Princess Castle Mini Book

This is the latest Design Team project I did for Artypants. It was a kit Jodie gave me to complete using SEI papers and Heidi Swapp bling.

A Day at the Beach

On Friday the 14th March I had to take my car to Adrian's Uncle Tamme's to get it serviced. I was planning on waiting around for it so I decided to take Bailey to the Frankston beach while I waited. I'd spoken to Tania earlier and her kids had a curriculum day. I thought this was a pity, Micayla had her curriculum day the day before. But I decided to let her stay home anyway and we all went to the beach with Tania and her kids. It was reaching 40 degrees anyway. Tania picked me up from Uncle Tamme's and we all went down to the beach. The car was ready by lunch time. I thought this would be ample time on the beach and I'd be keen to get off the beach. But the breeze coming off the bay was keeping the temperture down. The kids were having a ball and Tania and I were relaxing nicely. We ended up leaving around 1.30pm and took the kids to McDonalds before picking up my car and heading home. Here are some of the photos taken on the day.







After they'd had a swim they were playing with the balls on the steps of the bridge.

Moomba

On Monday 10th March we took the kids in to see Moomba. We decided it would be easier to take the train in. This was Bailey's first ride on public transport. He was very excited.

I was pretty dissappointed. I remember the Moomba parade being something spectacular with fabulous floats that went on for hours. It's been years since I've seen a Moomba parade and I was very dissappointed. Although there were some colourful displays of culture, all it was, was people marching down the street and it only went for an hour. We watched it for half an hour cause it was too boring.

This was the multi cultural float. This was one of the 2 floats that I saw.

Can't remember what this one was now.

The kids watching the parade.

We decided to go and find a spot down by the river to watch the water skiing. That's what we went in to see. It was sooooo hot. I think it reached 39 degrees that day. We bought 4 icypoles to eat on our way to the river and it cost me $10. What a rip off!!!

This is the Australia girl Emma Sheers who won the womens' Moomba Masters.

Micayla and Bailey watching the waterskiing with Adrian.

Still watching the waterskiing, but starting to get a little hot and bothered.

I'm getting in front of the camera a lot more now that Micayla has taken an interest in photography.

Micayla has CRACKED IT!!!! She's bored of the water skiing and wants to go on the rides.

She is having a drink from Adrian's camel back that he takes on his motorbike rides. It was a novelty for them to drink this way, which was good because it kept them well hydrated throughout the day. Hate to think how the kids would've been, or how much money we'd spent on drinks if we didn't have these. We took 2 of them and had to refill them from the taps that South East Water had provided and we went through them too.

We decided to go for a walk around the side shows and not watch the wakeboarding. We were going to see the wakeboarding at Carribean Gardens the following week anyway. Then we'd come back after that to watch the jumping. I took Micayla and Bailey on this childs rollercoaster ride. Bailey was too small so I had to go on with him. For a 2 minute ride and queing for about 10 mins in the full sun, it cost me $15.00, another RIP OFF!!!! But the kids loved it. They had a go at winning something. They had to scoop up a crocodile that had a number in its mouth. That cost $4.00 each to win a stupid blow up hammer. Another rip off!!! Then of course we had to have a bag of fairy floss, another $4.

It was just so so hot that we decided we couldn't take anymore of the heat. We were not going back to the river and we were not looking around anymore side shows. We were going home. We left the Yarra River around 3pm and arrived home around 5.30pm. Would've been quicker in the car, but at least we could relax in the airconditioning of the train without the stress of driving.

Mum and Dad's 50th Wedding Anniversary

On the 8th March 2008, Mum and Dad celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary. We had a surprise lunch/party for them at Oscars in Ballarat. My sister, Rochelle had organised with them to go to lunch, just Mum and Dad and Rochelle's family. Rochelle had booked the function room and decorated it in gold balloons and table decs. When they arrived we all jumped out from behind the table to surprise them. They had no idea the rest of us would be there. The rest of us consists of us, My brother Rohan, Wanda and the boys and my other brother, Geoff and his wife Alex. Then of course Rochelle, Mark and their 2 kids.

