Pages 11 - 20

Nearly finished .... I might include Boxing Day and a couple of spares...
Shane's away at a Rally at Long Flat (near Wauchope) this weekend so I'm planning a couple of relaxing days finishing this project up and maybe watching a few movies while tackling the ever increasing pile of ironing I have spreading throughout the laundry.....

Hot ... Hot ... Hot

Well the heat has definantly made it's way across.... what are we going to do when summer kicks in?!?

Here's a layout I did for the Nov challange at the scrapsidaisy forum .... I think the photos have already made it here before... it's our oh so scared dog Koda having his first bath...



We set up the pool for the kids last weekend and they couldn't even wait for it to fill up before they jumped in.... we had to buy a new one this year because we threw out the old one thinking that right now I would be swimming in my 12mtr pool instead of driving around in a new Pajero...oh well maybe next year?!



I know halloween is well and truly over and we don't actually do anything for it anyway but I made this house for the Guides party and now Aaron has hijacked it and hung it up in his room.... going for a bit of a scary theme there at the moment ... I dare say the bluetack will melt tomorrow if this weather keeps up and I will be able to get rid of it...



Now back to scrapbooking... each year I do something for the year... in 05 it was a monthly overview... 06 was a day by day look at July....07 was a small book of assorted photos..... last year it was a month by month double layout and this year .... well so far nothing..... but that is about to change and I am following in the footsteps of Ali Edwards and Pip Prosser and I'm sure many others to do a day by day for Dec... The beauty of this is that you get the pages done in Nov so when it comes to Dec all you have to do is add the photos and journaling... so here are my first 10 pages....

Not meant to be here....

Should be on a Girl Guide Camp this weekend in Wauchope but for those that live around here you'll know why I'm sitting at home..... it's been raining for 3 days straight now and so it was cancelled ... apparently the girls from Coffs couldn't even get down.... must be a bit worse up north...

So here I am at home looking around at the hundreds of things I could be doing (we had visiters last weekend and I haven't done a major clean since then) but I've decided that since I wasn't meant to be here anyway I might do nothing and any thing I do do is a bonus.

Actually right now I'm watching this....



again .... i think it's the third time Aaron has put it on.

A few random photos.....

This is our vegi patch ... just putting it out there.... it's looked like this for the last 2 years and Shane has told me that this year he's getting in and planting it out.... lets just wait and see eh...



little bits of green are starting to come through in the forrest again... it's quite amazing how quickly the grass and trees recover....



This is Shane and his mulch pile.... could be a while before we see the bottom of this stuff....


What do you think mum? The symbol is under a glass slide and the background I did with shaving cream and food colouring... let me know if it's OK and I will send it on mon...



and of course a LO... this ones from a camping trip earlier on in the year...



Till later
Leah

Everything Lemon

Lemon Butter
Lemon Meringue Pie
Lemonade
Lemon Lime Slice
Lemon Ginger Cups
Frozen lemon icys

We pulled all the lemons off the tree the other week and just like the oranges and lemonades I have ended up with litres of juice so .... i've been busy cooking all things lemon.... god only knows how many kilos I'll put on just so I don't waste a bit of juice......



finally I managed to get a shot of our two boys together that wasn't an action shot... now all I need is for them to get just a bit closer.!!?



what a scardy cat.... this is Kodas first bath and he was one unhappy fella.... we tried him with the hose first but obviously that wasn't going to work so we ended up filling this bucket and doing it the hard way ..... lucky for him our dogs only ever seem to get biannual wash - one at the begining of summer and one again before it gets to cold.....

and yes I managed to scrap Regans birthday this year ... only 4 months after the event .... which isn't too bad for me.....



back soon
Leah

Come and Gone

How quick did that go, the school holidays have come and (almost) gone without even a blink of an eye let alone any memorable photos..... I haven't got to spend as much time as usual with the kids this time and we finally decided to give vacation care a go instead of relying on Nan ..... the kids LOVED it... they had such a good time and did so many exciting things I'm not sure I'll be able to compete next holidays...



