Christmas is Coming

The girls are getting excited about Christmas - especially Eliza. We put up the christmas tree on the weekend, and the girls decorated it, which is probably why there is a glut of tinsel right at the front of the tree, compliments of Eliza).

I made this Advent calendar and hung it. Filled it with chocolates, and the girls have been enjoying their special treat each day.



I hope tonight we have some times to put up the rest of our decorations - the banner for the front entrance, fairy lights around the house, the wreath for the front door and the painted canvases Jas painted last year. I am sure we will also accumulate more christmas paintings from both schools over the next couple of weeks as well.

Hellie has been giving me some photography lessons on how to take pictures using manual mode on my Nikon D90 - these are my favourites so far:






Have managed to fit a little scrapbooking in over the last couple of weeks, here are some of my efforts:

Some Halloween Layouts from our very first Halloween party - I have even more that I also want to create:




Fiona's birthday from way back in July.


A page of some pictures I took of Jasmin in Autumn:


Could resist doing a layout of something jas told me in the car. The journalling reads:
Mum when I grow up, I'm going to have a house right next door to Hannah, and we are going to have a pool. I am going to have a Daddy who is going to stay at home and look after our babies, while I go to work to get some money to pay for all the stuff. It's going to be great!



I must do another layout at some stage about her career plans (yes, she already has some), and the names she has picked for her children (if she decides to have some!)

This layout is from the Ali Edwards - yesterday and today course I am doing at Big Picture Scrapbooking:

Some Layouts to Share

Super busy lately with school, work, swimming lessons, businesses, and just everyday life. I have managed to slip in a little scrapbooking inbetween bouts of hay-fever, which I have managed to get for the very first time this year - not very pleasant - not sure how Dave copes normally.

I am enjoying an Ali Edwards course on documenting yesterday and today over at Big Picture Scrapbooking. Last week was about documenting change - so I decided to do it in terms of all the houses I have lived in:


I created this a few weeks ago - the album cover page, and the first assignment to create a double-page layout with six childhood stories/memories:



Created this double-page layout about Jasmin learning to ride her bike without the training wheels, really love the SEI flowers and some new Websters Pages ribbon:



Also completed this double page spread about Eliza starting Kid Start this year, also used some of those beautiful SEI petals on this one, as well as Rouge De Garance papers and some Hambly Transparency:



Looking forward to seeing New Moon next week at the Dendy Premium class cinema - going with the hubbie and my bro and sis-in-law. Taking an annual days leave, so will wnjoy lunch and some christmas shopping afterwards!

Favourite Pics and Favourite Layouts

Thought inside of a blow-by-blow description of our activities I would simply post my favourite photographs and Layouts from the last week.

Photo 1: Eliza's Lipstick Capers



Photo 2: Jas loves her craft, she found a french knitting kit when she went to the Nursery with Nan



Photo 3: Me and my newest niece


Photo 4: Reminds me of when I used to line my Barbies up for school lessons!


Photo 5: My girls with one of my best friend's girls - Kylie, swimming in their pool for Ginny's birthday



OK - now for the fav layouts from the last few weeks:





Ok - that's me for today... Oh yeah, I went to the movies with my sis-in-law Fiona to see Fame, loved it!

School Holidays

The girls have been having a great time on the holidays. Jassie is keeping a little diary which she updates each day with a sentence or two, and has decorated it with various scrapbooking supplies.




Jas is a real photographer and took a million pictures at the Dino-seum (Eliza's term for the Dinosaur Museum) last week. They have also been having a great time making stuff ready for our Halloween party at the end of the month. A small sample of one of the spiders Nan helped them make:



When the weather has been nice, they have been outside having fun - the girls love drawing with chalk on the cement near the clothes line - Jas does full on landscape drawings.

According to Eliza the following is a picture of a Raccoon? She was adamant that it was a Raccoon (I thought it looked more like a Platypus)!:

She is also starting to lear to write her name - this is the E (I know, a few too many strokes on the E, but it's a start!):

This was a real flasback to my childhood when I used to make Daisy Chain necklaces as well:

Dave bought a new Digital Scaletrix set - the girls have also had a good time playing with it. Amazingly they have really great control over the cars:

Hmmmm.... the whole hanging off the swing set with no hands. I try not to panic too much, but I used to do this as well:


We had a great weekend with the girls - Swimming, going to the movies (to see Aliens in the Attic), shopping and just playing. Can't wait for next weekend.

Picnics Bike Riding and Tulip Top

We had a great weekend with the girls. Starting with going to the cinema to see Up with the Wesley-Smith family - it was such a beautiful movie, well worth watching. I cried of course - Jas said she almost cried. It was such a nice weekend that after the movie we had a picnic by Lake Ginninderra.


This week I taught Jas how to ride her bike without her training wheels on - she was a natural, no problems at all, she looked like she had been doing it for years.





On Sunday we spent the day wandering around the gardens at Tulip Top. Jas - once again had the little digital Olympus Camera, and was walking around taking shots. It was a lovely day - the bloom trees were beautiful, we enjoyed lunch and Dutch pancakes around 12pm, and hiked up the hill to see the whole property.

A couple of Layouts

I managed to squeeze a couple of layouts in late last week.

This first one uses some Rouge De Garance papers - they are so vibrant:


A layout about Jasmin's Space Explorer Day at school - I had to make the outfit in 2 days - they don't give you much notice - a trip to the hardware store for a bucket, cutlery tray, and a bit of handiwork with some milk cartons, we had an outfit! Lucky I buy all sorts of weird papers from work - so I used this Crate paper range with spaceships and aliens on it!


Last but not least - a layout about Eliza and what she likes at Four. I do a questionnaire layout for each of the girls each year around their birthday. Used some gorgeous Websters Pages Paper, and lots of embellishments: