2 princesses in da house!!

Annie has Miss C staying with us tonight.

After a busy afternoon of craft, riding the scooters, playing Wii and a fair bit of giggling, Kym, Sean and I were treated to a concert.

They had let down their hair and danced their toes off for one song. It was so fun to watch them really get into it and shake that thang!!

An appreciative audience

  
                            

Princess retiring for the night.

Thanks Tracey for letting me post pics of Miss C.
:oD

document your art

I acquired some digi stuff at Designer Digitals during an annual sale very recently. I was a bit stuck with this one at the beginning until I thought of using some of the elements from the sale.

I LOVE it. The colours work so well.

Journaling says 'Annie. I was so proud of you when you came home with this Merit Award for your Art Work. Unfortunately I have no idea which piece of art Mrs Hall deemed worthy of recognition. No matter, I am so proud of you.    Mum xXx'

sports day

Annie had her JP Sports Day on Friday. This year she seemed like a big kid with this JP group. I think it must be all in her legs as she has stretched out a bit lately.

One thing that really peeved me was seeing a lot of the students chewing or sucking on the cords of their hats. YUCK. I had no idea Annie was doing this. I had no idea that so many kids there did that. Its just disgusting. So tonight I chopped those cords off.

It was terrific to see that winning was not important at all that day. Just doing your best and have a bit of fun as well. All the kids did so well, and the team events were so positive.

I can only pop a few shots here as most of them have other students in them.

Doing really really well in her 50m race.  (she came first!!)

Part of the hurdling race...not a poser is she lol

Sean antics with another little chap on the high jump mat.

They all finished of the day with a dance session in the hall. So Annie let it rip. She dances to her IPod all the time and has started Ballet. I can really see that she has a grasp of rhythm. (That certainly didn't come from me)

must be genetic

More home made blooms. The bigger ones are beautiful. I spritzed them with Pearl Glimmermist and used tiny drops of Dimensional Magic for dewdrops. The tutorial for them are here. I halved or thereabouts the size of them when they were cut out on a Cricut otherwise they are huge. Oh and the paper ones looks heaps better than card stock ones. Just use a good quality PP that's a tad on the thicker side.

The smaller ones are those same ones using a 6 petalled flower punch. Tutorial here. Found two of different sizes of that punch in our local Sheoak Craft Cottage. (thanks for all the tutorial links Sandra xx)

And some Twiddleybitz chip flourish. I need to use a TB product so I can post on their Ning Site. here.

Floral lace was cut from a fine lace table runner.

All in all I am really pleased with it.

its only a matter of time

***sorry. had to delete last post as it was attracting spam comments. :[ I took off the word verification for commenting and bamm... within 30 mins, SPAMMED. just goes to show. So for those who left a comment, mwah and thankyou. They've had to be deleted with the post as well ;( ***

Did I have some fun with Tim Holtz masks and Marshmellow white Glimmermist. Thanks Denise for sharing that pack of Maya Sheers Clockfaces with me.

I learnt after that its very easy to leave fingerprints in the mist on the LO. oh well I'll know for next time.

box regatta

Annie's class had a Box Regatta today at the local pool. I managed to collect a number of large boxes from the Lincoln scrapgirls last week and I was chuffed to see them all being used today.

Each team had 3 members. One to ride on the boat, 2 to push the boat thru the water in the middle pool. Annie teamed up with Matilda and Molly for their boat construction and their 'race' today.

They named their craft 'Princess Power Rocks' or as they spelt it 'Prisess Powre Rosck'

Each team launched their craft, popped in their 'Captain' and propelled it to the other end. The rest of the class on the sides of the pool clapped, cheered, and splashed a fair bit. It was a great example of encouragement to other class mates and being a good sport.

A couple of the craft disintergrated before it reached the end, but the kids still finished their turn with smiles and laughs. Only one little girl was a bit upset when she toppled out of her boat.

They all had a bit of a splash around after followed by a sausage sizzle.

An event well done by the classroom teachers Ms C and Ms McW.

And thanks to Marika and Julie for allowing me to use a photo of all the girls on Prisess Powre Rosck team.

Sean's made a cover....of sorts.

Well sort of......
*wink wink*
With a fair bit of tongue in cheek I've created this cover for the Escape2Create cover challenge...

...which they have declined to post on their blog...due to posssible copyright issues. I did this as a bit of fun with nothing sinister in mind.... but that's their choice.
I probably have infringed on a copyright somewhere and I apologise to Creative Keepsakes in advance if I have.

So with that in mind I made a new header and viola... we have a brand new mag....LOL.

