Birthday Party

Be warned ... Lots of photos!

Cake started out like this ... I didn't even check before hand that the cake tin fitted in the oven! It did by the skin of my teeth! Didn't sit on the oven rack, sort of semi slotted in on it's own and on a slight angle, but the mixture didn't all run to one side THANK GOODNESS! Lyndon cut out the shape and after lots more butter in the icing there's the end result :-) Aaron recognised it as Thomas so that was the main thing heehee.

Aaron opened his presents before we had lunch. Why do we poke our tongue out when concentrating? Aaron's not the only one to do it I know :-) So funny, it sure got a work out opening his loot. He got some real cool things, Thomas activity books, little outfit with a digger and tractor on it, Scoop from Bob the Builder, animal flash cards and a velcro ball dart board! He's had some fun with that hiffing the balls and they end up in the opposite direction to the board LOL. He has to start within arms length of it for his ball to actually hit the board. A very spoilt little boy. Today he got another present too, a Winnie and Pooh book and a Winnie the Pooh hand puppet. A big hit.

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We had pizza and indian for lunch. I am such a good cook! I nearly know the pizza number off by heart now! LOL. Great service ... I can ring when it's pouring with rain (and I mean total downpour) and within 27 minutes my order is at the door. The delivery guy is absolutely dripping (he drives a motorbike!), but I'm not :-) heehee

Here's Aaron trying very hard to blow out his candle. He had to do lots of huffs and puffs for this one, in the end we turned the cake around so the candle was right in front of him and then he blew it out straight away. Then of course since he was allowed to cut his cake at school he expected he could do it at home! The knife was a bit sharper here, so he did it under supervision. Very pleased with himself he was too.

So that was our little man's 3rd birthday party :-) 3 ... I still can hardly believe it. Where have those 3 years gone?

I can share ...

some exciting news :-)

I was totally blown away to be asked to be a guest designer for Kinda Sweet, a new on-line "scrapbooking & stuff" store in KL. You can read the blurb about me on their blog. So no guesses as to what I am going to be doing on Monday :-) I have a couple of kits to play with!! hehee

You can check out their kits here. Think I need to dress Maddison up as a little pirate ... what do you reckon? :-)

Need to restore some sort of law and order in my scrap space first though ... it's a complete and utter pigsty! (Wonder if I should take before and after photos????? ... hummm might have a think about that one.)

Lyndon's off again for work tomorrow morning and doesn't get back till next Sunday ... gonna be a loooonnnng week I think!

Aaron's party went well today. Cake turned out quite cool. Will do a separate post about that maybe tomorrow or Monday.

Aaron's Birthday Party at School

What a day! Do you know I have used over one kg of butter today in baking! How disgusting is that? Cupcakes this morning, icing for cake and cupcakes (that's where most of the butter went!) and THE cake tonight ... ahhh dear. Aaron has supervised the Thomas picture we are going to try and copy. So cake is in the oven now and we will ice it in the morning.

Anyway back to today ... Lyndon was running a bit late, so Maddison and I went down with cake and cupcakes to school. School was running a bit behind too, so worked out well. Lyndon got there before the afternoon tea.

Here's the rascal singing Happy Birthday along with everyone else and clapping (heehee) and as soon as the singing stopped he blew out the candles with one puff ... didn't need to be told about that! And I love the concentration of him cutting the cake. So funny.








He got some presents from a couple of his friends. A set of pencils from his little Korean mate and his "girl friend" gave him a colouring book and a car. Here he is giving her a big hug. So cute.

Maddison thought she was the coolest thing tottering around the class, chewing the beads, sitting on the chairs with a pencil :-) She was swinging her chubby little legs in time to the alphabet song that was playing. :-)

Final Challenge for PSA

Well here it is! My final pieces for the grand finale for Project Scrap Away. As you probably already know the challenge was this:

"So for the final 2 weeks, contestants will be given 2 weeks to complete a collection of 5 projects...These will be on a thematic basis, for eg: If you were to do a wedding theme, using co-ordinating items, you can come up with an invitation card, party favours, a table centerpiece, a layout and perhaps a gift for the bride."

