A Woman and her boys

I've made the move

2008-02-07T20:48:00.000+13:00

SO I have taken the plunge and moved to wordpress you can find me here

My photo for today is over there too. I am still working on getting it looking great. See you all there.

Waitangi day/day 6 of the photo thing

2008-02-06T20:54:00.000+13:00

We had a nice kind of quiet day. We went to Bunnings and got some rope for the swing and to fix one of our roman blinds. Then we had a nice lunch out. Isaac must have been exhausted because for the first time in his 2 years he started to fall asleep in the high chair. Steve was just about to go to the car to get his stroller when the lunch arrived, perfect timing. And a delicious lunch.

I have been working on a layout that is taking longer than I had hoped. It is using photos from back in 1997 way before digital cameras in our house. So I am working with 3, 6x4 photos on a double 6x12 layout. I am getting there but it has been challenging.

So my photo for today is in the spirit of Waitangi Day. This lovely koru stone sculpture is one of 2 we have sitting by our front door. They were Steve's 40th b'day present from his parents.

Isaac is saying some very cute things at the moment. His language is so amazing for his age, well I think it is anyway. He counts "1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10" He tries to say the alphabet but misses ALOT. He sings about 4 songs/nursery rhymes all the way through. But the cutest things at the moment is that he is trying to figure out the world around him and especially how it relates to him e.g. while driving in the car he will say "Mum, is that my car, is that my house, is that my truck" or "hey is that truck a truck, is that bus a bus" or "hey I hear a plane, Mum do you hear a plane?" and likes looking at photos and asks lots of questions "is that Tobyn, who's that Mama, is that me?" and just tonight he said "that my sausage, Isaacs, me, mine" and the way he says it is just too darn cute, I wish I could keep it forever.

And lastly I will leave you with this comment from him

"Is that the moon,(pointing at the sun) pop, caterpillar hungry"

I am sure you all know where he learnt that one.

Tobyn has a HUGE smile on his face!!!

2008-02-06T08:33:00.000+13:00

My regular morning e-mail check showed an anonyous comment on my blog. When I read it the writer says she is Rick Riordans wife, the author of the Percy Jackson book. My cynical self isn't sure if it really is, but it is possible. Thanks to blogstats I know that the visit came from San Antonio, Texas, which is where Rick Riordan and his family live. Anyway, it doesn't matter because who ever the wonderful person was, they have made Tobyn's day!!! He believes that is who it was and he really does feel like a HERO today.

So THANKYOU from the bottom of my heart!

Brrr

2008-02-05T17:23:00.000+13:00

Well I have to say I am pleased with the rain, but the cold can just go away, I am not ready for it yet. So my Day 5 photo reflects how I am feeling today. Lets just hope it isn't needed for another few months yet!

Isn't it funny what the weather can do to you too? I am working on a layout which has snow in it!
LOL.

Tobyn had a better day today. Thank you for all your kind thoughts and comments. The hardest thing for Tobyn is that these kids are supposed to be his friends. I spoke to his teacher this morning to let her know about theincident but also just to touch base and tell her I was impressed with the stuff he bought home last night. She is going to be a great teacher! Easy to talk to, open and honest, and great with the kids. Tobyn will have to really have to put head down bum up this year, but I know he can cope and we will support him all the way.

I made Isaac a lunch box up this morning and he thought it was very cool. It means that he isn't constantly whining at me to go into the cupboard. He can choose when he wants to eat his snacks, sandwiches and fruit. If he eats all the favourites first well tough bikkies honey. Right now everything is finished and tea is on the way but he has just started to nag me, hmm maybe I need to put a couple of extras in tomorrow. We will see how it goes.

I have a meeting tonight so the year starts with a bang! Have a lovely evening everyone and I will be back tomorrow. I am actually really enjoying blogging every day, especially when I have a photo to talk to as well.

1st day back at school and Day 4

2008-02-04T19:41:00.000+13:00

Tobyn was back at school today. He started off the day well! Did his jobs without being asked and was enthusiastic to get to school. He has a tough, nice teacher. She will push him which is something he needs. When I picked him up from school he initially said he had a good day and then said "not really,R______and T_______ teased me about the title of my book. Now how can you tease someone else about the name of a book they are reading? And the title is "Percy Jackson and the Titans Curse" what is there to tease about that? Grr, frustrates the heack out of me! Tobyn seems to be a bit of a target for this kind of stuff. I think because he reacts. We are trying to teach him not to react the way he does. Laugh it off.

Isaac and I had a good day filled with groceries, cleaning, lunch, Little Einsteins, a sleep (for Isaac not me!) reading and then picking Tobyn up. All morning Isaac kept saying "where's Tobyn" he does miss him!

My day 4 photo....

This is what we had for dinner tonight. Fajitas, yummo.

So....I am frustrated with blogger. It is great for everything except replying to comments. So many times I would like to personally reply to some of the comments I get but..alas not possible. So I need some help, because you are all so great at these technical things. I would like to know what I do with my stuff on here if I change blog provider? I want to archive this blog somehow. Does anyone know?

Thank you all for your lovely comments in the last couple of posts!

Janine/angelgurl, thank you for the positive vibes. Sometimes it just helps to know people believe in you.

Ilka, Kaila and family have not yet decided what part of Auckland they are going to live in. They know that they could afford to buy in Pukekohe but it is a long commute for Glen. Their other option is to rent in either St. Johns or Ellerslie. They move up on Monday and will have a couple of months to have a good look around and decide what they will do.

Janine W you are so sweet and thank you for the lovely comment about my photos! And my condolences to you and thanks for your wisdom.

Kelly, my Mum gave me whole lot of photos of me in early years when I saw her last. it is good to have them and funny to look at them!

Hannah thanks for the faith!

Beverly, 17 is way too young to die!!! That would be one of my biggest fears for my children! My brother died at 18. Not from cancer, but I saw what my Mum went through, and is still going through many years later. In many ways I wonder if this was part of the cause of my parents relationship being torn apart.

Righto, gotta go spend time with my darling. We don't have many nights where we deliberately spend time with each other and tonight is it. So that means, no computer, no reading, no scrap booking, but maybe we might watch a movie and snuggle on the couch.

CYA.

Day 3 and some layouts.

2008-02-03T20:41:00.000+13:00

Firstly catch up for last night. Who would have known there are so many fake it 'til you make it people out there. Maybe everyone is a little like that? Yes it was OK and I tried to fake it but my good friend asked me if I was OK as soon as I walked in. Damn I am not good at faking it. After that I was OK. I found someone I kind of knew and started chatting and then another friend arrived and all was fine. I got to know a couple of new people and found out about a photography course that I am really interested in. Only downfall of that is that it costs $1500. Worth it in the end I am sure. It was sad to say goodbye to Kaila, but I know that I will see her at the Lake later in the year. Any Puke people want to make a new friend? They are considering buying there. Initially the University will pay for them to stay in a hotel until they find a place to buy or rent.

Now onto day 3 of Janine's 29 night challenge. I was going to try and not have photo's of my kids in this challenge but this was just too cute not to use. Isaac pulling a silly face. copying the boy in the book. This is the first time he has actually tried to copy the silly face.

I have been busy doing layouts this weekend. Any spare moment I have had I scrapped, oh what bliss. And I have to say I am pleased with the results. Both these layouts are for challenges at Scrapbook Essentials

This one is for the fortnightly sketch challenge. This was a cool sketch. I have used almost all an old line of basic grey, color me silly.

The 2nd one is for the Friday night challange at SE Megan gave us a choice to go back to a previous challange we haven't done. Well I had a lot of scope because I haven't done any since the big ultimate scrapper challange! So this one was to use a photo of yourself or DH as a baby/toddler/child or teen. I used a photo of me when I was 13. You also had to use embroidery thread, buttons and a template. I LOVE how the layout turned out. Another one for my BOM.

Tobyn is back at school tomorrow and I think he has had too much fun, he doesn't want to go back.

We have been to a 67th b'day party this evening. It was a big affair. All 4 of Jennifer's children were there and it was so cool for her. She has been fighting breast cancer for a few years now and she could really go down hill any day now. So to have all of her children home was so cool for her. I have been friends with her eldest. Norman, since we were 18, so it was great to see him for the first time in about 5 years. Norm and Roddy live in Manchester, Kath in Melbourne and Eileen in Auckland. Unfortuantely the next time they get together maybe for Jennifers funeral. As someone else said on a blog recently, Cancer is a Bitch! I don't normally talk like that but it is the best way to describe it for me right now. I have not had to see a family member or a friend have to deal with this horrific thing. Jennifer my prayers and thoughts are with you and your special family.

Day 2 of 29 nights

2008-02-02T18:37:00.000+13:00

On a roll, 2 down 27 to go.

Todays photo was another challenge because someone has played with the settings on the camera and all my photos are coming out really dark. So this photo I have photo shopped to get it lighter.

Tobyn got a milkshake maker for christmas and is enjoying making his own chocolate milkshakes. He came up with a new recipe because we ran out of nesquik. So he decided to add chocolate yoghurt instead. I think he is happy with the result but would rather have the nesquik.

Thank you Angela for your guide to adding links. Now lets see if it worked.

I am going out tonight and I don't want to go. A friend is leaving for Auckland and there is a farewell for her tonight. I don't think I know anyone else going. It is woman only and we are to take a plate. A lot of her friends are through her daughters school and they are mostly SAH domestic godesses. I am nervous. I know in the end it will be fine, but I really don't like these situations. Wish me well.

29 nights - DAY 1

2008-02-01T22:38:00.000+13:00

Janine, aka mummymoo (see link to the side, if only I knew how to put links with names here!) Has set a challenge. A photography challenge. The idea is to take a photo every day for 29 days. Hopefully by focusing on the little things every day my photography might improve and I might get some cool photos to scrap. Unfortunately my first attempt is pretty lame. I don't like taking photos with the flash and I haven't got the brain to think hard about setting up a tripod tonight.
So I thought a bit and tried a few shots. DH was very confused and not all too happy at me taking photos of him with no top on the eliptical trainer. He also wasn't happy about the shots of his feet. So what I ended up with is a photo of how the living room looks after the kids are in bed. Toys in the toy box, blackboard clean and the rug straight. But if I turned a half turn around and took a photo of the family room, well thats another story LOL. DH is still confused about why I would want to take a photo like that and put it on my blog. He suggested I take an arty photo of a puzzle...not tonight my dear my brain is fried.

So here it is DAY 1

I've been busy

2008-01-31T20:33:00.000+13:00

I've been busy enjoying the last week of the school holidays. The sunshine is so lovely. I remember in past years where the sun has started shining almost the day thekids go back to school. Not this year it has been fantastic ALL summer. We have had th epool up most afternoons and I have even got in a couple of times! We also went down to the school pool the other night, lovely but Isaac gets cold very quickly, even with a wetsuit on! Tobyn has had swimming lessons every day this week and his technique is coming along nicely.

I have also been busy creating! I started 2 of these layouts while we were at the Lake house last week and today I finally finished them.

This first layout is for the monthly challenge at http://scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz/ I am really happy with how it turned out. I wanted it to be feminine but not too feminine, hence the pink/blue/brown colour way. This photo is one of my most favoured memories from the past Christmas. Isaac and Nana's awesome relationship blossomed while she was with us. Unfortunately when she moved on to the other cousins Isaac wasn't happy. It appeared as if he was punishing her because he wouldn't give her the wonderful snuggles and 'chats' he had been.

The next layout is mainly using the Jan SBO kit. I have also added a few other bits and bobs from my stash. I have been trying to use some older photos and some of my older stash. I have so much cool stuff but I tend to forget about it. So I have been having a rumage and a play. The photo on this layout is my 9 year when he was only 3 months old and I had propped him up in the corner of the cousch to get a photo.

This layout is using some bits from a couple of SBO kits buit mainly my old stash. Tobyn is 5 in this photo. I am so glad to have this scrapped now, a very cool story behind this one.

On a slightly different tack....I am worried about my Dad. He is only 64 and is being put into a home. I don't have a particularly good relationship with my Dad. For those that have read my blog for a while you will have read a post last year about this. Briefly for the newbies.....my Dad left my Mum when Tobyn was only a few months old. I rushed down to Chch, concerned for my Mum. Dad went his own way and didn't and doesn't contact his 3 children or 5 grandchildren. He also has no contact with his sister and old friends. He has diabetes, high blood pressure and had a heart attack Jan 2006. Basically he is not a well man but he has been coping on his own until now. My brother lives in Chch as well and so he is the point of contact. Currently Dad is in hospital and has had a psychological examination. The psychologist says he is unable to care for himself. I wish I could help but I know that there isn't much I can do. Dad has lost his identity, esteem and will to live, because of choices he has made. I will go down sometime this year and take the boys to see him but other than that I don't know what else I can do. I have been thinking of making a mini album or calendar with pics of us. It could be something he could look at and see what he does have. I wish I could get him to realise that he is the master of his own destiny and when things go wrong it isn't everyone elses fault! And I believe that he could help himself and live a few more good years yet. I love my Dad, he is my Dad after all. Like Tobyn said to me this morning how can you hate someone that is your family? You love them unconditionally.

To put Tobyn's comment into perspective. A conversation Tobyn had at swimming with another boy I will call P.
Conversation had while Isaac was leaning against the pool calling to Tobyn.

P: "is your little brother annoying?"
Tobyn: "Not really, sometimes"
P: "Do you hate him?"
Tobyn: "No"

then to me after relaying the conversation

T: "How could you hate him he is my brother, he is my family. I love him, he is so cool and cute"

And Tobyn I love you!!! I love how you adore your little brother. I love how you love him unconditionally. I love how you play with him and help him to learn. I love how you are excited to see him everyday. You have a huge heart don't ever let anyone change that!

15 Years

2008-01-24T14:07:00.000+13:00

15 years ago yesterday, on a lovely sunny summers day, Steve and I were married. Our 10 year anniversary seems like eons ago yet the weddings doesn't seem that long ago, weird!

Steve had planned for us to go away overnight. Well actually he wanted to go for 2 nights but I couldn't get my head around leaving Isaac for 2 nights the first ever. We went to the Lake house and had a great few days. We had friends visit and Steve's parents arrived on Sunday. It was pretty wet a lot of the time but that doesn't make it any less fun. On Tuesday we got 'dolled' up and off we went. We explained to Isaac what was happening and got him to bed before we left. I felt a lot happier because he had had 2 full nights sleeps prior to us going. The night waking was the thing that concerned me most because he is a Mummy's boy at night. So I left not feeling too bad about it. BUT it felt weird going on a 'date' with Steve for the first time in at least a year. We have been to parities and do's where there are other people but not on our own. We must change that this year!!! So from here on in it was a surprise. We turned to go towards Huka Falls and Steve says sorry we aren't going to Huka Lodge. I had no idea what was out there. Then I saw the sign for Wairaki Resort, NICE! A lovely treat. We checked in and then went out to Huka Falls Restaurant and had a delicious meal. Next morning we enjoyed a wonderful cooked breakfast and then headed back to the Lake House. The boys had been fine, Isaac didn't wake an they had had a lovely morning together. When I gave Isaac a cuddle he didn't want to let go. We celebrated the actual day over a lovely lunch at the Jack Nicklaus golf club. A lovely day all around.

Now we are back home and back to normal. Shopped for the school books today and the kids got bored! But I did something special for Tobyn. Tobyn often asks how he can help protect animals and the environment and we talk about basic things he can do. Well today we took it a step further. WSPA were in the plaza so we signed up. So my PIF this week goes to all the animals around the world that are treated terribly. Tobyn is so excited to have done this. We also talked to the guy about how Tobyn can help in the future. When he is 16 he can volunteer at SPCA and then he would probably need to do some sort of Vet sci or environmental studies at Uni, but that is a wee ways off. At the moment he wants to be a Dairy Farmer, much to every ones surprise! Grandma said he would need to be a gentleman farmer due to his disdain at being dirty!

A few photos from the last few days.

The boys are having fun with their imaginations at the moment. Here they are pretending Tobyn is a dog.
Art at Kinloch. Water colouring and Game making was the order on this wet day. The little girl is Arna, she has been Tobyn's friend ever since they were babies. When they were about 4 they were going to get married. But now Arna says Tobyn talks too much, LOL. They are more like cousins than friends. We have spent many holidays with them, a big reason for the closeness was because they were only children for so long together. Now Isaac is like Arna's little cousin too and he ADORES her!!!

Isaac has style.....??? This morning, before he got out of his pj's he decided this was what he would wear on his feet today. Daddy's sports socks and shoes that are 2 sizes too big. Stunning!

I LOVE........

2008-01-17T21:35:00.000+13:00

A few random things that I love this week....

Polite men. The man in front of me at the ATM today let me go before him, saying that is how he was brought up. So sweet.
Cheap avocados so I can make scrummy guacamole, mmm.
Catching up with long lost friends. Steve's best man and his family came for dinner on Tuesday. We hadn't met their youngest Jonathon and he is almost 4. But the best thing is that it is like we saw them yesterday. The kids got on so well and had a ball running up and down the hill. Playing in the grass and chatting. Tobyn and Stephanie sat down the hill in the long grass chatting for about half an hour.
Pumpkin Patch outlet. I got 4 items for $40! Gotta love that.
Isaac singing. He just starts singing just about anywhere, it is so cute. His favourites at the moment - Twinkle, Twinkle, he can sing the whole thing!; Row, row; Jingle Bells; Elmo's Song - adding Mummy, Daddy, Tobyn, Cookie Monster and Big Bird into the song; and Mrs Bunny.
Tobyn enjoying playing card and board games. He is initiating a lot of the game playing at the moment and I love it. It is great quality time and he is semi happy if he doesn't win. What I mean is that he doesn't get mad and upset when he doesn't win like some other children I know.
Fresh produce from our garden. These are the first tomatoes. And they taste so delicious.
The new SBO kit! It is so gorgeous. Trina and Donna did such a great job putting this one together. What I love the most is that it will do lots of boy pages. Quite a few of the earlier kits are quite feminine and I find them harder to use.
Summer. Though not the hot sticky nights.
Tobyn's random thoughts. The other day he came to me and asked me how big was 6 cms. I showed him and he said "Wow that is how big the Mammoth wasp is." Well I wouldn't like to come across a wasp that big!
My Husband! Next Wednesday is our 15th wedding anniversary! I told him that because I organised something for our 10th it was his turn to do something for the 15th. For our 10th I got his parents to look after Tobyn, who was 4 at the time. I booked The James Cook Grand Chancellor Hotel in Wellington. I didn't tell him where we were staying until I drove into the parking building. I had also booked tickets to The Rocky Horror Stage Show. So this year it was up to him. I didn't think he would get up to much, maybe a dinner out. Mainly because Isaac is only 2 and we haven't left him overnight with anyone else yet and he is not sleeping well. Steve has been very secretive and I am not good with not knowing!!! I knew that we were going to The Lake house for 5 days and I knew that his parents were coming for some of that time. But I was feeling very nervous that maybe he was thinking of an overnight without the boys. So I had to prise it out of him and I am glad I did. So yes we are staying overnight somewhere, just the 2 of us! I know I will find it hard but it has to happen sometime, right?

So there you have it, some of my favourite random things and thoughts this Thursday evening.

Our backyard

2008-01-13T15:05:00.000+13:00

The last few days we have been filled with visits from cousins, movie outings, gardening (in Steve's case) and 'photo shoots'

I thought I would try and photograph the 'activities' Tobyn picks out of the box, bit with much success! Tobyn really has to be in the mood for photos and when I tried to get this one he tried to hide in Isaac's tunnel. But I took the photo anyway and photo shopped it to take away some of the blueness, it looks OK, I guess as good as I am going to get with Tobyn sometimes.

So as you can see he drew out 'get an ice cream' Tobyn is not an ice cream in the cone kind of kid, he prefers the sticks. His favourite ice cream on a stick is a choc bar.

Yesterday he got to go to town to spend his pocket money. He wanted a board game but it was $30 more than he had. Instead of waiting and saving up the $30 he still wanted to buy something. He decided he was going to get a plastic knight and the Hercules DVD. When he looked at the price of the DVD he said 'That is ridiculous, I am not going to spend $40 on a DVD, I can get it cheaper somewhere else' Yep that's my boy the bargain hunter. He also decided with the knights that it was better to buy the Papo brand rather then the schleich brand because they were at least $5 cheaper, LOL. After lunch at subway he wanted to go to Kmart to see if they had Hercules cheaper. Unfortunately it wasn't cheaper. He then spied a 2 DVD set that was $32, 'That is really good, 2 DVDs for that price is really good aye Mum?' So he ended up buying Prince of Egypt and Road to El Dorado. And he is very happy with his purchase.

Steve has been busy bush whacking the backyard. We have a large section, not lifestyle property size but bigger than your average section. Half of it is in wild grass. We are tying to get it to a point where we can start landscaping it. The idea is to have paths meandering down the hills and opening out to areas where we can sit and play. A large willow is a feature at the moment and we have swings and ladders in the tree. This weekend Steve attacked the long grass. What a HUGE job it is too. Before he got it all cut I wanted to try and take some photos of the boys in the long grass. Tobyn wasn't very co-operative in the beginning but he came around towards the end. I don't think I got any worthy of the wall but we had a lot of fun anyway. Here are a few of my favourites.

Here what Tobyn looked like in the beginning.

And here is a nicer photo but unfortunately it is blurry!

There are lots of nice photos of Isaac, but unfortunately I found it hard to get the light just right. I need to try these again early in the morning when the sun is going behind not coming down from the house.

I did not ask Isaac to pose like this he just did it, model in the making?

The next couple show Isaac personality really well. He is a happy, relaxed fun kid most of the time!

Isaac the cowboy, grass stalk and all.

This last photo from that shoot shows how the boys are together. They get on so well and are often laughing together. It is so nice that they have such an awesome relationship!

This last photo of Isaac wasn't taken in the same session but it just goes to show that he is not always the perfect model. At this time he was like NO WAY I don't want any more photos taken!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, 'til next time, ciao

Because Hannah asked!

2008-01-09T16:34:00.000+13:00

First of all I am seriously thinking of changing my blog provider. I really would like to reply to comments and with Blogger I can't. I wanted to thank Trina for your lovely comment about my header.

And Hannah always leaves such lovely comments! And I often want to say something!

So Hannah, this one is for you. My friend was on the editing team for the inaugural issue of Everywhere. He let us all know about it and asked us to submit our travel photos. If it weren't for him asking I would probably not have submitted anything. I actually got Steve to choose a whole lot of photos from my trip with my American friend Sunny last year. Out of about 12 photos this was the one chosen.

This magazine is an offshoot of an already successful photography magazine called JPG. How it works is that people are asked to submit photos on certain themes, a bit like scrap book mags. You join the site and upload your photo with info about it. Then the community votes on the ones they think should be in the glossy magazine that is then printed and released. As well as the themes they also have the 'postcard' section. In this section there will be a variety of photos from around the world.

So in answer to your question about your photos.....ABSOLUTELY! Give it a go. We have such beautiful scenery here in NZ it is hard not to take a good photo here! And the bonus....you get paid.

A whole lot of random stuff

2008-01-09T14:12:00.000+13:00

I am making the most of the time the boys are watching a video. I love wireless broadband, laptops and comfy couches right by the TV and DVD!

Just some random things I have been wanting to blog about.

First of all I have been creating, as you can see by my new blog header. I have also had a chance to scrap! I had this photo sitting on my desk and I figured I should get it scrapped while it was there. I am really happy with the layout. It is using the Dec kit from SBO and I will upload it into their gallery soon. If it wasn't a Christmas layout I would have submitted it for consideration into a mag.

In scrap booking world and the Internet there is an idea around the place about having a word for the year. I haven't done a lot of research into the idea, as I understand it all originated from a book someone read. Anyway I like the idea and my word for this year is RISK. In the past when I have taken risks it has helped me grow and like myself more. So I have many things I want to achieve this year and many of them require me to take myself out of my comfort zone. One of these is submitting some pages to magazines. I am sure that if I keep submitting one day I will get something accepted. So unless I am doing a challenge I won't put layouts in here I will send them to mags for consideration instead. Of course if they are not successful then you will see them here.

Speaking of submitting, a while back I said I had a photo accepted into a new travel magazine. Follow this link http://everywheremag.com/issues/1 and flick through the pages to the postcards, there you will see a photo of a huge rock at cathedral cove, that is my photo. In the next few weeks the magazine will be going on sale in stores worldwide. Wahoo, very exciting for me!

Sometimes in the holidays it is hard to come up with idea of things to do. So these holidays I created an activity box. I wrote a whole of activities on strips of paper and then put them in a box. I get Tobyn to draw one out on the mornings we don't have a full day out planned. There are things like going to the park, picnic in the backyard, movies, bike ride, swimming, science centre a many more. We started this morning and wouldn't you know it he drew out go to the plant shop pick out some plants and plant them.....on a rainy day...? So he had to draw again and he got go to the library, he said "YAY, that is just what I wanted to do!" So off we went. He got a couple of novels which he started reading straight away, I got some fun books for Isaac and they each got a DVD for $1, gotta love that cheap price!!!

I also wanted to put down here how impressed I am with Tobyns change in behaviour recently. It is like he has turned a new leaf. He is helpful, thoughtful and polite. Not that he wasn't before, but it wasn't consistent. We went to a New Years day BBQ and he helped the hosts and asked adults if they would like their glasses refilled. We had so many positive comments from people, we were very proud parents! He is very excited about 2008. On Christmas Eve we talked to him about goals for 2008. We all set ourselves some goals. Tobyn was allowed to stay up until midnight and when midnight came he gave us big hugs and said he was very excited about starting his goals. I hope it lasts!

I am sure I am going to have more random thoughts pop into m,y head in the next little while so be prepared for some pretty random posts in January 2008!

New Header

2008-01-09T14:02:00.000+13:00

After figuring out how to make a header I had another go. Although I loved the photo in my first attempt I didn't like how it looked as a header. I had this altered word and thought it would look good in my blog header and I am happy with it. Trouble is that now that I know how to make a header it will probably change regularly because I am a creature that needs change regularly!

So what do you think of my new look? I altered the word myself a few months back. The blue is the highlight colour I want in my craft room. Well truth be known I would like to paint the room that colour but I have to convince Steve first!

Feeling relaxed

2008-01-07T13:35:00.000+13:00

Things are getting back to normal here in the Gregory house. Steve is back at work, Mum has gone back to Christchurch and I am feeling a lot better. I still have a nagging cough but I don't feel unwell, YAY.

Steve and Tobyn went to the lake house last Thursday. I wasn't going to go but on Friday decided I would. It is hard being on your own while sick and with a sick 2 year old. Isaac had a virus and would cough and cough until he was sick. So I was going through lots of bedding and having to wash special blankies and floppy bunnies so he had his faves to take to bed still. Anyway I am so glad I made the decision to go the the Lake house! It was so relaxing and such a fun time. Steve's sister was there with her 2, Hannah almost 6 and Adam 4. The children got on so well. There were very few disagreements and there was a huge amount of fun had. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so there aren't any photos.

The sleeping arrangements worked out really well. Steve's parents were in the flat. We had one room and Clare had the other. The children slept in the cupboards which they thought was so cool and Tobyn said he felt like Harry Potter. The cupboards are HUGE wardrobes. The double doors were opened wide and it really looked like they were just extensions to the room.

The day I arrived they had all been out on the kayak and swum in the lake. Tobyn enjoyed swimming out to the pontoon and jumping off. I arrived just in time for a lovely bbq dinner, perfect! Saturday we went to craters of the moon and had a good walk. We even did the steep climb to the lookout which absolutely tuckered me out. Considering that I am still getting over pneumonia it wasn't surprising that I needed a sleep on Sat afternoon. After Isaac and I had had our afternoon nap we went down to the lake and swam. It was freezing but so refreshing once you were under the water! Isaac was quite apprehensive, he came in with me for a minute but wanted out quite quickly. On Sunday we took the kayak down to the lake. It was the first time that I had seen Tobyn go out by himself and he did so well. I am so glad we have got the kayak and that Tobyn and Isaac are going to grow up with many trips to the lake and enjoying this great water sport. I had a go in the kayak and have the great pleasure to have the title of 'First person to tip out'! Unlike my children I didn't grow up around water or water sports. I was not an outdoors person and my family didn't go on holidays! So I am learning with my children and it is fun.

After a lovely lunch at the cafe down the road we headed home. We made pretty good time and arrived home at 5pm. We had a quick gathering of ourselves and went to the McKeys for a bbq celebration of Ali and Fernando's engagement....without Ali and Fernando LOL. They live in Manchester, England. They got engaged at New Years and everyone here is so excited for them It sounds like the wedding is being planned for later in 2009, back in New Zealand. Congratulations Ali and Fernando!!! We spoke briefly last but it was difficult to hear with so many people around. Ali is Tobyns 'god sister' and I have known her and babysat her since she was 6. They are like family to us and we are so excited about the 1st engagement in their family! Even though she doesn't leave comments I am pretty sure she visits my blog regularly as I I have a regular visitor from Manchester. See you can't hide I know who is watching, LOL. So please people leave me comments I love them!

Today we are having a very quiet day. Isaac went down for a sleep at 11am and at 2pm is still sleeping. Tobyn is having a DVD morning, which will end as soon as the movie he is watching finishes. I think we will go for a walk when Isaac wakes up.

I haven't done much in the way of scrapping for ages. I finished Mums calendar but I am dying to get down to some scrapping for myself again, maybe tomorrow when Isaac is sleeping....hmm or maybe tonight? I see some challenges around the place so maybe I will have a go at some of those.

Well ciao for now, next post I promise some more photos!

Final update for 2007

2007-12-31T11:47:00.001+13:00

So much to say and so little room and time.

We had a lovely Christmas. My Mum arrived last Sunday and stayed with us until yesterday when we delivered her to my sisters for the week. Isaac and Mum are very close and it is lovely to see. Isaac is such an affectionate cuddly kid and Mum loves the obvious signs of affection. Tobyn on the other hand is not all that open with his affection. He will sidle up to you on the couch and snuggle in but not run with open arms. His 3 cousins are the COMPLETE opposite, e.g. when we met Mum at the airport and we had to call the 3 wayward cousins back because they had gone past the security barrier! Issac is somewhere in between the 2 extremes and it is lovely to see.

Christmas Eve was fun getting Isaac to do his first get ready for Christmas. Although he wanted to eat the carrots and not leave them on the ground. Isaac was so excited he didn't sleep very well. He woke around 11pm and was so excited he didn't go back to sleep and ended up in our bed. I think this might be the last Christmas Tobyn 'believes' in Santa. He has made a few comments about conversations with friends. And even though I got Santa to call him the other day he has still got a few questions. After the phone call he did say 'that proves that Santa is real and I am going to tell all my friends.' His friends must have said how could Santa send an e-mail and why would he anyway, obviously making Tobyn think. I am rather sad about the loss of innocence.

Christmas morning was fun with the boys opening Christmas sacks a quick b'fast and off to Church. After Church we opened the big prezzies. I got 2 really cool scrappy bags from my boys, all ready for scrap camp in April, yay. Mum loved her calendar I made even though it isn't quite finished. The boys faves would be Tobyn's PS2 and wooden sword and shield, and Isaac's couch and mike the talking mower. Plus the many books which are always hits.

It was all a bit much for Steve and he fell asleep.

In the afternoon we went to my sisters and had a lovely Christmas dinner.

We have had many evenings since playing buzz junior and having lots of laughs.

For me it has been a rough Christmas because I have pneumonia! I had high temps prior to Christmas and didn't think much of it, then the cough came and came and came. Finally last Friday I took myself to the Dr and was diagnosed and prescribed 2 lots of anti bots. I am starting to feel better but today i am off to take Isaac as he has an awful cough and is very sleepy.

Back from the Dr's and Isaac is fine. The Dr can't hear anything but did give us a script for anti bots if we think we need them over the next couple of days.

I hope every has a safe and happy New Years whatever you may be doing. We are staying home and getting an early night, boring stuff.

By the way

2007-12-21T21:59:00.000+13:00

Thank you for all the kind comments about my tiredness due to Isaacs unsettled routines. He has done a lot better the last couple of days and last night I had a full nights sleep. I do however have some sort of illness, hot and cold, dizzy and headachy. Maybe just because I am so over tired, but hopefull with a few more good nights and help now Steve is on holiday for 2 weeks things will get back to normal.

Merry Christmas and all that goes with it!

2007-12-21T21:26:00.000+13:00

Wow long time no blog. Life has been hectic in the Gregory house the past couple of weeks. We have had birthdays to go to, prize givings, babies arriving, presents to make, christmas shopping to do, and the list goes on and on!

Some highlights in bullet point (hopefully to make it more succinct, if that is possible for me LOL)

Adam, Steves nephew turned 3. He had a wild animal party. He was adorable and so polite! I got some gorgeous photos but haven't had a chance to edit them yet. The boys had a blast.
Tobyn had an issue at school...he is at times very unfocused and does things without thinking. While at speech and drama one of the other boys shoved a baseball bat through a concertina door on a bench and knocked a whole lot of present s the teacher and children were making. Tobyn wanted to be nosey and pushed the door to see what they were doing and knocked more on the floor. The big issue was that when asked he said he didn't think he did anything. We hope that hehas learnt his lesson and realises that it is best to own up straight away. After lots of thinking down by the tree and in his bedroom he finally opened up. We told him he had to write an apology. And the next morning I asked him to apologise to the principal. He did this very well and when she was talking to him he listened well and I was proud of him for doing that. We also warned him that if this behaviour didn't change then the play station he has been working hard towards all year wouldn't be coming. Need less to say he has changed dramatically and we are seeing the old sweet, thoughtful kid again.
Tobyn had his prizegiving. He was in a speech and drama piece and a dance and singing piece. It was LONG. Since when did a primary school prize giving need to be 3 hours long? We had Isaac with us too, poor little guy. He did well though. I did take him up the back away from people when he had dirtied his nappy and they were announcing class prizes. Then I left. Tobyn did so well on stage. He is usually very self conscious and doesn't like doing things in front of people ut that night he was confident and happy and obviously enjoying himself.
I made a calendar for Steves Mum. Ran out of time to take photos though. It turned out pretty well, I am sure she will like it. Steve did one of the months and I think he is pretty proud of himself.
I made a diary for Tobyns teacher. When I gave it to her she had tears in her eyes. I was thinking, don't cry because then I will bawl. Fortunately she kept it in check. She LOVED it and said this is too good to have at school this is going to be my home diary.
Tobyn got a great school report. His academic report is excellent. Though I think I would like to see more effort next year. He does the bare minimum and does very well, imagine what he could do if he put a lot more effort in? Some of his essential skills, otherwise known as life skills needs a bit of work. This didn't surprise us. For example he needs to improve his listening skills, using time effectively, and settling into his work well. But the teacher comment was great and I am proud, "Tobyn has made fantastic progress in the last two terms. His work ethic is where I would expect it to be for a student at _______ school. He has become more self-reliant and confident, focussing less on the negatives of his situation or others. He interacts with the class in a positive way. Tobyn is a 'clever cookie' and is beginning to believe that within himself. Hopefully Tobyn will continue to practise his basic facts in the holidays and work on his speed and retention. Keep the great attitude going Tobyn and you will go far. I hope he takes all this on board and improves even more next year. He would like ton win a prize next year so hopefully this will be the motivation he needs. Steve didn't knuckle down at school until he was a similar age and ended up Dux both of his primary school and high school.
I have been asked to do a fundraiser for a local school. I was showing a friend some photos I had taken and she asked if I would do some with their school. This is an area I have wondering about for a while. I think I take some pretty good photos and I could fit into an affordable niche in town. So I have a lot to think about in the next little while about business, prices, and getting a portfolio together.
And lastly, I got a couple of awesome family photos on the weekend. I have never tried this before and I think they turned out pretty well for a first time. I set up the tripod and put a couple of toys on top of the camera which the boys thought was hilarious. For the one where we are lying down Isaac had fun!!! I ran to lie down for the first couple and then he joined me and we got the photo. I am thrilled and I think I look pretty OK, which I don't normally like my photos!

So finally I don't expect I will get in here again for a couple of weeks. I have my Mum arriving from Christchurch on Sunday and we will be busy enjoying her company. Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and thanks for visiting my blog this year. See you again soon.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra First Snow

2007-12-18T09:47:00.001+13:00

My favourite Christmas music. We first heard this in the States the first year we were there. The 2nd year I bought the CD and played it in my car every trip I made to the neo-natal unit. Now when I play it it brings back all the precious memories. I love the whole CD but this is one of my faves.

Tired, tired, tired!

2007-12-10T21:21:00.000+13:00

Another week gone and another week closer to the holidays, yay. I am in need of some rest, breakfast in bed and sleep ins. And Steve is as well.

This weekend was the coming together and presentation of the Children's Christmas service. Steve has been wanting to get the Sunday School to put together the story "Christmas in Exeter Street" for few years now. This year we were asked to do the Christmas kids service because Kaila is due to have a baby any day now. So Steve jumped at the chance. The story is about a family in England getting ready for Christmas. The Grandparents arrive and bring a Christmas tree, cranberry jelly, cats etc. The Ministers roof blows off and they arrive on the doorstep and bring a carol. The children's friends arrive with sleeping bags and stockings etc, etc. There are neighbours, fat men, wives and children, Uncles not seen for years, friends and a cat. The Sunday School has been low in numbers this year so he co opted a few adults for parts. As there are many parts. In the beginning we thought we weren't going to have enough people, but as the time went on it was a bit like the house in Exeter Street, they kept on coming and in the end there were lots of car children and the minister ended up with 6 children instead of 3. Saturday was spent getting the set together. This included moving our house to the Church...well part of it anyway. Some photos to show you how it looked...

Saturday afternoon we had to have a rehearsal and I thought it was so chaotic and was worried that it wasn't going to come together. I was the lead role and was so flustered. It also didn't help that Isaac was difficult. Sunday morning and it all came together really well. The prayers helped, trust in the Lord. Everyone thought it was a great service and an awesome message. The kids enjoyed themselves and hopefully we will see them all back in the New Year!

Isaac is not coping with all the routines being changed with everything that comes with the Christmas lead up and end of school year. For 2 weekends he has missed day time sleeps and had late nights and now we are paying for the fun. Last night the time came where I had to be tough. He has been waking at 3am for a couple of weeks now. He doesn't just wake, he is WIDE awake and doesn't ant to go back to sleep. So last night I had to do the controlled crying. He really did not like me not talking to him and just taking him by the hand and putting him back to bed. It probably only took 30 mins, but it felt like hours. And today it feels like I didn't get any sleep last night. Hopefully tonight he does well, especially because Steve is not here tonight!

Yesterday I finally got to make my house feel a little more like Christmas. Our tree is very eclectic this year! Every single decoration has meaning and I wanted them all on the tree. Tobyn put most of them on and it looks pretty crazy, but I loved it and this is what Christmas with kids is meant to look like in my mind.

And Steve thought he would get a photo of me by the tree, YEAH RIGHT!

I have been working on Christmas gifts. I have to finish the calender for the in-laws this week. I have 5 more months to do, well actually Steve has to do one of those, LOL. We are going down to Paraparaumu for Steve's nephews b'day on Sunday and we want to take all the prezzies with us. We won't be seeing them again until after Christmas.

A couple of cute things Isaac said over the past few days...

When seeing a security guard wearing a hat, outside a bank..."There's a pirate" and he couldn't stop looking at him. I told the security guard what he said and he laughed.

On listening to the beautiful chorus of birds, "birds singing" then we heard a chicken...book, book, book, boooookuk.....Isaac said "a monkey"

Have great week everyone, ciao for now

Thankful

2007-12-02T07:54:00.000+13:00

I am so thankful that I have a wonderful family and many wonderful friends. Though sometimes I take it all for granted.

Yesterday was a day to remember how thankful I am . We celebrated American Thanksgiving, a week late, but that was OK. I tried out some American recipes with NZ ingredients and this year they worked. Last year we had some very interesting American dishes. But thanks to some new ingredients in town some worked well.

Our menu:

Snacks:
Nacho chips and guacamole
Chips and kiwi dip.

Main:
Chicken (mainly because I couldn't bring myself to pay $45 for a turkey!)
Dressing. AKA stuffing, but when done out of the bird it is dressing. Glen is vegetarian so we tried to do everything other than the meat so that he could eat it.
Sweet potato casserole. This very sweet dish has a crunchy sugar and pecan crust on top.
Bean casserole. This dish last year was very weird but this year I found dried fried onions and it worked!
Roast potatoes (for Tobyn)
Mashed potatoes.
Carrots.
Green salad.

I did the carrots and roast pots because I knew Tobyn wouldn't eat any of the other veges.

Dessert:
Pecan Pie
Apple Pie
Cream
Ice cream

Notice no pumpkin pie? Amazingly there wasn't anyone American or not that likes pumpkin pie, so why bother?

We had a lovely time with our friends. Of course I was so busy I didn't get very many photos!
The girls are 5 and 3 and they get on so well with our boys. Sophia and Tobyn just disappeared off and quietly played together. It was so nice having a quiet placid little girl around. it makes a huge difference to the normal rowdy boys. Isaac and Vivi are partners in crime. They are very close but because they are both extremely mischievous they do get into trouble together. Nothing really bad but oh so cute!!!

A lead in to some of the happenings of the day. We don't have a front fence. We have been waiting for the landscaper to bring the digger and make the paths down our hill. He said he would do it back in June!!! And he doesn't want us to put fences up until he has done it. So we have had temporary plastic fences on the deck. Fortunately we have a pretty big deck but it does prevent Isaac from going down into the grass. So Steve decided he would put up temporary fences elsewhere to allow the kids to have access to the grass. All good in principle. But Isaac wasn't used to the freedom Iguess. This leads me into a few 'events' of the afternoon.

1. Isaac got under the deck and couldn't get out easily. I think he followed the cat, but then he said 'it's wet' it took lots of coaxing and a chippie to get him out. Steve wasn't going under, he did that last week when he lost some washers under there and he doesn't fancy going under ever again.

2. I was in the kitchen and I heard a few yells from the adults in the lounge. Then I heard a splat and Isaac crying. I ran to see Isaac sprawled on the ground with his ride on on top of him. He had gone off the steps. One of my biggest fears when Steve removed the fencing from the deck. Thankfully Isaac is a tough cookie. He has grazes on his head and a bruise is coming out but he is OK!

3. While whipping the cream to go with the dessert my magic bullet came to pieces! Cream EVERYWHERE!!! And because I do it in the cupboard I had to take everything out from the shelf and ones under it, ARGH.

4. We found this site in the bathroom when we couldn't find the little people. They were in the shower together and Vivi had made herself a little chair, or throne as Kaila said, out of handtowels.

Isaac was sitting down next to Vivi when we found them. It was so cute.

Unfortunately Kaila dna Glen and the family are moving to Auckland in February. We will miss them so much. But we wish them all the best for there big move. I said to Kaila, next year we will have to find another American family to celebrate Thanksgiving with and she said, we will have to meet in Taupo and celebrate there. What a brilliant idea. I had told her we could meet at Steve's families lake house from time to time, but what a perfect plan!

OK off for a busy day now, Church kids service practice, Steve's work kids party, and Steve is taking Tobyn and a friend to a magic show this evening.

ciao for now

Number 8 wired challenge

2007-11-28T21:03:00.000+13:00

First of all thanks for all the lovely comments for my rock star layout! I love the layout and I am glad that so many others love it too. Sometimes a layout just works and that happened with that one. It doesn't happen all that often where I totally love my layout.

Speaking of layouts loved or not, here is my layout for the latest number8 wired dare. The dare is to visit the resene website and find a colour palette and use that as inspiration for a layout. This was so much fun and I spent a long time just perusing the resene website. I chose this particular colour palette because it was simple but quite different to anything I had done before. Only problem was it called for a girl layout. So I flicked through my albums and came across these adorable photos of Meggy. This cute wee girl will be 10 in a couple of weeks time! The mark on her forehead is not on the layout, something happened when I took the photo. I might take it again tomorrow and replace this one.

The layout

The inspiration for the layout.

http://www.resene.co.nz/homeown/decorating_inspirations/272.htm

I might even have another go at this challenge, I enjoyed it so much.

This weekend we are celebrating Thanksgiving. Late? Yes. One of the families we celebrate with had dance recitals last weekend. This time 2 years ago we were in the States and had already celebrated one thanksgiving the year before. It is so much fun and very much an American tradition. Because Isaac was born in America and is an American citizen we feel it is our duty to make sure he learns some of the American traditions. The challenge in the coming years will be remembering what the traditional foods etc are. Thank goodness for American friends and the Internet LOL. Also finding American friends to celebrate with. This year we are again celebrating with Kaila, Glen, Sophia, Vivi and bump, plus Glens Mum who arrived from the States today, and the 2nd family, Christina, Lily and Ivy. Lily and Ivy are 4 and 2 and as yet Christina hasn't celebrated thanksgiving with them. I can't decide if I am going to go with the $45 traditional turkey or the less traditional but much cheaper chickens? Update and photos next week.

Friday night we have family fun night at Church, Saturday we will also be putting up the Christmas tree. Sunday is the first big rehearsal for the Christmas children's service. So a pretty busy weekend and they only get busier from here on in til Christmas. Fun times ahead!!!

Tobyn is doing really well at school at the moment. He got a certificate in assembly last week for great effort and self discipline towards his school work. He was so chuffed. Soon I will do a blog post all about my big boy. I seem to write so much about Isaac. Partly because I have more photos of him. Tobyn is terrible about having his photo taken, but I did get some good ones the other day like this one:

and this one,

isn't he adorable?!

until after the busy weekend, thanks for visiting!

Music in Me Challenge/Rockstar

2007-11-21T19:50:00.000+13:00

I really enjoyed this challenge. I have missed the last 2 music in me challenges so this was great to have the perfect photos. It just so happened that Isaac got this drum set from Aunty Fee and Chris on Saturday and he loved it as soon as he opened it. It took me a few hours to realise that I had the perfect photos for this challenge and couldn't wait ot get onto it. For a while the layout was looking pretty Christmassy, but after a bit of fiddling and some great inspiration I LOVE it! Thanks Neen for the challenge!

Final entry for Louises blog challenges

2007-11-21T18:16:00.000+13:00

The final challenge for Louises blog challenges. This week she asked us to scraplift a layout of Dallas Foleys http://dallasnz.wordpress.com/ I pretty much stuck to her design with a few extras. I am very happy with the end result and this is another layout to add to our America Album.
Thank you Louise for the challenges. I have found it hard to find the time and inspiration to do these challenges but I am glad I did them, another 4 layouts for my albums. Plus there were so few people that were able to do the challenges in the end that I just couldn't pull out as well.

A lovely day!

2007-11-17T08:51:00.000+13:00

4.15am Friday morning and I could hear the rain pelting onto the roof. Argh, I don't want it to rain. I had to get up at 5.15am to get ready and be at school with Tobyn for 6.10am. I was going on a school trip with him to Wellington and I really didn't fancy driving in the rain. Oh well, thems the breaks.
A couple of weeks ago I made the big decision to go on a school trip and leave Isaac with Aunty for the WHOLE day! I knew I had to do it sometime and they were short on transport so in a way the school helped me make the decision. Aunty was more than happy to have Isaac for the day. Isaac has been getting easier and easier to leave, but I was still worried that a whole day without Mummy would be hard. More on that later.
We arrived at school. Got instructions and piled into the cars. I had Tobyn, Ricky and Tobyn's teacher in my car. Fortunately it stopped raining shortly after we drove out of Palmy (no jokes here please LOL) We had a lovely drive into Wellington. The boys behaved and didn't distract the driver too much. And we only encountered on small traffic jam in Wellington.
The kids were going to Capitol E where they were learning how to make a music sound track and put together a newscast. The children all had jobs for the newscast. Tobyns job was an acting one, he got to be the new Mayor of Palmerston North, complete with collared shirt and one of Dads old ties.
The parents were allowed to what they wanted, either stay or go. I chose to stay for the first little bit and got to see what they were doing with the music. It looked AMAZING! I wish the parents were allowed to have a play on the computers too LOL. One of the Dads has said he is going to get the software for his son for Christmas even though his son doesn't know. I think Daddy must have liked it too! These kids got such an amazing opportunity!
After that I went and browsed the Wellington shops. I am not a big shopper, well at least not on my own, I could spends hours shopping with someone. But I had a nice time for the time I did spend shopping. I managed to find a few books for Christmas presents. I got a BBQ one for my brother and sister in law, a historical one for Tobyn and a monster story book for Isaac. I also got myself a scrap booking creations mag went and bought a coffee and sat down and had a read. Ah the bliss of sitting in a coffee shop on your own, not having to worry about whether a 2 year old is going to spill something or choke on his food, or make too much noise. I then went to Kirkcaldies. I knew the Christmas shop was open there and I wanted to browse. Kirkcaldies is a big posh department store in Wellington. I was surrounded by beautiful clothes and smells. I just can't get over how they can justify charging so much for the wares in this store? The Christmas shop didn't blow me away like it did the first time I visited a few years ago. But I still managed to buy a new decoration for each of us
I phoned my sister to see how Isaac was doing. Fine, no problems! He was sleeping when I called and had apparently not wanted to go home for a sleep he wanted to stay at Aunty's and play with Jono's cars. Was he missing Mummy "I don't think he even realises you're not here" *sob* that's not what your meant to say. LOL.
After I had done enough shopping for one day I met up with Pip. I haven't seen her for a year and I miss her company. How can a year go by when we live only 2 hours away from each other? Only now they are moving further away down to Christchurch. Although this is actually a good thing for us because my Mum lives down there and if we go down it is always for a week or 2. Anyway we had a wonderful time catching up over lunch and 2 hours was not long enough!
Pip is the 2nd 'old' Friend I have caught up with recently and I really treasure these friendships and I have made a vow to myself that I will nurture them a lot more over the next year!!!
After my wonderful lunch I headed back to capitol E and watched the last take of the news cast. Tobyn was great, he got his lines perfectly!
The trip home was nice and easy, no stops, no traffic jams. I had a great conversation with Mrs Treder and got to know her a lot better. I was amazed at how much we have in common! We share the same b'day month, though she is a year younger than me, we have both been married for close to 15 years, they had there anniversary in August, ours is in January. We both applied for teachers college when we were 16 and were turned down because we were too young. Though she went back and trained and I became a nurse. We have both lived in the States, both have 2 boys and both our husbands work in scientific fields. I am probably missing something but I was surprised.
When we arrived home Isaac was pleased to see us. He was a little razzed up, tired and hungry as it was 6.30pm!!! He talked all the way back home and all the way through dinner and all the way through the bedtime routine. SO CUTE!!! This morning he has still been yak, yak, yakking. Me thinks he did miss Mummy ;)
WHAT A LOVELY DAY I HAD!!! I will be volunteering more now that I know Isaac is happy to stay with Aunty!

A picture, just because I like to post something beautiful.

Lousies 2nd blog challenge

2007-11-14T20:08:00.000+13:00

I am not doing very well with Louises challenges. I leave them until the alst minute and the have to do the layout quickly and of course then I am not all that happy with it. I had to go into town after school to get this photo printed out. Didn't get home until 4.30. Had to get the boys afternoon tea and then choose papers etc. So for a quick layout it turned out OK.

All about Isaacle

2007-11-13T20:12:00.000+13:00

I was going to do a big long post about lots of things with quite a few photos but blogger is very slow at uploading pics tonight so I will make this post all about Isaac or Isaacle as he is sometimes referred to.

Isaac is learning so much at the moment and it is so much fun. He loves being in the 'big bed' and will often be found lying in his bed, our bed or the BIG bed in his room. Pretending has become a big part of his play. He is also into imaginary creatures at the moment. He points at things and says cow, pig, sheep, horse etc. and they aren't really there! He is getting bigger feet and I found he nows fits sandles and shoes I only tried on a few weeks ago and back then they were way too big. So yesterday he was wearing green sandles with stars on and he loved them and kept saying 'green shoes' Today he was wearing Thomas sneakers that light up when he stomps. So all day he has been stomping to make them sparkle.
I started kissing booboos a few days ago. Now every time he hurts himself he asks for a kiss, like this afternoon he hurt his nose and came to me and said 'Mummy kiss nose' And sometimes I will give his booboo lots of kisses and he dissolves into hysterics. Too cute.
He LOVES Tobyn and has started calling him 'my broder' This morning I found him knocking on Tobyns door with a peg saying in a deep growly voice 'come out, now'
He loves Apollo the cat and can often be found cuddling him. Most of the time he is really good with him. But a couple of days ago I found him hitting him a little too hard and I had to be Mummy growly lion. He has been good since.
He loves books!!! And will bring books to read many times a day. He knows most of the Hairy Maclairy stories from start to finish. One of his favourite Lynley Dodd books right now is 'Wake Up Bear' and he always jumps when the bear shouts 'Honey'
He is very determined and has a very strong will. But with his adorable sense of humour and his affectionate nature we can usually diffuse issues before they become too big.
He is still very big on routine. As long as we do things in the same way and the same order then everything will be fine. For example night time. Daddy comes home, we have tea, Isaac has a bath, Isaac comes out of the bath and has snuggles with mummy, Isaac streaks around the house nakid then comes back to get clothes on, Daddy takes Isaac and he says goodnight with kisses, cuddles and 'I love yous' to Mummy and Tobyn, Daddy takes him to his room Isaac lies down on the BIG bed and has some of his bottle, Daddy reads 3 books then Isaac turns his music on, gets into his bed and has some more of his bottle, Daddy tucks him in, makes sure he has blankie, floppy bunny, Makka Pakka, Iggle Piggle and any other important toys that day and says good night and leaves the room. IT WORKS!!!

Enough for now. Here are a couple of photos from the weekend. I have converted a colour to b&w and might use it in the Number 8 wired dare this fortnight.

This next photo shows Isaac having a go on the big bike. Steve got it down from the roof on the weekend. Tobyn got this bike for Christmas when he was 2 1/2. Isaac has only just turned 2 so hasn't got the idea of it yet. But he did enjoy being on the big bike.

Maybe I will get to post again tomorrow about Tobyn with some cool photos from the weekend.
I don't have any projects to show at the moment because I am working on Christmas presents mainly, so you have to wait until after Chrissy.

ttfn

A house full of sickies

2007-11-07T19:58:00.000+13:00

Obviously I have not had much to say over the past week LOL. We have all been sick in some way. I have had an awful annoying cough. I know it is going around, but I wish it had missed me! Tobyn and Steve have had today off. Tobyn has an ear infection and is now on anti bots. This is only the second time in 9 years that he has had an ear infection so he has done pretty well. But the poor little guy is in pain. Enough about sickies!

Some layouts I have been working on. There are so many things going on in scrappy world at the moment I just can't keep up. There is a DT call, but I have decided not to go for it. I just don't feel confident enough in my work to do it yet. Steve thought I should so I promised him I will give one a go in the next year. SBO have a whole lot of fun going on with challenges and raffles all ending with a gala bash cyber crop at the end of the month. So, the layouts.......

This first one is for Louises week 1 blog challenge. The challenge she set was to not use any manufacturers patterned paper. But we could make our own. It took me all week to come up with some inspiration and finally around 1pm this afternoon I found the photo which inspired the patterned paper. I have used different sized lids and stamped the circles on the paper, representing the bubbles. The colours were inspired by the colours in the bubbles themselves. The circles around the photo I stamped and cut out, just like I would if I had a patterned paper.

This next layout is for the no 8 wired NZ dare blog. The challenge was to use onlt 2 differnt colours. I have used different shades of brown and blue. I actually found this incredibly difficult. I was umming and ahhing about entering it because it is pretty simple. But I love it and it is a photo I love of Isaac.

The last one is for a challenge on scrapbook outlet. No winners or losers you just earn raffle tickets. The challenge was to scrap christmas food. I don't have very many photos of christmas food at all. But I remembered I had these photos of Tobyn making a gingerbread house while we were in the States. I had already tried scrapping it a while ago but didn't like the way it was going. So this time I printed out some smaller photos. I thought I would do a double layout and went to pagemaps for some ideas. I found a sketch, single page that I thought would work and used that. I had it all done and didn't like it. I showed Steve and said I wasn't happy but couldn't put my finger on why. He said the green under the photo isn't quite right and I agreed. It was a darker brighter green like in the top christmas trees. I covered it with the lighter green and I was surprised at how different it made it look. Now I still don't love it but I am so happy to now have this memory scrapped for his album!!!

I don't have any more layouts and I don't have any other news for now so TTFN Until next time...

Black and White layout for Louise's blog challenge

2007-10-30T09:38:00.001+13:00

So louise @ http://bigyellowdogblog.blogspot.com/ is having a little comp on her blog. She had a warm up challenge where by we were asked to create a layout using ONLY black and white. I like how it turned out so fresh. Thank you for the challenge Louise.

Most of the materials I have used came from a http://www.scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz kit. Peect for this challenge. Usually I don't use kits for challenges but I didn't have any other only b&w papers! My only disappointment with this layout is that there is a gorgeous tinkering ink patterned paper hiding behind all the stuff I added! I couldn't stop stincking and doodling and then I realised I had hidden ,most of this gorgeous paper. Gonna have to get me some more of that I think!

A great weekend!

2007-10-29T19:45:00.000+13:00

Tobyn got on stage for both his dances on Saturday! I was so chuffed to see him out in his black shirt for the Michael Jackson dance! And he did a pretty good job. He did forget a couple of things in this dance, but given he had missed the change for 2 days I can forgive him. I am proud of him for getting out there!!!
Sunday we went to Church for the first time in weeks. We are organising the kids Christmas service and thought it high time to get there and let them know it is all coming together. The kids are excited and hopefully it will be as good as they are anticipating!
Sunday afternoon was spent tidying and scrapbooking. Yay I finally got some more scrapbooking done! And both layouts are for challenges.

This layout is for the Scrapbook Essentials fortnightly sketch competition. It is the first 6x12 layout I have done. Having done the Disney photo I have decided that Disney 06 will be all 6x12. I found it quite hard and I stuck to the sketch. I like how the photos really stand out.

The other layout I will put in a separate post.

Art and culture in the Gregory house

2007-10-27T14:32:00.001+13:00

A busy weekend here for us! Tobyn has had a very busy week with dance rehearsals and I have had a busy week as taxi driver! Last night was the telling moment for the work he has put in. As you may be able to tell from the previous post, Tobyn isn't too keen on having people watch him. He used to be fine but from around the age of 7 he has not liked it at all. So I wasn't sure how he would go in the dance show. But he shone! He got out there and danced his heart out and did everything really well. Unfortunately he did miss one dance because he didn't get changed fast enough, but we have that sorted for today, so I should get to see him in both his dances. Now I just hope that we can convince him that it would be a good idea to carry on dacncing in some way. I know it waon't be The Jazz Elemeatary 1 class, but maybe boys club or hip hop? It is awesome at his studio that they encourage the boys so well. Dean, the owner and 1 of 3 male teachers is so good with the boys. Tobyn has a natural talent but not the passion yet. Maybe in a few years time he will realise what a gift he has? My Mum let me stop dancing when I was 5 and I wish she had pushed me to continue. Mum, I know you did what was right at the time so don't take this as me thinking you were wrong. But I guess that is partly why I don't want Tobyn to give up yet, he might regret it in the future.

Today was pet and craft day. Steve spent all morning cooking 200 sausages, deffinately did his part and got to know some other parents a little better which is great. Tobyn, Isaac and I got to enjoy a pancake breakfast, courtesy of the some of the teachers.
Last night and this morning Tobyn work on his vegetable creation. He hoped he could get first this year after placing 2nd last year. This year he did more of it himself, he chose all the veges and put it all together. The only guidance and help we gave him was with tthe creation he was going to do. He wanted to make a village with grape people. We thought this would be too much hard work with the dance show as well. So he made a dragon, scales and all! And he WON. He is so proud. Tobyn also took his cat Apollo for the pet parade. They got asked about there cat and how they looked after it etc and Tobyn won best presented cat. And Apollo got a lovely silver and blue ribbon. So nioce to be able to add more certificates to the wall of acievement in our house!

I think Isaac is going to have an outdoor career. He was totally in his element among the lambs and calves!

Righto, gotta go wash the floor that Steve spilt milo powder all over and get ready for the show this afternoon, Ciao for now.

A cute Tobynism

2007-10-25T14:53:00.000+13:00

A conversation last night with Tobyn as we arrived at the dance rehearsal went something like this:

T: is this where we are practising?
M: Yes
T: where are we? Are we at the theatre?
M: Yes
T: Cool, I love dancing on stage.....
M: Oh really?
T: Yep, as long as there isn't anyone watching.

Excited and Exhausted!

2007-10-25T08:46:00.000+13:00

I am very excited about many things this week:

The fact that the part for the washing machine has finally arrived and I can remove the towels from behind the machine. It has been 2 weeks since we found we had a leak! The washing has been backing up so I am over the moon about that.

Today there is some blue sky! Yes you heard it here first. So along with the washing machine part and the blue sky guess what is my main aim today? Yep, washing, washing and more washing!

Tobyn's dance performance. Every year they put on an amazing show and I look forward to it so much that I always over book tickets LOL. Hopefully my sister can replace Steve on Friday night because we need someone at home to get Isaac to bed. A 7pm show start is not good for a little boy that needs Daddy to put him to bed, can't get a baby sitter to do it. And when I booked the tickets I didn't think about the time it was starting!

My nephew got 3rd= in their schools cluster speech comp. Now what is it about the Rowe grandchildren? My siblings and I were not good at speeches and yet our kids are doing great! Tobyn won for his year earlier this year and now Sheridan has placed 3rd in the cluster schools. Go Sheridan, Aunty is very proud of you!!!

The thing I am the most excited about and left until last.........I am being published! Now as most of my visitors are scrap bookers I will have to let you down gently......not being published for scrap booking.......being published for photography! We have very good friends that are journalists. They are Isaac's godparents and live in the States. Tim was deputy editor of the listener a couple of years ago and Ele deputy editor of Next. They went on a bog OE. Ele being American wanted to take Tim 'home'. It took a while for them to find jobs in the industry and they spent some time working in a bookstore to live. They are both now busy with jobs ans study and the big benefit for us is that one of the jobs Tim is doing is helping edit and set up a new online Travel magazine. He asked a few weeks ago for photos in certain categories but I didn't think we had any to suit. Yesterday I received an e-mail from them wishing Isaac a happy birthday. I returned the e-mail with an update in Isaac and an invite to visit my blog. Tim replied soon after with a request for travel photos for the postcard section of the mag, they are short. So Steve spent a good hour or so last night sending through a pile of photos and they want one! I am over the moon. One of my photos is going to be published in an online travel mag WOOHOO!!! When I know more details and when the mag is being published I will link it on here.

And yes I am also exhausted! My baby who is now a big boy and sleeping in a big boy bed is keeping me awake. Not because he is awake, because I am worried he is going to fall out, or come trough at some ungodly hour so I think I have one ear open for him all night. I hope this will pass soon!

I will leave you with one of the photos that was sent through to Tim, not the one being published obviously. But I don't like posts without photos and since Steve re sized these last night I might as well use one.

Isaac and I in the Milford Sound back in February.

Scrapbook Essentials Blinkie

2007-10-23T21:41:00.000+13:00

I am doing quite a few short random posts. Just a bit of fun LOL. Neen, one of the Dt members on SE has been playing with blinkies and Meg challenged us to put it on our blogs. So here it is. My only wish is that I knew how to link it so you can click on it and it would take you to the website, but alas I am not that computer literate!

Edited to add, I have got it all sorted I now have a blinkie in my sidebar that if you click on it, it will take you to Scrapbook Essentials. Thanks to Neen for the link and the blinkie!

Visit my sister!

2007-10-23T15:14:00.000+13:00

My sister has finally started a blog. I imagine she will only use it for her challenge layouts but then you never know she might become hooked like me LOL.

www.theoccasionalblogger-antionette.blogspot.com

She has her take on The Music in Me challenge up at the moment.

Today my baby turned 2

2007-10-22T21:02:00.000+13:00

It is now officially October 22nd American time. In about 4 hours time Isaac was actually born. It is kind of weird to have to adjust the time differnece, but in my mind I do, every second counts LOL.

So my baby boy is growing up. Some things Isaac can do at 2:

Blow candles out.
Blow party blowers
Sing "Happy Birthday To You"
Open presents almost by himself
Sleep in a big boy bed (we didn't take the sides off the cot a couple of weeks ago, but DID today and he LOVES it!)
Stay at Grandad and Grandmas and stay asleep all night. And Grandma said it was just about the easiest baby sitting they have ever done.
Jump with 2 feet off the ground.
"Run, fast" saying it while running fast!
Turn the TV on and off.
Give wonderful cuggles and kisses!
Dance while wiggling his whole body. Looks so cute with his shoulder wiggles!

And many, many more.

Here is the birthday boy with his main present. Doesn't Dad look great in the back ground in his dressing gown and shoes LOL.

Isaac and his friend Finley

Isaac loved getting Iggle Piggle from Tobyns friend. Tobyn also gave hime Makka Pakka. Steve was not happy about Iggle Piggle, he says it will give him nightmares LOL!!!

Fee, what do you think of the theme? The theme was Elmo. I had great plans of cutting out the shape of Elmos face and icing it. But...I failed to get the right food clouring on Friday. A little bit difficult to make Elmo without the black! So I came up with the brilliant idea of just icing the cake red and putting a printout of Elmo on top. I plan on making a mask out of the print out later. The main thing is that Isaac loved it!

Before today Isaac didn't know how to blow. It didn't take him long to learn and he then wanted us to keep lighting the candles so he could blow them out.

And the new found skill of blowing came in handy for the party blowers.

It was disappointing that of the 5 children invited only 1 turned up! Vivi's Mum is 7 months pregnant and at least she called to say she didn't feel up to it plus the girls had yucky noses. As for the others I didn't even get phone calls. I know I was keeping it small and told them it was just a quiet party and it would be cool if they could come. But no courtesy call? What is the world coming to?

But we had a ton of fun without them. Finleys sisters were there and 2 of Tobyns friends. And Isaac had a ball!!! His 3 big cousins came for dinner and he was spoilt with more In the Night Garden things and a Goofy soft toy. I think he was pretty happy!

I will leave the rest of the weekend for another post. And I want to tell you all about his time in the Neo Natal unit but that can wait as well. Enjoy these wonderful photos of my adorable 2 year old. (Mum I will try and print some off for you ;)

This week 2 years ago.

2007-10-18T17:15:00.001+13:00

WARNING THIS POST WILL BE LONG!!!

It all started about 18 years ago. Steve and I met through our young adults group. I had been going to the Church since I was 15 he came in his 2nd year of Uni. My first memory of him was not a positive one. We were at a family night and we were divided into teams and then we had to do a play. My memory of Steve was this crazy curly haired young guy in freezer works gumboots, that was his costume for the play. You can safely say at that time I wasn't attracted to him.
We got to know each other better over the next year or so and became good friends. I started to become 'interested' I told a friend who told him and we went on a couple of dates. But that was as far as it went at that time, he did the "I just want to be friends" speech. Broke my heart at the time. I have vivid memories of listening to "The Proclaimers" and "Enya" into the wee hours of the morning, and writing soppy poetry etc.
Over the next couple of years I dated a couple of other guys and 'got over him'. But we were still really good friends. We had the same group of friends and did things together practically every weekend.
I was 22 and still at home and desperately wanting to go flatting. I told Steve and he said well I want to buy a house and get flat mates in. I thought this was a great idea and within a few months he had bought a house and I became his sole flat mate. At that time I had just started dating another guy from our young adults group and this ended in tears after a few weeks. Well Steve was there to console me and I said to him "damn Techies you all break my heart" I had dated 2 and been very keen on another Massey Technology student. He laughed.
Over the next couple of weeks he started showing signs that he wanted more than flatmates. I said to my friends I can't go there, I am flatting with him it just wouldn't be right. But now 14 years of marriage later you can see we did get together.
When we got married we made a decision that we would like to start a family after 5 years of marriage and when I was 30. I was about to do my nursing training and I wanted to get some experience after I had finished.
When I finished my training Steve got offered a secondment to Reading, England. We jumped at the chance, Steve is English and all his family excluding imediate family are over there. At the same time we decided that we would start 'trying' to get pg. I went off the pill and things didn't go back to normal. Initially we thought surely it couldn't happen that quickly and for us it didn't. Before going to England we spent 3 months in Saudi Arabia. We had no support and no medical care. We had to wait until we got to England to seek help. When we got to England the Dr wasn't prepared to do anything because we hadn't been trying for 12 months. But I wasn't having a normal cycle and I just knew there was something not right. Eventually the Dr agreed to send me to a specialist. The specialist asked for my history and before doing any tests said I had polycystic ovarian syndrome. HUH, what the? I went on to have awful, embarrassing ultra sounds and it was confirmed I did indeed have PCOS! Fortuantely there was some pretty good drugs to help me and within 3 months we were pregnant with Tobyn. We were ecstatic!!!
Fast forward. Tobyn was 1 and we decided he was such an easy baby and we had had such a hard time getting pg with him that it was time to start trying again. This time it was not that easy! I used the same medication but it didn't work. I had many blood tests and ultra sounds. I also had an op that actually worked and I got pg but miscarried at about 10 weeks. After that nothing would work. Tobyn was 5 and we decided it was time to look into adoption. We did the course and put together our profile. It was very exciting, all of us, including Tobyn were looking forward to the future. Then things changed again.
There was a job Steve was interested in in America. One of his colleagues was lined up for it but didn't want to do it. Steve approached his boss about it but they were not considering him because they knew we were looking into adoption. But we were keen!!! We knew that we could possibly get help there that we couldn't here. We also knew that it was an awesome opportunity and we would get some wonderful experiences from the 18 months. So eventually they agreed that he was the right guy for the job.
We moved to the States just after Tobyn turned 6. Soon after we arrived there I saw a Dr who quadrupled my medication within a few weeks. He also put me onto a specialist and things were rolling. I was going to the gym and losing weight and we were having an awesome time. It was hard being away from family and friends and Tobyn did find it hard to settle in but it was all good.
While we were there Steve's Grandma died and we got to go to England for the funeral. It was perfect timing for Tobyn, he got to see Grandad and Grandma again and then go back 'home' he then settled into American life really well.
As far as the treatment was going for me, there was a plan. If I hadn't had a period by a certain date then we were trying another medication. Over that time frame Steve was going back to NZ on a business trip and his parents were visiting for 3 weeks. So I figured there was no way it would happen then. Well wouldn't you know it???!!!
The pregnancy was not an easy one right from the get go. At 6 weeks I had a small bleed and Steve and I thought this is it and had a good cry. I was sent for a scan and all was fine, WHEW. OK lets get to 12 weeks. But at 10 weeks while I was at the gym I had a large bleed. Again, sure that it was over. Yet again a scan showed things were fine. I had done alot of reading about PCOS and pregnancy and requested a blood test to check my progesterone and sure enough it was very low so I was put on progesterone supplements. Everything continued pretty smoothly. Though I had been put on low activity. No gym, no vacuuming, I had to be a couch potato. This was good for my crafts but not good for my self esteem. I had been really enjoying the gym!!!
My BP started rising and needed to be monitored closely. I was refered to a perinatologist, a VERY special pregnancy doctor. A scan with the perinatologist showed that the baby only had a 2 strand umbilical cord. Quite uncommon and not a lot known about it really. But some of the concerns are heart problems, kidney problems, and some genetic problems. GREAT something else to worry about! I did a search on the net and found out a bit, but basically I decided it was a slim chance there was something wrong. But until the baby was born I did worry a little. My biggest fear was fragile X, a genetic developmental problem in our family. My sister has a son with it and as adorable as he is he is hard work.
Fast forward to Oct 17th 2005. 3o weeks pregnant. I was going for a scan and Tobyn and Steve were coming too. This was Tobyns first look at the baby and we were all very excited. I was taken to have my BP checked and it was very high. I had to wait for a few minutes and they took it again. The boys were getting a little concerned. Eventually I went back out to see them and we were all taken through for the scan. It was quite exciting and Tobyn loved it. But things were to change quite dramatically. The Dr said I had to be admitted. My BP was dangerously high and she didn't think we would see the night through without delivering the baby. But the hope was that I would be able to have the 2 shots of steroids to develop the babies lungs. We needed 24 hours for that to work, preferably 48 hours. Fortunately for the baby we got that 48 hours. Things stabilised and the hope was that we could get to at least 36 weeks. I was settling in for being in hospital for another 4-6 weeks. My friends had brought in books, crafts, treats, crosswords and fruit. I had the computer and the hospital had wireless internet so I was able to do some on line shopping.
Oct 21st I had another scan and they were pretty happy that the baby was growing and the amniotic fluid was OK. Carry on!
The night of Oct 21st things went down hill fast. I thought I was constipated and asked for something. They gave me some prune juice, which fortunately I didn't drink. Early on the 22nd the nurses were quite concerned and called the on call Dr. He decided to send me down to labour and delivery. I was petrified, I was alone and had no idea of what was going on. As it turned out my organs were starting to shut down. I wanted to ring Steve and the nurse said she would tell him when he came in. Well it was 6am and he wasn't coming in until 9ish. Finally they allowed me to ring him and he came immediately. Fortunately Tobyn had been staying at a friends that night and she just kept him until Steve called her again.
I was so lucky to have some wonderful Drs on board. The on call Dr wanted me to labour, my perinatologist said no way this is an emergency, thank goodness for her!!! I was taken through to theatre and we didn't know if Steve would be able to be there. The anaesthesiologist took one look at my belly and the bruising on it and said "this is pitiquing (sp?), we have to do a general!" This meant Steve wasn't able to come in.
So baby was born and I took a while to come through from the anaesthetic. Steve was very concerned. Eventually he was able to see me and I was not well. I actually kept going down hill. My red blood cells were dropping and they thought I might need a blood transfusion. Fortunately I didn't! Steve and Tobyn got to see Isaac and were so excited. But he was tiny, he weighed only 2lb. But the good news was he was healthy, no genetic problems and his lungs were strong.
I was still on Magnesium Sulphate for the high blood pressure. What an awful medication!!! I had very vivid nightmares, blurred vision and generally felt awful. I thought I was going to die! I was so sick and Isaac doing so well that they brought Isaac to see me which is extremely unusual. I had such blurry vision that I couldn't get a good look at him. I didn't get to hold him for 5 days. Steve filled me in 3 times a day with how Isaac was doing. He had wonderful nurses and Drs and he was very strong and doing extrememly well!
I am so thankful for the care I got while so sick. I am so thankful for the care Isaac got for the 9 weeks he was in hospital.
We are so fortunate to have our 2 boys, we thought we might not have any of our own natural children. We are truly thankful!!!
I will save Isaacs time in the neonatal unit for another post, this post is long enough already!!!

The first 2 photos show just how small he was and how much he has grown. The teddy was given to him by Tobyn and has a recordable thing inside. Tobyn had recorded "I love you young Isaac" It still plays and just this afternoon Isaac has been going around the house holding the teddy and saying "I love you young Isaac" too cute!!!

He looks a bit like a deer in the headlights here LOL.

Look how grown up he is, putting teddy on the horse for a ride. His imagination is taking off right now. He is really into playing tea parties and pretending to use medical stuff.

I know I had this photo on here a few days ago, but here he is my BIG boy.

Whew, that took a while but I wanted to get this down. I haven't written this down anywhere else so while it is still pretty clear in my mind here it all is.

NZ Dare #32

2007-10-17T16:15:00.000+13:00

My sister came around today we planned on doing some scrapbooking. She is working on the latest music in me challenge "Time after Time" I want to do that one but have NO inspiration for that one yet. So I planned on doing the No 8 wired NZ Dare. The challenge is to scrap a mood. I just flicked through my albums and came across this photo of Tobyn in Disneyland. Tobyn doesn't often show much emotion but as you can see in this photo he LOVED the thrill. I am pretty happy with this layout...but...I don't like the journalling block down the right hand side. When I showed Tobyn the layout he said "it's OK" "just OK" I said, "what don't you like about it?" "I don't like the photo. It doesn't look like a real smile" I replied explaining how it shows how much fun he was having and no it isn't a real smile, it is real EXCITEMENT! I love it. He was OK about it then LOL.

I didn't need to egg sit in the end. They have a Motel in the classroom where the eggs go during class time. I went into school to help with literacy today and they were writing a diary for their eggs. It was so funny hearing the antics the eggs got up to last night. One egg visited her friend next door but her friend had fallen and cracked and needed to be replaced and one got squashed by the dog. So far Tobyn's is surviving. His egg now has a PlayStation 3 and a plasma TV. He has just been making bags of cereal for it. It is great how it has captured their imaginations.

The Egg Family and the frogman

2007-10-16T21:22:00.000+13:00

I have heard of kids having eggs to look after before and I looked forward to the day my kids did it. And here it is. Tobyns class have to look after an egg each for a week. They are all pretty excited which is funny given that there are only 4 girls in his class! Mind you there have already been 5 deaths in 1 day LOL. Tobyn has called his egg Toby. He has made a house for it. The house has a comfy bed, a chair, a bookcase with miniature books and some pokemon cards. Tomorrow I have to egg sit. I hope Grandma Egg does a good job, LOL.

Isaac wearing his new goggles in the bath. He needs to get used to them for swimming and I think it won't take long!

Today I was thrilled to find out that my friend Adele has paid her deposit for scrap camp next April. I know it is ages away but I am so excited, this will be my first major scrapbooking outing! Woohoo.

Memories

2007-10-15T14:07:00.000+13:00

What a busy weekend we have had. We got a skip bin on Friday because we had a few big things we needed to get rid of. It is amazing how motivated it got us to do a while lot of other things around the house as well.

This old beat up cupboard was left by the owner in Steve's 1st house. It has seen us move 4 times. We had great intentions of painting it many times but as it lived in the garage it was never a priority. Then it became the height chart for Tobyn. Disappointingly Steve found bora in it a couple of weeks back so it had to go. But I had to take a photo and transfer the measurements onto a piece of card so we can transfer it onto a more long lasting height chart. Steve and Tobyn had fun bashing it about to fit it in the bin. It was absolutely riddled with bora, quite amazing it was still standing!

Tobyn had a pre season cricket morning and loved it! Being a pretty unsporty kid it is great to have him enjoying a summer and winter sport! Saturday noght he was going to stay at his friends house. Ethan phoned earlier than planned and said Tobyn could come over any time. I had said he had to tidy his room before he could go, and it took 3 inspections before it was to my satisfaction, tough Mummy!

So Saturday afternoon and evening and all day Sunday it was just Steve, Isaac and I. We couldn't believe how much more we could get done without him there LOL.

Isaac wanted to 'help' Daddy out in the garden and he enjoyed going down the hill and falling on his bottom. He would walk backwards, deliberately fall down and say ouch and then laugh and do it all over again.

I spent alot of time in the garage sorting out boxes that came out of the old cupboard. One box that was on top of the cupboard had quilting material, polystyrine shapes some with sequins in and other craft things. The cat had made this his box. He had chewed the top and started to chew the polystyrine balls, grrr. I then moved onto the computer cupboard and front bedroom. The plan was to make the front room my scrap space/guest bedroom. But I had to move some things first. Steve had told me that the old computer tabel that was in the front room would fit into the cupboard. So I spent a couple of hours clearing a book case and computer desk only to find out that the desk would not fit in the cupboard *argh* So change of plans. We still bought the old dining table into the front room, moved the single bed into Isaacs room, put the computer desk back into that room, moved Tobyns boxes of imaginext into his wardrobe, moved his old storage containers in to the front bedroom wardrobe and now I have to sort everything out so I can actually scrap in there. It will be great once I have it all organised. We need to decide what we are going to do with the computer desk because we have a sofa bed coming for that front room.

Look at my boy. He looks so grown up! I took this photo on Sunday and I love it, apart from the windblown hair.

It is so hard to believe that this time 2 years ago I was being hospitalised in the hope that we could get to 36 weeks before having to deliver the baby. In a couple of days I will blog more about the whole ordeal but this is a week of remembering fro me. We re so lucky that Isaac is healthy and that I am alive it was not an easy time. But look at what we have to show for it, a gorgeous, spunky, healthy boy!

And on the note of big boys, he slept in a big boy bed for part of last night!!! Stave went into him in the middle of the night (normally my job, bless him) but he needed to got the the loo so he put Isaac down on the single bed. When he went back in to put him in the cot Isaac was having none of it, he wanted to stay in the big bed. Steve put some pillows on the floor and we hoped he wouldn't fall out. When he woke this morning and I went in to him he was sitting in the middle of the bed, a HUGE grin on his face and pointing at all the animals ion the duvet cover, too cute! Steve has a job after work....taking the cot down and making it into the bed. My baby is growing up, 2nd birthday looming next Monday.

A new day!

2007-10-12T12:52:00.000+13:00

Thanks for the comments regarding the last post. I truly appreciate your thoughts, ideas and support! I feel more able to think positively today. Every now and then it all comes out. I don't feel this way all the time but when you go through an incident like Isaacs test it brings it out stronger. With a clearer head I can now reason through the events yesterday. I am sure that some of the tests they did yesterday were beyond most 2 year olds ability. What we don't know is how much of an effect his prematurity will have on his long term development, so I over think things.

I found out today that Tobyn has some new kids in his cricket team and they are also year 4 like him, so that is wonderful!

Our weekend looks like it will be spent tidying and clearing away rubbish. We have got in a skip bin. Hopefully the boys will enjoy filling it with tree branches.

Sunny what a wonderful sight to see you here!!! The boys enjoyed their M&M's and I have enjoyed listening to Chris! Thank you so much! A parcel will be on it's way soon. I am making something which is taking longer than I had hoped;)

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

worrywart

2007-10-11T15:38:00.001+13:00

Do we ever stop worrying about our kids?

I am always worrying! I want my kids to be happy and successful. But what does that mean? Tobyn is really small and I am always worrying that he gets picked on, that he can't do what other kids his age can do and that he passes just under the radar and doesn't get noticed for his achievements. At his school they get certificates in assemblies, Tobyn hasn't got a certificate since the 2nd term LAST year. He isn't a bad kid, he doesn't do naughty things but he also doesn't do fantastically. He is very smart but he only does just enough to get by. I don't know how to incourage him to work harder. He isn't physical AT ALL, but he does try hard, yet he gets treated like a 6 year old. He is playing cricket over the summer and has been put in the youngest team with the 5, 6 and 7 year olds......he is 9! I worry that this will only make him think it is OK to be immature. How will he learn to behave his age if he keeps getting treated like he is youn ger than he actually is/

This now brings me to Isaac. Isaac was 2 months prem and weighed only 998gms. He is monitored by the paediatrician and the developmental therapist. We also get the PAFT (parents as first teachers) teacher in every month. Yesterday he had his 2 year old check with his PAFT teacher. She is really impresed with him, she thinks he is very highly intelligent (though can you tell that at such an early age?) anyway, he passed the 2 year old mile stones with flying colours on her chart. His language is that of a 3 year old, his physical ability is well developed and his cognitive skills match for a 2 year old. Makes a Mum feel good and very proud. Then today I took him for his 2 year old developmental check......I came away feeling unsure of his development. He was very shy, did the quiet talking, rocking his feet onto the side of his shoes (which I have not seen him do before0 and wasn't very focused. He started off with the tests really well. He built a tower of 8 blocks when they only expect them to do 6, he put a series of small cylindrical blocks into there holes in very quick time and it seemed to go down hill. She wanted him to point at objects in a book, he would look at the object but not point. She had a baby doll without any clothes on and wanted him to comb the babies hair, he didn't want anything to do with the naked baby, kept pushing it away. She had a puzzle with a circle, square and triangle, he got the circle in no problem, but couldn't put the others in the right hole. But he did really well with matching colours. She started with 3 colours to match to 3 coloured circles, no problem, then she had 5 colours and he had to match them. He started off by putting the red no the black and then got all the others right, when it came to the black circle he knew to move the red one and put the black one in the right place. He di very well physically, great walking and running, climbing and kicking. I am not qualified to know what the outcome is but I am worried...I WANT to know NOW. She showed some concern that he wasn't concentrating very well. He had his own agenda at times. But I guess he isn't quite 2. He could still need his age adjusting, I know there is research that says that can be up to 5. He didn't do some things there that he can do at home. I hope we get the results soon so I can stop being a WORRYWART!!!

I love my boys so much and just want the best for them. I see so much potential and I want others to see that as well. There young lives go by so fast and I hope that we are guiding them in the right direction.

Finally some photos

2007-10-10T20:00:00.000+13:00

I promised some photos from our week at the lake house. Yes it is Taupo, but not the town, a different part of the lake. Nice to be a bit away from the crowds!

I could not believe that I didn't get any photos of Tobyn in the Kayak :( This one shows Isaac trying to escape. He loved being in the Kayak but didn't like getting his bum wet, so funny.

Here Isaac is with Thomas, Isaac ADORES him! When Isaac saw the boys had lay their towels on the ground he thought they should be sleeping. So here he is sleeping with Thomas.

Tobyn helped me cook spaghetti and meatballs one night. Here he is browning them. Isaac wanted to get up as well and he got the stool and pushed it over to the bench. I let him up just so I could get the photo, LOL.

Isaac loves putting shoes on at the moment. It is a sign to him that he can go outside. Here he has Grandads shoes on and is longingly waiting at the door.

I was inspired to write the following memory from Trina's blog, thanks Trina for getting me to think about writing it.

When we were travelling home from Taupo we had 2 cars so Tobyn went with Steve and Isaac was with me. Isaac didn't like Tobyn being in the other car, it was almost as if he was missing a limb. He sat very quietly with quite a glum look on his face. When we stopped and he could see his buddy he was happy, but as soon as we had to get back on the road again he was back to his glum self. We stopped in Bulls for dinner and Tobyn decided he would come in the car with me. Isaac couldn't have been happier and chatted away to Tobyn as if he hadn't seen him for weeks and weeks. Their relationship is so special I hope it always stays that way with the large age difference! I love watching their relationship grow, it makes my heart melt.

This was the week of haircuts in the Gregory house. Tobyn and I were desperate for cuts and I was desperate for a colour. I knew it had been a while but Gemma, my hairdresser told me I hadn't been in since June 16th, WOAH, that was before we went to Oz!!! No wonder I had so much grey. So I went yesterday. I was really looking forward to having some relaxing time in the hairdressers chair without any children. When I got hold of my sister to look after Isaac she said she had just booked herself in for a haircut too, so I had to take Isaac with me for part of it until she was able to come and get him. Isaac was so good, I think because he was so overwhelmed by the noise etc. When Annie arrived he was more than ready to leave! Then I was able to totally relax and enjoy the rest of my time there. I always love having my hair done because it always looks so good after, the only time every 8 weeks. When Isaac saw me he he didn't want to look at me! He really doesn't like change. I said something about Aunty at one point and he said 'No, not Aunty' funny boy.

So today the boys got their hair cut. I have been cutting Isaac's hair and making a hash of it. I thought it was time to get Gemma to tidy it up. Tobyn was first and good as always and then came Isaac's turn. He was really great. Gemma did it as fast as possible and now my baby looks like a big boy.

When we got home I wanted to take some photos. For once Tobyn was actually co-operative and I got some nice shots.

Til next time, ttfn

The Lakehouse

2007-10-08T12:02:00.000+13:00

I'mmmmm baaack! From some lovely time away! Warning, this post could be long and without any photos. The camera is out in the car and it is pouring with rain so the photos will have to wait for another time.

The boys and I had a lovely 8 days at the lakehouse. We are so fortunate that Steves parents bought this house back in May. This is our 2nd time visiting and boy do we appreciate it. We all went up on the Saturday and we took Tobyns friend Thomas with us. It was great for Tobyn to have his friend there for a few days. On the Saturday afternoon they enjoyed rambling on the golf course and exploring the house and surrounds. On Sunday they got up early with Steve and went down to the lake before breakfast. Before lunch it started raining and we thought kayaking on the lake was going to be out but by about 2.30pm it was fine and calm enough so we took the kayak down to the lake. ALL the boys had a go, including Isaac though he didn't like getting his bum wet and wanted to stand up and rock the boat. They can't wait to go back in the summer and jump off the front of the kayak into the 'warm' lake!

Steve had to go back for work on the Monday. Thomas' parents picked up after lunch on Monday and T, I and I were on our own. I got to read, do crosswords, watch a DVD, play games, and visit all 3 playgrounds in the area. The weather wasn't all that good for outdoor activities but we had a great time anyway. Cooking was great. I had to be REALLY organised because to drive to the town was a hassle. We had no takeaways for 9 days, how fantastic. Lots of fruit and veges and I feel so good for that! Steve returned on Thursday evening, it was nice to have some more adult company! Steves's parents arrived on Saturday and the boys were thrilled to see them. We can see so many memories being made at this wonderful place. Sunday we drove back slowly stopping at Turangi, Waiouru and Bulls. We had 2 cars so we needed to get out, stretch legs and 'wake' up.

I arrived home to some wonderful parcels. 2 of my favourite things in the world....2 pizza boxes full of scrapbooking goodies and a spot prize from the SE comp and a large box full of Malaleuca cleaning products. It was a hard decision which to attack first, the cleaning stuff won out. We have decided to go clean and green. I have already done some washing, dishes and cleaned bathrooms and benchtops and I am sold on the stuff. It does a great job and smells DELICIOUS! It is full of natural oils like tea tree, lavender and lemon, and many others! Being all natural I am hoping it will clear up Steves eczema and help with Tobyn's allergies.

Isaac had his 1st lesson in the Jellyfish swimming class today and he LOVES it. He is such a fish, he wants to go off on his own but he can't touch the bottom yet. He is by far the youngest yet the only one that can swim on his back with the only support being my hand under his head. I hope this continues, especially knowing the time we will be having at the lake.

OK I am now off to check out other blogs, please forgive me if I don't get to make a comment for a couple of days, lots to catch up on!

Check back tomorrow for photos.

Ticket to ride

2007-09-28T13:06:00.000+12:00

Just to tease you all I will talk about my 'music in me' layout before the title of my blog post today.

From the first time I saw Neen's challenge this past fornight I could not get the coke slogan out of my head. I could not get past that to think about some other layout so I HAD to do it. Steve thinks it is wierd but then it is him. I had fun doing this, paint, ribbon, cutting paper, fun, fun, fun.

The holidays are going really well so far. The children have been keep suitably busy as to not have any 'I'm bored' comments. On Wednesday my sister and I plus our 5 boys went over to Wanganui. There are 2 really great things about Wanganui....Kowhai Park and The Scrapbook shop there.
On the way we were stopped for a routine police checkpoint. I felt pretty smug 'knowing' everything was up to date. The cop says 'just checking reg etc. Do you have a more recent registration than May?' me 'Parden? No, I had no idea!!!' Cop 'Do you have your drivers licence?' Me 'Sure, hang on' rummage around the car, knowing I had put it in there last week when I had lost my wallet, which was found outside the library after a night of heavy rain. I couldn't find my licence. now I am feeling very mad at myself. The policeman was a very nice man and very understanding. BUT, he still gave me a ticket. Understandably really! He said they may waiver it but I just have to give it a try. I know how it happened, after we moved, last August, we didn't change our address for car registration. I don't look at the date because normally I get a reminder. So when Steve got home I asked him to look at his car and sure enough his was back in May as well, DOH. Well now they are both up to date, whew.

On to Wanganui. First stop, Post Office to get car registration. 2nd stop the Scrapbook Shop. Before entering we 'bribe' the children with McDonalds if they behave and don't touch anything. And they were very well behaved. Tobyn asked the store owner if she had anything about holy socks because he would like to do a page about holy socks LOL!!! He wants to have a layout published...he will probably get one published before me LOL!
After that we went to MD's and then onto Kowhai park. I love Kowhai park because it is so colourful and there are so many photo opportunities, if the children co-operate.
Following are a few of my faves.

This first one shows how daring Isaac is! He climber this rock, by himself, to the top. And it is pretty high! He is very brave.

I just love this one.

I love this one because you can see how much fun they were having. I love Isaacs hair flying. Unfortunate about Tobyns expression though.

Isaac trying to get away from Aunty to join the big boys.

And a one of all 5 boys. I am really pleased to have got a couple of reasonable shots of them all together, not an easy task!!!

This one was fun. I loved the colours on the boat and the boys loved being silly!

Tomorrow we are off the Taupo. We were supposed to leave tonight but Steve had to go to Auckland today and doesn't get back until 7.30pm. Tobyn's friend is here already and they are having a ball outside with the water pistols. Crazy boys, it's not that hot!

So until next time, have a great weekend, ttfn.

A tip for young players, if you didn't already know, you can click on the images and it will take you to a larger image.

Holidays and stuff

2007-09-24T19:00:00.000+12:00

Yay, it's the holidays. I love the holidays. It means I can do things with the boys on our own time. We already have the whole holidays planned. Today we had friends over for morning tea and then my sister and her boys came over for afternoon tea. Tomorrow we are going down to the cousins in Paraparaumu. Clare has a specialist appointment in Wellington so I will look after Hannah and Adam. Wednesday we are probably going to the zoo with the other cousins. Thursday Isaac has a playdate at the park, Tobyn will have to tag along, I am sure he will be fine he is so good with the little boys! Thursday afternoon my Sister and the boys are coming over so Annie and I can do our 'Music in Me' blog challenge. And finally on Friday Tobyns friend is coming to stay with us at the lake house. We are all going for the weekend and then Steve and Thomas will come back to Palmy with Steve returning again the next Friday. This is the 1st time Tobyn has invited a friend to the lake house and the first time I will be staying on my own with the boys. I am really looking forward to the break. It is nice just to be out of the norm.

Home news- we are in the process of having a big clean up!!! The garage needs such a huge tidy up, and that is Steves domain! He bought a big deck box on the weekend and put all the outdoor toys in it. Already it has proven invaluable! The boys were all out on the deck this afternoon playing with all the balls. Tobyn was even motivated to take the play tent and tunnel out for the littler kids (although truth be known I think was for him as well!) Yesterday afternoon Tobyn and I had a waterfight, FUN! Isaac sort of joined in although he was pointing the water pistol at his own face and giggling, very cute!

Scrapbooking news. The Scrapbook Essentials comp is over. Where did that 7 weeks go? It was such a great comp to do. Everyone was so wonderful, kind, thoughtful and talented! The winners were very deserving. I found myself challenged in ways I didn't expect. I have a new found appreciation of my scrapbooking. People have always said they like what I do but now I have a 1st placing in a pretty big comp. I am very proud of myself! And I think Steve is pretty proud of me too. It was quite amusing because he checked all the layouts out as well and whenever there were placings to be announced he was as impatient as I was. Pretty cool to have a husband so supportive!
And here's last weeks challenge layout. It took me ages to decide on what to do, but once I had it all fell together pretty well. I love the colours and after I had finished it I realised I could hang it in my living room and it would match perfectly! Our living room is the blue and brown and we knew that red was the perfect accent!

So what now? I am planning on doing the 'music in me' challenges and then maybe try and do some layouts that just take my fancy. I also want to submit to some mags and see how I get on. I don't feel all that confident but hey I deffinately won't get anything excepted if I don't put myself out there!

I may or may not get back to the blog until after the holidays! The lake house doesn't have internet access, so I deffaintely won't get on next week. What will I do without my fix? so have a greta holiday, those that have them and 'I'll be back' said in my best Arnold accent.

Tagged

2007-09-21T13:44:00.000+12:00

Hannah tagged me last week and I have only just got around to doing it. So here goes....

Here’s how it works:
1. Players must list one fact, word, or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of their first or middle name.
2. When you are tagged you need to write your own post containing your first or middle name game facts, word, or tidbit.
3. At the end of your post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag.
4. Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them that they have been tagged, and to read your blog.
5. If I’ve tagged YOU (see below), please join in on the fun!

Y - Youthful - hmm, wishful thinking maybe?

V - Voluptuous - well.....when I was 22 a photographer said that to me and I took great offense. Now I would love for someone to say that!

E - Exercise - something I need to do a lot more of!!! I know the importance of it but I find it hard to MAKE myself do it!

T - Talented- Yes I do think I am talented. I love my photography and scrapbooking. I might not be 'the best' but I know my stuff is pleasing to my family and close friends and I love that!

T - Travellor - I LOVE to travel! I need my fix pretty regularly. This year I have been lucky to have done a trip down South with a very dear friend as well as travel to Oz with my family. 2 wonderful trips.

E - Entertainer - Aren't all Mums that? I feel I am constantly entertaining little people. And I love it. I love it when I do something that makes my boys laugh. I love it when I take them somewhere and they learn something new. I love that I am helping them along their life path. I also love to be entertained! I love going to live shows, movies, concerts and I am really looking forward to T's dance recital in Oct!!!

So thats me. I could have done my middle name, Maree, might have been a little easier. As for the tagging...I can't tag 6 people but I will tag

Fee

Jenny

Lainie

It is fun and we get to learn more about you.

My next blog post will have may final layout for the SE ultimate scrapper comp. I don't want to make this post too long, plus the little man is waking up.

ttfn

The week that was

2007-09-13T19:47:00.000+12:00

Here is the week 6 SE ultimate scrapper layout. This week we were challenged to use a 'technique' It took me a while to decide on what I was going to do. I love altering chipboard. I have done a bit of doodling on recent layouts, I could have done stamping, sewing and many other things. In the end it was the photo that gave me the inspiration. I thought with the ruined tape I could use ribbon to look like the tape ribbon. I am really happy with how it turned out! Steve had quite a bit of input into this one. He actually suggested the ribbon around the photo. Originally I had 3 4x6 photos but once I put the ribbon around the middle one I knew that had to be the focus.

This is the week 5 SE ultimate scrapper entry. We were challenged to do a double layout about a challenge in our life. I chose to do about our time in the States, so far away from friends and family and having Isaac early and the incredibly special nurses who have become very special friends. I am so happy to have this scrapped. I love the layout! It didn't photograph very well, I think the light background with the dark photos confused the camera, even though I was doing it manually. There is silver doodling around the photo of the hands which is very hard to see. The photo of the hands is Steve's wedding ring on Isaacs arm. The ring actually slid right up his arm! This photo was Nurse Sues idea so that we could send it home to family and friends so they could get an idea of how small he was.

Ilka, notice the silver butterfly? Isn't it just so cute! I recieved this in my PIF parcel from Ilka, so lovely.

There is only one week left of the comp and I am in two minds about how I feel about it. I will miss the challenges because I have learnt so much about how I scrap. I will miss the Wednesday morning reveals and seeing all the a mazing work on the site. BUT, my family will be pleased to have the house in more order. I started my spring clean last Friday and slowly over the next couple of weeks I will finish it. So far the kitchen is looking lovely and sparkly clean.

As for the PIF's only one person hasn't said not to PIF them, so Mrs Frizz if you would like to be a PIFee send me a pm on SE. Other than that I think I will PIF some new scrappers here in town.

My class went really well. It was so much fun. There were 7 people and I think I have got another 4 new scrapbookers out of it! I let them choose there own colours and it was so cool to see there personalitys coming through with what they chose. Even though they basically followed my layout they all looked so different and cool.

On other news, my big boy got onto the year 4 quiz team. He got equal top score with his best friend. It is so wonderful to see him blooming with his new teacher. He also had his final hockey game on Sat. They won, what a great way to end the season. They ended up being 5th in division 1, a great effort considering this was there 1st year in division 1 and it is a combined team from 2 schools and range in age from 8-11. Steve gave them all certificates and made them personal. He gave Tobyn Most Enthusiastic player, Tobyn was so chuffed with this!

On Sunday we took Tobyn and his friend Thomas to there 1st rugby game. It was Manawatu vs Otago. Manawatu played really well and it was a draw. the best thing about the game for the boys was when they caught one of the balls kicked into the crowd. After the game they took the ball and got the players to sign it, the players were surprised to see 2 little boys with a ball! They will remember that for a long time!

Have a great weekend everyone TTFN.

PIF a Class and a cutie

2007-09-05T17:36:00.000+12:00

There is a fun thing going around the place at the moment call Play it forward. I guess a take on the Pay it Forward idea from the movie of the same same that I enjoyed. So what happens is someone sends me something or does something special and then I do the same for someone else. So for anyone that leaves a message on my blog I will pick 3 people to PIF to. The only catch is that you then PIF to 3 other people. It is fun and people love being treated special once in a while.

Tonight I am teaching a class at our Mums group. I foolishly suggested to Kaila that maybe I could do a page about me with them. We usually talk about our parenting and how we can be better parents, so what about us, a leagacy for our children. Kaila said 'Oh what a fantastic idea, what about our next meeting?' I had been stressing about it! I have never done anything like this before. Will they like it, what do I do, how do I organise the stuff, how many people will turn up and on and on. Last week I was lucky to find some paper very cheap at Spotlight, nice American Crafts stuff it was too. Yesterday I finally put the page idea together, see the pic. I like it. It is very simple, but I don't know if it is too simple. I will let you know after tonight how it goes.

Look at what Isaac spent a lot of yesterday afternoon doing. He spent ages puting these tiny little Mickey Mouse characters in and out of the cab of the truck. Opening and shutting the doors. He was so engrossed he didn't know I was taking pics for ages.

A funny thing that happened with Tobyn this morning....

He went to his room to get dressed and there was a cockroach on the floor of his room. Steve went in and told him that he should keep his room tidier and make sure there wasn't any food in there. Well of course Tobyn wasn't happy with that comment because he never takes food into his room. I on the other hand said it probably came in the open toilet window from the woodshed. His room is right next to the toilet. He liked that idea better. After that he spent a few mins tidying his room. He came into the kitchen and we had the following conversation...

Tobyn: 'I think I know why the cockroach came into my room'
Mum: 'Why'
Tobyn: 'This book was on the floor'

Holds up a kids cookbook with a picture of an icecream sunday on the cover

Mum: 'Oh, why'
Tobyn: 'I think it liked the look of the picture on the front and thought it would taste good'

I couldn't help but laugh and write it down for the future!

Isaac and Apollo, so cute!

2007-09-02T20:01:00.000+12:00

Man this was just so cute I had to blog about it, deffinately a memory to keep alive!

After his bath tonight Isaac always likes a 'cuggle' with Mummy. So I took him and sat on the couch just as 'The Zoo' was starting. Apollo came and climbed onto Isaacs lap and made himself comfortable. Steve got the first couple of photos because it was so cute. Next minute Isaac is saying 'Yummy', Apollo was licking his face. I said 'Apollo is giving you a kiss' so then Isaac was giving Apollo mouth kisses! He doesn't even give me a 'proper' kiss, always turns his head for me to kiss his cheek. He must REALLY love Apollo. SO cute!

