Movember Update

This is Andrew attempt (some may say sad attempt) at growing a Mo for Movemeber. I must admit I'm glad that it has been shaved off, not very nice in the kissing stakes and I think it does nothing for his face. Still a good effort and he has raised over $500 for Prostate Cancer research and that can only be a good thing.

Been meaning to post for a while, but to be honest I'm so tired by the time Bailey and Nathan go to bed that I fall asleep in the chair in front of the TV. Blogging during the day is difficult because they are firmly attached to me.

Now I know that someone must read this blog besides me and my family because I have a growing number of dots on my clustermaps. Please someone leave me a comment so I know where you are from and what you do and so that I can check out your blog.

Must go, munchkins are back from the park and peace has ended!!

Tarra Bulga National Park

Over Cup Weekend we visited Andrew's sister Fiona and her family, who live in Yarram. This is always lots of fun as Bailey and Nathan love to run around with their cousins and Jess the dog!! The dirt mound is also another favourite hideout.

While we were there this time we visited the Tarra Bulga National Park, which is temperate rain forest about 15 minutes from where Fiona and Trevor live. These are some of the random shots I took on our walk to the waterfall - which because of the drought is much more like a trickle!

Andrew is doing Movember this month, which means he is growing a moustache. Movember helps to raise money for Prostate cancer research and if you would like to donate. Andrew had started when I took these picks but it's a bit difficult to find any real undergrowth under his nose! I promise to post a recent look at this Mo but he's away for a couple of days so you'll have to wait!

We've had some momentous changes since I last blogged (yes, I know I've been a bit slack!). Bailey is now toilet trained, he still needs help going to the toilet, but generally remembers to tell me when he needs to go, we've only had a few accidents. Nathan is not really showing any signs of being ready, but often he has been a little behind Bailey in some of his milestones so we'll get there eventually. He certainly wants to sit on the toilet, but as yet nothing is happening!! It's funny that once you become a parent all decorum about bodily functions seems to be removed as we happily talk with other parents about wees and poos!

We had a great weekend this weekend. I spent some time on Saturday afternoon with a friend Lisa scrapbooking, which was a real treat. Andrew wasn't playing tennis so I really too advantage of that! Yesterday we finally sold some of Bailey and Nathan's baby stuff (car seats, rockers), which really frees up some room in our tiny but messy front room. Sunday afternoon we had tea at Lisa's place and Bailey and Nathan played so very well with her sons Cooper and Baxter it was nice to be able to relax and watch and not worry about who was going to get hurt!

Today Bailey and Nathan are in occasional care until 3pm. I'm trying to take advantage of this time to finally clear the mess in this room I'm sitting in. I've been trying all year!!! But I can see the floor for the first time in ages so that's a bonus. Tomorrow I'm finishing off my Christmas card design in calligraphy and having some x-rays done on my knees, which at this point appear to be cactus!

What's that smell?

Had to quickly share this story while Bailey and Nathan are safely eating brekkie and watching Shaun the Sheep.

Last night we put the boys to bed as normal, Nathan fell asleep almost immediately, Bailey however, having had a catnap at around 5pm decided not to go to sleep. That's okay, Andrew was on duty and just kept putting him into bed. Around 9pm when all was quiet I said to Andrew - Can you smell something? So we decided to check to make sure that Bailey hadn't got into anything . . . . yes . . . you guessed it . . . this is a real toddler/preschooler moment!

Bailey had found the Curash Nappy Rash cream, which is like thick zinc cream. Now not only had he decided to smear it all over his bed and the spare bed, he had also decided to completely cover a few toys, to try to feed Nathan some while he was sleeping . . . oh and to eat some himself! Andrew and I went into complete recovery mode, we rang Nurse-on-call who then passed us onto Poison's Australia, who advised us that this stuff was non-toxic and the worst case scenario was some diahorrea. So we cleaned out Bailey's mouth, cleaned his teeth, gave him lots of water to drink stripped the beds, washed the sheets, chucked the toys, tried to explain to Bailey why it's important not to eat things that are in strange tubes . . . and all the while Nathan kept sleeping.

I'm sure that this won't be the first time the boys eat something they are not supposed to, but hopefully it will all turn out okay like last night.

Next post will be some photos of Andrew's 40th, just need to find the time to post them!!!

Go Sainters!!

17.4.106 to 9.18.72

Andrew is in bed trying to sleep off the fact that Collingwood got beaten in another final. I'm not being cocky because we play Hawthorn next week and they are in fine form. Still it's one step closer to that elusive Grand Final berth.

Mini-books

I think I've told you that I'm really into making mini-books at the moment. I think it's because I can combine my love of paper, scrapbooking and calligraphy. I also get to play with some new techniques to see if they work or not. I'm sure that I'll probably get over the current passion, but at the moment they are my current favourite thing to make.

Okay, here's the first one, I made this for my Mum for her birthday.

Box-board covered in Mulberry paper.

Scapwares flower stamped in multi-coloures and heat embossed with clear holographic powder

Scrapbooking tag with calligraphy done in burnt sienna.

This one I made for my sister Jenni (who happens to share a birthday with Mum!!). This is to hold some of her photos - she is a fantastic photographer and you can find her stuff here and here.

Box board covered in mulberry paper

Chipboard frame from some scrapbooking kit I've had for ages

'My Photos' calligraphy done in burnt sienna and then heat embossed with
clear holographic powder.

Photos is one of Jenni's printed on archival inkjet canvas paper

These books are really easy to construct, especially since the box board goes through my guillotine, I really hate having to cut board with a craft knife. I've been using the Crop-o-Dile Big Bite for the holes and the eyelets and I must admit that I'm trying to use up some of my supplies so sometime I have absolutely no idea who made the embellishment that I have used. Still if I'm going to post them with details I might have to start taking some notice.

Jenni and I attended a workshop on making mini-books on Sunday and I'll post those in another post. Similar in construction although I learnt some new techniques for folding paper and adding a spine and the bling that we used to decorate them was quite different and not what I'd used before. I love it when I can incorporate new techniques into what I'm already doing. I'm currently making another book for a friend of Andrew's and need to finish that.

I usually have an idea in mind when I start but just allow the creative process to take over and the book evolves of it's own accord. These books are for sale if you are interested.

Broomecam

This is Andrew on Broomecam last week. He was in Broome for work and as you can see he was working really, really, really hard!!

How cool is this!!

How cool is this layout? I was reading my latest issue of Creating Keepsakes and this is in the computer tricks article from Jessica Sprague (only the coolest of digital scrappers!!). The scalloped edged circle was a download from the CK site, also another cool thing! I was amazed at how easy it was to clip the photo's to the cirle mask. You don't actually crop the photo either it's just sitting out of sight in the background. I love that I can save this as a .psd file and play around with it at anytime. I've done this with a canvas size of 8 x 10 so it means I can get if printed if I save it as a JPEG. I have been toying with the idea of doing an album in this way, all done on the computer then printed as a photo and pasted to cardstock. I especially want to do an album of Bailey and Nathan's 10 weeks in hospital and I think that this could be the way to go. I have some more mini-albums to post, but as I'm maximising the time that Grandma and Grandpa are here it will have to be another post! Till then, enjoy.