Can't believe it's almost the end of the week already! The girls are happily playing with the playdoh - Jas just brought over an impressive looking strawberry ice-cream she moulded out of play-doh (maybe she was giving me a hint). We enjoyed some Balsamic Glazed Chicken with Nashi Pear tonight, only me and the girls. Dave had a late meeting with a vendor and won't be home til later (reminds me of how much I don't miss my old job, late nights and meetings and travel and the list goes on !!!!)

Jas was in her element tonight, her news talk this week was to make a thank you card for someone who works at the school, and to talk about it in class tomorrow. Lucky she is the daughter of a scrapbooker, so it was a fairly easy task for her to complete, and enjoyable as well. At least there was no complaining about doing homework tonight - didn't need to guzzle down a glass of wine to iron out the stress afterwards!

We had an enjoyable weekend. Dal and Mikey came for dinner, with their two little munchkins. I made Smoked Trout and Nashi Pear Brushetta (sure I haven't spelt that right), Pea and Prawn Risotto, and Berry and Chocolate Mess with Meringue. It was pretty funny - we have been planning to meet up for dinner for a while, so that she could give me some pretty pink lingerie I ordered from a party she had, and a paper punch I ordered on the same night - she forgot both. Oh well, another excuse to have a dinner together! Jasmin was fantastic - she actually made the childrens meals. Home-made chicken nuggets from the Nigella app on the iPad. She even made her own buttermilk - since I couldn't find it at the supermarket.

It may sound stupid, but because Dave doesn't cook (131166 is not cooking!), I often worry about the girls diets if anything was to happen to me. Given she made the chicken breast chicken nuggets by herself on Saturday night, and also made her and Eliza's dinner last night (I had the worst headache and really strugged to make Dave and I the Thai Beef Salad I had planned). She offered to make their dinner and prepared a platter of strawberries, cheese, crackers, tuna, banana pieces and carrot sticks (she also put fish fingers in the oven to share with Eliza), quite a balanced meal I must say. Perhaps I don't have too much to worry about.


Sunday was a lazy day to start with followed by the epic 5 week groccery shop in the arvo. Poor Dave had to do a couple of hours work and do games ordering for the Video shop. So the girls and I mucked around - jumping on the trampoline, watching movies and playing.




It was such a lovely day, we did the drive thru of McD's, Hungry Jacks and Red Rooster at Belconnen, and took out lunches to the park by Lake Ginninderra to eat. The girls played in the playgrounds and jumped on the rocks near the water feature, before we headed over to Jeff and Ona's to do the grocerry shopping.





I have managed to do some layouts this week of the Hunter Valley trip we went on last year to celebrate our good friend Mark's 40th. I have one layout left to do, and will post the results when I have finished this. In the meantime - I leave you with a layout I made on the fly at the demonstration I did at Wrapped in Paper last Friday night (so lots of Glimmer mist!), the layout has a favourite picture of Jas and Dave standing on a beach in Kauai (Hawaii). I have also included a layout of Eliza, who was Star of the Day a couple of times at Playschool last year - she looks as proud as punch!

Today

Today I stopped work a little earlier - wow a whole half an hour! I have a special outing tonight, work related, to give a demonstration at the local scrapbook shop (Wrapped in Paper at Gold Creek), on the night of their 10th Anniversary.

I have the coolest job in the world. I get to do my profession - I.T. but also scrapbooking, which is one of my hobbies. This week I have been spending my nights preparing for the demo, which is a demonstration of Tattered Angels Glimmermist and other products. I'll also let them have a play with all the yummy products. I created a couple of extra layouts to put in my sample album (which was already chock-a-block full of sample layouts), to show the ladies attending. They are full of glimmermisting goodness. These layouts started as plain white cardstock backgrounds:




Have put a bottle of wine to chill in the fridge to share with Jeff and Ona later, they are kindly taking the girls to their first swimming lesson for the semester while I go and do the demo (so proud, Jas has progressed to the next swimming level - I think she can already swim better than me, and looks like a mermaid in the water). Not sure what I would do without Jeff and Ona living not so far away, and always willing to lend me a hand! Dave doesn't get home until after the swimming lesson, but he will organising Pizza for everyone while I'm out. Poor bugger has to catch the bus home in the cold every Wednesday to Friday!

