The Undie Tree

The elder two children really dislike putting up and decorating the Christmas Tree - Matt's girlfriend Alex was far more enthusiastic about the whole thing this year than the other two - Henry still enjoys it although is very easily distracted by just about anything really.

Anyway, when Alex bought her chrissy presents around this year for us (including my guaranteed best present for this year, which she insisted I open - more of that later), Meaghan whipped up an impromptu tree with anything she could lay her hands on. I'm not sure how long I looked for the duct tap she had in the infrastructure before I gave up and fixed my slowly dying vacuum cleaner with sticky tape - not ideal!

Anyway, to get the lush green look, she delved into the pile of clean washing i had yet to sort (ok, nearly a permanent fixture in the family room) and came up with Matt's undies - and so the Undie tree was born. It's shelf life was limited by the inclusion of a real banana- but it did last for quite a few days. The kids were very disappointed to have to pull it down.

Inspiration for this Lo came from Em's Page Drafts Blog - so many great sketches to choose from - go check out what the talented bunch of Girls did for Christmas!

And these are the great presents Alex made for me for Christmas -

She has Matt's crossed arms attitude just right - I told Matt that if they ever broke up, I may very well kick him out and adopt Alex instead...

Coming into summer, this is the first house we have been in since Matt was a baby, that does not have Air Conditioning (it deserves capitals!). And with limited blinds, and very limited greenery outside, it seems so much hotter. Upstairs is unbearable, downstairs slightly better. Matt landed home with 5 friends yesterday and Meaghan turned up with 3 more. At least two of these had pools at home but chose to swelter here instead - crazy...

Geoff is trying to arrange air conditioning to be installed as soon as possible - although this is the worst possible time, hopefully we will get it before the end of summer..

Anyway, as my blogging has been less than stellar this year, I will take this opportunity to say Happy Christmas, hope you get all you need and have a peaceful New Year! xx

You May have Noticed...

or not noticed really, (silence from my long departed readers) but I haven't been a big presence on the net lately. I have kept my hand in at The Lilypad scrapping and checking out Facebook but that is all I can be fussed doing at the moment.

The reason boils down to our new house I think - ok I know. Don't get me wrong, I love our new house, it is  all we could hope for(almost - no pool- sorry Jo..)  and I was afraid that if I blogged before this I would just be complaining and I have absolutely no right at all to do that. I will say only this my life now consists of waiting for plumber, builder, blind installer, telephone/internet or just about any other tradesman you would care to name. Just about all good guys but waiting for someone between the hours of 8-2:30 or 12-5 which is the closest most can get with appointments - eats up most of my days. Tree men coming tomorrow to charge enormous amounts to clear power lines of branches.

But all worth it for our new house, more importantly or new way of life which actually involves socialising here - at home - anytime- with friends - anytime. It is so cool.  We have never been able to do that before.Our neighbours, who moved in while we were renting, are proving to be a bad influence with a steady flow of alcohol and children for Henry to play with.

 Downside is I've had to actually do housework - who knew it could take up so much time??

Anyway, here are some pages I've sort of done about the house -

                                                             the front entrance lights

 

Henry walking through the kitchen -

 

Henry in our spa bath

which is in our ensuite that looks a bit like this

 (with Henry apparently holding Meaghan Hostage in the bath..)

Yep, gives you very little idea what our house looks like yet - sorry. I have been neglecting photos lately, unforgivable. 

And on a happy note (@!#$!!) this is the second attempt to get enough tiles to finish our flooring, only had to wait 8 weeks for them - right near our entrance -

Not quite enough - again - and that may be the last batch that match the rest of our tiles - fun times ahead sorting that not so little problem out. 

So to any readers I have left (possibly none) thank you for coming back, I will try harder (but don't hold your breathe)  - I may just be saying that to myself though...

Panic now..

24 days until we move - so much to do still and the timing will be tricky. And the day we are planning to move, Henry has a party (good) Meaghan is babysitting (she's not that impressed but needs the cash) and we have a trivia night (should be fun if we are not too wiped out).

We have had a bit of a nasty week here healthwise  - i think the house building is taking it's toll. Geoff ended up in Emergency with chest pains on Thursday but luckily they think it was just stress with work and the house. I had a bad cough and ended up straining (tearing?) a chest muscle which I am just getting over. I also had a fun 24 hour blood pressure monitor on (last check up, my BP was high for the first time ever - see house stress above!!) but the numbers it was putting out seemed to be around the normal mark again so that's ok. Kids are well (and ignoring the house still although Meaghan is getting desperate to see it now).

So in honor of this, a couple of house Lo's (all these are for various challenges over at The LilyPad) -

 and then to realise that instead of all this stress, we could be having this trip instead - sigh..

Only joking (partly), we know we are going to love it, almost there - we are feeling it is just like having a baby.Although instead of people patting my stomach, they are driving past - although it is nice that everyone is taking an interest.

Back to my panic attack now..

xx

Get Creative Guest spot

You know how much I love the Get Creative challenge site and I always have fun when I guest there - this month is no exception!

Irini, clever lady and one of my favourite people, has come up with this very versatile sketch -

and I have come up with this -

One of the better weekends we have had camping - weather was kind to us and we were meters from the beach.

Would love to see what your interpretatin of the sketch will be!

Meaghan's friend Nada had a birthday over the weekend (so did Matt but more of that later) and she asked me top do a couple of pages for her ( I love it that Meaghan actually likes the stuff I do enough to give to her friends) and I came up with these couple

She hasn't seen them yet so hope they are ok (well too bad if they're not..)

plus she wants this one I did earlier in the year -

And the big event over the weekend (no, not Geoff's insane sister visiting, that was a highlight for different reasons...) but our boy turned 21!!

He chose a quiet day at home with us and Alex, his long term girlfriend, lots of presents, a nice family day - in between us running to  soccer and the house a couple of times) and then out to his favourite eatery for tea. back for malteaser covered cheesecake and then the unveiling of our major present for him. Alex is off next year studying in England for 6 months so we will pay fro Matt to go over there at some stage to join her. He was momentarily disappointed it wasn't an axolotl 

but quickly got over it... (guess what he is getting for christmas??)

We will also throw a party for him once we are moved, more for us than him I suspect...

Time to do some pretend housework

xxx

A few new pages

Been enjoying hanging out at The Lilypad over the past few weeks - had a great one hour challenge last week - very hard when you are trying to chat at the same  time but got this one done

Meaghan and her adoring (and adorable!) little cousin Holly.

 

This was for the random challenge - something you are proud of. This was easy, after  my lifelong fear of clowns - esp those that live in street drains (ha Stephen King - you have a lot to answer for!) we went along to Slava's Snow show and it was the most magical theatrical experience of my life. Just fell in love over with it. When the show was finishing, the clowns tossed huge inflatable balls into the audience and just hung around, enjoying the scene. the main clown sat on the edge of the stage and slowly people came up to him to thank him including Meaghan and I. Wow-  talking to and shaking hands with a real live clown - and I survived to tell the tale (too often I suspect..). 

And this one was for Pink Reptle Designs template challenge - mmm love Mirjam's products, one of my favourite designers I think.

I will admit I am just adding to my blog posts so I can avoid housework and grocery shopping but I can do so no longer. Have a good one. xx

Red part 2!

Earlier this month, Another Freaking Scrappy challenge had a fav colour challenge and I chose Red - at the same time Get Creative has a Red Hot challenge where all your accents have to be red - suits me! The end result is quite pared back for me.

Matt and Henry at The Melbourne Museum earlier this year - This didn't last very long BTW...

And for those few wondering, we have 8 more weeks of rental house before we move out, so hopefully house will be ready by then - I am just waiting for the house to be at lockup (promised many months ago - although maybe a bucket of water holding the door closed counts as secure..) to post pictures on the other blog, just a bit aware of how vulnerable the house is at the moment - they are still working on it every day - the painters and the tilers are in at the moment.

Just a sneak peek of the kitchen, still deciding on the feature tiles at the front of the bench...

Yummy shiny dark chocolate side panels...

Starting to talk to Garden designers this week - starting to get real now.

And Meaghan still hasn't seen any of it yet - such a stubborn character.

Expecting snow here on the weekend - a bit exciting if it happens - very rare occurrence. But as is tradition, one of my brothers is coming to Canberra and the temperature always seems to be setting record lows whenever any of them turn up...

