Wishful Thinking

"Your Highness"

2012-01-26T22:00:00.003+08:00

Overheard at breakfast this morning ...

Maddison speaking to Aaron - "Aaron will you marry me today?"

Aaron just looked at Maddison with one eyebrow raised and eyes opened wide.

Maddison - "It will be fun and we'll be happy ever after!"

This afternoon after Aaron got home from school Maddison was wearing a pink baby blanket knotted around her waist because it was "like a princess dress"! (I should have got a photo) She went and got a cup of water for Aaron and put it on the table and said "There you are your Highness!!" heheee

And this evening our little princess declared she was sleeping in her car tent!

Doesn't look that comfortable to me, but she was happy as anything! :-)
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Thanks for visiting.

Another week gone by

2012-01-25T08:56:00.005+08:00

Here's some pics since I last did a blog post.

Maddison showing me New Zealand on the map they made in her class.

We've had a couple of days holiday this week for Chinese New Year and it was nice having Lyndon home (the last few years he's been in Finland during this time). He did some science experiments with the kids. One they did was with milk, drops of food colouring and dish wash detergent.

1. Flat dish with a layer of milk. 2. Add in drops of food colouring.
3. Squeeze a few drops of detergent in the middle of the milk.
4. Quiver with excitement watching what happens heheee :-) (Grandma ... can you just picture Aaron?!!)
It's almost like there's something underneath stirring it up - kinda weird to watch.

The final result.
Later that day we cleaned the pie dish and made Apple pie with some pastry sheets I had in the freezer.
Monday the kids had a swimming lesson. Other kids were away so it was just them and we changed the time to the morning which was nice. Aaron had his usual time in the sun!
But he cooled down when Maddison came and watered him hehee
I have been working away on my December Daily album! Yes I know ... it's a month ago! But I haven't finished it yet. Still have some journalling to do. Will post pics when it's done.

Thanks for visiting.

Swimming Pool

2012-01-17T16:53:00.002+08:00

Just so some of my lovely readers don't freak out whenever I post pics of the infinity pool, I thought I would post some pics, but this time so you can see it isn't a straight drop over the side to the ground! :-)

Last night Samuel discovered the lights under the lounge deck ... or maybe it was the stones hehee. Either way he got himself comfortable and stayed there for ages playing with the stones and trying to get the light.

Aaron has decided it's okay for him to sit on the far edge of the pool! He might have a Superman swim top on, but Superman he's not!! Good job I know there's a ledge on the other side, I still think my nerves need to toughen up a little bit more though!

Thanks for visiting.

Another week gone

2012-01-14T21:35:00.005+08:00

Just a few photos of what we've been up to.

We have had some amazing blue skies for about 3-4 days during the last week. In the 4 years we've been here, we've hardly seen blue sky! It's usually cloudy or hazy. Of course I had to record it! :-) Took a pic of our condo walking back from Maddison's school one day.

Last week Aaron had a playdate with a school friend while Maddison was at school. I took the boys down to the playground and they had fun on their scooters and Samuel tried to keep up with them on his trike!

Actually anything Aaron does Samuel tries to do! hehehee

Having a see-saw with me :-)
Aaron and his friend zoomed off and I discovered them up a tree a few minutes later!
Kids started back swimming lessons again and this year they have a lesson with other children. Maddison with another little boy a bit younger than her and Aaron with 2 other boys a bit older. It was interesting to see the competitive nature kick in!! The little boy in Maddison's lesson had no probs putting his face in the water, so of course she had to go one better and get right under. Awesome for me to see because she hasn't wanted to do that before. :-) (She's picking up plastic sharks off the bottom of the pool)

Aaron has no fat on him whatsoever and after about 15 minutes in the pool he usually gets out and does a lounge lizard impersonation on the hot concrete! His teeth are chattering and his little body physically shaking! But this time he actually completed the lesson! Mustn't have wanted the other kids to get ahead with their laps!! :-)

Tuesday night at exactly midnight actually, I heard this bang and thud, so went to investigate (Lyndon was in Singapore). Discovered that a glass panel on the lounge balcony had exploded! What a mess. Not sure why it happened as it's proper safety glass.
Took ages to clean up and we are still finding little wee shards of glass on the deck.

Currently there's a big piece of perspex taped across the gap. Fingers crossed it will get fixed sooner rather than later!

So that's been the excitement around here! Some of it I could have done without!!

Thanks for visiting.

Back to school ...

2012-01-05T21:51:00.001+08:00

Today for Maddison, so it was just the boys and I home in the morning! Will be interesting to see how she goes as her new class is FULL of boys! She's the only girl! :-) I think there's 10 boys. I asked her this afternoon how was school and her reply was "It was great thanks Mummy"! haha Long may that last! ;-)

We settled Maddison in her class and then the boys had a turn in the ball pit!

They had a turn on the i-Pad's while she was at school (no fighting as they could have one each!!)

Then when we went to pick Maddison up again Aaron asked if he could have a turn on the slide (the gate is shut to it when it's not playtime). It's a tunnel slide from the mezzanine floor to the ground floor - so cool. Of course Samuel scampered up the stairs as fast as he could when he realised what was happening! hehee He came down with Aaron and had the biggest grin on his face. I can see it's going to be even more difficult tomorrow to get the boys to leave when we take Maddison to school!!

Thanks for visiting.

What the kids got up to today

2012-01-03T21:01:00.004+08:00

Lots of playing with dolls & teddies.

Construction of hotwheels track on the deck ...
With plenty of "help" by Samuel reading the instructions hehee
They got so cross with his help and then started fighting, so I explained to them (again!) that if they didn't want him interrupting they had to share and give him something they weren't using so he still felt included! :-) So Aaron very quickly got some pieces he wasn't using and some cars and Samuel was happy as anything!
But I caught him later being very naughty!!!
Little monkey! What was worse when I got the camera and was telling him off (while taking pictures) all he was saying was "cheese" and giving me a silly grin! heheee I tried not to laugh but it was very difficult!
When Daddy came home from work we popped up to the pool before dinner.
Aaron spent 80% of the time jumping into the pool!

Maddison trying to put water down the noodle so she could blow it out!
All I seemed to achieve today was getting through the massive pile of ironing!

Thanks for visiting.

Super Excited

2012-01-03T15:16:00.004+08:00

Super Super Excited to be a part of the new DT with Scrappin Studio.

Scrappin Studio brings in Studio Calico kits to Malaysia. I love their kits so am really looking forward to this wonderful opportunity. :-)

A New Year

2012-01-02T22:49:00.005+08:00

Didn't get a chance to blog yesterday ... but Lyndon and I did see the New Year in (not very often I do that!). The traffic was insane in and around our street, not to mention the parking!!

We had a great view of the fireworks from the nearby shopping complex. :-)

So that was the New Year seen in with a lot of noise from the crowds at the shopping complex and heaps of noise and smoke from the fireworks! (Can't believe the kids didn't wake up from it!).

We went to an Indonesian restaurant for lunch on New Year's Day. Lyndon had some sort of set meal.

I had my usual not very adventurous one hehee (lamp chops, chips, salad and watermelon), although the cut of the lamb chop wasn't one I had ever seen before! ;-) Samuel enjoyed the garlic bread.

Aaron had fish'n chips.
Maddison had chicken and chips.

Today I seem to have spent a fair portion of the day in the kitchen baking & cooking. But we had friends over late afternoon and their two little girls and our 3 rowdy kids had a grand time together. We went to the pool and completely wore them out! :-)

This morning Lyndon noticed the buildings at Genting Highlands were visible (usually they are covered in cloud). So he grabbed the camera and the big zoom and snapped some pics. (Just for you Grandma!) :-)

Also the statue of Muragan at Batu Caves could be seen quite clearly.
Lyndon heads back to work tomorrow. We are going to miss him around here! Especially Samuel, he's been like a little leach to Daddy! :-) Oh well they will have to put up with me till he's home again!

Thanks for visiting.

The end of 2011

2011-12-31T22:23:00.006+08:00

Thought I would share some pics of our last few days in 2011!

I've been taking photos of the sky at various times during the day and evening recently. This is from the infinity pool at the top of our condo, around 7pm one evening.

Lyndon has been plant shopping. Samuel and Maddison have been playing with the water tap and the big tub again.

The kids "helped" Lyndon pot up all the plants one morning.
Samuel did his own thing in and out of the pots along with Trevor & Jeremy from Thomas the Tank Engine :-)

He's also had a turn on Aaron's new skateboard hehee
Tonight we were back up at the pool again after dinner. The light was really lovely for taking pics.

This one is so typical of the kids!
Samuel gets out of the pool and runs to get the Thomas float board and thinks he's very clever lying on it! :-)
He's also very good and getting an i-Pad any chance he can and just plonks himself down quietly!
Tonight Lyndon found him on our bed playing Angry Birds (not that he can play it, but he does a lot of finger swiping hehee)

The last night of 2011 and I think we are the only ones in the vicinity here that have put their kids to bed! The noise levels from other apartments (especially kids), people walking about in the street and the music from the nearby shopping area is very loud! Hoping we can see the fireworks displays from this new apartment. We couldn't at our old one.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and a wonderful 2012. Thanks so much for visiting my blog this year.

It's Magic!

2011-12-30T21:02:00.005+08:00

Not sure if you remember or not, but back in October I received this in a swap from the lovely Trace.

We made it for our Christmas lunch we shared with friends last Sunday. :-) So since several of you back in NZ have asked I am going to tell you how I found it!

First step ... READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!! They make it so simple! When you open the "egg" you use one half to measure the milk and the other to measure the sugar. How simple is that! (pity I didn't read the instructions first heheee) I did check though that my sugar measure was the same as it was supposed to be and it was! ;-) The instructions also had handy tips on it which were interesting.

So you put it in the mixer and leave it to do its thing ... which at our house generally involves at least two sticky beaks watching the beater go round!

And you watch it beat and beat and beat (I would not and could not make a pav using a hand beater!! Even a hand held small electric beater would take it's toll on your arm just holding the beater!) The mixture got peaks like it was supposed to and how it would if you had made one from scratch.

Beady little eyes kept an eye on it in the oven. Instructions said DON"T open the oven door during the cooking and cooling process ... but when little people swing on the oven door handle the door sometimes opens!
It did spread a little during the cooking process which it said it would.
And looked pretty good when it came out and after it had cooled. But the next day when I went to get it out and decorate it, it cracked very easily. (Never mind that can be covered up by loads of whipped cream!)
We put whipped cream, fresh strawberries, grapes and passion fruit on the top. I am not sure if it was the weight of the goodness on top that cracked it even more or not, but it did crack and slump a bit between decorating and getting it to the table.

Landslide!
Taste wise ... it was good. Inside texture was very like "marshmallow" I thought. Nothing wrong with that - some pavs are like marshmallow, but when I make from scratch they aren't. Not sure if it's because I might cook it a bit longer or what. Not sure on that. Our Chinese friends liked it though because they said it wasn't as "sweet". I think when a pavlova has a firmer outer shell/crust the sugar might be more noticeable? Anyone else think that?

So would I use another one? Yes I probably would. I think they would make great gifts because really it's very simple to do (if you read the instructions hehee) And if you like marshmallow type pavs then it's definitely a must have on your shopping list! ;-)

So thanks Trace - it was delicious and there weren't any leftovers which is always a good sign! :-)

Scrap-it-Lah's Final Challenge

2011-12-29T11:46:00.004+08:00

I was sad when I heard that this was Scrap-it-Lah's final challenge. It's been ages since I have participated in their challenges (actually since I have done anything scrapping wise!), so I really wanted to try and join in their last challenge. I have spent the last few days sorting out my craft space and finding places for everything, and finally I could sit down and stick some photos to paper!

