Memory Bugs Crop Day

I had a lovely day on Sunday with my friend Bek, and my sister and sister-in-law. We all went to the Memory Bugs crop day. It was a great day, really well organised. Tea and Coffee whenever we wanted, plenty of work space. A little shop area to buy supplies if required, pizza for lunch. What more could you ask for? Only $25 for the day, so really worthwhile. I managed to do 9 pages. Both my sister and sister-in-law won raffle prizes. Fiona even won a $15 voucher to spend at the shop. I bought 2 excellent display frames for 12x12 pages and they were only $15 each, so they are now proudly sitting in my scrap room.

Here are the layouts I did on the day:

This first one uses the new Been There Done That Papers and Rub ons from Aussie Scrap Source. I cut the brackets on the Silhouette digital cutting machine.



This LO uses a Hambly transparency as it's background. I used a Heidi Swapp Butterfly Mask to get the painted butterfly pattern down the side, and used Basic Grey Pheriphery paper for the photos. The other butterfly is a Jenni Bowlin one I painted and doecorated with Heidi Swapp Bling.

Finally got Jasmin's fourth birthday down on paper (she picked the paper from the local scrapbook shop):

Love this layout of Eliza's second birthday. I used a Hambly transparency and painted over a mask onto the transparency so that you could see the transparency pattern and the background paper. Love the big acetate letters too from Heidi Swapp.


Here are the great frames I bought for $15 each. I put in the double layout of Newcastle. Went crazy with the paint on the weekend. I used white rubons on white cardstock and then painted over to get the rubon showing through. Thanks to Jennifer McQuire for that idea!

Another layout using the new Aussie Been There Done That papers - with lighthouses on it! Love the Heidi Swapp Acetate - clear ones I added a bit of paint to give them definition around the edges.

Beautiful Weather

Great that we are having so many sunny days (although today is a little windy). I had to take a carer's day on Tuesday to look after the girls as Nan has come down with the flu - so we got to spend a lot of time outside. Wednesday, the girls went to the park with Dave late in the afternoon - always fun, Eliza has truly mastered the climb up the slide backwards, they even found a tree to climb in. For some reason my girls love umbrellas, so they had fun trapsing around the back yard with the umbrellas even though it was not raining!

Today Dave has taken a carer's day, so that he can look after the girls as Nan has her regular DR appoinemtn/checkup. They are happily sitting on the lounge watching Doh-Doh Island playdoh video, after completing a spot of painting. Jasmin is very excited about Father's day, having picked up a Father's day present at the Father's Day Stall at preschool, the present is now safely hidden away for the big day.






There's not a day that goes past that I don't think how lucky I am to be a Mum, so I did these two layouts the other day. The pictures were taken on Monther's day this year. I still have to write on Eliza's tag.

Dave's Birthday

Davie had his birthday last Wednesday. Jassie was sooo excited when we got home, as she and Nan had made a birthday cake with Chocolate frosting and sprinkles. We also went out in Goulburn to a Club for dinner - after we got back from a trip to Sydney to attend Dave's eye appointment to get a script for new glasses. Dr was happy with his progress, told us that his eyes may not work properly together again (as he has noticed that he now favours one eye for reading as the eyes see at different distances), but on the positive side he has been prescribed -6 lenses (a big change from -12.5), and he said that Dave's eyes would probably stablise and not get any worse with age!



Had another birthday for Dave in Canberra with Jeff and Fiona and the kids on Saturday night (to save them a trip back to Goulburn). The kids love to help make and decorate a special cake - this year's effort was a Pirate Ship. I did up some lolly bags and gave them clues to find them. They started with the first clue which led them to the first lolly bag which had the next clue in it... they had a lot of fun finding them and then eating them. In their usual fashion Eliza ate as many as she could in quick succession, whereas Jasmin had one and promptly hid hers somewhere for later (she takes after her daddy and loves to hoard things I have found).

The Pirate Ship - Cameron made me a Skull and cross bones flag to go on it!