And Child's Play is having a DT call, go apply, always fun challenges happening there!

The Last One...

Feeling a bit sad because this is the last challenge up at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge. But I am grateful to have been on the DT for such a long time, I really enjoyed the challenges Anne came up with.

So come and play along, it's a sketch, which we all love!!

 I did like the way mine turned out this time - thanks Anne for all your work over the years. xxxx

Last week, I managed to get third place in Em's Page Drafts "Be Bold" sketch challenge with this page (one of my all time fav's!) -

 And I won a voucher from Sissy Sparrows - so much yummy stuff - so I stocked up and have come up with this for the Painted Nest challenge this month -

An old photo from one of the best New Years we have had. We were in a small Vietnam and they had a huge celebration - all the brides from the previous year got to parade in their wedding gowns and then there was a big concert in the middle of town. We bought Henry a balloon, he loved it so much, it had to be deflated and packed away for the rest of the trip.

Have a good day, bit wet still here but I love rain so all ok..

xx

Willy Wonker

Nice short post today, feeling very lazy...

It's my very last design team Lo for Child's Play - and it is based on one of my favourite kids movies - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original one of course, although I have come around to the Johnny Depp version).

and here's mine

Have just spent the week away at Mum and Dad's - lots of driving but a fun time with lots of badminton and minigolf - and then back for dinner with friends - a nice first week of the holidays.

House is being painted - looks good so far - will have pics up soon.

ok, off to play with photoshop now. xx

Red

And boy, do we need the warmth of red here today! It is lunch time and the fog hasn't lifted, 6 degrees and not getting warmer. Henry is home again with a cough, the last week of term is always hard, esp as Meaghna started her holidays last week. Looking forward to having the holidays next week.

Anyway, this is all leading up to Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge for July

What is your favourite colour?  Why?  How does it make you feel?  Or make a monochromatic layout from your favourite colour - or journal the challenge or both!!

Red is a favourite colour of all of my family and it wasn't hard to find a variety of red based photos. And using elements One Little Birds Click kit. Completely different from my usual style but fun for a change. 

At the moment, I am enjoying living in Deakin, one of the main reasons is the abundance of bird life here. It is only one suburb over  from our usual abode but the birds seem to prefer here. Granted, there is a large dry eucalyptus woodlands that Deakin backs onto but the parrots seem to love the exotic trees that line the street, mostly pin oaks.

We have a bird feeder out the front, made for smaller bird but the cockys spend hours trying to balance on it, eventually grabbing a beakful. they also try to bite through the chain, and failing that the tree it is attached to - very funny to watch!

Time to get back to house stuff, it is not a fun time of the build with lots of little decisions to be made - although turning up yesterday and finding the laundry joinery in and the kitchen cupboards starting to take shape.

have a good and warm day xx

Lovely wet winters day

Nice day to stay indoors to play, which I managed very little of. However I did get to go have a yummy lunch with friends at the National Library. And then on to our house to discuss tiles - hopefully some issues will be sorted by tomorrow...

The one page I did manage today was for Em's Page Drafts. Celebrating lots and lots of Facebook followers. Who doesn't love her sketches???

Using this sketch - (very funky as always!)

And the theme of  "Be Bold" - how could I go past Meaghan, who is turning into the most self assured teen I know - sometimes in a good way, other times painful and occasionally scary (although not really scary..).

I have used a kit I have been needing to use for a while - Fluent in Sarcasm by Captivated visions - as well as some Sissy Sparrow's Catching Dragons and the title is using a fav of mine CD Muckosky's Markerific.

And over at Child's Play, I thought it was my last challenge on the DT, but happily, have read my calender all wrong, so have some more to go.This week, we have a yarn challenge - winter and knitting go hand in hand for me so how could I go past my latest project - and the cutest sheep I have seen for a while - from Valorie Wibbens (yarn Snob). The background is a bit flat for me - sigh.

And to top off my day nicely this Lo using Michelle Godin's Love and Light kit -

was chosen as a gallery standout for June  - yay!