Here's my blurb and pics of what I did ...

Title:

35 - Halfway to 70!

I had so many ideas for this challenge, in the end I decided to base it on my 35th birthday. Any excuse to celebrate, but also for me this birthday has been a bigger event (in my mind anyway!) than turning 30, so felt I needed to express how I was feeling. My favourite colour is red and this paper from Anna Griffin is an old favourite, so the theme running through my collection of projects was red, the patterned paper, swirl stamp, rounded edges and gold highlights.

Invitation
The invitation, once opened up, has the actual invite tucked inside a pocket.
Gift Box
The giftbox had the swirl stamped over the outside and cutouts from the patterned paper foam mounted on it.

This also serves as the name place setting, it has a Grunge board flower attached to the cord with a name on it.

Centre Piece

For my centre piece I created a "Bucket List". I coloured the bucket using alcohol inks and used glimmer mist on the alphas. I attached a pocket at the back of the bucket for my list. The flowers were created from Maya Road chipboard flower petals and Grunge Board. Each flower has a different technique applied (crackle paint, patterned paper, UTEE, clear embossing, alcohol inks, glossy accents, glimmer mist).
For the candle I stamped the swirl stamp onto tissue and heated it to the candle then attached the strip of Bazzill and patterned paper with pins which I had coloured with alcohol ink (red pepper).
Layout
My layout is 8x8 size for my Book of Me and contains hidden journaling behind the photo (photo swings to the left to reveal journaling). I stamped the 35 onto the Grunge Board and cut it out before using glimmer mist on it.
Journaling:

My birthday this year wasn't one I was looking forward to - 35 … halfway to 70! But I must say it has made me stop and think, take a look at myself, where I am, what I am doing and what I want to accomplish and achieve.

Prompted by recent events in our family circle, I decided to create a "bucket list". It's not very long, in fact it only has 6 things on it, but I can add to it! By nature I am a homebody, so some of the items on this list are outside my comfort zone … I figure that has to be good for me!

22 August 2008

Materials:

Patterned Paper - Anna Griffin

Cardstock - Bazzill

Tissues

Grunge Board

Maya Road Chipboard Blossoms

Provo Craft Tin Bucket

Candle

Inks - StazOn (Blazing Red), Ranger Distress (Fired Brick), Versafine (Onyx Black), Alcohol inks (Red Pepper, Lettuce, Pearl), Versamark

Paint - Ranger Distress Crackle Paint (Fired Brick), Making Memories (Avocado)

Embossing Powder Clear

UTEE Clear

Memories Mist (Bright Gold)

American Craft Thickers

Gold cord

Dragonfly Brad, Spiral Clips, Metal Pins, Eyelets, Glass pebbles

Adhesive - Glossy Accents, double side tape, double side foam tape

Stamps - Penny Black (Spiral), Making Memories (Foam Stamps - Jersey UC)

Polystyrene

Takeaway Chopsticks

Fiskars Threading Water Punch

The final entries can be seen here. They are amazing and all so different! So now to exercise that little bit of patience I think I possess to wait for the results! LOL

FINISHED ...

Phew got my project finished, photographed and blurbed about and sent off tonight. Can't be bothered loading up all the pics tonight sorry. Will see if I can do it tomorrow amongst everything else I have to do ... here's a sneak of what I did today though :-) The red bits you can see in the background are part of my project :-)

Cake in the oven now for Aaron to take to school tomorrow. In the morning I need to bake about 3 doz cupcakes! (yikes) then ice them and the cake. And in the afternoon I need to bake another cake so I can decorate that all up as Thomas for Saturday's party. I am going to be all caked out I think.

Aaron had the day off school today because of his snotty nose, but he'll go tomorrow. He had a big sleep this afternoon which was nice :-) But went to bed late, so will be interesting to see how he is in the morning.

Okay, off to check the cake. Be back tomorrow or Saturday with more pics.

