Just Like Heaven

Photos and Funny Stuff!

Wednesday I met my sister at the park where Nathan and I got married to take photos of her and her delectable babies! 

They were SO cute.  Wild and crazy but oh SO fantastic.  I got some GREAT photos of them that my sister is giving as gifts for Mother's Day.

I got lots of cute photos  and we looked in the ponds and there were HUNDREDS, maybe thousands of little tadpoles in the ponds.  I actually took my kids back later to catch some so we could watch them turn into little frogs and then let them go.  I didn't know at the time that is actually illegal to catch tadpoles.  Anyway. 

So, it's pouring rain and muddy and all I took was a bucket, so it was ME on my tummy, in the gardens on the side of the yucky pond dipping in the bucket catching tadpoles and all I got was THREE!!!  Anyway three was enough!

So we carefully took them home and placed them in a little fish tank ready to witness the miracle of nature....

Thursday morning, I gave them some food and later that day noticed they had grown a bit.

into.....................

FISH

Oops seems our tadpoles were actually teeny weeny goldfish!!!!!

Roflmao......it's all good, they've grown again already and we're still witnessing the miracle of nature - only a different one!  Once I get the water to settle I will take some photos so we can document their growth.  How funny though!

I did my second Mother's Day class at Simply Said on Wednesday night and I got THE best treat from Marie!  We received chrysanthemums, chocolate at the class AND champagne!  Woohoo thanks Marie and Happy Mother's Day to us!!

Today I lunched at the pub with a new friend and it was lovely to see her and get to know her more.:) 

And this afternoon I had a wonderful time teasing my kids as I picked them up from school knowing they had Mother's Day presents from the stall hidden in their bags.  Maddy badly wanted to give hers to me - it was gorgeous!

I'm still busy busy busy as always but it's all good.

Alexander's basketball team won tonight 28-8.  I was so disappointed because I didn't go.  Maddy was a bit off-colour so we stayed home.  I love watching his games!

Happy Mother's Day and hope you have a great weekend! I'll be scrapping my heart out!

One of THOSE days....

Ugh it's only 9.30am and my day has already turned into one of those frustrating ones....

Nothing major and I am fine although I'm getting a bit cranky about it all.  You know when you make plans and  then they're whisked away from you and it's all completely beyond your control and you're left kind of standing there saying, "But I was going to......" and you're bewildered because this isn't how today was going to work?  That is my day today.....

I spent yesterday cleaning on a mad mission so today I could have a full day of scrapping - class samples and DT stuff.  Things I've been busting to get to.  But nope, seems the Universe has decided otherwise.....sigh....

I did spend some time with my Mum yesterday treasure hunting which was fun.  She has been sorting the things of her partner's mother as they have had to sell her home and it's full of 'stuff' that she collected....and she was worse than me with her treasure-hunting I think!

I scored another gorgeous chair for my collection and a timber tray/box that has replaced the ugly plastic one I had that houses all of my upcoming assignments.  I will post pics soon as I also scored jewelery treasures.Oh how I love junky jewels!  It was better than playing little-girl dress ups and I also got buttons!

I can't take any pics though because the camera battery is on the charger in anticipation of the annual school Lap-a-thon.  Ugh now that I have one child on the junior campus and one on the senior, I am there for MOST of the day - sigh!!!

And.....I once saw that WD-40 removes grease from clothes so I tried it on one of Nathan's fluoro work shirts.  Well DAMMIT, the WD-40 is now stuck in his shirt and the pants I chucked in with them and despite 4 washes they still stink of it AND the next load of towels as well.  Now I'm too scared to put them in the tumble drier - grrr....that's okay though as it's sunny here today so clothesline but still haw damn frustrating!  I have just run the machine empty so we'll see if that cleans it out......what a dork I am.....blah.....lol....

So now I have 20 minutes to get sorted and be at school today where I apparently volunteered to help.....hmm....lol....it's okay....

