How Slack Am I?????

It has been so long since I have posted anything on the blog I am sooooo slack! The worst thing is I cannot remember what I have done in the last month, so I am afraid it will be a bit empty of information, because I know it has been a super busy month.

First off all we had the soccer prize-giving which was very cool, Jade won a trophy for fair play, and me the great photographer for some reason the camera crashed on me, so I did not even get a photo of her getting it. She was so wrapped. The cool thing is she gets a minature to keep, so will have to take a picture of her with it later.

Today is Ralf's birthday he is 45!!! So old!!! Last Friday I organised for him a surprise poker night for him and the boys. I did so well keeping it all a secret until the Thursday night, then it was just too hard for me to figure out how to get all the beer cold without him knowing, so Thursday night I ended up telling Ralf so he could help me chill all his beer.

What a hoot of a night. Gundi, Gilly, Jimmy, Sandy and H all came around for the evening of silliness. Jimmy brought his portable poker table and all the chips around with him. Very serious business this game!

The first game Ralf got out rather quick, and Gundi had so many chips, you might be able to tell from this next picture that Ralf had several beers and thought Gundi was not the coolest! But Gundi did not care - he still did not win Gilly won!

Second game Ralf won, but that was around 3.30am! So being the wonderful nice wife I am I banged on all doors at 8am woke them all up, made coffee and cooked the breakfast.

Below is a page i finished up on Monday night, I have not done much scrapping of late, but I do love this page, of the wonderful Lou!

Miss Jade is down visiting her grandparents in Paraparaumu for this week being the first week of the school holidays. She is having a blast down there, being spoilt again having breakfast in bed every morning!!!

Next week my Mum is up here for the week with her Japanese student, so that is the school holidays all sorted.

Anyway short and sweet I know but the amazing race is on and I want to see it!

Scrap Camp Rocks

It has been so long since I wrote! I have had a busy couple of weeks. Very busy at work, and then scrap camp!!! So love going to scrap camps, just having lost of me time with all my pals! What more could a girl want.

So no further a do here are the layouts I did, i know not many considering how many hours i was sitting at the table, but don't forget you have to add in the talking and eating factor!!

This first layout is of Mel and Jase's cat "Max", the poor thing they give him a shower, and amazingly he just stands there waiting for it to be done!!
And this next one is a picture of me, my brother, my cousin Geoff and my Mum, I am sort of guessing that it might have been in about 1974, or some where around that era anyway. This is the layout I entered in the competition.

Jade's soccer game, I took some pictures as the newspaper was wanting some (not that they picked mine for printing) but I laughed when I loaded these up, if you look closely you can see Jade, and some poor kid on the other team has been knocked over!!!

Beginning of this year we went out to the beach for the day, Ralf wanted to go fishing (that will be another layout) and so Jade was doing some fishing too, but that got to boring, so she spent the rest of the time collecting all the tumbleweeds and throwing them back into the ocean. Check out the title, loving it, might have brought some new stamps to do this!!!! Better use some more titles like this I think!

Ralf just loves this next layout, he was so pleased that I made fun of him again, seriously he loves it - NOT, never mind lucky he is understanding as there was no way i was not going to scrap those eyebrows!

This last one is just a simple layout from our trip to Rarotonga last year. Ralf and Jade (I had to take pictures) got taught how to do the traditional dances, and also how to play their drums. Jade thought it was fantastic, Ralf on the other hand wanted his beer!

So there you go that is that. This weekend we have a bye for soccer, which is just as well as Jade and I need to go shopping for fathers day. Then on Sunday there is the soccer tournament, 3rd time lucky, hopefully this time it will not be cancelled with the bad weather.

Well I had better start off the blog with the next layout for the competition. The instructions were to do a page about something you do every day. This was quite hard to start off with as I don't do anything that I could be bothered doing a whole page about. I mean there were the obvious things like on my computer, all the standard family things and then of course going to work. Well I have one thing that I don't do every day but often enough. I play music over the intercom system at work, so that all the guys in the factory can hear it. They know it is me, and it drives some of the crazy, but I think it is my duty. Depending on my mind set for the day will depend on what it is, but normally I try to upset them!! So for the last couple of weeks it has been ABBA, Friday I gave them a reprive and they were treated to "THE BANGLES", I am sure no matter what they say that they really enjoyed this one the most. Come Xmas it is "Snoopy's Xmas" every morning, followed by other Xmas Carols all through the day - just to get them in the mood!
Friday, Ralf had a luncheon to go to, which is when one of the guys from base has finished doing his 20 years in the air force, everyone goes along to farewell him, but really it is just a big piss up. Starts at 11.30am, and well I picked Ralf up at 7.30pm and he was very smelly (Bourbon started at 2pm) and had a bad case of the hicups!!! Without saying much more he got dispatched to the spare room to sleep for the night!!!

Saturday morning the soccer was cancelled, which was just as well has Jade suddenly had a bad case of the exploding bottom, and throwing up - both at the same time - it was a joy to deal with!!! This is a picture of her sleeping it off in the afternoon in her bean bag.
Ralf came home from Golf with Gundi and was a little tired - maybe it was the bourbon!
Saturday night we went to Gundi's place for tea where he cooked us a fantastic roast lamb, very good cook!!! Jade took along all of her littlest pet shop toys and had them strewn across the lounge floor.

Sunday after we had finally gotten up and Ralf had cooked us our breakfast of french toast - best french toast cooker in the world, we decided to pack up and go for a family bike ride. Only thing is we only have 2 bikes at the moment. So i dropped Jade and Ralf off at one end of the bike track that goes along the Manawatu River, and I drove half way along to meet them. They took a long time, Ralf's bike which had not been ridden for a LONG time broke, the pedal/crank thing fell off, I was trying not to laugh when he rung me to tell me they would be a while. Jade had a blast, when they turned up she had mud up her back, and had gone through all the puddles!

So off we went to pedal pushers to check out new bikes, car bike racks and of course to fix Ralf's bike. Since then I have been scanning trade me for a new bike, which I think we might have found so we can all go out together - Although mine will have to have a super soft seat as although I have a fantastic layer of padding on my behind, it does not seem to be enough!!

So here is a picture of Jade on her new bike, she loves it
So the week ahead is full of work. The store is doing it's annual stocktake, so we are helping out, so I will be very tired before it is even Wednesday!! But to make the week fantastic, I am off to a scrapbooking camp in Otaki this weekend!!! Cannot wait! Friday hoping to escape work early by about 2pm, then Jo and I are off!!! Yahoo!!!!

Anyway better go, Ralf being the good man is doing all the iorning, I had better go and offer to do one shirt!

What a week

Wow what a week it has been. This challenge for Scrapbook essentials is really pushing me. Not only to do something new, but to be given the challenge on Tuesday, to have the idea, photo taken, printed and layout completed all by the following Tuesday night. On top of that fit in all the TV watching of shortland street, and deal with work etc!!! A tough call! 5 more weeks to go!

Anyway below is the 1st weeks challenge. We had no subject criteria, just had to make at least 2 hand made embellishments, which was not hard, as I like doing all those sort of things. So had fun doing this page and loved it. Ralf and Gundi on the other hand were not to thrilled that I did it, let alone entered it into a competition and even worse I am now putting it on the blog! Haha they were very drunk this night, I think this photo might have been around 3 in the morning, I can't quiet remember either!!

Jade wanted her haircut this week, she wanted it to be the same as Nyah's hair! So off we all went to town on Friday night to have her haircut! What a difference now I don't have to brush it so that is a definate bonus! She loves it. We also then had to take her money and go and buy a Tamagochi!!! She is holding it in the photos, she brought it herself, as the cheap one I brought her last year was not the right one!!!

We also had soccer in the weekend, was meant to be a tournament on Sunday as well, but it was so wet they cancelled it, which for me was great I had to get the next layout done, so have just finished this now!Saturday night we all went to the mess, they had a family's night, where they set up all the couches and chairs in a grandstand and put on a movie for the kids on the big projector screen. All the kids loved it, tea was supplied and all the fizzy they could eat - just enough to send them home all hypo!!! Jade took along Nyah and Bradley as well, so they had a good time.

Jade has been outside riding her bike all afternoon, up and down the driveway and around the lawn, so she is going really well on that. Ralf has just about finished getting the basketball hoop ready, he is out there now concreting in the post, so maybe next weekend we can give it ago.

Anyway better off and do some tea.

I have a cold!!!

Everyone around me has had a cold, and now I have caught it too, I am so annoyed! No doubt my one will drag on for a long time just to annoy me!!!

Jade had soccer yesterday, and although our team won 9-2, it was a horrible game. The other team who shall remain nameless were just very poor sports. They tripped up our players, pushed them over and called our players "arseholes" whenever we got the ball off them, pretty bad considering they are all 8 year olds!!! Their coach seemed to encorage it, so did not leave there with a nice taste in our mouths.

Meant to be a soccer tournament in town all day today, yahoo it has been postponed! It is so wet I was dreading that they might still say it was going to be one, and we would be there in the rain for the full day!

