More Sneak Peeks

Got a bit done yesterday for Scrap-n-Crop's December kit ... nothing like leaving it till the last minute huh! :-) And when Lyndon got home late last night I got another idea of something to create, so about to start on that now.

Here's a couple of sneaks at another LO. (Full reveal on 1st December.)

And a Card.

Also ... you really don't want to miss out on Scrap-n-Crop's House Mouse fun(d) raising auction. They've loaded up lots more stamps ... and STILL more to come! :-) Keep checking out this blogpost because new items will be added to it later on. :-)

I've been tagged ...

Hannah tagged me with this photo meme.

I had to find the 6th photo on the 6th page of a) my computer and b) my photo hosting/sharing site. I store all my pics on my computer, I only use photobucket for scrap stuff that I load onto forums and there's definitely not 6 pages worth there! Anyway they have already been shown on my blog. So I did the 6th folder (which is photos of Aaron!) so here he is 2 days old (and no this isn't the 6th photo, but it's the 6th photo in the 6th folder of Aaron's photo folder hehehee (my filing system is great! Only I understand it).)



I store my photos under the year, then have various folders under that, so I decided to look at the 6th folder of the 1st year I have saved which was 2004. (We bought the camera before this ... but somehow my darling hubby deleted my computer profile a few years back and that was where I had a lot of photos stored!! So my digital photo storage starts at 2004!) :-}

These were taken at a work retreat I went to in October 2004 and I left that job about a week later :-) We had a theme of silly hats one night at dinner. I found this Dr Seuss Hat which now lives in the kids toybox (was actually hard to keep it on as it's so tall).

Thought I better show my face as well!

Thanks for looking ... and I tag whoever wants to check out their photo storage :-) hehee

Scrap-n-Crop's House Mouse Fun(d) Raiser

Scrap-n-Crop have a fund raiser running from 30th November to 5th December. I'm just going to be lazy and copy the majority of these details from their blog :-) For more detailed information about the fund raiser check their blog here and here.

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HOUSE MOUSE FUN(D)RAISING

Val's sister has collected HOUSE MOUSE and rubber stamps for more than a decade, she has decided to donate some of her very mice rubber stamps this Christmas along with a box full of other Christmas themed rubber stamps. Some of these stamps are limited edition stamps and a good 90% of them are still in their brand new, unused, mint conditions.

All rubber stamps for sale are one-off and not available for sale in any LSS. This is a guarantee as the rubber stamps are from a private collection that dates back since the early 1990s and are procured whilst in Australia or the USA.

Play a part in the spirit of giving this Christmas. Since all profits in the sale will go to the Selangor Spastic Children Centre, you will be indirectly making a donation and making a difference in the lives of these special children.

Conditions...
Rubber stamps will be SOLD via silent auction at Scrap-n-Crop's Scrap.Abode and via Scrap-n-Crop's blog (by email) only. Please check here on this blog post for all conditions of the auction.

Bidders are to pay MYR 5.00 to participate. This is purely to deter Joy Bidders and avoid genuine bidders from disappointment. (Go here to make your RM5.00 deposit.)

Images of the rubber stamps will be shown on their blog later today.

Have a micey nice Christmas :-)

More sneaks

A couple of peeks at another LO with Scrap-n-Crop's December kit. Broke open my Bazzill stitch templates which have been looking at me every time I opened my drawer heheee. (And my embroidery floss which hasn't seen the light of day for a number of years (certainly not for cross stitch anyway!).

See that cool embellishment ... well I actually had another one sitting on my desk ready to stick down and when I went to find it discovered Maddison had been chewing it! Nice ... not sure what I can do with it now! Might have to "sand" the edges even more of it and ink it up a bit ... give it a distressed look! heheee

I had some creative time last night ... wouldn't say my mojo has returned full force, but I did get 2 LO's finished, another one started and 2 cards made :-) Watch out for more sneaky peeks.

Sneaks & Peeks

Here's a couple of peeks at a LO I've done for Scrap-n-Crop's December kit (actually I haven't finished the journalling yet heheee ... getting there!! Still waiting on my mojo to jump out and say "I'm Back!!!" hahaa) The December kit has some very cool embellishments in it :-) It'll be on sale from the 1st ... watch this space.

Have you purchased the SnC November kit yet? You should it's great ... good value, has so much in it and some beautiful papers. It's a Christmas theme, but if you check the SnC gallery here and see what Sharmaine & I have done, you'll see they don't necessarily have to be for Christmas. I like it when papers can be versatile like that.