The Music In Me

2007-09-02T19:52:00.000+12:00

This is my layout for the first challenge at Neens The music in Me blog. Neen has started a blog with 2 challenges each month all to do with music. I know I am going to get lots of inspiration from this one!

This layout doesn't have wonderful photos on it! These were taken back in 1995 before we had an SLR and before I really knew much about how to take good pics! But the challenge using the title 'Ice Ice Baby' was perfect for these photos! So thank you Neen for a wonderful blog!

And I am so MAD, I just realised I spelt Melbourne wrong, ARGH! And the letters are stuck firm, they will be hard to change!!!

On a HIGH

2007-09-01T13:01:00.000+12:00

I am so excited! I got 1st equal in this weeks scrapbook essentials ultimate scrapper comp. I am in shock! There were so many amazing and deserving layouts and I can't believe mine got chosen. Woohoo, doing a little happy dance!

Thank you for your kind thoughts for Isaac. He is much improved. After 1 dose of ibuprofen and a 3 hour sleep he was much better. He is now back to his cheeky rat big self. He still has a horrible chesty cough and an icky nose but I can will take that over the listless, sad little munchkin he was for 2 days. Last night I got my first night of full sleep in a week, so I am happy about that too. Unfortunately though I now have a horrible cough as well. C'est la vie, goes with the territory of being a Mum.

We have a very quiet weekend here, which I need after the last week. Steve is planning on taking the boys out this afternoon and giving me some space for an hour or so. Aaaah, looking forward to that.

ttfn

My poor wee boy!

2007-08-30T14:30:00.000+12:00

Sorry for the following disjointed blog, I am going to blame it on lack of sleep! Isaac is very sick! He has a raging temp which we don't seem to be able to break. Right now he is actually sleeping on the couch, not me, so I can get a few moments to myself. I took him to the Dr on Tuesday and he said he had a chest infection and gave him an anti bot. But he hasn't got any better. I have had him sleeping with me for 3 nights now. Yesterday he didn't want me to put him down at all, he wouldn't even go to Daddy! Last night he seemed to be hallucinating. He would wake up start screaming and put his hands out in front of him "Lion, lion, lion" It took almost an hour to calm him down. He just did the same thing a few mins ago, this time saying "cat, cat, cat" but not as hysterically. I took him back to the Dr today. He said he isn't any worse and that the high temp is what is causing him all the problems and then prescribed ibuprophen. I hope he starts getting better soon, I hate seeing him so sick. I start to worry, especially because of the fears drummed into us about preemies and colds.

We had a lovely weekend with Steves sister Jane and wee Olivia. Though they were both tired and needing rest and relaxation. I hope that Jane felt a little relaxed after staying with 2 little boys. Olivia had a bit of a cold and wasn't feeding or sleeping well. By Sunday evening Jane phoned after hours and they said to bring her in. This little 12 week old was diagnosed with a chest infection and an ear infection. Poor wee thing, it is so hard to know with babies.

I went out to dinner and to the movies with my sister on Sunday evening. It was nice to get out without the boys! We went to see 'I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry' it was funny and there were deffinately some laught out loud moments, but it wasn't one I would rave about.

Now for this weeks scrapbook essentials layout. I am very happy with this one, I love how it turned out. Though my sister will testify that I had to tell myself to stop with the doodling and stitching LOL. The website has been experiencing problems. Couldn't get on at all yesterday (not that Isaac would let me anyway) and today it is touch and go. Next week we have to do a double, ARGH!!!

My sisters husband came home from hospital yesterday after 2 and a half months. She said he tires easily. He is so lucky really, he will be close to 100% in a years time. For those that are new to my blog my BIL was in a head on collision back in June. He broke his collar bone, elbow, hip and both ankles. He has pins and plates in all of those joints.

so until next time, when I have some more totally inthralling news, have a wonderful week.

I got a spot prize!

2007-08-24T22:11:00.001+12:00

Wow, what a shock I got this morning when I saw that I got a spot prize in the Ultimate scrapper comp. So entering this has been so worth while! I have got some layouts done that I would never have done otherwise plus I am going to get a little something in the post, YAY. The standard of layouts in this comp is so high and I am so impressed with what people can come up with in such a short amount of time while being pushed out of there 'normal' scrapping.

And just a cute photo of Isaac. Tobyn stuck this bow to Isaacs head and Isaac left it there for ages!

Latest Ultimate scrapper layout

2007-08-22T22:43:00.001+12:00

So here is the latest creation for the Scrapbookessentials ultimate scrapper comp. As I said earlier the challenge this week was to use NO photos, yep, none, nada, zilch! I really struggled with this one. It took me ages to come up with an idea and when it did I thought it was going to work. My original idea was inspired by a piece of fabric I saw, it was different shades of blue circles on a white background. So I thought, ooh, blue circles on white, big words in the middle, journalling around the edge, telling the boys my hopes and dreams for them. I told Steve my inspired idea and he said "I don't generally like your layouts on white backgrounds, I know you do, but..." so I pulled out my layouts on white backgrounds and he liked 4 out of 6...go figure. Anyway I listened to him and decided to not use a white background and it didn't work! I wish I had stayed with my idea. On Sunday I ended up with a very sore back and had to give up working on it. On Monday I could hardly move and I wasn't going to be scrapping that day, especially as Steve had taken a few hours off to look after Isaac and get Tobyn to and from school and swimming. So I had to do the layout on Tuesday, and get it finished while it was still light so I could photograph it. I made a few balls ups e.g, the pale green rings are covering up some hideous yellow paint, which you can kind of see which now I think gives it a great grungy look. But I didn't have time to start again. I think my biggest thing with it is that it is incredibly different to anything that I have ever done before. The ladies in the comp are so sweet, I have had nothing but positive comments about that and I thank you all, it sure does make a girl feel good!

Meeting Olivia and 2 layouts

2007-08-18T21:45:00.000+12:00

Today we went down to Paraparaumu and got to meet little Olivia. What a darling little girl. But poor Jane is tired. Olivia has got reflux and colic. Unfortunately I think all the cousins didn't help the littlest cousin to be settled, of course she wanted to be a part if the 'party'. I remember those 1st few weeks all to clearly! I remember coming home from the States when Isaac was 6 weeks old adjusted age. We had major issues with temporary accommodation. Isaac was not easy to breast feed and I had an unfortunate experience of the landlord walking in unannounced. I had a wonderful nurse who said don't stress about b'feeding, he has got 4 months so if you want to go to the bottle do it. Jane is doing an awesome job, I only wish I could be of more help for her.

Tobyn was smitten with her but a little nervous to hold her. He doesn't remember Isaac being that small and to think when he held Isaac for the 1st time he was only around 3lbs! Steve loved meeting his niece and I don't think he wanted to hand her back when she was upset and her Mum wanted her! Must be something about the little girl snuggles?

OK onto some layouts. This 1st one is my entry into the http://scrapbookessentials.co.nz comp. I love this, it turned out just the way I wanted. I imagined it very feminine with lots of flowers, though I thought about putting some bling on it and maybe I still will.

This weeks challenge is to have no photos :0 I find this one very hard. One of the reasons I scrapbook is because I love taking photos. But I have come up with an idea that also means I get to leave a legacy for my boys which is another reason why I scrapbook.

This next layout is for the b&w + a colour photo monthly challenge at http://scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz again I am really happy with this layout! But I need to work on long titles, I just don't seem to get it right. I see others do titles with lots of words and they look great, definitely something to work on.

Have a lovely rest of the weekend and 'til nest time ttfn.

Oh and to all my 'anonymous' visitors, thanks for visiting! I would love to know who you are and if you have a blog of your own. I am sure that I can't have got over 1000 hits from my Mum and a couple 3 other regulars LOL!

I bet my time

2007-08-17T20:53:00.001+12:00

Its me Tobyn >>>>>>I bet my time on the elliptical trainer #:O)<<<<<<. I am so happy. It was hard but it was worth it. I am trying to beat dad. bye.

Bubbly- Colbie Caillat

2007-08-15T14:59:00.001+12:00

I have heard this song a few times but when I heard it this morning I knew I just loved it. It is so nice to have a song around that has NO bad words and it is totally positive. Gonna have to use this on a layout of Steve!

Some fun stuff

2007-08-15T14:12:00.000+12:00

How's this for a fun thing to do. I wonder you can actually get one some where, ooh but I have an idea!

We had a wonderful day on Saturday with Steve's sister Clare and her family, Bryan, Hannah and Adam. We don't get to see them as often as we should and they only live an hour away. Not enough days in the week. It wasn't a particularly nice day weather wise so the day was spent playing with the cars, playing board games and sardines. Lots and lots of giggles playing sardines. For those that don't know, sardines is a hide and seek game, one person hides and everyone else has to find them, when you find them you have to hide with them, last person there is in next. Our place has quite a few cupboards and spaces for hiding so it is becoming the thing to do in our place, fun, fun, fun!

This weeks layouts are up at http://scrapbookessentials.co.nz I am very happy with my layout this week. Even Steve loves it and he is VERY honest! My plan for the next 5 is to have the idea before Sunday and then spend Sunday afternoon working on it, this way I have a couple of days up my sleeve if it doesn't go to plan. Fortunately Steve is in agreement with my plan, kind of revolves around him looking after the boys for a couple of hours. I'll be back later to load my layout for you to see.

When the hubby's away the wife can play

2007-08-09T13:24:00.000+12:00

With her craft stuff!

I have had a pretty busy week scrapping, well busy for me! As I said earlier I have entered the Ultimate Champion at http://scrapbookessentials.co.nz/ there are some amazingly talented competitors and I don't expect to get any prizes, I just love the challenges and it makes me think about my scrapping a little bit differently. So last week I completed the warm up challenge. If you click on the link you should be able to read the journalling, if not and you want to read it leave me a comment and I will put it in here. I really enjoyed this challenge! I got Isaac and Tobyn to help by painting the background. I love the colours it is so bright and fun.

The first official challenge required us to make 2 of our own embellishments. It took me a couple of day to think of what to do and one morning it just popped into my head. SO I knew I was going to make some clay hearts and to a layout about Steve and I. I made the hearts that night but it then took me a few days to actually have the inspiration to do the layout It was a challenge just to find a photo of Steve and I, the most recent one was taken 4 years ago, so I decided to go with our 'engagement' photo. I am pleased with how it came out, though again it pales in comparison to some of the other ladies work.

So far each of my layouts has a little bit done my my kids. Tobyn made the heart in the middle of the layout. So now onto the next challenge.

On Saturday evening I joined the other ladies at http://scrapbookoutletnz.co.nz/ for the crop. It was a lot of fun and I have never scrapped as fast as I did that night!

I made these cards in 1 hour! And I love them. The challenge was to use one piece of patterned paper on a b'day card and a wedding card.

Then we had a scavenger hunt. And Jenny and I won, doodoodoodoo! Jenny and I worked hard on a hunt previously om SBO and Jenny got the final answers and kindly shared the monthly kit and add on with me. This time we did it completely on our own steam but sent our e-mails at the same time, and I won a voucher to use at the store YAY.

The design team also set challenges to gradually do over the next week. The first one was due on Dunday evening. We were challenged to scrap about a name, could be it's meaning, nick names, etc I chose to list the other names we had for Tobyn. I did this layout in a couple of hours. I don't like scrapping so fast, I don't have enough time to really think about it, get the placement right etc. I do like the layout and I am glad I have done it. Tobyn found it very interesting too and wanted to know why we chose Tobyn not Jacob. So there is another layout to do!

Steve turned 40 on Tuesday! We went out for dinner with his parents and that was very nice. I gave him a handmade vouvher to buy a piece of artwork. I was going to get him a multi CD player but he went and bought himslef an 80GB iPod while he was away so there goes the need for a multi CD player! He said he is looking forward to going shopping for some artwork. Tobyn decided he wanted to get him a game. WHen we went looking he was looking more at games he would like to begin with, in the end he chose up-words and it is a great game for us all to play.

We are having a party but it isn't going to be until later in Sept. We are just too big procrastinators! But when it happens it is going to be alot of fun!!!

I have got the builder just arriving to fix the hole in the garage that is due to the dryer vent not being put in right and causing moisture that we didn't notice until the dark mould started showing through, grrrrrr! So better go talk to him, ciao for now

Player of the Day!!!

2007-08-04T19:16:00.001+12:00

Finally after 14 weeks of hockey Tobyn gave the game his full effort and he was rewarded!
Steve is the coach of T's hockey team and with him being away things haven't gone quite as smoothly as he would have liked. Mind you if he had done the organising prior to leaving a bit better...? Last week the Dad that Steve had spoken too didn't realise he was it? Go figure. But he coached and was a great coach, and they drew and had a pretty great game. This week was a totally different story! Our team was playing the team that our really good friend coaches. I thought that would be OK and he would be understanding knowing that Steve was away. The game was at 10am and at 9.55 there were only 4 team members! It is 7 aside hockey so obviously that wasn't going to work. The other coach was happy to wait until 5 past and he also said that his daughter could play for our team if we needed. I thought that was very understanding. Fortunately we did end up with 6 players, but this meant that all the kids would have to play the WHOLE game, 20 mins/half. Normally they have 3 subs so we knew they were going to be exhausted. The first half they did great, backed each other, ran and even scored a goal. It was so wonderful to see T get in there and tackle and hit the ball and RUN! Half time came around and I said to the other coach that we were appreciative of R playing for us but we were still short, 2 players hadn't turned up. He said we couldn't use R again. So I suggested we play 6 aside and he said well the rules are.....Now I am all for rules at the right age group, these kids are 8,9 and 10, they just want to play, well at least our team do. Of course they all want to win but come on a little give and take. Anyway, our guys played 6 on 7 and they were troopers, they got whipped but they should take heart in the fact that they played, they all played a WHOLE game and they were a great TEAM! A couple of the Mums said that they wanted to give T the POD trophy and I said totally up to you, of course he would be thrilled and he hasn't received it yet. When they announced he was POD his face was priceless, he was so chuffed! And so was his Mum.

Of course I didn't have the camera so O took this photo after we got home. What a mission to get a photo, he hates having his photo taken and won't smile, so this was the best of about 40 photos. But at least I have the photo and there is a story behind that too.

Angel vs devil?

2007-08-03T20:53:00.000+12:00

Look at this little man

I turned my back for a few seconds and he had his hands in the ashes bucket and a mouthful of ashes. I couldn't help but laugh and had to grab the camera! And before you all get up in arms, it was a bucketful of COLD ashes, had been there for a couple of days. Surprisingly he didn't gag and just carried on with his business playing. When I tried to clean him up he had a tantrum!

This is something I have to get used to with him, so totally the opposite of Tobyn.

And isn't this scene just heart warming? He just adores Apollo and he is such a laid back easy going kid and this position sums him up well.

I am looking forward to the weekend for a few reasons. First and most important Steve comes home, YAY. Secondly, we are going to the stage show Cats. Wish us luck though because we are taking Isaac. I think it will be enough exciting stuffgoing on to keep him interested and he loves music and dance, so fingers crossed. Thirdly I am going to drop in on the cyber crop at Scrapbook outlet and work on a couple of challenge layouts.

I hope you all have a great weekend, ttfn

The final Oz update

2007-07-31T21:29:00.000+12:00

Pleased to get this finished it is like a monkey on my back. I want to get the info down because it will be good to look back on when my forgetful brain won't work properly! Plus, Mum, I know you are enjoying seeing the photos!

Tobyn is heavily into anything medievil right now. So when Steve saw that there was a medievil weekend on in the Sunshine coast while we were there it was a perfect thing to do. We weren't 100% sure of all the details but thought why not go have a look. So we packed a lunch and off we went. When we arrived it was so awesome to see people right into the spirit and Tobyn LOVED it! All day Tobyn was hanging out to have a go at archery. So the last thing we did was find the archery range. Tobyn found it pretty hard being so small and not having a lot of strength but he enjoyed it. Unfortunately they closed shortly after we paid and had to be away at a parade in 10mins so Tobyn was rushed through and didn't really get the attention he needed, but none the less he has a wonderful memory. An amazing unexpected day.

We spent one day just driving into the mountain area. We had alovely lunch in a cute little cafe and a lovely scenic drive looking at the glass house mountains. We stopped at a park forest area and looked around. It was getting dark and cold by this point so we didn't spend as long as we could have here. While we were waiting for grandad and Grandma Isaac did a little exploring and found a mini rock wall. My litte explorer didn't take long to give it a go and try and scale the wall, and he did it. Woah, Tobyn was never that adventurous!

I love this photo of Isaac on Grandads shoulders. Look at that cheeky grin, that sums him up really, very cute but full of mischief!

A photo of Tobyn at the beach just because I love it. This was one of those photos where he tried to not have a photo taken!

Tobyn held Steve Irwin in high adoration for a long time. When he died Tobyn was devastated and that was about the time we decided we would take him to Oz and Australia Zoo. Of course he would have liked to go with Steve Irwin still alive. So hwe made it and what an awesome Zoo! The keepers are so passionate, as Steve was. They know what they are talking about and are so passionate about saving wildlife. You get so up close to so many animals. Tobyn loved seeing all the crocs and especially ones Steve talks about on his shows. We were also lucky to get to see Terri and Bob, Steves father. They were taking possesion of a new truck that was donated and they were being filmed for the news. All in all another great day!

And finally we moved on, to Brisbane. We wanted to get a taste of the big city. We only had 2 nights but it was enough to get a feel for it. I would like to go back and spend more time in the big city I think there is a lot to see and do. The first night we walked around and over to the South Bank, which we thought would be awesome, but sadly mistaken it was very rundown and grubby.

People spotting was interesting! I was surprised at how dowdy most of the people were. Not much colour, pretty scruffy, a lot of people smoking and ALOT of people in general.

The final day in Oz we walked and walked and walked. We thought we'll just go over there and maybe there will be a playground. We did finally find a playground but I think we had been walking for a good 2 hours. The boys had a blast in the playground though. Yet again Isaac showing how much he wants to be like his big brother trying things he shouldn't even want to try yet.

We had dinner in a cute little authentic Irish pub. Lovely stodgy Irish food, mmm.

And then we came home. We were ready to come home! I think that it goes to show that we got the relaxation we needed to and were ready to get back to the comfort of home even if we knew it was going to be considerably colder.

It was great to get home to a clean well looked after house, thanks Fee you did a great job housesitting for us!

Whitewater world and more

2007-07-29T20:14:00.000+12:00

We went to Dreamworld and Whitewater world again without Grandad and Grandma they had had enough of the theme parks by this stage. The weather had warmed up enough for the boys to not get too cold at the water park. Steve has been hanging out to go to a water park for so long!!! And they had a ball. I let Isaac had a quick go in the wiggles beach and he loved that too. He even went down a small water slide on his own and seemed to enjoy it. He absolutely loves the water so he was inhis element here. Check out this gorgeous photo of Tobyn and Isaac at the end of a slide.

Isaac and I left Steve and Tobyn to do there thing in the water park. I had hoped Isaac would sleep but he had other plans! Steve and Tobyn had an absolute blast. They went on everything except 2 because Tobyn was too short. Isn't it amusing that when he has his shoes on he is tall enough but without he isn't I would've thought they should adjust for that, go figure.

So moving on from all the themeparks we had done enough of that. We picked up rental cars and were more flexible. Steve, Tobyn, Isaac and I visited my Aunt and her family. It was so nice to see them again after 7 years. 2 of my cousins now have children though we only got to meet Tamika. It was awesome to see my boys get on so well with her. Tamika is 4 and Isaac ADORED her, he started saying her name shortly after we arrived and he would then go around saying 'Mika, Mika, Mika' he still says it now when he sees her photo. We wished that we could have spent more time with them but with Steves parents there as well we didn't feel like we could go back again.

We then moved onto the Sunshine Coast. We stayed in a nice apartment in Caloundra but if I were to go back again I think I would stay in Mooloolaba, the beach there was more interesting and there was alot more going on. We really enjoyed climbing on the rocks and walking on the 'squeaky' sand.

Isaac absolutely loved the sand and didn't want to leave. I love these 2 photos of him enjoying the sand and Steve potato sacking him away.

I love this photo of Isaac and I but

Look what happened a couple of seconds later, he threw sand over me and got it down my front and Steve managed to snap it LOL.

And Tobyn got to do this bouncing bungy thing something he has been dying to for ages! He loved it. He struggled to keep the momentum up but every time the guy gave him a boost and he flew into the air he had a HUGE grin!!!

OK I am going to publish this and then do the last Oz instalment then I can carry on with normal blogger activity.

3rd instalment on the Oz trip.

