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