CK is my favourite mag and since the new format I can hardly put it down. I refer back to all the turned down corners a lot for ideas!!

published

can now reveal after publication in Vol 12 no 7. Scrapbooking Memories.

A couple of influences on this one. The weaved ribbon that joins the cardstock and pp is inspired by Jing Jing Nickel's LO 'four' in this months CK. And the shredded stitching by Leeann Pearce's 'Step by Step' technique in this month's SBM.

sunday sunset

Mother Nature put on her glad rags this evening and showed off her style. We had the most glorious sunset. This shot is SOOC.

every chance I get...

We had a lovely family day for Sunday. We went across to Tumby to check out some real estate options, grab fish and chips for lunch (they did, I don't do fish lol) and had a play on the beach. It was just bliss to watch Kym play with the kids in the water. I did regret not taking the camera, but it was also quite nice to not have it. Its very seldom that I get to sit and do nothing but flick thru a scrap mag, but that's exactly what I did. With Kym keeping an eye on the kids I could really get into this month's CK that's just come out. Another one that I have a lot of folded corners on, that has ideas for me to glean from.

So with a creative rush, I hopped into this one as soon as we were home. And it was done in no time flat. Wish they all come together this easy!!!!!

keeping an eye on u

I had a creative afternoon making roses. Sandra had a tutorial that linked to another blog to another blog. I found the origin of it here. Funnily enough I had bookmarked it a while ago and then forgot about it, and found it again today. Go figure!?!  I seem to be doing a lot of that lately *insert roll eyes*

The lollipop bloom is from my creative arvo with Janice, Trish, Sandra and Moi. The roses I made today need a 6 petalled flower. I don't have one of those punches, or a six petalled bloom to copy in my stash, so I Googled to find an image of it. After a lot of searching I eventually found something I could use. If you would like the template I used, drop me a comment or email and I'll get it to you via email or FB. I have sized 5 of them from 6cm down to 2cm. The ones on this LO are 4cm.

This LO is also for the Twiddleybitz Ning site. (Hiya Mel and Tiff *waves*)

Lots of glimmermist on this one too. I really enjoyed the process.

have a great Sunday.
xXx

I see magnificence in your eyes

One from last night @ Scrapworkz.

And a thank you to Ronnie who said some very kind words about my scrapping style last night. You gave me the warm fuzzies. I scrap for me, not for any magazines, DT or the like, but it is still nice to hear feedback on what it is that appeals to others. If a magazine happens to accept one of my LO's, that is just fantastic. If they don't, well, that's quite ok too. It wasn't scrapped for them in the first place anyway. This is just my opinion of my work and not a reflection on anyone else at all. So cheers Ronnie, you made my day!!

flower power

The girls (Janice, Trish and Sandra) and I had a little get together today to make some of these.....

...with this to help speed things on a bit...

                   

.....and to do some Retreat Planning!!

Thanks Sandra for hosting us today and for the very yummy cake.

haircuts are a serious business

Its not very often that Sean's not smiling. This was one of those days. The circular journalling was inspired by Amanda on a LO some time ago that was in SBT not all that long ago. I did one way back when and decided to have another go at it. I had forgotten how to do it but Google saved my day. What would I do without Google??

Big day Wednesday. I've a girls crafty lunch followed by crafty creating arvo!!!! I have Sean starting Kindy at 1pm and for his birthday I'm taking around a large tub of ice cream, cones and sprinkles. Each Kindy kid can have an ice cream to celebrate his birthday. Pick him up when Kindy finishes. Bit more creating... followed by Annie's swim lesson at 5.30. Hope to be home by about 6.45pmish to turn around and run out of the door to Tumby for the Hunt Club AGM @ 8pm. I'll be handing over the Treasury books then. Time for the next person to take it on.

Chock-a-block.

;o)
t

capturing the bliss

just gotta love her face. She looks so very 'sated'.

The jewel at the bottom of the page was a clip on earring that belonged to my Grandmother. I took the clip off and hey presto, perfect for scrapping. And seeing that jewels are so popular atm.......

mermaid hair

Another answer to the colour challenge at E2C blog. And matting a title. So I've covered 2 challenges. I stamped onto a brown bag, cut it out and scrunched it up a bit. I love the texture of it.

One day I hope to catch Annie in the pool or in the sea with an underwater camera and really catch her hair moving in the water. As its so long I think it would look spectacular.

have a great Sunday.

4

Today was Sean's 4th birthday.

He had a large parcel arrive in the mail yesterday which he carried around the house for ages, trying to convince me that it was ok to open it the day before his birthday. Na ah I kept telling him. He put it on his spare bed so he could look at it until he fell asleep and so it was the first thing he'd see when he woke up this morning.

