May Project Life

It's hard to believe that we are almost half way through the year, and I have almost completed my Certificate IV in Accounting!  Only have three more subjects left, which I will do part-time until the end of the year on account that I have a new job as Corporate Manager for a small IT company starting next week. Off to do another two exams tonight, so I thought I would have a little break from study and post these layouts from May.

Here is the summary for the month.

You can tell that I didn't really take a lot of pictures this week, on account that there are a couple of very casual pictures taken on a Sunday night when I realised I only had some pictures of when I cut the hedge for the first time (couldn't even hold up a cup afterwards!).  So both Dave and Jasmin were gaming and Eliza was sitting at the coffee table finishing up her homework. I even had to print a picture of the movie I went to see just to fill in the blanks LOL. It was also a great opportunity to document what we are currently listening to, reading, watching and so forth....

Week 19 was a little more exciting - Jasmin and I went to her High School Open night. She is very excited about doing science and woodwork (of all things). As you can also see it was cold enough over night for the girls to start wearing onsies! Jasmin hasn't had a lot of spare time lately on account that it takes her until about 5:30pm every night to do her homework. Not one to miss out on some gaming time, she has quickly learnt to multi-task and her daddy found her pairing socks whilst playing SIMS 3.  It was a big week for Jasmin - she also got to go to her friend's 12th birthday party, which was at the rock climbing centre in Mitchell.

During week 20 Mark and Michelle came up for a visit from Sydney. We went to the Batlow Cider Festival in Batlow with them. There wasn't really as many cider stalls as we had hoped, and I think a lot of the local producers missed a big opportunity to sell apples and apple related products at the festival, so after we had lunch we headed across to Tumut (about an hour from Batlow), to visit the Liquorice and Chocolate Factory. The girls were most pleased to make giant freckles, and Jasmin managed to win the Liquorice bowling competition.

Eliza was particularly helpful during week 21 - helping me to cook dinner on several occasions.  We also managed to catch a movie, go to Aunty Marg's 70th birthday dinner, and have Mel and Kate over for dinner and a sleep-over.

Week 22's big event was a trip to Burrinjuck to a friend's 50th birthday party. Burrinjuck is near Yass, and our Dave Dave (as opposed to our Tom Tom), managed to take us via a shortcut that didn't end up being a short-cut on account of a creek bed being flooded and our poor car would not make it across. I had to do a 50-million point turn as there was just no where to easily turn around and we had to back-track, arriving at our destination an hour later than we should of. We all had a good time though - and the girls especially loved the camp fires and toasting marshmallows. Dave and I got to catch up with our friends from school and Steve of course!

We also managed to go to the cinema to see Maleificent which I thought was rather good - a re-telling of the Snow White story from Maleificent's point of view. Angelina Jolie did a wonderful job of playing Maleificent!

Since I had a back page left at the end of the month, I decided to restrict myself to one page for my Kitchen Kapers summary this month - so slightly different format since I didn't have the same amount of space to work with.

Have managed a couple of layouts as well, which I have included below. Fairly clean and simple ones, given my lack of time.

Thought I was being rather clever with my title on this layout!

I have started working on the New Zealand pages for Jasmin's album, now that I have finished Eliza's pages for her album. The sketch class I am currently doing at Big Picture Classes helps out with the inspiration, so I hope within the next couple of weeks I will have most of her pages done.

Till next time.
Di :-)

Hanging out for summer

I must say I'm hanging out for summer already! It is so cold here, and will get to -5 overnight later this week. I think I'm feeling so cold, that I have been using summer scrapbooking products on my layouts and in my project life layouts!

I felt very honoured last week - when Twopeasinabucket had my layout as their featured layout.  I just had to take a screen shot LOL:

Here is the full layout.  The layout was of our long weekend at the coast with friends @ Long Beach. I had so many pictures that I wanted to use, so I did! I managed to use 18 small photographs and 12 tags - putting a nice dent in my tag collection.  We always have such a wonderful relaxing time when we go to the coast with friends.  We had a couple of BBQ dinners and our traditional fish from the Bay on Saturday night. The kids really enjoyed playing on the rocks near the beach, the boys managed to even catch two fish on the Saturday (which they threw back in), and we managed to get a decent amount of reading and wine drinking done!