The challenge this month was to scrap 3 or more Christmas photos, using red/green/gold and one other colour of your choice and use glitter or glimmer mist. The photos don't stick to the colour scheme, but the papers do hehee :-)

I put glitter on the foam alphas.

Samuel was watching me take pics of the LO and when I had finished he grabbed it and started pulling at the tinsel!
Wishing the Scrap-it-Lah team all the best and thanks for the past challenges, it's been fun! :-)

Thanks for visiting.

December!

2011-12-26T23:00:00.004+08:00

26th of December! Goodness where have the last 3 weeks gone! I did intend to update my blog long before this, but we have just been busy enough! :-) I'll share some of my pics for my Dec Daily album (not all of them as there are others in some pics).

Aaron had a hearing test earlier in the month. All good there too! (I did wonder if his ears were for decorative purposes only, but apparently they work fine! haha)

The packers came to our old place ...
We moved to our new place :-) And one of the first things I unwrapped was the train set so the kids could play without getting too much in the way of the movers! Our new place has this little room off one of the balconies (on the floor plan it's the "gym") which we have made the train room and the plan is to try and keep the trains and track out there! (mostly its working although they do creep out onto the balcony hehee)
Maddison had 3 days at her new Montessori before the end of her school year. She settled in with no problems (probably helped by the glitter paint! hehee)
We put up the Christmas tree on the 10th. I did the top where the few precious ornaments hang and the kids did the rest.
My Mum arrived the evening of the day we moved, so we have had a few meals out with friends! :-)
Aaron had to present a "celebration" museum at school. They had to choose a celebration from their home country and have a display about it. Well because of moving and not being on line, I got the info the day before it was due! So I said it would be best if he did Christmas! Thankfully Mum had bought some magazines from NZ with her so we went through them and cut out pictures that had anything to do with anything about a Kiwi Christmas.
While I was out and about that day at Aaron's school and doing other things, Grandma looked after these two little rascals hehee
Santa paid a visit to Aaron's class.
Maddison helped cook dinner one night.
We went to Port Dickson for a few days and Samuel discovered ants :-)
It was very hard to keep the kids out of the sea! This particular day Daddy and Grandma had taken the kids to the beach (for a walk!) straight after breakfast while I packed our bags!!! Good job they weren't in their good clothes like one of their little friends hehee (bet her mother wasn't pleased!).
I finally emptied the last of the boxes and got the movers to come and collect the empty boxes.
Lyndon installed a water filter at the kitchen sink one evening and the following day I had the sink repaired (it was falling out at one end). Check out that colour of our water here! That's less than 24 hours of use just from one tap!
Not sure this is our place or not it's so tidy hehee :-)
Kids and I had our photo taken with Santa at one of the malls.
I took Mum to Old Town for a look around in the cramped dusty little shops there. This was a hardware store! You couldn't fit down that isle if you had a little bit of excess weight (or a large handbag!!) haha
The eve of the eve of Christmas! (I had spoken to Santa and asked him to come a day early and fancy that he was happy to oblige hehe) :-)
24th Dec ... 3 little reindeer!
Christmas Dinner with some friends.
Dessert (yes I used the pavlova magic but will do a separate blog post about this) :-)
And I just had to share this!!! Mum and I went to the supermarket one morning and when we came back Lyndon asked me to check the camera. I had wondered why Samuel was wearing different clothes! GROSS! I tell you, you can't leave the toilet door open around here!
Tonight we have all been to the airport to drop Grandma off as she's heading home. Maddison has already asked several times if we can go to Grandma's house now!

Happy Holidays to you all.
Thanks for visiting. Hopefully it won't be another 3 weeks before I post again!

1st of December

2011-12-01T21:04:00.007+08:00

Seriously this year has just gone so fast! I can hardly take it in that it's December already. So here's what's been happening around here the last 10 days or so.

Aunty R ... you asked about Maddison's outfit - it's a little dress and I have no idea where it came from as it's a hand-me-down :-) (I did a clothes swap for little girls clothes and got some bigger girl clothes back which was awesome and this dress was among them. It's her favourite!)

Aaron has had his eyes tested ... all in perfect working order!

Samuel has been watching Bob the Builder on my laptop with some SERIOUS concentration going on! Look at his hands heheee :-) He does make me laugh with his funny little manners and ways. (Excuse the fact he has no pants on! This was his third change of clothes for the day and I couldn't be bothered with pants anymore!)

Aaron's teacher is having a birthday next week and the kids have all been asked to make a birthday card for her to go in with the gift. She loves lions and calls her class the "lovable lions"! So I dug in my stamp collection and found this little beauty. Sorry it's sideways.
The last week Aaron has been asking me to do his hair spiky. But it doesn't stay like that, so tonight I surprised him with some hair gel! He thinks he's the cats meow now!!
And of course Maddison wanted her hair special as well! (didn't matter that they were heading straight to bed hehee). So I asked her if she wanted a french roll like mine. "That would be great thank you Mummy"!! :-)
As you know from my previous post I am going to do (and determined to complete) a December Daily album this year. So these next two pictures are for the 1st of December. :-) One chocolate advent calender doesn't work in this household! They have to have one each (good job the chocs are small is all I can say hehee) They didn't know about them and were pretty excited with the pictures I had chosen for them. (I am sorry I couldn't find a "Ba" one for Samuel though (Bob the Builder!) :-) He's very into Bob right now.)
Yum Yum!
When I went into the kitchen after story time with the kids I found some little feet poking out of my kitchen cupboard! hehehee
He loves parking his backside inside a cupboard and trying to shut the door! :-)
Right-ho I need to go and sort out a pile of laundry. Thanks for visiting. :-)

It's been a while ...

2011-11-23T14:46:00.004+08:00

Since I have done anything scrapbook related, let alone blog about it! Anyway I have been thinking the last couple of weeks that I would really like to do a December Daily album again, especially since we will be moving early December. So I decided to make it super simple and purchased this 8x8 pad of Christmas papers from Graphic 45. I liked this collection because there was no "snow" themed pages. :-)

I am telling you it really was very simple and probably took me half an hour (once I had unearthed the tools I needed from my semi packed craft area)! I trimmed the pages, glued 4 of them onto the front and back covers, punched the holes, threaded the rings and stuck the stickers on the front and it's done! Haha ... now hopefully this year I can actually finish the jolly thing!

Here's the cover.

And the back.
I didn't have enough papers for 26 days (that's what I am doing to fit in with Grandma's visit) and I was looking through my stash of Christmas papers, but nothing really seemed to match colour wise, so I decided I would just use other G45 papers from a different collection. So that's what I did. These papers will be used on days where I know there is nothing Christmasy happening at all :-)
I think this one will be our "moving day" page :-)

Looking forward to starting (and finishing!) this.

Anyone else doing a December Daily album this year?

Thanks for visiting.

Here, There & Everywhere

2011-11-19T20:33:00.003+08:00

A fair bit has been happening around here ... although not necessarily with the timing I would like! I was hoping to be able to move next week, but that hasn't worked out unfortunately. So it's another couple of weeks away now.

Meanwhile the kids have been busy! All have had a nasty cold including a high fever. Aaron has had a few days off school last week and still isn't 100% right and Samuel has been really miserable with it. He's happy though munching his way though the cookies in the tin and watching Bob the Builder. :-)

Aaron has been checking out the Lotus display down at the mall. (Just for you Grandad!)
Maddison has been a Princess most days! (a rather scruffy one, but a Princess nevertheless!) hehee
On Wednesday late afternoon there was quite a bad storm and the traffic was terrible. I had to be somewhere by 8pm and usually at that hour of the night I have to allow an hour. I actually left 10 minutes earlier than I usually do and it took me 1 hour and 50 minutes! Needless to say I was very late and got there when it was all over!

I have to go through one toll gate to get there ... the road is 2 lanes and widens to 6 lanes for the toll booths and then back down to 2 again ... you can imagine the jam! And to make it worse 3 cars had done a nose to tail about 60 meters after the lanes had merged back to 2! It took me 70 minutes to get from one side of this toll to the other! It's the worse I have ever seen it in the 4 years we've been here. I hope I never see it like that again!

Because I thought we were moving next week I had planned for Maddison to have her farewell at school on Thursday. (Felt silly on Friday afternoon when I found out the dates had changed!) Oh well I can say I was organised for a change hehee I took 2 types of cookies (jam drops and ginger-nuts) down and apple juice to share with the kids. The teacher was surprised I didn't take cake, but I said every time I bring cake 90% of the kids lick off the icing and throw the cake away! It's such a waste. So I tried cookies this time and it was more successful ... only about 20% didn't like them hehee

So that's what's been happening around here.

Thanks for visiting and apologies to those whose blogs I haven't been visiting like I usually do! I haven't actually spent much time on the computer the last few weeks.

11.11pm, 11-11-11

2011-11-11T23:19:00.001+08:00

I was loading the washing machine and putting it on timer ... what were you doing?

I had every intention of taking a photo this morning at 11.11am, but I didn't have my camera with me! So did it tonight instead. :-)

Catching Up

2011-11-08T21:12:00.005+08:00

Been missing in action around this blog! We have finally found a bigger place to live. Fingers crossed now that it all goes through and we can move on the dates I want!

It's more than double the size of our current place. :-)

Oh and the wet kitchen is red! I likely :-)
Outside it has the usual pools, kids playground etc., but it also has space for the kids to ride their bikes and a skateboard ramp! (I haven't told Aaron about that yet hehee)
Aaron has been studying fairy tales at school the last few weeks. They have learnt a "fairy tale rap" which their teacher wrote and the parents were invited to go and listen to them. It was fantastic, they did such a great job. They had to wear "rapper" clothes to school! Aaron just wore his hat backwards! But some of them had great costumes. One little boy wore all black and had a hot pink sequined scarf and hat on and dark sunglasses - he was hilarious. They had also made magic mirrors!
On the back they had a little plastic pocket with a whole lot of words they could choose ... this was the one Aaron wanted!!!
Magic wands complete with a spell book!
Samuel was pretty good sitting in the pram for so long, so when it was all finished he ran off some steam in the playground :-)
One afternoon after school the kids did some painting that Nana sent to Maddison :-)
And I have been making cookies for our cookies monsters!
A double batch of cookies doesn't last long around here!

So that's been us. Now I have to get scampering and sort out my craft space a bit (which I haven't touched in ages) so it's semi ready for packing! It's rather a daunting task!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Halloween

2011-11-08T20:56:00.004+08:00

Trying to do a bit of a catch up ! So here's some pics of this year's Halloween activities.

One afternoon I spent the afternoon with Aaron's class doing "pumpkin math" and this also included carving the pumpkin for the school's Halloween party. I have never carved a pumpkin before and it's quite hard! (well I thought it was) Anyway it turned out okay and Aaron approved it because I gave it angry eyebrows hehee

I didn't take a lot of photos this year at the school's Halloween party because Lyndon had Samuel in the pram and I had charge of Aaron & Maddison! I was busy enough keeping my eyes on them in amongst all the people. They had fun and got plenty of candy! The first activity was apple bobbing, but I was a bit dubious of the water so they were allowed to close their eyes and find a candy with their hand.

There were a couple of clowns there making all sorts of things for the kids with balloons. So just before we left Aaron got some sort of gun and Maddison got a poodle. Samuel was out to it so we didn't bother getting one for him :-)
The next day was Saturday and we went down to the "Dragon's Lair" at the mall.
They had heaps of Halloween Carnival booths set up and you bought a bunch of tickets and tried out the games and you could win prizes. The kids had a wonderful time and won so much stuff! They got something at every booth they tried, most of them were consolation prizes. But the first one they tried they both won something they really wanted.

Aaron had to get a ball from one end to the other of a tippy table.
Maddison had to pull up the guillotine and let it fall and stop it on the red line.
She won an awesome dolls house and Aaron got a GUN! (save me!)
On Monday 31st Maddison had Halloween dress up at her school, so she went as a princess again :-)
So that was Halloween for us this year!

Thanks for visiting.

Random photos ...

2011-10-27T21:54:00.001+08:00

Just sharing some pics of the last few days ...

Had a look at another apartment earlier in the week and had to take Maddison (she was on holiday) and Samuel with me. It's a lot harder to concentrate with kids in tow hehee

We had to wait for the agent for a while so we spent the time walking around the pool and having fun in the playground. :-)

Very awesome school bus which was on big springs ... Maddison wanted to me to "make it go"!! So I sat in the front with Samuel on my knee and made it bounce all over the place while we sung "the wheels on the bus"! - Samuel thought it was hilarious!
Slide was cool too. But the best part was it was under cover ... so you could use it in the rain! What a wonderful idea!
And the view was stunning - you could see the Petronas Towers and KL Tower.
Samuel has been watching Maddison prancing about with my shoes on, so he's decided it's a fun thing to do!
I got him the little pair of boots that both Aaron & Maddison have worn. He's rather pleased with them :-)
Yesterday we went down to the mall to get a few groceries and the kids inspected the "dragon's lair" :-) It was pretty cool actually - can hardly believe it's all made out of polystyrene!
Last night the kids decided they would "help" me by cleaning out my kitchen utensil drawer! They laid them out all neatly on the floor and then "brushed" the drawer out using my pastry brush!! The little pets.
Tuesday Aaron bought me home this little note! Love it, especially how he's spelt my name (under the scribbled bit is a y hehee)
Right ho ... best be off. Have a very very busy day tomorrow. United Nations assembly at Aaron's school first thing in the morning. Lyndon gets back from Australia in the morning and we are off to look at apartments again. Then in the afternoon I am helping Aaron's class carve pumpkins for Halloween (never done that before so will be interesting!). And in the evening it's Aaron's school Halloween party.

Thanks for visiting.

Chef Samuel

2011-10-24T22:00:00.001+08:00

Samuel loves getting into the pot cupboard and crashing pot lids together or carting the pots around. Tonight while I was doing the dishes he discovered the wok.

Have to get right in there to mix it up you know!

Wooden spoon wasn't doing the job properly so back to the drawer to find something else!

Ahhh these salad servers will do the trick! (Obviously they make more noise!) :-)

He went away for a bit then came back with his dummy and decided his "cooking" needed to be vacuumed up!

Funny little fella.

His latest words are "cookie" and "dirty", although not said at the same time! He now prefers home made cookies to bought ones and several times during the day he'll come and say to me "cookie peeese" with a screwed up little face on the "peeese". How could I say no to that? :-)

Thanks for visiting.

Kids & Apartments!

2011-10-23T09:55:00.003+08:00

Last week was a busy one ... it started off fine, Aaron had the week off school with mid term break and Maddison wore her cupcake outfit to school one day!

Then Thursday morning I discovered Maddison had chicken pox so that put all my plans for the day completely on hold (and they still are!). That day the kids decided they would "make" breakfast and they wanted eggs in cups :-)

Not just one though ... 2 each please Mummy!
Samuel had his usual cereal and fruit :-)
Last night Daddy came home - he's been away for 2 weeks for work to USA and Vietnam (and this evening he goes to Australia for the week). He bought the kids a cap each from Alanta :-)
Friday morning I spent a couple of hours looking at more apartments! It's getting tricky now ... do I choose the one that is funky (but has a small kitchen) ...
and has an awesome children's pool!
Or the one that has a very very nice kitchen with lots of storage (so different to where we are now).
Or a Balinese style one.
That kitchen is calling me :-) hehee I have one more unit to look at and I have seen the floor plan of it and it's looking pretty good (kitchen is nice too!) :-) HOPEFULLY we can make a decision late next week.

Hoping these poxy chickens don't stay around for much longer!

Have a great week & thanks for visiting.

This'n That

2011-10-14T21:48:00.001+08:00

Before I update on what we have been up to. For those that have asked, yes of course I will let you know how this cool packaged pavlova turns out. Unfortunately it won't be for a few weeks because (a) it serves 6 and Lyndon is away for 3 weeks and (b) I am trying to loose weight so don't want to make it without some adults to share it with. hehee :-)

When Samuel and I take Maddison to school he has this little routine he seems to follow! First he likes to play with the taps and wash his hands while Maddison gets her bag put away, then on the way to her class he checks out the cookie container!

And this tray is what he seems to go for first. On Wednesday Maddison helped him carry it to the desk and he got up on the chair and starting "cutting" the fruit and veges hehehee

Wednesday after school one of Aaron's school mates had invited us to his 7th birthday. I offered to pick him up from school as his Mum has 2 other little kids as well. I ended up having 5 kids in the car ... I will let you imagine the noise levels! What a racket! There was no mute button either - they were so excited to be together and yelled and laughed all the way to the party!

At the party Samuel had a little bit of trouble trying to steer the dolls pram hehee
During the week I remembered that for some bizarre reason my wedding shoes ended up coming to Malaysia with us instead of being in storage. So I got them out for Maddison to play with. What a little madam! She thinks they are wonderful! (Apparently you have to put shoes on before your hair gets done!)

I have been looking a bit bigger place to live. Samuel has been along for the ride, but I don't mind taking him because he can't tell the others about it heheee. This particular place had a slide into the toddlers swimming pool and if Aaron had seen it I would never have heard the end of it! I am sure he would have signed up for it right then and there! Hoping for better luck next week with more suitable places. Fingers crossed anyway!

This afternoon Aaron's class had a Halloween craft session. They were making things in preparation for decorating the corridor outside their class for the Halloween party at the end of the month. Some of the mums had also made a "Witch Hilda" house which was really well done. They blindfolded the kids one at a time and took them inside to excite their senses!!
Aaron was scared a bit, so we took his blindfold off. There was jelly for brains, chicken bones for bones, noodles for intestines and peeled grapes for eyes! One of the boys didn't want to go inside at all and was convinced there actually was a real witch in there! I said there wasn't really, it was just fantasy remember. I grinned at him and said I thought the witch might be the teacher heheheee ;-) (hope she didn't hear me say that lol)
After they had been in Witch Hilda's house they were given some witches brew (ice-cream and fizz mixed together!!)
For their crafts they made ghosts (of course Aaron's had an evil face)!!
A spider (yet another evil face) and a bat (with an Aaron face hehee)
So that's a little what we have been doing. Aaron has next week off on school holidays we have a couple of play dates lined up, but I have the feeling he's expecting a play date every day! (He's going to be disappointed with that!).

Thanks for visiting.

Surprise!

2011-10-08T21:57:00.003+08:00

In July the lovely Janine organised a "winter self-care swap". Tracey had the task of putting together a parcel for me. We were asked to post our parcels out to our swap partners on the 1st of August and Tracey very kindly posted her parcel earlier (on the 26th of July to be exact!) so I would get it around the same time as everyone else. Now New Zealand Post state on their website that this parcel should arrive within 10 to 25 days! Do you know how long this parcel took to arrive? ...... 74 days! Yes you read that correctly! We thought someone else over here decided they liked the look of the parcel and helped themselves! I still can't believe it actually turned up - it hadn't been opened, one of the boxes was a little bit squashed but the contents weren't damaged at all. Fancy that aye ... 74 days! I can't believe it.

Now Tracey hasn't met me before but I think she did a fabulous job of choosing things that I would like :-)

Those little red buttons are poppies and they are gorgeous :-) I love them. Will have to use them on something very special! And I am looking forward to trying out that pav mixture! :-)

Thank you very much Tracey for such a thoughtful gift :-) And I am so glad it did eventually turn up! (It was worth the wait hehee)
.
In other news I took Aaron & Maddison shopping this morning for Halloween outfits! Aaron wanted to go as a skeleton and no surprises as to what Maddison wanted! A Princess of course!

The best thing about Aaron's costume is that it's very light weight so works well for the climate over here and it will fit him for the next 20 Halloweens I think hehee ;-)

Here he is inspecting how he looks in the mirror!

I am pleased to introduce to you "Princess Maddison"! (she has already informed me that she needs a "crown"!! If you please!!!)

After we got the dress she told me she needed "princess slippers"!! So we popped into Jusco and we found some little white sandals with pink flowers on them (I was kinda thankful that the shoes she wanted that had plastic high heels were too big for her!)

What a pair! ;-)
Maddison has worn her sandals (sorry I should say "princess slippers"!) all afternoon and even put them back on after her bath! No guesses as to what shoes she will be wearing tomorrow!

Thanks for visiting.

Getting ready for Halloween!!!

2011-10-07T20:46:00.003+08:00

This little chap along with the help of Daisy (in his left hand) or Henry (I can't remember which now ... they are both green!) has been ever so helpful in helping me decide whether I need specialist eye makeup for my Halloween costume this year!!

On Tuesday morning he came and sat on my knee with a train in his hand and jabbed it in my eye. It hurt a little, but I didn't think too much of it. Later in the afternoon I realised it was bruised and swollen a bit! Wednesday morning it looked like this ...

And today it's looking even more special!
If I keep my eyes open and don't raise my eyebrows then it's not sooooo noticeable, but people do seem to give it a second look! hehee

It's been a week actually. First our printer died, then the main navigation buttons on my cellphone decided not to work anymore, Samuel gave me a black eye, and on Wednesday Maddison came home with a notice from school saying there had been a "couple" of cases of chicken pox reported! Thursday morning I discovered there were actually 3 kids from her class and more than that from the class next door which they do lots of activities with!! Nice ... just what I wanted to enjoy over the next few weeks when Lyndon's travel schedule is crazy busy!

Oh well ... things can only get better! Right?!! ;-)

Fingers crossed I can actually do some scrapbooking next week!!

Thanks for visiting.

I'm Gorgeous

2011-09-29T12:20:00.002+08:00

Maddison asked for a new hair style on Monday ... she bought me a book and showed me a picture of what she wanted! She's very pleased with it and when she looked in the mirror told me "I'm gorgeous aren't I Mummy"!!! :-)

This morning she informed me it was very hot so she needed her sunglasses!

Piglet came along for the ride as well. :-)
What a little Diva!

Kids

2011-09-23T11:10:00.004+08:00

It's been a while since I updated sorry! It's been a bit full on with bugs here :-( We have all been sick, but apart from Samuel we're all well again now. Here's some pics of what's been happening since I last updated.

This week at school Aaron is the "Super Star", which means he takes along photos to pin up on the wall about himself and his family. So he's taken pics of us, his grandparents, his cousins, sack riding with Grandma, seeing the Tuatara's at the Southland Museum, feeding baby lambs with Nana, and of course himself with his all time favourite car! (Wearing matching accessories of course hehee)

Samuel has been learning to play Angry Birds!!
The tooth fairy has paid another visit :-)
At 5.30am the following morning Aaron & Maddison came into our room and were reading the letter from the tooth fairy by the night light on the air purifier! Yeah thanks kids for waking us up!
Maddison had a dress up day and chose to wear her Chinese dress again. Here she's playing with a new Japanese sushi tea set in her class room.

When Samuel and I take Maddison to school as soon as we get to her class he's off like a shot to the book shelf and gets down this book ... every single time!
This week Aaron has had dress up day every day of the week. Monday was pajama day, Tuesday was twin day so the boys wore blue and the girls wore pink, Wednesday was rainbow day, Thursday was favourite celebrity or a book character (I really wanted him to go as Tintin, but he didn't want to wear a blue shirt! So he went with his Ben 10 tee-shirt), today they went wearing orange and black for Tiger Day and were also raising money for the endangered Malayan Tiger.

I walked down to school on Monday to take some pics of him and his class mates in their pj's.

Had to laugh at his work on the wall ... he is really into doing what he calls "evil" faces at the moment ... so he gave himself an evil face (it's all about the eye brows apparently!). Love his drawing of New Zealand as well :-)

When his teacher found out he had lost a tooth he got to write his name on a paper tooth and pin it to the tooth fairy "Lion"!

Maddison drew a picture for Grandma ... hope you like your undies with the heart on them Grandma heheheheheheeeeee
Since Aaron started school last year I have been struggling to get him to eat all his lunch, in particular his sandwiches. This week I thought I would try something a little different and use my collection of cookie cutters. He loves gingerbread men, so this week he has had a gingerbread man sandwich (with a heart) every day and what do you know ... he's eaten it every day as well! Fantastic! Long may it last!

I went on the bus with Aaron to school today so I could take pics again. When we got to school there were a "tiger team" doing face painting. So I asked him if he wanted his face painted and he did! (last year there was no way he would have done that!).

When I left his tee-shirt had heaps of face paint on it already ... goodness knows what it's going to be like by the time he gets home today!

So that's us ... roll on the weekend!

Thanks for visiting.

Boys and their toys!

2011-09-13T21:46:00.005+08:00

Last weekend Lyndon helped Aaron put together the air driven boat he got for his birthday.

SUCH excitement :-) Imagine if you will Samuel doing the chicken dance! ;-)
Daddy to the rescue to keep Samuel's wings in hehee
Final adjustments!
Ready to test.
Humm ... goes very fast, but shouldn't be spinning water all over the place like that! :-) (it needed a little modification). I think the kids enjoying it spinning the water everywhere better though :-)
Kids started their swimming lessons again yesterday after summer break.
Today at school Aaron had a "Me Museum" day. They had to take along things about themselves to display on their desk and then tell people about them when they stopped to check it all out. What a noise in the room!
Aaron's table was covered in his FAVOURITE things ... Ferrari's, Ferrari hat, Lego books (because I didn't let him take Lego), Hot Wheels track, Hot Wheels cars and of course you can't forget an Angry Bird! They had to bring a cloth for the table, so we decided on a tea-towel with kiwis and a map of New Zealand on it. :-)
One little girl bought along her hamster! I was sure it was going to be dead by the end of the day with heart failure! The class was so noisy and everyone that stopped at her desk opened the cage and petted, poked and prodded the poor little thing! Anyway it seemed it survived the ordeal! Another little boy bought along 2 hermit crabs! :-)

And tonight I thought Samuel was very quiet and walked into the kitchen to find this!

He had dragged the little table into the kitchen and was giving the dish brush his taste test!!
I said to him "Hey you ... what are you doing!???" He turned around and gave a big squeal and pointed the brush at me! When Aaron saw this photo he said "Baby Samuel looks like a pirate!" hehee
So that's us! Thanks for visiting.

No Upsets this afternoon!

2011-09-07T22:30:00.000+08:00

Another parcel arrived with belated birthday presents today :-) So it was more excitement. Maddison got a gorgeous cupcake apron, oven mitt and Chef's hat which she thinks is fabulous. So fabulous in fact that she insisted on wearing it down to greet Aaron off the school bus heheeheeee (He wasn't that impressed!) ;-) I can't wait to take pics of her wearing it all playing at her kitchen.

Aaron got an electronic air driven boat ... which I have put up till Daddy gets back home on Friday! (Thankfully he was okay with that as he hasn't completed the lego kit from yesterday!)

AND ... daadaaaadadaaaaaa ... One of Aaron's teeth came out today at school. :-) Apparently it came out while he was eating his sandwich at lunch. He said he didn't want anyone to see it so put it in his lunchbox and then in his pocket and then when he got back to class in his bag! I got a little frantic when he told me he put it in the outside pocket ... it took me a while to find it!

This one's for you Daddy :-)
And tonight he's gone to bed with that tiny little tooth in an organza bag all ready for the tooth fairy. :-)
I told them they had to go straight to sleep because if the tooth fairy came and saw they were awake then she would just leave (hehehee). It worked for him, but Maddison took a while to go to sleep and when I checked on them she had opened the curtains because she wanted to be able to see this tooth fairy! (I sure hope the fairy doesn't get caught!) :-) :-)

All is quiet now and I am hoping that Samuel will stay asleep so the tooth fairy can get her work done!!

Thanks for visiting.

Excitement & Upsets ...

2011-09-07T12:31:00.004+08:00

Yesterday a parcel arrived from Nana & Grandad with presents for the kids :-) Super excitement I tell you! (Please excuse the scruffy little urchin in the first photo hehehe ... no idea what she had done with her hair!) ;-)

Awesome to hear Aaron actually reading the words in his card :-)
And of course the little fella can't miss out on the action!
Then it was straight to the table (out of Samuel's reach) to play with their presents ... in Aaron's case - putting together his lego set; and Maddison doing colouring.
Thank you Nana & Grandad - awesome presents! :-)

Later in the afternoon I dashed out to get some bread and when I came back Aaron opened the door for me very upset and nearly in tears. He told me "his tooth was wobbly and it was all bleeded"! I of course was super excited and told him so in no uncertain terms :-) hehehee I am sure he wondered what on earth I had eaten and that I had gone crazy! hehee I haven't talked to the kids before about the "tooth fairy", but yesterday I got the chance. Aaron still wasn't 100% sure about the whole thing though, he was okay, but he wasn't happy about it. I found out later that he had put a couple of pieces of lego together that wasn't right and used his teeth to get them apart! So his bottom two front teeth are loose.

During the night I remembered (as you do!) that I had a book put away about loosing a tooth, so this morning I got it out and read it to the kids and oh that made it SO much better! hehee I even wrote a note for the teacher and put a zip-lock bag in his pack just in case they come out at school!

The best thing for me was that in this story the tooth fairy was very kind and after she had taken the tooth and left Clifford with a big doggy bone treat, she gave the tooth to someone to display in their shop window. So I could very happily say that I really hoped that when his tooth did come out and the tooth fairy took it that she would know Mummy would really like that tooth for his scrapbook! :-) heheehee

Thanks for visiting.

Mystery Reader

2011-08-29T22:10:00.000+08:00

Aaron's teacher put in the first newsletter that parents could come in and be a "mystery reader" to the class. Last week I asked if I could today as I wanted to bring in cookies for the class for Aaron's birthday and thought I could do two things at once! :-)

Aaron had no idea heheee ... love that he was super excited to see me (and Maddison and Samuel).

After much deliberation I decided to take some Hairy Maclary stories and these two Little Kiwi stories (Little Kiwi and the Dinosaur and Little Kiwi meets a Monster) by Bob Darroch, both are New Zealand authors. Some of the kids had already heard about Hairy Maclary, so I read them the Little Kiwi stories.

The kids were really good listeners. It's nice reading when you know they are all listening and there's no high-jinks going on in the back row!! ;-)

And some of you may have heard me say (many years ago!) that if I had children they wouldn't pick their noses!! Well I regret saying that ... both Aaron & Maddison are pros at it! I asked Maddison to stop today and she told me "But Mummy I love my bogies!" Yugggggg ... I will just ignore it I think! (will stop me feeling sick anyway hehee)

Thanks for visiting.

Let's Party!

2011-08-28T22:00:00.002+08:00

Yesterday it was Aaron's 6th birthday. As usual I have an overload of photos to record the story :-) ... I'll start with Friday when I had two little helpers watching me bake the cake (and lick the beaters hehee).

After Aaron got home from school there was plenty of high jinks going on in their bedroom! Only one more sleep to go!
That evening when the kids were in bed the cake got decorated :-) Aaron's request for yet another racing track cake was an easy option for me hehee

While I was decorating the cake Lyndon very kindly blew up the "fire engine" ... unfortunately the pump I bought especially for the job wasn't very efficient!
But it looked great when he finally finished!
Before I went to bed I checked the kids and couldn't find Maddison. I went out and said to Lyndon, Maddison's not in her bed - where is she?!! He said "did you look under the bed"?! Apparently she "hated her bed and it wasn't nice anymore" so she got under it! I won't even try to understand her thought process on that one! (Yes we did move her back on top of her bed!)
Saturday morning bought lots of excitement with present opening! :-)

He was very spoilt with books, lego and hotwheels galore!
In the afternoon we had his party. We'd invited 12 other kids ... so had it at the playground! I definitely wouldn't have coped with 15 kids tearing around our apartment!

Samuel had a good observation point :-)
We had an "Amazing Race" party. I had done up a checklist of 10 activities for the kids to do and have checked off. It wasn't a "race" as such, but just to get each item ticked off and when they had done that they got a treat. They could do the activities in any order they wanted.

We had an egg & spoon race

We asked the kids to bring their scooters and they had to zig zag round the cones down the little ramp, round the fountain and back again while wearing a hat :-)

Count the steps up to the BBQ area and complete a Jigsaw puzzle.
Walk along a concrete ledge in the garden :-)
Forward roll.
The other activities were : Climb up the small slide and slide down the big one (I figured they were going to do that anyway so they might as well get a tick for it hehee); hula hoop; catch a ball; throw 2 dice and either get a 6 or two numbers that added to 6; and search for 6 numbered balls in the fire engine ball pit.

It was very thirsty work :-)

The treat was a "superhero" ice block. Samuel had an Iron man one :-)
Blowing out his candles.
After the "amazing race" we had food and then of course it was a race to scoff down what they wanted and get back out and play again! :-) The road cones didn't stay put for long, it became a game to hit as many as you could apparently!

Lots of goings-on in the slide!

And this morning Aaron set up his hotwheels track he got and showed Samuel how it worked :-) (I have a feeling he might regret doing that hehee)
Tons of left over food! Oh well better to have too much than not enough I suppose ... but I think I could have gotten away with only ordering half the number of pizzas!

Fun week ahead this week too. Maddison has all week off school, Aaron and Lyndon have holidays Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, so we are looking forward to that.

I will be back! Thanks for visiting.

The roots are showing!

2011-08-23T21:39:00.005+08:00

When we were in Cameron Highlands I found these grass heads ... so Monday last week the kids and I set them going (watching them soak in a bowl of water really helped the kids eat their dinner hehee) ;-)

There wasn't a lot of variety so Aaron and Maddison both got the same one and I got the last "little" one for Samuel (it's ears make me laugh!).

4 days later they were like this ...
The little one growing a great head of grass ... and showing off his roots!
Tonight they look like this. Maddison's one (in the middle) is growing a mono-brow hehee
Soon I think this one will need pigtails! :-)
Other news ... a birthday was celebrated and I consumed too much chocolate cake! :-) It was delicious though.
Lyndon found these little Buddha's for the kids to give me! They make me smile too. I also got the gorgeous vase in the background.
So another year done and dusted! Doesn't time fly when you are having fun! ;-)

Thanks for visiting. I am off to see if my roots are showing now hehehee

Yep I'm still here ...

2011-08-21T20:31:00.005+08:00

Thought I better update ... photos of the kids again, as I haven't done any scrapbooking for simply ages! Oh well ... one day hopefully my scrapping mojo will return with gusto!

So Aaron started Grade 1. Here he is on his first day waiting for the teacher to welcome them in :-)

Getting his name tag on.
Setting up his desk with all his new stationery.
I had Maddison and Samuel with me that day as Lyndon was away and I had to be at school early to get a park, so couldn't drop Maddison off at her school before hand. Samuel was really good and just sat and watched in his pram. I was helping Aaron put away his stationery and books and looked around and my heart skipped a beat or two as I couldn't see Maddison ... so I did another scan of the room from a different vantage point and spied her being a darling! (for a change hehee) Sitting quietly in the hand chair reading a book. I was MOST impressed!

Later on her and Aaron sat on the mat and checked out one of the games.
Blue raspberry iceblocks leave a lovely mess! She tells me they are delicious, but doesn't like me scrubbing her face trying to get off all the blue stains!
Samuel is a ball of energy ... he's running, climbing and scampering everywhere, chatting the entire time. Loves sitting at the bookcase pulling out a book at a time and "reading". (This just takes me back 5 years ... it's exactly what Aaron was like!) :-)
Ahhh yes ... good morning gorgeous hehee :-) (time for a haircut I think!)

Tissues are very exciting as well ... if a box is within reach (even climbing reach) then each one is pulled out and "tested" with a nose blow, before being discarded and pulling the next one! (If it wasn't so messy it would be cute!) :-)
He loves climbing ... I can't even leave the pram up now. It needs to be folded and left upside down. I am afraid he will tip it over while standing up there screeching with delight! (Note the dining chairs stacked as well for the same reason. He climbs up onto the table!)
i-Pad time.
So that's it. I will probably be back tomorrow with more pics :-)

Thanks for visiting.

New School Year about to begin ...

2011-08-10T16:32:00.003+08:00

tomorrow for Aaron. This morning Aaron, Samuel & I headed to Aaron's school to see which class he was going to be in, who his class mates are and his new teacher. We managed to met his new teacher and she's just lovely. Her class is the "Lion Class" :-) There's a lot of soft toy lions in that class and books all about lions ... so should be an interesting year for him! :-) I had to grin to myself because last year the only 2 red haired boys at Kindergarten level were in the same class and they are this year too! Lion Cubs together!! heheee

Outside the classroom the noticeboard had a big welcome sign and letters from all last years Grade 1 Lion Class students welcoming the new Lion Cubs to Grade One! I thought that was pretty special.

Inside there was a world map jigsaw puzzle set up on a table and Aaron very quickly got busy with that and didn't want to leave until it was finished! (I suggested to the teacher she undid it all ready for tomorrow because he'd be happy to redo it again heehe) You can see a shelf in the background full of lions.
After he'd completed the puzzle he went looking around at everything on the shelves and pulled out a plastic Lego bin and asked if he could play with the Lego. The box didn't have Lego in it though! It had a bag full of short pieces of plastic pipe and elbows, which the teacher explained made "telephones" to practice phonics. She asked if we'd like to take the bag home and put the telephone's all together. So we've spent a bit of time this afternoon doing that and the kids have had fun "talking" on the phone! I must say you really only need to whisper because if you talk loud or shout you nearly blow out your eardrum!
Samuel loved them and spent ages saying "hi-eeee" and lots of other gibberty gook! :-)
So that's us for today. Hopefully the kids will actually go to sleep when they go to bed tonight so they will be up and going on time in the morning! (Won't be holding my breath about that though!)

Thanks for visiting.

A Final Night in Penang & Then Home!

2011-08-09T10:00:00.003+08:00

We went back to the same hotel we stayed at the previous week in Penang. After we had settled into our room we headed to the restaurant and Lyndon & I enjoyed an Indian buffet and watched another beautiful sunset.

Saturday morning Aaron & Maddison enjoyed time at the kids club, while I went to the Butterfly Farm and Lyndon took Samuel for a walk to get him to sleep (and he had a foot massage!) :-)

The Butterfly Farm was beautiful - if you are ever in Penang it's really worth a visit - it's much much much nicer than the KL one.

Entrance.
What you see when you first walk into the butterfly section.
There was a display filled with cocoons/chrysalis ... they were awesome colours.
Lots of different types of Caterpillars.

And of course butterflies.
And flowers! I'll let the pictures do the talking :-)

Water Dragon.
Green Iguana.

Very pretty ponds & waterfalls.

"Monkey Cups".

Inside there were wonderful displays of other bugs & creepy crawlies :-) One glass cage was full of all different sorts of frogs & toads.

This one is a tree frog.
Can't remember what these beetles were called sorry. But they were so shiny!

Other glass cases with lizards in them.
A couple of close ups.

And can you guess how many snakes were in this tangle? (I think they are whip snakes.)
There were 4.

After I got back from the butterfly farm we had lunch, packed the car and headed for home. It wasn't long before Samuel was fast asleep and Aaron & Maddison were asking if we were nearly home! It was a LONG trip back I tell you!!

A small glimpse into the motorways here.
We stopped at a rest area for the kids to have a run around in the scorching heat (it was 39degs when we left Penang!). It helped with the complaining a bit ... I was just sorry they didn't sleep like Samuel did! ;-)

Having a donut snack.
Samuel had his donut squashed in his hand! His fake grin just cracks me up :-)
We got home about 6.45pm on Saturday night. Yesterday we got back into the swing of normal routines again. Lyndon left for Taiwan for the week, Maddison started back at school and Aaron starts on Thursday! :-) It's been a long summer break hehee :-)

Thanks for visiting.

Langkawi Part 2

2011-08-08T22:33:00.010+08:00

Here's the next update of the remainder of our time in Langkawi.

This holiday, I learnt (again!) that when dealing with 3 active, busy little rascals, don't even bother trying to plan day trips or excursions! Because if they decide to behave the chances are the weather won't! It's much easier to just stay put and enjoy the facilities at the hotel hehee ;-)

When we arrived on the Monday, I realised in the afternoon that I had left an entire packet of nappies for Samuel back at the hotel in Penang, and discovered that I had none left in the nappy bag either! I managed to buy 8 at the hotel shop (for a grand sum of RM20) but I knew that 8 nappies was barely going to last 2 days. So Lyndon hired a car from the hotel in the afternoon and drove to the nearest store (which was probably about 20 minutes away) and found some pull-ups which did the trick. The car hire was for 24 hours, so we decided that we'd go the following morning and check out the cable car. Unfortunately the weather was very foggy in the morning so we decided to give it a miss as it would have just been a waste. The kids just wanted to play on the beach and in the pool anyway! So leaving the nappies behind turned out to be a very expensive mistake!! Oh well ... live & learn!

Mean while the kids spent their time doing this ...

Playing on the i-Pads.

Checking out beetles (this is especially for my nephew T) :-)

Aaron spent 90% of his time at the pool going down this slide!
Maddison was very brave and went down it by herself which was pretty major for her. :-) (Nice swimming cap to keep her stitches dry).
And Samuel was very busy in the little paddling pool strutting his stuff, pulling his hat off ...
Finding rocks to lick and taste and cart around.
And then making a mad dash as fast as he could away from Mummy! Turning back and laughing at me of course! hehee
Aaron & Maddison spent some time at the Kids Club one morning while I put Samuel to bed and Lyndon went and did a tour of the Mangroves.
Samuel discovered the boxes that the clean laundry was delivered in was heaps of fun to climb on.
It rained a couple of days we were there. One day it rained pretty much most of the day. It happened to be that day that Lyndon went on the Mangrove tour. He thought we could all go, but when we saw the brochure of what the boats were I just said NO! There would be no way I would enjoy it making sure the kids sat the entire time (was around 2 hours I think). Was glad we didn't go with the kids especially because of the weather!

Here's some of the pics he took. They visited some caves and saw heaps of bats.

Lots of birds.
And of course the rain! It was really really heavy! He came back absolutely drenched.

Snakes.
The boats ... can you imagine keeping our 3 kids sitting in one place on a boat like that without them leaning out over the side and "oh dear they've fallen in"!!! ;-)

Another bird ... sorry you'll have to turn your head.

And Lyndon himself at the end of the trip ... took about 3 days for his bag to dry out!
That evening we dined on the beach. The kids played in the sand.
There was a beautiful sunset.

And this is one of my favourite pictures I took that week :-) My mocktail was most appropriately named "sunset"! :-)
Typical pic of Samuel & I ... he has his little hand round the back of my neck with a FIRM grasp of my hair!
Thursday morning Lyndon very kindly gave me some time out from the kids, so I booked in for a massage! :-) It was such a beautiful setting. Massage was wonderful too! :-)
The view was just stunning.
Looking back to the hotel.
In the afternoon after Samuel had a sleep we all headed to the pool. Aaron & Maddison had dinner by the pool.
We had ours a little later at the restaurant (kids played on the i-Pads!). Every afternoon a local fisherman comes with his catch to the beach, they sound a gong and if you want you can go and choose which fish you'd like for your evening meal and tell them how you would like it cooked. So Lyndon chose one and it was just scrumptious. We also had salad & basmati rice.
I do wish the fish hadn't stared at me though ... especially with it's teeth bared!
Friday we had an early lunch and a taxi took us back to the ferry. We asked if we could stop at this huge eagle statue for photos on the way.

Our crossing back to Penang was actually really good. It was a different ferry and was a bit bigger. We got our seats (in the middle of the boat this time), dumped our bags and headed straight to the top open air deck. We were there less than 5 minutes when we were told we couldn't stay up there and we had to come down! :-( I was gutted. Fortunately though it was a really smooth trip. The kids played on the i-Pads for a bit then Cars 2 movie was showing on the big screen, so they watched that.
I was still relieved to get off that ferry! :-)

Be back tomorrow with the last holiday installment.

Langkawi Part 1

2011-08-02T10:41:00.007+08:00

Monday morning we were up bright and early and a taxi took us to catch the ferry to Langkawi at 8.15am.

I will tell you right now and if you have the chance to go to Langkawi and you or your travelling companions suffer from travel sickness then FLY! Don't even think about taking the ferry! It wasn't a very pleasant trip ... the ferry was packed with people & luggage, it wasn't what you'd call first class (especially after we have been on board!). Unfortunately we were on the lower seating deck and the windows were fogged up, scratched perspex which was impossible to see through. We weren't long into the journey (which takes around 3 hours) when Maddison turned to face the back of her seat and did a major throw up. I had 1 packet of wipes and nothing to catch it in. So you can imagine the state of the seat and her skirt! There was a very nice lady sitting across the isle that got us some plastic bags, so we managed to catch the next lot in that and I used half a packet of wipes to clean up the seat! It didn't help that both Lyndon and I were feeling very queasy as well! I had no sooner cleaned up Maddison's mess then Aaron did a cough and threw up all over himself and the iPad!! Nice one mate! His shorts were so bad I ended up taking them off and he went the rest of the trip in just his undies & tee-shirt! (goodness knows what people thought, but by that stage I was past caring and trying so hard not to throw up myself. I do confess to do some major dry reaching through!) Then Samuel filled his pants and it wasn't easy to find a space to change him with the ferry being so crowded!! (and no I couldn't take him to the toilets, that was a whole different issue which doesn't need to be mentioned on here! uggggh!) Lyndon took Samuel for a walk and found where to go to the top open air deck, so we all ended up there for a while.

When we arrived at Langkawi the kids had a ride on the Porters luggage trolley.

The hotel had arranged a pick up for us and it was about a 45 minute trip to the hotel which is just lovely :-) The first thing Samuel did when we got to our room was pick up the phone and say "hi-eeeee"!
We had lunch at the restaurant overlooking the pool area.
Samuel tried out my peanut satay sauce and found it quite to his liking!
After lunch Samuel had a sleep while Lyndon took the other two down to play on the beach which is a 2 minute walk from our door! Our room is the one with the washing hanging on the balcony.
Path down to the beach.
One of the restaurants
View over pool area from the lobby.
Beach.

Another restaurant by the beach (we had dinner there last night).
The beach is covered in pieces of coral that the tide brings in.

And breakfast this morning! Our helper told me a couple of weeks ago that "Baby Samuel is a photocopy of 'Sir' Lyndon"!!! I didn't realise just how right she was heheheehe Look at the pair of them sharing that bowl of donuts!!! Samuel loves giving a big fake cheesy grin when the camera is pointed in his direction!
So right now Aaron is playing on the iPad, Samuel is sleeping, Lyndon has taken Maddison to the Medical Office to get her head checked and see if she can go swimming and I am blogging! :-)

Logging off now though. Want to find some activities we can do over the next couple of days.

Thanks for visiting.

Penang

2011-07-31T23:38:00.012+08:00

Another photo overload!

We had a good trip to Penang on Thursday. Penang is a small island which is part of Malaysia. There's a bridge between Penang and Peninsula Malaysia ... the kids were excited to cross it :-)

One of the many streets we drove through on our way around the coast to our hotel.
Which is right on the beach :-)
After we had checked in we headed to the beach and did a little exploring!
Especially Samuel ... he seemed to be VERY attracted to the water!
and then once he was well and truly wet came back and got himself covered in sand!
Aaron was very excited with his dinner that evening! Hahaaha ... his favourite meal!
At breakfast Friday morning.
Friday we spent just relaxing at the hotel. Maddison was grounded as far as swimming went for the day as her behaviour left a lot to be desired the previous evening!

Samuel had a tug of war with my hair.
In the afternoon Maddison, Samuel and I joined Lyndon & Aaron down by the pool for an ice cream.
The kids have an awesome little "suite" in our room.
It has a pirate theme.
Samuel ended up just sleeping in our bed, although there was a trundler bed under the bottom bunk in the kids room. Even though he's the littlest one here he still manages to take up half the bed! He's a bed hog!
Sunset Friday night from a BBQ restaurant a little way down the beach from our hotel.
Saturday we went to Penang Hill on the cable railway. We couldn't believe how busy it was! The trains were just packed.
A temple at the top of the hill.
And a playground! :-) Samuel's new word for Saturday was "GO" ... he says it a lot with a twinkle in his eye! So every step he went up it was "go" and coming down the slide it was "go, go, go"! :-)
Very independent - didn't want any help and did it all by himself.
Go!
There was a lady up there making these awesome grass hoppers out of palm leaves. Very clever watching her make one.
Heading back down to the train.
This time Aaron managed to get a spot right at the front ... he was very excited about that.
That afternoon we were going to go to the butterfly farm, but Lyndon and I decided it wasn't worth the effort with the kids! So we headed to the beach instead. I will have to go to the butterfly farm another time.

Lots of tasting going on!
Large holes dug to make it easier to keep little boys away from the water hehehe

This afternoon Lyndon took Aaron & Maddison downstairs while Samuel had a sleep. Aaron played some table tennis.
While Maddison found some microphones from off the stage and was prancing around singing!
Then at 4.40pm our day turned to custard! We were all ready to go out and Maddison was climbing down from the top bunk and slipped and fell back to the desk in their room and made this huge gash in her head. Again I am amazed at how much head wounds bleed! What a mess!!

The hotel was great though and arranged for a staff member to take us to a clinic. Unfortunately when we arrived Maddison just screamed blue murder and wouldn't let anyone look at it let alone touch it, so they politely suggested we go to the emergency department at the hospital. So we head out of the clinic to find that a car had driven into the back of the hotel's vehicle! Thankfully it wasn't damaged very much, but the guy that did it was incredibly rude!

Eventually we ended up here.

Maddison still wasn't cooperating very well! But I managed to get her calmed down a little and at least she had stopped screaming! Once we were all checked in and the paper work done the Dr came to look at her and the performance started all over again! I think the Dr just gave up actually and basically told me that she would have to go to theater and get it stitched as she wasn't very co-operative!
Then Maddison decided she had to go to the toilet, so we deal with that and I have another chat with her and she decides yes she will let the Dr look at it (mainly because I had told her that if it wasn't fixed she wasn't able to go swimming!). But as soon as the Dr came and touched her head, off she went again! Aghhhhh ... I felt like yelling myself! I told the Dr that she's 4 years old, this is her temperament and we just have to deal with it and get the job done. But I think the Dr was scared hehehee So I gave up and came out and talked to Lyndon and asked him to talk to her because I wasn't getting anywhere - the Dr wouldn't even look me in the eye and just kept saying she would have to go to theater. Eventually, after much discussion between Lyndon and the Dr she agreed to try (I think Lyndon told her it was okay to hold her down and just go for it). So I stayed out with the boys and Lyndon went in with Maddison and I think they had 4 people holding her down while the Dr stitched her up (5 stitches) and the entire time she screamed at the top of her lungs calling for either Daddy or Mummy! What a performance!

When she came out of the emergency room's Aaron said to her "did the Dr stitch your brains back in?"!!!!! heheheeee

How I am going to do her hair tomorrow is a whole another story I am sure!

Tomorrow morning (early) we are heading to the ferry to Langkawi, so we are looking forward to that. I sure hope we don't have any repeats of this afternoon though!!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Cameron Highlands

2011-07-29T08:50:00.014+08:00

Before I start ... WARNING ... photo overload!!!

Tuesday we left for Cameron Highlands for a couple of nights. We hadn't been there before but had heard how nice it was. It's a very beautiful & interesting place, but words alone can't describe it and even if the words are accompanied by photos, it still doesn't do it justice. I shall do my best! :-)

We ended up driving to Ipoh and then back down to Cameron Highlands - mainly because of the road (which is very narrow and winds up the mountains) and Maddison and her Mummy get carsick hehehe :-) Maddison did really well though and was only sick once about half an hour before we arrived at our hotel.

We past a few marble quarries.

And one stretch of the road had a lot of these little stalls on each side ... some seemed to be "resting" spots for numerous young men (I have no idea what they were up to!), others were selling things (we think honey and some type of vege - not sure exactly).
And then there were the tunnel houses! I knew there were a lot of them, but I wasn't expecting this sight!!
Acres of them stretching out between the valleys taking up every available bit of space. There hardly seemed to be room between some of them to drive a vehicle. The ground that didn't have tunnel houses was terraced and had plants growing. All land that could be used was!

Then we came to a little township ... and we spied the Land Rovers! HUNDREDS of them! I wished I could have got an aerial photo to show how many there were! Lyndon and I were laughing and decided it was the place to dump old well-loved Land Rovers!!
Watching them drive around the corners were interesting - they drove round on the wall of the tires the suspension was so good! ;-)

I told there was a lot didn't I!
And then obviously when they can't go any further you park it up, take off the wheels and use the deck as a rubbish dump!
This seemly dilapidated building housed stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes. I presume it was a "shop" where the farms purchased their boxes to pack their produce for sale. (I think you would have to wipe off several layers of dirt & dust before you could pack fresh produce in them!)
Once we had arrived at the hotel and unpacked we decided to order room service for the kids dinner (hot dog & chips!) and when they had finished we all went to a steamboat restaurant next door and Lyndon & I had our meal.

If you haven't had steamboat before ... basically it's a soup (we had the non-spicy one ... chicken) and pile in all bits you want from the accompanying plates and cook them in the soup. Greens, mushroom, eggs, seafood & chicken.
I had no idea what half those things on my plate were ... but I ate them anyway :-)
Wednesday we piled back in the car and stopped at this place where there was every conceivable type of cactus you could ever imagine!

And in amongst the cacti were other flowering plants & "Christmas Trees" of all things! :-)
Then we went to a Strawberry Farm. This one was on the way to the tea plantation we were going to and the signs looked great! Great advertising is all I can say heheehe
Entrance to the "animal farm" !! Lets just say that the signage was most excellent! ;-)
Inside ... there was a cage with hens & roosters, one with 3 geese, another with one rabbit and one with 3 rabbits, and then the piles of wood and of course the washing line! hahahaa At least the animals looked clean & healthy.
So we picked strawberries ... well Aaron & Maddison did really.

They had lots of fun :-)
The man that was helping the kids was VERY keen to take a photo of me. I had no idea why and then he asked me to hold my hands up palms facing him! Then he held up the strawberries! Ahh now I understand hehehe
Strawberry ice-cream with fresh strawberries was next of the agenda of course! :-)

I was most amused at the dish washing station!! This photo is especially for my NZ readers hehehe (I was kinda glad I saw him doing this AFTER I had eaten my ice-cream!) ;-)
Next stop was the tea plantation.
Some pics of the road in ... The ferns reminded us of the West Coast in NZ.

Acres and acres of tea.

We walked up a steep track to the cafe.
There were several men along the way harvesting the tea. They cut the leaves with the shears and then tossed them over their shoulders into the basket on their backs.
View from the cafe. There was a little settlement for the workers of the tea plantation. They even had a school :-)
Thursday we left Cameron Highlands and headed to Penang. But that's another post in itself! I will be back :-)

Oh and I have to add that it was about 12degs C colder than back in KL. I know ... I shouldn't complain at 23degs when it's snowing back at both our parents place in NZ heheee

Thanks for visiting.

Turning 4

2011-07-25T17:46:00.007+08:00

Is lots of fun! :-) After the kids had breakfast and were dressed we watched Maddison open her presents :-) Aaron & Samuel helped of course!

Barbie doll from her brothers.
The little present that Samuel didn't want to give up ... it obviously past the taste test hehee!! (It was a new Barbie toothbrush and toothpaste.)
Lots of books.
All hands helping to rip off the wrapping!
WOW ... "Tankchew (that's Thank You in Maddison's speak!) it's my favourite scooter!" :-)

More books :-)
I cheated here ... I was going to bake cupcakes, but ran out of time with everything else I was supposed to be doing (dealing with piles of laundry and trying to pack for our holiday). So Lyndon picked up these little cupcakes this afternoon and I just added the little fairies on the top. :-)

Samuel spies an opportunity when Maddison isn't looking to poke his finger into a cupcake hehee
They disappeared very quickly :-)

Thanks for visiting. I may or may not be blogging while we are away. It will depend on my energy levels! (hard work lounging about on a beach you know! hahaa) :-)

Kid Catch Up

2011-07-22T13:26:00.006+08:00

Photo overload sorry. I have been a bit slack with the blogging, so here's some pics of what the kids have been up to over the last 2 weeks.

