At the end of November our little Elisa turned four. How dare she grow up so quick. Talk about bittersweet.
Mid December we went down to Christchurch to spend Christmas with DH's family. The girls just love it there (as do we), and we all had a really wonderful time.
After much deliberation I decided my One Little Word (my focus word) for 2011 would be HEALTHY. I've been far too lazy for far too long. I need to make healthier food choices, exercise more, and drink more water. And I need it to become a habit - something I do automatically. It is so not automatic right now. Automatic at the moment is reaching for the closest chocolate bar just because it's there - no other reason. In order to really focus on this (and me), I knew I had to spend less time on the computer sitting still. I needed to get up and move more. To that end I made the really tough decision to stand down from The Digichick CT. Ugh. I love those girls. I'm still CTÃng for Darcy, Cindy and Kristin at Sweet Shoppe Designs, but they all release new products at the same time, and I can combine my CT work. I also freelance CT for Biograffiti, Kellie Mize and Michelle Batton, as time allows.
I know this layout about my scrapping goals doesn't look like I'm cutting back on my computer time, but I needed something to keep me focused...to remind me what was a priority to scrap.
We came home from Christchurch on the 1st of Jan, then a week later went camping at Orua Bay for 7 nights. I think the layouts speak for themselves.
We came home from that on Friday the 14th, and went to Hamilton to support my niece Emerson at her baptism the next day. I love catching up with family. Our kids adore each other, and I get to spend time with my parents, sisters and cousin Petria and family. I'm so glad we live close enough for the kids to develop the close relationships that they have with family members.
The following week we spent at home catching up on odd jobs and school friends for Brooke. On Saturday the 22nd of Jan little Grace turned 2, so the girls and I headed back to Hamilton for her party (DH was working). This was Grace's first party with our kids as she had previously been living in Turkey with her Mum and Dad. We're over the moon to have them back in NZ, and wanted to show our love and support by celebrating her birthday with her. I decided to take DH's truck to Hamilton instead of my Mazda 3, mainly because the truck is cheaper on fuel, but also because we had a lot of stuff to take down. Just as well too, because just short of Hamilton we were hit from the side by another vehicle, and the truck sustained considerable damage. Here's the full story:
We were so blessed to come out of that unharmed. The truck was written off by the insurance company the following week, and DH is now looking for a replacement. After all that drama, the girls still wanted to stay in Hamilton with my parents and all their cousins for the week as planned. It felt weird coming home without them after something like that, but they were unharmed, and happy as pigs in mud to be with their cousins again. They ended up staying from Saturday till Thursday, so I had a lovely break, catching up on a ton of little jobs, and focusing on my healthy eating and exercise routine.
When the girls did come home, they brought Emmy and Leah with them for two nights sleepover. Who knew four kids (the two youngest in particular) could make so much mess in so short a time. It was diabolical, but I made sure if they messed it up, they cleaned it up later too. We went to mini golf which the kids loved, and they all got a hole-in-one at some point during the game. Even Elisa. Emmy got two!
The rest of the time we just stayed home. The weather wasn't the best anyway. The girls left Saturday afternoon, Sunday we had church, then Monday Brooke's friend Daneka came to sleepover.After dropping Elisa at kindy on Tuesday, I took Brooke and Daneka to Lollipops Playland. They only played for an hour and a half before they got bored and wanted to go home. Another sign they're growing up I guess - a lot of the stuff at Lollipops is really geared to the under 5's.
So...our Christmas holidays have been very busy, but fun. School starts tomorrow. Throughout it all I managed to finish my Project 365, and do lots more layouts. It's probably better if you go to my 365 blog and see the rest of the 365 pages. I even did the title and last pages for it. As for the rest of my layouts, here you go:
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