We had an early start to the day this morning. *insert eye roll*. The parcel was from Nan from Broken Hill that had little tractors, trailers, bulldozers and all sort of other implements, and a wonderful bunch of good clothes for winter. Perfect.

Then came the box from Dad and I. Before the ripping off of paper, I sat both the kids down and explained that this is a combined birthday pressie for both Sean and Annie. And that Annie wasn't to expect too much when hers comes around in September.

Paper was ripped, the box was torn open and then there was a fair bit of squealing and a lot of jumping around from both Sean and Annie. (Sean can out squeal Annie atm btw).

We gave the kids a Wii. There were some excellent post Christmas sales - my favourite time to shop btw - and with a bit of help and advice from Janice, we got really good value for the $$$ spent. There's the console, 2 remotes, 1 nunchuck, 1 wheel, 5 games including Mario Cart. All we need now is another nunchuck, another wheel and a recharger deck for the remotes. (reckon I'll be checking out eBay later, or the latest Target catolouge. The kids and Kym have been at it most of the day and the best part of it is that Kym has quite got into it. He knows more than me with the games. And that's just great.

Today was also the last day of indulging Sean his fetish for the colour pink We had pink pancakes with strawberries and strawberry ice-cream. For lunch we had a pink creamed birthday sponge cake. We went out to the pub for tea and we had another pink sponge cake. He also received a little cupcake made esp for him with a pink patty pan. (thanks Janice)

From now on I'll be gently persuading him that yellow is pretty cool. Yellow is the colour of Dad's header, of CAT bulldozers and graders and all things with big wheels at the mine sites.  LOL wish me luck.

Every year since the kids were born I have a scrap page that has little clear envelopes in which I place a lock of hair. We placed another golden piece of hair in it today. We also measure the kids on our door frame.

Of course I had the camera out and this is today's pictorial review. *wink*

'bear'ly hungry

finished off one of the LO's from Thursday scrap nite in Lincoln @ Scrapworkz.

One of the girls (Judy??) asked about throwing paint and as I was just about to start a LO when she asked about it, I gave it a go.

I saw the sewn circle in one of the mags recently (If you could let me know which one I'll amend this post as for the life of me I'm not able to find it) which reminded me that I had seen it aaaggggeeessss ago on some boy's jeans. I really liked it then but promptly forgot all about it.

young scrapper.

Annie's published. And she just wriggled with excitement when I told her what this means.

I got such a buzz to see a mag addressed to me and then another addressed to Annie rock up in the post on Friday.


So awesome to lots of local talent being published lately, or will be soon.

This community has such a scrapping cluster.
Maryanne
Meredith
Amanda
Sandra
Marika
Janice
Annie
Me

pretty ballerina

It's a bit hard to imagine that a grass roots, no frills, base type of chick like me is able to produce pretty ballerina like this young lady.

But apparently I can.

so stinking adorable

I've had busy full days and late nights to I haven't had a chance to post this one till now. oh, and my Internet quota is over so we are @ snail pace. Which I actually don't mind, as I do HEAPS of downloads now it doesn't cost me anything. *wink*. It just takes a while is all. And we are about  to run out of the door for the pool

Annie's back to being 100% well. Thank you very much for the caring and concern that has been shown to us by many wonderful friends. Sean is back on track too. Yay.

So without any further ado...

ta da....

attributes of this 7 year old

Remember my photo of Annie holding the letter A. Well I've scrapped it. Its rather a rush scrapping something that is so 'now' IYKWIM. This pic and Sean's jumped my scrapping queue to be done sooner than later. Oh and a bit of encouragement too. *wink*

stay cool

can now reveal after publication in Scrapbook Memories Vol 12. No 10. Creative Photography gallery.

boys and trains

***I've been spammed. To try to get around it I've deleted that last post of the Train Spotting LO and I'll have another go***

this is what I was working on Saturday night. I was able to finish it tonight.

asthma from a Mum's POV

Kym is home. Thank goodness. Now I can let go a bit. I felt like walking in the scrub and having a big scream or thumping a tree. Just to get the wound up tension out of me.

Instead I had a glass of scotch on the rocks and just put into words what I was feeling. Hence that long post from before. I wanted to put it into my scrapbook album as well.

I really believe in scrapping the good and the bad. And this weekend certainly wasn't a good one. So to keep it simple and to get it done so i could move on, I've done a digi page. No embellishing, nothing flashy at all. Just the words that needed to pour out.

If you have already read the previous post, it pretty much the same wording with a few grammatical corrections.

I think I'll have 2 copies of it printed. One for my album and one for Annie's. After all its all about her.

what the hell happened.

