Merry Christmas

Hey everyone! How was your Christmas? Ours was great, with the girls totally getting spoilt once again. I have a longer Christmas post I will add when I have more time, but for now I'll leave you with our Christmas card and couple of layouts.

The big reveal

Yay! We're finally in our new home! Here are the pics you've been waiting for. First, the view from the street:

Now looking at the back of the house:

And how cool is this view? This is what we see from our lounge, kitchen, dining room and 3 of the bedrooms:

Brooke's room:


And Elisa's room.




The rest of the house is still in the process of being set up and decorated. Most of it is done, but we still have a way to go. Brooke is enjoying being able to walk the 5 minutes to school, and I'm enjoying not having to drive her every day. Both girls LOVE having their own rooms, and have transitioned smoothly to the new environment without a fuss. We made one of the spare rooms into a playroom too, which they just adore. It's like all their toys have a new lease of life in them now, and Elisa especially spends a lot of time in there during the day, pottering around with the Barbie dolls, the books, and the play kitchen.

I'll have more photos in the days to come, once things get tidied up a bit. I gotta go now - I'm lying on the floor typing this and it's quite uncomfortable. (The study will be the last room to get set up). Talk to you guys soon.

Counting down

Our house is a mess. Half of it is packed ready to move, and the rest just seems to be wherever Elisa has dropped it. LOL. It doesn't seem to matter how often I tidy, it's a disaster zone 5 minutes later anyway. I can't believe we only have 5 days till the big move - there is still so much to do. On Wednesday Mum is kindly coming up to help me clean the new house ready for our stuff to be moved in Friday. The house has been sitting on the market for several months and needs a good dusting, vacuum, cupboards wiped out, windows washed etc. I so don't want to move in and THEN have to clean it - best it's done before. She'll then take Elisa to Yvette's for the night, and pick up Brooke after school Thursday and take them both back to her place for a couple of days. Thanks Mum! I'm all excited about the move. I'm excited about all the stuff we get to buy for the new house too, LOL. But first we have to get through all the packing.

Here's my latest LO of the girls playing. I used Sya's Diane-spiration template and Sabrina Dupre's Shabby Tidings collab kit.

My baby turns 2

It's got to be tough being the 2nd child in a family. I should know, being a 2nd child myself (LOL, just kidding. Yvette will tell you I had a free ride I'm sure). Poor Elisa didn't get the big party that Brooke had for her 2nd birthday. Yes, she had dinner at Burger King, a cake and a present (emphasis on A present), but the rest of the day was pretty low key. She was obviously not phased in the slightest, having no idea what a birthday is anyway, but I still feel a little guilty. She got to open more presents the following day as they arrived in the mail, and will get the rest at Christmas once we're in our new house. Since we're already boxing up our gear, we figured to keep her bigger presents wrapped for Christmas Day, and let family buy something to decorate her new room at a later date.



Elisa really is such a cute little kid. Her speech is improving in leaps and bounds, to the point where she mimics nearly everything Brooke says. She's like Brooke's little shadow outside of school hours. Has to do everything the same as her big sister, and follows her around like a little groupie. And Brooke is great with her too. Spends quality time playing with her after school without being asked.

Speaking of school, Brooke is doing great. Loves it there, and the teacher says she's just wonderful in class - fully participates in all the activities, and has no worries at all. Actually two more kids have started since she did, so she's no longer the new one I guess. She brings home a different reading book everyday which she reads to us herself. I can't believe how quickly she picks things up. Actually I can - she's always been like that. Must get that from me. LOL.

Latest pages

I finally finished my album for the Stories in Hand class I'm taking. I made it out of Kaisercraft chipboard, and inside are a ton of pages with journalling prompts.

Stories in Hand

I decided to sign up for Jessica Sprague's Stories In Hand online class. It's all about collecting the stories in your life and recording them. I am really loving it, and have achieved quite a bit with the journalling prompts we've been given. I've recorded six stories so far, and have even managed to scrap a couple of them:

Great news and a layout

I got an email today inviting me to be on the Creative Team for Sabrina Dupre at Shabby Pickle!! Woohoo! I'm quite excited about this, and can't wait to start playing with her designs. Check out her shop HERE. I'm still on Sya's CT as well, and I think the two will work together nicely - Sya's templates and Sabrina's kits.

Speaking of Sya's templates, I did another LO today using her "Gimme More Space" template set:


Credits HERE.

Successful first week

Brooke's first week of school went off without a hitch. I can't tell you how RELIEVED I am that she is happy there. She comes home all excited about the things they did each day, and the friends she made. We expected her to be quite tired at night, but she hasn't actually been too bad. For the next two weeks her school is having Education Outside the Classroom (EOTC). They will do crafts, go to the pools, spend a day at Murphy's Bush, make and fly kites, and have a school Top Town event. I've volunteered to be a parent helper on 3 of the days, so I can see Brooke with her friends. Elisa is going down to my Mum and Dads for a few days during that time.

