happy mail

bright and breezy, first thing this morning at about 7am, my lovely parcel post delivery man delivered a box of "scrappy goodness" to my front door.

and to my complete surprise it was the box that never ended! shanice proclaimed it was like a Mary Poppins bag! I love it when the treasures keep going and going and going and going and going - you get the picture, lol

i dont even know where to start listing all the goodies that were enclosed in the box of goodness, there is just so much stuff. at least i'll be scrapping now for months and probably not even scratch the surface of what was inside.

oh - i ordered 2 surprise kits valued at $100 each US for only $29 each, BARGAIN.

at a quick glance it has to be worth at least $400 aust.

these pics dont do it justice, cause you just cant see everything and it just looks like a sea of STUFF

the kids are enjoying there first day at home of school holidays. they have demolished the lounge room twice already this morning. the first time with all the little people and now with this......

as you can see it is pyjama day at our house. i'm dressed but the kids aren't and it doesn't matter cause i have no plans today at all

i'm off to go and take another look at the new additions to the stash, and i might just wollow in them for a while, lol

friday to sunday

the past 3 days have been a little busy here at the sheppard-morris household.
Friday marked the last day of term 2 for shanice and connor, they are now off on 3 weeks school holidays. on one hand i'm loving them at home cause i get sleep in , lol and on the other hand i am so not looking forward to all the fighting i'm going to have to referee!

during the last week of term the mums from school get together at gloris jeans across the road from school for a coffee and catch up. we spent the entire morning there which was lovely. we thought that next term we should do lunch at the alvroy, and then i said there'd be wine so one of the other mums piped up and said we should do a girls night out instead. great idea i'm definitely in! how a girls night out went from drinks to dinner to dancing to strippers! is beyond me, but we are going to see the sydney Hot Shots at st mary's leagues club this coming friday night. they are such a fun group of girls and although it's not really my cup of tea (unfortunately i can be a bit of a prude sometimes) i reckon it will be a great laugh.

saturday morning took the 4 of us off to the shops bright and early just as the shops opened. we needed a new dvd player for our bedroom as Anthony cracked the shits with ours and threw it in the bin. jb-ho didn't have what we wanted so we re-thought our actions and went the whole hog and got a new plasma, dvd and set top box for our room. before we left we said we weren't going to get a new tv for the bedroom before we bought a new bed and bedroom furniture - but plans change and we just love keeping inflation rates high (note the sarcasm!).

while we were shopping we managed to spend a small fortune on some new cd's and dvd's.

* My Chemical Romance - the black parade is dead cd

* The Offspring's new cd

* Best of the 90's new cd - i'm such a tragic sometimes

* Top Gear cd

* The Anthems cd

* Yellowcard cd

* Good Charlotte cd - there first one cause somehow we were missing it

* Sex and the City season 2 dvd

* Life of Mammals dvd - for connor :)

* In cold Blood dvd - for connor too (but i'll share with him)

We got back about 15 minutes before Tracy and the kids arrived for a visit. we had a lovely afternoon mainly chatting away which is "very" unusual for us, lol. the kids were so good, not saying there not good, but we hardly noticed they were here especially the boys. Alastair has decided that he is going to sleep over in the holidays which will be exciting for connor.

we had dinner and trac did a "sheppard-morris" on me by eating and running - only joshing luvie. and i was in bed by 9.30pm, not asleep but watching my new tv.

today took the four of us plus the ring in - MANDY, to the movies to see Kung Fu Panda. it was really good, the kids loved it and some parts we very funny.

Mandy and went to Baby's Galore. there were so many people! suppose getting in there last minute shopping before 1st July when the baby bonus sky rockets. mandy was getting some cot sheets when i found the most adorable nappy bag. i'm not into nappy bags and found them a complete waste of time and money, i used connor thomas the tank engine kids backpack - it was the perfect size for everything. this one was gorgeous, a great size, had good little pockets and inclusions that were practical and fabric was divine. AND the price didn't stop her either! Mandy's genuine Guess bags don't cost that much let me just say that!

We got home and i had the intention of hanging out 2 loads of washing which i did and i wanted to scrap, which i didn't! instead i took connor to the doctors. when we got home he was complaining of his ear being very sore and it turns out the poor bugger has a nasty middle ear infection. now when the doctors saying to him "no wonder it hurts it's very nasty in there" and "oh dear" and "ummmm.... ahhhhh" it's gotta be bad! so we now have him on antibiotics for a week and no swimming so there goes my plans of taking the kids to pool this week to use up our 10 visit pass.

i grabbed the camera this afternoon too cause i thought the kids could do a "School Holiday Diary" on the computer and put pictures and stuff (like the movie ticket stubs) in it using the computer. so here are some.

Just after we got from the doctors this afternoon, feeling yuk but with a mum saying "just give me one smile and i'll leave you alone" connor just had to smile even with a mouth full of apple

another "just hurry up and take the photo and no i'm not brushing my hair, just photoshop it out" look for mum

love this pic

something else broke on the mini today and was trying to pull it all apart to fix it, he wasn't a happy camper let me just put it that way, so i thought to cheer him up i'd take a few pics of it for him. the reflection of the tree on the front quater panel looks like on of those tree in africa - what are they called?

it is a cute car, i just dont want to get in it again, lol

friends

earlier this year i bought all 10 seasons of "Friends" and have been slowly watching them.

I go thru a faze and watch a heap of episodes and then forget i had them.

well, anthony has been away with work this week so i pulled them out again for a good laugh. they are so easy to watch while i'm cleaning and stuff.

today i got up to season 10, yep i finally got there. after i took connor swimming, cooked dinner, folded washing, bathed kids and put them to bed i thought i'd watch the last few episodes. well i bawled like a baby!!! i had completely forgotten everything that happened, the only thing i did remember is Ross and Rachel getting back together. God i love this show.

i had to try and not get the tears on a layout i was working on, lol

now i dont know what to watch next from start to finish (cause i've got them all here bought and ready to watch!), it's a huge decision :) Do i watch :

*Sex and the City

* Melrose Place

* Miami Ink (all 5 seasons AGAIN!)

* CSI

* American Chopper

* Desperate Housewives

* Lost

There's too many to choose from............... maybe i'll just watch my Spongebob seasons 1-3. i buy them for the kids cause i just LOVE spongebob, lol. And i have to wait till August to get my pre-ordered copy of Nip Tuck season 5 from the states (belinda you can expect your copy around then too, lol, and yours trac).

sickness and lots of wine

the lurgies are visiting our little home at the moment.

It started on Thursday last week, shanice had been coughing for about a week and we went swimming like usual on the thursday afternoon for connors lesson. we'd been swimming about 45 minutes when shanice just stopped and sat on the edge which is highly unusual for her, then i noticed this rash all over her face and neck. i thought it was a reaction to the clorine maybe. so we went home, and at about 10pm the rash was bigger, all over her back and down her legs. So off to the emergency room we go. three and half hours we sat there until we saw a doctor. he said it was an allergic reation to "something"!

ok, so friday we take off school - both of them. connor was coughing like a trooper and shanice was exhausted, coughing and full of a rash.

I was headed off that night to the Hunter Valley with my gal pals from school, but i'll get to that in a minute. Mandy came and took the kids on saturday for the night, and shancie's rash kept coming back so i asked if she could take her to the doctors on sunday morning. turns out my little chereb has a middle ear infection in both ears and is suffering an allergic reaction to the virus! never heard of that before. unfortunately they cant giver her anything cause of the allergic reaction either, so we've just had to ride it out.