Last week Eliza was most excited to bring home her very first project assignment (Mum is never quite as excited, as it means lots of work for her too!).  They had a choice of four different things they could do - all linked in with the 100 years of Canberra theme that they are working on at school.  Eliza decided that she would select the option which involved building a 3D model of an older building in Canberra.  She selected Lanyon Homestead, so we thought it may be prudent to go on a little family adventure deep south to check out the homestead and take some photographs. I think she has her work cut out for her :-) Anyway, she is allowed to get help from her parents, but she has to do all the painting, cutting and glueing herself - it should be interesting to see what she ends up with!

I had never thought to go and look at any of the heritage buildings in Canberra - it's not normally high on our list of sights to see, but I'm glad we went. It was a lovely little outing, and was an opportunity to talk to the girls about the house I spent half my childhood in - a 150 year old stone house built by the convicts. The bonus was that it also only cost $15 for the family to visit the homestead, and there was a lovely tour lady there that spoke to us about certain aspects of the house and who used to live there.

I think the back of the house looks more challenging that the front!

Needless to say we won't be building all the other outer houses!

My proof of life photograph for the day!

Getting a daddy huggle.

Eliza I think you have your work cut out for you - and it's meant to be handed in in week 10 :-(

Every year we have a combined birthday for my Dad and Mum's cousin Barbara (well we have for about the last five years anyway!). The bonus is that I guess we only have to make one trip back to Goulburn in June rather than two. There is exactly 20 years difference between the two of them. Barbara turned 87 this year, and my Dad 67. It's only the last couple of years that dad has really started to age - I guess that's what a bad back and lots of pain will do to you, but he is a real trooper and never complains.

As per usual - there were a couple of little girls around to help them blow out their candles. Unfortunately after the candles were blown out Chloe had to be whisked away to the doctors and ended up having a seizure and being taken to hospital - she had thrown an allergy to the eye drops that she was prescribed on the Friday.  I often thank my lucky stars that we have never had any serious incidents with the girls that have needed hospitalisation (except Jasmin's skittle up the nose incident of about 2005).

I was super proud of my eldest one this week - she got into the finals for rostrum speaking at school - she was one of three students from her class. She had to do her speech in front of the high school on Monday. There is no way I could have done this at her age! She didn't get into the next round - but it doesn't matter, it was such a good experience for her, and a bit of a confidence boost as well.

I have been keeping up with Project Life - I have posted my week 23 and 24 layouts below. Used a 3 x 3 sleeve for the first time.

And finally this week, I leave you with a handful of other layouts:

Until next time xxx

School camps and other stuff

It has come around to that time of year again! The School Camp. This year it is on the South Coast - and this time only the Year 5's are going (as opposed to Year 4s and 5s in the one group).

Feeling a little tired this afternoon after not sleeping well last night, on account of worrying about Jasmin, who was worrying about school camp. She couldn't get to sleep easily last night, and kept on worrying about school camp related things - What if someone gets bitten by a blue bottle? What if people are silly during Archery and someone shoots someone with an arrow? What if someone drowns? What if I forget to pack something? and the list goes on....

I can only hope that she has a great time - which I am sure she will.  She looked happy enough this morning - and at least there were no tears!

I even snuck around to the other side of the bus to take a picture before she left :-)

I was thrilled to be looking at the Two Peas blog last night - and discovered that another of my layouts had been featured on their blog.  The post is here. The layout was based on a Design Project from Celine Navarro - she is a French artist who does quite arty stuff and the project included masks and mists, doodling, printing photographs on cardstock and more!  The layout includes pictures of Jasmin on Mystery Island (aka Tivua Island) about 45 minutes off the Denarau Island Coast of Fiji.

I haven't had a lot of time for scrapbooking lately - in addition to the above layout I have only done a couple of other layouts over the last couple of weeks.

These first two pages are from a Cathy Zielske workshop on Big Picture Classes.  It is a hybrid - digital/traditional scrapbooking course.  She provides the templates and instructions for how to change and lay out the pages.

This layout I did for a challenge on Two Peas in a Bucket - you had to scrap a holiday, include a yellow background, use at least four photographs, and fill in some of the space on a photograph with embellishments. I decided to scrap these photographs of Eliza on Mystery Island - the photo of her in her new big pink sunnies just cracks me up - she is really a little character.

Assimilation is complete - resistance is futile.  The last member of our merry band of four has succumbed to the calls of the computer.  She now has her own laptop set up thanks to daddy - so that she can play Minecraft with her sister and cousin!

As the girls would say - GTG, catch you later!

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!