I completed another layout last night. This one is using Sya's Gimme Some Space template set, and Megan Turnidge's Snow Day Kit:


Credits HERE

In Brooke's own words....

My day was great. I made a friend called Callum, and I did skipping with him. And he taught me how to skip. Next week we are going to make some kites. And hats and a tent outside our house for homework. And....I did things that were smaller and bigger. A ladder is taller than me. I am smaller than a ladder, a tree and a slide. I am bigger than a leaf. I am bigger than a broom and a brush. I am bigger than a school bus.....actually I'm not....I'm smaller than a school bus.

I made another friend called Chloe. I wasn't scared at school, and I didn't cry at school. I am looking forward to going to school tomorrow.

And that's all I want to say.

First Day of School

I wasn't sure how this day would go - Brooke starting school - but I really didn't think it would go this good. Brooke woke up happy and excited, couldn't WAIT to put her school uniform on, and showed no sign of anxiety at all. Being the good Mum that I said I would be, I packed her a nice Bento-style lunch with lots of colour and variety to encourage her to eat more. I also slipped in a little note for her to find at lunchtime. Now this is the first school lunch we've done, so we're still working out things like quantity and volume. If she wants more or less in her lunchbox she'll let me know.



Today she has cucumber flowers, apricots, cheese bells, mini tomatoes, teddy bear biscuits, crackers and some number shaped biscuits.



Dinosaur shaped sandwiches (selection of vegemite, nutella and honey), and a few mini marshmellows and yoghurt pebbles for a treat.



Strawberries from our garden, and an apple.



And it all fits into her new lunchbox. We have a drink that usually fits in here too, but they keep their drink bottles in the class with them, so that's been put in her school bag side pouch. So, not bad huh? It's a far cry from the boring old lunches I used to make, and it makes her feel special. I do the same for Elisa at home for her morning tea and lunch too. It's amazing how much more she will eat when it's presented in a fun way.

Here is our wee poppet drowning in her school uniform:




They can wear any shoes they like, so Brooke chose pink jandals this morning. She wanted Mummy AND Daddy to drop her off at school today, so we all went. I'd expected a few tears at the least, but she was happy as mud to be there, and after putting her bag away and signing in, she gave us all a big kiss and cuddle then sat herself down on the mat with the other kids. Hardly even glanced back at us. She did better than me. As we were walking back to the car I couldn't help a few tears at my little girl being all grown up.



...and with her teacher...

I hope she'll be OK today. She's not used to going a whole day without us - even when she was attending the Playcentre Kiwi Kids session, it was only two and a half hours, not six. Lots of prayers have been said though, so I'm sure she'll be more than fine. We'll see come 3pm.

Layouts again

I told my sister I would do a "Baby's First Year" Album when her son was born. I've done a fair amount of pages since he arrived in April, but I really do need to catch up some more, so... I've decided to concentrate on that for the next few weeks. Here are a couple of finished ones. I've done more, but I'm waiting for journalling to finish them off.

Moving on...

So we sold our house on the Friday, and put bought a new one less than 3 days later. Now we have a residence in-zone, Brooke can finally start school! We did our 2nd pre-school visit this morning, and she will start properly on Monday. We got her school uniform the other day, and she looks younger than ever in it, but so very cute. I will take pics of her wearing it on Monday morning. The handover date for the house is mid December, so I'll drive her to school and back until then.

Other than all the house deals going on, it's been pretty quiet for us. DH is on leave for a few weeks, and the girls and I have enjoyed spending quality time with him at home. We all went rock climbing yesterday, and we go swimming a couple of times a week, so Brooke is more than happy. Elisa just loves having Dad around fullstop - it doesn't matter what we're doing.

I had a blast on Digital Scrapbooking Day on November 1st, scoring lots of freebies and shop specials. My first layout here is with the kit
Panda Zen by Liella at Sunshine Studio Scraps. I think it's just the cutest kit:


Credits HERE

And I couldn't resist doing my Visiting Teaching Handout for this month with the kit too. I used one of Liella's quick pages for the first page which is 5x5 inches and the cue cards (made myself) are 2x3 inches. I'll punch a hole in the corner and tie them together with some ribbon. They're off getting printed at the moment - I can't wait to put it all together.

SOLD!!!

Our house, which has been on the market for several months, sold yesterday. We didn't quite get what we wanted for it, but it's OK. We've yet to put a bid on another house, though we have two firm favourites we're deciding between. They're close to a great school for Brooke, and are about 300 metres apart. You'd think we'd be more excited about the move, but we've loved living where we are, and will miss the neighbours. BUT....schooling for the girls comes first, and we need to live IN-ZONE in order for them to attend that particular school. So...the next few weeks will be interesting as we see what prices we can negotiate for the new house. Fingers crossed.

The girls spent half of last night coughing, poor things. No one got much sleep. I'm guessing it's going to get worse before it gets better too, so we're preparing for a few quiet days at home.