Now I can't remember and cannot be bothered looking back to check to see whether I have told you that I have entered myself into a competition at Scrapbook Essentials, well anyway it is a 7 week long competition, but I can only put my layouts on here after they have gone up on the website, so I will be a week behind. This layout below is for the warm up challenge and we had to scrap our space.
Well my space even though I have a whole room, is more about my obsession with containers, which is very true. Love containers, and love having everything in its right place, where did I get that obsession from ?

I scrapped on Friday night and finished the next challenge as well, but will not be able to put it up here until next week, but it looks really good, was quiet pleased with the outcome.

Jade has been nagging me to sew on her Brownie badges for ages, she had heaps and I just had not gotten around to it, looks so much better with them all sewn on! I did not realise that she had so many! So thought I had better take a picture so Gran could see as she did help her complete one of them!! Anyway time to away and make a cup of tea and see if I can find any drugs in the cabinet.

The week that was

What a fantastic weekend! Saturday we had soccer in Palmerston North, they lost 1 nil, but the other team only scored in the last 2-3 minutes, so it very nearly went into overtime. Our kids did so well! Then we cruised off to town to get Jade some new gumboots, she has a birthday party to go to next weekend at her friends place, and she lives on a farm, so gumboots were required. Lucky we picked nice trendy ones, zebra stripe to them, they look very funny. Another bargin scored by me they were only $5 each instead of 20, so of course i brought another pair for next year - leopard!

Sunday we did the normal housework, and recyling, then we went to base, and Jade rode her new bike around the triangle a few times with either Ralf or I running along beside her. She is going really well now. So we are considering sorting out another bike and the bike rack thing and going all together into town to go on some of the tracks there are around the place. Ralf also was painting the pole and backboard, he is getting ready to put up a basketball hoop for Jade. I think he is almost ready, apart from digging the hole etc.

This week nothing exciting planned, just the usual soccer practice, brownies, soccer etc. Jade's school is doing a production in a couple of weeks time, Ralf's parents are coming up to see it, so Jade will enjoy that. She is very proud when they come to watch her.

I have entered a compition at scrapbook essentials, a bit nervous about it as I have never entered a compition. They had a warm up challenge for the last week, and have to say I was a little stressed about it, as it did not feel as though it was just for me, it was for everyone to see. Hope I did okay. It starts for real on Wednesday for the next 7 weeks!!!! I will be very stressed by the end of it all!!

Anyway better get away for a zzzzzzz.

My Birthday Treat

atWell I spent the whole day on Sunday scrapping with Jo. The best thing was that Jo introduced me to "Sponge Fingers", like i needed another food group to be addicted to, yes a food group, these things are so wonderful they should have their very own food group!!! Basically the same as a sponge drop, only larger!!! Filled with fresh cream and a jam - oh my god! Well Jo brought some for us to have for breakfast as it was my birthday the day before, so in Jo's world you can eat whatever you want on your birthday, much like my world. MMMMM Sponge Fingers!!!! But it did not stop there, then Bruce cooked us a fantastic breakfast on top of that!!! Well they called it brunch, but it was 11.40am so it was almost just lunch, fantastic! In between all this eating we did manage to get some scrapping done.

This layout was my first play with photoshop. I am only jsut learning how to use this program, but of course the first thing Ralf taught me how to do was "inhance" my boobs!!! Well it was all over from there, I then trimmed down my tummy so it was nice and flat, took a little (a lot really) off the side, got rid of my flabby arms - opps went to far there, Ralf said they look like Victoria Beckham arms!!! Then a little of the cheeks and I just looked so fabulous that I had to scrap the picture. Man I am hot!!! We have a scrap camp up Pohongina valley twice a year, fantastic time, with a bunch of ladies with the same sad addiction as myself. What a hoot, all we do is eat, drink cups of tea, talk lots, sleep very little and then a little scrapping. Jo had been down to crafting connections before hand and was raving over taking photo's "Elsie Styles" so we thought we would do it as well, only problem was it was far to late in the evening and we were just to tired and getting extremely silly, and well i Just could not stop laughing!! Hence not a straight face photo to be had. Very fantastic weekend.

Jade's birthday party was the next subject. I know i should not have called the 8 year olds playboy bunnies but when they put on the rabit ears that was all I could think, that they looked like playboy bunnies, especially when they put the cotton ball tails on!!!

Ralf found out last week that he is on the short list to be posted to either Auckland or Blenheim, neither of us are very happy about this, but we just have to wait and see what they decide. Hopefully should know by the end of August.

Well as my previous post stated, Shortland Street is my other addiction, and it is nearly the end of the weather so I had better go and watch.

