I have been creating.

I have using this wonderful kit Tranquility by Digi Illusions from Nuts4Digi.

Here is Life is Like a Butterfly.



The Journalling says...are the words of a song but to me they are always a reminder of this photo of you. Life is joyfully given and can just as easily be taken away. In our family we know this first hand.

This photo is testament of your determination to live and exceed the expectations around you. Here you are lifting your head for the first time since you were hospitalised. Evidence of your illness is there in the photo, scars from bed sores, NG tube and severe IV tissuing on your foot. We had to cut off all your beautiful long blonde hair and stretch your muscles which had contracted.

You are precious and I love you.


The second one I did is This Moment with DS2.

Homework

I know that this is not unique to me but why is it that some teachers simply do not have any idea how long homework takes to be completed or how hard homework is especially when it comes to art and craft style expectations. Now in my past life I was a fully fledged teacher and sit here thinking that DD's young teacher needs a dose of having her own children to see how long it took to complete the collage that was expected this week. 15 minutes a night the note said. Hmmmmm simply not possible, maths, spelling, reading, oral language, and collage for an 8 year old to complete in four nights.

Of course I sat down and googled the images needed, took and printed photos, found all the other bits and bobs to glue on, even printed out some labels to staple on. Luckily I have a few paper scrapping supplies, for the those rash moments of Hybrid thoughts, and couldn't help embellishing a little. Approximately 3 hours of my work plus 1 1/2 hours of DD time to complete this little project.

Heaven forbid if next week involves art and craft.



Now I have got that off my chest I am feeling better.

Thanks for listening.

Chores

That's right chores. What is it about not working each day, youngest son now at school and DH working in Beijing and I am left with all the chores. Each day there is a long list of chores I try to accomplish but it seems impossible. The washing, cleaning, bedrooms, kitchen, bathrooms all need looking at today. The ironing is constantly in perpetual motion, dishes all ways to be done and at the end of the day when I look around it feels like I have gone no where and achieved very little.

Life is busy.

On top of all that there are the after school activities. Now I know that there are not many at this stage and my children are only little or unable to participate in any. Tonight DS2 had swimming. DD had to take her homework with her and that meant scissors glue etc as she is supposed to be making a collage about her by Friday.

Here she is all organised and in the car where there are fewer distractions. DS1 is in his seat as well. It is a terrible time to have him out as his Rubifen has worn off and his behaviour is less than ideal.

Hmmmmm 4.30 is not a great time to have a lesson

Project 365

I have finally got my computer back, well it had to be replaced because its internal workings were no long repairable. I have decided that instead of posting a photo a day that I would post my LO's on a week by week basis. Maybe there will be days. That will give me time to blog more about other things.

So in catching up here the LO's I have done....all 4 of them week 3, 4, 5 and 6

week 3 and it is still the summer holidays. We have been busy being busy, if that makes any sense.



Credits are quickpage from Lauries Scraps a blog freebie, background paper from Funky Love Songs by Emily Powers stitching from stitching kit by CRD border and date circle from Life365 Hodge Podge 1 by WW glitter from Chase n Ryan by Flerg. Fonts are Tahoma, 2 Peas GG Mix, 1942 report

week 4 and I have noticed that not too many photos of DD. I wonder what she was up to when the camera was around?



Credits are Quickpage from Lauries Scraps a blog freebie, page border, date dots and journalling borders are from Life 365 from WW. Fonts are Scrap Rhapsody, Dynamo Inver and Scrap Kids

week 5 and another week of journalling and school holidays are over. DS2 first day at school, a very exciting week for him.



Credits are everything from Life 365 Kit by WW except green paper from Life 365 Hodge Podge pack 1 by ww rope from My Favourite Things kit from WW. Fonts are arial, 1942 Report and Smudger LET

Finally week 6 and I am all caught up.



Credits are Chipboard paper from Full of Wonder kit, Blue paper, flower cluster, photo border from Life 365 Hodge Podge 3, border, journalling tag, brad, from Life 365 kit date circle recoloured from Life 365 hodge podge 1 kit. Fonts are University Roman LET and Jellyka Saint Andrews Queen.

I have been challenged.

I have been challenged by the wonderful Debbie from Nuts4Digi.

This is my challenge

Go to your photo folder in your computer.
Go to the 6th folder of of photos.
Go to the sixth picture.
Put the picture on your blog and description of it.
Invite six friends to join the challenge.
Link them in your blog and let them know they have been challenged.

So here is my photo. It is not a great one but DD was at Kariotahi beach playing a catching game with her father. I was trying to get the action shot of all action shots.



Now to the 6 friends to challenge which is hard to do so I will be back to link you to them.

Project 365 days 21 to 28

As I have been computerless the last few days I thought that I would just make one long post with all the photos and then move on from then. Naturally I still have computer issues so I will have only a few days before I will no access to the internet again.

Day 21 is a photo of two of my children box carting. It was just so much fun and we spent about an hour going up and down the hill we had found. The boxes we destroyed by the time we were done but there are plans to go again this week. Boxes have been collected in anticipation.



Day 22 is a day of chalk drawings on our driveway. DS1 just loves this activity and the beauty of it is to clean the chalk off you just wait for rain or in our case just wash the car on the spot



Day 23 ...Eggs. These always remind me of the my DS1. He has a medical condition which inhibits his urge to eat. Whenever he thinks that he is hungry he mentions he would like an egg to eat. We cook it up, he eagerly sits at the table peels it and then says he is not hungry and does not like it without ever having taken a bite from it.



Day 24 peace reigns in our house when all the children are asleep. Here is DS1 fast asleep.



Day 25. As we had a stay at home holiday this year DH and I decided that a swing would provided added entertainment in our front yard. We have a massive Liquid Amber Tree and a tyre swing is just the perfect addition to it.



Day 26. There is nothing better than a summer treat. Eating an ice block. The photo says it all.



Day 27. A fun moment with DS2.



Day 28 finally. The Liquid Amber tree in our yard puts on the most magnificent autumn display. While it is not autumn here yet I spied this one fabulously coloured leaf. I wish I had a camera that was more than a point and snap to take a better photo, but I dont so here is my shot.

Project 365 days 19 and 20

We sad to say by my PC will no longer be available to me as it needs a visit to the computer geek. That is not me as I would have been able to fix it myself. Perhaps skills in computer repairs should be on my list of things to do or acquire this year. Anyway this is the last of the photos I will be able to post for a little while. Be assured that I will still be taking photos and able to blog but photoless.

Day 20's photo is of two front wheels of my buggy. I need this for DS1 when I go out exercising as his ability to balance on a bike is not great. So my question to you all is how many punctures can one buggy get on any one day. I hear you all saying one on a really bad day. In my case two. Can you believe it. Two punctures within moments of each other was just incredibly bad luck. I have to admit that this was partially my fault because the buggy has 4 12 inch tyres of which two had very low tread on them. Of course the low tread spots were the ones where the punctures occurred but two punctures in one day. Just unbelievable. So here are the offensive tyres.



This was not a moment to forget. DS1 had to get out and we all walked home. Luckily we were not far from home and while DS1 has trouble riding a bike he can walk and run.

Day 20 was taken at Butterfly Creek. It is a great place to take children with more than just butterflies to look at. DD and DS2 where keen to get the butterflies to land on them. As you can see from the photo they posed for the butterflies but had little luck.



Not only that we saw a Giant Weta. Wow I wish I could have taken a photo of it because it was a large as my out stretched had.

Anyway that is all for now. The sun is shining and dinner needs getting.

Project 365 days 14, 15, 16 ,17 and 18

Gosh it has been so long since I have posted on my blog. No excuses except my PC has spat the dummy and is not working as it should. Consequently it has taken me all this time to work out that while I can occasionally scrap on my pc and use the internet on my DH mac I can be sneaky and save to my external hard drive bog, fingers crossed, images and all on DH mac.

Anyway it has been a busy 5 days.

Day 14 photo is of the tool I need for a project I am doing with the wonderful Nathalie. This is a hybrid project and I am trying to complete these things I dabble in with a little more time so I am not in a hurry and have more time to perfect my skill which when it comes to a pair of scissors is definitely at a beginners.

So Nathalie for you here is my photo. I have even got to the stage where I have created the skeleton of half of my book which is very simple LO due to the scale I am working in 13cm square. Unfortunately I will loose ability to scrap for a few days come wednesday and so I will be trying my best to get them all finish before then, that is in between my pc freezing.



Day 15 is the first day that two of my children have ever been tenting. This really has been the case because for the first part of their life we lived in a county where tenting and snakes, spiders, and the heat just don't go hand in hand. Now we are back in New Zealand and we have been renovating so you can guess where all our disposable income has been going.

Anyway excitement has reigned in our house. A little and old tent from Gran and Grandad was borrowed and up it went in our back yard. The tent had just enough room for two little people to have their stretchers and new sleeping bags. As you can on imagine the two little cherubs in the tent eagerly went to bed, snuggled into their sleeping bags and talked to for the next 3 hours. Little Mr 4 (5 in three days) finally crashed at 9.30pm very late in our house, and little Miss just 8 at about 10.30pm.