We've been doing lots of baking today and I'm very impressed by the smell of banana bread coming from my kitchen at the moment.....mum the receipe is....

3-4 ripe bananas
2 1/2 cups S/R flour
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
in the oven for 1 hour at 160 (fan forced)



and of course what is school holidays without a large and very messy tent placed annoyingly in the middle of a busy room!?!?

Last weekend Shane and I along with his dad, sister and brother in law rode up to Sheba Dam just out of Nundle for the Ducati Thunder Rally.... we met up with Shanes brother, his wife and 4 of their mates for a creat couple of days.......COLD though.. I have never been so cold as I was on the way from Gloucester to Walcha and mind you I have had to dig myself out of my tent in Nepal after a snowstorm..... have sailed around the southern most point of Australia on a tall ship and gone pretty close to the artic circle through Alaska......but never have I been frozen through to the bone like that... It didn't seem to matter how many layers I put on I just couldn't defrost.....at least it didn't rain!

the group...



just the boys...



bet Jaimies not impressed he missed this one... he of course is YEA 74



and whats a post without a layout or two.....

Mad scientist day at school



a 60th card requested by mum for one of her good mates...



Till next time...

Back from Sydney

We had another great week in Sydney and this time mum got to join us..... the weather was good enough for swimming and we were even there (right on Manly Beach) for the big dust storm, yet I didn't think to take any photos?!??! you all know what it looked like anyway...

Aaron had lots of appointments with his OT which were of great benefit and also got to see the Pead so we could discuss some of his behaviours at the moment.... he's getting a bit OCD in some areas... apparently kids "like him" can have some of these tendencies so we've just got to keep an eye on it and let them know if things get any worse.... and as usual Regan enjoyed hanging out at the school ..... I tell you what these guys are worth their weight in gold...

so... between appointments and school we got to go and watch this....



it's been a while since I've had a good laugh at on of the kids cartoons but this had quite a few good ones in it..

all out 'stuff' finished on Thur but mum didn't fly out till Fri so we got a hotel in the heart of ( well sort of the throat of) the city and spent Friday madly seeing as much as we could..... it started with a bit of school so I could get our stuff into the car, then a swim at Manly before heading to the hotel.. then we walked down to Paddys markets...through China Town ... into the Japanese gardens .... to the parks at Darling Harbour ..... to the other end of DH so we could catch the monorail .....back off the monorail (thank you to the great big Maori boys that were so nice to Aaron even though he was obviously scared of you)... and a walk back to the hotel..... Hugh Day...





The kids got these done at the markets by an old bloke called Joe.... I'm sure he was the same guy that did mine at Darling Harbour when I was about 20....still going strong.... the kidds absolutely loved watching him and proudly hung them up as soon as they got home.





Till later...

We came home to this.....

yesterday.... our property sides on to the national park and we could see the smoke as we drove up... not really sure what happened but we're pretty sure the !#!# next door decided to light up his rubbish pile (that he keeps in the forrest) on a 30 deg day with a breese...... what are people thinking???....
We rang up this morning and thanked the bushys ... apparently it took them 2 1/2 hrs to put out....

So to the catch up.....

Fathers day was spent on a family BBQ (doubling up with Denises B'day) at a beach about 1 hr north of here ... we all had a really nice relaxing arvo...





Here are the picks of the new car I promised about a month ago .... she's been all 'pimped' ( I think thats the new word) up with the bullbar etc and is looking mighty fine..... very impressionable however.. I actually had a car pull over and wait for me to pass on the way home the other day ... Obviously I got a bit to close waiting for them to speed up and actually do the limit ... I felt terrible but Shane was impressed that his car was that imposssing.





Koda has grown up in the last couple of weeks ....



and has even made a new friend .... looking a bit guilty however .... don't quite know what he would of done if we hadn't come out.



and then back to the scrapping....



and this is a bookmark we made for Regans best friend Darcy who is just 100% into sea turtles..



The kids and I are heading down to Sydney again on the weekend for Aaron to go to Royal Far West ... how quickly 6 months goes by.... were lucky enough that Mum is able to join us this time ....
Till I return..

I wish for......

On the way out to Nan's the other day Regan asked us what we would wish for if we could get anything:

Aaron went 1st : I want to be the King of everything
Then Me : I would like someone to do all our weekend chores so we could spend the whole weekend as a family all the time
And Regan: - 'That all Aarons problems were fixed and that his feet were the right shape'
OOHHHHHHHH She is soooo sweet and thoughtful.... I really enjoy how much she absolutely loves Aaron..

Of course coming a close second she wanted to be a member of Club Penguin... But I'm not taking anything away from wish one....


SCIENCE WEEK









It was science week last week (or maybe the week before.... it's all starting to blend) and these are my crazy scientists...... I of course waited until the last second to get the costumes and ended up making Aarons from a karate shirt and Regan's is a cut of pair of overalls...... a great day was had at school doing all sorts of experiments..

They also had their walkathon on friday... we were all very proud of Aaron who managed 5 laps around the 1.something km track (the L stands for lolly).... He did one lap with his mates, one with me and then wondered around on his own for the rest of the arvo ... I am so impressed by all the kids at his school ... they all know each other and are very encouraging towards everyone, from all grades.... Regan clocked up seven... go girl!( she was there mainly for the social aspect)




Shane pulled all the fruit off the trees last weekend.... so Regan was on juicing duty ... we ended up with 9 lt of Lemonade juice, 2.5 lt of Orange and enough lemons for the all the girls at guides to make Lemon butter for their dads tomorrow night..



Aaron's loveing his new T-shirt but they didn't have a face like this....





And yes, I've even managed to scrapbook those photos of Koda..... He is so much bigger now though, nearly time for a new page....



and this one is for you dad..... sorry I posted it late so you'll probably see it here before it appears in your mail box.....
Have a fantastic day.......sit back, enjoy and get those last few points on tennis..

makes Daddy proud

Can't think of anything better than your son wanting to be just like you....



Our young man is growing up, he lost his front tooth last week and the other isn't far behind ... he's going to have quite a gap!

Speaking of growing up.... our other young boy Koda is getting bigger by the minute, the kids are really enjoying his company and he's turning out to be quite a speed demon.



The kids are spending quite a bit of time on 'club penguin' lately and as you can see Regan has quite a bit of fun ... they each get to be a 'penguin' and play games etc on line...



and on to scrapbooking .... this is one of Regan and her new best friend Darcy ... they have become close lately and Regan has become a different girl actually enjoying school everyday and not comeing home complaining that so and so has said this or that to upset her.. hopefully shes found a keeper here..... or though I do wonder how many LO's I will end up with that are titled 'Best Friends'.... three and counting.



and an oldish one of Aaron on his first day at hockey this year.



Till later
Leah

Catch Up

Yes I know it's been a while... but we've been hitting the internet a bit lately and I'm sick of paying the extra fees... Time to find a new provider I think..

So....it was Regans birthday on the 21 July, her best friend Darcy and Darcys' brother Zac joined us for a show at the library by National Parks (Aaron got to be a mozzie), a ice choc at Raw Sugar Cafe, lunch at the park, a game of bowls and a wonder down the riverbank before I took them home to Darcys farm stay, where we spent another hour or so meeting all the cows, sheep, horses, goats, alpacas, pigs, rabbits, chooks etc etc...



Check out the face..... She got a strike....

Regan and Darcy are right into Turtles - Sea Turtles - to be exact at the moment so I made this cake...



a great day was had by all....



Do you remember the old screen saver with all the pipes going forever across the screen... well thats what my backyard looked like last weekend ... Shane had finally got a spare couple of sunny days to plumb in the new shed, put a few taps around and connect all the downpipes to the new watertank.... now believe it or not we would like rain to settle the dirt again and fill up the tank.... never satisfied



Aaron has been making his bed lately and is getting quite good at it if you ignore the blanket going the wrong way across the bed.... apparently it's a hard job and I shouldn't have to do all the hard jobs ...... got to love him.

Todd has bought himself out of his exile that has occurred since we got Koda ... he hasn't been spending all his time right down the back of the yard and .... every now and again I even catch him doing this......



he doesn't like us to know that he is actually getting on with and enjoying the company of Koda and will often stop playing when he notices us watching... I'm sure they will become the best of mates..

Whats this you ask? Look closely... it's actually a beautiful scarf made of flowers that mum knitted for Regans birthday.... gorgeous eh..



It was my neices 18th last fri night so I made her this to take to the party and get everyone to sign.... I did suggest on the way in instead of when they are stumbling out?!?





and last but not least a double page layout from Chrissy when we took both the Quad and Motorbike to Aunty Karens farm..



Till later.... but not that later.

I got these....

for my birthday on Thursday, actually they came to the shop on Wednesday (Shane had sent them from Armadale and knew I would be at home on Thursday) and not to say that he isn't romantic at all ... but well ... even the girls didn't think they were from him...
Must say I was very pleasantly surprised.



I also got this... it was a bit of a joint pressy from the folks, in laws, Shane and the kids, and my old bosses (I used the bonus they gave me when they left) and I'm very much liking it.... so many choices with the beads....

and of course the obligatory scrap page ... Aaron last summer enjoying the sun and a bit of a hose down...




It's Regans birthday tomorrow and we have a few days of celebration planned... it started with a nice joint birthday lunch on Sunday with the family and will continue on with the movies tomorrow with the cousins and a wildlife show and bowling with her girlfriend, her brother and Aaron on Wednesday .... so much for 'no your not having a party this year'....

A day off work

I am lucky enough to have a couple of days off work these school holidays and I must admit I miss the routine of not having a routine.... not getting up, packed and organised... being able to take a leisurely walk to the mailbox as soon as the mail comes... and getting dressed just before we have to leave the house at 2pm...

So on my day at home with the kids we....

said a sad goodby to the old Subaru... she will be missed (photos of the new car when I get around to washing it)



made spaceships, aliens and turtles out of this weird air dry styrofoam stuff...



got the kids hair cut .... Regan had her fringe cut back in... it's only tiny but it's a start....



and I bought this mighty fine ultra warm jacket for mum ... what a bargin for $40... hope you like it!



Mum, just to let you know how much she will appreciate her birthday pressy... here's a picky of Regan at her uniform free day wearing last years scarf...




And yes, we have stuck with Koda although I have a terrible habit of calling him Jeda or sometimes Yoda (it must be a starwars thing)... he's very well behaved - so far - and is a bit of a collector of thongs... so far he hasn't chewed anything yet but every morning we wake up to this...

Hi, Moody's ....... Don't forget it's a school night!!

Welcome .... ?!????

I didn't find it this hard to name my children... This is '.....' our new 8 week old German Coolie pup.. He was named Chip by the RSPCA (his brother was Dale) Regan likes Jett, Aaron is very keen on Blackie (go figure), Shane wants Jed and I'm partial to Larry.... Anyway we called him Chip for a while and then Bailey because of his colourings, this lasted about 1/2 a day, then Ed... because he has markings like the Hyienas on the Lion King..... no he's not an Ed so we went on to Koda ... one of the bears from Brother Bear ... we're still not sure so at the moment it's here mate!. What terrible parents we have started off as being.









How gorgeous is he....

and yes I've even scrapbooked.... Aaron has been spending just about every afternoon out in the front yard playing with his stick.. He walks (or runs) up and down the driveway for hours holding his stick and making sound effects... some may think that it's weird but I love the fact that the kids have such cute 'quirks'.

Didn't stand a chance......

What happens when you mix a wet wet weekend and a husband that can't sit still?...

My new caravan that went from this....







.... to this in a few short hours...





and it didn't stop there the poor girl is gutted right down to the flooring and gas lines... overall for a 23 yr old shes in pretty good condition and will be 'the bees knees' by the time Shane is finished with her... I now however am praying for rain for the next four weekends so he will continue on with the work and not head off to other more fair weather jobs...



