Artypants Cyber Crop

Come and join in the fun. Starting Thursday, 28th February. 7.30pm is Artypants first Cyber Crop. Make sure you pop into the Artypants forum and register to be able to join in. It will run until Midnight Saturday, 1st Feb with all challenges to be uploaded to the gallery by Sunday evening. Fabulous prizes to be won and fun games to play.

We will also be attending Artypants for the weekly Friday night crop starting at 7.30pm and all those attending the crop will be playing along on the Cybercrop together on the lap top.

Thanks to Laura for co-ordinating Artypants first CC. Check out the forum for lots of hints of whats to come. From the home page click on the link to the forum and you'll find all the Cybercrop details in there.

My Little Big Kinda Boy

Check out how cute Bailey looks in his new Kinda uniform.

Time to share some Scrapbooking - Finally!!!

These are the bag hooks I made to go on the kids bedroom walls to hang their school/kinda bags on. Trying to neaten things up. Just waiting for Adrian to hang them.

This is a layout I did for the Artypants Design Team. Jodie gave me 3 pieces of patterned paper and some pearl embellishments. I added a couple of sheets of cardstock and some embellishments and came up with this layout.



Then with the leftovers I put this minibook together. Just goes to show what you can put together with the scraps. Then you don't end up with a never ending box full of bits and pieces of scraps.





This is the layout I put together for the February Challenge on the Artypants forum. The specifications were: predominately red, 3 or more photos and ribbon. The tiles down each side of the photos are actually ribbon. Even the dots on top. There is still time to put a layout together for this. Check out the forum for details.

Kaytie's 2nd Birthday

On 17th Feb we went around to David and Laura's to celebrate Kaytie's 2nd birthday. As soon as we got there the boys went and took up their territorial position in the garage. LOL

The kids had a ball all day playing in the pool. It was a very warm day.

Mel, got out the face paints for the kids.

And for the big kids.

This is Damien. There is also a thumb print on his forehead (under the thumb) to go with his 'no idea and monobrow. LOL

Mel wanted hers done so this is my creation on her face.

The kids playing the party games. Micayla won the prize for this one along with one of Laura's nephews.

Kaytie with her Elmo birthday cake that Laura made. It tasted as good as it looked. It was a caramal mud cake.

Holland Festival 2008

On Saturday 16th February we went along to help out at the Holland Festival yet again. This year it was just on Saturday instead of Saturday and Sunday. I must say it gets more boring every year. This year they had less rides for the kids. No entertainment on stage for the kids. Last year they had Dorothy the Dinosour, this year, nothing. For the amount of money the adults have to pay to get in, they are getting less for their money every year. Every year it's the same stalls and the same basic entertainment. I'm so over it. But here are some photos of the kids having some fun.

Here are the kids in front of their Opa's steam engine. This is one that was restored years ago with Adrian and his brother helping out. Bailey and Micayla love to get involved and help put wood on the fire. Bailey had his own 'baby steam engine' there as well and kept wanting to steam it up. He would go over to the big steam engine to get the oil tin and a rag for his engine. LOL

Micayla took this photo of Bailey and I in front of the steam engine. Now that she likes to take photos, I actually get to be in a few.

I took the kids to have a play on the jumping castles. Bailey just wanted to play on the normal kids jumping castle but Micayla wanted to have a go on the Bungee Challenge. She has to pull against the rope strapped to her body and place the little bag things at one end and then get them back again to stick them back on the wall. She had a lot of fun. Apart from these rides, the only other ones for the kids were electric cars. Usually they have merry go rounds, the teacup ride and even some dutch games and rides, but not even they were there. They also had an animal nursery, but I didn't get any photos of them cause I have so many from other years. Soooo over the animal nursery. But the kids aren't, they still went in there to pat the animals.

Later in the evening they have the standard dutch parade of all the clubs in their fancy club costumes. Usually 'Opa' goes in this but he quit his club. He still took the kids for a walk at the end of the parade and went inside for the dancing with the clubs. The kids had some fun, but in this photo Bailey looks like he's a bit weary on his feet and in need of a seat. LOL

My Boy's a Crack Up!!!

I was on the cross trainer today when Bailey came running out, one sock on one sock off, and went and stuck his foot in the freezer. What the.... you may be thinking, cause I was. He had been quietly painting his toe nails in the bathroom and he came out to set the polish hard by putting his foot in the freezer. After all, that's what Mum does!!! (my fingernails anyway).


I was thinking, OK now I'm going to spend the next hour and a bottle of nail polish remover cleaning nail polish off the bathroom floor. But when I went in there, there was not a drop spilt anywhere. I had to look hard to see where he'd actually painted his nails, because it wasn't on his nails, it was all over his foot. He's used a very pale whitish colour that you can barely see.

Bailey's doing Gymnastics

Bailey started his first time at Gymnastics last night (11th February). He was refusing to go in at first. Stood at the door and clung to me. He wouldn't let me take his shoes off to go in. He said he was scared. Not even taking Lightening McQueen off him would get him to go in. So I just gave up and he sat on the steps while I went and joined my friends, the other mums of Micayla's friends and Julie, mum of Sarah and Brandon. Micayla's teacher came and sat with Bailey on the steps to talk to him and managed to get him to sit with her inside the gym and got him doing some warm up excersises sitting with her. Micayla sat with them too. I told my friends that I needed Mel here and that I bet he'll join in if she was here. Then just as the warm up finished and they were about to go into their groups, Mel came in. I told her to go and see my son and see if you can get him to join in. She ran off all excited that Bailey was now doing gymnastics and you should've seen his face when he saw Mel. That was it, he was so excited to see her. He went off into the group and had the best time. He climbed up onto the beam, which is twice his size and walked along the whole length of it with all the confidence about the place. He was following the group with his train actions from activity to activity. He was swinging on bars and climbing ropes. He's a little monkey. He was doing rolly polly's down the mat and was just having an absolute ball. He's looking forward to going again next week now. There's no stopping him now.

Thanks Mel for helping get Bailey started. For those that don't know, Mel is the fiance of Adrian's cousin, Steve, which makes her a future 2nd cousin in law to Micayla and Bailey LOL. She's also one of the gymnastics instructers at the Berwick YMCA, where the kids do gymnastics.

Finally Blogged

I am finally up to date with all my blogging. So settle yourself in for a big read. I hope you can stay with me to the end, and if you do. Thanks for reading.

Bailey starts Kinda

Well my baby is growing up. Yesterday, 5th February Bailey started his first day of Kinda.

Bailey especially likes puzzles so you often see him sitting at that table. In this first photo he is building 'cool' cars like the ones from the 'Cars' movie. He is in the same kinda class as Corbin, the little brother of Bellanna who Micayla went to kinda with and later went on to primary school together. He seemed to settle in really well and really enjoyed himself.

YAY!!!! Schools Back!!!

Micayla was as keen to get back to school as I was to send her. She was over being at home with me and missing her friends. I was over the trying to find something to keep them occupied. I just wanted to get back to routine. It's nice to be on holidays and to sleep in etc, but gee it's nice to be settled again.

Micayla is happy in 2E with Mrs Hamilton. It's has been a very easy start to the year for her as we already know Melinda Hamilton from Artypants. Yes; Micayla's Grade 2 teacher is the daughter/sister of my 'bosses' at Artypants. It's a shame we are going to lose her come May though, as she will be leaving us to have a baby. But very exciting for Melinda.

Family Day Fishing

It was a nice sunny Sunday afternoon. We decided we'd get the bikes out and go for a ride to Berwick Springs for a spot of fishing. Something Adrian has been promising the kids for ages. It was a slow ride for us. Bailey was peddling his little legs like crazy and we were just lesuirely riding along. Lucky we weren't doing it for fitness.





We caught nothing. The kids kept wanting to reel their lines in and throw them out again. They were too busy feeding the ducks too. I don't think we had any hope of catching any fish.

Bailey was trying to see the fish through the holes in the jetty.

Ah look, I managed to get on the other side of the camera again. Micayla took this photo. Not one of my best mind you. But I think Micayla is a budding photographer.

We rode home in a different direction, via the playground they were so eager to play on. Bailey was very very tired by the time we got home. It was a long way for his little legs to peddle.

Holiday Visitors

We had some visitors over the school holidays. My sister in law Wanda came over with my nephews Liam and Lachlan. They came for lunch and the kids were having a great time playing together. They stayed until around 7pm. It was great to catch up with Wanda and chat all day. It's been ages. She's so funny to listen to. Her stories are great and they make me laugh.




From left to right: Bailey, Lachlan, Liam and Micayla.

Then the following week Kerri came over with Jordan and Mitchell. I can't believe that Jordan is 2 years younger than Bailey and only about 2-3 inches shorter. Mitchell is such a quite placid baby, everytime you look at him he just gives you the biggest smile. At least he doesn't cry at me. I didn't get photos unfortunately. It would've been good to show the height difference between Bailey and Jordan.

Big Sky Wheel

Hey look, I actually managed to get into a photo.

Micayla and Bailey's Oma and Opa took us all along to the Giant Sky Wheel in the city during the school holidays. The kids had a ball. We were up so high and could see so far. The ride went for about 10 minutes and we were over it by the end. It was pretty cold and blowy when our carriage was at the very top. An announcement came over the speakers to stay seated in the carriage, cause I kept standing up, moving from side to side to get scenery shots.

I did manage to get some awesome scenery shots of the city though.

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This was on the opening day of the Australian Open so the tennis centre was full of activity. That's what you can see where there is blue. And the MCG behind that.

Looking down the Yarra River into the city.

And looking up the Yarra River away from the city.

When we got off the Sky Wheel, we got the kids an icecream each. And then Opa got us all some hot jam donuts. Bailey is devouring his donut while watching the boats on the Yarra River. He just loves donuts. He gave half his ice cream to Adrian, but Micayla finished all hers.
After their snack we went for a walk into Southbank, but along the way the kids spotted a playground.

Then we kept going, walking along the Yarra into Southbank. There are some sites/sights to see in the city. It was funny watching Adrian's father watching the 'lets say odd' people walk by. But they probably think we are odd??????

We decided it was time to go home, and we went via Mordialloc for fish n chips on the beach. But it had gotten quite cold by this stage and it would've been pretty blowy on the beach, so we ate in a park before going back to Adrian's parent for coffee. It was a really nice day out for all of us.