HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Tonight I'm enjoying a quiet champagne with my family and probably won't see midnight as my children will be up at 5.30am. The weather is very hot and humid at present and we are madly praying for rain as the grass is very crunchy under foot.

I also wanted to post some more photos of our family Christmas.

The top two photos are of my niece, Alex and nephew, Lachlan holding green frogs which enjoyed the water around the pool at the apartments. The next photo is of Penny and Auntie Trudie (my SIL) and the bottom of great mates and cousins, Lachlan and Nicholas. I hope to post more photos soon.

WISHING YOU ALL A FANTASTIC, SUCCESSFUL AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!

I'm still trying to work out my New Year's resolutions. Maybe it will take me the whole year to decide!

Have a great night.

Rach xx

A Great Beachy Christmas!

We had a great Christmas at the local beach. My parents and sister ventured up from Adelaide and my brother and his family came up from Brisbane. We stayed in some lovely new apartments situated about 100 metres from the beach. The kids had a great time in the pool but also equally enjoyed their time in the surf. Nick gained great confidence on his boogie board and was even riding the waves kneeling on his board. We enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch made special by the gorgeous name tags that the cousins, Alexandra and Lachlan had made as well as the Christmas crackers that the children and I made. We also enjoyed fish and chips at the beach one night with possums keeping a close eye on us and a scrummy goodbye BBQ dinner on Saturday night. We didn't want to come home after 5 days but it was great to get organised and for the kids to get all of their presents out properly at home.

On our arrival home, Penny was greeted with her new playhouse which was a little too big to take to the beach. She is loving playing games and trying to fit all of her dolls and their accessories in it. Nick spent much of yesterday building all of his new Lego City Coast Guard. He received two big sets for Christmas and built them all by himself.

Today we farewelled my sister, Auntie Robbie. The kids have loved playing with her and Penny started crying as soon as her plane took off - "I want to play with Auntie Robbie!". We are hoping to visit Adelaide in May and she hopes to come back during 2009. Also today, our poor Labrador, Zoe had a toe on her back foot amputated due to a fast growing tumour. She's home tonight and appears to be in good spirits with a waggly tail although a little sleepy.

Fun Play

We had a great morning playing at the new playground in our area. It also caters for disabled children with a wheelchair swing being one of the main attractions. It is a wonderful playground with great equipment for all ages including a bike/traffic roadway and a maze.

The rest of the day has been spent getting ready for that very important day which is 2 sleeps away. I don't think I'll get back here before Christmas Day so to all I wish you and your families a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for 2009.

Rach xx

Oh What A Night...

We had a great night at my work Christmas party - theme Hollywood style. As mentioned earlier, I went as Audrey Hepburn - can you see the likeness? Some people had the nerve to ask me if I was the Queen, until I brought out my cigarette holder and then they didn't know what to think! Craig went as The Joker (Jack Nicholson) with green hair (didn't show up well in the photo) and a beautifully painted face. We had a great night, with great food, plenty of champagne (although not over indulgent), great company and fantastic dancing. We were a little slow the next morning due to our late night but plenty needed to be done as my family arrived later that day to stay with us for Christmas.

In other news we had a lovely night at the park for Penny's daycare Christmas party. The kids were very well behaved and we all really enjoyed ourselves. Santa visited and the kids each received a good book. We also had fun singing Christmas carols.

We visited Santa on Tuesday and Penny was not quite game to sit on Santa's lap, so I had to be part of the photo too. It turned out well. It was nice to be in a photo for a change - 3 in this post in fact!

The Christmas Tree ...

is up and the Christmas carols are playing. We put the tree up on the 1st December but unfortunately I haven't had much time to blog lately. I don't really have time at present, but I love keeping people up to date and receiving comments. We've been busy with end of school fun, our poor old Labrador, Zoe who had to have a visit to the vet to shave and treat a very festy hot spot and I've also rediscovered sewing. I'm making an evening dress for my Christmas party. The theme is Hollywood and I'm going as Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) from "Breakfast At Tiffany's". I will post some photos after the event. I thought I'd better watch the movie as it is some time since I have seen it. It is such a lovely movie. Speaking of movies, I went to see "Australia" last week. It is spectacular, very funny and just beautiful. The scenery is stunning. I have seen a lot of the media releases on the movie but it has many more surprises than has been displayed in these. It's not just a 'chick flick', the guys would love it too. Well worth seeing on the big screen. Well best be off as we have visitors coming for dinner and I have to hem that dress.

