He's so cute!

Oh he is cute.....

Yes my friends started the adoption process because they thought they would not get pregnant. They struggled to have their son, who was conceived via in-vitro. Then they started the adoption process last March and found out they were pregnant in June.

The new baby is gorgeous, the 2 year old is not happy, he was out of sorts but he'll be fine. I do feel bad that he will get all used to having a sister and then there will be another baby....oh well life will be interesting. This is my best friend, we met when we were 10 and we are now almost 40 so we are more like sisters. She only lives a few minutes away so I imagine I'll be over there a lot :)

Fine with me I can play with them and then leave them!!!!

Oh Lou, they're all so cute, I'd prob end up bringing them all home, but we can't have cats, one, we have two dogs who don't like them and two, Dave and hannah are allergic to them :( Hope you have nice cuddles with Softie when you get him home tomorrow.

I've been out shopping, I'm nearly done. CG... your parcel will be on it's way monday... hope H is feeling better, do you think it's a bug? Well done to her and a public loo... we have moved on :) Give her kisses for me. Dave's going to be on I70 tomorrow, hope he doesn't get caught in the mall queue...he'd stop in, but they only doing 60 mph and want to get into Ohio tomorrow night, so you won't be seeing him, unless you go to I70 and wave as he goes past :wave:

Helen, PM'ed you :)

Hannah and I have just had a Christmas pressie wrapping extravaganza, listening to Christmas music and the tree all lit up, very festive we are, she did roll her eyes at me once though, who doesn't dance to George Micheal singing 'Last Christmas'? I love that one...Pen and Lew wag their tails while I skate around the living room doing a strange wiggle..

Now must write more Chirstmas cards and clean up a bit.... havoc reigns with Christmas paper....

See you all tomorrow.

Just finished the christmas cards. There's quite a few I didn't write this year. I cut back a lot. They're all over the table.

So did Dave go through Tennessee or did he come more north? The weather is clear that's good for them driving. H is much better glad to say.

I'm going to have a cuppa and relax a wee while before I have to go out and pick up middle child.

Hello everyone

I am absolutely knackered.

Friday was my works Christmas do we went to hotel in Harpenden had a meal and there was a disco afterwards. The Schoolgirl thing must be hugely popular down here too as there was a crowd on one of the other tables all
dressed in school stuff. Got home about 1,30am. Had to be up early the next day as my friends and I went into London to see a David Hockney exhibition which was ok but not really my cup of tea. Afterwards we went for a meal
then to the pub. Got home about midnight.

Lovely to hear all your news. There was so much for me to catch up on.

I've not lost any weight but I'm pleased that I have been out alot eating and drinking and have managed to only gain a couple of pounds which I am aware of and that will be gone by the end of the week. In the past I would have carried on on eating like that day in and day out.

Today I am meeting my father for a drink, he has a planning meeting about his radiotherapy next week and will start the course in January. He seems good though.

Have a restful Sunday

Michele

Ahh.... Lou he's a lovely cat and I'm sure he'll soon settle in with you and Jen. I shall keep my fingers crossed that he's not like my daughter's cat Burt who just used to sit and watch ... birds.... mice.... goldfish.... blummin cat actually sat there and watched a mouse walk in under my back door and didn't do anything! :rolleyes:

Just finished the second walk - Fred & Ellie first then George - just in time because the wind has picked up and its pelting down icy rain. It was such a beautiful dawn as well - completely still and frosty with the sky all shades of pink, apricot, turquoise and some very vivid blue. There were a couple of minutes when the sky went completely pink (I've never seen that before) and then 30 minutes later these clouds started rolling in, the wind started and now the sleet. Yuck!

Chris - I got asterisked. I put the word for female dog to describe the way all the women were talking about next door's new girlfriend. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: I don't know where the wife went (not sure she actually was 'wife' - more of a long term girlfriend). Being a bit blonde (and shortsighted) I thought it was just the ex come back with a different hair colour and car until DH pointed out to me that, if thats the case, then she'd also managed to grow about a foot. :lol: Later he (our neighbour) got round to pruning back a tree thats been blocking our Sky dish and cutting a lot of light out of our lounge and knocked to ask if it was okay to do some of it from our garden so I got introduced to her (can't remember her name) and they got introduced to Ellie who dribbled all over both of them. :rofl:

Now I'm all thawed out I'm going to get going on my chores for the day - which is to make the first two of the Boxing Day casseroles for freezing - a chicken one and a spicy lamb one. I've made them both before and they improve with freezing so I've decided to cheat and make loads - enough for Boxing Day and lots more to freeze for DH and me. :drool:

Hi Michele - we posted at the same time :wave:

Good morning everyone, finally it's a bit warmer.