More rain for the rest of the week, so hopefully will play some more. We needed the rain so doubly happy about that. Hope you are dry and warm where you are. xx

Soccer and sickness

Well, winter has well and truly set in here. Meaghan (who has hardly taken a day off school for illness and has never been on antibiotics) was struck down with a bad cold, right at the start of testing week (of course..). She lost her voice for a few days - a bit of a novelty as she does like to express her opinion, quite loudly, esp when she has her headphones in - which is most of the time... all ok now.

Henry then got the same cold but ended up at Accident and emergency at 4:30am on a very cold Canberra morning due to asthma getting the best of him. Geoff volunteered to take him, so I manned the phone with relevant info from our cosy bed. It was only a mid attack so he was back home by 7. Still home from school  now but improving.

All this meant he missed his beloved soccer on Saturday - but at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge, I used this sketch

To make this LO

about his soccer playing this year. Henry has leapt in confidence and is happily taking shots at goal, sometimes scoring (I had previously only missed three games of soccer in his short career and he had scored goals on each of those occasions, no other time, just when I'm not there!) But I finally got to see him score a couple of weeks ago, fun to see them celebrate afterwards.

And the house is getting scarily closer, I know that sounds odd but we have so much to do (and so much more to spend...) before September, it is going to be full on. Now that it is nearly at lock up, we have no idea if things are happening inside. We drove past on Saturday, debated whether to go in because it looked the same as last week and it had been raining all week but to our surprise the garage was full of newly derived tiles, and then walking past the family room, we spied this -

 No balustrades yet but nice and solid.

And the first of our internal doors has gone in  -

They will all have the grooves on them, yet to be painted. It's all happening so fast now.

Once I work out where Geoff has put all the photos he has taken, I will update the house blog - sorry to bore you with it all here...

Must go do housework now, at least this house is nice and small, doesn't take long to clean.

Have a good one and I hope those of us in Aus/NZ are avoiding the worst of the bugs going around xx

Busy week

It's all happening here - Matt started a new part time job today, Henry plays in his band publicly for the first time today, Meaghan starts her first major exams next week and the house is flying along. All good stuff though.

I have been managing to get a few scrapping pieces done, firstly this one for Get Creative -

 using this months colour scheme -

And a couple for The Lilypad's June challenges -

Apparently Henry is my only child... (it is hard to pin the other two down to get a decent photo, will try harder...).

Quick post today, off to watch Henry's band now. None of them had played their instruments before this year, the first performance is both exciting to see the progress and I will admit it, sliight dread as their is  need for some ear protection for the odd wrong note.  All good fun and by next year they are suprisingly good.


Have a happy long weekend if you are in Australia, we have a couple of soccer games so will stay in Canberra, maybe a day trip some where. xxx

The Proposal

Ok, we have finally settled into the newest temporary house - it is small and falling to pieces but it is warm, the kitchen is a decent size, the showers are acceptable and we are so close to everything now. I am a convert to this suburb (esp with  major roadworks still happening just near our old/new house).

 The rebuild is back on track and will be finished by September or possibly sooner (we actually don't want sooner as we have a lease here until mid Sept and our budget needs those last few weeks to get some extras done on the new house. (budget has taken major hit with unexpected site works, and major services on both cars, sigh). Anyway, it is stuff we have bought upon ourselves and the house is looking pretty good. Front door goes in this week (fingers crossed) and the internal walls will be finished as well.

 

 Henry looking completely thrilled to be dragged through he house - again....

this is the kitchen and behind that wall is my lovely walk in pantry.

Ok, onto more interesting things. Anne, at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge,  has come up with a wonderful challenge this month, document a proposal, whether it is your own or another persons, tell us a story. I have chosen Geoff proposing to me, with the wrong ring. All turned out well in the end..

I was tempted to tell of my first proposal (actually had forgotten about it until now - that's how significant it was) - I actually can't remember the blokes name - or if I was ever told it... I was moving to Brisbane to live with Geoff and some friends up north. We were selling everything that didn't fit in the back of the car including the washing machine. A young bloke turned up straight from the bush - hadn't been in the big smoke before (Wagga in the 1980's apparently counted as the big smoke as it had more than one set of traffic lights). He had never used a washing machine before and asked his Mum before buying it how to get one to work - "find a wife to use it for you" was her oh so helpful answer.

