Everyday Life

It's been wonderfully ordinary the last couple of weeks. No trip away last weekend, so we managed to get our groccery shopping done! This week I started some Christmas shopping (all online of course - what a wonderful God-send this internet stuff is sometimes, when you just don't have the time to go out!) We are planning however, a trip to the Canberra Centre on Saturday to do some "real" shopping as well.

Jas had a play date at a friends yesterday afternoon, they played in a pool, and she even got dinner! She had a great time, meantime back at the house I had to be Eliza's playmate. She has such a great imagination. After a bit of imaginery play, I found the Wonder Woman outfit someone had bought her for her birthday, and couldn't resist snapping these pics. She even has the Wonder Woman spin down-pat, and Dave is going to hunt up a couple of old episodes for her to watch. I suspect they will be a bit dated!







This afternoon after I picked Jas up from school we made cupcakes. Both girls got Master Chef cupcake sets for their birthdays from different friends. Jasmin made the Orange Cupcakes, and Eliza made the Fairy cupcakes. Jasmin read and followed the instructions all by herself, and only asked for help as she needed it. Eliza did really well as well, cracked the eggs in the bowl, did her own sifting and stirring. Her favourite bit is licking the bowl out of course:




Doing a colour course with Nic Howard on Big Picture Classes at the moment - here are a couple of more layouts from that class:

Green Week


Orange Week


Yellow Week


Now for a list of things that have made me smile over the last couple of weeks:

1. Eliza got her pre-school photographs back - in her words "These are all fantastic Mum!"
2. We had a visit from a school friend last week who came to stay the night - thanks Shane! It's always great to catch-up. (PS. hope you find your glasses)
3. Jasmin played all the way through a Wii game (Scooby DOo) with a bit of my help. We had a great time (first time I've ever finished a game!)
4. I've decided that Jasmin and Eliza's nick names can be "Giggles" and "Chuckles" respectively - they so suit their nick-names!
5. On getting Jasmin's school spelling list this week, I had a bit of a chuckle, I'm not sure Dave would get them all right!
6. Making cupcakes with the girls. Jasmin making them just wearing her undies and singlet and an apron (she didn't want to get her clothes dirty)
7. Taking pictures of Eliza while she pretended to be Wonder Woman - she was just soooo cute! Cutest little Wonder Woman I've ever seen.
8. I am almost finished Jodi Piccoult's "Nineteen Minutes", it's a huge book, and has taken me a couple of weeks.

Okay - off to ice cup cakes and watch the girls bounce on the trampoline.

It seems like forever

Warning - Large Blog Post!!!

It seems like forever since I blogged.... it's probably only been a month, but I have been so busy since we got back from Singapore.

Dave and I had a great time - although we did miss the girls. We rang ever couple of days from Singapore. The first time we spoke to Eliza, she asked if we could come home now please? We said that we were there for a couple of weeks so we couldn't come home straight away, and after that she refused to speak to us on the phone!

We loved our trip away - two weeks is almost too much time for Singapore, we saw most of the sights, with the exception of the Zoo, which we felt would have been more fun if we went with the girls. We saw the Changi Museum and Chapel, bicycled around Pulau Ubin after catching a bum boat to the island, shopped on Orchard Road, Little India and Chinatown, rode on the Singapore Flyer (which is apparently bigger than the London Eye), cruised down the Sinagpore river, observed Singapore from the Observation Deck of the Marina Bay Sands (a marvelous piece of architecture I must say), stayed on Sentosa Island and had fun at Unverisal Studios... and much more. The second week was spent mainly at the Civic Video Conference, where we had our brush with fame - with inspirational talks by Li Chunxin of Mao's Last Dancer, and Mark Bouris of Wizard Home Loan fame. We had excellent dinners at the Marina Bay Sands, Night Safari, with all the drink we could drink (pretty good considering the alcohol was expensive at restaurants), and we also got to see all the movie trailers up until about May-June next year (one of my favourite bits!)

Here is a small selection of photos:
















I had a couple of tears on the second weekend, when my girls left me this message on facebook:



On a positive note - they had a great weekend with all their cousins!

