Amazing photos

Hello. I feel funny saying that - who is out there to reply? Anyway on to what I am here to share. It has been a quiet day at home full fun and productivity.
Katelin and I have spent the morning outside playing in the shade before it got to hot - time for hanging in the air conditioning now. I was playing on the lawn with her holding her in the air as I was laying down. Thanks to Renee's ideas on taking photos and her sharing them with the world on this blog I have a new perspective what makes a good photo. So I thought this would make a good photo, but there is no one else here to take it.













So this is what I got. I would really like a head but I actually think this picture is kind of cool just as it is. As I type this Kate is sitting next to me pointing out her appy (nappy) in the picture. She loves her fuzzy cloth nappies! While trying to get a shot with her face in it I can up with this.














I love this photo it is so cute and different. Now I actually have a budding photographer in the making and Katelin likes to take photos so she insisted on using the camera and I got this.













I think it may even be my favourite shot of the day. I wish I had another camera to take photos of her taking photos it is so cute. It is not a good thing to let 20 month olds take photos with your good camera, Kate dropped mine on boxing day and I was having a melt down till DH stepped in and unbroke my camera. Literally after careful trying to fix it it took sheer force to make it all better. Anyway!
Onto my afternoon of scrapping. I got a few pages done. The first one started out as my second attempt at and 8.5 x 11 and ended up a 12 x 12. The best laid plans, while I thought I knew what I was going to do nothing I did on this page came out like it was in my head. So this is how it ended up and I am fairly happy with it.



















The last layout I will share I did a few weeks ago and it is a direct lift of Nicole's Dive layout. This was one of those layouts that I wasn't sure about while doing it but I just went with it and it all worked really well. I love this page. By the way it is straight in real life sometimes I just can't hold the camera straight enough!



















Thanks for stopping by.

Blog Challenge

A blog challenge......???? Not something I had heard of, being new to the blog world. No sooner did I find myself reading about a blog challenge, than I was put up for one - it is fun though.
So the challenge was to go to where you store your photos and go to the sixth folder and pick the sixth photo. I really liked looking through my old folders. There aren't many old photos where I normally store my photos. My husband is good at backing up (wife is a bit paranoid about loosing photos) so once my photos are edited and printed they are burned to disk and backed up on another hard drive - so I don't look at them unless I am after something particular.
So here is my photo.




















It is our Christmas card photo for 2007. Our first Christmas as a family of four. I always make my husband get out the camera and tripod and set it up to take a family photo at Christmas, usually when we are all nicely dressed and heading out to another Christmas time function. Just what Andrew wants to do, but he always obliges (happy wife, happy life he tells me!) and he always takes a pretty good picture especially since the lighting is not great where our tree resides. Gotta love Hubbys! And my family they look so cute!
And this is where the blog challenge ends as I only know a few people in blog land and they have all already completed the task. Perhaps anyone out there reading this might just like to go back and look through some old photos - after all that is why we take them, to remember, to enjoy and to smile.
Happy Australia Day!

Getting Organised

Ok so this week has not been very productive on the pages front. I have been staring at all my scrap stuff on my dining table (formal one we don't use much) and trying to find a shelf to solve my storage problems. After much Internet research I headed to one of my favourite places to shop, Ikea (should have taken a pic while there but as in a hurry), and I found my solution. My other fav place to shop is Freedom, but since becoming a stay at home Mum I can't justify shopping there! So I took a photo of my mess.











And then I built my shelf. With my little helpers.













Then I threw my stuff on in a hurry just to see what it was like then I had to rush off to my exercise class. Which was great. I took the photo of the shelf this morning, bad light sorry.



















So hopefully today will be more productive now I can get to stuff easily and I have some where to put it - I will also have more room to work. Here is my dining table back to normal.













I will share an old LO. Let me know if you would like to see more old pages. This is one of my favourites and the same as the image you see on my wall in the dining room.




















Sorry about the quality of the shot. I am running late now. I will try to upload a better copy later. Thanks for looking and if you are popping by for a visit, leave a comment and say Hi so I know you visited. It is nice to know it is not just me reading my posts.

Friday .... Happy Friday!