2007-07-29T19:55:00.000+12:00

Movieworld yippee, a ton of fun had by all! When Tobyn was 2 and we went to movieworld his favourite character was Porky Pig, or ponky pig as he called him. This time he was one of Isaacs faves! Tobyn loved Scooby and the Gang.

But Isaacs all time fave was DONKEY and the Shrek characters. Whenever he would see donkey he would go, Donkey, donkey, donkey, very cute.

Tobyn bought himself some candy floss and gave some to Isaac, darn it, now Isaac loves candy floss too!!!

Movieworld is a great place to watch grown adults try and squish into child size rides and have a load of fun. Check out Grandad squished into the train, and it looks like Steve is having a lot more fun than Isaac!

And Grandad thouroughly enjoyed meeting Marilyn!

Gotta go tuck my big boy into bed back later with the next installment and I will try and make it the last installment!

Got the scrapping mojo!

2007-07-25T13:18:00.000+12:00

So I have been scrapping quite a bit since I have been back from Oz, I am not sure if I am inspired or just that I have a little more time. Why do I have more time? Because I have had a 9 year old at home for the past 3 days and I can't go anywhere! So that means I get my housework out of the way early while the boys watch blue clues. I get Tobyn doing homework before lunch and play with Isaac. We all have lunch I get Isaac to bed, Tobyn does some exercise and then has some time on the computer at which time I SCRAP!!! It has been so wonderful. Here is some of my work for you to puruse. I am happy with how my scrapping is going at the moment. I am trying to have a go at new things, I have even signed up for a challenge at scrapbook essentials. I don't expect to get anything, but it will be good for the inspiration and getting 7 layouts done over 7 weeks! I gave myself a goal at the beginning of the year that I would get 52 lo's done this year, so far I have done 23, not halfway but getting there!

This layout of Tobyn I LOVE. I used junkitz which is gorgeous. I wanted to keep it very simple to highlight the photo of Tobyn which I also love, even though he isn't looking at the camera.

The next layout uses a photo I took as my 'homework' when i did Mandis photography class at scrapbook outlet. I have had the photo printed since then which was back in May. Finally I had the inspiration to put it on a layout! It is kind of feminine/christmassy colours but I love it.

This lovely girly layout is the first girly layout I have done that isn't about me!!! It was so nice to use pinks and purples! My Aunt gave me this lovely photo of my cousins daughter and I knew I had to scrap it straight away. We met her while in Oz but more on that later!

I hope you have enjoyed looking and I thank you for visiting, I love having visitors, must be my inner actress I really do like the attention LOL

Bowling and Wildlife on the Gold Coast

2007-07-24T20:21:00.000+12:00

This was so much fun. Glow in the Dark bowling. On the day that Steve's parents were arriving we wanted to do something that just took the morning. We got the bus into Surfers and had a 'ball' LOL The shoes, ball and pins all glowed, Isaac thought it was hilarious.

Was there anything that could surpass the excitement of Tobyn getting to pat a tiger cub? Not really but we did do some other exciting things while on the Gold Coast. Steve's parents arrived on the Saturday and we had the rest of the holiday with them. It was nice to have them there if not a little challenging to cope with our differences. The day after they arrived we went to Currumbin animal sanctuary. This outing would have to rate right up near the top of our highlights! When we were in Oz 7 years ago this was one of our faves then too. 7 years later it has only improved. They had an awesome kids playground, Tobyn and Isaac would've spent the whole day in there!

As with last time the parakeets at the beginning of the day was awesome. Check out these 2 pics. Isaac was so amazing with all the animals! He didn't get frightened and was more than happy to touch them and have them come up to him!

Tobyn got to hold a baby croc and a snake. He was so chuffed just look at that face. Tobyn is not good at showing emotions but with these experiences it was hard for him not to!

Then the kangaroos! Isaac was in heaven, he absolutely loved it. He wanted to touch them all and feed them all. One of the volunteers came up to us in awe of how he was. She said that most children his size are frightened because the kangaroos are bigger than them. As for his older brother, he didn't want to feed them from his hand, he put the feed on the ground. Yep that is my OCD 9 year old, can't stand getting his hands dirty!

And the next photo is just for fun. I love that Steve and Tobyn had so much fun playing the fools!

My 1st Number 8 wired entry!

2007-07-24T09:12:00.000+12:00

I have often looked at the number8 wired comp blog but have never got around to finishing a lo on time. Now I have DONE IT! So witholut further ado here it is...

I must get a scanner though taking a photo and resizing and trying to get it straight is a pain!

Tobyn got on Aussie TV!

2007-07-22T21:11:00.000+12:00

It's about time I let you all in on some of our happenings on the holiday in Oz! It will take a few post sbecause there is so much to say I want to get some of it down for prosperity and memories for futures layouts!

When we arrived in Oz it was alot cooler than we expected it to be. The locals were also feeling the coolness. We had one day hanging out at the apartment and strolling along the beach. Our apartment was right on the beachfront and it was so nice to enjoy the sand and surf. The next day we went to Dreamworld. The 1st thing Tobyn wanted to do was see the tiger cubs. When we went past 1st thing the cubs weren't out so we went and spent time in wiggle world where Isaac got to meet his 1st BIG cuddly toy, Wags the Dog. Isaac was very apprehensive but did want to beep his nose.

We also spent time on the teacups and the Big Red Car ride, which Tobyn would have been happy to miss!!! Isaac however took everything in, he was so serious but so cute!

We spent $40 on sandwiches and drinks, WOAH! After lunch we thought we should go and see if the cubs were out yet and lo and behold not only were the cubs out but 7 news was there also. The reporter spotted Tobyn and asked if he would like to come in and pat the cubs as they were doinga sroty on the cold snap and wanted a child that looked rugged up. Tobyn was so chuffed but sooo serious. Everyone was trying to get him to smile but not a crack! After he came out he told us that he knew that that was a once in a life time opportunity. He knows that tigers are endangered and if people don't help then he could have touched one of the last tigers in the world. So that was why he took it all so seriously.

We were told that the article might be on the 6pm news that night so we made sure we got back to the apartment to catch it and sadly it wasn't on that evening. But the next evening we tuned into channel 7 at 6pm and it was on. So our little 9 year old got a few seconds of fame on Aussie TV!

Tomorrow I will report on the next few days of our trip, until TTFN

Not as bad as I expected!

2007-07-18T21:34:00.000+12:00

Now I know I need to blog about our holiday so for those waiting for pics and stories, trust me they are coming soon!!! But I had to blog about today before it goes into the recesses of my mind.

For those that know me this won't come as surprising but for those just getting to know me here's a little insight into my psyche. I am relatively shy, I can put on a good front but deep down I am shy with a low self esteem. I find entering new situations with people I kind of know but only a little very hard. I think that people have pre-judged me and don't like me. This leads into today, I made myself take Isaac to the community playgroup. For months and months I have had a good excuse not to go because Isaac has slept in the morning up until now. If I took him out of his routine he was a nightmare. Well now he is no longer having an early morning sleep I can go to morning playgroups. So no more excuses!!! Gaylene has been nagging me for months, today playgroup was at her house so I thought this a good start. And of course it wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. I put on my smile and chatted as though I am not shy at all and everything was fine. Now I have made the first step I can continue and Isaac gets more time with children his age...

YAY ME!!!

I still feel awkward though. We live in a pretty affluent community and although we fit in financially I think people look at me and think I don't fit. I grew up in a family that had very little money. I got teased at school because of what I wore and the bike I rode and I still have hang ups about it. I do wish we didn't live in the town I grew up in. I think I would find it so much easier, even though I don't live in the same community and Tobyn doesn't go to the same school, there are a couple of girls I went to school with that have children at Tobyns school. I need to take my own advice! We told Tobyn tonight to live for today, make the most of today. I think most of the time I do I just have occasional lapses.

I am so fortunate with what I have. I have a wonderful husband who adores me, I have 2 wonderful little boys who make me laugh and scream every day! I live in a lovely home and have so many amazing experiences, I am A lucky woman!!!

THE MARATHON

2007-07-17T11:16:00.000+12:00

I have so much to catch up on which will happen over the next few days. To start off with reporting on Steves marathon!!!

Steve has had thios goal for a few years now. His Dad ran his 1st marathon before he turned 50 so Steve said he would run his 1st marathon before he was 40! He had hoped to run the Rotorua marathon earlier in the year but when he had to go overseas for work the training schedule suffered a bit, so he had to go for his 2nd choice, Wellington in June. He grew up in Wellington and has fond memories of cycling round the bays so this was a journey back in time for him. It was a challenge to fit everything we needed to that weekend. Tobyn had his 9th b'day party on the Sat, fortunately hockey was cancelled that morning, and we had to drive to Paraparaumu on Sat night. It was a very early start on Sunday morning as he had tp have b'fast 2 hours prior to starting the run and the run started at 7.30am! He was very nervous, very unsure that he had done enough training, he was also feeling slightly under the weather which he put down to nerves but turned out to be a touch of cold. Anyway he started and looked OK after 30mins, then the boys and I drove to find a McD's for a bad b'fast, though thoroughly enjoyed by all!!! I didn't realis eit wouyld be so hard to find a McD's though, obviously I chose the wrong streets. After we had our brekky we drove around the bay and stopped on the side of the road waiting to cheer him on. When he arrived he looked pretty tired and fed up and he wasn't even at half way. But he kept plodding on. We saw him after the turn around and then I took the boys to an awesome park on the waterfront. The park was right on the run/walk route and we got to cheer Grandad and Grnadma on there 10km walk. We also saw Uncle Alan and Aunty Robyn doing the half marathon. After that we went back to the stadium to cheer him on to the finish. He looked better coming down the straight than he had earlier. Tobyn ran across the finish line with him, very cool! He was quite emotional at the end, what a huge awesome achievement!!! I take my hat off to him, I could NEVER do that!

The photos show the exhaustion and the elation plus the relaxation after!

Birthdays, Marathons and New curtains

2007-06-26T21:35:00.000+12:00

I really shouldn't leave it too long between blogs because they end up as novels. I have a lot to say and need to get it down before we leave for Oz tomorrow. Right now I really should be washing floors and doing the last of the packing but I am a great procrastinator!

Heaps has happened in the last week! My big boy turned 9 yesterday. We had a small party on Saturday. Tobyn invited 4 friends and they came here for pizza and a couple of games before we took them to the swimmimg pool and bought them slide passes. They seemed to all have a great time! And 4 hours flew by! A few snaps follow.

NEW CURTAINS!!!
I am so excited because we finally got our curtains and it makes such a difference to keeping the house warm. We have had blinds since we moved in last August but there were gaps around the edges. We are SOOOO happy with how the curtains turned out. I absolutely LOVE the boys curtains. And I am happy with the richness of the others.

What do you think?

Isaacs room

Tobyns room

Our room

The kitchen

And finally the family room

OK I am going to finish this post here before I lose everything. I will do another post with Steves HUGE achievement on the weekend.

Friends

2007-06-20T13:25:00.000+12:00

I have had some lovely get togethers with some good friends over the past week and I am so grateful! I find it hard to ring friends and say lets get together. In my head I think that they wouldn't have time for me. Because of this I think I have pushed people away. Anyway I have made a concerted effort to get together with friends over the past couple of weeks. Last week I visited Adele and her 3 kiddies. Her oldest was a preemie and her twins were slightly early as twins often are. The twins are just a couple of months older than Isaac and I am seeing how important it is to get Isaac out socialising now he is getting older. Adele also likes to scrapbook and make cards so she came over by herself on Sunday afternoon. She spent most of the time looking through my stash and I was so embarressed at how anally retentive I am! My stash is ultra organised and it wasn't until she went through that I realised. My cardstock and ribbons are sorted by colour, my patterned paper is sorted by manufacturer, and my adhesives are sorted by type, there is more but you get the picture. All that aside Adele would love to get together for a crop and she has a couple of friends that would too so after the holidays I will organise one.

Today I visited Kaila and little Vivienne. Kaila is an incredibly special person. Her husband works for the University and they are here from the States so it is nice to have someone that understands the differences. Vivi is almost a year older than Isaac and wanted him to play with her, Isaac didn't quite understand what that entailed. But he had a ball with the toys animals and cars and 'let' Vivi brush his hair. Kaila and I could have talked for ages! And she is like me finds it hard to phone someone and organise time together, so we both have to work on this one. Kaila spends ALOT of time doing things for the young people ion our Church and I worry that she does too much sometimes, because I understand. I will never, well at least try to never, do that to myself again and I need to help Kaila to do less. She has such a big heart but it really can take its toll on your health.

Bad news: My brother in law was in a head on crash on Monday. He is OK but has multiple fractures and needs an operation next week to pin ankles and elbows. He is incredibly lucky to have come away with only this. There was a photo in the paper last night and my sister didn 't know it was going to be in there, that makes me mad, she doesn't want to kids to see it! She should have been asked, well at least in my opinion! Apparently today he is on Oxygen, cold and very sleepy. My sister has many worries regarding all the things he has taken care of like bills etc, let alone caring for 3 little boys one of which had a developmental disability. I will do what I can.

Well I guess that is all for now, ttfn

Congratulations Jane and Gus

2007-06-14T13:15:00.000+12:00

Jane, Steves' younger sister and her husband Gus had their first baby on Monday June 11th. They had a little girl, Olivia. We don't have any photos yet, can't wait though! But I did have a play and altered a wooden letter for her. This is my 1st attempt at using my scrapbooking on something other than paper. I enjoyed playing with paint and like the finished result, even if it is very simple! I hope Jane likes it. I now have plans to do a couple more, and they are for girls! I don't oftne get to do girly things and that showed when I was looking through my stash I didn't have much to use on the letter, I see a shopping spree for some girly stuff coming up LOL

What do you do when it is raining?

2007-06-12T14:30:00.000+12:00

Scrap!!! I have been having withdrawl symptoms from scrapbooking so today I HAD to do some. I finished one layout and completed another. That makes 3 layouts from the April kit and I still have plenty of paper left. This is the first layout I have done of Steve on his own and when i was looking for a recent photo of him the only one I could come up with is from 2 years ago, going to have to rectify that!

Last night Steve decided that Isaac needed a hair cut. We took him about 2 months ago and he was too interested in looking at what Gemma was doing. Our friends mentioned that April cuts Samuels hair so Steve thought we could do the same. Well Steve is cack handed he can't even cut a loaf of bread straight. So after watching him for a while I suggested I have a go. I was doing ok and then Steve wanted another go, by this time Isaac had had enough and was moving quite a bit. Well poor Steve snipped his ear :( He felt awful! So no more cutting hair ourselves, which I am pleased about, I didn't really want to do it anyway. Fortunately Isaac has forgotten, I was able to straighten it up while he sat on my knee watching TV this morning.

Good manners matter

2007-06-11T09:55:00.000+12:00

We have put so much time and energy into getting our eldest boy to use good manners. Now most of the time he has pretty good manners but we often have to remind him. It is so frustrating that an almost 9 year old doesn't use good manners all the time and especially when you put so much effort into teaching the importance of good manners. Now fast forward to our little 19month old.....he already has lovely manners and the only thing we have been doing is using good manners ourselves. This little guy has obviously observed what we say and when we say it. About a week ago he had a bottom burp and he said 'parn me' I thought this was a fluke and maybe he didn't actually say what I thought he had and then the next morning he burped and he said it again. Since that first one he has used it regularly in context since, even pardoning his Dad this morning, soo cute. He is also very good with 'peese' and 'hank oo' So he has beautiful manners, he also has a terrible temper!!! Lately he has been having lots of temper tantrums, he hits things and says 'ow, ow, ow' or will flop down on the ground and squeal. And he likes to scream when he doesn't get his way. This child deffinately has a mind of his own! And even though it is hard to hear the screaming and see the tantrums I love it. I love that he is doing so well considering where he started. He is an adorable little guy that loves to give hugs and kisses and I can forgive the tantrums knowing that this is his way of expressing his independance. This little guy that started life at 2lb is making the most of it.

Lately I have not been able to do any scrapping. I am trying to clear out a whole of stuff taking up storage space. I have been trying to get things on trade me firstly to clear it out and secondly to get a little bit of spending money for our trip to Oz. So far I have earnt $150 Yay me.

Steve had his last LONG run yesterday. The marathon is 2 weeks from yesterday and I can tell you I will be glad when it is over!!! These 3-4hr runs on the weekend take too much time out of our time with the family. But he did also spend alot of time on Sat cleaning out the garage, still a lot more to do but at least it is already looking alot better. Sunday afternoon we also played chinese checkers with Tobyn. For ages I have been wanting to have a games evening or afternoon with Steve and Tobyn and we never seem to get around to it. Now the frustrating thing was that Tobyn got bored I think. Tobyn is a very bright little boy whose mind is often somewhere else. So firstly we had to keep reminding him to watch the game and secondly we had to keep asking him to not make silly noises when moving his pieces. Now that I have written that it seems silly that it concerned us so much. I do think that if we played games more often it would be better so hopefully I can make this a regular weekend event.

'til next time, ciao

All about My Dad

2007-06-10T20:33:00.000+12:00

Bad, bad blogger. I have been procrastinating about writing on my blog and now I don't really know where to start....

The biggest thing that has happened this past week would be my Dad phoning and saying he was in town could he come and stay the night. This was a HUGE shock and not the most welcome one!

My Dad has been somewhat distant for the past 7 years and my brother, sister and I have a very strained relationship with him. He hurt our Mum terribly and did some pretty thoughtless things. Early 2006 he had a heart attack and was very ill and told he only had a short time left to live. I think he got very depressed and upset at the things he was missing out on. He has 5 grandsons and really doesn't 'know' any of them. I think that my children deserve to know their Poppa so when we went to Christchurch last year and had a thanlsgiving service for Isaac we invited him to celebrate with us. It was so nice to see Tobyn get on so well with him.

So fast forward to last Thursday afternoon. A phone call at 4pm and shock, horror the person says 'hi it's Dad' oh my goodness! He said he was in town and could he come and stay the night. As it turned out he was hitchhiking up to Auckland to go to a Benny Hinn evening. According to him Benny Hinn is a faith healer, so obviuously Dad hopes to be healed! CRAZY man!!! He has a bad back, heart condition and diabetes. So we gave him dinner and a bed and he was then planning on continuing hitching up to Auckland. My conscience couldn't let him hitch up to Auckland and then all the way back down to Chch. So I offered to drive him to Taihape, figured he could get a ride from there better than from Palmy. I also looked into getting him back to Chch and could get a very good plane fare. He seemed very appreciative and I hope he got what he wanted from the trip! It is now Sunday evening and I hope he is back in Chch, haven't had any news.

On the good side of all this my sister and I talked a whole lot about our feelings. It was good to be able to say some positive things about him. For all his faults and the bad memories we have we do know that he has a big heart and this is why he has got into so much financial trouble. Everyone that knows him that aren't family say he is a wonderful man. I told Tobyn that I find my Dad hard to be around and I don't know what to say to him. My darling boy didn't want to tell me that he liked his Poppa. I had to explain to him that it is wonderful that he loves Poppa. He asked me if I loved him and I said yes I will always love him I don't really like some of the things he has done but he is my Dad and I will always love him!!!

I am now pleased that I have a photo of Dad with Isaac, I missed getting one last year.

A question for my readers, what does my Dad remind you of? It is sad but I think my dad looks like a homeless person. He doesn't look after himself and I find that very sad.

Ok, that's all for now, 'til next time XXX

Finally a New Layout!

2007-05-31T16:49:00.000+12:00

So finally I have done a little scrapbooking since Mum left. I asked Tobyn to pick me out some photos to scrap and he pulled out these photos of him and his God family. He is feeling particularly close to them since he had a slep over at their place earlier in the year. He keeps asking when he can go and stay again.

Anyway this layout is using some of the product from the April monthly kit from The Scrapbook Outlet. The May kit is shipping over the next couple of days so I figured I had better get going with using some of Aprils kit. I also used my new sewing machine that I got for my birthday. Hope you enjoy looking.

TTFN

He WON!!!

2007-05-29T15:59:00.000+12:00

A very proud Mummy moment today! Tobyn came 1st in his year for the speech competition. He was so nervous on Sunday night and we had a big talk with him about how we understood and I think it helped because last night he was OK about practising. He as still a little nervous this morning but he harnessed those butterflies and nailed it. I was so proud and almost bawled my eyes out, I did have tears but not that he knew. Everyone including his teachers are so proud of him!!! Thats all for now, I will come back later with some photos from the weekend. Just had to skite I can hardly keep it in......

SO PROUD OF MY BIG BOY!!!