She finally wen't back to school today, wednesday, cause she was driving me bonkers! plus they finish school on friday and will be home for 3 weeks, gotta love private school with extra weeks school holidays :)

onto my weekend at the hunter. I had the most amazing time. i love these girlies to bits and have known them since i was knee high to a grasshopper which in this day and age is highly unusual.

we stayed at this lovely place called Tuscany Estate - gorgeous! Dallas scored us the best package ever. we had co-joining rooms which slept 3 in each. it was so funny sharing a bed with Dal again, i felt like when we were back in high school and i used to sleep over at her house and we'd sleep in the double bed and gossip all night. and we did again now till 1.30am! kept melissa awake in the other room too.

on saturday we ventured out to a few wineries, tasted heaps of yummy wine. i still dont know what i like though. i did enjoy tasting the cheese too, and the chocolate, and dips, and the olives, and the ice cream, and the boiled lollies. we didn't need lunch on saturday.

later that afternoon when we'd been all wined out we went back to the hotel to eat out cheese and biccies, then i piped up that i want/need/have to go across the road and get a Blue Tongue Beer sample paddle. Skye and Dal were joining me in this and Tanya came for moral support, Melissa and Emma stayed behind for nanna naps.

Let me just say the beer was good! and when you return your paddle you get a free midi of your favourite, of course i choose the one with the highest alcohol rating!

Dinner was yummo. tanya and i shared our pizza's which was devine. we sat around talking again for most of the night, which brought back so many memories and made many new ones too.

sunday it was time to come home :( back to reality. so we had a really long breakie with more chatting. called in at 2 more wineries and then headed home.

perfect! i cant wait to do it all again next year.

here are some piccies.

oakvale wines - YUM me in the lolly shop!

front of the lolly shop skye and tanya

just a tree! Skye beer tasting

skye, dallas, me, emma, melissa and tanya

and for mum, i hope you read this while your away.

here are the kids school photos.

connors is way better than last year and

what is going on with shanice hair!

can't i have a year when both kids photos are nice?

quote of the week......

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal

hanging on of an uncompleted task.

~William James

love you mum........

after school today i took the kids up to mum's because first thing tomorrow she flys out for England for 5 weeks.

She is going to have the best time. Love you mum, miss you already. now i'm going to have to drive mandy crazy with my daily phone chats!

the family photo

the baby bump

(for you Lynsey - after our chat i thought you might like to see it for yourself)

and connor........ what can i say about my special little monkey man! he remembered tonight that he was promised Grandad's motorbike helmet and canyoning helmet, so i had to go searching for them. mum wasn't ready to let go if dad's good full face bike helmet (which is totally understandable - i wouldn't be ready either) so we gave connor this one plus the canyoning one. i had to raid cupboards trying to find the canyoning one as we couldn't remember where it had been stashed after dad's funeral.

connor brought them home and put the bike helmet in the corner of his bed where grandads t-shirts are. he's such a beautiful boy with such a good heart.

quote of the week......

The smallest act of kindness is worth

more than the grandest intention.

~Oscar Wilde

farm, mini's and no photos

that just about wraps up my weekend!

The mini finally got registered on friday so we drove down the farm to pick it up and bring it back to Sydney so anthony could drive it around. Talk about bitterly cold! it was like ice when we got down to the farm at about 6.30pm that night. thank god shell and mark were already there and had lit all the fires for us.
shanice was really ill friday night with a raging temperature. she can in to me around 3am trembling and shivering but to touch her she was on fire. after the panadol kicked in she went back to bed and woke saturday morning feeling much better.
the best thing i love about the farm is sleeping in! yep, i arose at 10.45am, lol. gotta love that. it was awfully quiet as mark, shell and pat went into town, michael was somewhere on the tractor and anthony was tinkering with the mini. where were the kids? sitting happily on the swing in their pj's playing nintendo ds games. i pulled out my massive bag of crap and started to do some crafty little jobs to keep me busy.
around lunch time anthony came in and asked me to go to town with him in the mini to give it a run. in hindsight i wish i had upset him and said "NO". i got in it and couldn't shut the door properly and ended up breaking the lock on the passenger side. on the way into to town the mini lost power 2. then on the way back ........... i was thinking i'd have to walk 12km's back to the farm. something had seriously gone wrong. ant was checking under the hood and asked me to start the car, so i pulled the choke out (yes, a car with a choke - you certainly dont see them anymore) and i must have pulled it too far cause i broke that! it died several times on the way home to the farm. Anthony was not a happy chappy as you can imagine, so i did the wifely thing and kept my mouth completely shut all the way. it finally died about 700m from the farm and ant got and pushed, thank god its on a down hill run. i steered and as i got up some momentum i yelled out "Look honey, i'm driving your mini!" it was cheeky!
i still dont know what was wrong with it, cause after that a few other things needed to be fixed too, but they got it going. i went back to doing the crafty stuff on the verandah with the kids.

sunday morning we packed up early so i could follow anthony home. it took a little longer as the mini could only go about 90km/h going 100 was just pushing it. it's quite funny being passed by semi's and grandpa's on their sunday drives, lol.
we stopped at Tracy's for lunch on the way home as it's half way and gives the mini, kids and the dogs a break. i think i needed the break too! i was getting a bit sleepy.

Of course, like all good scrappers i went away and left my camera on the computer table! i couldn't believe i did it! and there was so many photo opportunity times too. oh well, next time.
so that was my weekend in a nutshell.

today i have had a nasty migraine which is driving me nuts as i just cant shift it at all. so when ant comes home tonight it's bed and a panadine forte for me!

stuff

I'm not real keen on "hump" day. it's my longest day of the week. probably because it's my work day and then race around like a mad chook with after school activities, cooking dinner, cleaning, bathing kids and putting them to bed. just writing all that makes me tired all over again.

anthony and i have been busy making cd's for my car. cause the new car has a mp3 cd player i can now compile about 13 cd's onto one, which is great. i was sad to see my old stereo go though when we sold the excel the other week. it was my first stereo we bought 8 years again for my first car..... a sony xplode 10 stacker. now i know these days it's really daggy but i loved it! connor loved using the remove for the stereo too.
now i'm just trying to decide on what music goes with what - i hate being a virgo sometimes, lol.

i've been creating too this week!
i've managed to do a couple of lo's, more buttons and i've been cutting 3mm chipboard (dont' ask and it's taking forever and it kills my hand) and i've been french knitting. i know another daggy thing! the lengths of french knitting i'm sewing up to make ....... what for it....... CUPCAKES!!!


This lo i did for White with 1's june challenge
Connor wants to study sharks when he grows up, he has been completely obsessed with sharks for about 3 years now and can name the particular shark by sight and tell you what it eats etc. He didn't know the name of the occupation so he wants to call himself a "sharkographer"


this lo i did for the june challenge on Aussie Roadmaps
i've decided to use up the stash and stop buying as many new papers and then putting them away, so i used some old sei pp's. it's bright for me.

atm i'm in the mood for doing some challenges just to give me some inspiration to draw on i think. i'm loving it.

better go bring the dogs in, i can hear the pair of the jumping at the back door. shall be back tomorrow to show piccies of the buttons!

quote of the week

Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if

you have to leave them alone in order to do it.

~Author Unknown

flower power

happy queens birthday everyone!

well we all knew it's not really the actual queens birthday today (i can't remember off the top of my head when it actually is) but it's a great excuse for a long weekend and the start of the ski season. i wonder when the next in line to throne takes over if we'll still have the same holiday? probably have no choice than to be a republic by then anyway - don't get me started on that soap box, i'm such a monarchist!

anyways, i totally got side tracked then.

i had to pick connor up today, so to save some $$$ on petrol we decided to meet half way at flower power, glenhaven. while we had a coffee and scones (YUM) the kids played in the playground which they loved. we must have been there almost an hour and a half. we went for a walk around the nursery, which is just perfect for photo's, they have a massive pond with koi which are enormous. here are a few pics i took.

look at the size of the mouth on that koi fish!

mandy loved her pregancy album! she was going home to write in it with her first prenatal visit already. i think mum wants a special "nan" one too!

i started scrapping a layout this morning too while i watched a scary movie that i didn't want to watch when it got dark. it's the preview to the new stephen king movie "the mist", it's really good, not too scary yet though, but i think that was cause i was watching it during the day time, lol.