Since our return we have been continually on the go. First up, was Jasmin's eighth birthday, a Pizza and movie night with all her class friends (and her cousins of course!). It was such an easy party to do - $80 for 12 pizza's from Dominios (pick up before 5:30pm), lots of lollies, chippies, soft-drink whilst they played pool, and ate pizza. Then a movie in the cinema room (yes we managed to squish about 20 kids in there), and then we did birthday cake (decorated like a pizza), ice-creams, and sent them all home with the parents, with lolly bags in hand (chuckle!)



We did a trip back to Goulburn to meet our newest nephew (and cousin) Oscar -



And then Halloween of course. It was fantastic, such a lot of fun. Everyone go into the groove and dressed up, it was such a great night.








I started a colour course on Big Picture Classes with Nic Howard - Preclass work was a set of tags (which I turned into cards instead), and then the first weeks assignments were based on the colour red (my favourite):




I have also managed to read a few books in the last month, so to add to my list are:

41 - 42 Wicked Lovely Books 1 & 2 (Melissa Marr)
43. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest (Steig Larrson)
44. A Kiss of Shadows - Laurell k. Hamilton - Book 1 Merry Gentry novel.

At the moment I am reading a Jodi Piccoult book called 19 minutes and the last of the Wicked Lovely Books. Thinking I might read something a bit heavier soon, although these pulpy books are easy to read, which is sometimes what I need when I am so busy - I don't have to think too much!

Off to bed early tonight - yes, 10:30pm is an early night, after staying up until 1pm watching movies every night this week. We've had to preview a heap of movies as this weekend we have to order for both December and January. The girls have been great, and have previewed about 6 kids movies for us as well. Jas is pretty lenient scoring 4's and 5's out of 5 for the movies, Eliza is more conservative and harder to please, scoring mainly 3's out of 5's.

Only 3 more sleeps

Well it's only three more sleeps until Dave and I leave for singapore. I am 95% packed, and starting to feel a bit nervous and excited at the same time.

We had a great long weekend, and as per usual I went back to work to have a rest. We stayed in Canberra - did lots of catching up with different friends that we don't see as often as we would like. We also went to Floriade, we picked the best day - it was a beautiful sunny day. I could have done without Eliza complaining almost all the way around the flowers - as she was more interested in going to the Circus (aka - the ferris wheel, and jumping castle). Here are a couple of my favourite pics:

Yes a sandcastle a Floriade - a strange sight indeed-

Jas dancing in the shade of an umbrella-

The view of Floriade from the Ferris Wheel-

Red and White Tulips - so beautiful-

The girls and I posing in front of the flowers and ferris wheel-

The umbrella display - very Springy (I'm sure that's not a word!)

My Favourite Gnome-

Dave and Eli-bear-

I am loving my new office space... although it feels a little strange to be on the opposite side of the house to Dave at night time, just waiting on my drawer handles and the glass fronts and shelves to the display cabinets, and I will post some completed pictures.... oh and also the carpet needs to be relaid.

Jas finished her school diorama - and feels that she went well in her talk. I am so happy that she has no problems with speaking in front of the class - I certainly could not have done it at her age. The teacher said the other day, that Jasmin is one of the best presenters in her class. Being good at public speaking has really boosted her confidence. She is doing so much better with her reading now, her memory seems to be improving, so will be interesting to go to her followup appointment in Sydney in December and see what the results are. I so want her to have the best opportunities, she loves being read to, so I really want her to be able to read fluently and with confidence. Here is the final diorama:


PS. I am very impressed with Jasmin's memory for song lyrics. She can listen to a song a couple of times and sing the lyrics back to you, normally with or without music. She really relates to it. I was so impressed when she sang the words to my favourite song (My Never - Blue October) to me after only hearing the song a couple of times! She can even sing the rap in Aeroplanes (B.O.B featuring Hayley Williams)

I haven't had a lot of time for scrapbooking, plus all my supplies have been boxed up in the garage. Had to do a couple of work layouts for a newsletter on using Page templates. I do like the simplicity of the results though-



Well - off to bed for me. I have to preview one more movie before ordering tomorrow night.

Friday night we head back to Goulburn after we have tucked the girls in for the night.... is it silly to miss the girls, when I haven't even left yet?