Woo Hoot

Wooo Hoooo time again according to Janine ... humm not much to report actually.

- Discovered I can still run faster than Aaron :-) (still a bit of life in the ole girl yet!)
- Managed to sneak in a 40 minute Nana nap while the kids were sleeping
- Completed a LO and have another in process (well sort of!)
- Having roast beef (Australian beef though not NZ) for tea
- Lyndon has the day off tomorrow ... it's Labour Day

Think that's it ... have to go anyway Maddison has woken up.
Laters ...

My Word ...

Last night Lyndon took Aaron to the Dr's to get his ears cleaned out (this appointment was made a week ago when Dr said his ears were inflamed -she gave me some ear drops for the inflammation, but only used them twice then I broke the bottle! So didn't worry about it). Anyway Lyndon came back saying that was a waste of time, you haven't been using the drops! Oh dear. Didn't realise the drops were to soften the wax for this appointment as well as clearing up his inflammation! He got another bottle of drops and made another appointment for Friday.

Well ... this morning was an early start and the kids were mucking about in their room and in the lounge (or so I thought!) and Lyndon was in the shower. Next thing they were in the bathroom and I heard Lyndon say "what's in your mouth Maddison?". Hummm ... Aaron had been up on the bench got the bottle of drops, taken it to the lounge, emptied the entire bottle over the leather chair, smeared it around, put the lid back on the bottle and gave the bottle to Maddison then scampered off! (Don't you just love how he gives the "evidence" to her! - little brat). She was crawling around with the entire bottle in her mouth!

When I was cleaning up the stuff of the chair (or should I say trying to clean) Aaron's standing beside me going "My word, naughty, my word, Maddison's got bottle!!" I couldn't believe it.

Just another reminder for me to make sure the bench is CLEAR of anything that Mr Nosey might possibly take a fancy too!

So not a happy camper this morning ... the drops have peanut oil and turps in it (amongst other things) so there's BIG stains all over the chair. Don't think Maddison drunk it - too much on the chair and the floor! And to top it off I had to walk down to the Dr's again this morning with the pram. That's a marathon effort I tell you ... and hot ... phew, very sticky by the time I got back even at 9.30am - mainly because Aaron got off the trolley and decided to run off! I so do not look elegant sprinting after a little boy pushing a pram, and trying not to hurt my ankles on the trolley!

Different subject ... finished this LO last night for our family album. I was going to put it in Aaron's album, but decided to use a lot of the smaller photos for his album that captured the boys expressions. This is the 3rd LO I have done using the daffodils from 1 12x12 sheet.

Another LO

Finished this last night, had to get Lyndon to help me to staple on the journalling. Tricky business that without a long arm stapler! Used the square cream & black stickers from April Paper Pestos kit - nearly used them all!

Two Bob's Worth!

They say two Bobs are better than one??? Couldn't resist taking these pics. They looked so cute together and were actually being reasonably kind to one another!! (Although Aaron did keep telling Maddison that "these's Aaron's things!")

Paper Pesto Layout

Well after much playing and fiddling with this Layout I have finished it. I only used stuff from the April Kit, except for the paints on the black rub-on's (used Twinkling H20's).
The lettering ... is painstakingly hand cut! I printed it onto white Bazzil that was in the kit. I LOVE those gold rub-ons, they are so rich looking. Might have to look out for some more of them :-)

Scrap Your 'Art Out

I have been busy scrapping :-) Yippee ... such fun (well for me anyway!). I like making in-roads into the HUGE pile of photos I have waiting to go into albums.



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"1st Day @ School" was for the Friday Night challenge at SE. I love that photo of Aaron with his arms out so straight :-)

"Whare Runagna" was for the Fortnight challenge at SE. (I really like this LO -think I will use it for a few more) :-) (Finally doing some photos from our Russell holiday we had in July 2005 with Lyndon's family. )

Also ... don't think I have blogged this but I "won" (random draw) a RAK from SE for a LO I did for a Friday Night challenge of Aaron amongst the daffodils. Very exciting ... looking forward to getting that. :-)

Last night I participated in an on-line crop with Scrap-n-Crop. Was great fun actually. It was 3 hours and each hour a new challenge was posted. We had till 9am this morning to post our LO's, but there were prizes if you completed first. The first challenge was a LO using plain card stock (no patterned paper) and whatever embellishments we wanted. I found that really easy as I like plain card! I did the one of our visit to The Parrot Place at Kerikeri (July 05). Second challenge was to create a LO with a photo of a smile and the title of the LO had to be smile and you had to journal about why you liked the smile. So I did the one of Aaron laughing his head off (yeah ... more than a smile!) on his Nana's knee (hope Nana doesn't mind being on my blog!). The third LO was to use a photo of yourself and write 7 facts about yourself. Humm ... okay another page for my Book of Me! :-)




And the big bonus was I won a RAK for my facts layout for using my name. Cool huh! Will post a photo of it when it arrives.

So my next challenge is to create a LO using ONLY the stuff from my Paper Pesto April kit ... I've started and am finding this really hard actually. I didn't realise just how tempting it would be to go through my stash and add extra bits!

"Flutterby"

Last night I dashed out to get a few groceries, but hurried back inside for the camera. This greeted me out by the lift. It was nearly as big as my hand. I haven't seen such a huge moth in real life before.

It was beautiful. I was almost sorry Aaron was asleep because I really wanted to show him.

But I was lucky ... this morning when Lyndon left for work he opened the door and I said ... oh is the moth still there. Sure enough ... so I picked up Aaron and took him out to show him and asked him what it was ... "A flutterby" he breathes really softly. So cool to see his face.


I can see a trip to the butterfly park coming up! :-)

Health update ...

Well some things aren't for posting here in blogger land ... so I will just say that Aaron doesn't have worms, it's something else that I won't mention here. So he's off school for the rest of this week and all next week. *Sigh*

The saying "Why Me" comes to mind, but then I think there are lots of other people out there way worse off than us, so just get over it!! (I'm trying!)

Anyway he's happy in himself and he thinks he's a bit of all right as he has some "special" cream which the Dr recommended we keep in the fridge, and he's rather good and helping himself and lathering it all over the place! (I am learning patience too!!!)

Happy days :-)

Clever Boy!

Aaron takes great delight in telling me he's a "Clever Boy" whenever he happens to be doing something that's either mischievous or naughty!!

This morning he was tossing clean towels all over the lounge (again!) and saying "clever boy Mummy, clever boy!" Right ... Maddison was squealing and joining right in. Too funny really. Didn't get any pics though ... no doubt it will happen again!

He's better today, might try him with a morning sleep and see if he can go to school. :-)

Woo Hoo Wednesday

Janine declared it Woo Hoo Wednesday ... I am running late (yeah I know how unusual). Decided I would woo hoo what actually happened on Wednesday!! :-)

Most exciting news of the day ... we have a new nephew :-) So Maddison now has 5 boy cousins and a brother ... oh dear hope she won't grow up too butch!! (ha) He's called Elliot and he looks just gorgeous and I think he might have red hair by the looks of the photo!! That definitely calls for a woo hoo ... so a red haired child in each family on Lyndon's side of the family!! Who would have thought!!!

Aaron had a 4 hour sleep this afternoon (didn't go to school). I got the bestest hug when he woke up. :-)

Having printer problems ... something wrong with magenta ink cartridge, and woo hoo I actually managed to get my message across to the help line what the problem was. So hopefully someone will be here tomorrow to check it out.

2 more teeth of Maddison's have come through (still a couple working their way down though!).


Did a sweet & sour chicken casserole for tea and when I opened the tin of pineapple it was a baby pineapple! I have seen pineapples this small over here, but not tinned! Cool aye.

That's about it really. That'd be woo hoo's enough I think. Right, best be off and cook the noodlely pastery stuff that we are having with casserole!

Another Layout

This background paper is really not me ... but I have SOOO much of it (left overs ... no wonder it didn't sell!). Anyway decided I needed to try and use at least one piece! :-)

This is Aaron at 13 months - He and I went to my parents for a week in Sept 06 and Dad had some old cellphones in the toybox ... boys were they a hit!

Should we move ...

into the Doctor's surgery???

Back to the Dr's again last night. School phoned just before 4.30pm to tell me Aaron had a fever and could I come and get him. Considering it was right on pick up time I thought it a bit strange! Anyway stuff Maddison into the pram and off we go, to find Aaron lounging back in a bed bag looking very dozy on it. And HOT ... he was burning up. I knew he really wasn't well when the teacher told me he didn't eat any afternoon tea! (I have watched him eat huge amounts for afternoon tea, so for him to eat nothing is very unusual.) So phoned Lyndon and asked him if he could leave work so I could use car to go to Dr's otherwise I'd get a taxi. (Dr's clinic is actually not far - about 10-15 minutes walk, but there's that much construction and traffic (not to mention the heat) that it's not nice to walk especially when the kids are really hot to start with!)

Aaron lay on the couch reading books, wasn't interested in eating or drinking. Lyndon got home in record time and I left him with Maddison and off to the Dr with Aaron. Only a 10 minute wait which was great and Dr said his ears and throat were inflamed and has given him a course of antibiotics. So goodness knows what he's picked up now. School is great, but I don't like the buggy virus side of it.

Here's some pics of the kids - Aaron sleeping last night (with Rabbit that Grammie gave him and Pooh Bear firmly clutched in his arms), reading on the couch this morning, and my typical view of Maddison!!

Worms ...

Quick update.

Aaron had terrible trouble getting to sleep on Sunday night (took over 2 hours and finally a dose of pamol to get him to sleep). He kept telling me his bottom was "itch", but couldn't or didn't want to tell me where specifically. So on Monday morning Lyndon got a taxi to work so I could have the car to take him to the Dr's. Thankfully the wait time was only about 10 minutes which was a lovely surprise! The Dr said he had worms, which I did wonder about. I asked her how he would get worms then immediately wished I hadn't. The details she gave me are not what I would write down let alone blog about. I was nearly violently ill and had to say "yes yes I get the idea" so she would stop! Ewwwwwwwwww Next time I am not sure I will ask for such a graphic description.

So result was Aaron got a chocolate flavoured de-worming medicine and back home we went so he could have a sleep and go off to school :-) He's none the worse for wear ... and no I haven't been inspecting his "happy" (nappy) too closely ... I just can't bring myself to do that.

Maddison is her normal happy, squeally wee self (when I am around), otherwise she's a clingy screamer!! :-)

"Things" I love & "Things" I miss

Well ... my friend Penny very helpfully has given me big hints on what I could add to my BOM and I thought I could do things I miss as well. This is totally materialistic and only involves "things" not People :-) (Will get round to doing photos in due course!!)

Things I Love and generally use/consume EVERY day:
- Canon EOS digital camera
- Guillotine
- Printer - Canon MP610
- Craft knife and steel ruler
- Chipboard stash
- Cube full of 12x12 coloured card stock (that's what happens when you close shop!!)
- Chocolate ... most partial to dark peppermint and roast almond
- Chilled water
- Ice cream

Things I miss from New Zealand (these are things that I didn't really think about till I didn't have them anymore!!):
- Dishwasher
- Toy Library
- Eftpos Card (Malaysia is very much a cash place ... a lot of places do take Visa, but only over a certain amount)

I think that's about it ... for now anyway :-)

Tea on Sunday

Last night we bought tea from a "wet market" near Robert & Carols. It's quite cheap food, for most people!! Trouble is when Lyndon goes he see so much he wants to try that we probably spend 3 times more than most "normal" family! (Oh well who said we were normal?!)

Anyway it was delicious and here's a pic of Aaron chewing on a corn cob.

Maddison is slowing getting the hang of her new bottle!!! (once she has it up the right way!)

And even better she ate all her veges last night and was still happy!! YAY ... bonus. :-)

New Gadget

Isn't my husband great! He bought me a GPS for the car (Aaron calls it a camera!). So we have been practicing using it over the weekend. (Now ... just need to steer him in the direction of craft gadgets!! hee hee)

I took a couple of photos today while we were out and about ... this is a tunnel we go through on Sundays. And this was the temp this afternoon according to the car! True - it was stinking hot out there. Sure appreciate the air con I tell you.

Oh I have to tell you this ... last night Aaron was in bed (well supposed to be). He'd been up about 3 times and on the 4th time he said nail, and held out his thumb. I asked him if he wanted me to cut it. NO. So back into bed and out I go. Then a few minutes later he comes out and asks me to cut all his nails!! 2 and a half and he's wanting a manicure before bedtime!!!!! (Doesn't get that from me!) So I trimmed all his fingernails and then did his toe nails as well just in case he thought that would give him another excuse to come out.

Taxi for anyone?

My advice is don't get in a taxi if Aaron is driving!! :-)



Notice that Mr Driver pushes Miss Passenger out of the way and takes control of steering wheel! She's obviously not allowed turns when he's around! Excuse the red eyes ... photos taken on our little camera and it's not very clever with the flash (or maybe it's I'm not clever and don't know how to work it properly!)

We have turned Maddison's carseat around and it's great she can even sleep facing forward!

All these photos were taken last Tuesday, but I haven't got round to downloading them till today.

SE Friday Night Challenge

This week's Friday challenge at Scrapbook Essentials was to use 2 patterned papers, a 5x7 photo and there had to be a bird on the page somewhere! I have had this photo of Aaron (actually I have several photos taken at this time - as you do) to scrap for ages ... he's about 14 months old here. It was taken at my sisters place and we got some beautiful photos of her 2 boys and Aaron amongst the daffodils - even eating them :-) The bird is a rub on that I got in my Paper Pesto kit and I've coloured it in with twinkling H2O's. The bird looks much better in real life because the paints sparkle :-) Haven't got any dates or journalling on this page as I'll be doing another LO with all that info and photos of the 3 boys.

TSS Challenge

The Scrapbook Store have a monthly challenge, and this month it's using a sketch of Trina's, but am waiting to see if I can enter from waaaaay over here! Here's what I've done :-)

(Just catching up on some scraping as you can see ... Matt & Amy's wedding back in Feb 06!)

Share please ...

Just a quick post ... here's some photos of how the "Sharing" works around here.

- Aaron gets real close to Maddison
- Maddison holds on for grim death
- Aaron manages to push Maddison over so has it all to himself (then acts as if he hasn't done anything!).

Yep - he's had a haircut. Had to because they are so rough with each other and Maddison would grab a handful of hair and pull for all's worth! So now there's not much to hang on to :-) Mind you he probably deserves all she gives him! Ahhh the joys of it all.

Missing Toy Library

I'm sure missing toy library over here. When I think of all the neat toys Aaron had which he loved to play with (and I loved them too as a lot of them kept him in one place!), I feel Maddison is missing out (not that she knows any different of course!). Anyway ... after much discussion and deliberation we decided to buy a musical "playground" for Maddison as an early birthday present.

We ordered it on Tuesday and they rang this morning to tell me it had arrived. Great service.

The kids and I unwrapped it when Aaron got home from school. It's very cool and they think it's wonderful. Aaron takes control of the three balls and I have to make sure that they aren't on the same side as each other - Aaron just pushes Maddison over! I have told him it's actually Maddison's toy, so he says "Maddison's toy, no share!!" as if it's her that's not sharing!! I can't win.

April Jack #10

This LO is for the Kiwi Jack Me Up challenge. Again I've used stuff from my Paper Pesto kit :-) Things from my stash is ribbon, large chipboard A and orangey coloured bazzil. Everything else from the kit. I inked the chipboard - wanted an orange to match the ribbon and bazzil, but was too gordie, so used brown instead.

NZ Dare #43

This fortnight's challenge at NZ Dares was based on an advertisement. I had lots of photos from a trip to KL Bird Park we did when my Mum was over in January so thought I would use them and do a double layout, but still need to do another couple of pages with the rest of the photos with journalling. Not sure if I am entirely happy with this LO, might sponge the edges with colour yet ... it's a bit white for me. (Lyndon said it's not my style ... do I have one??? Must do, don't know what it is though.)

I matted all the photos with black, expect for 2 main ones (red & yellow), and then 3 random ones on each page in red again to inject a bit of colour. Chipboard letters (from Paper Pesto's April kit) I painted red then put dimensional magic on them to "tart" them up a bit.

Photos a bit dark sorry ... clouds hovering again!

Early Start ...

An early start this morning! Lyndon up at 5am to catch taxi to airport. He's off to Singapore, back Friday night. Then phone rang around 7am I think, Aaron was already in bed with me, just got to the phone when it stopped - don't you hate that. Anyway that put paid to Aaron lying quietly again. I got told repeatedly that "phonou was very noisy"! (wonder if he ever realises just how noisy he is!!) One bonus though - got to have my shower while Maddison was still asleep. The downside ... just finished doing my hair and came out to the kitchen to find Aaron standing at the fridge, door wide open, my SPECIAL dark peppermint choc box in his hand and his mouth absolutely bulging! When he saw me he gave me the most angelic look and said "peese Mummy"! It nearly melted my heart! I don't know how many chocs he had in his mouth but there was only 3 left! (I ate them right then just in case I missed out!!) :-)

Had a late night last night. Lyndon got back late - stayed back after mtg to celebrate 20th wedding anniversary of some of our friends ... kids were quite choice last night so I didn't go out. I had put the cot into our room so I could get both kids to sleep at the same time without me going crazy, so I couldn't go to bed till Lyndon got home so he could shift Maddison's cot back into Aaron's room! (Well that was my excuse anyway!) So I scrapped ... I've been playing with the papers from Paper Pesto's April kit. It came with little calenders which are so cool, I got July and August (very appropriate), but for this layout I wanted a December one, so made it myself in Word. Cream and beige Bazzil, chipboard arrow and photo turn and brad are from my stash the rest is from the kit.