It's Digital Scrapbooking Day today too, so I've been checking out all the online sales and freebies. I so wish I could just buy it all, but with the NZ dollar as it is, the conversion to US dollar still makes things pretty expensive. I've managed to find a few good deals though. :)

Here are my latest scrapbook pages for Sya's Blueprints, using her new Get Boxy template set which is part of her latest Grab Bag


You can see them close up HERE

And here's another one I did for a challenge at Natural Designs in Scrapbooking (NDISB):

Credits HERE

Oh, I almost forgot. I entered a challenge on Sine's blog last week, and won! We had to send a link to one of our layouts we think would make a good template. I sent this one in:

And now it's been made into a template and is for sale in her store!

That really made my day. I also got a gift certificate to her store for winning. :D

My best friends

Sweet Shoppe Gallery

Melissa and Dianna. These two women mean the world to me. We met while serving in the military over 15 years ago. I was an Army Medic, Melissa was an Army Storeperson, and Dianna was an Airforce medic. We lived in each others pockets for years, and considered each other family without a second thought. We accept each other for who we were, warts and all, and I don't know what I would have done without them. Postings, marriages and babies eventually spread us around the world, but we are still close. It can be months between phone calls, but we pick up the same as if we just talked yesterday. I miss them though. Life gets in the way sometimes, and it's been 4 years since we were last together. What I wouldn't give for a girls weekend with them again...

Jesus and Jumpy food

(15 October 2008)
Brooke was jumping around on my bed, doing forward rolls. All of a sudden she fell flat on her bottom, onto the floor. She must've done a forward roll right off the edge of the bed. She was crying, I was laughing my head off, and trying to give her cuddles at the same time. I asked her why she did that. Her immediate reply? "Jesus made me do it".

(26 October 2008)
While attempting to brush Brooke's hair, I commented how knotty it was, and that she probably had food stuck in her hair again. To which she replied: "I don't bend my head down and stick my hair in the food Mum, it just jumps up at me. You feed me jumpy food!"

25 October 2008

I know, I know, original title huh. I'm obviously not in my best witty form today ;) I was supposed to have some more photos from Brooke's birthday today, but haven't actually managed to do that yet. Her party was on Saturday, but her actual birthday was Sunday. After opening more presents on Sunday morning, we left the biggest for last, and took her outside to see the new trampoline. She was stoked. Gave this little half-embarrassed, shy "whaaaat? For meeeee?". Then proceeded to jump to her hearts delight. The tramp is actually for Brooke AND Elisa's birthday presents, since Elisa's birthday is at the end of November. Elisa doesn't quite have the knack of jumping with both feet off the ground yet, so she prefers running around the tramp, giving us a heart attack whenever she goes too fast and almost off the edge. It was a good purchase though, and the girls love it, using it at least a dozen times a day.

Yesterday Brooke decided she wanted a new Polly doll. Her old one was dirty, ragged and worn, and stitches were missing. I got a new Polly from it's hiding place in the scraproom, and hid it in my dressing gown. I then asked Brooke for old Polly, turned around and pretended to fix the doll. After a minute I said "All done", turned back around and gave Brooke the new Polly, all bright, shiny and new. She was astounded. "What did you DO Mum?! Was she inside OUT??". ROFL, she totally didn't realise it was a different Polly. I told her this was her last Polly (we're onto number 3 now). When this one wears out, that's it.

And just last night she cracked me up again. Now keep in mind we live in the NORTH Island of New Zealand:

Mum: "What jammies are you going to wear tonight?"
Brooke: "Well it's supposed to go down to 6 degrees tonight! So I better wear my winter jammies." (Said after hearing the weather report on the news about the temperature in the SOUTH Island).

I've managed to do another couple of layouts too:

Brooke turns 5

I should be excited, but I've really been dreading my baby turning 5. It's just one step closer to her being all grown up, and I'm not ready for that. Brooke however has been as excited as popcorn in a hot pan. For months. We've been counting down to her birthday for 3 months now, and seriously, the kid doesn't forget a thing.

After much deliberation Brooke decided she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake themed party, to be held at Lollipops Playland. After listing every friend she knows, we finally narrowed the invite list down to 12, and I got busy making some invitations. I love how they turned out:


The next item on the agenda was finding the right cake. We found a photo of one online that we just loved, but the only cake decorators that could do it for us wanted about $500 for it. Ummm....I don't think so. We eventually settled on a Strawberry Torte cake from the Cheesecake shop, with a picture of Strawberry Shortcake and friends on the top. It tasted fantastic on the day, but I have to say I was disappointed with how the picture went all bumpy, but by the time I picked it up on the way to the party, it was too late to do anything about it. Brooke didn't notice though, and happily ate a whole slice.


The kids all had a blast at Lollipops. They played for an hour, then came to the party room for food, drink and presents, before going out to play some more. Brooke felt special in her birthday chair at the top of the table (which Elisa commandered the minute Brooke vacated), and she seemed to have a great time with her cousins and friends.


All in all a very successful party, with no cleaning up for me to do. Gotta love that. Thanks to my Dad for being the photographer, and to everyone for the wonderful presents Brooke got. There's more to blog about, but I'll do that in the next post.