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Saturday 27 February 2010

swimming carnival & zone

This week has been a pretty full on week.....
The kids had their school swimming carnival on Tuesday. They both swam really well. Shanice missed her 50m freestyle heat and so did connor which i was a little disappointed with as freestyle is their best strokes. But they both went in their breaststroke heats.
Shanice did 1.02 which put her in second for her age group and saw her qualify for zone. I was over the moon. All that hard work and training was starting to pay off.
I love Connor's enthusiasm...... he loves going in all the races and doesn't care what his results are, he just loves to give it a go. And he did so well.

So, Thursday saw me at the pool again - all day (including getting sunburnt). and just for one race, but it was a great day.
Shanice's race was on at about 11am. and i was so fired up to cheer her on, but didn't want to too much as it would psych her out. She was in Division 2 (for all the kids that came second at their school carnivals).
Well.......... i had the biggest proud mummy moment that i had to walk away so i would cry in front of everyone. SHE CAME FIRST!!!!!!! We checked her time at the end of the day and she did a 1.0077 which was 2 seconds off her best time. AND she came 5th overall, beating 4 of the division 4 girls and all the girls in her heat. We were over the moon and so, so proud.
She had to wait the rest of the day out as she had then been put into the 11 year girls relay doing the breaststroke leg. I didn't check her time, but i'm sure she swam faster again.

So, yep, I'm one very proud mum at the moment.


playing with Britney & Hunter before her race


Diving into her heat


Breaststroke leg of the 4X50m 11 year girls relay



Besides swimming this week I've been getting a bit creative, with lots of project on the go all at once. It seems i cant finish one thing before i start on another before i loose the idea.
Of course this means that everything else is suffering too, but i should be finished soon and things can get back to normal.

Monday 22 February 2010

birdcages

Scrappy Sunday saw me, Joh, Nic & Aunty Rae making these cute little birdcages.
We had so much fun making them and they turned out great.


Aunty Are, Me, Joh & Nic

And just because, here's one of the kids that behaved so well and there were no fights while we were busy creating art in the backroom - William, Connor, Caitlin & Shanice

Laura's wedding

On Saturday Connor and I drove up to Bathurst to attend Laura's wedding.
It was rather long trip in the truck but I think that was because i was beginning to get a rather nasty head cold. So we had a minor detour at Katoomba so i could stock up on drugs from the chemist so i could get there in one piece. We had to leave Anthony at home because Shanice was really sick the night before and that morning.

It was a beautiful day, rather warm too.
It seemed really quite weird sitting in the church with all these "kids" that i used to baby sit when i was a teenager that are all young adults and one getting married! It made me feel a little bit old.

The ceremony was lovely although i did spend a lot of my time chasing Hunter up and down the aisles! But all in all he was very well behaved and didn't cry out for mum once as she was in the bridal party.

Congratulations to Laura and Nick and we wish you both a lifetime of happiness.


Angus & Laura
Mandy, Hunter, Mum & Connor
Hunter....... looks oh so cute all dressed up!

Friday 19 February 2010

Valentine's Day


Yesterday i rang Anthony and said that we should go to the movies. I really wanted to Valentine's Day. I wasn't sure of the reaction as it's a "girly movie" but was willing to budge and see either The Wolfman or Shutter Island just in case. But i didn't have to.
I was so looking forward to it, the shorts looked great. I thought it would be another Love Actually which we both love and i can watch it over and over again and never get sick of it.

Well.................... it was no Love Actually. It was drab even with all those stars in it. Those yanks have tried to outdo the poms and failed miserably.
And now I'm feeling very sad in my heart cause i really should have seen Shutter Island with Anthony.

Friday 12 February 2010

So the storm has finally passed after getting soaked in it . I think the rain made the kids a little more crazier then normal and they have not stopped bouncing off the walls.
I have found them singing and dancing in the lounge room to MTV karaoke


shanice and britney..... looks like they are doing their best Pulp Fiction impersonation


and connor doing his soccer run pose.

well.... it's time to try and settle them down for a movie (i think they have chosen Caroline in 3D - AGAIN), and i might just go and fold some washing, wash and dry up some dishes and then i might just scrap...... better yet i may just take a movie to bed with me.

Tuesday 9 February 2010

i "heart" tuesdays

Tuesdays is my most favourite day of the week
My day begins by getting up and doing all the normal shuffling before the kids go to school, but the difference is i can stay in my pj's as Joh picks the cherubs up and drops them at school.
I then go about my morning, in my pj's, having breakie and checking my emails....... then the fun begins. I toddle off to Nic's house with an array of crafting (or "ART" as we now like to call it) stash to spend the day with Nic and Aunty Rae doing all sorts of little projects.
Last week we did these cute Twidlybitz shadow boxes...... i love how they all turned out
I hate that it was my idea to write "home is where the art is" and then forgot and wrote heart instead, but i still love the end result.
Aunty Rae, Nic and me
Mine up close
this week we worked with the kaiser pina colada kit - looking good so far.

more weekend projects

So here are the pic that i finally took of my other projects i did on the girls weekend away.....
starting with a cute kaiser birdhouse - i did love making this and it was so easy


next is a simple card that we set a 30 minute challenge to make
and lastly was a layout Gill did for me in our photo swap

Monday 8 February 2010

Scrapping weekend away

Last year it was decided that because Scrap Girls & the LSBS staff don't actually go away to scrap any more we would have a staff weekend away.
Nic and myself started looking around for a house to rent somewhere, but with quite a few specifications. The house had to sleep 7, have a big dining table, have a nice view or be near a beach, preferably with air conditioning, a pool and not too far from home.
We did find a few but they were ridiculously priced, eventually Nic came across this fabulous little house down in Stanwell Park that fitted all of our requirements.
So Friday was the big day. I was designated driver as i have the big ute and it has company fuel. Belle and Gill met at my house and once the ute was packed we picked up Nic and Cath followed behind on her bike. It was a really quick trip and we missed most of the rain and traffic which was great.
Meeting us at the house were Tracy and Sami.
I had organized a little kit for us to scrap with over the weekend. We each got a Kaiser Loire Valley kit with papers, embellies, stamps, bird house, stickers etc. It wasn't a range that i would have picked but i loved it by the end and still have heaps more to scrap with.
I didn't have too many high expectations with how many layouts I'd actually do but in the end I'd completed 7 layouts, a bird house and 1 card. Pretty spectacular efforts if i do say so myself.
We set little challenges too over the weekend like scrapping a layout in 45 minutes using only stuff from Caths stash, a 30 minute card challenge, scrapping someone else's photo, scraplift someone else's layout. It made the scrapping more fun and we even thought of other ideas for challenges for another weekend away.
I could have spent a week away with such a great bunch of girls. I had the most awesome time. I feel so thankful to have such great and supportive people in my life and even happier that they are scrappers too:)
Here are my layouts from the weekend. Piccies of some of the others will follow shortly :-)
challenge using only stuff from Cath's stash - still needs journaling though
A scraplift of one of Nic's layouts
A scraplift off Nic's layout who scraplifted it from Belle