12 year olds are...

12 year old girls are

Silly...
Sometimes shy...
Funny...
And spontaneous.
But mostly they are fun to be around...especially if you put up with the giggly noise.
Hope you had a great day celebrating your birthday with your friends, love Mum.

Happy Birthday Erin...

Today 12 years ago Erin came to complete our family.

I sometimes wonder what our life would have been like if we hadn't built our house in Bacchus Marsh, if we hadn't wanted a third child, if we had stopped at 2. Would Erin have been the child that was meant to come 14 years ago. Sometimes I wonder what would life have been like if I'd done my nursing at the RMH not at the Alfred where I was destined to go to a fellow trainee's party & meet the boy racer.

Erin has been the child who charms you with her sweetness & frustrates you with her stubborness. And I can't imagine life without her.

Happy Birthday sweet girl.

Anticipation...

Only 2 more days til Erin's birthday, she can't stop thinking about it, talking about it & planning it. It's going to be a weekend of celebrations. It will be our last year before she hits the teenage years, she's torn between wanting grown up things & hanging on to childish things.

Don't grow up too quick sweet girl.

The rain came down...

As I left work tonight the sky was very dark, as soon as I got into my car the heavens opened & the rain came pelting down. The strangest part was as the heavy rain made driving quite difficult the sun was shining as it set in the west. When I drive home at 5pm the sun is usually directly in my eyes & today was no different, water was sheeting over the road & the sky was glowing orange!
The freeway was busy, the roads slippery & dangerous & the whole way home I kept thinking how bizarre the whole scene was.

More scrapping...

Today has been a dreary day & now its raining a little. Instead of doing jobs around the house I've indulged in a little scrapping.



I've had to hide this layout in my album & to quickly show you before Callum sees it. These photos show all 3 children wearing a dress. Without sisters Cal may not have had the opportunity to experience the joy of twirling in a dress.

And we will not speak of it again.

Generous...

Yesterday when I met Anita for the first time she had gifts for Erin & for myself. I was blown away by the generosity & the cleverness.



Anita has recently taught herself how to crochet & has been whipping up hand crafted goods for family & friends. Quite a feat but something she has taken in her stride.




She made this very cute pink beanie for Erin & it fits perfectly. Even the little card that accompanied the gift was gorgeous. We are very grateful for this generous gift, thank you so much.



My little gift was some crocheted flowers that I will be able to use on my scrapbooking pages, & I have just the page to use them on!



Anita has put some of her goods on this site, if you wanted to get your hands on them too!

Paper friends...

I had the loveliest day today. Hayley & I went off the a craft show known as Paperific. Aimed at scrapbookers & card makers there were stalls displaying the goods we crave.

I was a bit disappointed with the number of stall holders. At previous shows there were many more & there was always something new to see. Perhaps I've been to too many as there wasn't anything new or really exciting to tempt me. Hayley & I perused all the stalls in 30 mins then went back & spent some money. I had to get something didn't I?? I mean, come on, I had virtually nothing left in my stash!!!

The best part of the show was meeting face to face with my blogger friend Anita. She was as lovely in person as I had imagined she would be from our blogging interactions. Then we met her friend Sandie who was also a lovely new find.
Thanks Sandie for the flowers they are sensational!

Anita had a gift for Erin which I'll tell you about separately, it was much appreciated & shows what a genuinely nice person Anita is.

I hope you girls enjoyed meeting as much as I did. I commented to Hayley on the way home how natural it all was, as if we had known each other for ever.

Not as successful was our lunch. We stopped at Poynton's cafe for lunch. It is a lovely cafe in a beautiful nursery setting on the banks of the Maribyrnong river. But Hayley's face says it all!

The face is because she ordered 'fish & chips'. Turned out it was a whole baked baby snapper, complete with head,eyes & bones.
Not the way she likes her fish at all. She carefully dissected & ate most of it (because it cost a bomb) & covered the staring eye with greenery.

She'll be a bit more careful in her ordering next time.

Cyber friends...

Since I started my electronic version of a journal something quite unexpected had happened.

I have found friends & connections that I never envisaged. Other bloggers lives have become central to my own. Heather & Leann are expecting babies & I check in each day waiting for announcements ( congrats Heather & welcome to baby Marlo), Dave the single dad, after losing his wife to cancer is looking for love & stability (& going well I'm pleased to say) and Lara who's single again after what seemed to be a good thing. Ree & Sharon are living a remote country life in different continents & keeping me posted on their country adventures. I've been following Stephanie who was horribly burned in a light plane crash, her recovery is gripping to say the least. And Ginas' little family down south are like a branch of my own family. My Boxx friends are connected & caring, being able to share & get differing opinions on things is quite engaging.

Then there's Anita. She seems to be a kindred spirit, but probably loads of people feel that way about her, she is just a lovely person to converse with. I've been following her trials with her health, her creative pursuits & sharing in her family's triumphs. Tomorrow I hope to meet face to face with Anita. That is what I didn't expect, the friendship.

There are lots of stories & people telling those stories, I don't need to borrow books from the library when there are loads of tales being told in cyber space, & if I don't like it I can click onto something else that takes my fancy. Unlike other relationships, if I don't want to I don't have to check in & depending on my mood I can be creative or lazy!

Blogging is quite different to Facebook, more satisfying for me. My reading list is long & varied, from people with similar lives & stories to those that are vastly different. I have interactions with some & am just browsing on others.

