A Busy Weekend

Yesterday was one of those days spent round home just doing anything and everything. The Christmas lights have finally come down and had the spiders dusted off and packed away. Also been round the spouting and brushed off the spiders and then sprayed just to make sure they stay away. We have quite a few round the place and amongst the plants not to mention the odd white-tail spider found crawling across the carpet. These ones give me the heebie-jeebies.

Definitely an autumn feel about the place now with the leaves on the cherry trees starting to change. Had a bit of prune in the garden and planted up some bits and pieces given to us from my in-laws who have a wonderful garden. Also picked the last of the big tomatoes and the caterpillers can have the rest. Still lots coming on the cherry tomatoes though.

Andrew sprayed the weeds last weekend in preparation for our big thing in the garden over Easter. Are finally going to cut the lawn edging to make our gardens. Every summer I have had the excuse that it is too dry to do it and the edge will all crumble and every autumn/winter I have had the excuse that it is too wet to do so next weekend he has no excuse! Four years is a bit long to wait.

Today Rebecca had the day off and we went shopping. She has worked most weekends and I told her that it was OK to say no as she has been left with no time to actually spend some of the money she has been working so hard for. Today was the day and even then she got rung this morning to see if she could work. She is happy and now owns 2 more pairs of shoes, a big canvas to decorate, beads to make jewellery, beading magazine, book and photos printed off. A good day for her.

Have finished a couple of layouts over the last week.

This is a scraplift. Thanks Tanya.

This is from the SE February Kit instructions. Am quite enjoying doing the odd girlie page at the moment. Thanks Janine. I do appear to have a bit of a thing for striped paper! LOL.

Thats about it for now - off to check my bloglines.

Bits and Pieces

First up - look what I got today at our LSS. Very cool and there is a postage stamp shape that I will get as soon as I sell some more stuff on Trade Me. LOL. Thanks for the coffee and company today Tanya.


Also here is my take on the Friday Night Challenge. Didn't get it done on time as was a bit confused over what words were to be used as some put them relating to their life so far (which I thought it was) and others chose words describing themselves now. So I did both and have put them in my Book of Me. Part of the challenge was just to do the words with no explanation as to why you chose those words but think words like painful and stressful need a bit of explaining. Painful = 3 childbirths, 1 miscarriage and 2 surgeries over the years. Stressful = the building of 4 houses over the years - no wonder I am going grey!

Left side - yep thats me.


Right side.


Am seriously thinking of changing over to wordpress but have seen Beverleys blog where she did a post just commenting on the comments. So here goes:

To Trace - thanks so much for the offer of a bed but don't really like my chances of being able to get up there for a crop anytime soon. You also get this award because I think you and I are in the same boat when it comes to learning about all the bloggy and computer stuff and we can learn from each other.


To Yvette - should have given you my cell phone number and will email you with it so that we might be able to have a chat over coffee next time you are in Christchurch under nicer circumstances.

To Hay - No. 38 is expensive. Good luck with that.

To Janine W - get well!!!

To Lesli - thanks for commenting on my blog from the other side of the world. Am taking those sketches to Tanya's crop tomorrow night and will share when done.

To Beverley - thanks for the instructions on how to "do a link".

Finally got all the photos loaded - seems to have taken all day and guess what six weeks today, we will be in Australia. Yahoo! The countdown has begun and starting to get excited now.

Circle Journal

Seeing as Julie, Janine and Michele now have their circle journals back will show you photos of what I did in their albums.

Julies theme was the Wonders of Nature - had to do a nature photo and poem to match. The pages that had been done were just gorgeous and its definitely a coffee table book. It is taken at the Mirror Lakes on the Milford Sound road. We sure do live in a wonderful country.

Janines theme was Pamper Me - what do you do to pamper yourself? Me - nothing! So I wrote about this in a blog post a while ago when I first got this CJ and put that in the pages. Told the story of how Tanya took me out for the day and pampered me. What a great friend. Hope to do more of these "Just Because" lunches this year. What do you say Tanya? This is the left side.

And the right side.

Micheles theme was Ad Inspiration. Had to create a couple of layouts based on ads that she had chosen. Went with couple of photos again from our trip down south. Now one of these photos is the same as Julies but confession time - this one is the right way up. Can you tell? This is the left side.

And the right side.

Will do some more later as people get their ones back and hopefully Tanya will have finished mine off at scrapcamp and will get it at the crop on Wednesday.

More Layouts

Just another couple of layouts leftover from Tanya's crop.

This first one is Rebecca at aged 18mths. One of my favourite photos of her.


The second is my busy boy. Doesn't everyone have a need to build dams in the river? Again an older photo.

Thanks everyone for your lovely comments of late - just loving it. For all you bloggy people - why does my bloglines list sometimes have little red exclamation marks next to names?

