Christmas Time

Christmas for me is all about my family, and now I'm lucky enough to have two. Over the past three years we've been very lucky to have three new additions - Isabelle, Jake and Charlie. Celebrating Christmas with children definitely makes it more magical and I now love shopping and buying for them.

On Christmas Day we spent it with David's parents, and our gorgeous nephew Jake made an appearance in the afternoon. We bought him a little CD player with two nursery rhyme CD's that he adored and gave us a few renditions of 'Twinkle twinkle little star' and 'Old McDonald'.

On Boxing Day we drove to my parents where my niece and nephew were spoilt rotten by ourselves and my cousins. We all dressed up, the majority of us went for Christmas Jumpers whilst Fiona and Jackie went for snowmen ... or should I say snowwomen.

Isabelle received a lot of gifts but her favourite was definitely her little mermaid costume which she refused to take off. Charlie had two outfits for the day - a reindeer costume and his cute penguin pjs.

We all secretly enjoyed their pressies more than ours. David got rather competitive when playing Elefun with Isabelle, and I tried rather too hard when drawing a picture on her new chalkboard. She also received a mini keyboard, who knows she might be a future Mozart.

We bought Charlie the Fisher-Price Rainforest Gym however a certain little girl thought this was also her present.

A new baby nephew

Being one of four girls normally provokes the response, "oh your poor dad". He has had to live in a house full of woman for a very long time and although I secretly think he loves it the news that my big sister, Kathleen, was expecting a baby boy was like a dream come true for him.

Kathleen was over 2 weeks late and my patience was definitely wearing thin but on the 13th October 2013 we had the phone call to say Charles John Crossley had finally made his way into the world.

We jumped in the car and made our way to their house, where we waited until they returned from the hospital. To keep us entertained we watched The Little Mermaid, Isabelle's current favourite film, adorably she believes that she is a mermaid. I captured the moment that Isabelle saw her baby brother for the first time and made it into a short video that we can watch over and over again. The song not only fits perfectly but Eternal always reminds me of Kathleen from when we were younger.

Charlie is absolutely perfect, and it's amazing how quickly you become attached to this new little person in your life. Isabelle wasn't quite sure what was going on but happily accepted a necklace that "Charlie had bought her", and enjoyed all the extra attention from us.

As we'd known for a while what name Kathleen and Ian were going to pick I decided to opt for a personalised gift and found these teeny little converse style trainers from My 1st years. Hopefully one day soon he will grow into them. We then spent the next hour having our photos taken with Charlie before it was time to leave the Crossley's to settle in with their new addition.

 As we said goodbye to Isabelle she said "goodbye baby", I don't think it has quite sunk in that he is here to stay. I can't wait to see him grow up...

My best man

Greg asked David to be his best man nearly two years ago and he started writing the speech about a week ago. He's spent many evenings piecing together what he wanted to say, arranging props and watching many best man speeches on YouTube.

The big day started at Himley Hall, a country house situated in Staffordshire just five minutes walk from the hotel we were staying at. Scott and Alice kindly picked me up on-route and we coincidentally parked right beside Greg. After Greg and David attached their buttonholes we made our way to the venue where we were seated.

Beci looked absolutely stunning as she walked down the aisle and Greg looked very relieved that the ceremony was finally underway.

So to keep the nerves to a minimum the speeches were said before we tucked into the buffet. Here's a video clip of David's, I think I was more nervous than him:

We had a lovely day, Congratulations Greg and Beci!

The day I won the lottery

When I started my new job I got asked to join the syndicate, now I've probably only bought two or three lottery tickets in my life but I thought I'd kick myself if I didn't join and they went on to win. And luckily I did because after just three months of joining this happened...