Now in scrappiness, here's another photo of my class this week.  I can arrange a kit for you if you would like one.  They are exclusive to Simply Said so let me know if you'd like one :)

And here's the peeks of next weeks Book of Me class - "Motherhood"  I had fun with this one as I got to use all my favourite stuff!  I still have a couple of places in the Tuesday morning class and Wednesday night as well. :)

Let me know if you'd like to come, or call the shop to book. :)

Okay is it a sign that the song on my computer playing now is "Mad World" by Tears For Fears?  I'm feeling very much like I'm running around in circles like the song.....and I'm thinking that it's not about to slow down any time today......

Yay weekend bring it on ;)

Materialicious

I'm in a bit of a funny place today, emotionally.  I dunno, I'm feeling a bit flat and blah - blah!!!  Unwinding with a big glass of red, that should take care of the blahs - lol!

Both kids' teachers were on strike today which was a real nuisance since I had a class to teach.  I do support the cause, I really do, but does it have to be on a work day?  Grrr....I ended up having to take Maddy to work and then between a friend and I we managed to take care of hers and my kids getting them to school this afternoon and picking them up.  It's times like that I'm grateful for a great network of friends :)  The kids were expected at school at 1pm which was their lunch time so really they were at school for 1.5 hours - sigh....

Got to catch up with a friend this arvo which was great and I got organised at home - kind of.  Nath is at poker tonight and I'm scrapping and still loving it.  Speaking of scrapping my Fabric Techniques feature for Aussie Scrap Source came out in Scrapbook Creations this week.

Funny you know because when I did this feature I thought about how cool it would be to design for Aussie Scrap Source and didn't give it much other thought until I was asked to join the Design Team months later....hmmm.....lol

Anyway I did this over Christmas during that awful heatwave - great excuse to HAVE to scrap and FABULOUS excuse to finally use lots of fabric.  It was something I hadn't really had a chance to use last year. :)

This was a page I had wanted to do for so long and it was driving me mad!  Heaps of techniques and French Knots!  Lucky I like stitching them ;)

More French Knots galore!!!!

I had an absolutely fabulous time making all of these and I'm so happy with how it all looks.

Alrighty that's about it for today.  I'll share my Super book next time :)

Week

Wow this week has just flown...it has ended right when I was starting to get into the school holidays and now we're back to school again!  I still think the timing was STUPID but they're over with now so I guess I should just stop whining about them!

The start of this week I was working madly on a magazine feature.  I thought it would come together quickly but ended up taking longer than expected.  Amazing how inspiration takes until the last moment to hit!  It has all arrived where it needed to safe and sound so that's a relief!

I taught my kids doodling class at Simply Said on Tuesday and despite their apprehension, my kids had a ball!  Especially Alexander.  He has made a couple of new friends who were gorgeous and they all drew Pokemon and it sparked a new interest in scrapping for both of my babies.  It's been awesome because while I've worked on layouts, so have they.  I'll have to post them on here, I'm so proud of Alex and how he's come along and Maddy has a definite sense of design happening as well. So they've been working VERY hard!!!

We ended up bringing home a couple of extra playmates for Alex and Maddy after work on Tuesday.  It was lovely actually because we went out for lunch and then Nathan had finished work early so instead of panicking about my work not being finished, I was able to do it because my kids had other kids to play with so they tend not to fight too much. 

Nath cooked with the kids - it was so unbelievably, kind of him to do so.  Then another friend called me to ask for help as she'd hurt her back and couldn't drive well and needed me to drive.  Well I did what any good friend would do and went and picked up her kids too and brought them home for the day and for dinner so she could rest, so by this stage we had six kids.  Add on the one that pops over the fence and we had seven.  And they were ALL gorgeous.  The day was fine so they played outside in our yard. They baked, they scrapped, they made up games, they shared and it was FABULOUS!  I managed to get washing done and loads of work too. By the end of the day they were all grubby and worn out and perfectly healthily tired!  Nath even cooked dinner - gotta love that man..........;)

Wednesday we lunched with Mum for her birthday and I got everything packed and posted off and got held up anywhere and everywhere I could think of.  When Nathan got home I pleaded with him to go out and take the kids for an hour or so so I could get organised.  It was chaos at our house and I just needed to get a few things straightened and sorted.  I went through the house and dusted and mopped and cleaned the bathroom and all the stuff I'd been neglecting since Easter or so.  Phew it was such a relief to get on top of things and Alex and Maddy got to see their friends too.  I even did ironing.....;)

Yesterday I found this in our lounge in front of the heater -

Seems Maddy thought Basil might have been uncomfortable and that he needed some pampering.  Looks like he lapped it up too!  Poor old thing he turned 14 this year.  In cat years that is 74!! He's spent a whole lot of time hogging the heater for the last freezing week or so...

