just another day...

end of the holidays

we've had a really good mix of activities and pyjama days these school holidays and i'm almost sorry to see them end.  almost.  

the big hit this holidays was the roller skates, although crappy weather has meant that a lot of practice has happened indoors. on carpet. which i guess is good for them getting their bearings, just a rude awakening when they actually skate anywhere smooth.

so i have lots of falling over shots...

 

 

the only other time i've got the camera out was for a pottery painting exercise.  there's a local pottery where for the price of the raw pot you or your kids can paint their own design, have it fired and take it home.  we're waiting to see the finished results, but here's a few shots of the creative process.

it's a serious business. they were happier to be there than they looked, honest.

 

i also arranged it so i spent  a day with each child on their own.  I had a boy day with just alex and we went to see IronMan.  I have a general blanket ban on M rated movies, there's really no negotiation - but Robert Downey Jr was in this.  I checked the parent guides and was reassured - there was probably about 10 seconds of film that i'd have preferred not to be in it.  We had to go to Chadstone to see it because it was nearly at the end of its run but that was cool - meant we could hang out in Borders - him at the comics and me at the craft mags and the toy shops.  He scored coming home with Star Wars Galactic Heroes - the whole Cantina Scene.

Phoebe's day was spent at Scraptacular - she's been dying to go to one of their mother/child crop days.  Obviously i spend a lot more time alone with her when Alex is at school, but they don't do the kids crop days then!

 

also, just for the record.  last weekend after careful deliberation we headed down to the rspca and picked up this bundle of fluff and fury.

she started off being called Kessy (to rhyme with Jesse, our dog) but the kids have since changed their mind and right now she's popcorn.  i've warned them they have to commit to a name soon, and i'm not sure i can do 'popcorn'.  poppy is quite cute but is also the name of my step daughter, so i'm not sure what she'd think. lol

 

 

and speaking of new additions, welcome to oliver xavier doyle, my newest nephew.  born last sunday - how new does he look here only a few hours old.  just gorgeous and congratulations uncle david and suzanne!  i look forward to meeting him.

 

 

anyway there are layouts floating around to share, but i think this post is long enough.

hope you're all surviving the school hols.

teeth and other fairies

a long story and perhaps not that interesting.  feel free to scan to the end where there might be a layout :)

 

 

last night at the ripe old age of five and a half and two days, phoebe lost her second tooth.  bottom centre left.  wobbly for weeks, alex (teeth-losing-veteran totalling six and two more on their way) advised her it was close and she should eat an apple.

not that he ever has.  anyway.

she did and it came out.  big excitement that the tooth fairy would be coming, except that again care of big brother there is some scepticism over the existence of said fairy.  healthy enough because the fairy herself can be a bit on the inconsistent side. apparently.

for example when she visited last for phoebe's first lost tooth, there was some criticism because apparently she didn't leave enough glitter.  she may just have had glitter paper which she had to scrape off on the pillow, and that might be because five year old girls like using any other available glitter.  a lot.

so she might have realised she would have to put in extra effort with this tooth, and a late night visit to the Glitter Queen's house and some mulling over colours would surely ensure success. 

and if you think the tooth fairy was unnecessarily nervous, i might point out that this was the pillow set up that would greet her.  one container contained the tooth (truly the tiniest thing you can imagine) on a bed of tissues and the second contained a $2 coin for the tooth fairy with a note dictated to me to write to the tooth fairy.

'dear tooth fairy, thank you for all my coins and now i'm giving you one too. love phoebe'.

 

 

shiny $2 coin. check

glitter she's never seen before. check

sleeping child. check.

what could possibly go wrong?

well i'll tell you.  the tooth fairy might steal into the room in the middle of the night right on cue and find the container with the tooth and pull out the tissue and somehow not find the tooth.  she might search through the whole pillow and still not find the tooth.

and if she were a (tired and) suspicious tooth fairy with a daughter not incapable of her own little machiavellian schemes, she might wonder if that daughter had hidden the tooth elsewhere but left the rest of the setup, just to test the existence of the tooth fairy.  and if that were the case, and the tooth fairy left a coin  without ever actually collecting the tooth then daughter would know that the tooth fairy wasn't real because a real tooth fairy would know whether there was a tooth or not.

i decided that the little scheming princess wasn't going to trick this not born yesterday tooth fairy and no coin was left.  i was going to write a note saying 'no tooth - no coin' but thought perhaps that might be a bit harsh.

roll on morning.  i woke before phoebe and went over and over in my head whether i had made a mistake.  mistake confirmed when she awoke and spent the next twenty minutes crying inconsolably because the tooth fairy had taken her tooth and not left any money.   i cuddled her and questioned her about whether she'd moved or lost the tooth and mumbled things like there must be some explanation.

there was and it came in the form of The Tooth found on the bedroom floor a little later. hooray we celebrated because we could do it all again properly again tonight and the tooth fairy would still come.  and i'm exhausted!

