School Visit ...

Samuel and I visited Aaron's class this morning to take some photos of the kids with their teacher because they are all moving up a level and go to a new class and teacher on Monday. I thought I would quickly put together a little album for the teacher.

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The kids were more interested in Samuel than having their photo taken with the teacher! Hahaa ... so much for him having a sleep! ;-)

So now after 20 little hands have poked and prodded him I am going to give him a bath, another feed and hopefully he will go to sleep :-)

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hehehe just looking at that pic ... Aaron sort of stands out doesn't he with his hair! ;-)

Hot Wheels

This is the car that Aaron bought with his pocket money on Saturday :-) It changes colour with the temperature. Unfortunately over here it's stays bright fluro green all the time with the warm, so to get it to change colour ice works really well :-) They have been playing with a cup of hot and a cup of iced water and "painting" the car, but that gets a little messy as you can imagine (especially when the cups get knocked over!).

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Aaron couldn't find his car this morning, but I discovered it just before bath time and decided it would make a fun bath toy hehee So they each got a cup of iced water and took turns at changing the colour of the car.

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Step 1 - dunk in bath to make sure it's warm :-)

Step 2 - dunk it iced water to change it to brown.
Step 3 - be clever and just dunk half the car in the bath so it's two toned!
(Note to self ... don't ask Aaron to smile at the camera!)

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Maddison's turn now :-)

The best part for me .... was a toss up between flicking ice cold water at them before I gave them the cups :-) heheheee and keeping them entertained and happy while I fed Samuel :-)

Weekend Happenings

Floors got finished on Friday. So much for it only taking 2 hours in the morning! Ha ... they left about 4pm! Anyway the floors look good and they re-painted the skirting's and touched up the walls so it looks good. I can't say the same for the clean-up (they just used a dry cloth!). But anyway it was good to have it all finished and at least they had swept up most of the dust and wood shavings!

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They were even kind enough to fix our front door ... here Maddison is checking out exactly what he's doing hehee Love her pose!

Friday night we went out for tea and afterwards spent some time at a toy shop, then Lyndon took me to a furniture shop that specialised in safes and cabinets. Aaron was very pleased with himself because he opened every single safe in the shop!! (so like his father!).

I loved the look of this little cabinet and immediately thought of storage for scrapbook embellishments ... Lyndon told me he thought it was a good watch storage cabinet. Hehehee ... can you tell we have different hobbies! ;-) (sorry for bad quality - took the photo with my phone)

The drawers were really deep - I didn't pull it out all the way.
Saturday ... Lyndon and Aaron went off to Tesco to stock up on nappies and cleaning supplies. Aaron decided he just had to spend some of his pocket money. So Lyndon helped him empty his piggy bank. I got all the 50cent pieces back to use in the dryer hehee (swapped them for notes :-) ). Aaron came home very happy with a hotwheels car. (I will save that for another post though.)
Sunday after lunch we tried (tried is the word!) to take some photos of the kids. Sure was interesting. I am VERY glad I wasn't paying professional photographer fees!

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We got a few photos of Samuel then he decided to fill his nappy, singlet and the bouncer! So complete change of clothes and surrounds for him.
Then we moved on to a group photo of the 3 of them .... You can draw your own conclusions on how it went! LOL


Changed to different pose ... Maddison does the cross eyed thing for most of the photos where Aaron is holding Samuel.

And when she's holding Samuel and finally looks at the camera Aaron tries to cross his eyes (he can't though ... this is what he thinks is a cross eyed look LOL).
Here's two of the better ones ... this ones needs some photo shop work done in the background though.

Ahh well ... it shows the kids as they are doesn't it! Aaron with a fake smile throughout, Maddison just being goofy pretty much the entire time and Samuel just lying there thoroughly over it all! ;-)

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Better luck next time I suppose.

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Thanks for visiting.

Glue Sniffing

I've been doing it all afternoon and can't say it's something that I could do full time!

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FINALLY the floor people arrived just after 11am (I wasted 2 hours of the morning sitting around waiting for them! I could have had time to walk down to the supermarket and replenish my choc stash!!!). So floor in bedroom is looking good - here's a progress pic.

Outside in the corridor it looks like this!!! What a mess! They have been sawing the boards to the correct length out here.

Apart from sniffing glue (the contact adhesive they are putting on the base of the boards) I have been a door closer today! Honestly I was getting rather cross that it took 4 hours for the 6 guys that have been working here to get the hint (even with me asking several times nicely) that I would like the front door closed and the bedroom door closed. I've had the air con on in the lounge but it's been working hard because every time they leave the front door open huge blasts of hot air come in. And we get glue fumes from the bedroom door being left open! How the men work with that smell all day is beyond me. It's awful.