In other good news this week, the coffee machine is back from the repair shop, so I am now enjoying my morning capuccinos again! Jas is loving the Bubbacinos.

Sydney Weekend

We had a fabulous weekend in Sydney. We headed off from Goulburn early Saturday morning, after having a coffee at GJCs (of course). We did a spot of shopping in the city and then caught the train out to Olympic Park to watch Disney on Ice. The kids have been looking forward to this for a while now! They all had a great time, and the show was pretty entertaining. I think catching the trains, buses and ferries in Sydney is just as big an adventure as going to a show!

The girls having a cuddle on the train:

The girls posing for an unusual picture at Olympic Park:

Disney on Ice:



Jasmin was hilarious - she was always panicking about whether everyone was on the train or not (at one point I caught her doing a head count). When she wasn't making sure everyone was together (12 adults and 6 kids) she was trying to make Chloe laugh or trying to kiss her. It was very cute! Eliza sung and skipped her way around Sydney - she is one happy little girl!


We were all soooo tired on the Saturday night we decided to eat in the hotel. Di's feet were swollen, my knee was giving me a bit of strife (too many years of dancing :-( ) and Dave's gout had started to play up! We are all feeling a little old (not in mind though, only in body). We had a lovely meal (although I could have probably eaten double the amount), enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine, and some lovely conversation.


Sunday we trekked to the zoo - train, ferry, bus. Very exciting for the kids, especially the ferry ride:

I think we have been to the zoo once a year for the last three or four years. Doesn't matter how old you are, I think you still enjoy it - for different reasons. I love watching the kids looking at all the animals, holding hands with one another between the exhibits, and just having a great time. Poor Davie spent most of the day at the Cafe, his foot was not up to walking around for hours, so he got some quality TV, movie and game playing done on his iPad.

Our traditional picture of the kids at the front entrance on the Koala:

Don't worry mum - I'll save you from this vicious rhino!

Cool tree green frog picture:

Every chance she had - Eliza climbed on top of the animal statues to get her picture taken. Here she is with Jas and Bella:

The baby elephant was the cutest:


After a long day we collapsed into bed fairly early. Now to organise a trip to the snow for the kids - to tobogan and build snow men!

This week

The girls had such a good time today with their Aunty Gen. She took a days leave to come up and visit the girls and have a play. I had to work, but it was fun listening to them play. She had to play on the computer, play princesses (she got to be the evil witch and the prince), barbies, hide and seek, and so many other games. She is a lot of fun:
He he he - they made her dress up:


They played hide-and-seek - the pantry cupboard is a favourite.

Tomorrow Nan is taking them back to Goulburn for a play-date with their cousins - they are so looking forward to it. They are also looking forward to a big weekend, including a trip to see Disney on Ice.

Last night I had a wonderful dinner with old friends at Chairman and Yip, it was such a nice evening. I haven't seen some of the Oracle User Group committee (of which I was VP and treasurer and Oracle Liaison at various points in time) for several years. We couldn't get our act together 3 years ago - so they organised a farewell dinner for me last night, which was so much fun. Some of them have changed jobs, have a few more children, it was just great catching up!

Marcel and I worked together for many years at Oracle, our friendship has stood the test of time, although we don't see each other very often these days:


Stuart is now President of the Group, he was one of my favourite clients, when I worked at both Oracle and ASG many years afterwards:

I also caught up with Kat, who I worked with at ASSIST/ASG, she is still adorable, and now sells air-conditioners at Fujitsu (only joking - she's in IT!). Dan, Alex and Dom are still quiet and unassuming, and Shaun is still Shaun.... very confident!

I have managed to complete several books this week (books 31 and 32 for the year):
31. Melissa Mar's - Ink Exchange (book 2 of Wicked Lovely)
32. Claudia Gray's Evernight (Book 1 of a series - very much young adult, but very easy to read)

I have started the second Evernight book, and just considering what other book I am going to read as well. So many good books to read, not enough time to do it in.

My quote for today:

"Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee".

I do drink a lot of coffee - if having a great family and friends, happy children and loving life are a measure of success, than I think I've made it!
PS. I get my coffee machine back next week - Yay! Have to remember to pick up coffee beans on the weekend. Hello to decent coffee, and goodbye to instant!

