TIME

For you Shaggers :)'

Just a couple of layouts that Sharon was hounding me to see. Nothing too spectacular but I really love doing Christmas layouts, probably because I absolutely LOVE the Christmas season. I have a few more in mind to do, as well as a mini book. Just got to find the TIME to do them.

Any readers of Ali Edwards blog will know of her idea of choosing a word to honour during the year. I decided to choose the word 'Time'. this year.
I need to make TIME to do the things I want to do for myself,
I need to make more TIME to catch up with family and friends,
I need to use my TIME more wisely,
I need to spend more TIME playing with the kids instead of getting caught up in the housework and everyday stuff,
I need to make more TIME to spend with Col, one on one,
I need to stop wasting TIME on the computer,
I need to stop wasting TIME procrastinating,
I need to make more TIME for the creative things in my life,
I basically need to find some more TIME, lol.






I've just realised that this last one isn't quite finished, I need to put something in the little name plate, forgot to do that. I think I might frame it and hang it in Ella's room (thanks Ruth for that idea), it's a lift of one of her t-shirts which I love. Any suggestions as to what to write in the little frame will be gratefully accepted. :)


"Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived."
Captain Picard from the film "Star Trek: Generations"

A Year of Promise.....

For some reason this year feels like it will be full of promise, like things will finally fall into place for us, like good things will be happening and like exciting things will go ahead. I don't know why this year feels so much more like that than any of the previous ones but it does. Maybe it's because the kids are getting older and easier and they are becoming less reliant on me for absolutely everything. Maybe it's because I am coming out of the pregnant baby fog that has been clouding me for so long. Maybe it's because I've made a pact with myself to finally get myself fit and to lose weight. Whatever it may be the year is going to be a good one, I can feel it in my bones, lol.

We have had a few dramas at the business. The spare parts manager resigned the night before (yes, Sunday at 8.30pm) we opened again after the Christmas break giving us no notice at all. He said he wanted time to be with his wife who has been unwell but on Friday Col found out he is working somewhere else and had the job 3 weeks before Christmas!!!! That leaves us in a bind as he hadn't finished the stock take and we need someone to finish off that and try to keep on top of things. Col has decided not to get another spare parts person, he will take over the majority of the day to day things but instead we will be getting an apprentice to take up some of the slack off the floor. So that means yours truly is the one that is going to be going in to do the stocktake and try and get some things organised. I'll also be learning all of Emma's stuff as well so she can feel comfortable going on holidays and not come back to a huge workload.

I'm feeling a bit excited at the prospects of going to work and spending time with adults, some time to feel useful again will be nice. I've booked the kids into the childcare centre across the road from us and we have been a couple of times for them to see it and get used to what happens. Ella will love it and has had a ball each time we've been, she is so ready to have something extra. Huddy is not quite the same, he is quite shy and takes a whike to warm up to people but I'm sure he will adapt and will love it in time.

So a few big changes in the Fletcher household already. Keep your fingers crossed that it all works out.

Finally here

Well we arrived home safely from our big trip south for Christmas with 2 sick kids and 2 adults fighting it but we did have a fabulous time while we were there. It went way too quickly and we didn't have nearly enough time to catch up with everyone but we are back in March so hopefully we'll be able to then. I took a lot of photos, so I thought I would just add a collage of them instead of lots of seperate ones. They are from our 2 Christmas days, New Years Eve, Sharon's Birthday, the road trip, Ella's spots and just some of the things the kids did. I know it's small but if you click on it it will bring up a bigger version. I don't know why it doubled p on a couple of photos though.

We had such lovely Christmas days and were really happy we got to spend NYE with our very dear friends the Smiths. I had a great time at Sharon's 40th Birthday lunch, it was great to catch up with her girlfriends and we had lots of giggles. We spent a lovely day with Mum and Dad down the beach and then a few great days with Sharon, Andrew and the kids. The four of them had a ball together, they played really well together and had so much fun. The drive down and back was ok, Ella and Hudson travelled really well and except for the storms we drove through in Central NSW on the way down and the kids having tonsillitis on the way home it was uneventful. So that's a very short and quick update from us. Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year xx.

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.