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Samuel has been sleeping in the pram this afternoon as it was too close to the hammering noise in his cot. He looks like a little frog spread out in there! ;-)

He's also spent time snuggling (or should I say smothered!) with Maddison on the couch :-)
Two little dummy munchers! (Excuse Maddison's filthy face - she'd been eating choc biscuits and got choc all over the place!)
So as I am typing this now they are hammering the skirting boards in place and hopefully cleaning up the mess!! So best go and make sure they are doing a good job of it :-) heheee

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Thanks for visiting.

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** Edited ... Bother it! I spoke too soon. 5pm came and they all left! Grrrr So they will be back tomorrow to finish the skirting's, paint them and hopefully CLEAN before shifting the furniture back into the room. I can hardly wait (said in mocking tone!).

Wild Wednesday

Well yesterday didn't suit for the maintenance man to rip up the floors in our bedroom, so they said they'd come today and be finished, with new flooring down, by Thursday (this week!).

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This morning started out sort of slowly ... Lyndon was a bit reluctant to leave the bed to visit Mr Gym, but he made it there eventually! ;-) Samuel woke for another feed at 5.50am, Maddison was up at 7am and Aaron at 7.30am.

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During breakfast Aaron was very quiet and had flushed cheeks ... I took his temperature but it was fine. I should have known instantly what was wrong! Anyway he'd had about 2 mouthfuls of his porridge and complained of a sore neck. By questioning him we worked out it was his throat that was sore. So gave him some medicine ... 10 minutes after that he threw up everywhere. Yep ... I should have known ... over tired. When does he ever sit at breakfast QUIETLY??? I think the sore throat is just a side issue - he's tired and when he's tired he throws up. Nice ... (not).

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So he sat on the floor in his bedroom with a big bowl while I took Maddison to school with Samuel snoozing in my arms. So glad that school is just downstairs of our building!

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Fed Samuel put him to bed, got Aaron settled into bed ...

watching Tom & Jerry and then the maintenance men arrived to start ripping the floor boards up. What a noise! And the dust!!! I didn't realise they were going to saw it up!

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So much for Samuel having a sleep! (he's frowning here ... no closed eyes!)

Our lounge currently looks like this
And here's a couple of progress photos of the bedroom.

If I had known there was going to be so much dust I would have asked for our wardrobe to be sealed off with plastic sheeting! Oh well ... live and learn (I'll know for next time won't I!).

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I've already had the maintenance manager up here because the young guy who's doing the floor has been smoking in our room. I was not amused! I went in there as soon as I smelt it but he'd obviously finished! So I told him "no smoking - go outside". But I wasn't sure he understood me as his English is pretty basic, and my kiwi accent is difficult for them to understand hehee. So I phoned the manager and asked him to make sure he understood that he had to go outside if he was going to smoke. Meanwhile I have the air purifier going flat out!!

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And amongst all this we have no gas to the stove as they are upgrading the gas lines into the condo so we are "gasless" till Friday night!

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The joys of apartment living. :-)

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Didn't get any scrapping done last night either! Samuel decided he would rather feed than sleep! (I tried though hehee.)

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Right - off for another chocolate fix. Thanks for visiting.

I've been scrapping :-)

Last night Samuel went down for a sleep about 5pm (I woke him at 11.30pm for a feed)! So I got busy after the other two kids were in bed and finally finished scrapping the photos from this ONE day from our holiday last year I had 4 LO's left to do. (8 LO's later, 7 of them using the BG archaic range and I still have heaps of the papers left hehee.)

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Lyndon was on the computer so I didn't do any journaling - I am going to print it all onto kraft cardstock in either a block or journaling strips.

Hummm ... wonder if Samuel will do that again tonight :-) hehee

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I have NO idea why those last 2 LO's are on their side. I didn't do anything differently to the first 2! Weird - oh well you'll just have to put your head on a side! Sorry.

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Thanks for visiting.

Fathers Day & other things ...

In this part of the world Father's Day is celebrated in June ... yesterday actually. :-) On Friday the kids bought home from school some things they had made. Aaron had painted a photo frame and made a card and Maddison had coloured in a picture and made a tie :-)

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Yesterday the kids weren't in any sort of mood to be picture taking, so we did it this morning in between eating breakfast & Lyndon heading out the door for work! (No he didn't wear the tie to work ... he should of though shouldn't he!! :-) It's made of felt with pipe cleaners to bend around the neck hehee.)

And no matter how many times we pull Maddison's skirt or dress down for photos she always moves so it's all rucked up! Sigh!