Woo Hoot and randomness

Don't really feel like woo hooting tonight. I am in a foul mood thanks to a certain little 3 year old redhaired boy!!!

How can he sit there for an hour with ONE mouth full (his first) of dinner crying, grizzling and complaining about totally weird and silly things without swallowing any of it! I have to admit I'm not particularly proud of my behaviour in dealing with him and I am certainly not proud of his!!

Anyway, after a couple of trips to the toilet I finally relented and let him spit out that first mouthful, made him eat 3 more (without peas, zucchini and meat!!), shovelled in a pot of yoghurt, a super quick bath and into bed. And thankfully (for his safety and my sanity) he was asleep within 5 minutes! Phew ... what's worse is I don't even feel that a piece of dark peppermint chocolate would make me feel better!!

But besides all that I know I have LOTs to be thankful and grateful for ... just have to see past the haze of crossness!!

First up would be 2 more sleeps till Lyndon's home (yeah he's been away this week!) :-}

15 more sleeps till Grandma arrives :-) (Hope you can cope with your crosspatch daughter as well as your grandkids Mum!!)

Aaron still wanting a hug from me even when I am so mad with him (that really amazes me, truly it does!).

Maddison has a new word ... gar (car). It gets said an awful lot during nappy change time as the change table is under the mirror in Aaron's room and the mirror has a heap of Car stickers on it, so all I hear is "gar, gar, gar, gar, gar, gar ..." :-)

Having a new scrapping toy to play with :-) I bought a Cuttlebug when we were in NZ and got 10 embossing folders for it as well. I've had a little play, but the kids have played with it more than me. Waiting for my scrapping mojo to return! (It better hurry up!)

Woo Hoot too that for the last 2 mornings the kids have woken at 6am rather than 3 or 4am!!

Okay that's about it ... I am going to shuffle photos and papers on my craft desk and see if inspiration strikes.

Week 3

Not going to go into all the details of this week on here ... lets just say it was busy busy busy. We caught up with lots of friends in Akl at a potluck tea ... but 3 days isn't enough to do all that you want to really!!
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Here's a couple of pics taken during the week and the rest from the trip back to KL.
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Aaron & little friend P playing with their dog.

Aaron pushing Stella's pram at the potluck ... I am amazed the doll didn't fall out by the crazy driving up the ramp and down the steps, flat out across the lawn and then up the ramp etc.!

Here we are at the airport. Lyndon is filling out our departure cards. Maddison is up on the bench because her pram collapsed about 5 minutes before that! Excellent timing (not). Maddison had such fun pulling out all the departure cards from the container, screwing them up and "posting" them back into the slot!!!

We weren't seated in the same row flying home, Maddison & I had the row in front of Lyndon and Aaron with the bassinet. "

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Mr full on concentration" ... think he's watching Wall-E. He's propped up on about 3 cushions ... not sure why ... probably just because they were there!

Maddison in her "playpen". That's what the bassinet got used for. She refused to sleep in it this time, but slept on my knee which was good. Had quite a bit of turbulence anyway, so would have had to keep taking her out of bassinet if she had slept in there.

She didn't really get the hang of the headphones ... but they kept her amused for a bit.

Another toy ... Singapore Airlines toothbrush :-)

And the papercup from dinner :-)

Ahhhh ... in the taxi at last. I was just resting my eyes! :-)

Seems like we have been back for ages and it hasn't even been a week!!! Still have to cull my photos ... might save that task for a rainy day!

Last Christmas ...

Thought I'd share these Christmas LO's since it's only 28 days till Christmas Day!!! (that is so scary).

They are based on a Becky Higgins sketch (a double LO) and I submitted them to CK Magazine, but they weren't accepted. I used Bazzil cardstock and Basic Grey Fruitcake paper (Deck the Halls/Sugar Cookie) (you can get it here at Scrap-n-Crop), thickers and glitter :-) I liked that patterned paper because I could cut out the branches and ornaments.

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Maddison will look heaps different in this year's Christmas LO's ... Aaron will be much the same!! lol

Week 2

Lots of photos this week ... I wasn't sick hehehee. Decided to do a couple of medley's so I didn't have miles and miles of photos for you to scroll through.

This week we stayed at Lyndon's parents batch which is on the way to Akaroa. We had pretty good weather most of the week. Spent time at the beach at Akaroa, the beach at Duvauchelle's which is mostly rocks and shells, kids played in the camping ground with the balls and picking daisy's. Went into Christchurch a few times went to Orana Park and on the tram.