This all is really in preparation for DD's two day school camp she has coming up in April. She is a sleep walker when she is under stress and camp would be a trigger for this. Hopefully after the two nights in the tent she wont feel so anxious when April comes around.



Day 16 and another trip to a west coast beach. It was not a perfectly blue sky kind of day but still a warm is not slightly windy day at the beach. The waves were perfect for board riding. My rule is what you take to the beach you need to be able to carry to the sand and back to the car. Here are my two doing just that.




Day 17. For this I thought that I would play with my macro function on the little point and snap camera I have and take a good look at the grass. It has only been just a couple of days since the last mow and a light shower of rain and boom here the grass looks like it needs a mow again. How demanding it is. I wonder too how it is that the bowling clubs and golf clubs get their perfect looking grass. Perhaps I need a green keeper like they do.



Day 18 is a shot, not my best one I have to say at the Big Dig at Orewa. All it really involves is hundreds of people digging in the sand at predetermined places to find little plastic bags and win prizes. I cant say that DS1 and 2 really were enthused about digging in the sand for what.......?




Finally is my LO with week two's photos. I have used the wonderful kit Coffee Time by Digi Illusions found at Nuts4Digi

Project 365 Day 12and 13

Days are just flying by and it is the summer holidays here. My DS1 is in respite care and we are taking time to do things in a normal kind of way. It is a week of not getting up each and every night at 0130hours for medication and nappy changes, no counting the minutes for the next lot of hydration, not monitoring for the next does of medication and no making sure that DS1 is safe in our yard.

As a result of all of these little changes we have been filling up our days with fun and frivolity.

On our first day free of these things we spent a very pleasant and long afternoon at Kariotahi Beach. DD is really on top of riding the waves on here board and loves it. She has had her little board since she was 4 years old and cant wait to graduate to something bigger. I think she is trying to tell me that she wants to learn to surf. Hmmmm that will need some serious consideration on my part.

Well this photo just captures everything I have just written about. Look at her face and the pleasure she is getting from the surf.



Day 13s photo is another take on a photo of me. I must say that I do not like having my photo taken and anything to disguise me I like. Well today was just another in the many days of renovating. I am in the process of plastering a space which is about 1m by 4m minus some doors. Not being a professional but a handy home DIY type I seem to put on an abundant supply of plaster with the need to then sand it back to the desired place. As a result dust goes everywhere. Just look at me in today's photo.



We are just about at the end of this job. I have plastered the walls in our entire house. Meaning 166 square meters of house has had my handy touch applied to them in the last 12 months. How did I learn this skill I hear you asking. Well I we down to our local mega hardware store when they were having a ladies night. Asked the handy men at the display how to, bought the tools and product and happily went home to tell my husband I knew how to save us about $10,000. The rest is history.

Finally I am posting two LO's I have completed to do with this project.

The first is my first weeks photos all on only page.



Credits are brown background paper, journalling tags, split pins, word art, acrylic tag all from Life 365 by WW, patterned paper , recoloured, from Snapshot kit by Cinnamon Designs, Stitching from Swirly Stitches from Cinnamon Designs frames and stem from Full of Wonder kit from WW. Fonts are traveling typewriter, SA Inkspots and Hiccups

And my very first photo of the project



credits are Everything from Full of Wonder kit from WW except acrylic date tab from Life 365. Font is Reisling and SA Inkspot

Project 365 Day 10 and 11

In an effort to keep my photos up to date here I am at 9.30pm blogging when I really should be catching up on some sleep.

Anyway Day 10 photo is of a grove of Manuka (Tee) trees just across the road from my sister place out at Maraitai. As we were driving out there I was hoping to catch a shot of the Pohutukawa Coast in full bloom. Unfortunately no flowers and grey skies made for dull photo. Fortunately across the road from her house are these wonderful native trees of New Zealand. I love the natural long straight line these trees have. They remind me of growing up and my father using the branches of this tree to steak up tomato plants.

So here they are.



Day 11 is the day that we celebrated my DS2 5th birthday. He actually turns 5 in a weeks time but circumstances made it so that today was the party. It was a pool party and he requested a jungle and dinosaur cake. Thank you to the Australian Womens Weekly Children s Cake book I found the design and although it was very humid and sticky and the icing was starting to melt off here was the result.




Actually there was so much to write about today I promise to sit down and do just that.