2007-05-25T12:03:00.000+12:00

Tobyn has got into the final for the speech competition at school! Finally he is shining and loving it. He came home last week with the instructions and the work was to be done at home. The prompt was 'The time is now' and he did The time is now to save the Kiwi. This was such an appropriate topic for him being such an animal lover. I got him to do a plan and then he did a little research online with Steve. Then on the weekend we went to the library and he got out some books. He spent most of Sunday working on the speech. On Monday he read it to the class and his teacher gave him some great feedback and critiquing. He needed to make it a bit longer and improve the beginning and end, which ironically is what we told him but of course it is better coming from the teacher. On Wednesday he came home with a critique sheet after presenting it again. So Wednesday evening he practised and practised and we gave him pointers and feedback and told him we thought he could win it. Thursday morning was the actual judging and he was quite excited about doing it. At the end of the day he proudly tells us he is in the top 3 and competes with 10 year 5's and 6's next Tuesday morning, we couldn't be prouder of him he has done so well. The year 5 and 6's compete to represent the school at a cluster schools competition whcih Tobyn and the other 2 year 4's are not eligible for but next year.......?

Wednesday Blog challenge

2007-05-25T11:37:00.000+12:00

Shandy wanted to hear our first date stories with our DH.

Unfortunately our story is not all that romantic, it is interesting though. So here goes.

Setting the scene: Late 80's, era of teen boys with long hair, girls with spiral perms and heavily teased and sprayed bangs, Madonna, Aerobics, fluoro clothing, got the picture yet?

Steve was at University doing a 4 year Technology degree, and out flatting (not sure what you Americans would call it, living in a house with other singles, usually students) I was training to be a nurse and still living at home. I had been attending St Davids Young Adults Group for a couple of years. We had many students join our group and we all became firm friends. I remember very distinctly the first time I noticed Steve, it was at a family night and we had been split off into groups and given a challenge to act out. I remember seeing him acting like a complete fool and thinking who is that weirdo, oops! At the end of that year I had got to know him a little better and he went over to England for the summer. While he was away I do remember looking forward to him returning home, not because I liked him romantically but because I thought he was becoming a close friend. After his return from his trip I got to know him even better and the romantic feelings started to come, BUT.....I was very shy and didn't want to make a move because, what if he didn't like me like that? My best friend told him I liked him which I think was the first he knew. It took a few months of heartache before he actually invited me out to his final year Uni ball. So that was our first date. I wore a satin teal green frilly dress, remember it was the 80's! I was picked up in a taxi along with him his best friend and BF's girlfriend. It was a tough night, it was my first really big event like that, I was extremely shy and naive and felt out of my depth with all the academics. Needless to say a few weeks later he turned up at my house to give me the, I just want to be friends speech! I was devastated! Over the next couple of years I 'dated' a couple of other guys, nothing serious at all, and I thought I was 'over' Steve. Fast forward to 1991. Steve had been working for a couple of years and was ready to buy a house. I was more than ready to move out and go flatting so he said would I like to be a flatmate if he bought a house. I jumped at the chance. At the time I was interested in another guy. I was dancing practically every day and wasn't home all that often. So we moved into the house. Shortly after we moved in the guy I was interested in told me he didn't want it to go any further, alas broken heart again, SIGH. But Steve was there for me, he was so sweet and I really appreciated him playing soppy songs for me. A few weeks later he started showing more than flattie interest in me, I FREAKED!!! I went to aerobics and said to my friends, "OMG I think Steve wants more than just friends, he touched my leg and I DON'T want to go any further, I know him too well." Well now to cut a long story short, as it is pretty long already, that was Summer 1991 we were engaged winter 1992, and married January 1993, thats makes it 14 years and 2 kids later. And I couldn't be happier with him he is my best friend and my rock and I love him immensely.

Blog challenge #31 Movie Monday

2007-05-22T11:53:00.001+12:00

Lisa's challenge at today. We all know how movies can really shape our lives, especially for me at a very tender age and today we're going to talk about a specific movie experience

I want you all to talk about a movie that scared the BEJEEZIZ out of you when you were little. What was it that freaked you out. Can you watch it as an adult today? Is it still a "banned" movie in your home.

THE OMEN!!! I guess I wasn't all that young but I don't remember anyhing really scary from when I was all that young. But to this day I can't stand the names Damion, Damon or anything like that! And yes it is 'banned' in this house. Wasn't there a re make recently? Nope won't be seeing that either!!!

running in many ways

2007-05-21T20:48:00.000+12:00

Its been a week of achievements in our little family this week. Tobyn ran his cross country on Friday. He had a goal to not be last this year and HE DID IT!!! He bet 2 other boys and lapped one of the girls. He was so proud of himself and now has a goal to beat another 2 boys next year. Maybe by his final year at primary school he will get in the top 4?

Steve is training to run a marathon this year. He would like to run a marathon before he turns 40, so he only has a few months to go. His training has been going really well and for the last 4 weeks and has done a 20km+ run. But on Sunday he did his 1st official 'organised' half marathon. He felt a little nervous before doing it but was thrilled when he bet his 2hour goal, he ran it in 1hr56.

Last week I did an online photography class. There was alot of info and I have learnt so much. I have had a huge desire to learn more and I have been tossing around the idea if doing something more advanced when Isaac is a little older. I don't have alot of faith in my ability most of the time, but every now and then I take a photo that I think is pretty awesome. The following photos are all taken after the tutoring last Wednesday. I still have a few tweaks I need to get right but I feel I am on the right track, and don't they say yoou get worse before you get better when you are trying to improve a skill?

I have spent the last 2 weeks helping Mum scrap so I don't have ANY layouts to show you all :( But in a couple of days I should have completed my layout for the May challenge at SBO. It is in the final stages, I have just got a little stuck for inpiration. Maybe I will get to it tomorrow when Isaac is sleeping?

APOLLO CAME HOME!!! After 2 and a half days away he is now safe and sound, whew!

TTFN

Blog challenge #28 Movie Monday

2007-05-15T19:59:00.000+12:00

Even though it is now Tuesday night here, LOL.

Lisa has asked us to blog about our favourite or most memorable home movie. Well mine has to be the 2 movies of Steve dressed up as a GIRL. Yes you read that right. A few years ago, in fact before we were an item, our Church had annual talent nights. The first time Steve, our minister and 4 other male friends dressed up as ballerinas and danced the sugar plum fairy....hilarious! Picture this, 6 men in tutu's, singlets and sneakers and long socks. White bodies and knobbly knees, prancing around the stage with a huge lack of grace! In the end there is a pile of bodies with men rising from the rubble with pain in there faces. Another year Steve and myself plus some other good friends did a dance thing to Grease, the catch was that the girls were the boys and the boys were the girls. So Steve got to be Sandy and another tall friend was Danny. Steve even wore a bra with socks stuffed in it. There is Steve in a pretty apricot skirt, white tee, and a pretty ribbon in his shoulder length locks, yes it was the era of boys with long hair back then, it was the 80's!!! Tim with a tight skirt and aloof attitude and Norm as sweet as ever in his floofy skirt. The girls got the easy end of the stick, jeans, tees and baseball caps and leather jackets. It was sooooo much fun and I always have a good laugh when we watch it....which reminds me we haven't watched it for a while!.......off to find the video......

P.S new friends always have to be shown these, even if Steve doesn't want them to!

Hellooooooooooooooooooooooo

2007-05-15T15:23:00.000+12:00

We have had an uneventful week really but I still don't seem to have blogged. Mum is in town at the moment looking after my sisters 3 boys while sis and her DH are on a well needed break. It is really nice having Mum here and getting to spend quality time with her during the day while the boys are at school. Mum and Isaac are developing a very strong bond which is so nice to see. Mum and I have been scrapbooking. Mum brought a whole lot of photos with her, some of me for me to use at a later date and some for herself that she wanted to scrap. Mum is terrible because she doesn't believe that she has any skills or ideas, but she does!!! So far she has done 3 pages, 2 of which are doubles and they all look great. I will have to take a photo and put them up later. I have managed to finish one and start another in the same amount of time, go figure.

This is the one I have finished. The idea came from a challenge to use 10 different patterned papers at www.scrapgal.com . It has alot of handstitching which I did on and off over a few days. It also has kindy glitz on the chipboard. I like it but I don't LOVE it. But then I never totally love anything I do I can always see some way it could be improved.

I got to watch Tobyn at hockey on the weekend. There team has been promoted to division 1 and like everyone else I thought they would struggle a little. But they were troupers and did REALLY well. They were 2-0 in the first 12 minutes and came throuh to win 5-3. Steve was an extremely proud coach!

Tobyn has his 1st sleepover that wasn't a cousin or Arna since we have been back from America. Ethan and Tobyn had a great weekend and I would have Ethan any time he was a very well behaved little boy!

And last but not least Steve and Tobyn in Steve's new toy. Steve has wanted a kayak for quite a while now and now that his parents have bought a house in Kinloch it was a good excuse to get one. We took it down to the lagoon and the boys had a fun short first go.

And anyone that reads this please send some positive thoughts our way right now. Our second cat Apollo is missing. We last saw him last night before we went to bed and he didn't come in for his b'fast this morning and he has still not shown up. Tobyn is feeling very sad and it would be such an awful loss to have lost 2 cats in such short succession!!!

Back to it. Blog challenge #25

2007-05-08T12:36:00.000+12:00

Scrapgal challenge today by Shandy. Shandy asked us to blog about National Scrapbooking Day. Considering this seems to be an American happening there wasn;t any events around here. Maybe next year I should organise something myself and start the trend here too.

Shandy also posed the question how and why you got into scrapbooking.

I first found out about scrapbooking when I was invited to a creative memories evening. I loved the idea of creating memory album for my children, grandchildren etc. BUT, I didn't like the style or price of CM. I didn't think any more of it until 3 years later when we moved to America and a good friend was also interested in SB'ing and it's all uphill from there. I love the creative side of it as much as the story telling. I wish I had more time to scrap, but I know that I will get more when Isaac is older and that time will come all too soon!

Unfortunately I also spent the weekend feeling rotten. Bad headcold. My darling husband pretty much took on looking after the boys for most of the weekend and I got to sleep in both days. I am feeling alot better now, but Steve has come down with it now. Hopefully the boys don't get too sick!

TTFN

Websters Wednesday, things I know for sure

2007-05-03T10:02:00.000+12:00

OK so Lisa at scrapgal sure likes is to use our brains! Today we are to blog three things we know for sure. This was pretty challenging for the old brain in the morning!

1. Having children is a precious gift and I am SO fortunate to have 2 happy healthy boys!

2. Chocolate cures any ills and worries and is also great when celebrating. And that is in any form, chocolate cake, hot chocolate, chocolate dessert, a chocolate bar, and the list goes on.

3. Weeds never stop growing!!! And I need to go weed my vege patch, which at the moment has no veges in it!

I scrapped today, YAY

2007-05-01T15:45:00.000+12:00

So I had this challenge to do all month, due by midnight 30th April. What is today? 1st of May, yep I got it done today, LOL!!! So here it is anyway. I love a challenge that makes me do a double layout with lots of photos because I find them very hard to do! And I am sorry about the photo, I don't have a scanner.

Blog challenge #22 Movie Monday

2007-05-01T15:41:00.000+12:00

So this Monday is all about me:

My Movie would be called: It's Time for a Change

Who would play me? Well I would like it to be Meg Ryan, but it would be more likely to be Kathy Najimy (sp?) or Roseanne Barr (though I am not as loud as Roseanne)

Memorable line everyone would be saying: Hello gorgeous.

Awful Day

2007-04-30T21:41:00.000+12:00

Today has to be one of the worst days I have ever had! I ran over Isaacs cat. As I was backing out of the garage I felt this bump and thought I had run over some of Steves stuff on the floor of the garage, but no I had done something far worse! My poor boys, the cats are part of the family. We hadn't had them all that long, we got them for Isaacs b'day last Oct to celebrate the tough year we had made it through. Luna was an adorable cat. He had a lovely personality. He LOVED Isaac and Isaac LOVED him. Luna was one of Isaacs 1st words although both cats were Luna to him. Luna would come and sit on Isaacs lap and follow him around. He would come and sit by the bath when Isaac had a bath, he would let Isaac stroke and pat him no matter how hard. One of our last memories is of Isaac waving a feather dangly thing and Luna jumping and chasing it. Tobyn loves all our animals like they are his siblings. He was so sweet while I was sobbing and didn't know what to do he said 'it's OK Mum don't be too sad' One of the saddest moments was when he first knew what had happened and he was crying and saying 'wake up it's just a dream, it's just a dream' and then when took him to school and he said 'I didn't think we could die young, I thought I would live with him for a long time' this eveing he wanted to have a family prayer and I think that helped him a lot, he didn't want to say anything, Steve did a great job for all of us. RIP Luna, we love you.

They're here at last

2007-04-29T11:24:00.000+12:00

OK here is some eye candy for you.

I have been meaning to some recent pics of the boys on here for a few days now, and here they are. I am really enjoying my new camera, but I don't think the boys are, I think they have had enough of me taing photos of them. But I think they are such adorable targets for the Mummy paparazzi!

This is a pretty good shot of the 2 boys. It is difficult to get them together because Isaac is too active and Tobyn puts on silly faces.

Here is my big 18mth old. Where did that year and a half go? Look at his adorable eyes (but of course I am biased!)

A reasonable shot of my adorable big boy.

I love this photo of Steve and Isaac, look at the love in Daddys eyes!

I have been wanting to do canvas footprints for Isaacs wall since we had the room painted. Finally on Anzac day we did it. The 1st photo is Isaac doing his own canvas and he only put the brush in his mouth once! I just love the 2nd photo of his blue foot! There are more of a green foot and a blue face! They will be perfect for a scrapbook page!

Today we are having a pretty quiet day. Steve has to go in to work. He had to come home early on Friday because the car had a flat tyre and I don't know how to change it (but now I do!!!) Anyway he didn't know how to change it either because we had never had to do it and it has a special locking nut so our mags don't get stolen. So we had to call someone out to help us. While we were waiting Steve decided it was a good opportunity to stack the pile of wood we had delivered the day before. So he now needs to make up a few hours.
Tobyn is having a friend over to play this afternoon and Isaac and I will get to play I guess.
Oh big news for my fitness.....we bought an eliptical trsiner yesterday. I have been looking at treadmills for a while. I thought I could do this while Isaac is sleeping. So this weekend Smith City had a fitness expo and had stuff on sale including $500 off the treadmill I was thinking about. So we had decided on that, then Steve jumped on an elliptical trainer and asked my opinion. I have watched people in the gym use these before and I thought they looked so hard but when I got on I was impressed. It is low impact and works so many different muscle groups. I can't wait for it to be delivered on Tuesday!!! By the time we go to Oz in June I am sure I am going to look and feel alot better than I do right now!
Well, my big boy is hungry so I had better go and sort some lunch before Isaac wakes up.
TTFN

Yeah Baby, my latest layout

2007-04-28T11:34:00.000+12:00

I asked Steve to choose 2 photos for me to scrap. I get into a rut of doing the same photos and I knew he would choose something to take me out of my rut and comfort zone. So he pulls out 2 photos from a 70's style b'day party. But, one of the photos I did not want as the focus of the page so I got 2 more photos from the same party. I had in my head how I wanted it to look with just the 2 photos so I then had to re think with an added 2 and as it evolved I had to had a 5th photo. I had fun with this layout. I used paint for the 1st time and gave it a bit of a messy look with some highlights of gold which are hard to see in the photo. This is not publication worthy but I do like how it turned out!

Blog challenge #20 Truth or Dare Friday and other news

2007-04-28T10:17:00.000+12:00

THE DARE: Tell us about your most embarrassing moment. Well there really are too many to choose from, but,

Age: 17
Setting: Best friends brothers 21st.
Incident: OK get the picture, best friends brothers friends are GORGEOUS!!! So as any typical 17 yr old I feel awkward and unsure of myself, but....I still manage to make a fool of myself. We were all dancing on a hard wood floor to 80's music. I was wearing heels, which I didn't often do. My friend and I plus a couple of cute guys, (one in particular I was rather attracted to and had hoped he was to me)were spinning and doing silly dance moves, next minute I am on my butt having gone over on my ankle. Cute guy helps me up and over to a chair where it is obvious I have sprained my ankle, DOH. So I spend the rest of the evening with my foot up and an ice pack close at hand. Incidentally the cute guy was not ever and never would have ben interested in me ;)

In other news. I still haven't got any photos up, hopefully over the weekend I can do that. I plan on doing a double layout this weekend. Today is wet so I might get a chance to have some scrapping time.

Tobyn has his 1st game of field hockey today. Steve is the coach. Hopefully they will have a good game. Tobyn is only playing because Steve is the coach so it will be interesting to see how much enthusiasm he has for it. Steve and Tobyn have come home from hockey, and they won 4-2. And Tobyn says he had a good time.

Tobyn came home with a great school report this week. Almost all A's, he just needs to improve his presentation. He is so much more motivated this year.

Well, 'til later, gotta go have a shower and have a cup o' coffee.

Blog #19 Websters Wednesday

2007-04-26T11:37:00.000+12:00

The challenge today is to find an adjective for each letter in your name, and this is not easy with a Y and a V!!! So here it is

yummy
Well I often say yummy mummy, I wish I was.

voluptuous
2. (of a woman's body) having a large bosom and pleasing curves; "Hollywood seems full of curvaceous blondes"; "a curvy young woman in a tight dress"

Equisite
I guess some of these are wishful thinking :) Though DH would probably agree

talented
Yep, in my own little way

true
Absolutely, true to myself and my family and friends!

eager
And some might too eager at times. Eager to learn new things amd have new experiences!

Come back later, I have some new photos and a layout to put up.

Top feel good movie

2007-04-25T08:22:00.000+12:00

Scrapgal blog challenge #19 Movie Monday. Lisa asked us to blog about our top feel good movie. Well it has taken me a few hours to think about this one. The first thing that came to mind was Grease...but...it is all about the music, the story line is a little weak and has some quite negative parts in it, but I do love it. So that isn't my fav!

THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS

I LOVE this movie! I can so relate to Abby, played by Janeane Garofolo. I think she is gorgeous, not the typical beauty but in my eyes very stunning. The characters low self esteem holds her back from believing that a gorgeous guy would like her looks, he liked her radio personality. As I said before I can relate, I am not a 'sterotypical' beauty, but many people tell me I am beautiful, I find it hard to accept. I think my DH is gorgeous so how did I end up with him, see my low-self esteem talking? Anyway, Abby ends up with the gorgeous man, now thats gotta make you feel good!

Other movies I love:
Princess Bride
Billy Elliot
The Neverending Story
Many Disney Movies, but in particular Aladdin, Beauty and The Beast, The Little Mermaid
Calendar Girls

Thats all I can come up with right now, TTFN

YAY got it loaded

2007-04-23T23:06:00.000+12:00

This is the layout I was talking about in the previous post.

Finally caught up

2007-04-23T22:42:00.000+12:00

After having had my brother and his girlfriend here for a week I have finally caught up on the websites I visit, YAY. So now I can update here too. We had a nice week with my bro. The boys particularly enjoyed having 2 more people around to pay them attention! And it was wonderful to not have to cook for one if the evenings, my brother cooked a very nice pasta dish which Tobyn also enjoyed.
I didn't get any scrapping done! So Yesterday and today I have enjoyed getting back into it. Of course typically I try something and it doesn't go to plan. I wanted to print onto acetate. So I typed up what I wanted, found my acetate and printed, not thinking that I needed special acetate, which of course I did actually know, get the picture? I can really be a bit blonde at times. So of course what I printed wouldn't dry. But, fortunately we were planning a trip into town so I tacked on a trip into Warehouse Stationary, got what I needed and finished the page. The layout I am talking about was also the layout talked about a few posts down in the oops post. So here it is in all its glory. I am very pleased with how it turned out in the end, even with a couple of flaws.
We have a busy week ahead, but I hope to get 2 pages completed, 1 is currently in 2nd planning stage i.e I have the photos and some ideas, and the other is in 0.1 planning stage i.e I have an idea. Maybe I can get Steve to take the boys out on Wednesday?
Well thats all for now, back soon 'cos it is too hard to keep up to date if I leave it too long!
Well I am not able to upload the image right now, computer is going very slow, grr. I will post the layout tomorrow.

Tobyn my sweet sensitive guy

2007-04-19T22:01:00.000+12:00

At the moment Tobyn hate s having his photo taken with a passion!!! He is happy to have a photo taken with Isaac but not on his own. But I did get this photo which I think is pretty good.

Isaac my scrumptious baby

2007-04-19T21:56:00.000+12:00

Isaac is fun to photograph! He moves pretty fast but I can get some wonderful photos of him. Like a couple of these of him going down the slide and the look of pure joy and excitement at the experience.