Having a rest

Well this weekend we are having a rest, after an eventful few weeks. The girls are not feeling 100% today, they are tired from a week of late night dance practices, and two concert performances, which didn't finish until 11:00pm both nights. They went to bed last night with snuffed up noses and headaches, the poor things! I really loved seeing them dance, but sometimes I think the practice leading up to the performances is a little over the top for little kidlets. Looking forward to cooking them a nice nutritious meal tonight, after they have lived on carrot sticks, plain bread rolls, fruit and snacks for the last week!

So what have we been doing for the last month -

- a 40th birthday, or school friend's wife, Janene just turned 40. One of her friends got a very special cake made (the girls didn't know what to think about this one! The expression on Eliza's face is priceless!). It was a lovely evening - Eliza spent almost all the time in their swimming pool and looked like a prune afterwards.



- Crazy hair day at school



- A weekend at Wyangalla Dam watering skiing for Julie's birthday, we made her a special dragonfly birthday cake. Dave got up on a knee board, the girls enjoyed playing with all the other kids and paddling around the lake, and Eliza especially liked going out on the tube. They also loved hanging out and zooming around in the Speedboat. We hired a cabin there for the night as well. Fantastic weekend!






- Robert's birthday - a friend of the family who is also my sister Hellie's Godfather.



- Visits to friends places for dinner and afternoon teas. Eliza had to help make cupcakes of course - her favourite bit is licking out the bowl of course!



- Jazz has been hard at work painting three paintings for school for a project, where she could pick to do anything that she liked. As she wants to go to Paris one day - she painted 3 paintings of the Eiffel Tower at different times of day. I've told her that I am having all three paintings - here are two of them:





- The girls decorated the house and the Christmas Tree on the 1st of December. It's great - I just drag the box with the tree in it, and the box of ornaments and they construct and decorate the tree - I just sit back and relax (and take a couple of snaps!). I also got out the advent calendar I made 2 years ago, and filled it with lollies, which the girls have been enjoying every day since.





- Kieran's 18th birthday party in Sydney. We have had the pleasure of seeing Kieran grow from a little baby to the young man he is today. Only seems like yesterday that he was a little boy - now look at him - has just completed his HSC and has a lovely quirky girlfriend. Joshua also has a girl friend - amazing how much these boys have grown!





- I needed new glasses and finally went to the Optomitrist to get some, Eliza had her regular appointment with the eye doctor (still doesn't need glasses Thank Goodness), Eliza also had an MRI to check to see if they could find anything in her inner ear or brain which causes the high frequency hearing loss. They all came back clear, which the specialist tells me is indicative of a congenital hearing loss, and it should be stable (so won't get worse with time). We have another appointment with Hearing Australia next week, to get her fitted with a permanent FM system for the class room, so that she doesn't have to borrow one.

- Dave has been back and forth to the doctors and pathologists for testing, turns out he has diabetes. He has to loose weight, change his diet (which basically just means cutting out the high sugar foods), and exercising. He shouldn't need medication until later in life, and has done really well loosing 6kg in the first 2 weeks after he found out he had diabetes (nothing like a good kick in the pants by the doctor). On the plus side he had perfect cholesterol!

- Have only managed a little scrapbooking over the last month or so - I think I just needed a little break to get my mojo back! Here are a couple of my layouts:






- Have managed to read lots of books still, I'm now up to the sixth book of the Saga of the Seven Suns. Well worth reading if you like Sci-Fi Sagas. Have read a few more Anita Blake books - I think I need a break from these, feel like they are getting a little same-same. Read "Forever" the last book of The Wolves of Mercy Falls, also a couple of Jasper Fforde books. I am reading the latest Vampire Academy book, and also "Dead or Alive" by Tom Clancy. Have read 63 books now for the year, will probably get to 65 by the end of the year. So many books, not enough time to read them in.

Well it's time for bed now - has taken all day to post the pictures into the post, may have to start compressing before I upload! Goodnight all...

Time to take a breath ...

It has been so mad around here lately with all the birthdays, and culminating in the Halloween Party two Saturdays ago! I was kind of hoping to go back to work on the Monday for a break, but no such luck as both owners of the business I work for are in China... so I have been busy filling in for them, and it has been hectic to say the least!

Anyway - we had a fantastic Halloween party - we all had a great time. Could not have done all the organisation without the help of my dear sister-in-law and my friend from Sydney - Michelle!

We organised Anne from Anne's facepainting for the event - and she was awesome! All the kids and the adults got their face's painted to match their outfits.

The weather could of been a bit more consistent - we had a shower at the start and then it cleared up, but I think everyone had a great time.

Here is a snapshot of some of the pics from the event (there are a lot more posted on Facebook):

I must be crazy!

