Footy Tipping BBQ

Every year we go into a footy tipping competition that our friend Darren organises. We have to pick our winners for the entire season before the season begins. Then the saturday before Grand Final day we have a spit roast and lots and lots of alcohol to count down everyones tipping scores until we reach a winner (a bit like a Brownlow count). The food and alcohol is included in the cost of the footy tipping. It's a fantastic day with lots of laughs. Scott and Tania came with us this year and they stayed at our place for a sleepover and we all had lots to drink. Poor Tania did not feel well once we got home. We had a good laugh at her expense, even though I wasn't that far behind her. Next year we are hosting the event. Thanks Adrian for dobbing us in for that. Looks like we'll have to pitch a tent in the back yard for all those that will need to sleep off the alcohol. Scott and Tania have already made claim to our lounge room floor.

Courtney's Birthday

On Sunday we went to Ballam Park in Frankston to celebrate Courtney Westwood's 6th Birthday party. Courtney is Micayla's friend and she lives 3 doors down and is in the prep class next to Micayla, which they interact between the classes regularly. But we've been friends with the whole family since we moved here nearly 9 years ago. We had a great day at the park. Courtney's Aunty Tracy started face painting the kids and I offered to help, starting with Micayla. The only problem is, all the girls liked what I did to Micayla's face and wanted what Micayla had, so Tracy was relieved of her duties and I was left to paint all their faces. The party was moved back to the Westwood's house where quite a bit of drinking went on. We arrived back home in time to watch the last couple of contestants on idol, put the kids to bed and we both fell asleep on the couch while watching Robbie Williams in concert. That was after I spoke to Rochelle as it was also her birthday. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHELL.

Monthly Melbourne Forum Crop

Well it finally arrived. The day when some of the Melbourne girls from the Scrapbooking Memories Chat Forum met up for the first time (for some of us) for an afternoon of cropping at a hall in Prahan. Thank you to Simmi for organising this fabulous day for us all in the hall she uses for her playgroup. Not a lot of scrapping got done but a lot of talking did. It didn't help my husky voice from the night before at all. Poor Brooke didn't have any mojo but Janet was doing some beautiful work on a canvas and a frame. Simmi was trying to get her ATC cards done for a swap when she was cutting out ATC for her nieces to scrap. I think her neices did more ATC cards than Simmi. I continued on with the doodling on my canvases from the night before but I only managed to get 2 and a half done. The doodling takes soooooo long; or maybe it's because of the talking!!! LOL!!! Simmi had organised goodie bags for each of us and a couple of door prizes, with the winners being Alz and Janet. Congratulations girls.

Here is a photo of us all scrapping except for me cause obviously I was taking the photo but I was sitting next to Simmi, where you can see all my canvases piled up.

Starting at the bottom left of the photo is Bri, then to Bri's left is Janet, then it's Brooke (Angel Eyes) at the end of the table, then it's Allison (Alzcards), then it's Simmi's neice Emma standing where I was sitting. Her other neice Rebecca was floating around probably at the Sizzix machine, cutting out stuff for her ATC's, which I must say, she did a beautiful job. And last but certainly not least our fabulous organiser Simone (Simmibear). Thanks again Simmi for organising such a fab day. Sadly I can't be at the next one cause I have my mother's 70th Birthday party. But I will be there for the November one, just try and keep me away, regardless of how I'm feeling.

Crop Night at Arty Pants

On Friday night, Tania, Laura and I went to Arty Pants for a crop night for the first time since the store opened. We had a fantastic time. I felt the best thing was that the owners of the store were sitting down cropping with us. I felt this gave us a relaxed atmosphere because they treated us as their friends not as their customers. Everybody was so nice and friendly and a lot of chatting was done. So much chatting that I woke up Saturday morning with a husky voice. It was such good value. Refreshments were available, especially the chocolate. What's every "Scrapoholics" next favourite addiction - yep! "Chocolate". We got 10% off our purchases for the evening plus we booked in for a future crop, which only costs us $5.00. How cool is that!!!!

I started on my canvases that I am doing for a wall in our house. There are 9 30x30cm canvases, all painted blue, with lots of doodling, photos of the kids, flowers etc. It took me an hour just to decide how I was going to piece it all together. I really didn't get much done, I stuck the photos down and started on the doodling. That takes ages.