So this week has been busy and unbelievably hot! We have spent most of our time at home playing - a lot of the time in water. I have come down with a cold and lost the motivation to scrap so I don't have much to show at the moment. I will share an old page which originally I lifted from Diane H, not sure if she will recognise it. I again lifted it myself for the last page I have done. I will share the original as I am happier with it - I always love it when the colours just work. I almost forgot to say that this was my almost first 8.5 x 11 page. I am not sure I can bring myself to have different size pages in my album. I couldn't make this page work on 12 x 12 so I resigned myself to the fact that this may have to be my giving 8.5 x 11 a try, until by accident I only had as much as you see of the aqua colour (can't remember proper name) left and I sat it down like you see here on the java cardstock - and I loved it so here is my almost 8.5 x 11 page and I really like it!



















I will also share my morning. I just spent it hanging with my baby girl, she played while I hung out the washing and then we went to the shops, to return my bracelet Noah picked for Christmas, and get a new one as the clasp broke. We then looked in another shop with gorgeous baby things. I am looking for a bracelet for her birthday and I have settled on a Petite by Lovelinks it is like a Pandora style. I want to be able to add to it and for her to be able to keep it as she grows (you can just buy a bigger size bracelet later). I also bought her a little animal for her room, she carried the bag out of the shop hanging on her arm and once we got into the car she played with it all the way home.



















So cute.

Then we had lunch and she went to bed. I sat down to watch Oprah and eat my lunch. I again saw a clip that brings my to tears no matter how many times I see it. You can watch it here.

99 Balloons

And now I realise how special my Friday's are just hanging with my girl - one on one time. And that I should cherish the simple moments more. And the quiet moments with my boy when Katelin is asleep. But I am a parent and sometimes I get lost in the every day and the rush to move onto the next thing .

If just for a little more time to sit and play and cherish.
To be aware and enjoy Friday......and every day!

Simple Fun for kids.

Morning. I sound like I am talking to people - but I am not sure there is anyone reading, maybe I am just talking to cyberspace! Anyway, I thought I would share a layout I did over the weekend. I am getting back in my groove and scraping more as I am in catch up mode. I still have a lot of photos from last year to scrap. So as usual I use my sketches and layouts that Di and Nicole have posted and look for one that will work with my photos. Thankfully they have both posted a few that use lots of photos lately because a lot of mine seem to have multiple photos at the moment. My layout is of swimming and using the sprinkler in the back yard.

Also I thought I would share something we did this week. We took the kids dip netting. Our local park does this regularly to document water quality and the make it into an activity for the kids. While we were there they gave the kids a little container with a moist cotton ball in it then we put two sunflower seeds in, another moist cotton ball and a lid. This was on Tuesday, and by Sunday we had enough of a seedling to plant. I was pleased at how fast it was as the kids stayed interested.
So Dad helped the kids plant the seedlings, now we will watch them grow. The packet said they would have flowers in 12 weeks.


















Go and see what you can grow!

Great start to the year and Great friends.

So it is early Friday morning and I couldn't wait to share. By the way I am in Australia so it really is Friday here. I haven't figured out how to make it say my correct time yet. I have been wanting to do something about exercising for ages but really lack the motivation. This year my plan is to look after myself better so I can look after my life my relationships and my kids better.
So last night I exercised. I have a great group of friends, one of which is a gym instructor. She has decided to make a group to participate in her exercise routine. It is so great that she wants to include us and it is so much easier to exercise with a group of Friends!
So this morning I feel very tired and sore but so much more energetic and like I achieved something. So here's to a great start to the year, lets hope I keep it up. And more importantly here's to great friends who are always there and are great company and motivators!
Get out and Live your Life.

Happy New Year ...... Posting!

OK blog world here I am giving this whole thing a go - it seems like fun.
My first post is a little all over the shop.
We start with my first page scrapped for the new year. I haven't had time to scrap since the beginning of November, with Christmas, my clever idea to make my own cards and tags and a new member of the family to look after. No girls there is no third child. We got a furry family friend!
So here is my page about my daughter Katelin's love of/obsession with shoes.
The layout is lifted directly from one of Diane's pages. My time does not lend it self to procrastinating while scrapping so I mostly just lift layouts, I am getting better at changing them a bit to suit myself.




















I love these photos they represent just what she is like when choosing shoes. They were taken a while a go, now Katelin refuses to wear some shoes. It seems to depend on the day ... she is definitely a girly girl!

And here is the furry member of our family, we picked him up from the airport in early December. This is a whole other scrapping story. Which will be shared later

This is Thomas, so named by my son, of course after Thomas the Tank Engine!

Enough for now. I will share some more soon.
Thanks for reading and pay attention to the everyday!