Yesterday was another day of slack morning and then total madness.  While I love slacking in my pjs until lunch, it does make me incredibly disorganized!  I got my hair cut too - in fact we all did - finally.  All four of us were WAY overgrown especially my boys!  I couldn't see through my fringe - what a relief!

I've been so so so incredibly tired this week too.  Don't know if it's the freezing weather or what.  Anyway I even LOOK tired - blah, hope it passes soon.  I took the kids to the cinema today and four others too.  I was a wee bit apprehensive about taking SIX kids to the cinema alone but they were all perfect.  In fact they were beyond perfect.  We saw Horton Hears A Who .  Geez I was so bored I almost dozed off so I surfed the net from my phone - lol.  The kids loved it though ;)  And that's all that matters.

Both of my babies were really good today, they've been gorgeous.  they drove me mad last week, I couldn't wait for them to go back to school, now that the holidays are over, I don't want them to go back.......hmm....lol...

Here's some new pics for this week anyway......my gorgeous girl....just being gorgeous

My gorgeous boy doing the same....

My gorgeous man....doing the Daddy thing and being appreciated for it...

And me with my boys....yes I have projects to do that I needed these photos for lol. 

My kids are extortionists.  They wanted CASH for scrapping photos.  I said NO, we compromised with lollies....I did suggest that they take it out of what THEY owe me for rent, dinner, laundry etc and they backed off right away - PMSL!

Okay this has become a mammoth post so I'll leave it here..........OH and before I forget, KSK are looking for a new Design Team Member.  It's a pretty good gig if you want to have a go - APPLY!!!!

Nonsense

Why is it well past midnight on a Sunday night and I am still up and blogging?

Crazy it is really but everyone is asleep right now and it seems it's the only time I feel truly calm and sane - inside a blissfully calm household.

I'm really tired lately, even had a nap this afternoon.  Don't know if it's not sleeping enough or that I'm getting old.

I hurt my neck/shoulder yesterday carrying stuff at Paperific.  Not happy, I'm really sore :( and stupid apparently for carrying stuff that made me hurt my neck and shoulder - duh!  I really need to keep in mind that I have a shoulder injury.  I always forget - what a dork!

I need to write a new to-do list for my scrapping.

I need to clean off this desk, I'm working on a magazine feature and can't find a thing for all the piles of um....things....

My husband Nathan is such a good cook.  I love it when he cooks like today he made this divine gnocchi cooked like I've never had it before - yum!

I love that today I changed all the Summer bedding for the Winter stuff.  Blankets and thick doonas and electric blankets - yay, love snuggly nights....

I really need to go to bed - night xx

Random Drivel

Hmm hopefully if I put it here, I'll get on with stuff I HAVE to do - lol

• Is the heat really gone now?  Can we have some snow soon?  Pleeeeeeeeeeeease?  I'm done with the heat already and I want my daylight savings hour back....
• Are the Victorian school holidays ridiculous? The year has just begun and here we are on @#$%^&* holidays.......sheesh....I'm loving no rush, but worry about my babies next term.
• If someone you know passes away and you don't go to their funeral, does that make you an ass?
• Do kids get naughtier as they get older?
• Why were my jeans a bit, erm, tight this morning?  Damn you Easter Bunny, this is YOUR fault...
• Is all that new Basic Grey as yummy in real life as it is online?
• Why has my skin become so feral and spotty?  I'm not a teenager - geez.....I hope it passes soon - might be Easter Bunny's fault too?
• Does grooving along to the song 'Africa' by Toto, make you an 80s tragic, or retro-cool?  hmmm...
• Can I in fact come up with a class for every week of next term?
• Why are kids so damn messy?
• I've been invited to train to become a counsellor.  I'm interested but am I ready to take this on?
• Do I in fact have too much time on my hands (NO) to be able to write this crap? No I'm a terrible procrastinator.  Really just here to inform those who tell me I need to update my blog that I'm updating.....:oP

Hope everyone is well :) I am busy (aren't we all)  See you on Saturday at Paperific - woohoo!!!!