Woo Hoot Wednesday

A real quick Woo Hoot ... things to do and cupcakes to bake!

Woo Hoot for Aaron turning 3 today. What a day! :-) He has been totally spoilt and I know he hasn't got all his presents yet ... lucky little rascal. Will do a separate post about his birthday and party later in the week!

Woo Hoot for Lyndon being home this week.

Woo Hoot for Maddison walking EVERYWHERE now. As soon as the front door opens she is off ... straight to the lifts (thankfully she can't reach the button to call the lift yet! - she can reach the G button when she's in the lift though!) Oh and another woo hoot for her ... she is learning (slowly, but she's learning) that when we come inside now our shoes go into the shoe cupboard, not in our mouth! LOL She sure loves her shoes - definitely doesn't get that from her mother! ... actually if we still lived in Auckland I would blame Amy :-) heheehe Not sure where she has picked up her love of shoes from.)

Woo Hoot I have finished 4 of my 5 items for Project Scrap Away's final challenge. 5th one is about 30% done ... still thinking about a couple of things for that :-) Will get it finished tonight though. And then tomorrow will be spent taking photos of all my creations ... hopefully it will be halfway decent weather so I get some good natural light!

That will do for now :-)

It's been a crazy week and about to get crazier. Aaron's birthday party is on Saturday at 1pm so I have a fair bit to do on Friday and Saturday morning!!! (The major one is baking him a Thomas cake ... hummmm could be interesting) :-) So blogging has taken a huge backstep sorry ... hopefully I will be back on top of things next week. Have some other exciting news to share (and before you ask no it's not babies) but will do that next week ... keep you in suspense! hehehe

Why don't birthday's come with sleep-in's?

Can't say that turning 35 spins my wheels! Anyway I had a nice day for my birthday even though I didn't get a sleep in! Maddison had a late sleep in the afternoon and Aaron had a sleep when he got home from work. Irene came over after work and after Aaron woke we went to a mall for tea. When we got home we had some cake that the sweetie Irene bought me. It was delicious :-) Love Aaron's face blowing out the candles!







Borders had a big sale in the middle of the mall too, so I couldn't walk past that! Found these stamps ... bargain price, set was missing the ink pad and activity book, but wasn't worried about that (I think I have enough inks at home!). We also got Maddison some shoes ... little crocs. The smallest size we could. I think they are still a little bit big, but she is totally in love with them! I got her a little Piglet doodah for them heehee. Thought it sort of suited her :-)


So here she is ... walking around carrying them! To get up she puts one in her mouth and grabs the wall then takes the shoe and off she goes!

This morning we went out and she had a 3 minute sleep in the car on the way home and has REFUSED to have a sleep this afternoon. Makes me so mad because I haven't got a single thing done, either in the kitchen or with my PSA project. (Guess who's having an early night tonight!!!)

Anyway after about 45 minutes of trying to get her to settle etc. I got her up and she went straight into Aaron's room and yelled and screamed at me and pointed up at her shoes (I had taken them off and put them on the top of the toy drawers before she went to bed). So gave them to her and the tears immediately stopped and here she is with her shoes and so happy and pleased with herself!

This week Aaron and Maddison got some birthday presents from Uncle J & Aunty R and little j. Here they are checking out their goodies. :-)

Our resident ghost

Yesterday I dashed out to get groceries while Tess was here and Maddison was sleeping. On my list was baby soap and it was on special (makes a nice change!) and even better it had a free hooded towel with it. So I got two because I thought, if I just got one there would be fights! This morning when I unloaded the washing machine Maddison made a beeline for the towels (as she does) so I put the towel on her. :-) She thought she was so cool.

From behind she might look like a ghost ... but from the front ... do you think she might be doing a trot down a fashion catwalk? LOL

It's absolutely pouring with rain here and thunder and lightening (you can see it's really dark and grey outside). I actually quite like it when it's raining because it means I can have all the windows open and catch the nice breeze instead of having the air conditioning on.