Pajama Day

Today is definitely a PJ Day. It's now 4:30pm in the afternoon and the girls are still in their pajamas! They didn't want to go out and do anything, and are quite content to sit at home and watch movies and relax. So far they have watched Avatar again, and Transformers the Movie... now they're watching old Transformer cartoons and building lego (Geek girls in the making!)

They have had a fairly quiet week, both have head colds, and poor Eliza has an ear infection and a nasty cough (so probably not a good idea to take them out anywhere anyway!)

This week we had Dad and Robyn (Mum and Dad's neighbour) stay for the night, while mum had a stay in Canberra Hospital to get a Bile Duct fixed. This went well, and she is now safely home. We celebrated Nan Goodfellow's birthday that night as well. I made a Citrus Syrup cake to celebrate and we lit a candle for her to blow out - Eliza had to help of course:


It's been a little weird this week, working from home, but having the girls also on school holidays. Nan has been kind enough to stay the whole week and entertain them. Got this cute picture of them playing on the other side of the table where I was working. It was great, until Eliza wanted the felt dress that Jas had on her felt girl. Normally Jas is really good at negotiating a truce of some sort, but not on Friday - Eliza would not have a bar of anything.


I have had a little time this week for scrapbooking, still waiting on some address changes so that I can generate the Payroll Summaries though. So will have to do this later. Thank God it's all automated and doesn't take long once you have all the info.

So here are a couple of layouts from my May Flaum class. This first one is based on a sketch she provided. I choose to document some more photographs from the Easter Show earlier this year:

This one was based on a layout provided by Ali Edwards. I love it's simplicity:


I also had time today, whilst watching Avatar with Jas (and running into the Cinema room to watch Scooby Doo with Eliza), to do a color room layout. Here was the colour palette and sketch:

My interpretation - love this photo I took of Jas and Dave:


Okay - off to go and prepare Pizza Dough, the vote is home-made pizza's tonight!

Happy Birthday

A big happy birthday to Princess Fiona (my sis-in-law)!

We had a great afternoon and dinner tonight to celebrate. We had planned to do a bit of scrapbooking, but there was way too much giggling, chit chat and wine drinking to even complete one layout!

Anyone would think it was my birthday - they gave me these (along with a bottle of my fav wine - Montana Sav Blanc):


Fiona scored with some presents - some Eclipse goodies, pandora charm and kitchen goodies:

The kids had a great time playing, Daniel and Jas get on so well -


We enjoyed some prawn/haloumi/pineapple skewers with salsa for Entree, Veal Osso Buco for Mains and some chocolate fun for dessert (chocolate, cream and mascarpone with fruit for dipping). Lucky Dave removed all placemats before we started on this one:



I am exhausted, so I think I'll go listen to my fav band - Blue October, and read a book. Another big day tomorrow with a Lunch at the lake with all our friends to farewell some friends off to live in Papua New Guinea for a couple of years.

Geeks, School reports and art

I'm sure that the Postie must think that we are now wine guzzling, book reading, geeks. No wine delivered this week, however we have had three book deliveries, and Dave purchased one of these:



and some of stuff from ThinkGeek one of our favourite on-line stores (they sell the coolest stuff):



I am especially looking forward to wearing my "Slide to Unlock" t-shirt (won't be going to any bars in this t-shirt, let me assure you!).

So happy for Jasmin today. She got her school report, and they were mostly C's (including English for the first time) and one B (physical education) and one D (maths). With some focus on maths for a while, she will start retaining more, and once the front section of her brain develops, I'm sure she will take right off. The teacher thinks she has a great sense of humour, and she has found the news presentations on Friday "easy" (total opposite to last year!)

I've started a new online course at Big Picture Scrapbooking - Camp Scrap by May Flaum. She has a completely different style to me, but I find doing these on-line courses help to provide some inspiration for layouts, rather than starting with a blank slate. She also does a lot of double - event type layouts which is great as well.

Here are the results of this weeks assignments. There were five in total, so has been a struggle to get through them this week between doing end of year stuff for the businesses:







Last but not least, the last layout I did for the Nic Howard course and the Darci D course: