'twas the week before Christmas and summer holidays have begun!

The Christmas season is truly upon us for Hugh is now on his summer break and I could not be happier! Combine that with we had a really good trip to the Cabrini Hospital on Thursday and Hugh walked out stating, "I think this might work" so we are feeling really optomistic.
Now let's see ... big movie weekend! For my boys LOL! Well Katie got to watch one of the Santa Clause movies and giggled all through that. Den got his Terminator fix and Hugh is now a GI Joe fanatic!

Can you believe how full Santa's beard is now! LOL! Do you remember the photo of Katie putting on the first cotton wool! Now we are down to his hat. It's exciting - FIVE sleeps to go!




Katie and I have been doing heaps of colouring in. She got this massive colouring kit for her birthday - kindly she let me do the leaves!




The kids are into lego (again!) big time at the moment, building forts and the like. I am not quite sure that these are the guards Hugh had in mind but at least he is letting Katie get involved. I think Barbie and the Pocket Polly's do a great job guarding the fort!

Den finishes on Wednesday lunch time and does not go back until the new year. Woohoo! Can't wait to have all my family around. I just intend to laze around, have the odd adventure day out, do loads of reading and be with the ones I love while listening to my awesome ipod.

Today - Sunday - we decided to go into the city as the weather this weekend has been wonderful! A walk along the river was wonderful and scenes like the one below just melt my heart as I am always running to catch up having to stop to take photos.

This is probably my fave shot of the day - Katie was having a blast on the swing.

And what should one do when they see a big hill but want to roll down it! Oh to be a kid again - NOT! LOL!

I have decided to delete my photo blog, centralise everything and make life simpler. Therefore you will see my weekly entry for the photo challenge group. This week Leah set the challenge of "holiday decorations" - I was rather pleased with this shot given my mediocre lens.

Now to this week's scrap pages: Lorriane (aka "neat freak") is in the spotlight at Oscraps. She has an incredible style and it was wonderful to lift her.

My wonderful friend Val is in the spotlight over at digitalscrapcafe - she has an incredible FREEBIE up for grabs, so drop by her blog to get all the details. Here are a couple of pages I did.

My friend Nini has this wonderful template up for FREE on her blog. Drop by and get that one too!

A few scrap pages from Katie's birthday:

Finally, Ange has some new designs out also. Stop by her blog to find out all the latest on her wonderful style. Here are some pages I did.

So this is my last blog entry before Christmas. Let me take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! See you all when the eating and unwrapping is done. Me .... I just long to be with the three special people that make my life complete.

Season's Greetings!

Katie's Birthday!

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. Katie had a wonderful weekend. More photos can be seen HERE.

I am inbetween books at the moment and not happy! The last book I read on Charlotte Bronte was brilliant! I have attempted a couple of Pride and Prejudice sequels but they are just not cutting it! I am awaiting the highly recommended "Cross Stitch" by my good friend Nini. The first in Diana Gabaldon's famed series! And I wait ... and wait ... I want to READ! Come on library ... I need a good book!

All plans are ready for my girl's birthday tomorrow. I can't believe Katie will be five! She has awaited this day for so long knowing it meant she would now be old enough to go to school. I am just going to soak up these next few days and turn the computer off and be present in the moment. Luckily our seasonal shopping is complete .... now just to the wrapping!

I leave you with this week's scrapping! The funny and talented Joanne Brisebois is in the Designer Spotlight this week. She has a great freebie and wonderful challenges to get you into the family story telling mood. I had fun creating my first water pages thanks to a great kit by Bellisae Designs. Finally when I saw Lotta's knitting elements I just had to have that kit. I am so blest to have so many wonderful goodies to play with.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! I know we will. I just hope expectations are not too high!

That Christmas photo ...

I guess I am lucky as the children are still such willing participants in this tradition. However they rolled around and laughed and played so much, just about all my shots were blurry! At least someone was having fun! It was a bonus that one of the designers at Oscraps came out with these FABULOUS glass negative overlays! I just adore this photo below and not only did Christina's overlay rescue it, it made it look good LOL! I just love this moment, Hugh is such a tender little boy.

As to the rest of the photo shoot, it went mostly like this ......

With a good one snuck in every now and again ;)

I just love the month of December! And here is some of the fun I have been having recording the events ....

Have a great week everyone!

December one: it's HUGE in this house!

I could not get over how excited Katie was for this day to come around - almost as big as December 25! And here is why .....

Where is that number one chocolate on the advent calendar? And the second front tooth fell out so let's happily sing "all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!!"

I made this advent calendar for Katie ... make Santa's beard and then he will come "not long now Mum?" And did she dance! Literally flew around the house to carols!



The serious business of the nativity scene assembly.

The confusion of the tree assembly.

And the ornaments that bring back so many memories .... Den and our first Christmas together in 1997.

Handmade ornaments from younger years and ornaments from friends in far off places.





My battle with too many ornaments on the one branch! (scrap therapy page to follow)

And finally the last piece of all, the star placed atop the tree. Quickly followed by the very important catalogue search of toys on toys on toys!

Would not have it any other way!

Loads of yummy things!!

I have loads of goodies to share with you. The first is this incredible album above! Trust Leiko to put a fire under me and encourage me to create my second only ever album. Ohana Quick Page album is easy to use, I completed in an afternoon and was loads of fun to go through this years photos. Please click on the album to view.

Ange has some wonderful new designs out. The first is a collab kit that can be found at Two Little Pixels. How fun is this kit! This page below is just an expression of my frustration with the commercialism of Christmas and how expensive everything is the children have on their wish list. Hugh says I should not worry, "cause Father Christmas is paying for it all"!!!!

Ange also has this superb range of wonderful Chrissy elements.

This page below is used with Ange's part of the Digital Crea freebie. Here is the link be sure to go and grab yours **LINK**


Below is my page for Nina's CT challenge - loads of fun this game. If you would like to see more and be in the run to win one of Nina's kits ... CLICK HERE.



Natasha has some fabulous new templates. Makes scrapping fun always. I thought it time to document our "infamous" cooking days.



Finally some Oscrap news this week. Spotlight this week is on Mystique Designs, drop by and pick up your free mini kit. Here are a couple of pages I did.




Finally ... my poor girl. I know ... lol .. always got the camera out. Katie seems to have been in trouble a lot lately. This day I think she almost picked every iris in our backyard. I promise you I did not tell her off, but I think the look of shock on my face said it all. Here she was standing at the back door, hands full of flowers (for me!) and upon seeing my face she burst into tears. I think this photo is "OMG I am in trouble again" but the lesson is mine - as this page says, I have to learn of the happiness in imperfection.

This is why I LOVE my boy!

This is what greeted me on the kitchen bench this morning. The last of the OJ in the "love" mug, my hayfever tablets and this note: "To Mum the orange juice is for you. Love Hugh xxx"

*sigh*

The weekend that was .....

It has been a rather busy few days. Friday night came along and we shouted ourselves a dinner out at the Indian restaurant once more. Den bought along a bottle of red that had been a gift. Nice gift ... that with the 'butter chicken' had me in culinary heaven.

Saturday came around and I had four items on the agenda. Boot Camp was canceled - TG! Next stop was our local community Christmas celebration. I LOVE how they do this - it is sponsored by our local shops and they close off the streets to have free activities. Have a look at the kids faces .... what had them so enthralled?


A stage production - outdoors - of Madagascar! It was loads of fun!



Then as that drew to a close, who should Katie bump into whilst walking down the street? Look at the expression on her face!

We then were lucky to be at the short end of the queue for face painting! Rather fortunate as Katie had a fairy party that afternoon - now I would not have to do her makeup! She loves going to parties as I do her hair and make up and she gets to use "all Mum's stuff"!

While we girls face painted, Hugh and his best buddy Nathan were off at the free sand art!

After a short break at home we then headed down to our local park where they had a festival running. Den has been promising Katie an ice cream all week. With the weather being so hot the "Mr Whippy" van has been cruising along the streets after dinner and Katie had been promised.

After a trek home once more, it was time to prepare for the fairy party of our neighbour. Katie had been counting the sleeps and even when dressed was eagerly scratching at the door awaiting the time of departure!

Saturday night the change came through and the heavens opened up! Katie wanted to go out then and there but it was too late. So Den promised the next day (today/Sunday) he would take her out to play in the rain! LOL! Hugh and I watched from the dry indoors!

Now to this weeks scrapping news .... click on images for credits.

I seem to have been scrapping winter and snow all week! Very hard! I am all wintered out, longing for summer and my kids have never seen snow. Here is Natasha' contribution to the Shabby Pickle collab - about as close as Katie will come to snow for the next few years!

My good friends Annika and her sister Maria are in the Spotlight at Oscraps. I did a couple of lifts below. The one below uses the wonderfully talented Nini's free mask from her blog!

Nina has a couple of new kits out and some fabulous templates, makes scrapping such a breeze when you have the template for inspiration.

There is a new Oscraps collaboration kit out. For the month of November it is available at Daily Digi and will come to Oscraps in December.

Below is my page for the Oscraps "quote me" challenge for November.

Finally a couple of fun pages using designs by Sue Cummings.

Thanks for looking and have a great week everyone!

I know ... but I could not resist!

I know I just did a big blog post below, but I could not resist this post. Yesterday when I was meant to be reading I instead spent the afternoon taking these shots. It was a warm day and Den gave the kids a bucket of water to play with. This quickly evolved into a full scale water fight/play/loads of fun! I had downloaded Ange's free mini kit (gorgeous! GO HERE to get it) and wondered what photos to use for the collage?

Thanks kids! I now had my photos! And thanks to Den for installing water tanks. For you see the water situation where I live (yes! In a major city) is so dire that "playing with water" is now unlawful. Gone are the days of running gleefully under a sprinkler or shooting each other with the hose unless you catch your "own" water. TG we do and can wash cars, water plants and "play".

(click on image for credits)

See all the photo HERE at Flickr.

Some fun pages and FREE QP with a challenge!

Summer weather has hit this past week with every day over 30C - LOVE IT! Katie and I ventured to the shopping centre on Friday - blah! No car parks and not even December yet! Sheesh! I HAVE to get all my shopping done before December as shopping centres become a "no go zone" for me after that! We collected a few items, none the least of which were this years chocolate advent calendars for the children. Katie almost hyperventilated when she found a Night Garden one! She does not even watch the show but has a thing for Iggle Piggle because he is cheeky! Standard ol' cars for Hugh as the only other option was Ben 10 which he (thankfully) is not into.


I finished my "Sahara" book that I was mightily impressed with - so much better than her first book - the story got very real for her. Moved onto this book seen below - award winner that everyone is raving about. I lasted 50 pages until I gave up! How to explain? It's Australian, it's stereotypical but there is always that element of truth to stereotypes, however, if this is the "real" Australia give me a rock to hide under! Like the dreadful movie we watched last night, this book held such potential but I did not like the characters and could not cope with this masculine narrative. Call me an old prude I don't care! I just don't wish to read language like that - sounding more like my mother every day ;) So I have gratefully fallen into Syrie James. Totally ADORED her first book on Jane Austen and can't wait to escape into Charlotte Bronte's world.


Each night at dinner we have "sharing" about our day. Hugh presented this poster the other night that he had completed at school. Reading his list made me happy :)

Now to scrapping news - remember all credits are found by clicking on the image! Natasha has some new WA out! And I could not resist another play with her latest kit being inspired by the incredible talent that is her CT!

Last week was DSD! Oscraps had a chat which I happened to fall into last Monday afternoon, what a hoot! It was fabulous! One needed speed reading to keep up with it all! Katie wondered what was wrong as I did not acknowledge her for an hour as one had to stay focused to catch all the humour! Anyways, I downloaded and played with some of Joanne Brisebois's designs! Such a great girl and I adore her stuff. Here is what I came up with using her goodies:

Selena is in the Rocking Girl Spotlight (link to blog in my sidebar). New challenge at that site with free WA to collect. I did this list last year but thought it warranted another viewing ;) using Nina's amazing designs.

Leiko has a fun new kit out "A walk in the park" - I liked doing this page.

Ange has a new kit out "Growing Up!". I helped out some with the WA and the colours are wonderful. Stylish as ever is our Ange.

Now here are a couple of things you will want to check out! First Ange is running a challenge on her blog and giving away this quick page below! If you use the QP you will be entered into the draw for a fabulous prize! Check it all out at her blog HERE!

Nina is also running a challenge at her blog with the same deal! FABULOUS QP giveaway and a chance to win! Check it all out at Nina's blog HERE!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!