Celebrations

We have had celebrations for the last two weekends. On Saturday 30th April Nicholas turned 8. He was so excited to receive a Nintendo DS and is loving learning to play the games. Some of the games are a little complicated so we have had to sit down together and go through the handbook. I'm an expert on Pokemon now! Nicholas had a few school friends over and his cousins, Alex and Lachlan for a pizza, cake and a play and then onto a night movie. They had a great time. The cake was a chocolate number eight cake with chocolate frosting and crumbled cherry ripe.

The weekend just gone I was spoilt with Mother's Day. The kids gave me a Wii Fit board which Nick is very good at and Penny picked out some pretty green necklaces for me. I also received some lovely homemade art and jewellery from school. We celebrated with morning tea at an amazing cupcake shop in West End.

A double celebration was had on Saturday with Nick's soccer team scoring their first goal of the season. After a slow start and a team in which some of the boys have never played soccer before they are all starting to click and playing well together. Another lovely surprise was my brother, Richard returning to Brisbane for a surprise visit for the weekend. It was great to catch up.

On the scrapbooking front, I have had another LO accepted for photographing for a magazine. I didn't even get around to putting it on my blog. It is a lovely one of baby Penny. I did this LO of cute little Nick with the whiting at Pt Bundaberg, on the weekend.

In other news, Nick started choir this morning and loved it. The weather has turned very chilly for Queensland and unfortunately Craig and I have got head colds to go with the cold weather. Craig's away this week so we are suffering separately.

Have a happy week.

Rach xx

The Easter Layouts

Here are the LO's I completed over Easter. I think my favourite is the one of Penny and I. It is an unusual colour combination which works well.

The return to school has been good although the weather has been a little miserable. Penny had her first tap and jazz lesson (in Brisbane) this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ballet follows on and I was a little concerned about her concentration for 1.5hrs after a day of school but she came out happier and bubblier than ever. Nick is getting very excited as his 8th birthday looms on Saturday. I have been working the latter part of the week and am looking forward to catching up with Kate, my good friend from school tomorrow night, who is in town from Roma. We are having a night in, ordering take away and toasting the royal wedding of Wills and Kate over a champers or two.

Happy Thursday :)
Rach xx

Happy Easter

Our Easter break and holidays are drawing to a close but we all feel well rested. Our Easter has not been overly busy - just the way we wanted it due to the hectic 3wks prior to the weekend. We had a lovely seafood feast with the Gowdie clan on Good Friday which was a lot of fun. Craig cooked up calamari and reef fish caught on a recent trip to Bundaberg and I made a marinated prawn and avocado salad. It was so yummy and provided lunch and dinner for the next day. For dessert, Penny made an exquisite macadamia and pecan pie - yummo!

On Easter Sunday, Nick and Penny were up bright and early and ready for an Easter hunt. They ventured outside with there baskets in search of eggs but were very perplexed and disappointed when there was no loot to be found.

Out of the corner of her eye, Penny spied an egg in the lounge room through the glass and in they rushed to the room they had already walked through three times that morning already! We can only think that Easter bunny was frightened that the local ravenous possum population would've devoured the eggs had they been left outside. All was right in the world again as Nick and Penny sat down to chocolate eggs for breakfast!

After such a nourishing breakfast we drove out to Ipswich to the Railway Museum and Queens Park. The museum was excellent and well set up for kids and adults. Queens Park had a FREE zoo which even had bilbies and a great playground.

I have scrapped up a storm this weekend and completed 5 LO's. Craig has had a couple of games of golf. Penny has been out to a restaurant for breakfast and we've bought her new tap and jazz shoes. Nick has been on trail blazing bike rides. All in all, a happy satisfied family.

Back to work and school tomorrow for all of us ready to attack term 2.

Bring it on!

Rach xx

Here They Are

The layouts I promised to post. Some from the retreat and some after.

The holidays are flying by. The kids have had good play dates at friend's houses whilst I worked, Grandma came down for a long weekend and we had some little friends over today. Very busy but fun. Nick is well again.

Have a lovely Easter holiday and I hope the Easter bunny remembers you.
Rach xx

I Almost Forgot

to let you all know that I am famous again! Finally, after 11mths my LO was published 3 times in Scrapbook Creations #86. It was supposed to be in the mag last year and I felt some disappointment when it wasn't in the appointed issue. With our move I was worried that I might not receive my layout back so on contacting the editor she told me it was in the current issue. Whoops! It's quite obvious that I don't subscribe to this mag anymore. The same layout was on the contents page, face page for the gallery and then in the gallery. I always feel a bit chuffed and the kids love to see themselves in the mag.
We have been ever so busy creating Easter gifts for friends and teachers. Penny forgot to hand hers out so we handed them to the children left at school and then the rest went to the girls at ballet.

School is over for term 1 and the holidays have begun albeit very quietly for us as poor Nick has full blown tonsillitis. He has been fighting 40degree temps and a viciously sore throat since last night. He is so flat and quiet and not himself at all. Hopefully he'll be fighting fit for Easter.
Thank you to Helen and Shandell who sent me the versatile blogger award. I am hopeless at getting these done but will endeavour to do so soon.
Happy Friday to you all.

Rach xx

And A Month Has Passed

Wow! I have sat down to write a blog post so many times over the last month only to find something else needs to be done. We have had a busy month which included me turning another year older celebrated with some great friends from Bundaberg who came to stay and also with my SIL and niece and nephew at a delicious lunch in St Lucia.
We also returned to Bundaberg for a long weekend to visit family and friends and most importantly for me to attend my annual scrapbook retreat which was great as usual. The food was superb again. I didn't create many LO's but had a lovely time catching up with old friends. I will post some photos of my LO's soon.

Last Friday my Mum turned 70. She didn't want any fuss but of course we couldn't let it pass by. So I flew to Adelaide on Friday to attend a small surprise lunch for Mum at a restaurant in Adelaide. My brother flew in from Sydney and my sister was also down from the mine she works at in SA. We enjoyed a lovely long lunch full of laughter. Mum really did get a big surprise as you can see from her face! I flew back on Sunday and felt very tired after a busy few weeks but nothing like a long sleep in your own bed to recharge the batteries.

Nick and Penny are looking forward to the end of term this Thursday. They will have a few play dates whilst I work next week and we will reciprocate by having friends over on my non working days. Nick has started playing soccer and played goalie last weekend for part of the match which he did quite well at according to Craig.

Have a lovely week.

Rach xxx

Wicked

-what a wonderful stage show. We were taken to a beautiful Italian restaurant and then onto Wicked by one of Craig's suppliers last night. The story was very clever and complex. The lighting and costumes were amazing. The actors and their voices were superb. The show really is worth seeing if you have the chance.

We have just been busy with routine life. I have made a quick 9 cards loosely copied from a magazine article in a card magazine - here are 8 of them.

My friend Penny and I spent a Friday morning enjoying morning tea and making cards. Whilst I only achieved 2 at her place, I went on and created the other 7 over the weekend. I also found two LO's that I haven't displayed yet.

I find Thomas LO's hard to do but very important to document as Thomas was a huge part of Nick's young life. I really love how the Christmas one turned out.

I am busy preparing some LO's for my scrapping retreat in Bundaberg soon - can't wait to see all my friends again.

Have a happy week.

Rach xx