Jordan's 1st Birthday

On Saturday we went along to our friends, Erwin and Kerrie's son's 1st Birthday Party. It was a great afternoon. Jordan is so very cute and such a happy baby. Micayla and Bailey had fun playing outside a lot with the other kids, even though the weather was pretty yukky.

We gave Jordan an album that I scrapbooked of his first year. I wanted to give him something that he would be able to treasure for years to come, even if he's too young to appreciate it now.

You can view pics of the album in my photobucket, see the link on the right hand side.

Here are some pics of the party.


Micayla collected every balloon in the place and carried them around with her. We told her she was going to fly away.


Bailey's face after he discovered Chocolate Crackles for the first time.

Bimbimbi Wildlife Park

Micayla's class has been studying Australian native animals in school, so they decided to take the kids on an excursion last Friday to Bimbimbi Wildlife Park in Cockatoo. Silly me put my hand up to go and help out with 20+ Prep kids; and that was just Micayla's class, there was actually 2 prep classes together, so that made 40+ kids. The weather was cold and wet but the kids loved it. The bus trip up there was very noisy so I just plugged in my MP3 player to drown out the kids noise. Micayla got to feed kangaroos, deer, touch a snake, take part in a puppet show. I wanted to upload the video of the puppet show performance but I don't know how to make it work. We even saw a peacock with all his feathers on show for us. Micayla said her favourite part was doing the puppet show. Take a look at the pics.

This is Micayla with 2 of her friends, Paige and Emma
And this is Micayla whole class - Prep C 2006

Father's Day

Well it might as well have been Mother's Day. We had no fathers to go and visit, mine being in Ballarat and Adrian's father was in Queensland doing something with "Steam", what else! So after the kids gave Adrian his presents that Micayla had bought from the school stall and the hand made cards and bookmarks (Adrian doesn't read), Adrian, the kids and I went around for lunch at Scott and Tania's. We had bacon and eggs and pancakes with strawberry jam, fresh strawberries and cream. Mmmmm, mouth watering.

After lunch we took the kids out to the BMX track to ride their motorbikes. Micayla is becoming really confident now and went over these little moguels, but came a cropper and the bike landed on her leg. Apart from a rather large bruise and her pride hurt, she was fine. Lucky though for knee guards. We then let them play on the playground before going back to Scott and Tania's where we sat nice and cosy in front of the log fire and nibbled all afternoon, chatting while the boys watched the car racing and drank beer. The kids were great, I can't believe there was actually no fighting and we had a peaceful afternoon. We ended up staying for leftover dinner with them before going home to put the kids to bed, after Australian Idol of course. I ate so much that day, I don't know where I put it all.

Yeah for Scrapping

Dave and Laura are inbetween operations with Kaytie at the moment and has managed to find some time for scrapping. Why is this good for me? Cause she comes over to my house and we kick Adrian out to watch the footy at Dave and Laura's house with Dave and Kaytie. I put the kids to bed (well Micayla stays up for a little while) and Laura and I scrap and chat to our hearts content. Laura scraps, I mostly chat. I hear no complaints from Adrian, so come on over Laura!!! Looking forward to this Friday night again! I'll be starting Micayla's birthday invitations.

Won another prize

Well I did it again. I've won another big prize from the Scrapbooking Creations website. I entered an online challenge for a layout using pockets and tags. This is the layout that won. I wasn't even sure if this was something they were after. It was one I'd done quite a while ago and thought I'd enter it just to be in it. Well it paid off.

I didn't even know. I read about it on the Scrapbooking Memories forum where someone else was telling everyone that I'd won. I was very excited. But I just realised I think I've already told this story. Oh well, you can hear it again.

Anyway, this is the fabulous prize I won.




A couple of embellishment packs with 196 pieces each. An 8x8 album with 2 pads of 8x8 papers, a couple of 8x8 kits, a toolkit of plyers, paper piercer, tweezers, eyelet punch and setter, hammer, 4 x paper packs from Woodstock Paper Pack, Stencils, stickers, packets of clips etc. Just heaps of stuff. This will keep me happy for a little while.