Six on Sunday

#1 - Getting Fit

As my hubbie would say - you should be able to buy the fitness equipment to get fit. In my case I think I should be able to buy the fitness outfit and get fit :-)

I had my first Zumba session with a friend on a couple of Thursday nights ago - and discovered much to my chagrin that I had no workout clothes - no joggers, no track pants, no nothing.   So one day after school the girls and I trekked over to the mall to Lorna Jane to buy some over-priced workout clothes and joggers for mum.  I had to buy a red top of course - maybe it will make me go faster LOL!

You'll be pleased to hear that I have managed to go to a second session - and hopefully I will keep it up (BTW the Lorna Jane clothes were worth the $$ I paid as they held the sweat off my body - I don't think I've sweated quite so much in my life.)

#2 - Time with the Little One (Eliza)

Yes, sometimes I still call her my little one.  Jazz often goes to her friends place on the weekend, which leaves Eliza at home without a playmate - but I secretly think she really doesn't mind it, 'cause she gets to spend time with her mum.  The other weekend we watched a movie (with extra buttery popcorn), played Guess Who (which she won of course!) and went for a scooter ride (might have to get myself a scooter so I can keep up!). I'm sure she is looking forward to some more alone time with mum soon :-)

 

#3 - the Hoarder does a clean up

The Hoarder (aka the hubbie) did a clean-up of his study the other day. This is an extremely rare sight indeed. He actually threw things out and found things that he had forgotten that he had even bought!  He took several loads to the trash pack and recycling bin. I was truly stunned, and can't help but think I might have been imagining things :-)

#4 - Lego lives on

I can remember as a child playing with a huge tub of lego at Pop and his partner Violet's place. My brother and I had a lot of fun playing in the lego - back then it was just bricks of different colours.  How it has changed over the years, they seem to have moved with the times, and their saving grace I think has been all the licensed lego ranges. Jazz has always been interested in Lego - never the specific girl ranges, and has acquired using her pocket  and birthday money two Monster Fighters lego sets. We also got her a big set for Christmas. She has been building them gradually over the last couple of months - constructing things certainly seems to be a strength.

#5 - A layout share

What would a blog post be without sharing some layouts?  Here are a couple from this week.

Firstly another Christmas 2012 layout, only a couple more left to do now. I created some stars for this one using MS Word, some cardstock and a lot of Washi Tape.

I actually did some sewing on a layout this week - tried to sew what looked like fireworks on to my Skyfire 2013 page.  Skyfire 2013 was probably the best fireworks I have seen in Canberra so far.  I also created a card while I had my thread out - and hand stitched some of the arrows on the card.

I wanted this layout about the Charni Carni to be bright, and was inspired by some misting in the colours of the rainbow that Jasmin did this week for a homework project.  I used some chipboard packaging as a mask, I loved the different shapes after I'd removed the chipboard tags from the packaging. i just added some pen stitching around the shapes to define them a little more.

Last but not least - is my Project Life for Week 11 (I did fix up the week label after I photographed it!)

#6 - Book Update

Have been keeping up with the book reading. I am now 6 books ahead of schedule. So feeling very pleased with myself. These are the books I have read since the beginning of March:

My favourites this month include:

the Indigo Spell - another Vampire-type series with Alchemists in it. I'm a bit of a sucker for this series This was the third in the series.
Brimstone - another well thought out mystery/crime novel and written Agent Pendergast novel from Preston & Child.
Zombie Fallout - the story has been done before, but I really enjoyed the humour of this book. It is the start of a series, and I'll definitely need the next one.
One Second After - a story about what would happen if modern society was affected by an EM Pulse as a result of nuclear detonation.  It was an entertaining read, and a little scary, since it was probably pretty accurate.

Layout Share

I have a couple of layouts to share.

This is the layout that I created for the Photo Walk pictures I took earlier in the month.  Managed to fit all but one of my favourites onto the page. The picture I couldn't fit ended up going on a Project Life page.