Scrapping with Jo

Managed to get some scrapping in last Saturday night with Jo. Lots of fun as always, lots of scrapping and lots of talking, and then some more talking!!! The first layout is one of my Mum. The community of Milton (Otago) had a fundraiser when the new prison was being opened, and you could pay to go along and spend the day in jail, and or the night. Staying in the prison as though you were a prisoner. What a hoot my Mum and her friend went along. Bit of a shame they were not allowed to take cameras inside. The teddy my mum is holding is one that Jade sent her for her birthday, it has a picture of Jade on the front, so now Mum takes her places and then sends text messages to Jade to tell her where she has been lately. Used the scalloped edged bazille from my SBO kit, and the orange circle is the new mm see through bits I brought from Kiwi Scraps. The stamp is one of my Maya Road journaling spots which I have not used much of yet, very nice not sure why I haven't.

This next one is of my Jade. i have already scrapped this picture once, but I really love it, so I used it again. Used the orange bling bazille from my SBO kit. The dragon fly is from ScrapFX which Jo brought me back from SENZ, very cool, love the bling crown as well, I brought that in from the states, love it, lucky I still have a couple more to use!

This last layout is all about me! I love Shortland Street, was wrapped when they put the first episode out on DVD, Ralf was horrified that I was going to go and buy the women's weekly just so I could have it. Lucky I did not have to Jo had it, and hates Shortland Street, so was happy to give it to me. Heidi Swapp stamps in the corners.

Well that is all for me. Jo and I are spending the day scrapping on Sunday so no doubt there will be some more creations to be shown. Have a great week.

Littlest Pet Shop

Well some of you wanted to know what littlest pet shops look like, well the pets themselves, so I am including a couple of pictures of them, the first is of the whole army.... grown to 73 after the birthday, and then one of just a couple by themselves.

So now you know what she is addicted to!

Jade's Birthday

Wow I am so glad that the birthday is over! Terrible to say, but it seems as thought i have been planning this birthday for so long, and the day just seemed to go forever!!! So below are some photos from the day. Nyah and Georgia came for the day. Nyah stayed the night before so there was very little sleep the day before!

They had bunny ears which they all loved wearing, and then they wanted me to make fluffy tails for them! Insisted on me taking a picture from behind! This was followed by lunch of pizza, and then off to town for a scrapbook class for kids, where they did a page on friends, I will post a copy of it later. Following the birthday it was home for a couple of DVD's, tea and of course the birthday cake, and they ate it all - well Ralf and I might have had a wee slice or two!!

Well that is that for another year!

Addiction

Well I finally got around to taking some pictures of Jade and her addiction. She has 61 of these little pets with bobbling heads! She wants more!!! She went to Paraparaumu with 45, came home with 57 (some brought and the rest an early birthday present from Gran and Granddad), then brought herself the largest set which had some more in it! It will never end. But she has so much fun with them, pulling them out and and playing with them all. Oscar comes over for a sniff and sometimes thinks that she should have a wee nibble on one, which of course Jade does not like at all!!The funny thing is that her birthday is in a couple of days and I know she is getting more! When will it ever end, oh well I have to say I like them alot better than the Barbies!!!This one above is the new set she brought, rather large! So large in fact she told me that I could sell the Barbies so she would have enough room for it.

Jade's Home

I am so glad Jade is home, I have missed her!! She has speant the first week of the school holidays down in Paraparaumu at Ralf's parents place being spoilt rotten! I mean does she really need breakfast in bed every morning! Very funny, Jade thinks it was fantastic which is cool. She even managed to convince Granddad to go halves in buying another "littlist pet shop" toy, which she loves!! Twisted around her finger, Ralf and I think it is very funny.

Well i was so close to wellington I thought I had better stop in for a wee shop at Kiwiscraps, how could i not when it was that close. I brought some stamps from Fiskars, only because they had a long scallop stamp in it, which i really wanted, the rest are all birthday stamps, which Jade can use, i might use a couple, but that scallop stamp is cool! Also a couple of pieces of the Elise canvas paper which is quiet nice, will see how that goes, it is adhesive on one side. I specially went to get some bling as i was running out, but they did not have much which was bit annoying. Oh and the best buy i think was from mm, some clear acetate tags, brackets, and circles etc, very cool, will have to put one on a layout so you can see, as they are hard to describe but very cool!

So tonight i shall scrap. I have another pge nearly done, need to do some painting of some chipboard tonight and then stick it all down, it is looking quite cool. Of Jade of course.