This first group of pics is mainly from the Akaroa beach (they ship the sand to it!) and Duvauchelles beach, pics of boatsheds, wild sweet peas, sunsets and a couple of scenery shots.



This group of pics is from photo session of the kids (not that successful), playing snap with Aaron, Christchurch tram, more beach pics, crabs, motorbikes, cuddles and cool drinks at Orana park (last pic) :-)

Some random shots ...

Aaron climbing a tree.

Maddison doing a shell taste test.

Cousin T with a star fish (he found it first!) hehee :-)

Maddison on the run at Orana Park.

Photos of the kids! Hummmmmm like I said wasn't that successful!

Pics of some of the animals at Orana Park.

Baby Giraffe

We left Duvauchelle's on Tuesday morning of the 3rd week and it was hailing!! We timed it just right! My sister and her family flew home midday and we flew to Auckland mid afternoon. The rest of Week 3 later.

Lack of sleep and back chat ...

Don't make me a happy camper!!

The kids are totally out of sync with the change of time zones ... Saturday morning they were both up at 4.30am, Sunday morning Aaron was up and going at 4am, Monday morning Aaron at 3am (what on earth!) and Maddison at 5.30am. Yawn Yawn Yawn.

Yesterday they both had a sleep in the morning, Aaron went to school and they were both in bed and asleep by 8am :-) ... but this morning Aaron came trotting in with his pillow at 5.30am (suppose that's better than 3am) and Maddison woke at 6.30am.

Anyway ... how do you stop back chat? Aaron has been absolutely shocking the last few weeks and if it's possible he's got even worse since we've got home. Both Lyndon and I tell him not to speak to us like that and today he's started telling me not to talk like that!! Hello! (No I didn't laugh I was cross because it was at the end of a long list of things he'd been telling me that was frustrating me!)

He's been so contrary, for example, on Friday when we left for the airport he didn't want to go in the car he wanted to go on a plane! So we explained we were taking the car so we could get to the plane!!! Then when we go to board the plane he doesn't want to go on the plane he wants to go in the car! Grrrrr. Ask him what he wants for breakfast and he'll tell you and then when he gets it he wants the opposite. (I make him eat it anyway ... Beware mean mother at work!!)

So any suggestions on how to stop the contrary back chat, or do I just ignore it and let it run its course? (and go crazy in the meantime!)

I've lost my scrapping mojo as well ... that just can't happen because I am supposed to be working on the December kit for Scrap-n-Crop and I just can't settle to anything! I just sit shuffling papers and photos ... might have to go and have another wee taste of my dark peppermint chocolate hehehee. I'll do a blog post of our 2nd week in NZ soon :-)

A few more photos from Week 1

Just a few pics of the cousins on Lyndon's side of the family :-)

Here's the five together ... do you know how hard it is to take a photo of five kids aged between 3 and 7 months looking half way decent all at the same time?!! This is the best one I have, hoping that my BIL has some better ones :-)

And here's the 3 red heads together ... A's reading E & J a story ... well actually I think he's trying to get E's hand out of the way and hold the book so J doesn't take it (Aaron doesn't like sharing much!!).

Miss Maddison standing up while she's on the tractor!

Having a big discussion with C about something heehee

J having a rest from digging in Nana's garden :-)

C showing me how high he can hold the rings up :-)

And I love this pic of M chasing J. They were squealing and laughing together, so cute.

So that's week 1. Will do week 2 tomorrow. :-)

Week 1

I'll break our holiday into small(ish) installments ... so here's week one :-)

We left KL on Friday 31st - Halloween, but no time for tick or treating! Aaron's school teacher wasn't at school on the Thursday, so she asked to come and say goodbye on Friday morning and arrived with a cake if you please!!! So Lyndon had a largish piece and I had a smallish piece and then what to do with it?

Lyndon had spent probably 45 minutes trying to organise a taxi to pick us up and take us to the train station, but Friday mornings and early afternoons it's really hard to get a taxi unless you are travelling a fair distance which would involve a bit of $$!! So in the end I phoned Aaron's little friend's Mum and she was very kind and picked us up (and all our luggage!) and took us to the station. (She got the left over cake as well heheeehee!!) The kids were climbing over the pile of cases while we waited for her to arrive.

Train to the airport was really good, the kids both enjoyed it and there were porters at each end to help with the luggage which was great.
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Here's a pic of Maddison showing off to some man in the boarding lounge! She was so funny, pulling faces, pulling her skirt up, pulling her shoes off (thankfully that's all she was pulling off!). Cheeky wee monkey she is.