'Til next time

Rach

Lesson 1...

in how to fall out of bed - load your bed with toys so that you have a slither left to sleep on! When I went to bed last night, here was Penny with her toys stacked beside her. Clearly, she doesn't go straight to sleep when we turn out her light. I just had to take a photo and straight after I did she rolled out of bed onto the pillows beside her bed. Luckily she didn't really wake so that once I'd cleared the toys out of the way she went straight back to sleep.I have been very busy creating Christmas cards this week (about 36 all up). I am really pleased with the way they turned out but unfortunately I ran out of envelopes so I hope to have them in the post by tomorrow afternoon. I also had to do up my annual Christmas letter and some photos of the children to slip in each.

Yesterday was a very hot and humid day so the children were content to stay in the air conditioning. To keep them amused we built a cubby house out of sheets hung off the clothes line in the garage. They had a great time playing. In the afternoon, Petrina, Angus and Thea came for a visit so the girls played babies and the boys played Lego and soccer amongst other things.

Today the children and I attended their friend, Zac's birthday party at a bowling and leisure centre. They had a great time bowling, playing on the adventure park and massive slide as well as in the games arcade. The lady from the centre who hosted the party was excellent and looked after the kids very well including taking Penny down the big slide.

This evening we enjoyed fish and chips down at the beach. It was beautiful down there, almost cool after the very hot day we have had. Well I'm hitting the sack as I have a busy week ahead trying to complete the Christmas shopping. I think I'll surprise the children tomorrow and we'll put the Christmas tree up after school, only I'll have to start early as the tree itself takes an hour to put up. Will post some photos of our efforts during the week.

180 Pages Completed!

I couldn't remember what I did last week when I wrote my post yesterday but after uploading some photos, I remembered. My week was filled with decorating 180 pages for 9 books for the children who attend the Southern Cross Kids' Camps (see earlier post). I decided use up papers that I don't seem to use anymore but in doing that I realised that they wouldn't be very appealing to kids either. So after lashings of paint and multiple stamps, the result was good. I delivered them to Petrina on Saturday morning. She is a real trooper and done over double my amount (total of 10). I hope the kids like them and find some happiness in slipping their photos and some words onto the pages.Here are the 2 LO's which I did at Petrina's class on Saturday. We used a sparkly spray product called Glimmermist and some clever little watercolours called Twinkling H2O's. It was lots of fun and quite messy too! I came away with some great ideas although these will have to go on hold whilst I get ready for Christmas with cards, crackers and decorations to be made.

Poor Penny is still unwell with the trots (day 7) but her pathology came back all clear. The Doc said it seems to take 7 days for the diarrhoea to go so here's hoping tomorrow is a better day. She is staying home with Grandma tomorrow whilst I go to work. Nick spent the morning at school today but came home before his class went to swimming as he couldn't swim with his sore eyes although they have greatly improved.

Did I forget to mention ...

that we won the raffle at the fun day for Nick's class painting? We didn't find out until the Monday as we had missed our name being announced on the day. Nick is pointing to the gardenia leaf from our garden that he stamped onto the canvas. I think the children did a great job. We are going to hang it in our back room where the children play as it is difficult to find a wall big enough that doesn't have a window or another piece of art hanging on it. It will be in the main thoroughfare to the backyard so should be well viewed.
In other news, Nick and Penny haven't been on top of the world. Nick came down with conjunctivitis yesterday and Penny has had diarrhoea for the last 6 days. After a trip to the Doc today and a poo sample to pathology we are hoping that Penny's tummy will settle down tomorrow. No swimming tomorrow for either of the children.
I attended a 3 hour class at the local scrapbooking shop on Saturday which was great fun and very productive for me - 2 LO's done. My friend, Petrina was the teacher and it was lovely to meet some new scrapping people as well as catch up with some old ones. I just have to finish the journalling and then will put them on maybe tomorrow. We visited the beach on Sunday and despite a cool breeze Nick had a great time wallowing in the waves. Amazingly the tables have reversed and Penny appears to be the scaredy cat this year. She's a mad sandcastle builder though. We also enjoyed coffee and cake at a local strawberry farm which has the most beautiful gardens.