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Here's the card Aaron made with a neat picture of Daddy & Aaron on it ... Aaron is on the left wearing a red top (or cape and is that a crown on his head?? LOL) and Daddy is the much larger person with the huge pink "loin cloth". :-) heheee Love how Aaron draws fingers at the ends of the arms - there's no hand hehee :-)

On Saturday afternoon Lyndon and Aaron went off to a mall to do a few things. I stayed home with the 2 little ones. Aaron came home with this bunch of lilies and thrust them at me and said "Aaron's a good boy Mummy"!! heheee The flowers are beautiful they have little pink spots on the petals ... almost like someone has sprinkled jelly crystals on them! :-)

And an update on the floor replacement that was "supposed" to be happening this morning! Honestly I just can't believe it. 10am the doorbell rings and I think to myself, great they are here to rip up the floorboards. NOPE ... it's just the maintenance manager telling me that the floor boards have arrived, but they are the wrong size, so they'll come back on Thursday and Friday to do the job! We have already moved 80% of the furniture out of our room and are sleeping the spare room, so I asked if the floor boards could be removed today or tomorrow and then replaced on Thursday when the new ones arrive, rather than waiting till the end of the week to do everything. At least if they are removed by tomorrow then they will hopefully remember they have a job to come back and finish!!! (huh is that wishful thinking or what??) Fingers (and toes) crossed that it will actually happen. Oh and lets not forget the replacement of the water cylinder element! Lyndon got a call from the contractor last week saying they would be here at 2pm today to replace it! We'll see is all I can say.

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At least the maintenance manager came to tell me that they weren't going to be here this morning. That's an improvement! Usually they don't bother telling you and you have to phone to ask where they are.

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Here's to another great week! :-)

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Recipe Books

Penny has shown hers, so here's mine! :-)

I had a clean out of cookbooks before we left Auckland and put a whole lot in our garage sale that I didn't use and had no intention of using! Others that either didn't sell in the sale and I might use one day have gone into storage. I only bought a few with me to KL :-) Most used over here would be my 2 Alison Holst ones (red & green), Edmonds cookbook and the blue binder which is a collection of recipes I have copied from family, friends or favorites I've tried and liked from magazines etc. I use that a lot too :-)

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I stick to pretty plain recipes to be honest ... sometimes I find it difficult to find special ingredients at the two local supermarkets and I don't have the patience (or time) to go looking further afield.

Anybody know who this is?

Our little girl Maddison has been replaced with a chocolate covered mischief monster!!!!!

The last photo ... I asked her to please give me a nice smile! Sigh ... what a little piglet! ;-)

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Good job I can wipe the chocolate off - wish that I could wipe away the naughtiness as easily!!!

Scrap-it-Lah June Challenge

The Scrap-it-Lah challenge for June is monochromatic white - you can check out the challenge here.

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This took me AGES! First of all deciding on a photo! I would have liked to done a LO for our holiday album - but didn't have any photos suitable. Then I had in mind to use plain white cardstock and use my cuttlebug embossing folders! Well today I have done a massive search for them and I can't find them anywhere! I do hope I haven't left them somewhere or that they haven't been thrown out by mistake! (There's 10 standard size ones and 3 of the larger 5x7 ones in a plastic bag - too big to throw out surely!!) I will have to wait till Tuesday and check with the maid if she has put them in a "safe" place ;-) No good me phoning her because she won't have a clue what I am talking about when I describe them to her hehee

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Anyway - here's my LO for the challenge. I used 3 different textured Bazzill cardstock. The piece I matted the photo with I sponged lightly around the edge with "cement" Versacolor ink. I painted the chipboard letters white, rubbed the edges with "cement" ink and then put clear kindy glitz on them, flowers have kindy glitz on them too.

First LO completed since Samuel was born! Hopefully my motivation comes back soon! :-)

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Thanks for visiting.

Caught it ...

That elusive smile :-)

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Samuel was in the bouncer gurgling at his Daddy and holding his hand and I got several (or maybe a few more) photos of him smiling :-)

And of course the frown. His frowns are funny because he doesn't have eyebrows (well he does but they are so fair you don't notice them) sometimes you can't tell he's frowning hehee
I've been to the Dr's today with Samuel for his 5 week check up. He's put on 1.4kgs since birth :-) He has a very rotund little tummy hehee Okay - off to put him back to bed now.

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Thanks for visiting.

Kids

Aaron has been whistling to Samuel again ;-) (while shoving his dummy back in hehee). Would be a very nice photo if Maddison didn't have a big dribble on her chin ... I didn't notice when I took the photo otherwise I would have wiped it off!

Here's a few things the kids have said the last couple of days ...

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Aaron came running to me this morning and said "Mum Samuel has done BIG poos, I know because I put his dummy in and I heard him"! :-)

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Maddison said to me after finishing her breakfast this morning, "I have ice cream now"! (not likely!)

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And this one is especially for my sister :-)

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Yesterday morning Aaron was in a pathetic mood so I was helping him get dressed and I pulled his shorts up and pulled his tee-shirt on over his head and was trying to get him to put his arms through the sleeves, but he was too busy with his shorts and said to me "Mummy I not an old man"!! Obviously I had pulled his shorts up a bit too high for him (they weren't up to his armpits though!). I can tell Grandma has been here because she pulls up her grandson's shorts or trousers up to their armpits and says "are you an old man" heheee

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Right that's it for today. Samuel has refused to have a sleep this morning and he's been crying out every 10 minutes or so! So much for me having a snooze! I think he just wants to be cuddled! (what a hardship!) :-)

Excuses ...

I AM SICK OF THEM!

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I shall vent my frustrations here since Samuel is sleeping and I can't yell! ;-) I don't mind excuses ... I use them myself on occasions. But right now I've had enough.

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Yesterday afternoon was "supposed" to be busy around here!

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The plumber/tiler man was supposed to come at 1.30pm to fix the tiles. He turned up at 3.15pm ... "So sorry Ma'am I had a car accident and my car is on the side of the highway with all my tools inside. I can not fix your tiles today. I come tomorrow. What time convenient?"

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Okay ... I can handle that. Accidents do happen!! So we agreed upon 10am this morning.

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Between 5.30 and 6pm the Maintenance Manager was going to come with a contractor to replace the water cylinder element in our bathroom. I phoned him at 6pm to ask how far away he was. "Oh we not coming, been a delay, you in a queue!"

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Oh really ... I didn't notice!

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So I politely (yes I was polite!) asked him when it would be fixed. "Oh next Tuesday"!! "WHAT - that's a whole week!" Okay, I can handle that too, so I asked him what time on Tuesday. "Next week on Tuesday Ma'am". "Yes next Tuesday, that's the 22nd, that's fine, but what time?". "Next Tuesday Ma'am". By this point I am getting a bit cross ... "Yes I get that ... but I want a TIME". (yeah my voice did rise a bit) "Oh in the afternoon Ma'am". At that point I gave up and just agreed that the afternoon was fine! 10 days without hot water in our main bathroom!

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It's a jolly nuisance to be honest - not so much for me, but the kids can't have a bath (although thankfully the shower in "Grandmas bathroom" is a novelty at the moment - long may that last), but I can't fill the baby bath with warm water from the tap in the basin, so I have to use a jug! Sigh ... it's the little things that are annoying right! Oh well I can handle that too.

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Today ...

10am came and went ... 11am came and went ... at 11.20am I phoned the plumber/tiler and asked if he was still coming this morning! "Oh we coming up to your place already Ma'am"! "Right - see you shortly then"!!

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40 minutes later they arrived. Their excuse for not being here at 10am. "So sorry Ma'am, but this man's relative passed away and he's just travelled all the way here!" I just looked at him and said "Why didn't you phone me to tell me then?". "I lost your number". "You have C's (the Maintenance Man) number don't you? Why didn't you call him and ask him to tell me?" I got a blank look at that question!

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The interesting thing is that they are working on the building next door and they actually park in the visitors car park of our building ... it doesn't take 40 minutes to walk here I can assure you of that!!! Let's hope they have white grouting today!

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So now the apartment is filled with banging & hammering noises. Samuel is trying to sleep in his bouncer as the cot is on the other side of the wall that they are hammering! We are hiding out in the computer room till they are finished. Hopefully before it's time to get the kids from school. (I'm not holding my breath on that happening though!) As long as they clean up properly this time I will be happy!

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In the meantime I think I will have partake of a little chocolate :-)

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Here's to happy excuse free days ahead (till next Tuesday anyway!!) LOL

Samuel

Samuel is focusing on us now and he's given about 4 real smiles that aren't windy ones (he's being a bit stingy with them though as I haven't managed to get a photo yet!).

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Lyndon took a couple of pics of him looking at me on Saturday night :-)

And today he's had a very busy morning! hehee I bathed him and put him in the bouncer while I got my bag ready to go out and came back to find him sleeping like this! ;-) "Oh my head" heheee
I bumped the bouncer and his little arms jerked out ... "I love you this much" :-)
Maybe tomorrow I will catch that smile with the camera :-)