I thought people might want to check out this link for the Santas in Speedo run, my favorite run to watch all year.

http://santaspeedorun.com/

Hello to you too Sarah.

Lou what a little dote the kitten is.

My house is sooooooooooo quiet. Not sure if I mentioned that I have my brother staying here at the moment, as much as I love him what a messy sod he is. Every weekend he has his little boy who I love also but there never seems to be any peace anymore. He has just gone over to dinner with our little brother Patrick. I did say to Patrick do you fancy a lodger he said no you keep him!!!

We are putting our tree up on Wednesday eldest boy Conor listens to the gospel of his grandmother (my mother-in-law) who says that is the day they should go up, and every year my family keep it up till 12 days after Christmas
it drives me up the absolute pole. Once Boxing Day is over I want the tree down bahhhhhhh humbug. I've not written a card or even bought any for that matter yet. If there ever comes a time when my boys don't want to spend Christmas Day with us and I suppose this will happen at some point when they have wives/girlfriends I intend helping out at a homeless shelter. No matter how many people I see sitting in doorways in the cold I it always affects me last night in Holborn there was a girl about my age sitting under a blanket with her dog. I put some money in her pot and then popped in the shop and bought her a box of Maltesers and my friend bought dog food.

Its got very cold and I swear I can smell snow!!!

Michele

Hello! I'm very proud of myself today, I ate sprouts! :yikes: I've never been able to bring myself to do it, but I went out for a christmas lunch with my grandparents and there were sprouts on the plate so I decided to go for it. Not my favourite veg by any means but I'm proud of myself for finishing them :dance: The meal was surprisingly good, I had leek and potato soup, a veggie bake and christmas pudding :hun: but I'm sure that my stomach is finally getting smaller because it seems more and more of a struggle each time to actually finish food when I eat out.

I'm just trying to work out how to get to work and running club tomorrow, I think there's a bus strike so I'll probably have to take my car into town rather than just parking it at running club. If the :censored: thing starts that is! (Thanks for the link for the starter thing by the way, I'm now looking to see if I can get it here).

Right, I think I'm going to get my stuff ready for tomorrow and then do some yoga :yoga:

Originally Posted by YP1:
Hello! I'm very proud of myself today, I ate sprouts! :yikes: I've never been able to bring myself to do it, but I went out for a christmas lunch with my grandparents and there were sprouts on the plate so I decided to go for it. Not my favourite veg by any means but I'm proud of myself for finishing them :dance:

Well done...

Oh just give me a plate of SPROUTS with Gravy for Christmas dinner and I’m happy…. I am so fussy about veg but I just love Sprouts! lol It's these things I don't like ------> :carrot:

Congrats Kylie on your Engagement! :D :hug:

Hello ALL! :wave:

I had a fabby weekend! :D

We had pressies on Friday night. Then on Saturday we went for our meal on the train, it was lovely! I ate just enough and not too much. I had melon to start, turkey for mains and an apple pie thingy for dessert, then tea with marzipan fruit and choccies and a mince pie and a satsuma! :T Then we crashed out in front of one of my old dancing videos from when I was enormous and I danced on stage at the local theatre. I was watching it and realised that whoever filmed it CUT ME OUT on all the group shots! :eek: How DARE THEY??? :tantrum: So no close-ups of the cat-looking-like-a-cow girl :moo: Oh my goodness! I don't think I looked THAT bad, but the costume was very baggy and I danced well and at least you couldn't see me counting like a skinny girl in close-up! :p

Then we had Sunday lunch which was delish - no starter, Fish and Chips for mains :T :T:T:T:T:T:T:T:T Whitby Cod :T:T:T:T:T:T with spanking chips and red cabbage and buttery carrots :T THEN I shared a dessert with Mummy. :angel: Oh and a Baileys slipped in there somehow... Which of course got me a bit tiddly since I don't drink at all... So when we got back to Mum and Dad's I decided to play some carols on the piano, and couldn't sight read the bass and treble cleff together since I'm used to playing just treble on the sax. :dizzy: So Mum played bass and I played treble and neither of us can sing, but we were warbling out Carols and playing badly on an out-of-tune piano and it was hilarious!

