This Saturday Morning

Sitting here with a nice cappucino at 7:30am in the morning, and trying to play hangman with Jas at the same time. We have spent the week recuperating from a mammoth weekend last weekend. I think we broke the record for the most birthdays and special events in the one weekend.

Saturday we went off to Thomas' birthday. He turned four. The poor fellow wasn't well though, and didn't really enoy his own birthday. He had it at Monkey Mania at the DFO in Fyshwick. We were really impresses with the themed rooms there. Thomas had his in the Pirate room.

Then it was straight off to Goulburn, to celebrate Daves and his brother Evan's birthday at his sisters place. Julie kindly organised Pizzas and a food platter from the Infuse restaurant for dinner. Nan made a cake and a Lemon Jelly Cheesecake (everyones favourite.


I love this picture of Eliza - she is always in line for a piece of cake. She just loves chocolate cake, and normally goes back for two or three pieces.


Up early on the Sunday morning (4:45am) to put on two big crockpots of Beef and Red Wine Casserole and a big bowl of Wombok Noodle Salad for Chloe's baby naming day. It was a great day. Greg hired a jumping castle, which the kids had some great fun on. Chloe was adorable. She kept on clapping inbetween each reading at the baby naming - which we had in a Marque at the back of mum and dads place (lucky as it rained a bit, and there was a really cool breeze).

Fiona, Louise (a friend since Helen's Primary school days) and I were the God Mothers and Greg's brother Wally and his Nephew Brett were the God Fathers. Both Dave and I are Chloe's guardians.

We also got to celebrate Chloe's first birthday (oh how the first year has gone by so quickly), and Dave's 2nd 21st birthday!





It's now almost 11am. Jas and I have been out to her Kip McGrath lesson, and now we are all contemplating going to to vote and visit the mini school fete. We are then off to Toy's R Us to see if we can find a bike for Eliza's birthday. Her current bike is getting a bit small for her - she is growing so much taller.

Anyway, I have had a little time for scrapbooking, not a whole lot. Here are a couple of favourites from the last week or so:



The next two layouts are to go at the front of the 2009 sections of the girls albums. I wanted to use all those cute little photographs which would otherwise not be turned into layouts. I used a sampling of photographs which represent their year and their personality. I had a great time putting them together and remembering the little things they were into and some of the changes they had that year.



On the reading front I have completed another two books in the last couple of weeks and I am almost finished the first Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book, and have started the tenth Southern Vampire book.

I have finally finished reading this book:

If you like science fiction, you should definitely read this EPIC book. It is about 40 odd hours of reading, but so worth it. I guess you could almost call it a space opera. Certianly motivated to read a few more of his books now.

So the following have now been added to the completed reading list:
34. Hourglass - Evernight Book 3 - Claudia Gray
35. Fallen Dragon - Peter F Hamilton

See you later :-)

Scrap Lift Challenge

Finally some time this week to sit down and do some scrapbooking. So I decided to do a couple of blog challenges to get me started.

The first one is from the Inspire Me site. The challenge - to scraplift one of the layouts. I decided to scrap-lift Steph's layout, using this funny photograph of Jasmin at Ben's baby-naming ceremony. She hasn't even seen Austin Powers, but knows how to do a Dr Evil Impersonation. Here's the layout:




I also managed to do this week's colour challenge at the Color Room. This was the challenge for this week:

I was sitting in the activity room with the girls watching the Little Mermaid II, so only took in my matted photo, what I needed and a pair of scissors. Decided to free hand cut everything. Very liberating I must say, and I like the results:


I did another layout, and a double layout tonight using the same free-hand cutting style. Really like it, as you could probably scrapbook anywhere using this method, just taking along your pieces of paper and embellishments, and not having to drag out your paper trimmer! I will post the pics of these layouts tomorrow - to dark to take a pic tonight!

Here is another layout I did last night:

I really liked the colours in the Basic Grey Olivia range, thought they went rather nicely with the photo I had of Eliza running through the grass.