Jo is up at Ohopi Beach (wonder whether that is how you spell it) this weekend with Bruce and Taylor "Hello Jo", poor thing is not feeling to well, hope she better by the time she gets back, I am sure we are well over due for a scrapping evening!

Well better away, to give Jade some more love - until she tells me to go away!

SBO Kit

I got my kit on Monday from SBO which was cool. So love getting a kit, makes me think a bit more. Not to keen about the felt in the kit, I know everyone is using it at the moment, but not sure whether it is for me. I have made a couple of heart embellishments like the showed us in the instructions, and we shall see whether I use them, still don't like them the morning after!!!

The rest of the kit is pretty cool, loving orange at the moment so was quiet wrapped when there was quiet a bit of orange stuff in there. So here is one of the layouts I have done using the kit, following the instructions given, love the Heidi Swapp paint, alot thicker than the mm paint, which is a nice change, gives you some texture..
Might have to play with some of the orange stuff tonight, of course i will have to find a photo or two which will cope with the use of orange first!!!

Blogs rule

Wow really liking having a blog, now i have somewhere i can put the layouts as I do them without having to e-mail a copy to my Mum to see, now she can just look at the net, and find out she is on the world wide web!!!

This page is of Jade's soccer team this year, she is really loving it, even loved playing in the rain and mud last weekend!!
I have even done one of our wedding day, which is a surprise. Really love these two pictures, just after we were married, Ralf looks so cheeky, he still looks the same, just a weeeeeeee bit older!!!

This next layout was done after the Xmas holidays, yes just 10 days growth on that face of his. I went down to Dunedin to drop Jade off at Mum's for the holidays and came back to this, and he expected a kiss!!! As if!!! very funny, so I made him pose for photos which he did so well!

Jade's school went into school uniform this year, she was very excited about it, wonder how long it will be before she is hating school uniform and hanging out for those mufti days!!! She looks very smart, and it is saving us money which of course is great.

How many husbands would let you take this picture!!!! Ralf was being silly showing me about this guy on this movie who did the same thing with his shirt and then said "does this make me look gay", i laughed and told him he had to hold the pose, silly man did!! I of course scrapped it, Jo and i were in hysterics while i was doing this laughing at the earrings i added and the flower in his hair - so pretty!!

Jade's birthday next week, love birthday's even when they are not my own. Jade is having a couple of friends come around for a "photo shoot" and then into photographic solutions in Feilding, where they are running a 2 hour class for kids, doing a couple of layouts on friends. She is really looking forward to it. Thought it might be funny if they took all these photos first and then decided what ones they wanted to use from there. Will post their layouts next week!

Well that is about it, I had better go as Shortland Street is about to start and it is real life!!!!

Finally!!!

I am going to try uploading a layout again, getting a little frustrated that it won't work!!! Here we go......
Wow i managed to upload a layout!!!! Thank god for Yolande, if she had not told me how we would still be looking at text about me moaning about not being able to do it, so Yahoo to you Yolande!!!

This layout is from my daughters sleepover she had as a practice run to having a sleepover for her birthday. Well her birthday is next Thursday and there is no sleepover happening, she has decided she wants to take 2 friends to the scrapbook shop in fielding and do the 2 hour class for kids, doing a page about friends. Wonder who put that idea in her head!

wow it really is working!!! just trying out the different ways you can put them in as well. having fun now!

This layout is of ralf, an avid fan of mythbusters, when we were up in Auckland at Easter staying with our good friend Mel and Jase, there was a Mythbusters marathon on tv, well Jase being the internet buff was on the net finding out how you could do the diet coke and mentos myth, so off they went to the shop to get all the things. very funny as it did not work!! very funny!!!

I wonder how many different layouts i can upload tonight before getting sick of it all. i think not to many more. also another cool thing, is my work's photocopier has a scanner on it as well, so of course i can scan the 12x12 layouts on it nice and easily.

This layout is of my Mum and her Vespa. Deception, because she brought the bike and did not tell me about it for ages, i thought it was only 1 month, but she told me tonight that it was 3!!! Evil lady. She is having a blast now riding it around, she has joined the Vespa Club again same as when she was in her early 20's I think, good on her! Still deception though!

Well I think that is enough from me, time I went and did some scrapbooking instead of just making it all pretty for showing off.

A couple of layouts

Wow this takes ages to set up, i am sick of it already!!! Will play some more later, but have done most of it, how do i add layouts??? just figured it out, and then discovered that dial up - yes still on dial up is not happy with me loading them up - takes too long for an impatient me!!!

Well Here I am!!

Thought about having a blog, and now i do, will i keep it up? We shall see, so just a short note to start off with while i check out how to set it up some more and make it not so bland!!!