A Card...

to show you. I created this card for a 5yo party which we attended at Crazy Maze on Sunday morning. I've discovered another great publication called Creative card making and paper craft which comes out 4 times a year. It is very inspirational and has great card making ideas using the Cricut and Cuttlebug (at times) both of which I have and a feature on scrapbooking too.

I attended my last Sunday afternoon club scrap for the year. Yes, you read that correctly, it's not the last one ever as two delightful ladies (also sisters) have decided to take over the running of our club. We start up again in January 09 which is great. We had a Christmassy afternoon with little puddings and champagne as well. A lady who demonstrates Stampin' Up products (party plan like Tupperware only mostly stamps, inks and a few other scrapping products) came along to showcase her wares. I have heard so much about these products but never actually been to a party and was astounded at the range and ideas from the books. I completed one LO which I still have to photograph and then we all got into creating pages for a 20 page album which will go to abused children at the Southern Cross Kids camps to be held next year. The 6'x6' pages are very simple and allow the child and their buddy to just slot in a photo and do some journalling. I hope to do up some more pages this week. It's amazing that for some of these children it may be the only photos that they ever receive.

Penny and I went to visit Petrina and Thea this morning. Petrina and I enjoyed our yummy Tony's Estate coffee whilst the little girls had a lovely time playing babies.

I just had to take this photo before dinner of Penny and Hannah our almost 12yo cat. Hannah will do anything to be inside, so if that means she has to be covered in Penny's babies blankets then so be it even if it is hot and humid. Poor Penny got a nasty bump on her head as we were leaving Petrina's house. She walked forward as I opened the car door and collected her on the forehead. She is such a tough little one though - the tears were over in a matter of minutes.

Well must sign off as our geckos are really active and noisy tonight. I think I need to give them some privacy as they're chasing each other round the walls making some weird noises. I think the study may be "rocking" tonight!

Layouts

I completed the school LO of Nicholas last week and the Little Miss LO of Penny last night. I have been procrastinating about how to use these big (10"x8") photos in a LO. Minimal embellishments appear to be the key. I have another LO for the shop competition and then I have to move onto creating Christmas cards, decorations and bon-bons, not to mention my annual Christmas letter. Hopefully I gain some good ideas at our last club scrap meet on Sunday. It appears that it may be the last scrap Sunday ever as Petrina and Cassie have understandably become very busy with work and family. I don't know how they've managed to juggle things this far. We will still have our weekend retreat next year which I am very thankful for as I really enjoy the weekend away. Have a good week.

Family Fun Day

The highlight of our weekend was Nicholas' school's family fun day. It opened with the school drum band who managed very well despite the hot, humid and very windy weather. As soon as they were finished the rides wound up. Penny was a little timid but Nick couldn't wait (he had an unlimited ride pass). He went on the spinning tea-cups, then up to have a sausage in bread and then back down to the rides.

He rode on the spinning chairs, down the huge slide, bounced in the bouncing castle and also bounced down the bouncy slide. He wanted to have a go at the rock wall climbing but the line up was long and didn't clear quickly enough for his liking. I think he may have been a little short to attempt it. Penny was most taken with the dunking tub whose contestants were teachers and every participant who payed $2 for 3 throws was guaranteed a dunking. In other words they kept throwing past their 3 throws if required. Penny was quite happy to sit on the grass and watch the teachers get dunked - very funny. Nicholas dunked the school policeman! He hit the target on the first throw but it wasn't hard enough but on the third throw the dunking occurred.

Penny managed to gain enough courage to venture on to the teacup ride with me but during the ride she wanted me to get off as she is a big girl now. The kids also enjoyed the bottle stall, lucky dip, balls in the clown's mouth and fairy floss. There was also a thong throwing competition and a tug of war. Luckily the predicted storms didn't arrive until 10.30pm last night. It was a great afternoon and the children can hardly wait until next year. There was no resistance to bedtime last night.

In other news, Nick was awarded worker of the week on Friday. I manged to juggle work so that I could see him awarded with his ribbon at morning parade. His teacher had written a lovely poem about him and I felt very proud of him. Hopefully I can get a copy of it for his scrapbook.