Flight from KL to Singapore was awful ... it's an hour and Maddison screamed the whole way. Lyndon and Aaron were sitting 2 rows back on the other side of the plane :-( But Aaron was really good, he had a new ABC activity book which kept him amused.

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Flight from Singapore to Christchurch was okay in parts! Maddison thought the bassinet was a trampoline, so everytime I put her in that she stood up and jumped about (well her version of jumping which is keeping her feet on the ground and bopping up and down heheee). She screamed for nearly an hour I suppose before she finally gave in to exhaustion around 1am our time! Didn't sleep for that long though. Oh well ... I'm still alive to tell the tale and that's the main thing I suppose.

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Got into Christchurch 40 minutes early, so Lyndon's parents met us at the rental car depot. Kids had a good run around on the grass there. Then we headed to the supermarket and Maddison was asleep within five minutes of the car starting!

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After lunch they had great fun at Nana and Grandad's exploring outside, digging in Nana's vege garden (probably not very helpfully!)

and driving the tractor :-) heheee

Both kids were in bed and asleep that night by 7.15pm. Ahhh bliss ... until 11.30pm! Maddison woke and decided to party big time, so Lyndon and I got up, checked out Nana's baking :-) yum yum and 2 hours later headed back to bed with Maddison! Aaron slept for 14 hours :-)

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Maddison woke about 9.45am so was a bit of a rush to leave for the meeting. And I didn't realise she was a bit off colour ... she threw up big time about 20 minutes after arriving. So was just choice really ... had to take of all her clothes and she just shivered in her nappy and a blanket! She had 2 sleeps in the afternoon, wasn't really interested in food, but seemed okay, so we headed out again to the night meeting, pulled in the driveway, parked and she threw up again! Was a bit easier to clean up, so did that and took her in and borrowed a towel and had her on my knee. But she threw up again, so we ended up just waiting outside! Poor wee thing. She went to sleep straight away in the car on the way home and on Monday she had a bit of diarrhoea, but wasn't sick any more.

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Monday I got my drivers licence renewed ... it expired mid October!

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Lyndon's brother and his wife and little boy came out to stay and Lyndon's sister and her husband and 2 little boys flew down for the week too. So was lovely to all be together for the week.

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Then Tuesday morning at 1am I started with the vomiting and diarrhoea. Was awful ... lost count of how many times, but the vomiting lasted about 24 hours, diarrhoea lasted about 3 days. So the week flew by with me spending a couple of days in bed, completely off my food and feeling pretty useless (lost some weight, but put it back on and then some the following week!! :-( bother it).

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Anyway enough about the bugs ... One of the reasons we went home was it was Lyndon's Mum's birthday :-) And we'd arranged for us girls and the kids to take Marion away for the day while the boys (supervised by Lyndon's Dad) put doors on the wardrobes and shelving in the cupboards! I wasn't any help at all as I spent the day in bed and the kids pestered Lyndon and anyone else that left their tools for more than 5 seconds! Here they are being so helpful (not!).

Friday, I felt like eating again which was good timing because we all went out for lunch together. Here's Aaron enjoying the choc fish that came with his fluffy.

And Maddison chasing after cousin J outside in the cafe garden.

That night we went to a friends place for a potluck take-away tea and fireworks display. They have a little bit of land and in the paddock near the house there were some cows. Aaron spent quite a bit of time checking them out! Maddison just followed along behind!

Aaron didn't think much of the fireworks, had his hands over his ears and told me it was "no good"! So we left before it finished ... was getting late anyway.

Saturday we went to a funeral in the morning (elderly friend) and then had lunch with some friends who have a couple of little darlings and their little girl is 5 days younger than Aaron.

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My parents called in later in the afternoon for a quick visit ... so was busy day.

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Sunday Lyndon stayed home as his asthma was really bad, so Maddison kept him company heheee.

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Monday morning Grandad took Aaron and the dogs and moved some sheep around the paddock so Aaron could see the dogs working. Think he spent most of the time telling the sheep where to go and what to do heheee. He informed me very matter of fact that they weren't lambs, they were baby sheep! So there you go ... Mr Know It All at the age of 3! How wonderful!

We left Lyndon's parents late morning and headed to the airport to meet my sister, her hubby and their 2 boys off the plane. My parents were there as well, then we all headed to Lyndon's parents batch (holiday house) at Duvauchelle's on the Banks Peninsula. But that's the next installment.

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Kids are in bed and asleep, so is Lyndon and another load of washing is nearly finished, so I'll deal with that and head to bed myself.