It was early morning when I heard the cheers and noticed everyone had gathered around Chloe's desk, I heard the word lottery then heard £145. With thirty of us in the syndicate I didn't bother moving, £145 was the most we'd ever won but not something to report home about. Then I heard the word 'thousand' and before I knew it I was moving very quickly to Chloe's desk. We hadn't won £145, we had won £145,000. Someone very quickly did the maths, £4,500 each! (Their maths wasn't great it was over £4,800)

Within seconds everyone was on the phone to their loved ones. I quickly wrote in my sisters and best friends whatsapp groups about the win as I rang David, quickly followed by my dad. My mum's phone kept going to her answer phone and so not to panic her after three attempts I just sent a text, "I've won £4.5k".  I wasn't to know that mum didn't know that K stood for thousands and so she thought I was getting incredibly excited over £4.50.

Quite quickly people were talking about how they were going to spend their thousands - holidays, mulberry handbags, wedding funds, artwork. I figured I'd put the majority towards our honeymoon, give all my family a treat and take David away for a short break.

It's going to take at least a week till the money finds it's way into my bank account, so I've got plenty of time to dream about what I want to do. For the moment I've decided on a trip to Venice next April, a visit to the theatre with Jackie to see Les miserables, indoor sky diving with Jackie and Fiona and finally a tip to Go Ape with the little sis. Once baby Charlie is born I think I'll take Kathleen for a spa day. I'm still working on something for the parents.

The best thing about this win is not the fact I can spoil my family, although that's a huge bonus, but that I won with so many other people.  Sitting at work and seeing the excitement and buzz around the office, knowing that for some people it will help them pay their bills or make Christmas a little easier this year is really quite special.

You really do have to be in it to win it. And I'm so happy I was.

Saving the date

I've always wanted a September wedding. The weather is usually warm yet not hot, and normally the rain stays away. In England you really can't guarantee the weather so I'll be purchasing an umbrella just in case.When we found the right venue there was just one day left in September, 16 months away on a Friday. We quite liked the idea of a Friday wedding as haven been to a few in the past we enjoyed that it felt like a mini holiday.

It was then a case of letting everyone know the date. Our inspiration for our save the dates was a vintage style postcard, with an image on the front and their address on the back. Here's a few that we found on pinterest.

It was then a case of deciding on the photo for the front and what to put on the back. I saw a lot of photos that included the date written onto bunting and a few with couples walking through fields which I thought were stunning. So I decided to combine the two. I surprised myself by making my own bunting and then we got dressed up and walked through the fields by my parents house. Here is the final result:

For the back we opted for a short poem and then a silhouette of a man proposing to a women that we'll be using throughout our wedding stationery. I put this together in photoshop using a postcard template which included the stamp icon and address lines.

We then got these printed with Overnight Prints and decided on rounded corners with a glossy effect on the front. I absolutely love the final result and it makes me even happier that we did it all ourselves.

Skate Kings Cross

After reading The Londoner's post on Skate Kings Cross I rallied the troops and made our way to Handyside Canopy where for just 8 weeks this summer you can pop on some skates and try your very best not to fall over.

We laced up and made our way onto the skate rink, it was rather quiet but this worked in our favour as we had plenty of space to dance and skate. The rink is designed by architects Feix&Merlin to 'help channel disco spirits past'. 

We had a lot of fun and obviously had time to pose for a photo or two too - well it's not often I get to wear such colourful shoes! With some old school classics to more recent hits, Italian disco mastermind Nico De Ceglia played music throughout the evening for us to sing along to.

By the end of the night there were just a few of us left with our skates on but we decided to grab a drink and a few ice creams from the bar behind. If you fancy doing something a little different in London this summer then click here to book tickets, the rink is open until the 6th September.

Our engagement party

It's incredible rare to have all my friends and family together so our engagement party was pretty amazing. We held it at my parents house, and we were luckily that it was a perfect sunny day so we spilled out onto the garden.

I wanted something special to wear and when I saw this dress in Lipsy I knew it was the one. I wore it with my bridesmaid shoes from my sisters wedding. I then went on to wear this for our Save the Date photo.

Frustratingly I didn't give anyone my camera till later in the day so there are just a few from when my Dad did a speech, I think he was practicing for the big day. My sisters boyfriend, Rico, got us the most incredible chocolate Greek cake which unsurprisingly disappeared pretty quickly.

Here's a short video of our engagement and the party, I'll treasure this forever.

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