Off to try and do the Friday Night Challenge at SE but not liking the chances of getting it finished in time. Am a bit stuck on the words - have to choose 6 words to describe my life so far.

Glad all you Auckland croppers had a great time - how about sharing those layouts?

Look what I got from Kelly - Thanks Kelly.

Just Sharing

Heres a couple of layouts. This first one is Aaron taken quite a few years ago. Just loved the look on his face. Thats also Grandad being a big kid. Started this layout at Tanya's crop last Wednesday and finally finished it.

This one is for the SE Sketch Challenge. It tells the story of Alexia and her love for coffee. Not quite sure when I was allowed to start drinking tea/coffee at home but she manages to grab the biggest cup she can because "she needs a coffee".

Happy scrapping to all the ladies at Scrap Camp in Queenstown and also to everyone at Debbies today in Auckland - have fun. Wish I could be there.

My Middle Child

A few days ago on Hays blog (would add a link here but don't know how - check out hippyhappyhay from my sidebar) she wrote about her middle child and the middle child syndrome. A photo automatically came to mind of our middle child. It was taken a couple of years ago on a holiday at Hanmer and yes the other two had been teasing her and ganging up on her. Says it all really. Its going to make a great scrapbook page!



From an excerpt in a book that she had read it said that middle or second born child often have the sense of not belonging. They fight to receive attention from parents and others because they feel many times they are being ignored or dubbed off as being the same as another sibling. Being in the middle a child can feel insecure. The middle child often lacks drive and looks for direction from the first born child. Sometimes a middle child feels out of place because they are not over achievers and like to go with the flow of things.

Being a middle child would mean they are loners. They really don’t like to latch on to a person in a relationship, therefore they have trouble keeping one due to lack of interest. Not liking to take the limelight for anything, they are not over achievers and just simply work enough work to get by, and typically that goes with school as well as a career. They are however very artistic and creative. If forced to use abilities they will work well, but do not work well under pressure. They often start several projects but rarely keep focused long enough to finish a project. The best career move for a middle child would be along the lines of using their creative. Going into a writing or journalism career, and into a career that they could freely express themselves would be good. Anything that would have hours that are flexible, and projects that frequently changed would be good for a middle born child. Since relationships are not of high importance to a middle child, often times they are alone. However, the best possible match for a middle child would be a last born.

Now Alexia is a lot of these. She is a bit of a loner but would be a fantastic person to have as a best friend - she has lots of acquaintances. She does lack drive and looks to Rebecca for guidance especially more so now that they are teenagers. When she was younger it was the other way round. She is definitely a go with the flow kid and has a who cares attitude. With schooling it describes her to a T - she does enough to get by, is very creative, does not work well under pressure (NCEA was a big drama last year) and has a million things on the go at the same time.

How very interesting - thanks Hay. Just might have to look up now about the oldest and youngest.

On the scrapbooking front I have finished Micheles CJ. It is the last one I had to do. Have really enjoyed doing them and can't wait to get mine back. Will start posting photos after the weekend of those that have theirs back. Everyone else will have to wait - don't want to spoil the surprise. I wasn't going to do another one straight away but have had an absolutely brilliant idea for one so just might - will depend on the costs.

Happy Anniversary to Us.

Andrew and I have been married for 23 years. It seems such a long time in terms of years but it has gone so fast. Here we are 3 kids later living in our dream home designed by Andrew and finally in a position where just living is a lot easier. We no longer have the 21% interest rate that we started off in our first house with 3 hire purchases on the go at the same time and driving crappy cars that only just made it to work. Life is good and I like where we are now.

In the next few years will see some big changes especially with Rebecca turning 18 this year and finishing school. Who knows where she will be and what she will be doing next year. Also have Aaron in his last year at primary school and becoming a teenager this year. Alexia has big dreams so who knows. It is a time in our lives that we are starting to do things just for us and it is taking a bit of getting used to but the planning has begun and the dreams are big. Who knows!

Here are a couple of photos.

Alexia made us an anniversary cake. It was lovely but had all these little hard bits in it where something didn't get mixed properly!!!! LOL.

Andrews parents provided afternoon tea - cream sponge with a meringue on top. YUM.

We didn't do anything special as we have had a busy day looking at dogs at a show. More on the great doggy debate another time. Will do something a bit down the track when things aren't so hectic.

A big thanks to Trace for the lovely RAK I got on Saturday and have used the rub ons on this layout for the Friday Night Challenge. Not overly happy with it but its done. Had to use a frame, 1 big photo and 3 small and something recycled, so I used the strap cut from an old back pack. These are photos from our first trip to the Air Force Museum when they had an open day. It was a seriously cool place to visit and we were really impressed.

Have a great week.