itchy tattoos

arrrrrrggggghhhhhhh..............................
my tattoo is driving me crazy. it's healing really, really well but because of the position of it down my spine it's so itchy! i desperately want to scratch it, but i cant, i have to resort to slapping it which is not a good look, lol.
thank god for bepantham (aka nappy rash creme)

yesterday was pat (my mother in law) 60th birthday. i had organized a photographer to come and take some nice family photos for pat for her birthday from Anthony, myself and this kids. it was great that i could ask and give my business to a mum from school. i can highly recommend her, her photos that she she took were phenomenal, even with 4 kids! Go check out PLC Photography.
we were all a bit paranoid about the weather, but someone must have been on our side yesterday because the weather was just stunning. we had our photos done at Nurragingy Reserve and the gardens were so lusious after all the rain and the ponds were full, so we got some great shots with the ducks in the ponds behind us.
after the photos we went to the Alvroy Tavern to dinner. you so wouldn't guess that we were in Plumton, it's so nice and the food is just yummo. out the back is a huge grassed area and big play area for the kids, which kept them occupied even after dark.
it was such a lovely day, i hope Pat enjoyed herself.

anthony headed down the farm at the crack of dawn and wont be home now till next weekend. connor spent the night at mum's and wont be home till tomorrow. Shanice conned me into letting her have a sleep over at Taleesha's last night and i went and picked her up this morning.
shanice spent the day in and out of the house playing with the kids in the street and i parked my toosh in the backroom, watched (well, listened too) 3 movies and finished the pregnancy journal for Mandy - YAY!!!!! the light is pretty crap now, but i shall take piccies in the morning to share.
i had to ring mum so i could speak to connor, as he was too busy to talk to me earlier today and i couldn't help myself and told mandy i finished it. i hope she'll like it.

rain

god i love the rain
i love putting on a few layers of clothes and snuggling up with the kids in front of the heater to watch a movie.
i love wearing my uggies all day long, even when dropping the kids at school.
i'm such a winter person

i think with all this rain and being kept cooped up inside has brought out my creative side which has been banished to a cupboard lately.
on tuesday i made a stack more cute buttons. connor wanted to help as both the kids were home sick (god they are good at pulling the wool over my eyes, that and the fact that i wasn't feeling well myself). he sat watched cause he thought they were a little tricky.
i'm really happy with how they are turning out. i was collecting the finished ones in a little glass jar, but the jar is now overflowing. i think it's time to find a bigger jar!

i finished my trading cards - YAY!!!!!
i bought these cute pink paisley stamps when i last put in my wholesale order and i had to test them out prior to using them in a class. i chose the rocket ship - too cute! then i bought a quickutz alien die and used them as well. so i have a little space theme happening on my cards.
i made 20 and totally enjoyed it.



this week i also finished my class sample for a class at our Christmas In July getaway. in typical kylie fashion it turned out nothing like i originally planned, and the end result i'm even more pleased with. it was a shared efort with Tracy putting her 2 cents worth in before i actually stuck anything down - thank god!!!! LOL



i'm in the middle of another little project at the moment too. i started to make mandy a pregnancy journal. i found this great idea on Two Peas a while ago (sorry, i've search and can't find the link), it has all these spots to record ultrasounds, measurements, hopes & dreams, baby name ideas etc. i made a start and wanted it finished before mandy's first "official" 12 week ultrasound - which is tomorrow. yep, i dont like my chances of finishing it before then either, lol.
well, i better go and pull my finger out!

quote of the week

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems,

but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

~Herm Albright

holy torpedo batman

i went to tracy's for the whole weekend and i actually scrap a layout!

yep, that's right, one whole layout and an off the page project for the Christmas In July class and 20 trading cards! i was a busy little girl. there was a lot of procrastinating going on though, lol.

trac fully completed one project and started i dont remember how many!

the kids loved sending the whole weekend together. they had so much fun without too many dramas which was great. trac bought for them 2 balloon kits to share, they came with 100 long balloons and a pump and they spent mopst of the time pumping up balloons and mainly letting them go and then burst into fits of laughter, but sometimes they made animals or swords.