Happy Easter :)

Okay so I'm not religious, don't really care what Easter is all about , but isn't it nice to have a happy kind of holiday celebration thing going on this weekend?  I have to say I've done NO work despite the fact that it's crunch time and I have really achieved nothing - lol!

So Thursday was the last day of term.  Thankfully someone mentioned to me that it was early pick up.  Apparently the school had accidentally not informed us and school finished an hour early.  Even with a reminder I almost forgot!! Bad bad mother!!!

So early finish on Thursday meant we ran into this big furry thing in the street.  Madeleine was so cute, she spotted Easter Bunny and grabbed one of the eggs her teacher had given her and insisted on giving it to him.  She is such a generous little soul....:)

Nath went fishing Thursday night, we went to a friend's house and helped her colour her hair and then coloured mine on Friday.  Oooo it's DARK!  Lol, way darker than I thought it would be which is no big deal really but far out it's dark - he he he.  At least those pesky stray greys that were appearing randomly are gone.  I'm sure it will fade, I have dark hair anyway so it's all good :)

Just pretty much bummed around at home Friday, went to Mum's yesterday for egg exchange and morning tea and while I've had the best intentions of getting lots of work done and class lists written, I haven't got far at all..........oops!

Here's a pic from the kids' crazy hair day last week too -

Little ferals........must get that from their father - roflmao....

Oh, and Madeleine went to her first ever disco this week.  It was SO hot and Alexander refused to go so we left the boys home and Maddy and I went to dance.  She loves to dance (like her Mum, although her Mum's pretty un-co - lol)

She didn't last long with the heat but loved what she did.  Amazing how much my baby has grown in just one term.  She comes out with things now that amaze me and it's such an exciting new phase that our family has entered.  I really loved it when my kids were babies and occasionally miss that but boy oh boy I'm LOVING having both kids at school and finally starting to feel like I'm adjusting to it. :)

Alex took that yesterday.  I really need photos of HIM for a project but he was being a turd so Maddy asked if she could have a photo with me.  Still didn't get a reasonable one of him.  Grr, WHY are boys such a pain? Means I can't start my project yet and we'll have to do them again - grrrr.....

Speaking of photos, I did some of my younger sister today.  Her MSN photo was awful and we've been meaning to update for ages so she popped around today.  Isn't she gorgeous?

We're not much alike are we? Sam is three years younger than me and then I have another sister younger again by almost nine years.  Funny you know - I'm brunette,  Sam's auburn/red hair and our younger sister is blonde.  Genetics huh? This sister is my gorgeous niece and nephew's Mumma.

I went to the movies today with my sisters and saw Step Up 2 The Streets Don't get me wrong, I am a movie fusspot - it's all those years working in a video store I'm sure, but I usually love dance movies and I thought this was CRAP!!!!  Ugh two hours I'll never get back - blah!  the dance sequences etc. were impressive and amazing but I was actually yawning.  Oh please sisters of mine, I am SO picking the next movie!  it was cool to hang out with my sisters, I can't remember the last time (if any) that we've actually gone out alone together, but we all thought the movie was crap - lol!!

Kids were happy this morning that Easter Bunny had visited BUT it's the end of an era.  Apparently Alexander has it all worked out who the real Easter Bunny is and rather than insult his intelligence, I begged him not to tell his sister and he promised not to. He looked like he'd just been introduced to some fabulous 'grown ups club' and there is no way he wants to share that with his little sister!

Alrighty, I had better get away from this computer, the internet anyway, I REALLY have to finalise my class list.  Hi Marie, I'm sure you're reading this, and I know you're only waiting on slack me, so I'm onto it - roflmao!

Hope you haven't eaten too much chocolate like I have, thanks for the visit and seeya xxxxx

Happy Easter

WHAT is the go with Easter arriving already?  Are you kidding me, it's the end of the first term this year too.  Didn't the year just begin???  Either I've been asleep, or the year is just flying!  And damn those delicious and irresistible Easter Eggs begging me to eat them - it's all THEIR fault you know.....

