Sitting, Swimming and Scrapping

........in that order. Yesterday we babysat for my friend's 11 month old baby girl. Little Jaime was so sweet and just the perfect visitor. The kids had a ball playing with her and keeping her entertained.
"She is better than TV" said Mikaela and that is saying a lot!

For privacy reason I can not show her face but you get the idea............
Today a group of School Mums (and our token SAHD) ventured to the Science Centre with all of our kids in tow. We boarded the city bus (that's 11 adults and at least 2 children each!) petrifying passengers as the kids clambered for the backseats.

I swear with one man and 10 women we looked like some sort of polygamist cult. If only we could have used our plural family status to gain a family discount at the Science Centre. As it is we all paired up and made up 'families' to gain cheaper entry LOL.

After the kids (parents really) were all scienced out, we traipsed back to Southbank for some lunch. Some of the group left to catch the bus home and a few of us stayed for the kids to have a little play at the playground........which had a little creek......and the kids had no swimmers.....

...so we stripped them off like any self respecting parents would and let them go for it! There were jocks all round!
Lastly this is a layout I did for LSBS using the new Basic Grey Eva range. Aren't the papers so pretty? Can't wait to do some more!

This is what school holidays look like....

We have been having lots of lazy days these holidays with cooked breakfasts, baking, DVD's, trips to the park and not enough housework ;)

I am starting to spring clean today with some much needed sorting and storing of winter clothes (it is 31 degrees here today!), bedroom cleaning and kitchen scrubbing. The washpile is slowly shrinking and there is the smell of vanilla and pink grapefruit in the air....lovely!

This is a layout I managed to fit in amidst all this domesticity for the Scrapbooking Memories Cybercrop on Thursday. I even managed to win BINGO on the night. My amazing Making Memories prize pack arrived today and it is fantastic! Using it will be my reward at the end of the big spring clean I think.

This layout was just for fun late the other night when I was supposed to be cleaning my scrap space. This uses more of the yummy Sassafrass Lass products I love!

OK, back to the cleaning...I have procrastinated enough. I even bought some funky polkadot rubber gloves to get me motivated....hopefully they'll work their magic ;)

I've had quite a few people asking here, and in other galleries, where I bought the little boy/girl icon tickets. This is where I bought the girl ones and the boy ones I bought at the Scrap Convention here in Brisbane earlier this year. The store I linked to has them both :) Aren't they cute? There are other designs in the packs though...they are not all the icon ones. Other designs included are stars, hearts etc...very cute.

Two to share..

Just a couple of layouts using the photos from my last post. The first one is lots of fun :) Those pics sure did capture them perfectly LOL. There's no wonder I call them the Feral Four!

This photo of Jarred is a rare one. He is always dodging the camera and is not usually this co-operative in being photographed. It is such a good shot of him too! More of the yummy Basic Grey Ambrosia papers..Mmmmm.

The Quest..........

.....for a few nice photos of the kids for Grandma to take overseas to show her family. *sigh*...taking a decent photo of four boisterous kids is like herding cats.
My hat goes off to any photographer that can manage to get 4 kids looking in the same direction at any given time with a semblance of a smile...or at least a grin. My photo shoot resulted in hair pulling, stacks-on and ant bites.
Looks like Grandma's friends and family will get a true glimpse of the feral four at their very best.








Thankfully I got some reasonable individual shots...sort of LOL Maybe I could merge them all in Photoshop to look like they love each other!

Connor - 4


Ethan - 6


Mikaela - 9


Jarred - 13

Aye, blow me down it's the weekend me hearties!

Join me over at LSBS where I am hosting this snap weekend challenge! It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day today so we need to celebrate!

Here's a Copy and Paste of the instructions -

1. You must talk like a Pirate today to someone who is not an immediate family member. Answer the phone with an "Ahoy there Ya horn swogglin' bilge rat". Telemarketers will run a mile! Answer the door with an "Avast Ya lily livered scurvy cur"...watch your Mother-in-law scurry away in fear . Post your efforts here...with some pirate-speak for emphasis of course.

2. You must make a layout. It can be 8.5 x 11 or 12 x 12.

3. It can be of any topic or theme you wish.

4. It must contain six products (including brands), colours or techniques that start with the letters of the word PIRATE. For example, my layout below uses the following...
Patterned Paper
Inking
Ribbons
American Crafts Stickers
Thickers
Eyelets

A couple of new layouts

I bought some of the new Sassafrass Lass papers this week and I love them! This first layout is made using them. I use a lot of green so these appealed to me for this photo LOL.




This one is my BIL and Jarred (13). This is the way they express their love for each other LOL! Jarred adores his uncles and they are so good to him. It will be interesting to see what happens when Jarred eventually puts on a few more kilos and a few more inches ;)



I am working on some DT projects and some mag stuff which is keeping me busy. I have some yummy things to play with this month and am looking forward to sharing some projects soon.
Good news on the digi front...if you want some new digi kits, my sister Rachel is going exclusive, designing for Scrap Orchard! Vist her blog and see what she has coming up. Lovely, lovely digi things!