And wasting just a bit too much time in the process!

The learner...

Callum is growing up.

He is nearly 18 years old & that means he will be driving soon. Soon as he gets 120 hours of driving practice on his learners permit that is.


In Victoria a 16 year old can get a learners permit & then they need to fill in a log book with 120 hours of supervised driving with at least 10 hours of night driving. For me it is an agonising process - 15 mins here & there adding up oh so slowly to his total. Its quite daunting having him at the wheel & you cant relax at all! With October approaching Cal has suddenly realised he needs to get a lot of practice in before then & now he really wants to do it.For the last year he has shown little interest & I've been quite happy not to add to my grey hair collection.

This sudden interest may also be contributed to his joining a band, a band that has had a few gigs. Gigs sounds great until you have to take your guitar, pedal & a stack of amplifiers. Hayley has been really good & taken him to the gigs in her little car. The hatchback Barina is able to take the stack in the back with the rear seats folded up. It's quite a sight, the two of them crammed in the front with their noses up against the windscreen & the weighty load in the back. Callum's first car will have to be a wagon, or ute or van! Why didn't he do tamborine or castanets or even voice? much less hassle.
That reminded me of when Hayley was at VCA, her flute partner played the harp. Her poor mother had to lug that harp around the countryside for performances in her tiny car. Never was I so glad of an instrument that fits into a little case.

Frosty...

Boy was it cold this morning! I lay snug in my bed warm under the covers very grateful for the central heating kicking in before I got up.

I took these pics of the frost in the front yard, a white coating on the pine bark. This is the closest we get to snow.



I spent a very nice day with my sister catching up & shivering if I had to dash outside. She passed on to me a letter she had received from a branch of our family tree, the 'Faints'.
Apparently someone has done a lot of research & traced back ancestors from my father's mother's side of the tree right down (or up) to my great great grandparents. They want to arrange a family muster in Queensland next year & are gathering more information on the descendants.
It has sparked an interest for me & now I want to know more about these ancestors!

Challenge of 8...

Here's a little bit of fun, some sharing, some facts about me! You might want to play along too!

8 Things I Look Forward To.
1. The weekend, I love the weekend.
2. Dinner cooked by someone else.
3. Going to the hairdresser & coming out fresh & pampered.
4. Christmas...I love Christmas time.
5. Finishing a layout.
6. Printing a really good photo.
7. A clean house.
8. Seeing the kids after school.

8 Things I Did Yesterday
1. Went shopping with Chris for new clothes for him (something that rarely happens)
2. Ironing.
3. Made chicken schnitzel from scratch.
4. Slept in til 10am!
5. Wasted a lot of time on the computer browsing blogs.
6. Planted 2 small Agaves I bought from the market.
7. Took Cal to the skate park on the way to the supermarket
8. Watched telly too late.

8 Things I wish I could Do.
1. Wake up early & be happy.
2. Resist bad for you but yummy foods.
3. Enjoy housework.
4. Be a stay at home mother.
5. Run without gasping for breath
6. Make an evening meal that the whole family enjoys.
7. Be happy with my scrapbooking layouts without being over critical.
8. Spend more time with Hayley.

8 Things Or Shows I've Watched Lately
1. Masterchef Australia
2. Sex & the city marathon on Foxtel
3. The news (every night)
4. Australian story.
5. Project runway.
6. Australia's next top model.
7. The curious case of Benjamin Button
8. Medium.

So now you might know a bit more about me - if you feel like playing along with me, take the challenge and list your 8 things about you.

Long weekend...

Don't you just love a long weekend????

I do...sleeping in, a bit of baking, a bit of scrapping, & a bit of nothing much.



Erin bought home her school photos, so I put together this layout for her album. I still can't believe how grown up she looks in her photo. She'll be in secondary school before I know it. She keeps talking about her 12th birthday coming up in a few weeks...Yikes!

Curious...

I borrowed a DVD from the video shop last night. Funny how some names stick even though the function has changed. It isn't so much a video shop anymore as it is the DVD library, but we will still call it that even when a video machine can only be seen in museums, I'll be taking my grandkids & saying I remember when Grandpa & I had one of those machines.
Anyway, I saw 'The curious case of Benjamin Button' & really enjoyed it. I blubbered through a lot of it, there is a lot of death, dying & separation. All the kids were out & Chris had gone to bed so the tears really flowed. As I was watching it reminded me a lot of Forest Gump, they are both in the narrative style & involve triumph & tragedy. Then I found out during the extras disc that the same screenwriter had indeed written both Gump & Button. My other choice of movie was to watch 'The Notebook' on Channel 9. Don't get me wrong, that is also a good movie but it was the last movie our film loving mother saw just days before she died. That movie is also about love, death & dying. I still can't watch it.

Nice to know that even Brad Pitt will look pretty ordinary when he's old.

Winter begins...

When the calendar clicked over to June 1st, the first day of winter, gray clouds rolled in & dumped a little rain on us. Then we had fog, cold winds, puddles on the ground, & continuing gray skies. It seems winter began on the right day.

I went back to work on June 1st as well. I feel much better but am still coughing. Have you tried to suppress a cough whilst out in public? It feels like you are going to burst, eyes streaming & cheeks getting redder & redder. I don't know which is worse, feeling like a leper let loose on an unsuspecting public or the suppression tactics I am trying. These days if you cough in public you are just about chased away by people holding pitchforks. Its just a cold people, settle down.