I never want to relive this weekend again. At least the Saturday night version.

After the high of being 'Jacked', (see the previous post) I plummeted to being never so scared in my life.

Kym was away for the weekend and as yet still not home from his trip.

Annie went to bed with a touch of croup.  No big deal. She had a bit of a barky cough and sore throat the night before so I gave her a dose of Redipred then (as I have done in times past) and that usually stops it in its tracks. Annie had a bit of a cough on the Saturday night, again, nothing to be alarmed about. As a precaution I gave her another dose of Redipred.

About 1.30am she woke up in an absolute panic. I was still up in scrap room (office) which is right next to her bedroom door. So I was in there in a flash. She was hot, red, sweaty and clutching her throat. And coughing to the point of throwing up or passing out. And not just any cough. A coarse sand paper throat ripping gagging cough. She couldn't speak as her throat was in spasms. Her eyes were bulging and she looked so damn scared. And yes she was panicking. She couldn't breathe in or out. She had to push and pull air in and out, and work at with mammoth concentration.

I tried putting her on the Neb. The mist gagged her. She couldn't breathe at all with that in her general direction. She's used a nebulizer since forever in her life and she knows what its all about. So having the reaction of tearing it off her face, pushing it away and being so much more frightened because of it, sent huge alarm bells going off in my head.

I threw a bucket her way for when she threw up, got the car out of the car shed and by the front door, woke up Sean from the depths of sleep and belted him into his booster and carried Annie out. I was trying to get her to focus on breathing in and out when I did. Can you imagine coaching your child to breathe. And trying to be calm about it. Kids are very perceptive and believe me, she knew I was scared shitless too.

It normally takes 10mins to get into town. I didn't overly speed to get in there (better to arrive alive) but I did take less then 10. And that was the longest period of time EVER. I had the inside car light on so I could see her and she could see me. Me asking her to breathe in 1, out 2, in 1 out 2. And so I could watch her colour. All the while I was mentally going the ratio of breaths to heart compressions in case I had stop to revive her.

I had rung the hospital as we left and we were met at the door. I watched on while the nurses did consult and looked in absolute horror how much Annie's sternum (breast bone) was contracting into her chest to get her lungs to suck in air. It seems like it was pulling back into her body so far that it should have touched her spine. And her diaphragm was contracting so hard to pull in and push out air. I hope to God I never have to see that again. That is the thing that really sticks in my mind.

After 2 hours of non stop Neb's with O2, and other medications we managed to get her under control and slow her reps down. There was a lot of phlegm vomits to get rid of that nasty stuff out of her little body.

I was told after she had calmed enough to let her sleep a little that if she hadn't responded soon we were going to transferred to Adelaide. I have never been in that situation before and that frightened me a lot too. We have always been able to manage the kids' asthma conditions between home and the Hospital. To think that we may not be able to cope with this locally means that its far more serious than I really want to consider. And to add to it all, I had Sean with me, Kym not home for a few days and he wasn't answering his phone.

I know friends of mine who would have Sean at a drop of a hat, and that was my backup plan. Fortunately I didn't have to ring anyone at 3.30am for their help as Annie started her way back up the hill. Sean, the little gem, would have known that something was up. He was calm and quite chirpy considering he was woken up from being fast asleep. He was lying all curled up in a chair under a rug in the exam room so he could be with Annie. Now and then he would reach over and rub her arm to let her know that he was there. That meant so much to me. In the end he was put into bed in the day surgery ward across the aisle so he could sleep. He did come in twice before he settled to rub her arm again.

I had extremely little sleep on my behalf (about 30 mins maybe) the 3 of us woke up for Sunday. Annie had lost her voice.

Sean went to Modra's for the day. My hugest thanks to Kathy and her family for having him. He's like another brother when he's there and he always has a good time. I managed to get back home to pick up clothes, toothbrushes and other necessities for hospital. I hadn't time to pack anything at all when we went in.

Paige collected Sean later in the arvo to have him overnight in her home with her family. Thanks chick. Love you so much. So does he. (He's discovered Wii Mario Cart while there).

Annie and I slept in the arvo (Sean did too apparently) and we settled into routine obs and meds. Sunday night Annie lost a tooth. She was so excited by this, and wondered if the Tooth Fairy would find her. As her voice wasn't back yet, she whispered her excitement. Nurse Sue *wink* popped the tooth in a little cup, labelled it and gave it to Annie for the anticipated monetary trade. We left a window open so the TF could get in.

And thank goodness she did. The first thing Annie did this morning was check out the cup, and said out loud, "Hey Mum, the tooth fairy came."  Followed by, "Mum so did my voice"

Annie and I picked up Sean after being discharged this morning from the Kelly house. And we have spent a very quite day in front of the air con.