I thought it was worth documenting the games that our girls play (and no you'll be pleased to know they don't play games all day!). They do love technology including computers, iPads/iPods and gaming consoles. Not surprising since both Dave and I are into tech and IT. Dave and I often fondly look back on our gaming days starting with playing the machines in the arcade parlours when we were younger, and our first game consoles. Hopefully the girls will look back on these days fondly as well, and think WOW haven't things changed since we were kids. I created the background of the layout using a stamp and by heat embossing the stamped images.

This layout is one of the Christmas layouts I do every year.  The girls used to help us decorate the tree when they were younger, now they do it all by themselves and I just watch! I used a lot of washi tape on this layout, including the background, and strips at the top and bottom of the layout.

Last but not least - my Project Life layout for Week 10.  For this week I used the portrait oriented sleeve. A real mix of photographs this week - photos from Nan's visit last weekend, me in my new workout clothes, Jazz with her Monster Fighters lego, the girls and I doing craft (although you will note I am the only one in the photograph, as per usual the girls have wandered off and left me to my own devices), Dave tidying his study (WOW!), a drawing Jazz did of an owl, and Elizie riding her scooter (while I walked really fast!):

Photo Walk Part II

If you read an earlier post - you may have seen the post on the recent photo walk we did in Canberra.  Jazz and Eliza also came along on the walk (from the flag pole to the Carillian at Lake Burley Griffen). Eliza was more interested in playing with her friend Kate, but Jazz came along with one of our old cameras - a Nikon D70 and took pictures.  Here is a selection of the pictures she took.

I am always inspired by how she takes completely different pictures than I do - and has a completely different perspective on things - I find it inspiring.

Birthday Layouts

The girls had some great birthdays last year, so I have been working on completing those layouts to put in their albums.

Jazz had a sleep-over party with her class mates, and we had a ball with a very girly-girl pass the parcel which included lip glosses, nail polishes and the like; we played spin the nail polish bottle; as well as blindfolded makeup, which was pretty funny.  I wonder what she will want to do this year?

I wanted the page to feel celebratory as well as feminine to match the mood of the party - so I added some banners on the left page made from washi tape, and added doily die-cuts and chipboard as well as a pink glittered Eiffel Tower for the feminine feel.

On the actual day of their birthday (as opposed to their birthday party day), the girls get to pick whatever they want for dinner.  Jazz wanted her Aunt, Uncle and cousins to come over (the only relatives in Canberra)  and she wanted to have a Lemon Jelly Cheesecake for dessert/birthday cake. The Lemon Jelly Cheesecake is a family recipe given to me by my mother-in-law, which everyone in the family loves (I even have a layout on it in our family album).    The pictures weren't the best, but I pulled the lemon and blue colours from the pictures to pick co-ordinating papers and embellishments.

I finished Eliza's birthday layouts a while ago, but still wanted to document one of her presents.  That is - getting her ears pierced and earrings.  Jazz got her ears pierced around the same age (perhaps even a year older), I have always left it until they were ready to get them done - and if they never did that was OK too. The pictures were taken on my iPhone while we were in the Chemist.  I printed the two smaller ones on cardstock - mainly because the quality of the pictures wasn't perfect, and printing them on cardstock actually made them look a bit better than they were - and added some texture to the page.

I only have one layout left to do from last year's birthdays - and that is the food from Jazz's party. I did actually get an enlargement of a collage I created online - but the print was the wrong scale, so I will need to get it reprinted in a larger format as the top and bottoms of the collage were cut off. Hopefully when the girls look back on the photographs when they are older, they will remember all the effort put into their birthdays!

Canberra Photo Walk

On Sunday evening I had the pleasure of going on my first photo walk with my girls, as well as my friend Mel and her daughter.  It was a lovely evening (a little chilly when the wind blew, but very pleasant when it didn't).

It was the first organised photo walk we have been on (sometimes we do our own photo walks around our suburb when the seasons change, and the leaves change colours on the trees). It was organised by Hilary Wardhaugh photography. A group of about 40 people turned up, and we went for a walk from the flag pole by Lake Burley Griffen to the Carillean.

I must admit I probably took more pictures of all the girls than the scenery - but it was a lot of fun.  Here are a few of my favourites:

Hillary is hoping to do the Arboretum next time, to catch the colours of Autumn. I am looking forward to it!