively, seat) 8 people in our wee flat. It was cozy, fun and delicious. And we even had a special delivery earlier in the day - my grandma in LA sent us some Peppermint Bark. We had it for dessert, what a treat! And one of my co-workers picked up some turkey napkin holders for me, boy did they look snazzy.


On the weekend, our friend Glenda's son turned one and we went to his little birthday party. I guess one year olds don't really have friends, so it was actually a bit of a boozer (no other kids in sight), which I can never complain about. How cute is James hanging out with his daddy????


We've also just stepped into the month of December, yippee! On the dot, out came Father Christmas for our front door, and Elvis Christmas Carols on Napster. I've also had a chance to make some new festive cushion covers:


Hmm, they look a bit wrinkly...but trust me, they are festive!

First mince pies of the season:


And out came the advent calendars:


Hopefully this weekend, we'll finish our christmas cards, pick up a little tree and get it decorated. Bring on the festivities!

I'm still here...

I've been absolutely rubbish on the blogging front. What have I done recently?

*been locked out of Facebook (still feeling the pain...please let me in!!!)
*applied for law vacation schemes
*started on birthday and Christmas pressies
*planned my Thanksgiving menu
*thought about moving to London
*not started on my book group book, Wolf Hall
*saw Up, in 3-D (I'm such a sucker for these Pixar films - tears streamed down my face the WHOLE film)
*comforted my mom when she told me my sister was expelled from school for being a drug transaction stooge

This weekend feels like the kick off to the Christmas season. It's Kate's birthday, so we're heading into London. R has a seminar at uni on Saturday, so I'm going in early and having a wee peek at Christmas Land at Harrods:

Then we have Thanksgiving, James' first birthday party, Christmas lunch at work, The Pogues concert, with a few Christmas meals with friends/family thrown in, then off to Ireland with les parentals. Should be a hoot, and I will be up to my eyeballs in yarn for pressies! I've already started on YOURS!

Halloween come and gone

I had a very lovely Halloween here in Brighton. R and I carved our pumpkins last week, and had fun with that.

my pumpkinR's pumpkinHalloween decorations in our windowbats

For our costumes this year, we decided to go as Kermit and Miss Piggy. I have to say, I'm pretty impressed with our costumes! They look particularly cartoonish with all the bright colours.



While I was cooking dinner, we put out our pumpkins to let trick or treaters know we had candy. Unfortunately, our doorbell doesn't work, but R quickly came up with an ingenious solution, and put a sign on our door, "Dear Trick or Treaters, our doorbell doesn't work so if you want some candy, you have to scream really really loud". The kids loved it ... neighbours, maybe not so much.

We went out for a few drinks with our friends J&k (Elvis and Marilyn), and it was great to see so many people out in fancy dress. Having Halloween on the weekend makes such a difference and I had lots of fun. Next up, I have Thanksgiving planning in the works. I think I might be controversial, and do it on a Friday rather than Thursday. We'll see, it depends on how many people we will have around.

But I have definitely gotten started on my Christmas pressie list! And next weekend, I'm going to take a little visit to Harrods and see Christmasland! Super duper excited :) We've also started working on our list of Christmas movies, which we'll probably have to start viewing mid-November (hey, there's a lot to go through and we'll be busy in December!)

R's Birthday

Man oh man have I been crap on the blogging front. I keep having ideas in my head about what I want to write about, and then keep telling myself 'Set some time aside to write, K!' But it never seems to happen.

Anyway, R's birthday was 5th September, the big 3-3! We had a nice little Saturday, heading off for lunch at Woodie's Diner for some good ole' fashioned American food and shakes (not really, they really just don't quite do it right here!). Then we headed into town, and I got stuff to make for dinner for him. I cooked the most delish cheese enchilads and the most AMAZING brownie cake I have ever tasted in all my 25 years on this Earth. Devine.




For birthday pressies this year, we've decided to be a bit more frugal and not spend more than £25. I went slightly overbudget, but well worth it, methinks!

Tiger slippers! How cute!
super stoked

I'm pretty proud of this! I made the whole thing in secret (and it took FOREVER) but it fits him so well! And it's super warm and soft and looks fab. I can't wait for it to get colder so he can start wearing it to work/uni. He'll be the most bad ass PhD student ever :)

The following weekend, we did a bowling birthday bonanza at Bloomsbury Lanes, an(other) American themed place, that has bowling lanes, karaoke and diner. We bowled for an hour, and then ate/drank ourselves silly. A good night out, even if the food wasn't great. Lots of photos, none of them good, so I won't bother posting. Low point of the evening? Aggressively grabbing the bacon beer (yes, bacon beer) from J, calling him a pussy for not drinking it, and downing it in one go. Yes, Uncle K made an appearance, and it was not pretty. At least I managed to avoid the tequila, unlike R.

After waking up feeling slightly worse for wear on Sunday, it turns out R's brother O got us tickets to see Everton (R's absolute favourite football team) play Fulham, whose grounds happen to be about 1/2 mile from theirs. Yippee! Even though Everton lost (boo), it was so great for R to finally get to see them play, after being a loyal supporter for so long.




Next is my birthday, on Wednesday. Shady Ninja will be here to share in the festivities, yay! I booked for Wed-Fri from work, so I have a 2-day work week, woot woot! Can't beat that.

PS - we're already looking into booking flights back to Ireland for Christmas. Can you believe it??? It's like the holidays are just around the corner (although, it's still too early to play Christmas music according to SOME people, bah humbug)