OMG BBQ - what was I thinking? Twenty 9 years olds for a birthday party! Yes, my biggest turned nine on Sunday, and we had a Tropical themed birthday party which she invited her school friends to, as well as her cousins and a couple of other out-of-school friends. All the kids came dressed in tropical or summery clothes. I'm thinking next year we do something simple - a couple of kids to the movies or something like that.

Anyway, I think they all had a great time. I made tropical themed food - sliders, tropical pizzas, tropical fruit platter, tropical punch, tropical lollies, tropical cupcakes .... you get the idea! We had a blow up pool full of soft drinks, a hula skirt for the table, and other tropical table decorations, themed serviettes and cups.


When each child arrived Jasmin gave them a Leui and a beach bucket to put their goodies in.



I took a photo of each child in our tropical themed cut-outs, and we played some tropical themed games. They each got a prize from each game including a blow up mini beach ball, yo-yo and fluro bubbles... all to put in their beach pails to take home with them.

Aaron behind the surfer boy cutout:


Jazz behind the hula girl cutout:



Beach Ball run - they had to run races with beach balls between their knees:



There was a round of hula freeze:



Jasmin wanted an ice-cream cake for her birthday cake - she picked the biggest beach pail that we had - and Dave helped fill it with ice-cream with clinkas mixed through it. I sprinkled toasted coconut on the cake for beach sand, and we put chocolate shells around the bottom.



I also managed to get a photograph of all the kids at the end before they put lollie bags into their beach buckets and left. I then sat down with Ness and Ona for a much needed glass of wine!!!



I also got a present on Jasmin's birthday - a nice dress from Dave, to celebrate 25 years of togetherness. Would you believe we started going out on the 23rd October 1986 - who knew that we would have Jasmin exactly 16 years later! He is so sweet, it didn't even cross my mind that it was a special anniversary of sorts!



Doing it all agin next weekend for Halloween!

Another List Maker

Appears that we have another list maker in the family. Apparently Nan told Jasmin that she needed to be a little more organised in the mornings - so what does Jasmin do? She makes a list - she is so like me sometimes it is scary. So she made a list of the things that she has to do each morning and stuck it on the fridge. I was impressed that the list was so comprehensive - and I chuckled at the little pictures she had drawn.



A couple of layout shares - some more Double Take layouts. I only have three more double take layouts to do, and then the course is over. It's been good from the viewpoint of getting a lot of photographs scrapbooked in a short amount of time!




I have finished two books in the last week, and started on another two.

Finished White Tiger by Kylie Chan - interesting read as it has a lot of Chinese Mythology in it, fixed with Martial Arts. Also finished the 1st book of Night Huntress - First Drop of Crimson (I accidently read the second book a little while ago, so decided I should probably read the first book before reading the third one). Also finished Jasper Forde's The Last Dragonslayer.

I am now reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, and another book which has the word "Swallow" in the title - and I have now completely forgotten it's name. Must be time to go to bed!

The end of the holidays

So sad to see the end of the holidays, but it has been a great week (although I had to work!). The girls really enjoyed themselves this week - Eliza had tennis lessons for the half days in the morning:




and Jasmin had Pottery lessons for half days, also in the mornings:


She got to spin some pots on a pottery wheel which was quite the thrill for her, and her pots looked way better than the ones I did on a course many years ago!




I'm sure next year Jazz will want to do some more Pottery classes - she really loved it. She made two pots, a dog, a cake and a lizard. Will have to post some pictures after they have been fired in the Kiln.

The girls also got to check out the Looney Tunes show at the Canberra Theatre - and thought that was pretty good.

Later this week Jazz and I had a go at making sushi, and Nan made an Apple Alsatian Tart, Eliza even ate an egg roll which we made for her - although she wouldn't try the nori rolls (maybe we she gets a bit older LOL):



Eliza invited some friends around to have Little Pony Cupcakes on Saturday, which we made on Friday night (while Jazz went to a friends sleepover birthday party - apparently they stayed up until midnight talking!). We decorated the cupcakes on Saturday morning with a bit of help from Kate, and Aunty Fiona. They looked pretty good, and the little girls looked like they enjoyed them.





The kids had a great time playing together, bouncing on the trampoline and also playing with all Dave's Nerf guns (we will have to go out today and check for stray nerf bullets)! Believe or not, there were enough nerf guns for all the kids - with some left over, Dave really has an impressive collection and didn't mind the kids getting them out to play with! The mums did some scrapbooking (although I only did one layout - a bit scrapped out at the moment), Kylie did manage about 15 cards by the end of the day though!


I couldn't resist snapping this picture of Dave cooking some snags on the BBQ that night (it really is a rare sight worthy of taking a picture).


Just hanging around watching movies today and chillin' out. Dave has ordered us some new iPhones, but we have to wait until November to get them - I am going for a white one this time. Can't wait to get them! Just got a call from Dave's sister to say that they were thinking of popping into the Hunter Valley on the way home from Newcastle - so I might have a case of Andrew Thomas Semillon on the way if they decide to go.