I didn' take any photos this weekend

and
i should have. Such a busy time with mum and dad visiting, along with geoff's mum popping in on Sunday.

We had the annual Edwards house mystery dinner on Friday night were all the parents in matt's house get together with the boys get together at various people's homes, moving between courses and with different groups at each gathering. The first time we went when matt was in year 8, we were so impressed with the older boys, very courteous and so willing to take the younger boys in hand. This has continued and now matt is a mentor - amazing.

the most interesting (and slightly embarrassing) conversation happened towards the end of the evening when one of the other year 11 boys introduced his parents to matt a the boy who did the amazing job on his extension English digital presentation, and his parents raved about it. of course we had no idea what they were talking about and looked quite blank. bad, neglectful parents that we were. turns out it is on the net and matt didn't want us to see it until he got the marks for it back. But we forced him to show us (i will try to sneak a copy here next week) and were gobsmacked.

Anyway Meaghan insisted we do earth hour on saturday night much to the horror of my dad who is an enormous swans fan, and it was their first game on saturday night and we weren't really going to turn the telly off were we? Oh yes Meaghan kept from and dad sulked in the dark but we ended up doing him a favour as the swans obviously decided to celebrate earth hour by not scoring at all for the hour we were in the dark. All fun and games.

Henry got this medallion for little aths on sunday morning (again no photos, what was I thinking?) and he was so proud he just about burst. It stayed firmly in place for a few hours until he locked it in a special drawer so he wouldn't lose it before show and tell on monday. Such good positive reinforcement to continue with his running next year.

Up to our noses in parent teacher interviews at the moment, Meaghan's at 3.5hours was a torture session (10 teachers who understandably, really don't have that much to say on first term year 7 girls), Henry's 15 minutes was far more bearable (although we did turn up a day early, but lovely Mrs Barry saw us anyway), and Matt's is next week.

Just sitting here smelling the faintest whiff of rain, so unusual but welcome and of course on the day of the primary school's cross country run. But I think we would all sacrafice the run for any rain at all.

And to finish (well start with I guess) my layout for my very lovely friends at Fiona's long overdue birthday party.

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blaming my latest shopping splurge on Jo

The very talented artist (and very close friend) Jo, came around the other day to inspect my stash of crafting supplies. I think she was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of paper supplies for scrapbooking I possessed and appreciated what a compulsive habit collecting said items could be. We also checked out my fabric pile and was taken a few of the latest fabrics I had picked up, esp the vespa print by Koko.

She also brought around some examples of her beautiful embroidery work with her fantastic ladies faces, so a plan was hatched to produce pattens of these fabulous works (it is print now Jo, so you have to do it!). unfortunately I didn't take photos so Jo will have to put them on her blog (still waiting....).

Anyway after she left, I had to go drop off some large cardboard boxes to the recycling place which just happens to be near(ish) to our local fabric store. I had to drop in too see if they had more of the fabric Jo had so admired, which they didn't (sigh). But they just happened to have some very new and totally groovy medium weight fabric, echino (tigers on flowers, as shown) as well as these fabric panels by Prints Charming, which I have embroidered and will become another cushion to be kicked around the house but at least I get to look at it every day. Not sure what to do with the tiger/owl print yet.

last day of little athletics

Henry has so loved little athletics this year. It helps that he is a good runner but the smile doesn't leave his face from the moment we arrive. The under 6 boys started with the largest group (over 40, eep) but petered out to an average of 15 - 20 pw.
♠
A big part of the enjoyment has been the father of one of the boys took over the coaching every week and he was fabulous. Turns out he is PT trainer at Duntroon and the boys responded so well to his instructions - new recruits and 6yo's must have the same mentality, although I suspect new recruits don't feel the incessant need to touch each other as the average 6 yo has. He was never abusive but taught the boys push up and star jumps and to follow instructions. All the mothers secretly worshipped him from afar. Just by being willing to step in, all the other fathers were encouraged as well, nice not to have to rely on the mothers to do everything.