My scrapping is all over the place at the moment ... very random! Wedding photos, Aaron's baby pics, photos from this year. :-) Oh well who cares. It's as the inspiration strikes I suppose.

I have another one of Aaron nearly finished - it's a 5x7 print of when he was 1. But am trying to encourage myself to use what lettering I have and that I don't really need to go and buy something to suit the layout! (Depressing I know ... I don't have enough of the stickers from the Paper Pesto kit which is a shame as they would have done.) So need to put my thinking cap on and "fiddle".

Shhhh ... they are both sleeping!

While the little darlings are both asleep I thought I would have another catch up! This is what they were up to this morning - Aaron pushed the cot across the doorway to make a "tunnel"!


Yesterday Lyndon and I had a "date" hee hee. Tess came to clean and she minded the kids as well for us while we went out. They were both asleep when we left and I think Aaron had nearly 2 hrs sleep, which was good. Lyndon and I went to this little Italian restaurant about 10 minutes drive from home. Very nice :-) Although I didn't particularly relax knowing what Maddison has been like lately and leaving them with Tess. Anyway worries weren't necessary as she was fine with them - at least she said she was and Maddison wasn't screaming her nut off when we got back which was a bonus (as soon as she saw me though she held out her arms and that was that!). She has become so clingy it's embarrassing. If Lyndon picks her up from her sleep she's fine with him until she either hears my voice or sees me, then no-one is good enough for her except for me. It's a nice feeling (sometimes), but I do like to share her - especially with her Daddy!!! :-)

Maddison is teething again. This time it's her top teeth, her top front tooth on her right has been showing for about a week and today she's been particularly grizzly so I checked her mouth and good gracious - that is one mumma of a tooth! No wonder she's been grizzly! She's going to look like a little rabbit if both front teeth are that big!!! I'd like to take a photo - but she's not at all obliging.

Okay - so here's the cards I made for Lyndon, one for his birthday and the other for our wedding anniversary (obviously!). The photo is a bookmark which I tucked into an acetate pocket. Notice I compromised - instead of buying him something lacy I added lace to the card!














And some LO's ... Janine did a LO for a challenge at Scrapbook Essentials and I really liked it. You can see Janine's LO here. So ... it's inspired me to give it a go. The challenge was this:



And here's my take. It's for my BOM - and I did a double layout. My BOM is 8x8 size and I had to do ovals rather than circles as I don't have circle templates big enough (shame ... something else to add to my wish list!!) Journalling reads: A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. Easter Saturday, 15 April 1995. (Wasn't I skinny and didn't Lyndon have a lot of hair!! hee hee)

A couple of LO's and Lace????

A couple of LO's I did while Lyndon was away. 1st one I am not happy with the journalling as wanted to use a white pen, but couldn't find one that I was happy with (white paint pen is ugly). I ended up buying a White Chalk Pen, but it's pretty light. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them. :-)

Another page for my BOM - 3yr old photo! (Might get my 13th wedding anniversary photo done before 3 years goes by!!)

13th Wedding Anniversary today, where do the years go? And Lace is the traditional gift for 13 years of marriage! Lace .... yeah I can really see me getting Lyndon something lacy!! :-)

And the moral of the story is ...

Don't let your kids play in the fountain!!! Thursday I ended up taking Aaron to the Dr as he had a high temperature! Great ... had to be the water from the fountain. Dr said it was just a coincidence, but I'm not so sure about that. Both kids had high temps when we had disgusting water in the apartment, so I'll stick to my theory I think. Now the challenge is to keep Aaron away from said fountain!!

Although on saying that ... on Saturday when we went down there the fountain smelt suspiciously like chlorine! Maybe someone has complained!

Back at School

Yay :-)

Aaron was back at school today after a two week holiday and it was one of his little friends last day today so I took a few photos of them having their afternoon tea.

And this is what Maddison gets up to when big brother's at school!!! (oh ... new drink bottle by the way - not sure what exactly to do with it yet as she hasn't had a straw before, but won't take her long to work it out I am sure!)