The first Christmas that my lovely husband and I were married we made our own Christmas cards by lying on the floor, pointing the camera up at the ceiling and taking 36 photos of the lampshade. We then got the film developed three times and made the photos into our cards. I liked the cards. They were quirky and clever and well made, but to be fair not very 'Christmassy'.

Every year since (bar one) we have made our own cards to varying degrees of success. I liked the one with the stuck on pieces of polystyrene packaging that our little 1 and 3 year olds made and the postcard with the bright filled sky, and there have been a fair few made with moo mini cards which have been quite cool, though perhaps annoying to receive.

Nowadays my lovely husband usually comes up with design which we get printed and this year was a simple but lovely one. However, unfortunately we used a different printing place and the quality is not very good, so apologies now to anyone who reads this and receives a rubbishy card!

I had s busy old day today. Walked the older boys up to school and then on to buy some cranberries for gin making and then a quick pop into see some folks from work before the littlest's swim class. After his swim and a snack we wandered back through town picking up a few more Christmas presents. It was such gorgeous weather that I didn't even before to go inside the house but instead left the baby sleeping in his pram outside while I spent near on two hours tidying up the garden. My arms are aching from all the raking!

I picked up the boys again and then had a dash home and back out, back to the swimming pool for their lessons. The middle one is still full of the cold and moaning so I relented and allowed him a night off. He couldn't help himself though and on seeing there was only one other person in his class tonight he asked me if I had actually brought his trunks as he was desperate to go in for the last 20 minutes.

Of course I had.