A Gift for Carrie

This is what I made for Micayla to give to her Prep Grade teacher for Christmas.

Thank you to Simmi (Ribbon Palace) for the supply of the beautiful ribbons. Thanks also forthe loan of your paint.

Dancing Diva

Micayla performed in her dancing concert for Dancing Diva on Sunday 10th December. It was an early start. Had to be up early to do her hair and make up and have her in Noble Park in time for 9.30am dress rehersal. We were in the audience for the 11.30am concert where she showed us what she'd been practicing all year with her 'funk' and 'tap'. She did her 'funk' to Kylie Minogue's 'Better the Devil You Know' and her tap to 'YMCA'. We were all so very proud of her and she looked so cute up on stage in her little costumes.

Thanks to Oma, Opa, Erwin, Kerri, Jordan, David, Laura, Kaytie, Tania, Nathan, Mitchell and Jaeda for coming along to support her, even though we were stifling in the heat. The temperature that day rose to 45 degrees and there was no air conditioning where we were. Her Nanny and Poppy were supposed to come but mum injured her back so sadly they couldn't come all the way down from Ballarat. They have a special little gift to give her though.

Micayla then had to perform in a second concert at 1.00pm, which we didn't have tickets for. The others all went home to the cooling while I sat and waited for her to finish. During this time I went out to buy Micayla a long stem red rose. She was so thrilled she kept saying "thank you" for days.

Here are some pictures to share. Unfortunately the pink outfit shots are a bit dark.

Another Prize!

I won the monthly challenge at my lss. It was a layout (which was open to interpretation) for "Song Titles". I entered my candle holder, which was actually my entry into the Scrapbooking Memories Masters. The website for the lss is www.artypants.com.au. Check out next months challenge for "Doodling" and have a go yourself. I can't wait to spend my $20 voucher.

Thanks to all involved in choosing my entry as the winner and thanks to Artypants for offering the prize.

Here is what won. The photos are of my wedding and are printed on vellum, so that the flame can be seen through the photo (if you were to light the candle, which I wouldn't). The candle has the title "You light up my life".

Found a Baby Bird

The kids were ranting and raving that there's a bird on the path. I didn't really care, I didn't want to look at another dead bird. But they insisted and when I looked at it, it was still alive. So I brought it inside and called the wildlife help centre for advice. It was just one of those pesky little sparrow thingys but I just couldn't leave it there to die, I didn't have the heart. I was told to try and get it back in the nest or make a fake nest with sticks and leaves out of something with holes like a seive, so that's what I did. I placed it just under the original nest. The original nest was tucked so far into a hole I'd never get my hand in let alone the bird. The idea is that the parents will come to the fake nest to care for the bird.
The kids were very excited about having a baby bird and Micayla was upset when I put it back outside, she wanted to keep it inside and look after it. She was crying, saying that she loved the bird and wanted to name it and if I put it outside she would never see it again. She came to terms with this but kept 'checking' on the bird. Unfortunately the little bird didn't survive. Poor little thing. Micayla was very accepting of this though. I thought it was a great lesson for her and something that both of them had never seen before. Bailey had also found a tiny birds egg at the bottom of the tree near their swing set and he brought this into me. It was still hot, but it broke in my hand. They are so delicate those eggs, I can't believe it just shattered in my hand with next to no pressure.

We Won At The Dandenong Show

The Dandenong show was held over the weekend of 11th and 12th November. Micayla and I put in some exhibits.

Micayla had 3 exhibits in the 'Items Not Listed Prep, Grade 1 and 2' section and she got a prize on all 3. She received a commended for the heart painting, highly commended for her trinket box and 2nd prize for her set of coasters. I am very proud of her and she was so excited, she took a photo of her exhibits while they were on show with her new toy digi camera she got for her birthday.



I also received 1st and 3rd prize in the Scrapbooking section for 2 of my lo's and my canvas got 2nd prize. They ended up putting the canvas in an open section for 'other items not listed', because they didn't consider it to be scrapbooking because it didn't fit into an album. I suggested to them that next year they have a sub section for OTP items, which I think they will do. Anyway it was up against 36 exhibits, so to receive 2nd place out of 36; I'm pretty happy with that.

Cup Weekend 06

Keep on reading down, there are quite a few photos to share with you.

We left for the Murray River in Moama on Friday 3rd Nov. There were so many idiots on the road, we nearly T boned a 4 wheel drive towing a trailer because he crossed over the intersection right in front of us. It was a major road, we were traveling at about 80k's towing a boat so it makes it very difficult to stop in time, luckily he got out of our way with inches to spare. I was shaking for quite a while afterwards.

Once we got there we set up pretty quickly (probably due to me bobing along to music in Micayla's new castle CD player, I work better with music). So pretty soon we were relaxing with an alcoholic drink and shortly afterwards everyone else turned up.

The first night there I shared my bed with a huntsman spider. Well actually, it was in my hair. I was stirring from my sleep when I flicked it off my head not even realising what was on me. I turned on the light but couldn't see anything so rolled over to go back to sleep. However I was not satisfied with this so I turned on the light again and found it sitting on the wall of the fridge. I freaked and woke Adrian up to kill it. When i finally got back to sleep I kept dreaming that I had 6 more spiders on me. Apparantly it's good to have a huntsman around because they keep away the redbacks. We don't always see huntsmans in our van but we do get redbacks in our annexe, maybe that's why there was no redbacks when we got there this time. eeeeekkk!!!!

The Saturday was Bailey's 3rd Birthday so we gave him his presents first thing in the morning. He loved getting his presents. We gave him a 'Shake 'n' Go' speedway racetrack and a 'Leap Pad'. Adrian's parents gave him a bike. We gave him a little party with all the kids that come and stay at the river and Micayla and Bailey's cousin Taylah, and friends Kealy and Deegan came for the day too. We played Pass the Parcel, but Bailey just thought it was another gift for him and started to unwrap it. He got the idea pretty quickly but once he unwrapped a layer and got his lolly, he didn't want to play anymore and left. His cake was an ice cream cake, which was Thomas the Tank (I did not make this one, we ordered it from the ice creamery in the Port of Echuca). It was chocolate and banana. He loved it and was excited to have everyone sing to him, patting his tummy saying "My Birfday". He also jumped up and down shouting "lolly bag" when I handed them out.

Once the party was over we went out in the boat and the kids went nuts having biscuit rides and kneeboards and this carried on the trend for the whole weekend with the adults squeezing in a ski or board here and there. They are all getting very confident now and are keen to learn to ski. I just relaxed for the afternoon after a very busy past 3 weeks and held my ski over till the next day.

Tania and I also took our bikes away so we had been out riding. My brother Rohan came up with his son Lachlan, and Bailey was so excited to see Lachlan he hugged him. Very cute! Lachy had a ball having biscuits and he had his first ride on a kneeboard. He did very well. I had my first ski for the season on the Sunday and it was very hard. The next couple of skis the next day were a lot better though. It was great to have Rohan and Lachy up there. Our favourite time is when the kids are all in bed and we are sitting around the camp fire having a few drinks and some great laughs. This is when Rohan got out his guitar and played and sung for us. It was so great, something different for us to enjoy. Adrian had no idea of Rohan's talent. Then Scott got out the didgeridoo and showed us what he could do. This ended up being a very late night with quite a few beers and wines tucked away. Very slow going the next morning I must say, Tania and I didn't even go for our ride. We packed up to leave on Cup Day just when the weather was starting to get colder by the wind that had picked up. We had beautiful weather every day that we were up there and drove home to just 16/17 degrees. Aaarrggghhh!

Thanks for taking the time to read this novel!!!!