Some miscellaneous Pics - including this little pic of Eliza. She is really into Dollies at the moment, and gave Jasmin's Baby Bjorn a bath on Sunday - very cute:



Jassie's hair is really getting quite long. My hair has always taken ages to grow - I complimented her on her hair the other day "Jassie your hair is beautiful, I wish I had hair like you!" to which she replied "Well, first you have to have your hair normal Mum!". Here she is creeping thru the grass (before Dave mowed it last weekend), looking for Elmers (Fudd's that is - she had just been watching some Warner Bros Cartoons):

Little Miss List Maker

I was putting Jasmin to bed on Friday night, and we were talking about all the things we wanted to do on the weekend. The next morning when we got up, she wanted to make a list of everything we had to do. For a little one she is very organised, and loves to make lists. Lists for birthday and christmas presents, lists for grocery shopping (scrawls written on a piece of paper which she takes down to the supermarket and proceeds to put things in the shopping basket which she has on the list eg. spaghetti, yoghurt, jellies with fruit etc) and now the list of things to do.

Here is the list complete with a couple of pictures (Daddy and Mummy also got to add a couple of things that they needed to do as well to the list):

1. Clean up (I chuckled about this one, yes the bench and dining room table did need a clean-up)
2. Wash windows (we windexed a couple of the bay doors in the house -Eliza even got in on the action)
3. Painting our hands - yes this involved lots of mess, Eliza's clothes needed to be changed afterwards as silly Mummy forgot how Eliza loves to paint with wild abandon.


4. Dressups - princess and fairy outfits (we had to stop for a snack in the middle of this one, dressing up is hungry work)


5. Shopping (daddy added this one)
6. Kids City


7. BAS (mummy's task for the weekend)
8. Games Order (daddy added this one)
9. Bracelets (accomplished as part of the dressups)
10. Computer games (her favourite at the moment is Over the Hedge on the x-box, except Mummy gets to do all the bits that she gets frustrated with)
11. Watch a Movie (Pirates of the Carribean on Blu-ray on Dave's new PS3 - no he couldn't wait any longer to get one)
12. Cooking
13. Cup cakes - we made Vanilla Cup Cakes with bright pink icing on Sunday Arvo
14. Colouring In
15. Playing Train Sets
16. Pick Flowers
17. Sweeping

It was a lovely weekend of doing things from the list (all but three got completed over the weekend). Very exhausting!

A couple more pics from the weekend - my new hair do, and cute pic of Eli Bear playing in the dolls house looking up at me:

Random Photos

Have a couple of photos to post from the last couple of weeks, the first one is a picture of what Jasmin calls her "Bling" bag. A bag she puts some of her jewelley and hair accessories in (I stress some, as there is no way she could fit all her bling in the one bag). The bag looked so beautiful hanging on one of our doors:


Nan bought Jas a Fred Bare pinafore last weekend as well, from a great shop in Goulburn called Humpty Dumpty. Here she is ready to go to preschool in her new pinafore:

The third is a picture I took of David last weekend when he took the girls to the park to play. He looks so good now - having lost 16kg since the start of the year. The girls enjoyed a brief play at the park, it was bitterly cold even though the sun was out.





We have just got back from visiting the eye specialists in Sydney, turns out Dave has a "Dense" cataract on his left eye, and the surgeon who operated on his last one, did not feel confident about operating on this one - so we had to see a second specialist. He was also very nice, and I guess the good news is that he was happy to operate on it - and would actually do it under a local in day surgery and use a block to stop his eyes from moving. A bit of a relief given how sick the general made him last time. Overall a tiring day on Friday - driving around Sydney. All booked in for Dave's surgery on 23 July though, so relieved they can fit him in quickly. Doctor said he might as well be blind in that eye at the moment, so vision is pretty poor.

We stayed with Mark and Michelle and the boys in Sydney, our second catch up for the year. They are hoping to come and see us next. Dave and Mark took the boys and the girls to football games on Saturday as the boys all play rugby league. Poor Michelle and I were convalescing at home, having drunk a suspect bottle of wine on Friday night which obviously did not agree with us - it was a white which instead of using the normal preservatives you use in white wine, used Fish oil and a milk thingie. It obviously did not agree with us though, as we spent the next morning being sick with symptoms like food poisoning! Needless to say, we will now be checking the back of the bottles of wine to see what preservatives are used. The girls had fun anyway, running around - Eliza was covered in mud by the end of the day, having fallen over in a couple of puddles!


It is now 11pm (and I only just managed to get Eliza off to sleep), wasn't too keen to go to bed given she had a 2 hour sleep in the car on the way home from Sydney - and she is getting more teethies - her eye teeth I think, she is not real impressed, poor thing has been sucking and chewing on her fingers! She was lying down with me the other night - I had given her a teething ring to chew on, and she put the ring on her wrist and said "Bling Bling Bling". Think she has picked up the lingo from her sister the Bling Queen.