 So the young man took this advice seriously, and popped the question while standing over the machine. I laughed, thinking it was a joke, but no - he thought it was worth a try, save him the hassle of looking around I guess...

 An opportunity lost, sigh.

I hate moving (warning - text heavy post)

Oh Yeah - that's right moving is truly awful, and this time we couldn't just up and leave and have all our mess smushed into a bazillion pieces - so that meant some intense cleaning - and more cleaning and then more cleaning - sigh...

We got the  keys on Friday, had the movers Saturday and picked up most of the rest on Sunday. Inspection was Tuesday morning and I spent much of the intervening time and my hands and knees, scrubbing. It wasn't even that dirty but I didn't want to miss anything. Tuesday night I came home after 9:30pm and collapsed in a blubbering heap in bed...

Our manger was only young but any dusting, cleaning I may have missed, he either pointed it out for me to run a cloth over or he did it himself. Last inspection (granted it was 20 years ago), we had a cow who pulled out the white gloves as soon as she walked in, didn't bother checking the pre rental condition report and tries to charge us because a couple of light fittings were dusty - which was an improvement on the greasy state we found them in).  

We are still waiting to see if we get our bond back, there was a big water leak a couple of months ago and the carpet in Meaghan's room was pretty much ruined - not our fault and we rang our property managers many times, so Geoff will hit the roof if they try to pin that on us.

The new rental is about half the size of our last one and we were feeling quite depressed about squeezing in here at the start of the weekend (and the fact that one light was permanently on, several lights were blown, the garage with 70% of our belongings were stored didn't lock as promised and the laundry door didn't have a key). But now that some of the boxes are unpacked, I put my own lock on the garage - go me -  I am more than happy at it's smaller size - less cleaning at the end and easier to heat over the next few months.

And Meaghan is walking to school and it only takes me less than 5mins to drive Henry, I am enjoying it.

So now, we are having a procession of tradesmen through this house to fix the problems and I am slowly unpacking, and getting rid of more stuff. And the Internet speed is faster, so am a happy camper for the most part - although I still need to spend half my day resting, still getting over the weekend...

Ok, onto the good stuff - two challenges began last week.

first Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge is another good one - tripping down memory lane -

What did you want to be when you grew up? 

 A doctor? A fireman? A nurse? An astronaut? A mummy??

I of course wanted to work with animals. I didn't know girls could be farmers then, otherwise that's what I would have wanted, although in hindsight, I would not have made a good farmer - I hate mornings..

And Child's Play has a skipping rope as inspiration this week. None of my children skipped (the thought of Matt attempting anything as coordinated as skipping would have been amusing to watch - does that make me a sadistic mother??) so I just used a skipping girl image.

Now I just have to work out how to get our digital photos etc photos from our off computer storage, it's not letting me at the moment. My plan to spend the day  digi scrapping could be somewhat hindered by that...

have a good one, back to normal blogging soon. xx

Old and New

Get Creative's latest challenge is to redo your earliest scrapbooking efforts - same photo   

but updated LO. As all my photos and pages are packed up, I went to my first Digi attempt. I didn't know how to resize anything but I must have known about layers and stamps and that's about it. This one was done in 2006.

 And my updated version. Coincidentally, both Lo's were done entirely with freebies (although The Lilypad's Freebies, Jump for Joy, from their Facebook hop are just superb, love them, all still available if you follow their designers on Facebook)

 My latest style is a bit (lot) messier then the original but lots more colour and movement. I have done some Project Life Lo's, week by week for the start of the year (God bless Digital photography for making that easier) and they are much more structured -

 It's harder than it looks ( that's a slight lie, I used a template, so physically it was dead easy but mentally, being tidy - such a stretch for me...)

We finally signed a lease for our new rental, lots closer to both kids schools and bus routes - all good (ignoring the fact that Geoff will take longer to get to work..). Only for 5 months fingers crossed.


It's finally starting to feel cold here, had the heater on for the first time this weekend, love that dusty smell first time they are fired up. Our next rental will be over winter so hoping the heater works well. Seems to be ducted to every room, so vital in Canberra's winters.


Ok, back to sorting more junk to be thrown out - how do I accumulate so much stuff?? Getting easier to get rid of things now, Hopefully by the time we move into the new house, the Purge will be complete.

Have good one. xx