Wet Weekend

Our lives revolved around the water this weekend. On Saturday, I found the pool in the shed much to the children's delight. Penny kept jumping up and down screaming "Clever Mummy" and kissing me on the leg. They had great fun splashing around and running up and jumping in. It looked rather like wombat stew by the time they'd finished with lots of grass in it.
Craig took our big boat out to sea and came home with a good catch on Saturday. I was especially pleased to see our favourite fish (photo) in the esky - black king or cobia. When cooked it is slightly drier than other reef fish and it has a very fine flake which I enjoy.

On Sunday, our plans for a beach BBQ breakfast were foiled by light rainy showers. We had a slow morning and the kids ventured back into the pool. After midday sleeps, the sun was shining so we went to the beach where the kids played on the playground and then we ventured down onto the beach. Penny and I built sandcastles and Nick and Craig went to the water in the hope that Nick might ride his boogy board but at first he wouldn't even get in the water. After a little more coaxing he went and played in the shallow waves without the board. I think he will have to build his confidence over the Summer to graduate to the board. Our afternoon was finished off with yummy ice creams.

Spunky Boy!

On Friday, Nick had a free-dress day and crazy hair day. He had an enormous amount of product in his hair to make it spiky. Whilst it made his ears look bigger than ever, I thought he looked cuter than ever. Some of the other children had added colour and glitter.

During the week Nick was given a star writer award much to his mother's relief. I thought he'd never write but I have come to realise that Nick is going to be as stubborn as me and things will happen on his time!

On Thursday, Nick's class did an experiment with bicarb soda and vinegar which Nick called his potion. He had made the potion at home on Tuesday night and then told his teacher all about it on Wednesday. His teacher decided that it would be fun for the class to do so we did a "How To Do" sheet up on the computer and Nick got to stand in front of the class with his teacher whilst they did the experiment. He was so pleased with himself as we were proud. Clever Boy! xoxo

Just In Time!

I completed this LO before work this morning from a local scrapbooking shop's October challenge pack - it's due by tomorrow. I found it a real challenge as it's not the usual colours I'd work with and I've never used clocks before. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. The Storybook Cricut cartridge creates such lovely designs. I'm really getting my moneys worth.

I'm feeling a great deal better today. Thank you to all for their well wishes. Well best be off as I have to put the finishing touches to some lolly jars for Nick's fun fair on the weekend after next.

Green & Pink

are my favourite girly LO colours at present. I'll have to challenge myself to NOT scrap with them.

On other fronts, Craig has very kindly shared his revolting cough and cold with Penny and I. Whilst he is now better, I have a terrible cold and Penny visited the doctor yesterday morning with a very painful ear infection. As a result she has unfortunately had to begin a course antibiotics as this has been an ongoing problem for over 3 weeks. After a huge sleep yesterday morning Penny has improved enormously but I am feeling horrendous today. Luckily, I didn't have to work today.

Unfortunately my plans to continue spring cleaning the house are on hold for the moment. I completely cleaned out Nicholas' room on Monday and changed it all around much to his surprise and delight.

OK off to take some more cold drugs and have a rest.

Precious Girl

This afternoon Penny pulled out a DVD slide show of her first week of life that I had put to the song "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. I had sent them to all of our family who live away at this time and had made them all cry. I always have a tear in my eye when I watch it - maternal emotion. We haven't looked at it in ages and Penny has never seen it. After the first time through (5 minutes) Nick was off to watch his new library DVD. Penny watched it over and over and after the third time she crawled up into my lap with big tears streaming down her face. When I asked why she was crying, she said she wanted to be a baby again. I was absolutely amazed at how these images had moved a three year old to tears. They take in so much more than we think! I told her that she could only watch it if she stopped crying. She then watched it about another 6 times with a quivering lip. My beautiful sensitive girl. These are the memories to cherish.

Knocking It Down ...

On Sunday morning, the children and I visited the arts centre where they have had a white Lego exhibition which I had mentioned earlier in a previous post. Nicholas and I visited it in the holidays and then Nick went back on Wednesday with his class and had some time to build. He says he built a space ship. The reason all of the Lego is white is that it doesn't allow for discrimination by colour and just promotes construction. Well it was time for the exhibition to end and for it to move to the next art gallery. The Lego goes back to Brisbane to be put in bags and then placed in a washing machine and onto the dryer.

Not before we broke each construction up into single pieces. We stayed for an hour by which time the novelty had worn off for Nick and I and we had sore, red fingers.
The novelty wore off in the first 5 minutes for Miss P but she managed to keep entertained!