Wanda had organised some fun things for them to do. The first thing we did while waiting for our meal was Mum and Dad had to answer some trivia questions. Some questions were standard trivia questions but the other questions were made up of things from our childhood. Memories we had. Mum and Dad had to guess the answer to the trivia question and then we all ellaborated on the story, which gave us some great laughs to our memories.

Rochelle had also organised for the most gorgeous delicious chocolate/caramel mud cake. It was to die for. When the cake came out it brought tears to Dad's eyes. Very emotional he is lol.

We then posed for some family photos.

This is my brother Geoff and my sister in law Alex.

After lunch we all went back to Rochelle and Mark's house. Here we had more games for them to play. Mum and Dad had to unwrap items that also related to our childhood and guess what they meant. When Rochelle was about 3 years old we lost her on the Rosebud beach on New Years Day, cause she couldn't find her way back to our umbrella from putting rubbish in the bin, cause they all looked the same. She kept walking and walking until she was found at the Dromana Yacht Club. She was missing for hours and we even had the police out looking for her. For this they unwraped one of Bailey's toy police cars, with little cocktail umbrellas stuck to it. So this brought up the story about that. We laughed at how it only took a minute to go to the bin and 6 hours later and still not back to Mum and Dad. This was one of many many stories we had fun talking about on the day. And lots and lots of laughs too.

We then gave them this tin that I had made them. It's a card in a tin. The pages inside have journalling about the memories we talked about that afternoon and a photo of each family with a spot for each of them to write their personal messages. This also made day have tears.

This is the card that Micayla made for them.

We had a lovely meal and a great day of laughs with my whole family. We didn't leave Rochelle's until 9.30pm that night. I could've stayed longer but I knew by the time we got home it would be 11.30pm and that's just getting way too late. We should've stayed the night cause I was exhausted by the time I got home. Adrian had been drinking so I had to drive.

Artypants First Cyber Crop

I participated in Artypants' first cc last week. These are the layouts I did for them.

This is the challenge "follow the leader". Although I did not really 'follow the leader'. I went to the Artypants crop night on the Friday night and we were running back and forwards to the front of the store, using the computer at the front counter to access the forum for the cc. Jodie, Bec and I were all 'not following the leader' lol. The papers we used or the photos, just didn't lend itself to the way the layout was supposed to look, so we did our own slight interpretation to it. Anyway, I love the way it's come up and obviously so did a lot of other people because I got lots of votes and I won the challenge for this one.This one was a sketch challenge. Not one of my fav layouts but anyway, not too bad.

Thanks Laura for running the cc. You did an awesome job. Can't wait till the next one. Hopefully by then we'll have a lot more people join the forum and join in the cc too.

AED BBQ

On Sunday 24th February we went to a park in Elsternwick with Alison, Maynard and Sam Ellis from Alison Ellis Designs and the other team members from AED. It turned out to be a beautiful day even though the forecast was cold and raining.

The kids had so much fun on the play equipment. Especially this ginormas slide.

Bailey was chasing the birds around. They barely moved; Bailey even managed to touch one. He was calling them 'chickens'.

Micayla had a bit of a drama when a rather large ant, but not as big as a bullant was in her pants and bit her on her hip. It ended up in her boot and also bit her on the ankle. We put an ice pack on it and after a while she was fine.

Micayla made a 'new best friend' in Melissa, who you see with her in this photo. She had a ball with her and wants to go to Melissa's house for a play. Melissa is also 7 years old like Micayla.

It was fantastic to finally meet everyone that I chat to on the forum and everyone was really very nice and friendly. Some very funny, entertaining conversations made the afternoon a very pleasant one indeed.

Here is Bailey with Alison and Maynard's son Sam. Sam has just turned 3

This is all the team that was there for the BBQ.

Thanks to Alison and Maynard for providing a yummy bbq, and for the drinks to wash it down with too. Thanks for a wonderful afternoon.

Maynard revealed to us what new papers will be coming out just before Paperific at the end of March - 28th-30th. Keep and eye on the AED website and come along to Paperific to check them out and pick some up for yourself. It's all very exciting.