..am loveing this tree this year its the first time in a long time that it has changed colour and droped its leaves without getting a weird disease on it....

Gave Regan the day off school to come up to Port with us for Aarons last visit with Karen ... check out her boots... if your there Pip, thank you.. they look great...





.. and of course on the scrapbooking front ... finished this one with part of Cut and Pastes' Nov pack...



Till next time..

A whole month

I do so envy those that can make good use of their time.....I am busy like everyone else but I have a terrible habbit of ' I'll get that done after I have this cuppa or after I watch this show... and suddenly the end of the week arrives and I'm cramming everything into the last minute... and with that in mind I found this poem..

Today is here, I will start with a smile and resolve to be agreeable.
Today I will not waste my time because the minutes I wasted yesterday are lost as a vanashed thought.
Today I refuse to spend time worrying about what might happen - it usually doesnt. I am going to spend time makeing things happen.
Today I am determined to do things I should do. I firmly resolve to stop doing things I should not do.
Today I will stop saying 'if only I had time'. If I want time I will make it.
Today I will make a success with what material I have.
Today I will act towards other people as I would like them to act towards me. I will not wait for tomorrow.

I did find time to write it.... now lets see if I find time to put it into action.

So anyway what's been happening...

The girl guide training weekend wasn't as bad as I thought ... although we did have to sing bad songs around a campfire... I also learnt why the girls seem to love me so much ... 1. I basically have no control and .. 2. I'm not actually teaching any of the traditional guide 'stuff'.

The weekend away with mum was great ... lots of girly things on offer and a fantastic party organised by her friends which included amongst other things a great cruise around the marina - (Lots of money in Port Lincoln) - a trip to the local Indian resterant in full Indian Sari's.... very funny... and of course lots of party games...



yes I know mine's not quite right - I triped over it running from setting the camera and all the pleats untucked from my pants..



I made this card for mum a few weeks before and sent it over for signatures .... I wish now I had remembered to copy down some of the sayings and poems her friends wrote in it including a fantastic one signed by dad about their time together... I't was so very obvious that he didn't write it ...but so very much them



I seemed to spend more time on planes and in airports than with the folks but it was definantly worth it....

while I was there Shane was driving down to Wollongong in the pooring rain to pick up the caravan we just bought .. yes thats right a caravan... its locked up in the shed at the moment so I will post photos when we bring it out... don't get too excited though... it is a 82 model.






Life has been going on as usual with sport and so on.... Aaron has been spending ages playing outside... I think he enjoys the cold weather a lot more than summer.... on the topic of Aaron... we had our last visit with his old Speech therapist this week.... I am very sad and scared to say goodby to her but it is proving harder and harder... not to mention expensive when you take into concideration a day off work as well as the petrol and fee... to do the drive to Port Maquarie ... our new lady seems nice and she is able to see Aaron at school which will benifit him heaps I'm sure.... she's definately not Karen and their methods are worlds apart but hopefully, fingers crossed, I haven't made the wrong move...



I've decided to give the kids a reward jar to try and get them to do some extra tasks around the house, each stone is worth 20 cents and they get one if they do something I ask and two if they do it without me asking... so far so good.

and yes I've even been scrapbooking......





you'll have to excuse the colour of the photos... don't actually know what happened but the look like something from the 70's..




Till next time..... which wont be as long I'm sure.

Persistance....

These are the trees we had cut down a few months ago....isn't it amazing that they would grow back tiny little shoots where such a big tree one stood.... got to give it to nature...