Then we sat on a train for hours and hours...

I've got staff Christmas lunch today :D :T :hun: and I've forfeitied my morning snack to save room... :lol: Then I've got that tournament this afternoon in which I will beat my opponent :yes:

I love sprouts too. It is the veg and the sauces I love. Gimme sprouts, bread sauce and cranberry sauce and pickles (pickled walnuts - yummeeee) and I am a happy christmas camper!

awwwwwwwww hes a scaredy cat.. no name yet.... any ideas...

he go himself into the TV unit thingy.... stuck behind the DVD player... but now hes looking out the back door... his usual postion i think is going to be.. hiding behind the curtains lol... meowing... coz he wants to go out lol...

What does he look like?

Awww lou - I saw his link :hug: Very sweet!

I've just been buying junk on e-bay. We're dressing up for new year. I'm going to be a bumbly bee and DH is going to be a flower :lol: Bless! He's tall and skinny so he'll look good as a flower stalk! I just need to buy him some green jogging bottoms from Primark or somewhere! :rofl:

not sure how to put pics here.. so .. changed my avatar....

hes tabby & white..

You could call him Beatty - like beatamax videos.... :lol:

lol....

we had justin ... as in justin timberlake.. so we could call him MR JT...
or toby.... , mambo, mylo, buster.... they are the faves so far... but not sure...

OMG.. how are we going to choose our kids names lol....

:no: You CANNOT call that poor sweet little cat JUSTIN! :fr:

Mylo's cute!

yup... im not soooo keen on justin... but MR JT is cool...

hes got quite a walk... coz hes got a big neck... think hes going to be character once hes used to us..

If he has a big neck you could name him after one of those wrestlers/boxers/action heroes I guess. Seagal, Willis et al. Big him up with a 'big boy' name if he is a scaredy cat - tho most are, when you just get them - except our little black one who would have been all over us but for her injured leg. She soon knew how to charm us all!

You could call him Diesel like Vin Diesel :rofl:

haha.. yup... keep em coming....

we had thought ages ago .. if we got a tabby he would be called "stripey dave"... but not sure on that now lol

Yes, I like Mylo as well. No - don't call him Willis - there's a cat further up our road called Willis and it is a real neighbourhood terrorist. I'm just thankful that our garden doesn't fall in to his territory because he makes his neighbouring dogs' lives absolute ****. How about Arnie? I always give my animals the old fashioned names like Burt, Wilf, Henry that kind of thing.

Jen, your weekend food sounds yummy. :drool: I :love: Whitby cod - best in the World.

I like sprouts, too, but only those little button ones which have got a sort of nutty taste. I don't like the big ones plain steamed because I think their flavour is a bit too strong and dominates everything else - I use those in Bubble & Squeak. My fav part of Christmas dinner is the accompaniments - all the sauces and stuffings - and those little sausages wrapped in bacon. :drool:

:yes: I like sausages in bacon too! I still have to buy them for my crimble dinner, that and turkey and some fresh custard! :lol:

I had to laugh yesterday. I got the veggie roast and on the plate was... a sausage wrapped in bacon. I don't think they quite got the concept of veggie...

lol.. thats like my nan.... oh just a little bit dear.. that wont hurt..

Helen - loved yoru photo!

Yeah there is always someone who doesn't 'get' vegetarianism.

However, you can bet i f you did eat that sausage - someone would tell you about it! I have know someone tell me that ham is not meat! Right.......

Reminds me of in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding - when the Greek family are all shocked that Ian does not eat meat - then her Aunt shrugs and says she would coook Lamb.........

:lol:

We're having roast rib of beef on Christmas Day this year (just me and DH) - but I'm still making the sausage/bacon thingies and the stuffings and sauces to have on Boxing Day. Actually I think I'll cook some on Christmas Day as well because we like them cold with ham, cheese and salad for supper.