Sean has a very runny nose and is wheezy. So as Annie recovers I start a new battle with Sean's asthma. Hopefully I have hit it hard enough early enough to manage it at home.

Thank you very very much for the txts, FB messages, offers of help. To Jancie and Sarah for visiting and being with Annie so I could pick Sean up from the Modra home, to Kathy for always being there for my kids and to the nursing staff. And Dr Sarah. For not telling me until after, that this was looking bloody serious. I do appreciate that I didn't need to be more alarmed than I already was.

My heartfelt thanks.
tiff

I've been "Jacked"

Wow.   Wow.        W.O.W.

What a huge compliment.

I've been ScrapJacked

http://aussiescrapjack.ning.com/

The very talented Nat May just let me know thru FB, to pop over for a squizzie.

She has just made my weekend. Thanks Babe.


happy dancing. happy dancing. happy dancing.

I'm off to have a really good look at what the team have done with this pic of Annie to inspire them.

What a way to start a Saturday.

Visit Aussie Scrapjack

tub bub

The kids and I are batching at the moment. DH is in Adelaide shooting in the Western Zone team to vie for a spot in the State Team to shoot at the Nationals. Kym is good enough. More than good enough I may add. He's been in the state team several times and won a National Medal for coming 1st in one event last year. So he's away on his 'boys trip' while we relax at home. Things do wind back a cog or two when he's not here. But I do miss him ( just a little bit lol).

One from this evening before I start boning up on the phone manual. Its taking me a day and a half to be bothered to take the damn thing out of the box to pop in the battery to charge it up. If I haven't answered your txts or calls, I'm not ignoring you. Just trying to figure the damn gadget out. (deep breath)

Looking at the LO now I reckon it needs some sewing. Better than the reading the instruction book.....

la hat

This fulfils 4 challenges over @ e2c blog. Something soft, something hard (one of Decembers challenges), this months colour challenge of  dark brown, pink, green and blue. Sue's sketch challenge and the matted title challenge. I think I've got it all covered.

The something soft is the blue felt and the pink hearts that I cut from an old pair of Annie's flannie Pj's. The hard bit is the pin, the 3 beads in the left corner and the strip of pink bling. I've turned Sue's sketch upside down and rearranged it a fair bit. The 2 pieces of green PP are instead of the 2nd and 3rd photo requirement. But the basis of the sketch is still there. The colour challenge happened to work perfectly with this LO and it also happened to be the one I was about to start on anyway. And as you can see the title is matted in green.  ***ETA. When I looked at the LO this morning it still looked a bit bland to me so I've added a material leaf vine on the left side that overlaps the pink bling a bit. Some of the leaves are raised so it gives the LO a bit of a lift.***

And I just wanted to give a shout out to Janice. Her challenge LO for the 'something soft, something hard' was picked up for publication. WAHU to you chick. I think it may have slipped under the radar of those who follow the e2c blog as it happened over the mad December month. So congrats to you and your personal goal achieved.

another bloody gadget.

I had a yarn to Telstra a few days ago to fiddle our business phone plan. Along with a better pricing structure with extra bits and bobs they threw this little baby in with the deal.

As it is I am quite happy with my current phone and tried really hard to have them keep the new phone and credit our account the difference. Try as I might, they said it was at absolutely no cost to me so I might as well have it.

So I did. Another gadget to learn how to navigate. As if I dont have enough to learn atm. I am studying and still going thru different settings on the  Canon 50D. Lots more scope for photos = lots more scope for errors too. Dont worry, I haven't had many blunders in that department yet.

So if anyone locally has one of these phones, if I may ask you to fast track my learning curve and show me any bells, whistles and tricky bits, I would appreciate it. I learn quicker by being shown rather than plowing thru the manual.

cheers and thanks.
t

vintage valentines ticket download

http://misscutiepiegoes80s.blogspot.com/2010/02/freebie-valentines-day-tickets.html

lots of free downloads of vintage stuff. Its requested to leave a link from my blog back to hers.... tick.
Found this fabo little blog here via Sandras blog.

Yum.

mmmm x 4

This is a bit of a secret shoot so dont tell Mr M what you've seen. Thanks J for letting me post them here and let me know when I have the all clear for FB.
Had a great time with your family. You all 'spoke' to the camera so well.

mwah. Enjoy your sneak peek.

have a great day.

literacy

practice, practice, practice is the name of the game.

Sean really enjoys painting so I wrote his name on butchers paper with a pen and he wrote his name on top with paint.

clever little chap.