Not much to report family wise... all is going well... getting rather cold here at night now....
I'm out of town for the next few weekends.... This Sat I head to Newcastle for my "Girl Guide" training.... when I first took over we had 4 girls which has now grown to 15 great girls and I love working with them but the whole 'training' thing is freaking me out a bit.... I'm not exactly very -gung ho- about it.... lets just hope they dont expect me to put on a skit on Sat night....
To happier things the following weekend (and a few days into the next week) I'm off to visit my mum in Coffin Bay for her 60th.... very much looking forward to that one... Shane and the kids are staying at home..... I don't know if any of you have tried to book flights lately but I'm sure it's not as simple as it used to be.... to get the cheapest deal I'm flying out of Newcastle to Melbourne to Adelaide to Port Lincoln but on the way back I'm going Port Lincoln to Adelaide to Sydney to Port Maquarie.... thats 6 flights on 4 different airlines and departing and arriving in two differnt towns.... and as of last night all but one of the flights has been amended by the airline and I'm cutting my times finer and finer each time.....



What do you think mum? something like this could be just what I need... it would also give me somewhere to store all the winter quilts I've got from Denise..



.... and of course I've done the bare minimum of scrapbooking ..... look out 2009, not far off now. This LO looked quite nice at home, but now I've seen it here it's a bit plain.... might need to fiddle a bit.

Look like us??

I finally got my little family... they are handpainted bu Gemmielou who has a shop on Etsy.... how cute are they??? she has had a bit of a backlog so I've had to wait quite a few months for them but worth it I think.... I also got Grandma and Grandpop done but they will have to wait until I get there to see them...





I've been scrapping some of my older photos this school holidays, both of these are from mid last year... I normally only scrap events , special occasions etc but these photos were both so gorgeous I just had to scrap them for no particular reason...

We went camping @ sandbar last weekend, the weather wasn't the best but with Anzac day and sports starting again soon it was our last chance.....we did heaps on the Saturday but had to pack up in the rain on Sunday which always makes the boys less than happy...



Check out Aarons shirt.... it was pretty windy up there.... he walked all the way up and back on his own...










I also forgot to mention that it was Shane and my 10th wedding aniversary while we were in Sydney.... I honestly wasn't expecting a pressy but he outdid himself and had a eternity ring made for me....how bad did I feel when I had nothing to give him...we had decided that he could have his bike jacket but he hadn't picked it out yet..... Regan and I had scoured the shops for something made of Tin but had come up empty handed..... I was forgiven...

We're back

Actually we've been back for a week but never mind. Sydney was great... Aaron did really well at all his appointments and we even managed to get Regan's reading accessed... she didn't do all that well but now we have something formal to go to the school with and see where to go from here.... the weather was.. well .. terrible, the beaches were shut from tue onwards and it rained on and off most days... I managed to get the kids to the beach one morning but that was about it...





We did also manage to fit in quite a bit of winter shopping ( I promised Regan one item from the Roxy shop - who knew kids clothes could be that expensive - but very cute I must admit) and a trip to the Power House Museum to see the Star Wars expo.... we went mid week and there weren't people walking around dressed up but it didn't seem to phase the kids, they just loved it......

Just some random shots of this week....









Regan finally learnt to climb the only tree in our front yard that will hold her weight....



Yeah I know this one is a bit busy.... i did both these LO's while in Sydney and just kept sticking more and more bits on..... still not sure if I like it ... definantly not my style...

Catch up

Ahhh... so very far behind in my scrapbooking.... this one is of Regan and her pen pal (Amy) taken last September at Royal Far West... which is where we are heading tomorrow.... where did that six months go.... Shane has a course to do in Newcastle Mon and Tue but will be joining us in Sydney from Tue night which the kids are thrilled about.... lets hope this weather holds out and the kids can get in a final hurah to summer at the beach...



Chrissy '08 ... yeah, nearly at my 2009 photo stash...



Regan was invited to the movies last weekend and begged and begged to wear the makeup that Santa got her for chrissy(of course Santa exists because you don't think mum would of bought you makeup do you?). How cute are those lips....

Oh, and Aaron played Hockey on the proper courts? pitch? ground? what ever they are called, today and they all do so much better when the ball actually gets a chance to move across the ground. He even saved a goal!!!!!! (they then hit it again and it went in but he didn't notice because he was too busy being proud of himself and no one else thought it necessary to tell him)

Till next time....