Henry is now in training (this involves running up and down the driveway) for the school athletics carnival and the cross country, feeling very confident about it all, especially with new shoes (going through two pairs of runners a term at the moment, no idea what he does to them). Love the enthusiasm but as we are onto cold weather sports now, wish I could borrow some of that feeling.

cupcake for Fiona♠

I made this pincushion for Fiona's birthday , a little late but quite a cute finished product. I will admit I cheated a little in that I saw a finished pattern on the web (lots of them actually) and thought I could make my own version. A bit crooked but I say it adds to the charm...

The flowers on top are from a set from Stampin' up and I will use them up very quickly if the current rate of use is any indication.

my new favourite things

I found these last week and I can't help picking them up every time I walk past. The colours are nice and rich and the empty reels are equalling tempting.

Two new web sites I have been admiring, such yummy colours and patterns, think I will have to start quilting again. One girl blog, (nice for baby gear), Amitie (more nice fabrics), both sites found through a blog I have been following for ages, Lara Camerons blog with equalling yummy screen printed fabric.

quick post

Just threw this layout together, wanted to try a newish kit (Read it again) from little dreamer designs by Lauren Reid . Really loving this store at the moment, reasonably priced and stuff that suits bigger boys as well. I have used this antiquing action again and again from here (not on this LO), and on a LO that may be published in scrapbooking memories later in the year (more on that later but quite excited).

experimenting

spent last night playing with the blending modes on photoshop - never realised what they can do but fun trying them out. took a photo of a tree Geoff took on the weekend and three layers of vintage papers at different opacity's - lots of potential I think.

canoing

Here are some of the pictures from our trip down the river (don't know which river though). If you are in Kangaroo Valley and have a couple of hours to kill, then this is good fun (in warm weather that is).

camping

We finally headed off camping with some close friends over the Canberra Day long weekend. can't say I was too enthused about the whole idea to begin with but we survived. We went to kangaroo Valley and just seeing lovely green grass was worth the trip...

We arrived in the afternoon of a perfect Saturday, put up the tents (eventually) and decided it was warm and dry enough to leave the waterproof fly off Matt and Meaghan's tent (regretfully we had to drag ourselves out of bed to put this on as it did indeed start raining just after we went to bed).
After the kids had a great time playing with the fire, we went to bed at about 10, there was a quiet 40th birthday party finishing up in the BBQ area not that far away but most of them were gone by 11. They unfortunately left behind two men who could of bored for England, who insisted on talking quite loudly about how bad work was (using the term micro managed far more than was necessary) and nothing else until 3am! Geoff yelled at them at one stage (resulting in waking up the rest of the camp I suspect), Pete and Michelle resorted to stuffing tissues in their ears and Geoff managed to go to sleep. We were then woken at some very early hour by kids playing tennis next to us - at this stage I was willing to give up[ camping and find a nice B and B to settle into as the weather was also less than ideal.

But we went to Fitzroy Falls, which was a nice walk although we struggled to see anything through the mist, while Geoff and Pete went for a long and sometimes lost mountain bike ride.
The afternoon was spent on the river in canoes which was good fun although the river was down and we got stuck in a few places, but highly recommended. A night in the pub and another fire plus a good quiet nights sleep meant the weekend finished well. We stopped for a quick couple of walks at Bundanoon on the way back home (again hard to see anything as the mist had settled) but overall a good weekend.

finished

After much experimenting on another page, this is the final product of our first class in mixed media (not very good photos I'm afraid but I am a bit rushed today). I am happy with the tree and the birds and it has been good to realise my strangths (not suprisingly, gluing paper and sewing) and my weaknesses (colour choices and painting). Louises' collage was a beautiful autumnal green leaf inspired piece and Jo's was just amazing, I think our teacher is going to put some photos on her blog after the next class so I will have a link - well worth looking.

This class is teaching us how much fun it is to get messy and boy did we get messy last night. Lots of paint in random patterns on paper and printing the result on blank printer paper. these were then cut up and glued into our art journals (more photos next week). I still have paint under my nails. Really enjoyed it last night but I suspect I talked too much (as usual), must remember to listen more...

Have a great long weekend - we are off camping in the Kangaroo Valley which should be good if we can get organised - a long way from that at the moment. xx