Birthday Girl

As you are aware, Penny turned 3 on Friday. She woke early and came into our bedroom wanting her rainbow cake "right now please Mummy". No mention of presents until we decided that we should get out of bed as it was a work day. We sent her down to the lounge room and she was so excited to see all of her presents. She immediately went to the scooter from Granny and Gramps and climbed on. She had a great time opening all of the presents and her facial expressions were priceless.
Penny had a lovely party on Saturday at home with 11 children attending. We played pass the parcel, pin the tail on the pig, had a treasure hunt, and the children even enjoyed dancing on Penny's backyard stage (aka sandpit lid).
Penny wore her new party dress and wanted an "up" hairstyle which took many clips to keep in place!
By the end of the party she had further accessorised with her pink rubber boots and a few bangles she'd found in the treasure hunt.
She took a green rainbow cake to daycare on Friday and we had a pretty pink one on Saturday.
Penny received some lovely presents including this gorgeous princess outfit. She literally totters around in the high heels! She had a huge sleep once all of her friends had left.

Three Already!

Yes that's right, our baby girl Penny, turned three today. As it was a working day she was able to take her much requested rainbow cake to daycare to share with her friends. She had a great day and I can't wait to see the photos when we collect the camera on Monday. Grandma and Nanny came to visit tonight to share some chicken and chips and then tomorrow is her big party and another rainbow cake. She is very excited and was still awake at 9pm despite going to bed an hour earlier.
Well best be off to finish cutting out the pig tails for "Pin the Tail on the Pig" - thank goodness for my Cricut. Better mop those floors too. Will post some photos tomorrow after the party.

Stage Show

Nick and Penny decided to put on a stage show on Saturday morning. They pulled the lid off the sand pit and put it in the middle of the lawn. Penny was up first showing off her dancing queen and sing star style whilst Nick set the mood by blowing bubbles. Next Nick was up and he was a cross between an Aboriginal dancer and a Ninja Turtle with Penny blowing bubbles in the background. It was very amusing!

We've had a lovely day at home today, being a pupil free day at school. The kids built a cubby in the garage and played in it for hours. They also had fun outside with the bubbles and playing in the sand pit. Despite the odd spat, they had a really good day enjoying each other's company. Back to school tomorrow.

PS. Some of you may be interested to hear that the unsupervised painting went well with only a few paint spatters on the floor-thank goodness.

Some New Layouts At Last!

It has been a long time between posts again due to some energy sapping virus that I have at present and also due to just being a busy part-time working Mum. Last Saturday I had a wonderful day at the scrapbooking fundraiser. Congratulations to Donna and Cassie for organising such a fun and successful day. Loretta Grayson is an awesome scrapping guru and such a lovely person. I did two lovely layouts (first two) from the packs and lessons that she taught and have plenty more bits in pieces to complete further layouts. Her style is so different to anything that I have encountered before and fun to create. It was a breath of fresh air to meet some new scrap booking people and widen my group of friends as well as catch up with some old friends.

The other layout ("big eyes") was an hour challenge pack on the day. I must admit I took it home and painted the chipboard letters to jazz it up a bit. I did start another layout but as yet haven't found time to finish it. Whilst I didn't achieve an enormous amount on the day I saw many product demonstrations and had a great day out.

I was pretty exhausted on Sunday so we had a slow day which ended with a delicious ice cream at the beach. We ate them quickly as it was quite cool and windy.

Our niece, Alex turned 9 this week. It's unbelievable to think that she has grown up so quickly. It was great to chat with her on the phone and even Penny had a conversation with her.

This week we have begun getting ready for a certain little girl's 3rd birthday. I made some invitations for Penny's party on Tuesday in her favourite colours, purple and pink. She is having a some little friends over for morning tea next weekend and is very excited although a little concerned that they will eat all of her rainbow cake! Penny is such a funny little possum. At present she is absolutely addicted to babies - real and doll-form. She decided that she must have a baby in her tummy the other night so she had a baby doll stuck in her pyjama shirt and shorts. It looked so funny but I forgot to get the camera. I'm sure it will happen again with a little encouragement.

On Thursday I went out to dinner with 2 of my good friends, Joanne and Linda. Great food, great wine and great company. I'm looking forward to our next dinner in early December.

Well better be off to check the kids as they're painting unsupervised! Have a good weekend.