Games of monopoly ... and constant calls of "MUMMY come and get Baby Samuel, he's disturbing us"!! :-)

Samuel with a nasty bruise on his forehead ... that's what you get when you climb up on big brothers chair at the dinner table and loose your balance and head-butt the floor!
Last Saturday we spent some time at a toy shop ... they had an awesome Lego display of Pirates of the Caribbean.
Samuel had his first Ferrari ride :-) hehehee
Playing with my sunhat!
Boo!
When you are looking down at him you can't actually see him the hat is so big! :-)
Samuel fast asleep in his new bed. :-) Talking about him sleeping ... we have had some rough nights recently. I wasn't really thinking about what it could be, except he was being a total Mummy's boy! Anyway I took him to my chiropractor and while he was giving him a wee adjustment I noticed that Samuel had 2 new teeth! BIG ONES! Couldn't believe it! One was nearly through and the other about half way. So no wonder he's been a monkey at nights! But I do think the adjustment helped as well (plus bonjella!) ;-)

Roaring like a lion with a face covered in ice-cream!
"Take a photo of me Mummy!"
I have been getting together a pile of baby things to give away. Samuel re-discovered his car and got into it himself! Nice leg work hehee
Yesterday I had a couple of little helpers while I was baking Maddison's birthday cake.
Little Miss Nearly 4 with her cake this morning. She took the cake to school today to share with her class mates as they break for a 2 week holiday today (her birthday is Monday). She chose what cake she wanted from the birthday cake book, but didn't see it finished until this morning. After she had a look she came out to me and said "It's very beautiful Mummy, thank you"! :-) Awwwww

Blowing out the candles at school ... note big brothers hands directing her head! haha
Getting the first piece!
And going back for more mini marshmallows! :-)

So that's about it from here. There won't be much blogging happening over the next couple of weeks either as we are going on holiday :-) Woo Hoo. Looking forward to that. Fingers crossed that Maddison won't get too carsick!

Thanks for visiting.

Kids

2011-07-12T21:28:00.004+08:00

I haven't got anything crafty to share ... no motivation to scrapbook even though I want to! So thought I would share some pics of the kids.

Saturday they spent some time playing games on the iPad!

Sunday evening Aaron was doing forward rolls or something else silly on the couch in the craft room and I have no idea what he did but he managed to whack his head on the corner of my desk! (OWWWWW) We never heard anything and didn't see it as he was in there by himself, but he came out after a few minutes with blood all over his hands! I thought he had cut his hand! Then I saw the back of his shirt and head. It wasn't really bad actually - but head wounds always seem to bleed a lot.
I have been wanting to french braid Maddison's hair for a while. I sure need the practice. Anyway I asked her on Monday if I could ... she needs practice keeping her head still and I need more fingers I think! ;-) After I had finished I took her to the bathroom and showed her in the mirror and she grinned and said "it's like Grandma"!! :-) Unfortunately about 10 minutes after that she came to me and said she wanted it out and in a "pony"! :-( Oh well maybe I can do it every day for 10 minutes just to get some practice hehee
We went swimming yesterday afternoon and the kids had a swimming lesson this afternoon. Both times Aaron has spent time lying on the concrete warming himself up!
Tonight I heard lots of crashing about in the kids room and discovered they had tipped out all the duplo and were building Dora a house :-) Only problem was the room (which was spotless an hour earlier) was a shambles and according to Aaron & Maddison, "Samuel was disturbing them"!

They were very good though and helped me clean up afterwards on the condition I would leave Dora's house out for them to play with in the morning!

Our Landlord has our condo for sale and tomorrow morning an agent is bringing a prospective buyer through. So I told the kids they had to help me tidy up before they went to bed and then again in the morning, because someone was coming to look at our house and maybe buy it. Aaron looks at me and says "are they going to buy our toys?" :-) I said "no they weren't but we had to tidy the toys up so the room didn't look messy". "Oh", he says, "We will hide them all so they can't buy them"!!!! heheheee

Other news ... we have taken the bunks down in the kids room, Maddison is sleeping in the other bed and Samuel is sleeping in her old bed. He thinks he's a bit of all right too! I have yet to get a photo though. We have had a visitor the last few days so at the moment his bed is in our room. When Lyndon gets back next weekend we will dismantle the cot and put Samuel's bed back in the spare room! :-) So far though I think he is sleeping better in the bed - probably because it's wider. He's the spread out, turn around, lie upside type in bed! :-)

Thanks for visiting. Maybe my next post will be something crafty!

This last week ...

2011-07-06T07:00:00.000+08:00

Just thought I would share some pics of what the kids have been up to this last week or so.

Aaron & Maddison have started swimming lessons.

Yesterday was their 3rd lesson. They absolutely love it. I am enjoying watching them with the swim instructor too. They totally crack me up. Aaron spends a lot of time telling him what he can do and how "Mr R..." from his school does things heheee Maddison holds on tight like a leech to him when she's in the big pool and loves playing in the small pool with all the cool toys he has.

Here's Aaron sitting on the side of the pool "negotiating" with the swim instructor (he got a bit cold ... I know it's around 35degs C but the pool isn't heated and when you don't have excess fat you do get cold ... well I imagine you do ... I can't tell you that from experience haha).
He loves playing with this rocket while Maddison has her lesson.
Maddison practicing her kicking ... apparently she needed to take her new "friends" with her!
Told you he has cool toys! I had to make sure that he got them back as I am sure she would have sneaked them home! ;-)
Samuel loves splashing in the pool too!
Having an afternoon snack together on the couch. Samuel thinks he's the bees knees sitting up there with Aaron & Maddison having the same things in a bowl just like them! :-)

I've got new shoes!
They are so good I am ready to go outside any chance I get!
Watch me walk all around inside ... and no I don't want to take them off thank you very much!!!
On Monday I was in the kitchen and this little basket case came wandering along! He'd tipped out the rubbish and popped the basket on his head and thought he was very clever! :-) He could see through the little slats!
Boo!
So that's a little of what the kids have been doing. :-)

Thanks for visiting.

Family Banner

2011-07-05T22:00:00.001+08:00

A couple of Saturdays ago (man time is flying past!) I attended a Crop.Arty at Scrap-n-Crop. Was heaps of fun playing with different mediums. I must say though it was hard work! (That's why the faces are still blank hehee). After we had created the backgrounds to the five pieces of canvas and started working on the people, I suddenly realised there were five so I could do one for each of us. They are hopelessly out of scale ... poor Maddison is the biggest! Oh well ... you get that when I am the one that's creating art! haha

So this is my banner once we had finished class. Left to right ... Lyndon, me, Aaron, Maddison & Samuel! ;-)

And this week I have played some more and added some background stamps on each one. Just to fill in the blank bits a little.

Loved playing with the gel medium (which I coloured yellow) to create the "sun" on Lyndon's piece. And the lace on my piece I used with gel medium on Samuel's one and I rinsed it out when I finished and once it had dried I cut it up to trim my clothes. :-) Funny that I did myself with arms on my hips! ;-) (for those that know me ... they'll know it's something I do a lot haha)

Samuel's shorts are fabric.
I am going to hang this above my craft desk :-) I love that it's bright and happy (even if we don't have faces! hehee)

When I got home after the class, the kids though it was great and spent ages touching all the texture on it, but the next afternoon I discovered Samuel had ripped off the top of Aaron's head! THANKFULLY I found it on the floor so was able to glue it back on! (That's what happens when Daddy isn't watching where he's climbing!!!!)

Thanks Scrap-n-Crop - I had lots of fun :-)

Maddison's Art

2011-06-29T10:52:00.003+08:00

This term Maddison is doing an art class after school (1 hour once a week). She loves it :-) Anything to do with colouring is right up her ally, but I love how this class is taking that a little bit further. On Monday when I picked her up from school she came running with this awesome little tree and held it up with both hands and said "this is for you Mummy, I made it"!! :-)

Amazing what you can create with tissue paper and corrugated cardboard! haha I think the little sign was supposed to say "Save the Trees", but her sign says "Sav Tree" (mainly because she coloured over the E in save hehee).

Apparently the red bits are flowers (I thought they might be apples, but no they aren't!).
I think the fence is very cute.
And I love the decorated tree trunk and the added bits of seeds and pods among the grass at the base of the tree.
When we got back home she took the tree off me and very seriously told me that "Baby Samuel isn't allowed this tree Mummy, I will put it your room so it's safe!" :-) heheee Later I checked and she had put it right beside my bed. :-) It's now in pride of place on our dresser (none of the kids can reach up there (yet)!)

Looking forward to seeing what she creates next week.

Scrap-it-Lah June Challenge

2011-06-24T15:11:00.005+08:00

This month's challenge at Scrap-it-Lah is to scrap about "Thing/s that you can't do without".

I actually spent AGES thinking about what I was going to scrap for this challenge. Mainly because the heading of SiL's blog post said 'Things you can't live without" so I had been focusing on that. To be honest even though I love my family to pieces and it would be absolutely horrible if I lost any one of them, life would still have to go on and I guess you'd find the strength to keep going somehow. (I am sure you all know what I mean.) The only thing I definitely couldn't live without would be my faith, and that isn't something I want to scrap about on here. This morning I decided to have another look at what the DT had done (you can see them here). And I saw the wording of the challenge was slightly different to the title of the blog post heheee ... so I decided to take a light hearted look at the challenge and scrap about my addiction to chocolate! hahaa

So here's my take.

And a close up - all different alphas - the chipboard ones have been sprayed with glimmer mist. Prima bling, Martha Stewart boarder punch and a VERY old Maya Road felt arrow. (Oh I do like using up some really old stuff!) :-)

I inked the edges of the white cardstock with Marigold Distress Ink as well. Oh and the patterned paper is from Studio Calico :-)

Thanks for visiting.

Get Picky Sketch #9

2011-06-23T10:25:00.005+08:00

Get Picky's sketch this month had room for 5 photos ... but I squeezed in 6! :-) Here's the sketch.

And here's my take.

I used a couple of Ali Edwards stamps from her Road Trip set for my title. Saved me thinking too hard hehehe I coloured them with Twinkling H20's.

And another LO done for our 2009 holiday album! I do hope I have this holiday all scrapped before the end of the year! It's taking me forever!

Thanks for visiting.

Look what I found ...

2011-06-20T22:24:00.002+08:00

On my desk this afternoon! Thankfully he couldn't get the lid of the bottle of glossy accents!!!

He's got it all sorted though! Seems to know exactly what to do!

I am sure he hasn't seen me LICKING the glue off things though heheee

Cheeky fella.

I must admit though I did kinda freak out a little at him perched right on the corner of my desk! Mind you there's not a lot of room up there heheee

Thanks for visiting.

Fathers Day 2011

2011-06-19T15:00:00.001+08:00

Today it's Father's Day. :-) Kids were excited to see Lyndon back home this morning (he arrived back from Finland last night after they were asleep).

They gave him their gifts this morning and we went out to Tony Roma's for lunch.

Maddison had hers wrapped in pink and gave him a pink card!

I found these little canvas and easels at an art store and thought they would be cute for the kids to decorate and Daddy to display on his desk at work!