I must be mad - I had a long chat with an unattached friend yesterday afternoon and she was saying how lonely it gets being single on times like New Years Day when people spend the time with their families so I rashly decided to do a roast turkey dinner with all the Christmas trimmings on New Years Day. We had a quick phone round our single friends and managed to come up with another five who are free that day - so we're going to be doing a bit of matchmaking!!! ;) ;)

I'm hoping that the combination of the Boxing Day open house thing and the New Years Day dinner means that I'll have done all my entertaining for the next year. :rolleyes:

My family never really got to grips with it when I was in my vegie years. I was always given the third degree about what I would or wouldn't eat and at the end of it they would always say 'so..... does that mean you don't eat [insert meat item they were planning on cooking] :rolleyes:

Morning all :) :wave:

Didn't get on here much yesterday... was very busy getting this house in order for my darling boy arriving with his Dad tomorrow (his name is Justin by the way... LOL... but we call him 'J') but I don't think I'd call a cat that...we had one called Myron.... have no idea where that name came from and once i fell pregnant, he hated me, would jump out from behind things and stick his claws in my legs, it bloody hurt! And once J was born, he wouldn't come in the house past the kitchen threshold...and about six months later, friends came round and told us they had seen him on the main road, dead :( Dave and a friend marched off down the road with a shovel and a plastic bag and brought him back and we gave him a nice funeral.

I had a friend with cats, so I took all his food and bowls and stuff and donated them to her, and a few nights later, I was up with a teething baby, making a bottle and I heard me-owing outside, it sounded very like Myron, and scared the sh** out of me, so I woke Dave, he opened the door and in strolls.....none other than Myron... we'd buried someone else's cat!!!! And I had nothing cat like to feed this poor thing that had apparently decided he had another place to live as well as our house, so decided he'd only come home every few days....when we moved, he scratched Dave to bits when he tried to put him in the car, so he stayed behind and a neighbour told us, she'd been feeding him for months, so he had a new home.

It's a tad warmer today, and I have to get outside and poop-a-scoop, and sweep some more leaves up that are gathering around the doorway...I was going to do it yesterday, but the wind just blew them back where I'd swept them out....grrrrrr.

Frus, your dinners over the weekend sound very yummy. Glad you had a good one with the parents, lovely knowing you're a bit mad like me, singing carols on an untuned piano... that's what Christmas is all about with your family times, sharing and caring.

Sarah, matchmaking hey? Sounds like fun, you'll have to keep us up to date if anyone pairs off.

Ok, time to get the washing in the dryer and get to curves...by the way, did I tell you I hate wooden floors? I just cleaned all these yesterday and they look horrid again! Double GRRRRRRRRRRRRR...

Hmmmmmm - I hate wooden floors as well. They're lethal when they've just been polished (picture uncoordinated ice skating Great Dane) and never stay looking nice for more than a couple of hours - well not in this house anyway.

Ello Chicks!!!!
Hope everyone is having a very merry time and counting down till christmas. I have had laptop problems for a month and so have not been able come and waffle away, and have missed it sorely.Howeva mow tht iam back home frm leeds for a month, there is going to be plenty of time for tht.
YP1- Love tht foto, school gal out fit is a classic after all.
Frus- hope ur toe is better!
Sarah ann- Rost beef for xmas sounds betta than the traditional turkey. I ate xmas food at my coratian friends last year and her mum had made lamb, mint, and honey roast, which i was v.reluctant to try, but then one i got started there was a risk of me finishing off the whole thing. But tht's old news, the new me wont do tht, mainly cos im not going rounnd hers for xmas this year! :D

Newho the on the weght loss front several disasters have occured!!!! I am not even gonna start blaming xams or christmas for this- where was my self restraint??!!! I looked for it sooooo hard. But now i am back on track. And am about to head off for a swim even tho it is freezing and my legs are hairy!!!!!
shmoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

BritNJ - LOL at Myron's funny ways! At least you know he is being well looked after.

Schmoo - Didn't you know your legs should be hairless when swiming? It makes you swim faster!!!!

ahhh i think we have settled on Marmite.....

ive moved the DVDs outa the cubby hole next to the DvD player... hes happy in there now lol.... sleeping ... i took him to the kitchen while i washed up.. he freaked out a bit as there are men diggin up the rd... so was noisy... but he ran back into the right cubby hole..so thats gd... but now i need to find a place for the stuff thats in there ... lol....

Marmite is a lovely name for a cat!

Keep us posted.

Our have never tried marmite (to eat) but the first one adored Bovril! You did not dare leave a mug of it around or leave some on toast- she would stalk it!!!

lol... bless... hes still too shy or lazy lol... ... hiding away.... but comes out eventually if hes going to get some cuddles lol....

He will get there. Maybe he will always be shy or he may perk up! Out last one - another stray had days when he was really friendly and other days when you could not get near him. He seemed to have trouble working it out himself!!!!

I especially loved it when after explainign to my friend that he is not that friendly and would run a mile, he marched straight up to her and demanded a fuss be made of him!!!