Books and Scrapbook Layouts

Since I last made me book list - I have read a few more books, here they are:

31. Wicked Lovely - Book 2, Melissa Marr
32. Evernight - Claudia Gray
33. StarGazer - Evernight Book 2 - Claudia Gray

At the moment I am reading another two books. The third Evernight book called Hourglass, and I am reading a huge book called "Fallen Dragon" by Peter F Hamilton, which is Sci-Fi. Haven't read a sci-fi book in a while, and I am really enjoying it. It's good for a change.

I've kept the scrapbooking layouts fairly simple lately, as I haven't had a lot of time, with finishing BASs, renewing workers compensation policies for the businesses etc.

Here are a couple of the ones I have done over the last couple of weeks.

These first ones are a series from a Hunter Valley trip we went on last year for our friend Mark's 40th birthday. We travelled to the Hunter and stayed in cabins at a Caravan park. Mark's parents, and his sisters and their families also came along. We had a little bit of time to go and see a couple of wineries, but we will need to go back one day and stay a little longer. Anyway, I've kept the pages simple, as I wanted to scrap a few photos from the trip, I've used Kraft cardstock as the background to give them a common thread. Loved using some of the new Echo Park Paper Co stickers on these as well.



I did 2 singles and a double last night, this one is a scrap-lift of a friends digi-layout. I used some new Echo Park paper, and a couple of their scalloped edged stickers which are great:

I also completed a birthday layout of one of Jas's three birthday get-togethers. Also used some cool Echo Park stickers and paper on this one, some Prima alpha stickers and finally got to use my Basic Grey bling cupcake:

And finally a double page layout of Jas's get-together for her seventh at Aunty Julie's place. The pictures were quite dark, as they were taken at night, so I kept the background fairly light:

Kept the embellishments simple with a couple of gorgeous Prima flowers:

Things that made me smile today

Sometimes when you've had an average day at work (I don't say bad, because I haven't had a truly bad day at work for years - just a frustrating day!) - I think you need to sit down and think about the things that have made you smile that day. So here is my little list of things that made me smile today:

1. The fact I had to drive home to get my hand-bag today when I got half way out of the suburb. It had my iPhone in it, and it's kind of an attachment these days (I hate phones - so it's pretty funny).

2. My friend Kylie played Plants versus Zombies on her iPhone at work during morning tea. Seriously addicted!

3. I am half way through Peter F Hamiltons "Fallen Dragon" book. It's EPIC, so the fact I am half way through is an achievement.

4. I did question and answers with the girls at bedtime tonight. Eliza's favourite animal is an Elephant ('cause it starts with "E"), Jasmin's favourite thing to do is "hug my Mum!".

5. The Roasted Cauliflower and Garlic Soup I made for dinner (Jas said it was Delicious!). Hope nobody wants to kiss me any time soon!

6. Ok - wine makes me smile. I shared a bottle with my mum-in-law tonight, so I'm smiling (and I'm happy)!

7. Hmmm... the fact we have a new server at work, and it now takes two minutes to display a folder in the file system. I didn't build it, so I'm happy that I'm working from home the next two days! I'm also glad I didn't build it!

8. Jas brought home a small milk carton from school, she has to make something out of it by next Wednesday as an assignment for school - she's going to make a Lollie Box with a handle, suitable for a lollie bag for a kids party (I wonder who she takes after?) I thinks she's a bit clever though!

9. The concept of going to bed early tonight (who am I kidding?)

10. The fact Dave is in the Study "practicing" for his EPIC friday gaming session. LMAO!

I leave you with some pictures from last night. We finally managed to take Di (Mum-in-law) out to dinner for her birthday at the local Italian Restaurant (Wild Porcini). We walked there and back - so we had a couple of glasses of wine each, which was nice. The girls were so good. So glad we started taking them out when they were little babies, they are never any problem at restaurants (although they like to eat pasta with their hands!):




I also got this pic of Jas and a couple of friends on the weekend. They had played, and watched a movie and ran around - but when they got tired - this is what we found them doing (truly children of the Norty's - iPod equipped):


Quote for today: "Love doesn't make the world go around - but it makes the trip worthwhile."