So finally realising that Easter was upon me, I did some shopping yesterday. Kids are done thankfully ;) I can't be bothered with Easter this year - lol, does that make me a bad person? 

Well except of course for the Easter scrapping I've done for Paperific

I've loved doing that....

Now don't stress if you're coming along, about getting your layout finished because I am, right now, making detailed handouts for anyone who comes along and doesn't quite get finished.  I think many people will finish, but if you're anything like me, you never finish in a class and like to tweak it after the class, so you'll have instructions if you need them. :)

I taught the next Book of Me class at Simply Said (am busting to put a link here hint hint - lol....) in Warragul over the last couple of days.  Here is my sample:

The theme was something personal to you, something that would remind someone else of you, something sentimental...Mine was my rings.  I was SO happy with that photo. :)  Anyway all the ladies that did my class did a fantastic page each - all of them, and the best part of this series is seeing how different they all are!

Okay I'm off to battle the crazy crowds at the shops, so for now, hope you have a great Good Friday tomorrow :)

Ooo speaking of Good Friday, how amazing was the Crop 4 Kids total?  OVER $11 000, yes ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS!!  A HUGE well done Jess and crew, a HUGE one!!!

I am back - finally!!!!

Well, I have to say this is the longest I have ever neglected my blog for.  I've just been INSANELY busy.  All good busy but  really drowning.  I thought I'd better update the blog as I've been getting a few lovely "Are you okay?" emails.  Thanks so much, it's nice to know I am missed - a bit anyway.

Okay well, since I participated in the Mirabel Foundation campaign through Meet Me At Mikes, I got sick.  Nothing I really need to detail here but I was sick on and off for a couple of weeks.  Nothing serious, you know when you just get sick at the worst possible time when you have a million things to do and the timing couldn't be worse?  Well that was me.  But I'm good now -best I've been in a very long time.  So that took a fair bit out of my time and my household.  I'm still trying to catch up on the domestic stuff!

Then I started teaching at Simply Said here in Warragul.  I'm teaching classes twice a week and it has started out fabulously.  I'm still finding my way but loving teaching again - loving working too. :)  I'll be teaching lots of classes there, every week.  Next week I'm doing Doodling and I started with a Book of Me class which I was going to run monthly, but the girls enjoyed it so much, I'll be teaching it fortnightly from next term - yay!

So I've been madly making class samples, and doing DT stuff for KSK which I can't share because it's now being used to advertise for something else that I'm not sure if I can share yet but watch this space as I'll be sharing as soon as I have the go ahead.

And I have been doing some magazine stuff too and despite the fact that I lost my mojo while I was sick, I have to say, I feel it coming back - big time.  I cannot scrap enough right now I'm LOVING it.  Just as well because I still have a big 'to do' list - again yay!

So amongst all this stuff, I managed to take some Easter photos.  I needed them for something, lucky my babies were willing to participate - with Easter Egg bribery of course ;)

We had three birthdays to go to last weekend, two of them at the same time on Sunday.  One was Maddy only so while we were all looking semi-respectable, we did the Easter pics above and these:

Nathan and i haven't had a pic together for a while and after much editing I can live with these ;)

Scrapbook Creations is also out this week and I have these in it.  First of all, Jeni O'Connor covered my style this month is the What's Your Style feature.  It's been lovely to be a part of that feature, I really enjoyed it and loved finally defining my 'style'  lol.....that whole 'style' thing always used to freak me out, now I'm okay with it ;o) Here's the layout I did for it anyway.....

Lucky I like doing French Knots - lol!

The next layout in there is in the Lace gallery - my Miss Moo:

Love that photo of her :)

And last of all, I was lucky enough to take part in the 1-2-3D Paper Crafting System challenge from Kidston Craft using their system. 

I ended up using it to make a little pop-up book.  Easy with the tool ;)

It's hard to tell, but the photos pop up!

Okay I think I've waffled on enough for this post.  I promise to be more regular again for you people who have complained - lol!

I'm at Crop 4 Kids next weekend so if you're going I might see you there. :)