Some crafty stuff

I decided to make Ella & Huddy a Christmas Stocking that I got from the Trimming the Tree workshop by Kim Archer and got a little carried away. I ended up making all our friends one as well, they looked very cute hanging on the Christmas tree. I also made MUM & Dad and Col's Mum a little ornament to hang on their tree although I'm not sure if they will really want to have a photo of us on their tree, lol. They are a nice little extra to their Christmas present and I think they will like them.

Here's a couple of layouts I have done for the Scrapbook Princess, I found the first one really hard, it took my a while to work out what I was going to dd with the fancy pants crochet flowers that Melinda gave me to use but I'm happy with the way it turned out. The "play" layout is done using a transparency over the top of the patterned paper with strips over the top of that. Love that photo of the kids all playing under the play equipment, a funny little thing they do each week at the park.

This is a mini book I did using a foil, flock and glitter kit which was great fun to use. I had to rush to finish it so it's not fantastic but I loved how the glitter and foil turned out.

and finally a couple of layouts I did before the Christmas rush started,one using the gorgeous Making Memories 'Noteworthy' range and the other using the new MME range.

Funny!!!!

I found this the today while looking on YouTube (love that site!!) and thought it was really funny so I had to share with you :)

A Christmas Tradition...

We went into the City on Saturday with our very dear friends, Kath, Mark, Ruby and Max to see Santa, ride the Santa train in Myers, look at the Christmas windows and see the HUGE Christmas tree they have at the end of the mall. The kids were so excited and Ella was rambling on about visiting the 'city' all morning although I'm sure she didn't really know what we were going to do, lol. We also had our close friends son, Nathan staying with us as well which the kids were very excited about as well. We talked about the train on the way into the city and Huddy was very excited about it, especially since he has been asking Santa for a 'train' each time we have seen him (about 8 times now, lol) but when we got there and it came to getting on the train he got really upset and decided he didn't want to go. Ella was more than happy to get on and go, a different story to last year where she was strapped in and burst into tears just as the train took off. The only train Hudson went on was the one out the front where we had to wait for Santa, he was more than happy to get on that one!!

I was a bit disappointed with the Christmas windows this year. The theme was from the book "Uno's Garden" a book by Graham Base (of Animalia fame) and even accounting for not knowing the book, I found it really hard to follow the story. The animals in the story are all make believe - made up of parts from all different animals but without knowing the story we had no idea as to which each one was. The animation was fabulous but the storyline left us at a bit of a loss unfortunately.

The City of Brisbane has a beautiful enormous tree set up each year at the end of the mall and it really is beautiful. They have a gorgeous Santa in a sleigh being pulled by the reindeer's which is made out of very thick wire and glass (I think), it looks lovely during the day but lit up at night it is gorgeous!! Rudolph even has his red nose too :) Thre are angels all the way up the mall too, so beautiful.

We did this little trip into the city last year too and loved it so much we decided it would become one of our little Christmas traditions to do each year. We had a great time and had a lovely meal at one of the restaurants in the middle of the mall so the kids all had a great time running around, a really lovely Christmasey night!!!!

Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree........

We put up our Christmas tree last weekend, the kids were both so excited and wanted to do it from first thing Saturday morning but had to wait until Sunday when we actually had time to do it. They both had such a great time hanging the decorations on the tree and discovering all our Christmas Decorations again.

We told them they had to wear their Christmas hats to decorate the tree and Ella kept hers on the whole time, Huddy wasn't quite so good at leaving it on but I think they both looked so cute in them.

The finished product and two very proud children :)

Where does the time go???

I can't believe it's been a month since I blogged last, the time is just flying past - only 19 days to Christmas, another year nearly gone and I feel like ti was only 6 months ago we had last Christmas, *sigh*.

We've had a busy month with visitors and my Mum and Dad staying, it's been crazy but good. The kids (and Col and I) loved having Mum and Dad here, they came for a quick trip for a week which flew by but we had a really lovely time with them. Col asked Dad about a month before if he would like a free lunch, of course Dad said yes, Col then told him the proviso was having to come to Brisbane for it, so they did!!! My Father will do anything for a free meal, lol.

We went to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens at Mt Cootha which was a first for us as well. The gardens are beautiful and very inspiring. The kids had a great time feeding the ducks and turtles and exploring everything.

It's hard to believe we are in the middle of a drought by these photos, everything lookes so green and lush. They use recycled water in the gardens and it all looks so beautiful.

This is the magnificent Japanese garden, so perfect and beautiful.

The view from the top of Mt Cootha of the city.

This was taken at our work Christmas lunch - the free lunch they came for, lol. We went to Sirromet winery and had a magnificent meal. The food was beautiful, the service excellent and the atmosphere fun.

We took Mum and Dad up to Montville for the day and had lunch at a restaurant just outside of Maleny, the view of the Glass House Mountains was spectacular.

From Ella and Hudson's point of view, one of the best reasons for having Nana and Poppy to stay is the stories they read to them. They will have story after story if they let them. It's a lovely thing to see them all cuddled up on the couch reading books.

How cool is this!

Sharon was telling me about this really cool scrapbooking stuff called Grungeboard the other day, it's so cool and looks like it's much more versatile and easier to use than good old chipboard. I thought I'd share with you all.

Check it out.

Couple of layouts.

Just thought I would share a few of the latest layouts I've done. I've been very slack since my scrapping weekend away, I had great intentions of keeping the mojo going but I've been so , so tired lately and just don't seem to have the energy or motivation to do much scrapping at all. I'm about 10 weeks behind on my art journal challenge with Emily Falconbridge and I have hundreds of photos to scrap!! SO I am making a concerted effort to get motivated!!

Here's the few I have managed to do anyway:

Feeling old!!

I used to nanny for the family of the trumpet player in this band, The Cat Empire- Harry . We just bought their new album and I love it, such fun funky music. It makes me feel really old though to see Harry up there playing his trumpet, he's a very talented young man!!

More...

Here's a few more photo's from our day up in the hills, it's so beautiful up there and if it wasn't so far away from the business we would seriously look at moving there, we both loved it so much. I had been to Maleny for our girls weekend away but not Montville and I wish we had of headed straight to Montville, it's such a pretty little town with lots of cute and quirky shops to wander through. Next time we have visitors we will definitely be taking them up there for a look.

We took this one of all of us by self timer but it's a bit dark, it was late in the afternoon. I thought I would include it anyway as it's not often we have a photo of all of us together.

Sisterly Love???

Ella has been going through a very loving stage, she wants to hug and kiss us all the time, sometimes with a little bit too much passion. I love that she wants to do it as does Col but I'm not sure that Huddy does. I took these photos on our day up to Maleny/Montville for Col's Birthday. The cafe where we had lunch had a cubby house in the garden which was perfect to keep the kids happy while we had lunch. Ella decided she needed to give Huddy one of her hugs and kisses while we were there. He already has the "get off me and leave me alone face" of embarrassment, lol.

My poor Hubby!

It was Col's Birthday on Wednesday but yet again we were a house of sickness :(. Ella and I had some horrible tummy bug and she spent Tues and Wed vomiting, and I felt like crap so Col's birthday was a huge non-event. I don't think the kids even realised it was his birthday as we decided to postpone it until Sunday when we are all feeling much better and he is home for the day. The kids and I have been shopping to get his presents and they are very excited about his Birthday on 'Sunday" lol. I hope we can make up for the horrible day that was his actual birthday.

So if you read this before Sunday, give him a call on Sunday to wish him Happy Birthday, he'll wonder how on earth you know, lol.




Oh as an aside, I just wanted to say I'M SICK OF HAVING SICK KIDS!!!!!!!!! We have had such a bad run of sickness the last few months I think we have well and truly had our share so NO MORE! thankyou very much.
Ok I feel better now I got that off my chest, lol.

Our little Artists.

Ella ia really enjoying her drawing at the moment and has started doing drawings of people that you can actually decipher as a person instead of doing a head on one side of the page and eyes on the other (not in the head) and feet/arms/ears etc, elsewhere. She is very into drawing all of us at the moment and I am loving it. I thought I would share a photo of her artwork, it's got the whole family in it, including the two cats, lol. She had done individual ones of all of us prior to this big one and was getting sick of it by the time it got to Huddy and the cats.


Thought I should also share a photo of Hudson's artwork too, he loves drawing as well and I can't wait to see his interpretations of us in the future.
Excuse the crap photos, the drawings are hanging on the wall in the kitchen where I can't get straight on so I've had to take the photos from an angle which makes the drawings looks a bit odd.

A Wonderful weekend away......

I had an absolutely fabulous weekend away!!! It was a beautiful spot, the house was perfect for a large group and for scrapping, the food was yummy, the drinks plentiful and the company superb!!!!! What more could anyone ask for??

I managed to be quite productive with the layouts (well for me anyway) and finished 8 of them as well as a starting a mini book so I'm rapt I did more than the last weekend away. One of the layouts included a really fun challenge by Sharon which was a round robin where we each started our own layout with a photo taken on the weekend by Megan of ourselves and then passed it around the table, each having only 10 minutes to add to the layout. All the layouts turned out fabulously and I love mine - it's the one with smile on it. The talent there on the weekend was phenomenal and really inspiring for me, I've come back with a renewed energy for scrapping, I just hope I can keep the mojo going.

I missed the kids and Col terribly while I was away but I must say it was nice to only have myself to worry about and organise and it was wonderful to be able to wake up by myself each morning instead of waking up to yelling children!! I think having some time away makes you more appreciative of everything you have and it helps to renew your energy as well. Hopefully we'll be making this a 6 monthly event, I can't wait until the next one, lol. I didn't take many photos at all on the weekend and none of all the girls really but I thought I would share some of the ones I did take, it was such a pretty area, so green and lush looking thanks to all the rain they've had up there lately - so beautiful. Also I've finally checked out Picasa and wanted to have a play :). The last photo is of all the work done by us all on the weekend - not bad hey!