Left to right is Aaron's rainbow, Samuel's fingertip painted heart, and Maddison's swirls of colour! Aaron and Maddison wanted to keep painting after they had done their canvas (it's not very big), so I suggested they paint the easel as well.
Pictures with Daddy and their gifts.
At school Maddison had made him a crown and another card :-)
Kiss kiss!
Samuel just wanted to bite his canvas!
I did buy a few other goodies that the kids had on their list that Daddy would like, but I didn't get round to putting them in a basket - so I just told him they were there to enjoy hehee :-) (Chocolate milk, eggs, apples, coffee beans, and I covered the watch and book by getting a watch magazine!) :-)

Thanks for visiting.

Bath Time

2011-06-18T21:21:00.005+08:00

I thought to myself last night when I was bathing Samuel that I had hardly taken any photos of him in the bath ... and certainly none in the last several months! Poor deprived child! So tonight I got the camera ready and got some pics :-)

He loves the bath and is getting very adventurous! He likes standing up (which is something I don't like!) and he's just discovered in the last week or so that he can lie on his tummy and kick and splash and wiggle up and down the length of the bath. He thinks he's so clever (which of course he is hehee) :-)

Cheeky little fella!

He also likes to put his chin in the water (and I suspect he's having a taste as well!).
See!
Sometimes you get a huge grin from him ...
Other times the splashing can be a bit vigorous and he gets a face full of bubbles and you hear quite a bit of coughing and spluttering. hehee

He also knows the word bath, because when you tell him he's going to have one, he trots off to the bathroom and will tug and pull at his tee shirt and nappy until it's off :-)

Happy now that I have these photos :-)

Thanks for visiting.

A Date & Some Donuts!

2011-06-17T20:53:00.003+08:00

Today while my helper was here I had some time out with Aaron while Maddison was at school and Samuel was sleeping :-) It was sort of a date ... except Aaron chatted away nearly the whole time and I came home with a headache! ;-) He just talked and talked and talked! :-)

We went to a mall and had a look at a few shops ... an Art shop for me, 2 toy shops for Aaron and another just checking out something for Fathers Day which wasn't successful!

We had lunch at Paddington House of Pancakes ... we shared an entree and a dessert :-) I remembered to get my camera out when Aaron's hot chocolate arrived ...

Then promptly forgot about it till we had nearly finished dessert! Whoops! :-)
Blurry photo sorry ... must remind Aaron to rest his elbows on the table when he takes pics so he doesn't move the camera so much!

When we were walking back to the carpark Aaron dived into Big Apple Donuts! He spent ages watching them ice a whole lot then INSISTED that we buy some to share with Maddison and Baby Samuel! :-) (At least he wasn't asking just for himself I suppose!) :-)

So he chose 6 ... a pink for Maddison, a nut one for me, snow one for Samuel and one covered in Chocolate squiggles called Alien for himself, plus a couple of others. (forgot to take a pic of the full box ... sorry)
They went down VERY well :-)

And this little fella thought it was a bit of alright! hahahahaa He had about 1/4 of his one and enjoyed every bit :-) His fake grin that he does at the moment makes me laugh every time!
Tomorrow the kids and I are going to get our craft on before Daddy gets back from Finland! We have a card to make and Aaron found a craft activity for Maddison and himself which he wants to do as well. I will be back tomorrow with photos! :-)

Thanks for visiting.

Things the kids have said ...

2011-06-17T09:35:00.002+08:00

Thought I better get these written down before I forget! Some of these are things I have overheard and others are what they have said to me. :-)

Samuel was chatting away in his language and Aaron turned to me laughing and said "He only speaks China"! :-)

Maddison to Aaron - Aaron can we play Princess and Kings and babies?

Aaron to Maddison - NO I hate that game!

Maddison to me wanting to do some drawing - But Mummy my tummy is hungry to colour.

Maddison to me - I've finished my breakfast ... I'm awesome aren't I Mummy!! :-)

This morning I realised that Fathers Day (over here) is this weekend, so I asked the kids what they thought Daddy would like for a present. Here's their list ... I just jotted them down as they said them. But I had to keep reminding them in amongst all the suggestions that it was Daddy we were buying a present for and what did he like.

Here's what they suggested ...

Maddison - Something Pink (said with a HUGE smile) :-)

Aaron - New glasses

Aaron - A scrapbook - a really nice scrapbook, he'd like that. (hehehee)

Aaron - How about a photo

Maddison - a Camera

Aaron - a book

Maddison - A T-Rex toy, a really big big T-Rex toy.

Aaron - Apples, or a snowman (he saw a picture of a snowman in a story book hehee)

Aaron - A new car ... a Ferrari car

Aaron - Watch

Aaron - Chocolate milk and coffee

Aaron - Eggs

Aaron - That's all! :-)

I am grinning to myself thinking of Lyndon's reaction if we gave him a carton of eggs for his Fathers Day present!! :-)

Obviously some of those things will never be bought for Fathers Day presents (not around here anyway!) hehehee But some of the ideas were good ones - I'll just have to have a bit more of a think myself! :-)

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Scrappin Studio Weekly Challenge

2011-06-16T10:55:00.003+08:00

I'm playing along with Scrappin Studio's Weekly Challenge, which is to use stamps on a LO. As you know I have PLENTY of stamps to use, it's a matter of narrowing it down to which ones! haha

I decided to scrap these pics of Maddison at the beach so pulled out some shell stamps from Darkroom Door. I stamped the background using the bubble stamp from Studio Calico with Antique Linen distress ink, and stamped the words and shells with Pumice Stone distress ink. The words are from Technique Tuesday (large set is an Ali Edwards set).

And I have just realised I haven't journalled on it! Oh well ... I'll get to that! :-)

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Our Boys ...

2011-06-16T09:24:00.003+08:00

I told you Samuel likes climbing up on the dining table didn't I?!! Yesterday Aaron yelled at me to come and get "Baby Samuel" down because he was "disturving me"! hehee

Look at the little monkey perched up there! No problems with interrupting the game! ha

Hummm ... what's in that hat?
And this morning I came out to find the Master Climber up on the table again with a wooden spoon (he helps himself to whatever utensil he fancies from the drawer in the kitchen!).
Hehehee ... he looks like he's giving me a warning waving that spoon at me! :-)
Any ideas on how to discourage climbing? Taking the chairs away works, but if the kids put them back and I don't realise he's up there as quick as you like!

I found out a way to tire him out though ... make him walk down when we take Maddison to school in the morning :-) By the time we get back home he's nearly asleep hehee :-)

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3 More LO's

2011-06-15T15:22:00.004+08:00

Using Studio Calico's May kit Lawn Party (plus some other bits).

Snakes Alive LO also uses some alphas from previous kits.

Special Quilt LO I added the white cardstock, pink rickrack, glitter and velum for the journalling.

Hook I can Fly LO is all from the kit except for the base cardstock and the Jenni Bowlin butterfly stamp. Maddison says "Hook" instead of look! I had to record it somewhere hehee :-)

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What we've been up to ...

2011-06-14T21:32:00.004+08:00

As I have mentioned previously, Aaron is now on holidays (for TWO whole months! gulp). Maddison had a week's holiday last week but was back at school yesterday, so the boys and I took her down. She has moved into a new class and has 2 new teachers, but the same assistant teacher which is nice. She was happy to be going to school when Aaron wasn't ... long may it last!! heheee

After lunch the boys had their hair cut ... Aaron took a pic of Samuel & I :-)
And in the afternoon they sat on our bed and "helped" Daddy pack his bags for his Finland trip (he finally arrived there this afternoon ... such a long way!). (Samuel is chewing on his Blackberry and Aaron is playing on the i-Pad).
Samuel is nearly driving me demented with his climbing! I have caught him several times yesterday and today up on top of the dining table! I am now having to stack all the chairs up together when we aren't using them so he can't push them around to climb up on! At lunch today I found him sitting up behind Aaron ... he was picking up the rice that had fallen on Aaron's knee and was eating that hehee
Little monkeys!
This afternoon while Samuel had a short sleep and my helper was here, Aaron, Maddison and I went down to the mall and they painted a cup and planted a plant. Please observe their tongues! (Does anyone else's kids do that when they are concentrating?) ;-)

Aaron chose a cup with a picture of the earth and a tree.

Maddison's one had 4 flowers on it.
They painted the entire cup though ... not just the picture :-)

Then they half filled them with soil.
I suggested they put the cups in the soil box so they didn't make so much mess!
The ladies put the plants in that the kids chose and then a little bit more soil and then moisture beads.
I am sure Aaron thought that was the best part because they bounced when they dropped on the floor ... so you can imagine that after the first one got dropped by accident there were several more purposeful drops!!!
So many colours to choose!
Then add water ... no Aaron you don't need to overflow it! ;-)

Holding their finished works of art! :-)
We understand that they are going up in the "greenhouse" on the 3rd floor of the mall, so we can go and visit them anytime we like hehee :-) Aaron told Lyndon on the phone tonight that he had to come home tomorrow so he could show him his plant! :-)

Wonder what tomorrow will bring! (hopefully a nap for me!)

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I've been Scrapping

2011-06-11T15:55:00.003+08:00

Yesterday I got some time late afternoon and evening to use some of the Studio Calico May kit "Lawn Party". I managed to get 3 LO's done - all for our holiday album (2009 holiday album that is! Yep still plugging away at that pile of photos!).

There were some tissue paper circles in the kit so I scrunched up 3 of them and sprayed them with co-ordinating glimmer mists to match the patterned paper and pinned them together with a brad from the kit. Everything from the kit except for the little bit of cardstock the journalling is printed on.

Aged 2 LO - everything is from the kit except for the base cardstock.

Playing with the hose LO - everything is from the kit. The butterfly paper in the kit is lovely, but I was feeling very lazy so I just used a couple of Martha Stewart punches to cut punch out the butterflies hehee ... it worked close enough! :-)

Haven't achieved very much today though! :-) Oh well it's the weekend ... time to relax! haha

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There's no such thing as a Gruffalo ...

2011-06-10T08:00:00.000+08:00

Well actually there is! I know because we have one living at our house now! :-)

Yesterday Samuel got a present from Grandad & Grandma (thank you). He liked the card.

And the wrapping paper was extra special heheee (still chuckling about that and no I didn't re-wrap it because seriously what's the point!) ;-)
And here he is ... the Gruffalo. Aaron has the story so that was the choice for bedtime story last night. :-)
He even passed the taste test!
And yesterday afternoon I caught this bigger Gruffalo up on my craft desk!!! He was giggling and chatting to the photos of Aaron at the computer on my wall! I am going to have to put my stool up I think so he can't climb up on that, then up on the desk!

Very proud of himself he was!

Excuse the messy desk by the way ... but it looks like that most of the time to be honest! I only seem to be able to work in a 12x12 space! haha One day I will get round to tidying it all up!

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Scrappin Studio Sketch Challenge

2011-06-09T22:46:00.003+08:00

Jessi has created a lovely sketch for Scrappin Studio's latest sketch challenge. It closes on the 12th so if you want to play along you still have a couple of days! :-) You can see all the details here.

Here's the sketch.

And here's my take. I have used bits and pieces from the Studio Calico May kit "Lawn Party" (including the numbers stamp) and embellishments are oldies from my stash! Funny little photo of Aaron hehehee - it was his school photo taken last year. He sure looks different with short hair!

I sprayed the "abc" with Indian Corn Tattered Angels mist and there was lots of over spray so I just dapped the stamp in and around it and stamped it several times on the page. (I liked how Jessi used the stamp in her LO for this sketch! :-) Thanks for the inspiration Jessi.)

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