Weekend round-up

Girls managed to spend some quality time with their Nan and Pop on Weekend. In Jasmin speak, we had a "sleep over" on Friday night, and then Nan and Pop looked after the girls on Saturday while Dave and I helped out at the Must C Movie Sale at Civic Video. It was a cold old day, I must buy myself some gloves and a beany for next time, as Dave and I were handing out balloons to kids in front of the shop. I also got to hand out coffee samples as well from Gloria Jeans (manage to sneak a couple of these myself, to keep me going!)

It was a busy rest of the arvo with coffee and a catchup with my sis - Hellie, and then a catchup with Julie to discuss Employee Collective Agreements.... boy employing people is difficult these days! We have had to employ a specialist organisation to help us out in this area, it's just too complex!

We enjoyed a dinner out at a club on the Saturday night before driving home. The girls and I went to bed early as we were totally shagged! I bet Nan and Pop were shagged too!

Sunday we went with the girls and watched Shrek the Third at Hoyts (which involved bribing Eliza to sit sit for almost 2 hours with lollies!) It is a great kids movie, worth a watch. The girls love going to the mall 'cause they get to have chicken nuggets from McDonalds, and get to have a look around Toy R Us (or should I say run, with Mum and Dad hot on their heels). We visited Jeff and Fiona and the boys on the way home - Jasmin loves her cousins, and they have a great time together. We invited them back to our place for dinner, and enjoyed some Red Curry of Prawns for an entree and Chicken Caccaitore for mains. Another early night, so exhausted!

Surf Beach Easter Weekend

Spent another lovely weekend down the coast on the Long Weekend with our friends Jason and Kylie and their kids. This time at a house overlooking Surf Beach. It was a lovely modern house with a nicely kept garden.

It was a bit of a chilly weekend, but the kids still went to the beach and played in the waves, and built sand castles. The older kids also had fun playing on the PlayStation with the Eye-Toy (and taking pictures of themselves). Whilst the two youngest played together, and had the occasional power struggle over a bucket or toy that they both wanted to have control over. Kylie and I managed to do a fair bit of scrapbooking and wine drinking as well - so a very nice weekend.

Was a bit of a horror night though on the last night - I ended up getting the vomiting gastric thing and spent the whole night vomiting. Jason had to drive my car back with me hanging my head in the vomit bag ( Jasmin said before we left - Mum, don't worry, I will drive the car back for you, you are too sick, you can't even go to work!). Dave travelled with Kylie, but wasn't feeling much better. Once we made it home, we both were so sick all we could do was lie on the lounge huddled under some blankets, listening to the girls play. They were little angels - apart from making a lot of mess in the play room with their toys, they were great. Here are some pictures from the weekend. I will post some of my scrapbooking layouts later in the week when I have a chance to take some pictures of them.

Charlotte and Eliza in the garden checking out the lavender (Eliza taste tested the occasional bit as well):

Charlotte and Eliza sharing fruit loops on the stairs:

Eliza managed to eat half of a large chocolate egg on Easter Sunday within the first half hour of getting it:
Jasmin showing off the sand-castle her and I built on the beach:

Jasmin playing in the waves - it was a bit cold so she was wearing her jacket:
Love this picture of Eliza, laughing and having a great time running around outside:
Jasmin having a quiet moment:
My dear hubbie, sitting outside watching the kids playing:

Eliza hugging Kylie's leg:

Canberra Day Coast Trip

Went down the coast for the Canberra Day Long weekend. Stayed at the "Pink Party" house at long beach, with some of our friends. Had a great relaxing time as per usual. Rained on Saturday, but kids amused themselves playing inside (Dave went and bought dressup costumes from the Toy Sale at K-Mart), so they had fun dressing up, playing playdoh (I am impressed that by the end of the weekend Eliza was playing with the playdoh not eating it), watching movies and colouring in. Sunday was much nicer - although over-cast it was nice and the kids all went to the beach and played in the sand. Got heaps of scrapbooking done - will post the pictures over the next couple of days.

Three little pixie elves:
TMNT and his "wife" Jasmin:

Snow White and Darth Baby:

Fun at the Beach:

One little girl, one big bucket:

Palydoh fun:

Eliza's cute wavy hair: