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.

Success...

Recently I have been obtaining the monthly kit from my local scrapping store and producing a layout that is then displayed in the store the next month. Well I won last month's competition (mind you only 3 of us entered) which I am really excited about. I won a $25 voucher which will come in very handy, especially as I am spending 12 hours on Saturday at the shop scrapping this weekend. My scrapping club and the shop are raising money for the cancer council and have invited Loretta Grayson (scrapbooker extrodinaire) up from Brisbane to teach some classes as is my good friend Petrina. Congratulations Petrina for having 3 layouts published in the latest Scrapbooking Creations magazine - your talent astounds me.

Anyway must be off to organise my stash to go out scrapping on the weekend.

Have a good week.

The End ...

of the holidays has come around so fast. Nick has had fun, restful holidays. Last Wednesday he visited the Botanical Gardens with vacation care where they enjoyed a sausage sizzle, ride on the steam train and feeding the ducks. On Thursday he had a play with his friend's Lleyton and Aida whilst I was at the hairdresser and then we had fun in the afternoon shopping. We also visited the Arts Centre where there is an interactive exhibition on at present of white Lego bits which the children can build into tall buildings. It is called The Cubic Structural Evolution Project, created by a Danish man - Olafur Eliasson. Whilst we didn't have much time to build, Nick is looking forward to going back to the exhibition later in the month with his school class to build a monstrosity. On Friday, Nick visited the Bucca Retreat with vacation care. They had a great time canoeing and swimming and best of all the scary, twisty water slide. He was a tired little man on Friday evening. Craig's Mum joined us for dinner on Friday night as she has just returned from Canada and Alaska. She gave us all gifts and showed us her photos -all 664 of them and they were magic. What a beautiful part of the world.

Saturday saw Craig and Nick off to sink some crab pots in the river in search of mud crab. They also did a little fishing and were very successful in catching 2 flathead. Sadly a huge flathead got away although Craig thought possibly it was too big to keep. We gave the flathead to our favourite next door neighbours, Ted and Aileen as we prefer our reef fish. Penny and I didn't go on the fishing expedition as planned as my whole body ached and Penny's ear ached so we visited the doctor instead.

The children attended their friend, Lleyton's 4th birthday party on Saturday afternoon. They had so much fun eating great party food and playing party games in the backyard. The highlight appeared to be the little parachute men which you throw up into the air and watch float down to earth. I remember having fun with these as a child. Penny wore her new JK outfit and Nick his new bear cap and shirt that Grandma brought back from her trip to Canada.

We're up early on Sunday morning to go out fishing and collect the crab pots. Penny and I felt much better so we could join the boys. Whilst our efforts at catching crabs and fish were quite fruitless we had fun nevertheless and it was a great family time out in the open air. We did pump these most amazingly huge yabbies though. They really were way too big to catch whiting on.

Nick has a pupil free day tomorrow so he is going to spend the day with his Grandma whilst I go to work and Penny goes to daycare. Then school begins on Tuesday for the final chapter of Nick's Prep year. Wow hasn't it flown!