 

so. a layout to share.  from tarisota (so not surprised this one sold out..) we were challenged to do a layout using song lyrics.  i'd just sat through 'my pigeon house' at phoebe's kinder mother's day concert a song which always makes me cry so it was perfect.

 

if you haven't seen this

on your blog rounds this morning, then you're reading the wrong blogs.

but it's good to get the message out there, because it's only a VERY QUICK sale.

go here for sale stuff

and here for a project an hour from each of the tarisota designers.  so very cool

as for me. is it 12.30 yet??  that's the question on the lips of an excited five year old going to her kinder friends birthday party.  roll on 12.30.

will leave you with a couple of layout shares from this months tarisota - 

 

this one uses a range of the gorgeous turquoises and greens from the collection and is about our bedroom and how i've been wanting to paint a wall for the last two years, i've just not found quite the right shade yet.

will leave you with some dubious relationships advice from a recent email.. enjoy your man.  throw him a get out of jail free card with no strings attached and watch him squirm afterwards wondering what the catch is. 

i can't think what that means, but i am wondering how many euphemisms you can get in a single sentence. ;)

mushroom hunting

mushroom hunting last weekend - frank's perfect family outing - lots of fresh air, can take the dog, doesn't cost a penny.

most of the time i leave my 50mm lens on my camera, occasionally when we're outside I put the chunky zoom on.  it's a lot more trial and error getting the settings right - especially in constantly changing light and shade, but when i do i'm amazed by the clarity and vibrancy of colour it provides.  these are all straight out of camera - no editing, no actions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh and we did find some mushrooms.  well - tiny toadstools but they might as well have been made of gold such was phoebe's excitement. and yes we did stop her from touching them!

more sharing

As you probably know the new for keeps creative paper launched this month.  i think it looks fantastic - amazing creations by sarah van wijck on the cover - i couldn't believe it was ALL made of paper - even the cake stand. congratulations to everyone who appeared in and worked on this issue - it's an amazing culmination of talents.

I wrote an article about houndstooth as an emerging trend - and introduced the new heidi swapp lines - scrumptious bling, chandelier crystals and mirrored embellishments along with the paper lines.  I think you can see the article if you click below - if this widget thingy works properly.

and a few recent favourite layouts.  gosh i haven't been around for a while - i have months worth of shares to choose from.

clearly - without realising it until i pulled these layouts together - i have a thing about a single horizontal element to my layouts lately.  this will become even more apparent in a couple of months when i can share layouts using the gorgeous new Quickutz 12" border dies.

 

Look Inside >> June 2008, Issue 67

 

 

 

 

  

sharing

i wanted to share this album from the latest tarisota box with you here because you can't see the journalling, and i just love it. 

all of these photos were taken in a single afternoon from picking alex up from school to bedtime.

i love it because although it's nothing earth shattering it captures a load of tiny insignificant details that would otherwise escape from our memories.  and you have to be present in the moment to record this stuff.  i told alex off for doing the spit thing before i realised that's exactly the stuff - the essence of a six year old -  i was trying to capture.

i also learned stuff about him - i've always known he draws a lot and loves to draw - but this afternoon showed a pattern - it was almost like he used drawing to process stuff.

 

stuff like:

you complained your new shoes hurt and just took them off.

you built motorcycle ramps in the sandpit

you walked up to the car with me swinging your shoes and chanting 'no school on monday'

you blew spit bubbles in the car. nice

it's friday so we had to pick phoebe up form childcare. you drew a picture of the hulk while waiting for phoebe.

you scrambled back in the car with her to get the 'good seat' first.

 

you had a lemonade icy pole.  and got brain freeze.

you were busted changing out of the top i put you in after school

you chose this tshirt and declared you looked like jack frost.

and ran and drew a picture of him

 

 

(in the top pic) if you look very closely you can see daddy getting home from work.

you took the dog for a walk with daddy.  you discovered you had two shadows from the street lights.  you thought this was hilarious.

we had make your own pizza for dinner.  you piled on the salami bacon peas and corn and wanted to know where the prawns were.

you ate the topping off your pizza and then ate the base. you always do this.

 

you got to stay up late and watch big brother friday night games.

you wanted rory to win but nobbi winning was cool as well.

you ran off to draw a picture of the last game  (rock fight - meteor shower) before bed  (i think the spelling here is worth a close up..:))